European industry is suffering under soaring energy costs. Profit warnings are becoming more common and industry leaders predict plant closures and job losses may follow.

Companies say they are doing all they can to improve their game but want government help.

Britain's Castle Cement, part of Germany's Heidelberg Cement, is a case in point. Its cement furnace in Stamford, England, is replacing much of its coal with  alternatives  -- tyres, bone meal, paper -- as $140 a barrel oil sends all fuel costs skyrocketing.   

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Industry says tax cuts and energy market reform is needed. Big energy users also want an easing in EU plans for tough CO2 emissions cuts, arguing the measures will simply put them out of business and shift production to places like China which have less efficient and more environmentally damaging production processes.

So, are governments doing enough to support the continent's core industrial base?

Should certain sectors of the economy be singled out for special support?

Will planned European CO2 cuts, which are not matched by the U.S. and China, wreck the continent's industrial core without helping the environment?

Renewable power sources like wind and solar are some of the fastest growing sectors in the energy business.

But this graph forecasts that coal, the dirtiest power source in terms of carbon dioxide and other pollutants, will still dominate global power generation growth for decades into the future.

The forecast, released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistics branch of the Department of Energy, shows that global power generated from coal will grow 115 percent to 15.36 trillion kilowatt hours from 2005 to 2030.  It assumes no changes in emissions laws or policy.

Global power generation from renewables including hydropower, meanwhile, will grow 58 percent to 5 trillion kilowatt hours over the same time period.

The world is trying to come to an agreement on a new greenhouse gas regulation pact at a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen late next year. Would a new pact eventually make this coal forecast overcooked?

Are steel companies really hurting from huge rises in the price of raw materials like iron ore? The biggest miner BHP Billiton reckons they aren't and hopes to sway anti-trust regulators who are reviewing its takeover bid for rival Rio Tinto.

Steel firms from China to Japan to Europe have cited rising raw material costs as they ramp up prices, with Germany's Salzgitter the latest to push the blame upstream.

Rio Tinto agreed record prices rises with China's Baosteel on Monday that nearly doubled the price of iron ore this year under long-term contracts and BHP may try to get even more .

Raw material costs, however, only make up about 30 percent of the price of hot rolled coil steel, a figure which has not changed much over the past seven years, BHP Billiton Chief Executive Marius Kloppers argued at a presentation on Tuesday.   

During the same period, iron ore prices have jumped 382 percent, metallurgical coal is up 599 percent and manganese ore is 486 percent more expensive. Tightness in the steel market is to blame for steel prices that have more than tripled and have allowed steelmakers to pass on all the the raw material costs to consumers, Kloppers said.   

"It basically shows that the very high steel costs have been driven almost entirely, certainly in the majority, by constraints on steelmaking capacity, and not raw material
costs," Kloppers said.  

He was floating an argument he hopes will win the day as BHP seeks competition approval for a marriage of Rio and BHP, the second and third biggest iron ore producers respectively, which will command over a third of the seaborne iron ore market.    

Steelmakers have vowed to oppose the all-share takeover offer worth $170 billion, while BHP argues that they are enjoying healthy margins despite the price rises in raw materials. Watch this space.

President George W. Bush urged Congress this week to end a ban on offshore oil drilling, responding to consumer anxiety over soaring gasoline prices. Bush said opening federal lands off the U.S. coast — where oil drilling has been banned by both a presidential executive order and a congressional moratorium — could yield about 18 billion barrels of oil. That would meet current U.S. consumption for about 2 1/2 years, but it would likely take a decade or more to find the oil and produce it.

The following is a map showing the offshore areas at issue. Click here for a more detailed, high-resolution version from the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which manages the nation’s natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf.

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China's surprise decision late on Thursday to slash subsidies on fuel prices has been welcomed as a sign that Beijing is intent on reducing the pace of oil demand growth in the world's second biggest energy consumer.

That, in theory, should help contain the upward spiral in world oil prices that took crude to a high of nearly $140 a barrel last week. Nine out of 10 analysts polled by Reuters immediately after the news took that line. But there is a contrarian view.

Previously unprofitable refining companies, obliged to sell at prices set by the state, will now be turning enough profit to fully meet transport fuel demand for the first time in weeks. Rationing and queues will be alleviated. Chinese refiners would then need to buy more crude, not less, from world crude markets.

The timing of the decision was a surprise. While other Asian countries had been easing subsidies, Beijing wasn't expected to move until after the Olympics was safely out of the way, for fear higher prices might cause unrest.

The early decision may demonstrate Beijing's confidence that it has social cohesion under control -- a result of the positive reaction across the country to the government's handling of the Sichuan earthquake and the Chinese perception of bias in Western media coverage of unrest in Tibet and the run-up to the Olympics.

The timing of the price increase also shows that Beijing is prepared to engage with other world powers on the global inflationary pressures that are threatening to slow Chinese economic growth.

Major oil producing and consuming countries are meeting in Saudi Arabia this weekend to discuss ways to reverse the rise of crude prices -- China's action on fuel prices ahead of the meeting permits Beijing to claim a leadership role in helping control oil prices.

    Agronomists, government officials, insurance adjusters, grain analysts, traders … the list goes on and on … are asking: How do we get a handle on how many crop acres are underwater in the U.S. Midwest after the extensive flooding.
    The truth is nobody knows and no one is going to know the extent of the damage for a long time.
    “The key word is uncertainty. We’re getting close to the end of time to replant crops but that leaves a lot of unknowns — how severe is the crop damage in those areas that survived, how stunted are they going to be, what’s the true effect going to be on yield and that depends on the rest of the summer,” said Bob Nielsen, extension agronomist with Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. 
    “It’s a very confusing mess.”
    Iowa, the No. 1 row crop state, was the hardest hit as many rivers swelled beyond their banks. Cedar River at Cedar Rapids rose to record levels over the weekend. In the state’s capital city of Des Moines, which is surrounded by corn and soybean fields, a levee holding back rising flood waters broke and swamped the city. It is the worst flooding the city has seen in 15 years.
    Now all the attention is on the Mississippi River, the main shipping artery for grains to Gulf export terminals, waiting to see how many levees break and the resulting damage.
    The swollen Mississippi River has flowed over 23 levees in Missouri, Iowa and Illinois with more at risk with another 25 at risk — an area protecting hundreds of thousands of crop acres, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.
    USDA’s Iowa state crop report issued late Monday gave the world a hint on the damage so far — reporting that 9 percent of Iowa’s corn acres were flooded and 8 percent of the soybean crop was flooded.
    That equates to 1.19 million corn acres and 784,000 soybean acres based on USDA’s March planting intentions report.
    That’s just for Iowa. Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana, three other top five corn states, have also had floods, along with Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and Kansas.
    Many hope that the June 30 planted acreage report will give a better clue of the damage. But the bottom line: those farmer surveys were conducted during the first two weeks of June before much of the flooding and levee breaks this week.
    The director for USDA’s Illinois Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) office told Reuters this week that said the government is planning a special acreage survey taking into account of the flooding, with results likely published in July.
    The details of the survey are sketchy right now but more details are expected this week.

Only two months ago, Americans imagined bumper corn and soybean crops in 2008 would ease the pain of rising food costs and provide a plentiful, if controversial source, of ethanol to dilute record gasoline prices. Those ideas are now washed away …

Today, millions of acres of prime U.S. farmland are under water only weeks after being planted. So far 19 levees have failed on the swollen Mississippi (see a government map of the flood area here,) as a hump of floodwater moved downriver. Most were agricultural levees protecting corn and soy fields. The Army Corp of Engineers, which operates river locks and dams, said seven more levees may overtop in the coming days. Among the most fertile farms in Iowa and Illinois, the two biggest corn producers, have land that lies in the Mississippi River’s expansive floodplain.

On June 30, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will release its annual acreage report, which will give an accurate picture of the crop damage.  In March USDA said farmers intended to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, down from a 92 million acres in 2007. They expanded soy plantings to 75 million acres from 64 million. It does not look good for farmers, some of whom replanted during a let up in the rain, then lost fields a second time. Up to 5 million acres across the Midwest may have been ruined and will not produce a crop this year. Farm losses could top $2 billion. The result: record high prices this week for corn, cattle and ethanol. If you thought your food and fuel budget was tight, just wait …

It is hard to believe how many storms have moved through the Midwest in the past week, spawning tornadoes, flooding farm fields from Nebraska to southwestern Ohio.
    Iowa, the top crop state, seems the hardest hit with the Cedar River at Cedar Rapids at record levels.
    In the state’s capital city of Des Moines, which is surrounded by corn and soybean fields, a levee holding back rising flood waters broke this weekend and swamped the city. It is the worst flooding the city has seen in 15 years.
    Much of the state got a break from the torrential rains on Saturday but more storms from Nebraska were headed eastward on Sunday.
    Along the Mississippi River in Quincy, Illinois, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over the weekend joined volunteers and filled sandbags to hold back the river, the main artery used to ship grain to Gulf export terminals.
    However, officials have closed 300 miles of the upper-Mississippi River to barge traffic due to rising water levels. It is expected to remain shutdown for weeks.
    Everyone is trying to figure out how many acres have been damaged, a factor that spurred Chicago Board of Trade corn futures to set record highs every day last week.
    An Iowa State University state agronomist Palle Pedersen estimated on Friday about one-quarter of Iowa’s soybean acres and at least 8 percent of the state’s corn either have not been seeded or will need replanting due to flooding.
    But the saturated conditions will make it tough for farmers to move equipment through fields even if it stops raining. Late planted crops can yield 50 percent less than those planted before early July and all the rains have washed out previously applied nitrogen fertilizer, a much-needed input for corn to reach good yields.
    Many hope that the U.S. Agriculture Department weekly crop progress report released Monday afternoon will give some insight into the country’s crop damage and planting status.
    Last week USDA reported that only 77 percent of the soybean crop was planted, compared to 89 percent for the seasonal average.
    USDA rated 60 percent of the corn crop as good to excellent, down from 77 percent a year ago.
    That was before last week’s powerful storms that dumped several inches of rain on crops across the entire Corn Belt.
    Forecasters on Sunday were calling for drier, cooler weather this week for the Midwest.

Just as the U.S. Department of Energy was telling the American public to brace for gasoline prices up to $4.15 cents this summer, 13 people were indicted in New Jersey on charges of stealing the increasingly pricey fuel  from the state, according to a press release on the NJ Attorney General’s website.

Twelve of the people charged with gasoline theft were New Jersey government employees, who allegedly filled up their personal vehicles at state-owned gas pumps. The degrees of theft varied wildly, from stealing 12 gallons to more than $1,000 worth gasoline, the press release said.

But with the average price of gasoline now north of $4 per gallon, the alleged gasoline thieves may have company. According to the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, “drive-off” thefts, where customers fill up and then take off without paying are on the rise.

This spring is definitely a classic case of Rain Doesn’t Always Make Grain.
    Powerful storms pummeled the U.S. heartland over the weekend — an area that’s already soaked after a week of heavy rains — increasing the likelihood that this year’s corn and soybeans will not reach their maximum yield potential.
    “There are Noah’s Ark-like conditions in the Midwest through next week,” said Vic Lespinasse, analyst for grainanalyst.com.
    All week the western belt was the hardest hit. Day after day there were reports that areas received a couple inches of rain. Young corn and soybean seedlings were standing in flooded fields, not only limiting the development of their root systems but actually suffocating plants.
    Then this weekend violent storms ripped through the Midwest again, spawning tornadoes in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana on Friday and Saturday.
    In Indiana, for instance, travelers saw miles and miles of corn fields with plants 4-5 inches of growth standing in water that resembled Vietnam rice paddies NOT Midwestern row-crops.
    This is especially worrisome this year as farmers hoped for ideal growing conditions given the huge world demand for grains and oilseeds for food and feedstocks to produce biofuels.
    All the rain means many corn and soybean fields will need to be replanted and heightens the possibility of fungal diseases in the maturing Midwest soft red winter wheat crop.
    Already, many U.S. grain analysts are expecting the U.S. Agriculture Department, in a rare move, to shave its production estimates in Tuesday’s monthly crop report. Typically, USDA does not make any adjustments to yields or acreage this early in the season, but many analysts feel there’s reason to do it this spring.
    The closest comparison to this season’s weather is 1993, meteorologist Mike Palmerino with DTN Meteorlogix said this week.
    That summer U.S. crops suffered from weeks and weeks of rain which eventually caused the Mississippi River to flood — washing out surrounding corn and soybean fields in the heart of the crop belt.
    “What’s different this year is the rain has started earlier than in ‘93,” Palmerino said.
    So, a combination of record high crude oil prices and the current unfriendly weather for crops does not spell a return to cheap food any time soon, analysts say.

Photo: Washed out corn field near Goodland, Indiana, about 100 miles southeast of Chicago, following torrential storms and high winds that hit the area on June 7.  Photo taken by Julia Bohan on June 8.