Exxon

As the global oil industry realizes record profits amid rising gas prices, European oil producer Total S.A. (NYSE: TOT) has offered as much as $1.4 billion for a 60% interest in SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWRA), the biggest solar-cell maker in the U.S.

Australia has the fastest growing liquified natural gas (LNG) industry in the world and is on track to eclipse Qatar as the world’s largest producer by the end of the decade. It is, therefore, ideally positioned to fill much of the energy void in Japan if that country reduces its use of nuclear energy in the aftermath of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Less than seven months after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, oil companies in the United States remain reluctant to enact reforms that could help prevent another environmental disaster.

To anyone familiar with how modern-day politics works, it should come as no surprise to learn that big business spent big bucks to defeat the climate bills that became stalled in the U.S. Congress this past summer.

The petroleum basin off the coast of the West African nation of Ghana, one of the continent's most stable and prosperous countries, has prompted the likes of Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) to pursue stakes in regional oil fields.

The latest in a recent line of attacks against the American Power Act comes from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank funded in part by oil companies like

Fossil-fuel extractors don't usually bring to mind energy alternatives, but in the past few years Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A), Europe's largest petroleum producer, has invested £1 billion (about $1.65 billion) in alternative energy development.