Review of Naomi Klein’s ‘The Shock Doctrine’

…The theory Klein develops is that the main reason for the rise of democracy and social-welfare with its old age pensions, public hospitals, public housing, and universal education after the Great Depression of the 1930s was that the beneficiaries of the robber-baron culture which had dominated until then were aware that if people were kept […]

New Presentations by Matthew Simmons

● Is Bermuda Bracing For Our Pending Energy Storm? ● For Lack Of A Nail, The War Was Lost: Overview of Global Oil Service And Contract Drilling Industry ● Is The Future Of Energy Sustainable? Simmons International

Handy Hints For Post-Petroleum

The priority of these “hints” will vary as the years go by, but most of them will remain relevant over the course of the century. The slight bias toward northern North America is partly due to the fact that the area meets most of the criteria. 1 The world now has an average of 116 […]

Clinton says Nevada could be model for solar power

Specific to Nevada, Clinton spoke of the state’s abundance of wind, solar and geothermal resources, which could serve to make the U.S. less dependant on foreign oil. With the amount of wind in Nevada each year, Clinton said the state should be packed with wind turbines and, in an energy crisis, could easily become a […]

Yates wants NASCAR to go green

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — “Going green” is auto racing jargon for the start of an event, the ceremonious moment a waving green flag signals to the drivers and fans that the race is on. Recently retired Nextel Cup owner Robert Yates is ready for NASCAR to go a different sort of green — the environmentally sensitive […]

Clarke’s Wager

Some 350 years ago, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that it is better to wager for the existence of God than against it since the benefits of believing in God are so great. The argument became known as Pascal’s Wager. Today, author Duncan Clarke asks us to make a kind of inverted Pascal’s Wager […]

Car crazy

…The thing to keep in mind about motorized vehicles is that almost everyone on Earth who can afford one wants one. The IEA’s WEO 2007 oil fact sheet gives the usual demand-driven result: the world will want to consume 116 million barrels per day of oil in 2030. The desire for transport “is the main […]

Petrobras CFO: 1M b/d from Tupi ‘Not Out of Reach’

A peak oil output of 1 million barrels a day at the ultra-deep Tupi field in Brazil’s Santos Basin is “not out of reach,” the chief financial officer of state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras, said Wednesday. The field, which is in the promising pre-salt area off Brazil’s coast, could reach its […]

Australia: Election silence on Peak Oil

Two Green issues have been swept under the carpet by both Howard and Rudd during this election campaign

Environment Be Damned, Oil Prices Spark Wood Sales

(Bloomberg) — More American households, faced with an 83 percent increase in heating-oil prices over the past year, are turning to an alternative as old as the Stone Age: wood. While the typical wood stove emits as much as 350 times more pollution than an oil furnace, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, some […]

Peak Possibilities

In July 2006, the world’s oil rigs pumped out crude at a rate of nearly 85.5 million bbl. a day. They haven’t come close since, even as prices have risen from $75 to $98 per bbl. Which raises a question of potentially epochal significance: Is it all downhill from here? It’s not as if nobody […]

TOD Eur: Tupi, the new kid in town

Last week the name was Tupi, a field found by Petrobras in the Campos Basin off Brasil; with prospects of 5 to 8 Gb of intermedium gravity oil (28The Oil Drum: Europe

South Africa: Rolls-Royce, Oil Firms Team Up On Synthetic Jet Fuel

In a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the aviation industry, aircraft manufacturer Airbus and engine maker Rolls-Royce have joined forces with petroleum companies. They will explore likely benefits of using synthetic jet fuels.Airlines operating in SA’s relatively uncrowded skies have not been under the same pressure as airlines in the UK and Europe […]

Zambia: ‘We Want Lower Tariffs’

Electricity consumers have proposed a lower electricity tariff increase than what Zesco intends to effect, which they say will be beyond the reach of many Zambians and could kill industry. Zesco managing director, Rodnie Sisala has, however, said the current tariff increase proposals were imperative if the company was to continue operations and meet the […]

Not enough oil troubles Cambodia’s waters

Could Cambodia’s much-touted energy potential, which the World Bank and others had earlier estimated in total at 2 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, become a bust before it ever boomed? Expectations of an energy resource bounty have now suddenly dampened as top Cambodian officials strike a more cautionary […]

AUSTRALIA: Uranium Supply to India – Hot Election Issue

Analysts say that the stalling in the Indian parliament of the India-United States civilian nuclear agreement could prove convenient for the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) — if it wins the Nov. 24 elections — to avoid supplying uranium to India. “I see this as an interesting factor in the election campaign in Australia because […]

IAEA boss set to defend Iran progress

The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief is set to urge full backing for an Iran transparency plan at an agency governors meeting on Thursday after Western powers said Tehran must do more to allay fears about its atomic agenda. Whether a new International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s compliance with a pledge to clarify past […]

Termite Guts May Yield Novel Enzymes For Better Biofuel Production

Termites — notorious for their voracious appetite for wood, rendering houses to dust and causing billions of dollars in damage per year — may provide the biochemical means to a greener biofuel future. The bellies of these tiny beasts actually harbor a gold mine of microbes that have now been tapped as a rich source […]

Can Chavez push oil prices to $200?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says oil would shoot to $200 a barrel if the US invaded Iran. He and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are “united like a single fist,” Mr. Chavez said earlier this week. Does Chavez, with or without Iran’s help, have the power to push oil to $200 a barrel? Can he “tip […]

Markets plunge as oil heads for $100 a barrel

Global stock markets suffered another day of steep falls on fears over the severity of the credit crisis – and the turbulence could be just the start of a much more protracted downturn, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned. With the price of oil flirting yesterday with the once-unimaginable level of $100 a […]

Giving Thanks For Oil and OPEC

When you sit down for your Thanksgiving meal this week, don’t forget to thank the oil. No, not the extra extra virgin olive oil or the polyunsaturated high omega 3 vegetable oil, but the crude — the dead dino, fossilized pond scum, ancient sunlight, rock oil — aka, petroleum. Remember as you give thanks for […]

Threat of $100 crude raises global alarm

Oil hovered on the brink of $100 a barrel on Wednesday. Mixed data on US crude inventories did not quite push it over the threshold. But the world is having to accustom itself to the idea of a three-figure oil price. The implications for the health of the world economy are troubling.

Will OPEC Dump the Dollar?

The fall of the U.S. dollar Iran and Venezuela managed to persuade Saudi Arabia to agree to discuss the swooning buck at the next OPEC meeting in Abu Dhabi in December, but engineering a shift to an oil pricing regime based on the euro or another currency anytime soon is far-fetched. “The obstacles are overwhelming,” […]

Shell Mulls Stakes Sale in Two Nigeria Blocks

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB) is considering selling $900 million worth of interests in Nigerian offshore blocks as it restructures and reduces its business in the troubled region, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The news surfaces after Shell last week unveiled restructuring plans to cut costs and jobs at its Nigerian ventures following […]

Factors that contribute to Peak Oil crisis

What are the factors that contribute to the Peak Oil crisis? Just read some them here: First, global demand for oil is growing rapidly. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that global oil demand will grow from 85 million barrels per day in 2006 to 97 million barrels per day by 2015 and 118 barrels […]

Go-go or no-go Christmas?

Judy Cabrera of Norton, Mass., is cutting way back on Christmas shopping this year because the economy Ronald Perkins of Fort Lauderdale says the economy

Big oil, its lobby court bloggers in media push

HOUSTON, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Executives at large oil companies often say that the U.S. public — unnerved by high gasoline prices — does not understand or appreciate how expensive it is to keep the nation’s engines running. And now in a first, two big energy companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API), the U.S. […]

Climate change a growing threat in Tibet, media report

BEIJING (AFP) – Climate change is causing more weather-related disasters than ever in the Himalayan region of Tibet, where the temperature is rising faster than the rest of China, state press reported Wednesday. “Natural disasters, like droughts, landslides, snowstorms and fires are more frequent and calamitous now,” Xinhua news agency quoted the director of the […]

A Darwinian Rapture

Throughout my life I’ve been either burdened or blessed — you choose — by a keen awareness that mankind lives on a razors’ edge. My first recollection of this was in 1962 after I got my first drivers license. I was at my neighborhood gas station fuel up my first car, a green, four-door 1951 […]

The Approaching Holiday Shopping Spree as the US Economy Declines

As Americans head into the annual holiday shopping orgy, it is a good time to explore how our excessive spending damages us. The ten busiest shopping days of the year are between the day after Thanksgiving and two days before Christmas. From Thanksgiving to New Years many Americans binge and gorge themselves–on food, drinking, toys, […]

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