Food, Water, Energy Shortages Threaten India Security

India’s future is threatened by shortages of food, water and energy and these should be addressed on a priority basis, the Prime Minister’s security adviser said. “These are part of a broad national security plan, and defense is only one aspect of it,” Shekhar Dutt, India’s deputy national security adviser, said in an interview in […]

Oil, Ecuador and its people

In a small, spare courtroom in the Amazon region of Ecuador, Chevron Corp., California’s largest company and one of the world’s largest oil producers, will soon face a day of reckoning. After 16 years of litigation, a case the company inherited in a merger, Aguinda vs. Texaco Inc., is nearing an end. The legal battle […]

Myanmar Seizes Rebel-Held Town Near China Oil and Gas Projects

Myanmar’s army seized control of a rebel-held town on its border with China, raising concern a 20- year ceasefire accord could collapse, threatening planned oil and gas projects in the region. Rebels attacked Myanmar police patrolling a border gate in the Kokang-controlled area of northeastern Shan state, killing at least one, the Washington-based U.S. Campaign […]

Libya's Oil Boom Is Running Dry

The release of the Lockerbie bomber triggered speculation that British energy companies trying to access Libya’s oil wealth could soon hit a bonanza. But in reality, Big Oil is already there, and its interest in Libya is cooling. The initial enthusiasm that accompanied Libya’s first rounds of oil licensing — held soon after international sanctions […]

Confusion Reigns Over China's Polysilicon Import Policy

The solar industry has been left in confusion over whether China has started restricting imports of the solar-module material polysilicon, with some manufacturers reporting that shipments have been held up by customs officials and that buyers are delaying orders. Those companies say that China has added waste silicon to a list of restricted imports, either […]

'Laughing Gas' Biggest Ozone-Destroyer After Phase-Out of CFC

Nitrous oxide, the laughing gas used by dentists to pacify anxious patients, is putting stress on the environment and is now the biggest man-made destroyer of the ozone layer. N2O, a gas produced by using fertilizers and burning fuels, accounts for about 40 percent of ozone-destruction after the use of gases such as chlorofluorocarbons, or […]

The race for the perfect battery

Imagine your daily commute in the age of the electric car: on Monday, you charge your car in minutes by plugging it into your garage outlet. The total cost comes to about $8. The charge lasts the whole week, and still handles a 200-km drive to the cottage on the weekend. You’ve long forgotten about […]

Washington Capitulates: Peak Oil Is Real

…Projected production, as you can see, is suddenly shriveling up. From 107.5 million b/d of oil projected for 2030 in 2007, to 102.9 million b/d in 2008, to this year The report assumes that some of this stunning shortfall will be made up by development of unconventional liquids to the tune of 13.5 million b/d, […]

Four crucial resources that may run out in your lifetime

We’re living in lucky times. Living standards – in the Western world, at least – are the highest in history. It’s an era of relative peace and plenty that would amaze our ancestors. But it’s not going to continue forever; we’re already stretching many of our natural resources to their limits, and the world’s population […]

Solar Panels Built Into Roads Could Be the Future of Energy

The Department of Energy just gave $100,000 to upstart company Solar Roadways, to develop 12-by-12-foot solar panels, dubbed “Solar Roads,” that can be embedded into roads, pumping power into the grid. The panels may also feature LED road warnings and built-in heating elements that could prevent roads from freezing. Each Solar Road panel can develop […]

Hijacked by climate change?

As the UN climate summit in Copenhagen approaches, exhortations that “we must get a deal” and warnings that climate change is “the greatest challenge we face as a species” are to be heard in virtually every political forum. But if you look back to the latest definitive check on the planet’s environmental health – the […]

Peak Oil

This week The equation behind peak oil that Hubbert originally devised back in 1956 is deceivingly simple, though widely misunderstood. As Kenneth Deffeyes explains in his entirely readable Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert

Happy 150th, Oil! So Long, and Thanks for Modern Civilization

One hundred and fifty years ago on Aug. 27, Colonel Edwin L. Drake sunk the very first commercial well that produced flowing petroleum. The discovery that large amounts of oil could be found underground marked the beginning of a time during which this convenient fossil fuel became America But what began 150 years ago won

The New York Times on Peak Oil – Don't Worry, Be Happy

The question is not about Lynch’s fervent cornucopian beliefs and free-market faith – it’s about the New York Times and other American media outlets that have consistently missed what’s actually happening within the Peak Oil debate. What’s actually happening reminds me of what happened years ago with the global warming debate. Then, a climactic theory […]

Lynch, Wrong on Oil Prices for Over a Decade, Wrong About Peak Oil

A guy who has been wrong on oil prices longer than most has managed to convince the New York Times to give him some of its precious Op-ed space to issue yet another sure-to-be-wrong prediction. That would be energy consultant Michael Lynch, with his remarkably content-free piece, “‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy,” asserting: […]

Energy in Russia: No consensus on oil production shortages

Anatoly Dmitrievsky, director of the Institute of Oil and Gas Problems (Russian Academy of Sciences), points out that $280bn of investment into the development of global oil reserves has been postponed due to the global financial crisis. Mr Dmitrievsky further notes that, while it might take from several months to a couple of years to […]

Oil

One hundred and fifty years ago, on August 27, 1859 Colonel Edwin Drake struck oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, giving rise to the modern oil industry. What was sought as a replacement for depleting stocks of whale oil used as a fuel for lamps, gradually turned into the world On the other side of the balance […]

Thousands at risk from DR Congo lake gas

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Gases trapped below the surface of a lake in eastern Congo could explode any day, threatening the lives of tens of thousands of locals, the country’s environment minister warned on Tuesday. Huge amounts of carbon dioxide and highly combustible methane gas are dissolved in Lake Kivu, which straddles the heavily populated border […]

David Strahan: Peak oil around 2030 says

…Since Independent So the IEA has not changed its position, and is not forecasting peak oil in ten years. It has, however, and for the first time as far as I am aware, named the date, if only tentatively:

Climate protection 'to cost more'

Protecting societies against impacts of climate change will be much more expensive than previously believed, according to a new analysis. In 2007 the UN climate convention came up with a sum of $49-171bn per year. The new report says the UN sums omitted important factors and the true cost will be two to three times […]

New Analysis Shows America

ARLINGTON, VA Next were South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois, all of which would experience more than a 9.5 degree F increase in their average annual temperatures.

Oil speculators dominate open interest in oil futures

A new policy paper by Rice University …The authors conclude that new policies are needed. When oil prices started rising in 2007-08 from $65 per barrel to $125, governments around the world, including the United States, engaged in building strategic stockpiles. This policy signaled to oil-markets participants and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries […]

Mexico's Pemex sees oil output down in 2010: paper

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s state oil monopoly Pemex is forecasting crude production in Mexico will fall in 2010 to 2.5 million barrels per day, Reforma newspaper said on Wednesday, citing Pemex head Jesus Reyes Heroles. Pemex currently has an oil production goal of 2.65 million bpd for 2009. Mexican oil output fell 7.8 percent […]

150 Years of Plenitude: The Story of Oil

Exactly one hundred and fifty years ago, on August 27, 1859, the first commercial oil well in the US began producing. The subsequent petroleum bounty has enabled and defined modern civilization. This post is a status update in honor of the day–on how far we have come and our immediate challenges. People have used oil […]

Industry worries rise as natural gas sags

Despite recent cutbacks in production, natural gas prices are at a seven-year low and the U.S. still faces surpluses, fueling concern the industry has yet to hit bottom. At the same time, oil and gas producers are beginning to see operational costs creep up again after pushing suppliers to lower prices for products and services […]

The Age of Centralization

…The greatest product of oil, however, is wealth. As J. Paul Getty advised: “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” This wealth is due to the phenomenal returns from oil, known as EROEI, energy return on energy invested. Unlike coal, which had to be physically lifted from the ground, oil often flowed to […]

John Michael Greer: Entropy gets no respect

… The hard reality is that the minority of us who happened to have been born in a few powerful countries squandered half a billion years of stored photosynthesis to give ourselves a brief period of spectacular economic abundance, and by doing so, foreclosed the chance that anybody else would enjoy that same abundance in […]

Open Thread for "Peak Oil is 'A Waste of Energy'"

Today the NYTimes ran an Op-ed by Michael Lynch once again pointing out the “fallacious thinking behind the concept of Peak Oil.” (Do feel free to go over to the NYT and leave comments–and we hope you’ll point them back to the Oil Drum to some links that rebut Mr Lynch…) The Oil Drum staff […]

Indonesia Renewables: 1.3 Million New Connections Per Year through 2025

It’s not all smooth going when it comes to the international renewable energy transition, but commitment is a must. Indonesia is one example of an important country in transition where we’re looking at all the positive and negative signals to find investment angles. But local observers are worried that Indonesia’s progress toward its own presidential […]

The greening of coal, the fuel of the future

The largest power company in Italy, with a significant global presence (95,000 megawatts of generating capacity), Enel SpA operates in 23 countries on four continents and serves more than 60 million customers. Once a state-owned monopoly, it is now a publicly traded company (though Italy’s Finance Ministry still owns 20 per cent of the shares […]

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