So long peak oil, here comes peak uranium

We all got used to hearing about peak oil, especially after a whistleblower recently alleged that the International Energy Agency has downplayed a looming oil shortage to appease the U.S. and prevent panic buying. What we haven’t heard much about is the looming uranium shortage. Last week, Michael Dittmar, from the Swiss Federal Institute of […]

In Germany, the high price of going green

GELSENKIRCHEN, GERMANY — In this nation that embraced one of the world’s most aggressive campaigns against global warming, the Pokropp family can almost hear the cha-ching when switching off their lights. A kilowatt of electricity costs three times as much here as it does in the United States, supercharged with high taxes to discourage use […]

Moving Beyond Denial

In the last few months, the vigorous debate over the future of world oil supplies has hit the mainstream radar screen. The optimists closed ranks Columnist George F. Will published the latest salvo in yesterday

Why infrastructure is the bedrock of society

Natural disasters can destroy entire civilizations and climate change will only amplify their effects …But the risks of that infrastructure breaking down and the scale of the consequences are growing, due to random and non-random sources such as climate change, potential over-dependence on high-technology infrastructure, and increasing urbanisation – in both the developing and developed […]

Stuart Staniford: US Economic Recovery in the Era of Inelastic Oil

Ok, suppose you’d never heard of peak oil. Or you didn’t believe in it. What could you conclude from the recent history of price and global oil supply? The figure below gives the key data – a measure of total global oil production and also of oil price (adjusted for inflation) over the last five […]

Climate Tipping Points of No Return

Climate change won Or to put it differently, an avalanche is a lot worse than just heavy snowfall, and it does not happen in slow motion. Pressure builds until a threshold, or tipping point is passed, and catastrophe ensues. Things fall apart So it is with climate change; a temperature increase

Bio-fuel growth raises concerns about forests

PARK FALLS, Wis. “There simply is nowhere near enough waste wood for all of these biomass projects that are popping up all over the place,” said Marvin Roberson, a forest policy specialist with the Sierra Club in Michigan. Waste wood has become a sought-after commodity, prompting concerns that the demand might overwhelm supply and damage […]

New Voices on Climate Change

Joe Witte, a meteorologist for News Channel 8 in Virginia and Maryland, hopes that people watching his television forecasts will think about more than just the weather. Two years ago, Mr. Witte started to include phenomena linked with climate change in his reports, like how warmer conditions affect life in Chesapeake Bay and prospects for […]

World Oil Production Forecast – Update November 2009

World oil production peaked in July 2008 at 74.74 million barrels/day (mbd) and now has fallen to about 72 mbd. It is expected that oil production will decline at about 2.2 mbd per year as shown below in the chart. The forecasts from the IEA WEO 2008 and 2009 are shown for comparison. The IEA […]

Food riots will mark the end of oil

The end of the oil age won’t be a pretty thing, but a new report by Deutsche Bank suggests it could be even uglier than we feared… There’s been a lot of stale argument recently about oil Governments should be planning how best to manage the limited supply of oil sensibly, for the long-term, the […]

World's largest ice sheet melting faster than expected

East Antarctic sheet shedding 57bn tonnes of ice a year and contributing to sea level rises, according to Nasa aerial survey The world’s largest ice sheet has started to melt along its coastal fringes, raising fears that global sea levels will rise faster than scientists expected. The East Antarctic ice sheet, which makes up three-quarters […]

The Oil Age: How Long Will It Last?

From time to time, pessimistic analyses are published which forecast that the world will reach These factors, according to the claims made by the group mentioned above, have led to a renewed interest in alternative fuels, or to further investments in renewable alternative energies. Nonetheless, the proponents of this view fear that these alternative energies […]

China vs. U.S.: economic power vs. military might; which will prevail?

The U.S. and China, with their huge economies, are totally dependent upon a steady, guaranteed supply of petroleum into the future. While supplies of oil have been very plentiful for many decades, that situation is beginning to rapidly change. Our very painful experience with $147 per barrel of oil in 2008 may have dissipated for […]

Seismic rumbles in the forests

The sheer size and number of Marcellus Shale drill sites and their truck traffic are altering Pa. land use. RENOVO, Pa. – For decades, natural-gas drilling has been part of the landscape in Sproul State Forest, a vast timberland in northern Pennsylvania pocked with hundreds of shallow wells and crossed by pipelines. But Douglas J. […]

Zombie Nuke Plants

Oyster Creek Generating Station, in suburban Lacey Township, New Jersey, opened the same month Richard Nixon took office vowing to bring “an honorable peace” to Vietnam. This nuke plant, the oldest in the country, was slated to close in 2009 when its original forty-year license was ending. It had seen four decades of service, using […]

BP CEO: Gas Demand Peaked in '07

NEW YORK — Gasoline demand in the U.S., which has been hit hard by the recession, will never return to 2007’s peak, BP PLC Chief Executive Tony Hayward said in a report by The Wall Street Journal. Contributing to his prediction of lessened demand is greater use of biofuels and increased engine efficiency, according to […]

Historic Peak Oil Motion Defeated In Australian Senate

Peak oil is the point in time at which maximum oil production occurs and after which production declines. Peak oil has already happened for nearly all oil producers including the US and Venezuela (in 1970), Indonesia (1991) and Russia (2007), with peak oil rapidly approaching in Kuwait (2013), Saudi Arabia (2014) and war-torn, US-occupied Iraq […]

Electric carmaker Tesla preparing IPO: sources

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – U.S. electric sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles. An IPO filing from the six-year-old start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric Roadster, is expected any day, said one of the sources. […]

Investors must ask about shale gas cost

An internal energy industry squabble over the true potential for shale gas, discussed in this column earlier this month, has now filtered through to the attention of some of the institutional investors in energy companies. This tremor of scepticism has not yet affected the ability of the large gas exploration and production companies to finance […]

The dawn of the Third Industrial Revolution

“The most hated man in science” said that it may be too late to save civilization. Civilization is on the cusp of the Third Industrial Revolution and “our Second Industrial Revolution is on life support,” according to Jeremy Rifkin, president and founder of the Foundation on Economic Trends said. We are in emergency mode. Our […]

Rising sea levels threaten Caribbean region

…According to a recently updated World Bank study on climate change in Latin America, Alfonso and his neighbors have reason to be concerned. Not only are the effects of global warming more evident in Latin American coastal cities, the report says, but the phenomenon could worsen in coming decades because sea levels will rise highest […]

Making holes and cracks around oil and gas wells

Today I want to talk a little more about perforating the wall of a well, and a bit more about hydrofracing. They are not necessarily used together, but both are ways of getting cracks out from the immediate wall of the wellbore so that the valuable fluid on the other side can have an easier […]

US Oil Demand Provoking New Wars In Latin America

Perhaps this week you heard news reports about Venezuela bombing a couple of bridges that connected it with Colombia, and have been wondering what all the tension is about. If so you should run to read this report in UK’s The Independent about America’s role (surprise!) in fomenting tension. (via Forexlive) As it turns out, […]

It's just not worth it

The News Journal Editorial Board has long opposed drilling within 100 miles of Gulf Coast beaches The reasons remain the same: to protect the local tourism economy, the environment and the military training mission so dependent on large areas of the Gulf of Mexico off the Panhandle. …What about the potential for revenue from drilling? […]

FACTBOX – How countries have coped with the oil "curse"

Mexico’s oil industry has funded a significant portion of government spending since the discovery of massive offshore reserves in the 1970s. Oil export revenues pay for nearly 40 percent of government spending and are for the most part spent as they come into federal coffers. The country’s deep economic recession this year has shown the […]

Radiation leak at Three Mile Island

THREE MILE ISLAND – November 22, 2009 (WPVI) — We are learning more this morning about a reported radiation leak at Three Mile Island. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says later today it is sending two radiation specialists to the plant near Harrisburg. Diane Screnchi, spokeswoman at Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), tells ABC News that Exelon […]

The SEC Surrenders to the Oil Industry

What are the consequences of allowing multi-billion-dollar systemically important multinational corporations to report their assets using proprietary mark-to-model tools involving discredited Monte Carlo simulations? I think we all know the answer to that one. But unbelievably, after such shenanigans contributed enormously to the greatest financial meltdown in living memory, the SEC is now set to […]

Outages dim Chavez popularity

Power failures, unpaid civil servants and falling oil revenue play havoc with support for the Venezuela leader. Reporting from El Consejo, Venezuela – Power outages are hitting Henrique Vollmer’s rum distillery several times a week, interrupting production, damaging equipment and jeopardizing the jobs of his 375 workers. President Hugo Chavez blames the inadequate power production […]

'Carbon tax' is sensible, and perhaps inevitable, advocate says

Dieter Helm of Oxford says climate change policy should focus not on carbon production, but carbon consumption. A tax on carbon-heavy activities places the emphasis where it belongs, he says. Reporting from Oxford, England – With the global climate change summit in Copenhagen just a few weeks away, gloom has settled in many quarters over […]

Oil's expanding frontiers

…For many years, most oil was used for lighting and lubrication, and the amounts extracted were modest. Then in 1901, a new well named for an East Texas hillock, Spindletop, began gushing more per day than all other U.S. wells combined. Since then, America has exhausted its hydrocarbon supplies. Repeatedly. In 1914, the Bureau of […]

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