Possible Responses to Peak Oil: Some Lessons from the Past

In the examples I looked at, I found the following results: North Korea, 1990s: Response was totalitarian retrenchment Cuba, 1990s: Response was mobilization of local resilience Japan, 1940s: Response was predatory militarism My case studies lead me to formulate the following three hypotheses, which I state upfront here to facilitate discussion. However, please note that […]

Iraq puts 3 natural gas fields up for bid

Iraq’s oil minister on Thursday invited international energy companies to bid for contracts to develop three untapped natural gas fields in a latest move by the impoverished country to meet its growing need for power generation by developing gas. Hussain al-Shahristani also announced that a separate multibillion-dollar joint venture deal with Royal Dutch Shell PLC […]

Rapid response team to see if oil spill has reached Gulf islands

A rapid response team will investigate unconfirmed reports that oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico has reached the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana’s coast. Coast Guard Petty Officer Erik Swanson says the response team will deploy Thursday to assess the situation. Two satellite images taken Wednesday morning indicated oil has reached the […]

May 11, Austin TX: Making Sense of Financial Crisis in Era of Peak Oil

Peak Oil and the collapse of global Ponzi finance are a “perfect storm” of converging phenomena that threaten to sink our age of prosperity through wealth destruction, social discontent, and global conflict. The consequences for unprepared individuals and families could be dire. At her presentation, which will be free and open to the public, Foss […]

Perhaps We’ll See Peak Bunker Oil, Too

Even low-grade oil used to fuel cargo ships is likely to become precious in the age of peak oil. Today, things are looking up. Shipping has increased by a third since last year, and the amount of cargo coming into the U.S. is predicted to grow by nearly 20 percent this year, which would bring […]

MIT Unveils First Solar Cells Printed on Paper

What if you could simply staple solar panels to your house rather than hiring a professional installation team? That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds — MIT researchers have figured out a way to print thin film solar cells on paper using a process that resembles a standard inkjet printer. If they’re able to gear […]

Time to Get Un-Addicted to Oil

All the hoopla about “Drill, Baby, Drill”, ignores some crucial facts. First, even if we drilled everywhere possible offshore, that oil would supply a mere 2% of US demand. Second, drilling for homegrown oil doesn’t increase our energy independence because the oil is sold on the world markets, not just to the US. Third, oil […]

Optimism Versus Reality In Peak Oil Media Battle

The optimists may have long been winning the peak oil media battle – as Matt Simmons observes – but we are beginning to see information coming out on the business pages that allows us to piece together a more balanced story. Right now, much of this focuses on everyone’s favourite cause for optimism, the oil […]

Richard Heinberg: China’s Coal Bubble …and how it will deflate U.S. efforts to develop “clean coal”

The conventional wisdom in energy-and-environment circles is that China’s economy, which is growing at a rate of eight percent or more per year, is mostly coal powered today and will continue to be so for decades to come. Coal is cheap and abundant, and China uses far more of it than any other nation. The […]

Oil is not the enemy

Candlelight dinners won’t be romantic. They’ll be commonplace. That’s a world some say is coming unless we switch to clean energy — fast. Although the exact date keeps getting pushed back, those people argue that, at some point, oil production will decline, not due to a lack of demand, but because it just won’t be […]

Why ‘Peak Oil’ Will Never Lead To $500/bbl Crude Oil

* Although there’s more than 100 years’ supply of crude oil left in the ground, the resources that are “cheap and easy” to extract have for the most part already been discovered. * By 2012 the decline of production output from conventional sources coupled with much higher extraction cost of unconventional sources will lead to […]

Iran moves to challenge U.S. in Mideast

ran is taking steps to challenge U.S. naval power in the Middle East, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday. “Iran is combining ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, mines, and swarming speedboats in order to challenge our naval power in that region,” he told a conference of U.S. Navy advocates. Reuters

The Gulf oil spill is much worse than originally believed

It’s now likely that the actual amount of the oil spill dwarfs the Coast Guard’s figure of 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, a day. Independent scientists estimate that the renegade wellhead at the bottom of the Gulf could be spewing up to 25,000 barrels a day. If chokeholds on the riser pipe break down further, […]

New Fusion reactor aims to rival ITER

And unlike ITER, the ultimate aim of IGNITOR is to demonstrate the feasibility of plasma ignition — a state in which there is enough fusion power to maintain the reaction without the need for external heat. ITER, on the other hand, aims to maintain fusion by generating up to 10 times more power than it […]

Germany and Mexico vow to revive failed global-warming talks

Germany and Mexico vowed Sunday to revive a stalled pact to halt global warming, opening a three-day informal conference in Bonn for officials from 45 key nations. President Felipe Calderon of Mexico said in Bonn the world had to escape the trap of thinking it faced a yes-no choice between fighting global warming or fighting […]

Still Sticking With Oil

Oil has been moving upwards on a fairly steady basis over the last year or so. All sorts of reasons have been put forth: From a somewhat uneven recovery of the global economy to speculation by bankers, hedge funds, and other various financial entities, including pension and endowment funds, which have “discovered” commodities as an […]

Peak Oil. Are the Lights About to Go Out on Western Civilization?

Are we running out of oil? That is a question that has been talked about for quite some time. But are we quickly running out or are we just using up the most easily accessible and cheep supplies? We had two guests on the most recent episode of “Turning Hard Times Into Good Times [1]” […]

Of the issue of peak demand and the consequent casualties

Crude world has undergone massive transformation in recent months. Gone are the days when the issue of “peak oil” was dominating headlines. That has receded into the background. The very issue of peak demand is now getting on to the centre stage and is starting to impact things all around. Demand has already peaked in […]

U.S. fights to protect shore from massive oil spill

With oil gushing unchecked from a ruptured undersea well off Louisiana, President Barack Obama’s administration heaped pressure on London-based BP, the majority owner of the blown-out well, to do more to stem the flow and contain the spreading slick. Crude oil is pouring out at a rate of up to 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons or […]

Scientists peer into Antarctica’s past to see our future climate

The poles control much of our global climate. Giant ice sheets in Antarctica behave like mirrors, reflecting the sun’s energy and moderating the world’s temperatures. The waxing and waning of these ice sheets contribute to changes in sea level and affect ocean circulation, which regulates our climate by transporting heat around the planet. Despite their […]

Pickens: To compete with China, U.S. must tap natural gas

This is a tale of two countries — and two energy futures. In spite of promises to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, the United States continues to import nearly two-thirds of its daily oil requirements. Meanwhile, China has quietly and effectively been locking in long-term oil supplies to make certain that its internal needs […]

Exploration & Production Success Continues off Atlantic Canada

Offshore Canada’s Atlantic coast has proven to be a very oil rich region. The first well drilled offshore was in 1943. The Island Development Company drilled the Hillsborough #1 well 13 km from Prince Edward Island in 8 m of water. The well reached 4,478 m. Two years later the well was dry and abandoned, […]

Michael Ruppert: Gulf Oil Leak Catastrophic

Leak Rate 25,000 bpd — TERROR NOT RULED OUT Economic Damage in Tens of Billions — Environmental Catastrophe — Bigger then Katrina I watched the press conference live. The question came from a Dow Jones reporter. Present on the stage (among others) were Slazar (Interior), Napolitano (DHS), The Chiarman of BP, Gov. Jindal and a […]

Food as instrument of economic security

I struck up a conversation in Mama Jean’s Market over some turnips last year. There were three patrons there, and each had their own reasons for buying local. I fell into the carbon camp fretting over the miles racked up by my long-haul tomatoes or grapes. A woman shopping for hormone-free meats did it for […]

Researchers Invent Alternative Plastics from Water

According to the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Japanese Scientists invented “Elastic Water”. Also made it to the news of Japan’s National TV channel NHK, Japanese scientists from Tokyo University invented a new substance that consists of 95% water. Obtained by adding two grams of clay and a small quantity of some organic matter […]

Coal Sans CO2: A Pipe Dream

My friends at The Times Green blog have rounded up news pointing to the persistent political appeal of developing ways to burn coal while capturing and disposing of the flood of resulting carbon dioxide emissions. Anyone talking about “ clean coal” in the context of climate change is talking about this concept. And it remains […]

Alex Jones: Peak Oil is a Conspiracy, Gulf Oil Spill Is Government Takeover Plot

As more oil is poured into the Gulf of Mexico, US President Barack Obama has sent SWAT teams to check out all oil rigs. Alex Jones says that this is all very suspicious, particularly because he says the government is trying to create artificial scarcity of oil in the United States.

The Death of Civilization – Sovereign Debt and Peak Oil bring Economic Collapse

Sovereign Debt across the Globe starts a domino effect of collapsing Countries. Oil production begins to decline in 2011 and Peak Oil brings about world wide Economic Collapse as Nations are unable to cope with Debt and higher energy costs. Social Anarchy erupts as the world is thrown into turmoil.

US DOE Shells Out $106M More for Disruptive Green Tech

The U.S. Department of Energy has given out $106 million more in stimulus package funds to 37 groundbreaking green technology projects under the banner of its Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (know best as ARPA-E). The money will be funneled into microbe, battery and carbon capture research. The Energy Department first announced ARPA-E funding […]

Water-related conflicts set to escalate

A new research has revealed that population growth, urbanisation, increasing pollution, soil erosion and climate variations are all set to escalate water-related conflicts around the world. ccording to the Water and Development Research Group at Aalto University, the situation is particularly difficult in many developing countries, where there are growing concerns over escalating water crises […]

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