Rethinking our oil-drenched lifestyles

Changing that culture will be tough, because it inevitably means sacrifice. “No politician wants to stand up in front of his constituency and say look, fossil fuel should be more expensive, we should be traveling less and so on. He’d be hooted off the stage,’’ Heinberg told me. But he paints a dire portrait of […]

Iraq says 115 bil barrels of proven oil reserves conservative

Iraq’s proven reserves of 115 billion barrels of oil, about 10 per cent of the world’s total, is a conservative estimate, Iraqi oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani said Monday. He added that the country’s estimated 120 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves is also a conservative estimate. Speaking at the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in […]

Boone Pickens: Get Ready for $400 Oil

If we don’t do anything,” Pickens said, “in 10 years we will be paying $300 or $400 a barrel for the oil.” The US is already paying $1 billion a day for crude, he said, and it accounts for two-thirds of the country’s trade deficit. That doesn’t need to happen, though. If the US used […]

BP Increases Oil-Capture Rate

BP said it captured 10,500 barrels of oil from its leaking well yesterday, up from 6,077 barrels in the previous 24-hour ending at midnight June 4. The well was estimated by government scientists to be gushing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day. The spill is the worst oil spill in U.S. history. A “cap” over […]

Water: Will There Be Enough?

As the limitations of big‑infrastructure strategies have become more apparent, a vanguard of citizens, communities, farmers, and corporations are thinking about water in a new way. They’re asking, what do we really need the water for, and can we meet that need with less? The upshot of this shift in thinking is a new movement […]

The Demise of BP?

I know that when the shortages occur, we will probably try to drill anywhere and everywhere out of desperation. I believe I understand what the consequences of shortages may look like – hence my support for expanded drilling. But this disaster has convinced me that we have exceeded the depths at which we can safely […]

Europe Faces a Glut of Oil Refineries

The global surplus of crude-distillation capacity could grow to as much as 3.4 million barrels a day by the fourth quarter, or the equivalent of 3.9% of global capacity in the first quarter of 2008, before many new plants came online, assuming refinery throughput stays at a typical 84%, according to the Paris-based International Energy […]

Goodbye, Limitless Oil. Hello, Primitive Dystopia.

Americans have long been fascinated by disaster scenarios, from the population explosion to the cold war to global warming. These days the doomers, as Mrs. Wilkerson jokingly calls herself and likeminded others, have a new focus: peak oil. They argue that oil supplies peaked as early as 2008 and will decline rapidly, taking the economy […]

BP and Feds Withheld Videos Showing Massive Scope of Oil Spill

The images showed a far more dire situation unfolding underwater. The footage filmed by submarines showed three separate leaks, including one that was unleashing a torrent of oil into the Gulf. Coast Guard officials told ABC News that BP refused to allow them to release the more startling images, arguing they were proprietary. But at […]

Israel May Join Gas Exporting Nations With Leviathan Discovery

Still, additional gas would take up to a decade and “billions of dollars” in investments to produce since there’s no infrastructure to liquefy gas, said Amit Mor, head of Eco Energy Ltd, an Israeli investor. The country is also unlikely to build pipelines through Turkey and other neighbors because of political tension, especially after the […]

Chinese Demand For Coal Grows

Coal prices in China are resuming their climb as China’s store are depleting. China is the world’s largest user and producer of the or. A drought lasting nearly six months in southwestern China has cut water available for hydropower generation. This has caused an increased demand for coal fired electricity, and has caused China to […]

Scientists confirm deepwater plumes

The lab tests are the most conclusive evidence yet in a vigorous scientific debate about where much of the oil is ending up. The researchers say the extensive layers of oil are sitting far beneath the surface miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. The university is collecting data for National Oceanic […]

‘peak coal’ is guide for our oil quandary

Jevons anticipated “peak coal” – and, in doing so, “peak oil,” too. For Mr. Jevons, the distinction was irrelevant. When you spoke of coal, you necessarily spoke of petroleum. When you spoke of petroleum, you necessarily spoke of coal. “What is petroleum,” he asked, “but the essence of coal?” Mr. Jevons provides the modern reader […]

SPILL CAM (cap attempt)

We can’t stop the spill, but we can watch it on a live webcam. Direct from BP

What if the Oil Just Kept Flowing?

Of course, this thought experiment suffers from the reality that crude oil prices, in a global market, don’t jump based on a single region’s troubles. In fact, prices are lower now than they were in late March. (And when oil prices do jump, that prompts conservation in rich countries but real economic hardship in poor […]

EIA: Hard Core Peak Oil Forecast

The more salient development is the reduction in the forecast to 2020. Forecasts beyond ten years are highly uncertain and more subject to massaging and interpretation. Shorter term forecasts are more definite, and the forecasters are more accountable. As a consequence, the outlook for the short to medium term warrants greater attention. In the case […]

Obama hints at consequences of ‘Peak Oil’ phenomenon without mentioning it by name

Without directly using the term “Peak Oil,” the president has on at least two occasions in recent days referred to the dangers facing us if we continue our dependence on oil at present rates. Wikipedia defines Peak Oil as “the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which […]

Edible Landscaping: One Transition Step from Peak Oil

There are a number of answers, one of which is to support local agriculture. Additionally, one can grow their own food in a pleasing, sylvan landscape. 5 years ago, I decided I was going to shift from a native plantings landscaping theme to one that turned my yard into a source of sustenance. I had […]

Medvedev speaks about impact of alternative energy on Russian Oil

Dmitry Medvedev President of Russia expressed concern recently over the future of the Russian oil and gas market after the creation of alternative energy sources. Speaking at a meeting of the ruling United Russia Party, the president called the recent oil leak at the BP owned oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico an […]

Houston refineries vulnerable to moderate hurricane

A moderately powerful hurricane could cripple Houston’s refineries and petrochemical industry, said a report from experts at several Texas universities. The report was issued May 26 by the Rice University-based Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters Center (SSPEED). Separately, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast an “active to extremely active” 2010 hurricane […]

Chinese hiding three million babies a year

A growing number of rich Chinese also pay fines in order to have a second child. But for parents who do not comply with the law, the penalties can be harsh. Workers in state-owned companies can lose their jobs. Others face huge fines, the possible demolition of their homes, or even a prison term. “When […]

Battle of the Benchmarks

“Brent is the global oil benchmark. Brent is used as the price benchmark for around two-thirds of the world’s traded oil. It reflects the fundamentals of the oil market on a global basis and we’re seeing Brent used as part of the pricing for oil throughout the world.” The U.S. crude oil benchmark, known as […]

A Window on the Deep

By 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning, most observers agreed that the wire saw was stuck halfway through cutting the pipe; this was later confirmed by the Coast Guard. By dawn, the big shears came back from the surface and by noon had clamped onto the piece of the fallen riser still spewing oil, in what […]

Saudi Aramco wrestles its domestic energy-consumption problem ‎

Oil prices are where Saudi Arabia wants them. But rising demand in the kingdom could bring longer-term problems. In a world of economic volatility, the country’s finances remain solid. And as the de facto leader of Opec, its steady hand on the pump has brought stability to the oil price, at around the $75 a […]

UN: Fossil-fuel use and feeding world cause greatest environmental impacts

Perhaps controversially, it also calls for a significant shift in diets away from animal based proteins towards more vegetable-based foods in order to dramatically reduce pressures on the environment. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which hosts the Panel, said: “Decoupling growth from environmental degradation is the […]

The Earth At Night In Relation To Population Distribution

The ways in which we design maps betrays a lot about how we view the world and what characteristics we focus on. In a twist to our conventional way of laying out the world, geographer Benjamin David Hennig re-imagines the Earth at night: The following map is a reprojection of the earth at night that […]

Efforts To End Flow From BP Well Are Over

BP Plc has given up trying to plug its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico any sooner than August, laying out a series of steps to pipe the oil to the surface and ship it ashore for refining, said Thad Allen, the U.S. government’s national commander for the incident. Undersea robots began sawing away […]

Sewage … a solution for ‘peak phosphorous’

A new study by Foreign Policy (as reported in the NYT) confirms our fears of a collapsing agricultural system. About 90 percent of the world’s phosphorous supplies are controlled by five countries, and they warn that as soon as 2040, this limited resource could be lost forever if we don’t get better at reclaiming our […]

The Coming Clash Between Water and Energy

Plug your iPhone into the wall, and about half a liter of water must flow through kilometers of pipes, pumps, and the heat exchangers of a power plant. That’s a lot of money and machinery just so you can get a 6–watt-hour charge for your flashy little phone. Now, add up all the half-liters of […]

Peak Wood: Nature Does Impose Limits

Civilization continued its march westward in search of wood. In the poet Hesiod’s time timber grew throughout Greece. Some 300 years later Plato reminisced how in an earlier period “there was an abundance of wood in the mountains” but “now they only afford sustenance to bees.” So the Greeks, with their ships and bronze axes, […]

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