The Peak Oil Crisis: A Mid-Year Review

The state of the U.S. and other OECD economies clearly is not good. The most telling economic report was a poll conducted by the PEW research center two weeks ago which says that more than half of America’s working adults have been directly affected by the recession by unemployment, pay cuts, reduced hours, or working […]

Setback: BP cap in limbo over gov’t questions

BP’s work on capping the Gulf of Mexico gusher was frozen Wednesday after the federal government raised concerns the operation could put damaging pressure on the busted well that could make the leak worse. An administration official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks with BP, said the government […]

Venezuela oil ‘may double Saudi Arabia’

A new US assessment of Venezuela’s oil reserves could give the country double the supplies of Saudi Arabia. Scientists working for the US Geological Survey say Venezuela’s Orinoco belt region holds twice as much petroleum as previously thought. The geologists estimate the area could yield more than 500bn barrels of crude oil. This assessment is […]

Exxon Declines to Comment on Report It Has Government Approval for BP Bid

Exxon Mobil Corp. declined to comment on reports the company has received government approval to explore a bid for BP Plc. Exxon’s Alan Jeffers had no comment on the report today in the London-based Times newspaper. Max McGahan, a spokesman for London-based BP, also said he wouldn’t comment. BP is seeking funds to pay for […]

Whither Cap & Trade?

Just a year ago it seemed a near-certainty that the US would eventually adopt some form of cap & trade mechanism for greenhouse gases (GHGs). After repeated failed attempts to pass cap & trade legislation in the Senate, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey bill, HR-2454, and the Senate was expected to follow, […]

Planning for Europe’s Energy Future

This document is an attempt to address the Energy Consultation launched by the European Commission in the first half of 2010. This consultation is part of a process that shall take the Commission to a new Energy Policy Programme a few years from now. After 6 years with energy prices much above the ground flat […]

What Most Peak Oil Believers are Failing to Consider

True, oil production is likely to decline, causing oil prices to rise. But the reasons for the decline are critical to understand, if one wants to comprehend what is happening. Many peak oil proponents will claim that it makes no difference why oil prices climb higher. The very fact of higher oil prices will vindicate […]

Peak Oil, peak platinum, peak physics

Shaun Hendy drew our attention to some other resources that are looking decidedly finite. The specific ones he drew on are platinum and palladium, which are used for high-tech applications. Since demand for high-tech equipment is growing rather faster than our demand for oil, one might speculate we could be hitting peak platinum before peak oil, […]

Upstream Online: Venezuela bets on Orinoco

Venezuela hopes to jump past Saudi Arabia as the world leader in certified crude oil reserves when it finishes registering oil deposits in its vast Orinoco Belt this year. An increase of 22.5% in the Latin American country’s reserves was behind Opec’s announcement last week that the group’s proven reserves rose in 2009 to 1.06 […]

PeakOil.com: Weekly Petroleum Supply Report 6.12.10

Review of last week: 1. A gigantic oil tanker, the A-Whale, specially modified to suck oily water out of the Gulf, was moved into place over the oil slick and initial reports are that it does just half of that….. 2. The pup55 Jet Ski index, recently developed by me to estimate US unleaded consumption […]

Post: Historic oil spill fails to produce gains for U.S. environmentalists

For environmentalists, the BP oil spill may be disproving the maxim that great tragedies produce great change. Traditionally, American environmentalism wins its biggest victories after some important piece of American environment is poisoned, exterminated or set on fire. An oil spill and a burning river in 1969 led to new anti-pollution laws in the 1970s. […]

CNN Money: Offshore drilling woes may land on shore

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Restrictions on new oil and gas drilling could soon spread from the Gulf of Mexico to onshore operations. There’s currently a moratorium set to last until Nov. 30 on drilling rigs used for deepwater operations in the Gulf. It is designed to halt new operations until the causes of the BP […]

Will Underinvestment Kill Oil Exports ?

The most important theme that people need to understand with regard to conventional oil is that most conventional oil that is produced in the world and sold for export is not produced by companies like Shell or Exxon or Total, in other words it’s not produced by major oil companies. It’s produced by national oil […]

Lloyd’s adds its voice to dire ‘peak oil’ warnings

One of the City’s most respected institutions has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy. The Lloyd’s insurance market and the highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, says Britain needs to be ready for “peak […]

Iran Dumps A Glut Of Oil Onto The Market

Iran, the second-largest oil producer in the Middle East, released six supertankers from its fleet of vessels storing crude oil, a 40 percent reduction that may mean more oil heading to Europe, shipping tracking data show. The National Iranian Tanker Co. has nine supertankers stationed off the United Arab Emirates and its own coast, according […]

Electric Cars Won’t Strain the Power Grid

Will electric vehicles bring down the U.S. power grid? The answer, equally bluntly, is: No. They won’t. (And we rather wish that certain news organizations–we’re talkin’ to you, The New York Times–could add a bit more perspective before writing about the topic in the predictable maybe-yes-but-maybe-no format.) Study by unlikely partners A comprehensive and wide-ranging […]

Canada’s energy superpower delusion

First off, Canada is not now, nor is it ever likely to be, an “Energy Superpower”. This term was first used by Prime Minister Harper on the eve of the 2006 G8 meeting1. As evidence he stated: ‘Canada is the world’s third largest producer of gas, seventh in oil production, the biggest hydro-electric generator and […]

IEA: Global Oil Demand Seen Rising in 2011

The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that world oil demand will rise next year fueled by economic growth in developing countries, despite a drop in rich countries’ appetite for oil. In its monthly report on the oil markets — and its first detailed assessment of the 2011 period — the Paris-based agency said global oil […]

New cap put on leaking BP oil well

BP robots attached a new, tighter-fitting cap on top of the gushing Gulf of Mexico oil leak Monday, raising hopes that the crude could be kept from polluting the water for the first time in nearly three months. Placing the cap on top of the leak was the climax of two days of delicate preparation […]

Kunstler: Where Have We been? Where Are We Going?

I’m sure it was a mystery to many of the people around here who got a living from these factories, who felt strong, willing, and able to trade their labor for a decent paycheck. How could the world not need them anymore?  American political leadership explained it rather poorly to them. This was a new […]

Low Oil Prices Foster Future Oil Price Peaks

As the global economy stalls, some economists including Paul Krugman argue that unless governments take action now, we risk slipping into a period of recession, or possibly even depression. If the world economy does double dip, ceteris paribus, oil prices will decrease following weak consumer demand. Should this double dip turn into a recession, or […]

Optimism, harsh realism, and blind spots—10 years later

Ten years ago, energy analyst Steve Andrews challenged widely respected energy guru Amory Lovins via email for what Andrews thought was an overly optimistic vision-about coal consumption trends, evolution in the auto industry, future world oil production, etc.-articulated in the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Spring 2000 newsletter. RMI published the subsequent email exchange at http://www.rmi.org/Content/Files/RMI_SolutionsJournal_FallWin00.pdf in […]

The Chinese Coal Monster

China set to consume 50% of global coal production this year Production and consumption roughly in balance Coal imports used for stock pile growth? Consumption growing >10% year on year in line with economic growth Rest of world consumption declined 7% in 2009 Figure 1 Chinese coal consumption compared with the rest of the world.How […]

UK Scientists Urge Politicians to Act on Overpopulation

Scientists estimate that food and energy production will have to increase by 50 per cent and water availability by 30 per cent to meet the demand caused by the extra 1.5 billion people living on Earth in the next two decades – an increase of nearly 10,000 people per hour. Many countries have already significantly […]

Andrew McKillop: Petro-Apocalypse Revisited

OPEC’s spare capacity number is a deep sea monster, like something dark and shimmering in BP’s gushing seafloor well. It could be almost nothing; it might be 2 Mbd at best. The only thing people agree about is that the number is dropping. What is the Petro-Apocalypse? Is it still alive, waiting to unfurl like […]

The longterm fate of the oil spill in the Atlantic

The possible spread of the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig over the course of one year was studied in a series of computer simulations by a team of researchers from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Eight million buoyant particles were released […]

Continued Alberta oil sands production growth seen

Forecasts are starting to indicate a rebound in activity for developing bitumen production from the oil sands in Alberta. Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board in its June 2010 update forecasts bitumen production to reach 3.2 million b/d in 2019.1 This rate is an increase from its forecast last year that saw oil sands production increasing […]

Lloyd’s adds its voice to dire ‘peak oil’ warnings

The Lloyd’s insurance market and the highly regarded Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS, known as Chatham House) says Britain needs to be ready for “peak oil” and disrupted energy supplies at a time of soaring fuel demand in China and India, constraints on production caused by the BP oil spill and political moves to cut […]

On World Population Day, population is not the problem

Today’s women have just half as many as their mothers — an average of 2.6. Not just in the rich world, but almost everywhere. This is getting close to the long-term replacement level, which, allowing for girls who don’t make it to adulthood, is around 2.3. Women are cutting their family sizes not because governments […]

China Boosts Oil Imports to New Record

China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer, increased net crude-oil imports to a record in June as demand rose and costs fell. Net purchases climbed to 22.14 million metric tons, or about 5.39 million barrels a day, from 17.65 million tons a month earlier, according to preliminary data released by the General Administration of Customs today. […]

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