Welcome, ‘Peak Oil’

he day of reckoning is approaching and the world does not have a contingency plan. The truth is that the world’s output of conventional crude oil peaked in 2005 and global oil exports are also past their prime.  Furthermore, the unconventional sources (tar sands, heavy sour crude, ethanol, natural gas liquids, bio-fuels and shale) are […]

Pew Research: World Muslim population doubling in 20 yrs

Twenty years ago, the world had about 1.1 billion Muslims. Twenty years from now, it will have about twice as many – and they’ll represent more than a quarter of all people on earth, according to a new study released Thursday. That’s a rise from less than 20 percent in 1990. Pakistan will overtake Indonesia […]

Oil: into new frontiers

Massive new reserves have been identified, proven up, and brought to production – whilst reserves previously considered impossible to reach are now no more than a horizontal drilling or steam injection technique away. All this should help ensure supply can meet global demand for far longer than was expected just a few years ago – […]

Dmitry Orlov: US empire will fall due to lack of faith

As many in America longingly talk of “recovery” from the most devastating economic condition since the Great Depression, others have begun thinking in a very different direction, urging fellow citizens to prepare for the worst. Dmitry Orlov, author of “Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects,” is one of the latter. Soon, he told […]

Violent protests escalate outside Egypt’s capital

Violence escalated in two cites outside the capital Cairo Thursday where anti-government protesters torched a fire station and looted weapons that they then turned on police. Egypt’s top democracy advocate returned to the country and declared he was ready to lead the campaign to oust longtime President Hosni Mubarak. In the flashpoint city of Suez, […]

The Oil Drum Reviews: BP Energy Outlook to 2030

There is a significant reliance, among those who write on fossil fuels, on the statistics that BP annually compile on global energy production. For example it provides underlying information for Energy Export Databrowser, as well as many of the posts at The Oil Drum. And so when BP just released their forecast for energy for […]

Clean energy won’t save the world!

To listen to President Obama, you would think that clean energy is our next salvation. But clean energy can’t exist on its own. Clean energy options should more properly be called “fossil fuel extenders”. They only work within a system that has fossil fuels. We can’t make solar PV panels or wind turbines without fossil […]

Oil Decline Rate And Population

The rapid increase in the world’s population over the last hundred years is not merely coincident with the rapid increase in oil production. It is the latter that has actually allowed (the word “caused” might be too strong) the former: that is to say, oil has been the main source of energy within industrial society. […]

Oil Spill Dispersants Lingered in Deep Ocean

A crucial component of the chemical dispersant applied to oil gushing from BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico last year did not break down as fast as scientists initially expected and probably remains at detectable levels in the deep ocean, scientists said on Wednesday. Traces of the dispersant compound were found in September […]

ZEITGEIST MOVING FORWARD

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A new online film about a resource-based economy

BP: Nonfossil fuels to be ‘major’ energy sources by 2030

The global fuel mix will continue to diversify, with increased emphasis on alternative energy until by 2030 “for the first time nonfossil fuels will be major sources of supply growth,” said analysts at BP PLC. World energy growth over the next 20 years likely will be dominated by the emerging economies of China, India, Russia, […]

Chinese Oil Consumption Growth

Time for an update on Chinese oil consumption growth.  I took the annual data from the BP spreadsheet, and extended it to 2010 based on the data in the first three quarters vs the same quarters of 2009 (from the EIA Table 2.4).  This next graph plots both consumption (blue, left scale in millions of […]

The London gold market’s detachment from physical gold

There is no such phenomenon as “Peak Gold”, as the term “Peak Oil” is bantered about in the socio-technical discourse on non-renewable energy. Physical gold will continue to increase in quantity as long as gold mines continue to produce gold. But if and when all the gold in the ground has been mined, including those […]

Pond scum to replace fossil fuels

It may be just pond scum to some and would make your stomach turn, but humble algae holds the key to a carbon-neutral future, not to mention independence from traditional oil sources. And WA could be a future biofuels hub, according to one of the world’s leading experts, Professor Michael Borowitzka from Murdoch University School […]

Michael Klare: Resource Revolts

He was a poor 26-year-old trying to eke out a living and help pay for his sisters’ schooling.  He met the deep corruption of the Tunisian regime face to face in the most everyday and humiliating way — in the form of bribes he couldn’t afford just to keep his little stand open and the power […]

Frankenfoods vs Thomas Malthus

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It’s nice to see two classic scientific scare stories facing off. We’ve read a lot about both over the years, and both have been the subject of a lot of media-led panic, and now they’re being set against each other in a battle to the death. It’s a bit like Alien vs Predator, except it’s […]

German Government Rejects Report ‘Peak Oil’ Occurred in 2010

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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government rejected a report by Germany’s armed forces that global crude-oil production reached its maximum last year, parliament’s HIB newsletter said. Crude output “can be increased through 2035 under today’s conditions, assuming an optimal development and exploitation of reserves,” HIB said today, citing the government’s response to a query by the opposition […]

EIA Fails to Warn of a 1.8 mb/d Supply Shortfall

Mission failure. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is funded by American taxpayers to warn about energy issues. Every Wednesday the EIA publishes This Week in Petroleum (TWIP). The failure to warn is highlighted in the Jan 12, 2011, TWIP: “EIA expects a continued tightening of world oil markets over the next two years. World oil […]

Kunstler: State of Suspension

I haven’t left the house myself for two days and a Snow Leopard installation put my iMac into a hang-up deepfreeze all its own (I’m on the MacBook now). But enough about me…. I wonder if Barack Obama himself is sleeping in a casket in the White House basement these days, waiting for fairer conditions […]

British government: World needs global food system overhaul

The world needs fundamental changes to the global food system to feed the expanding population, according to a British government report out Monday on how to feed the planet until 2050. Governments must take action to change dietary habits, cut waste, reduce subsidies and embrace genetically modified food, said the “Global Food and Farming Futures” […]

Cities to more than double in size under current immigration levels, says news research

AUSTRALIA’S capital cities will more than double in size within 50 years under current immigration rates, dramatically affecting quality of life and cutting food production. Research for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has found more than 430,000 hectares of land will have to be found for housing in both Sydney and Melbourne if net […]

The Peak Oil Catastrophe-in-waiting

The United States continues to slumber while a catastrophe lies in wait. Increasing numbers of analysts and policymakers are warning of another super price spike for oil and the likelihood of “peak oil” more generally. Peak oil is the point at which global oil production reaches a maximum and then declines. The speed of the […]

Heinberg’s New Coal Question

The most serious carbon issue today, as scientists like NASA’s James Hansen emphasize, is not oil but coal. To avert a disastrous climate change tipping point, Hansen argues, peak oil must be accompanied by peak coal, and in fact coal-fired plants must be rapidly phased out to protect the earth.1 Yet coal exploitation is commonly […]

Petrol rationing looms

A report by the Lean Economy Connection in association with the 20 MP strong All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil (APPGOPO) has warned that rationing will be needed to deal with energy shortages as well as helping us achieve our green targets. The report, ‘TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas): A Policy Framework for Peak Oil […]

Is the global economy approaching an inflection point?

It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp –Yogi Berra (and a number of other people) During a presentation last week a questioner asked me what I thought about predictions that gasoline prices would reach $5 a gallon this summer. I offered this critique. I said that the oil prices implied by $5-a-gallon […]

Saudi to sign nuclear deal, cut fossil fuel use

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Kingdom to reduce use of fossil fuels as demand rises Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia wants to cut fossil fuel use within the next several decades, it said at an industry event where nuclear reactor maker Areva is set to sign a major deal with a Saudi partner. Although it sits on the world’s largest […]

We Need Freedom of Action To Confront Peak Oil

In the third video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth productions, co-editor of The Automatic Earth, Nicole M. Foss, explains how energy relates to the economy and what our impending energy crisis will look like. Foss discusses the issues associated with peak oil in financial rather than environmental […]

Here Comes $4 Gas, $5 Cups of Coffee

The final dam to stopping $150-a-barrel oil and $4-a-gallon gas is being breached, as financial regulation continues its daily erosion into worthlessness. Watching the CFTC attempt to back up Dodd-Frank legislation since it was passed in July has been like watching salmon flop upstream as the water drains out — it’s slow, arduous and likely […]

Chevron Funds Microfinance in California

[PRESS RELEASE] In an effort to support broad-based economic development in California, Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) has committed $1 million to Grameen America, an innovative microfinance organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus. The funds will support the launch of Grameen America’s first West Coast branch in the San Francisco Bay Area by […]

Gail Tverberg: Should you pay down your debt?

The question of whether a person should pay down debts comes up often, when there are forecasts that suggest unemployment rates and consequently debt defaults will rise dramatically in future years. I know some people say, definitely, “Yes”. I would say, “It depends.” Clearly, at this point, interest rates you can get in a bank […]

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LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
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• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy