What would happen if we discontinued nuclear electricity?

We are very much reaching limits in the field of energy. This seems to mean that we ending up taking more and more risks, so that there is a greater risk of things going wrong. At the same time, the world’s population is so high that without a good deal of external energy, we cannot provide […]

Peak Oil Matters: Apparently Clueless IS A Strategy

~~~ “We’re blindly focused on searching for answers within our old paradigm of energy and it’s a vision that really needs to shift.” [1] Several weeks ago, I began a multi-part series entitled Clueless Is Not A Strategy (first posthere) whose primary purpose was to argue that in the face of growing oil production challenges, we […]

Record Profits at Chevron

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) is generating record operating cash flow and advancing its strong project queue, executives said today at the company’s annual meeting with financial analysts in New York. “Operationally and financially, 2010 was an outstanding year.  We continue to deliver on our commitments,” said John Watson, Chevron’s chairman and CEO.  “We improved our […]

Bahrain protesters block highway, confront police

Protesters blocked a main thoroughfare to Bahrain Financial Harbour on Sunday, a major business district in the Gulf Arab banking centre, facing off with police who fired clouds of tear gas and water cannon. In one of the most violent confrontations since troops opened fire on protesters last month, youths erected barricades across the highway […]

Nuclear Disaster ‘Will Have Political Impact as Great as 9/11’

The nuclear accident at Japan’s Fukushima plant following Friday’s earthquake and tsunami has led to anxious questions in Germany about the safety of its own nuclear reactors and is putting the government under intense pressure to rethink its decision to extend plant lifetimes by an average of 12 years. German media commentators across the political […]

Saudi Arabian forces prepare to enter Bahrain after day of clashes

Saudi forces are preparing to intervene in neighbouring Bahrain, after a day of clashes between police and protesters who mounted the most serious challenge to the island’s royal family since demonstrations began a month ago. The Crown Prince of Bahrain is expected to formally invite security forces from Saudi Arabia into his country today, as part of […]

The Mirage of Fail Safe Engineering

Smoke billows into the sky moments after an explosion occurred at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. As I have said many times, all of our energy options require trade-offs. I can’t think of any that don’t have some negative consequences and risks associated with their production and/or use. One job of the engineer is to […]

Fuel For The Year

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, butduring the past few months oil prices have ramped up to levels which,as the financial crisis of 2008 had demonstrated, tend to crash theglobal economy. Even the International Energy Agency has recentlypicked up on this fact and sounded an alarm. That was before Libyaexploded, taking a couple of millions […]

PEAK OIL !!! – George Carlin (R.I.P.)

The collapse of society never happened over night. Its the process like any other. Also crisis are not the big mistery. These are simple economic facts. The biggest problem this time is that we as the civilization climbed to high and we will fall down dramaticlly. This is only because of the myth of infinite […]

How Black Is the Japanese Nuclear Swan?

The Japanese earthquake is a tragedy of epic proportions in so many ways. The situation continues to evolve, and the full scope of the disaster will not be understood for a long time. One critical aspect is the effect on Japan’s nuclear industry, which provides over 30% of the country’s electricity from 54 reactors. Some […]

Japan Volcano Erupts, Sends Columns of Ash in Air

A volcano in southwestern Japan erupted Sunday after nearly two weeks of relative silence, sending ash and rocks up to four kilometers into the air, a local official said. It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas Friday, unleashing a fierce tsunami […]

What’s going on with the Japanese nuclear reactors: a primer

Tokyo Electric Power began injecting sea water into a reactor at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Saturday in an effort to maintain cooling of the unit, which lost power following an earthquake and tsunami Friday. Tepco reported higher-than-normal levels of radioactivity at the site but did not provide numbers. Tepco said one worker in […]

Chaos, Collapse, And Survival

Systemic collapse, the coming dark age, the coming crash, overshoot, the die-off, the tribulation, the coming anarchy, resource wars — there are many names, and they do not all correspond to exactly the same thing, but there is a widespread belief that something immense is happening. This event has about 10 elements, each with a […]

Japan Tsunami Could Push Asian LNG Prices Higher

The earthquake and tsunamis that devastated Japan early this morning could send Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices higher due to nuclear plant outages. Japan’s nuclear power plants are feeling the immediate impact of the earthquake and tsunamis as some facilities have been shut down to assess damage from the earthquake. In the meantime, Japan […]

China not to change plan for nuclear power projects

China will not change its plan for developing nuclear power projects but will learn a lesson after a massive earthquake in Japan resulted in a radioactive leakage, Vice Minister of Environmental Protection Zhang Lijun said Saturday. “China has 13 sets of functional nuclear power equipment and tests have shown all of them are safe,” Zhang […]

Japan Quake Moved Coast 8 Feet, Shifted Earth’s Axis

The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis. “At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan […]

Joseph Tainter: talking about collapse

At the end of his monumental study titled “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” Edward Gibbon discusses the question of whether what happened to the ancient empire could happen in modern times, that in the late 18th century, when Gibbon was writing. His answer is that it could not; new hordes of barbarians couldn’t […]

Japan’s quake could have irradiated the entire US

In an earthquake, or other disaster, will nuclear reactors remain as “safe” and “clean” as is claimed? Photo: Cplbasilisk via Flickr. Had the massive 8.9 earthquake that has just savaged Japan hit instead off of the California coast, it could have ripped apart at least four coastal reactors and sent a lethal cloud of radiation […]

Oil: No Easy Answer

The term “blowback,” coined during the First World War, referred to one uncontrollable danger inherent in using chemical weapons. Designed to kill or maim your opponents, they could be deployed by either side, but a sudden shift in the winds could send those same gases drifting back over your lines and do their damage to […]

Heinberg: Why growth won’t return – food

In addition to water, people need food for their very existence. Thus food is also essential to economic growth. Problems with maintenance of far-flung and intensive food production systems played a role in the collapse of previous civilizations, including the Roman Empire.[1] Mesopotamia, the green and lush center of the Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations, was […]

The secret group setting the price of oil: Us

In this excerpt from The Asylum: The Renegades Who Hijacked the World’s Oil Market, Leah McGrath Goodman witnesses a NYMEX energy trader hazing ritual and watches Bill O’Reilly uncover how those traders set the price of a barrel of oil. It was dawn when I received my first of many after-hours phone calls from Mark Bradley […]

Extinction event?

The Arctic is defrosting as warm Atlantic waters rush through the Fram Strait instead of skirting the southern coast of Greenland. This is an important event, regardless of the deafening silence exhibited by the mainstream media. How important? First consider the background, from the perspective of long-time climate scientist James Hansen and colleague Makiko Sato, who report […]

Hawaii as a Microcosm in the Study of Peak Oil

Hawaii became the last state to enter the union of the United States in 1959, but may become the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the U.S. in the transition to a clean economy. The state’s isolation presents both challenges and opportunities for its policy makers and business community on the energy front. On […]

Urban Homesteading

Call me a day late and a dollar short.  Or maybe behind-the-times with respect to Facebook.  But I completely missed the posting blitz where Facebook fans used the “urban homesteading” term as many times as they possibly could in a single day.  In fact, I learned about the posting blitz via our Transition U.S. newsletter, […]

Saudi Police Open Fire At Protest Rally

AP reports that the Saudi police open fire at protesters in Qatif after government warns demonstrators it will not tolerate protests. In other words, the shootings will continue until morale is restored. Look for crude to go antigravitational here. Saudi police have opened fire at a rally in the kingdom’s east in an apparent escalation […]

A Dark Warning on Global Oil Demand

Many top corporate and political figures gathered in Houston on Tuesday for the annual CeraWeek conference on the outlook for energy, and they got an earful from John B. Hess, chairman and chief executive of the Hess Corporation. “An energy crisis is coming, likely to be triggered by oil,” he predicted. “Demand is expected to […]

Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives

Nearly a year after the oil disaster began, Gulf Coast residents are sick, and dying from BP’s toxic chemicals. “I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body,” 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. “Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said […]

Researchers develop more powerful biofuel alternative to Ethanol

Researchers say they have developed a method of using bacteria to convert decaying grass directly into a compound known as isobutanol, which can be burned in regular car engines with a heat value higher than ethanol but similar to gasoline. The research could mean great savings in processing costs and time, plus isobutanol is a […]

The first UK Peak Oil Task Force Report, featuring Jeremy Leggett

Filmed in September 2009, leading analyst Jeremy Leggett discusses details of the first report, released in 2008, and the reaction (or lack thereof) by the Tony Blair administration of the UK government. Since then, a second report has been issued. Both reports, and much more information, are available without charge at http://peakoiltaskforce.net.

Don’t worry about oil until it hits $160

Another year, another gathering of top energy industry movers and shakers. But as the 30th annual CERA Week conference unfolds in Houston this week, some of the focus will be on the events taking place on the other side of the globe. The 30th annual CERAWeek, put on by Cambridge, Mass.-based braintrust IHS CERA, opened […]

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