Why the Dollar’s Reign Is Near an End

For decades the dollar has served as the world’s main reserve currency, but, argues Barry Eichengreen, it will soon have to share that role. Here’s why—and what it will mean for international markets and companies. The single most astonishing fact about foreign exchange is not the high volume of transactions, as incredible as that growth […]

Saudi Arabia bans all protest and marches

Saudi Arabia has banned all protests and marches, state television on Saturday cited the Interior Ministry as saying after Saudi minority Shi’ites staged small protests in the oil-producing eastern province. Security forces would use all measures to prevent any attempt to disrupt public order, state news channel al-Ekhbariya said in an alert without giving details […]

Cycles of Recession

In 2002 Colin Campbell explained the economic effect of Peak Oil.

What’s happening on the ground in Libya?

Platts’ John Kingston discussed the current flows out of Libya, and the outlook for the industry in the future, in an interview with Canada’s BNN. You can see it here.

Food supply vs. population: Malthus 200 years later

“By 2050, we will not have a planet left that is recognizable” if current food trends continue, said Jason Clay at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Clay, who has taught at Yale and Harvard and worked at the USDA and is now senior vice president at the World […]

Protesters converge on Iraq capital

Thousands of people have converged on Baghdad’s Tahrir, or Liberation, Square for an anti-government demonstration, despite a vehicle ban that forced many to walk for hours to the heart of the Iraqi capital. Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf reported from Baghdad that the situation was heading towards a stand-off, as security forces demanded the protesters leave, blocking their […]

Market turmoil as IEA warns ‘age of cheap oil is over’

Growing fears of an enduring oil crisis prompted huge volatility on investment markets yesterday – with shares in the world’s biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, slumping to a 22-month low – as a top energy official warned that the “age of cheap oil is over”. Concerns about the turmoil in Libya triggered sharp sell-offs in […]

Can nuclear power save Japan from peak oil?

If the recent proclamations from various bodies, including the International Energy Agency, about our close proximity to the peak in world oil production are true, then Japan may be sitting on the equivalent of an energy security time bomb. Image by Oliver Delgado The greatest concern is that this time bomb could explode as early […]

Steven Kopits: Oil, the Economy and Policy

Steve Kopits, Managing Director of Douglas-Westood consulting firm, made a presentation called “Oil, the Economy, and Policy” to the US House of Representatives Energy Subcommittee recently that I thought was interesting. I this post, I explain the presentation a bit and give my views related to it. I was impressed that Steve was able to make a […]

ProPublica’s Guide to Fracking

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the fracking and natural gas drilling debate, with the documentary film Gasland nominated for an Academy Award and a front-page story in Sunday’s New York Times on the dangers posed by the technology. The Times story underscored the findings of dozens of reports that ProPublica has published […]

Oil Drilling To Resume In The Gulf

The Interior Department said Monday that it had approved the first new deepwater drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico since the BP explosion and spill last spring, a milestone after a period of intense uncertainty for industry and a wholesale remaking of the nation’s system of offshore oil and gas regulation. Michael R. Bromwich, […]

International Energy Agency confirms peak oil was in 2006

The Energy Watch Group (EWG) has reiterated its warning that the highpoint of conventional worldwide oil exploitation had been reached in 2006 and said that with its “World Energy Outlook 2010”, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expressly endorsed this conclusion for the very first time, corroborating that the production of crude oil will never again […]

Rebels battle over oil port

Muammar Gaddafi launched a land and air offensive to retake territory in Libya’s east at dawn on Wednesday, sparking a rebel call for foreign air strikes against African mercenaries they said were helping him cling to power. The veteran ruler twinned the attack with a fiery propaganda broadside against the rebels, playing on both nationalist […]

Will oil force the Fed’s hand?

William McChesney Martin, Jr., the Federal Reserve chairman during the 1950s and 1960s, famously joked that it’s the job of the central bank to “take away the punch bowl just when the party is getting started.” He was referring to a need for the Fed to start raising interest rates when the economy was improving […]

Beyond Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

At the height of WWII, Abraham Maslow proposed a “hierarchy of human needs,” often depicted as a pyramid, where it was necessary for one need to be fulfilled in order to meet the next.  By the mid-1950′s he had written a book popularizing this same idea. The theory is that lower needs, like food and […]

Peak Debt

From our friends at the Wall Street Journal Sunday night, “In 2011, Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs will consume 60% of all federal spending, not counting interest on the debt, or $2T.” I just wish that they had noted that in 2010, all tax receipts were $2T. This seems to be a notable juxtaposition. […]

Saudi Arabia Will Let Oil Reach $120, As Truth Behind Saudi Motives Is Exposed

All those naively hoping that Saudi Arabia has suddenly developed some altruistic bent and will act against its own interest by increasing excess production (which according to Jim Rogers it simply does not have), to keep oil prices lower, are advised to reevaluate. According to CBS, citing “the conclusion of an internal report prepared by […]

Libyan crisis leads to cut in OPEC output

OPEC output fell in February from a two-year high the previous month as the uprising in Libya curbed supplies from Africa’s third-largest producer, even as Saudi Arabia pumped more, a Reuters survey showed on Tuesday. The loss of a large part of Libya’s high-quality oil has sent oil prices well over $100 a barrel and […]

Yemen leader blames protests on US

Yemen’s president has hit out at Israel and the US, accusing them of destabilising his country and the Arab world as protesters demanding his ouster press ahead with demonstrations. Ali Abdullah Saleh’s comments on Tuesday marked his harshest public criticism yet of the US, a key ally with which his government is battling al-Qaeda pockets […]

Pakistan’s Energy Crisis

As industries close and the cost of living rises across Pakistan due to electricity cuts and gas shortages, widespread frustration is heating public sentiment to a boiling point. “I think if this energy shortage continues, the public will get fed-up, and there are chances of an uprising like in Tunisia or Egypt, although the cause […]

The World Population and the Global Economy

AEI scholar Nick Eberstadt warns that an aging population will have a drastic effects on the world economy in just a short 20 years from now.

Spain brings in measures to reduce oil dependence

Reuters reports the Spanish government is reacting against rising oil prices – Spain brings in measures to lower oil costs. Spain, aiming to reduce its dependence on oil as crude prices surge, will raise biofuel blending and lower both speed limits and rail fares, Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said on Friday. The minimum […]

Global Biofuel Production

Here are updated graphs of global biofuel production through 2009. The latest statistics are from the Renewables 2010 Global Status Report.  The graph above shows volume of biofuel production (expressed in millions of barrels/day), broken out by ethanol and biodiesel.  The main takeaway is that biofuel growth slowed sharply in 2009 with the lower fuel […]

Lurching toward the peak

One of the side notes to the struggles over climate change are minor but persistent claims that we are reaching or have already reached “peak oil.” Others have taken up the chorus, speculating about peak water, peak land, even peak everything (the title of a book by Richard Heinberg). Some predict a century of declining […]

West casts military net around Libya

The Pentagon is deploying naval and air forces around Libya as the US and UK governments consider tougher measures to force Muammer Gaddafi from power, including the possible establishment of a no-fly zone. “We must not tolerate this regime using military force against its own people,” David Cameron, UK prime minister, said. “In that context […]

EU says Gadhafi not in charge of Libyan oil

Libya’s oil chief says production is down 50 percent because of the exodus of foreign oil workers fleeing the country’s violent uprising against leader Moammar Gadhafi. But Shukri Ghanem, the head of the National Oil Co., told The Associated Press on Monday that all of Libya’s oil installations are protected and safe, and disputed comments […]

So, We Have Only Six Months of Oil Left… Any Last Words?

Seven international organizations, including the International Energy Agency, APEC, the United Nations Statistics Division and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), have been keeping public data on global oil production and exports in the name of transparency in this strategic industry. They call this effort the Joint Organisations Data Initiative or JODI. The last set […]

Richard Heinberg : 2008 All Over Again?

As oil prices reach $100 a barrel for the first time since 2008, many people are wondering whether 2011 will see a replay of crashing car sales, nose-diving airlines, and fuel-starved farmers. Food prices—which these days move almost in lockstep with oil prices—are already at frightening levels, leading Lester Brown of Earth Policy Institute to […]

How much oil will be recoverable?

The world holds a huge amount of oil resources. Besides liquid oil, there is very heavy oil in various forms. There is also liquid oil trapped in oil shale, oil in very deep water, and oil that in not yet fully formed (still kerogen) in shale oil. Some would like us to believe that eventually, […]

The cost curve issue: where oil, renewables and gas come together

With violence raging in the streets of Libya and turmoil across the Arab world from Tunisia to Oman rattling oil markets, and with Brent crude at its highest price in two years, renewable energy companies would seem poised to cash in on fears about security of energy supplies. Ever since the 1970s oil embargo, which […]

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