The world gets back to burning

NOT since 1973 has world energy use increased by as much, in percentage terms, as it did in 2010. According to BP’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy, published today, 2010’s energy consumption was up by 5.6% on the year before. In part this is thanks to recovery from the economic crisis; in part it […]

Sailing craft for a post-collapse world

Land transport will be costly, difficult and dangerous after the industrial system has broken down. Moving goods and people by water will be a better option even for quite short distances but what sort of boats will be needed and what materials will be available to build them? At present, whether you need to move […]

Death By Debt

One of the conclusions that I try to coax, lead, and/or nudge people towards is acceptance of the fact that the economy can’t be fixed.  By this I mean that the old regime of general economic stability and rising standards of living fueled by excessive credit are a thing of the past.  At least they […]

World’s Thirst for Oil (photo spread)

A series of photos from around the world regarding oil. msn.com

Exxon makes major oil discovery in Gulf

Exxon Mobil said Wednesday it has discovered an estimated 700 million barrels of oil equivalent at a deepwater well off the Louisiana coast, a major find that a top House Republican argued should push the administration to speed up offshore permitting. “This is one of the largest discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in the […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Gathering Storm

The world is beginning to look a lot like the August of 1914 or perhaps the summer of 1939 all over again. This time instead of the great powers of central Europe dragging the rest of us into a European affair, it seems that nearly every corner of the earth is facing some sort of […]

OPEC fails to reach agreement on oil supply

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has failed to reach a consensus over production levels, after Saudi Arabia pushed for an increase in supply at a meeting in Vienna, the Austrian capital. Saudi Arabian oil officials, backed by Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), pressed other nations at the  meeting on Wednesday for an […]

China overtakes US as top energy consumer

BP research says China has overtaken US as top energy consumer after rapid growth in 2010 A new report says that China has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest consumer of energy. Oil company BP said Wednesday that China moved to the top in 2010 with 20.3 percent of global demand, ahead of […]

Chinese Expressways vs US Interstates

The above graph compares the size of the US Interstate highway system (according to FHWA Table HM 220), with the Chinese Expressway system (according to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics Table 16-4).  Both series currently run through 2009.  The notional extrapolation shown as the thin pink line suggests that the Chinese system will exceed […]

Oil Supply: Peak Oil and Microbes

In 2005 when very few oil people believed in Peak Oil, or more simply stated – few people believed that oil supply could no longer keep up with oil demand, or oil production had reached its maximum level of production, or, if you prefer, more than half of the world’s original oil supply has been […]

Tom Friedman: The Earth Is Full

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it […]

The Secret Marriage of the “E”s

Over the past few weeks I have read several books and articles exploring both the Economy, and Energy, the “E”s. I had been taken aback in these various readings, discovering that there was a disconnect within their narratives. Many of these were written as if the Economy and Energy not only were not married, but […]

Planning for Higher Food and Energy Prices, and their Wider Impacts

Over the years, we have become accustomed to a rising standard of living. One of things that has helped this happen is a gradually declining ratio of food costs to total personal expenditures. Energy costs have not followed as clear a trend, but are higher again now, and seem likely to be higher in the […]

The OPEC meeting – How much will production really increase?

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet today June 8 in Vienna to talk about increasing oil production. Preliminary news reports are hinting at Kuwait and Saudi Arabia pushing for a 1.5 million barrels per day increase in production to cool off oil prices. West Texas Intermediate oil is currently a little […]

Japan doubles Fukushima radiation leak estimate

Japan has more than doubled its estimate of radiation that escaped from the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant in the first week after the disaster. Japan’s nuclear safety agency also said meltdowns took place in three reactors more quickly than earlier believed. The assessment comes as an expert panel begins an inquiry into the crisis. The […]

Saudi plans to build 16 nuclear reactors by 2030

Saudi Arabia plans to build 16 nuclear power reactors by 2030 which could costs more than $100 billion, a Saudi-based newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing a top official. The world’s top crude exporter, Saudi is struggling to keep up with rapidly rising power demand. It has considered boosting its domestic energy capacity using nuclear reactors. […]

Golden age of gas may be a call too soon

The natural gas market is entering a golden age on the back of increasing global demand. So proclaims the International Energy Agency, the western countries’ watchdog. But the natural gas pricing system remains, for now, largely in the dark ages. Unlike oil, the cost of natural gas varies substantially around the world. In the US […]

IEA: Use of natural gas may rise 50% by 2035

Global natural gas use may rise more than 50 percent by 2035 from last year to overtake coal as the second-most used fuel, the International Energy Agency said. “We have seen remarkable developments in natural-gas markets in recent months,” Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the Paris-based adviser to developed nations, said Monday in the report, […]

Three Questions About Global Natural Resources

Q. How are interest rates currently affecting commodity prices? A. The magic number for real interest rates is 2 percent. That’s when you can earn more than 2 percent on a U.S. Treasury bill after discounting for inflation. Our research has shown that commodities tend to perform well when rates fall below 2 percent. Take […]

Why is the UN arbitrarily inflating population predictions?

You will be glad to learn that we all have official permission from the UN people-counters to panic about about “overpopulation” — yet again. The U.N. Population Division apparently decided that its earlier predictions about world population growth were too restrained. So it upped the ante in its 2010 report, revising almost all of its […]

Is Anyone Paying Attention?

Dire events continue at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuke plant. Politically Incorrect I have been following closely the events unfolding at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant and, despite the impression you may have, the situation is dire. Three reactors in at least partial meltdown, severe damage at the spent fuel pond of a fourth, at least […]

‘Peak oil? No, but mind the output gap’

Peak oil theorists may have found themselves at home in some unusual company today as the oil and gas industry gathered for its biggest annual conference, which is being held in Asia. Those who believe the world has reached the point of maximum oil production, or will soon, would have found themselves nodding in agreement […]

3 nuclear reactors melted down after quake, Japan confirms

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country’s Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday. The nuclear group’s new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami […]

A note on Hubbert’s hypotheses and techniques

Many have attempted to forecast the date of the production peak and the volume of the ultimate reserves of a mineral commodity, using techniques derived from Hubbert’s thesis. This note aims at exploring the scientific foundations and therefore the scope of validity of these forecasting techniques. Looking at the basic assumptions of Hubbert’s thesis, it […]

Decline and fall of the American empire

America clocked up a record last week. The latest drop in house prices meant that the cost of real estate has fallen by 33% since the peak – even bigger than the 31% slide seen when John Steinbeck was writing The Grapes of Wrath. Unemployment has not returned to Great Depression levels but at 9.1% […]

Michael Klare: How to wreck the planet 101

Here’s the good news about energy: thanks to rising oil prices and deteriorating economic conditions worldwide, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that global oil demand will not grow this year as much as once assumed, which may provide some temporary price relief at the gas pump.  In its May Oil Market Report, the IEA […]

Kunstler: The Creeping Nausea of American Exceptionalism

History, that coy dominatrix, loves to trick the credulous human race. In a moment when something we call “democracy” seems to be spreading through the dodgy precincts of the world like a contagion of virtue, the trend is actually going the other way in countries that have practiced it for a while. That is certainly […]

The US Crude Production Peak is not Symmetrical

People that worry about the peaking of global oil supplies often use symmetrical curves as simple models for how production will peak and then decline, with logistics and Gaussians being popular choices.  This goes back to M. King Hubbert (and I’ve done some of this myself).  The United States is the poster child for this […]

The Myth of Viable Industrial-scale Renewable Energy

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill’s dictum could have been coined for the green advocates of the renewable energy revolution; a revolution that demonstrates a thorough-going disconnect between the political rhetoric and a grasp of the physics and economics vital to energy realism. Remember Germany’s ‘Green Chancellor’ Rhetoric: In […]

Petronas CEO: Oil price ‘should remain’ under $80

Malaysian state energy firm Petronas said Monday that the crude oil market’s current fundamentals call for lower oil prices. “Given the current state of market fundamentals and cost environment, I believe prices should remain within the range of $75 to $80 a barrel,” Shamsul Azhar Abbas, the oil company’s chief executive officer said at an […]

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