NATO nations set to reap spoils of Libya war

It looks like the more telling news on Libya has migrated to the business pages.  With jubilant reporting of Gaddafi’s imminent downfall seizing headlines, it’s the financial pages that have the clinical analysis. So, for instance, it is in this section that the Independent reports a “dash for profit in the post-war Libya carve up“. […]

Lew Rockwell: The Many Collapses of Keynesianism

It should be obvious to everyone but the most dedicated adherent of Keynesianism that the stimulus did not accomplish its end. The combination of outright spending by Congress, the desperate schemes to reflate the housing market, the attempt to transfuse bleeding firms with other people’s money, and the creation of trillions in artificial money, has […]

Hurricane Irene may cause gas price spike

Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the East Coast, threatening nearly 10% of the nation’s refining capacity that lies in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware. Gasoline futures traded in New York have already spiked, rising 10 cents a gallon this week, largely on fears there will be a disruption in output from the refineries, barge […]

China Shuts Over 1,000 Illegal Coal Mines

China has shut down over 1,000 illegal coal mines in a countrywide crackdown, an official said. Zhao Tiechui, an official, said that till the end of July, authorities had closed 1,289 coal mines for illegal production. As many as 86 people had been arrested on charges related to mine safety, China Daily quoted the official […]

New USGS Marcellus Shale anaylsis drastically cuts DOE estimates

This week the USGS released a new assessment of gas resources in the Marcellus Shale, Appalachian Basin. The report is a reasonable effort by the USGS to sort out some of the wheat from the chaff. The 84 Tcf technically recoverable undiscovered resource for the Marcellus is a considerable downgrade from the 262 Tcf technically […]

Fertilizer will play critical role in producing enough food to feed future world population

At the recent annual meeting of American feed and fertilizer control officials, an expert stressed that fertilizer is vital to production of food to feed the world in the future. Julie Borlaug, assistant director of partnerships in the Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University, said in her keynote speech at the Association […]

New German Army report on peak oil

The military spends a great deal of planning for different contingencies.  The rest of the time is spent training and doing exercises in preparation for the various scenarios they have planned for.  And, yes they do on occasion go off to war, most recently for extended periods of time. I find it interesting that I’ve […]

How to talk about the end of growth: interview with Richard Heinberg

Just after the release of his newest book, The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, I sat down with Richard Heinberg via Skype to get his take on what needs to happen to shift the conversation on peak oil and peak debt. The interview follows. LC: Thanks for taking some time to […]

Hurricane Irene May Reduce Natural Gas Consumption

The weather forecasts predict that the upcoming Hurricane Irene will strike North Carolina coming Saturday. Some predict that the upcoming Hurricane will reduce demand for natural gas as the rain and wind will curb the electricity demand for cooling households. On the other hand, the Hurricane might damage natural gas pipelines and cause NG production […]

Risk perception – of fans and fission reactors

Terror stalks the nation. Death; mysterious, invisible, and ineluctable to any who ignore the warning to flee from this killer haunts the suburbs and the villages, the apartment blocks and farmhouses, cowing folk high or humble, man, woman and child. All are fearful but the very young, so parents drill the message into children as […]

BP’s Gulf Oil Well Is Leaking Again: “It’s A Dead Ringer For The [BP] Oil, As Good A Match As I’ve Seen”

The Press-Register reports today: Scientific analysis has confirmed that oil bubbling up above BP’s sealed Deepwater Horizon well in recent days is a chemical match for the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer. The Press-Register collected samples of the oil about a mile from the well site […]

China to Sue ConocoPhillips Over Oil Spills

The Chinese maritime authority is preparing to sue ConocoPhillips, the American oil company, over two oil spills in June that engulfed large swaths of Bohai Bay in north China, according to a report by Xinhua, the state news agency. The report, which appeared on Wednesday, said the State Oceanic Administration was aiming to set up […]

Not My Problem

A short animation concerning peak oil.

United Nations’ Forecasts Invent Nonexistent Overpopulation

The UN has reversed a decade of speculation about a demographic winter in the West, and now says that every country will achieve replacement fertility by 2100 resulting in a global population of 10 billion. The problem is there is no basis for their turnabout. UN agencies are hailing new numbers as evidence of overpopulation […]

Crude Analysis of Libyan Liberation

Another war for oil? Surely not! But just to be on the safe side, the world’s oil barons are already moving in to seal some sweetheart deals on that sweet, sweet crude with the new, NATO-installed masters of Libya. And guess what? It turns out that companies from the Western countries that eagerly rained tons of […]

Fukushima radiation leaks ‘equal 168 Hiroshimas’

Government nuclear experts, however, said the World War II bomb blast and the accidental reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, which has seen ongoing radiation leaks but no deaths so far, were beyond comparison. The amount of caesium-137 released since the three reactors were crippled by the March 11 quake and tsunami has been estimated at 15,000 […]

I Am the Population Problem

This fall, world population will reach 7 billion people at a time of accelerated environmental disruption. This article part of a series commissioned by RH Reality Check and with Laurie Mazur as guest editor, to examine the causes and consequences of population and environmental change from various perspectives and the policies and actions needed to […]

Humans will need ‘three planets’ by 2050

The World Wildlife Fund says three planets worth of natural resources will be needed by the middle of this century if current consumption rates continue. The group’s Australian CEO, Dermot O’Gorman, told a meeting at Adelaide Town Hall the global population is likely to grow to 9 billion by 2050. He says the world is […]

Deproliferation, India and the Thorium Fuel Cycle

In the first part of this essay, I reviewed the almost inevitable rise of China and India to great power status. I pointed out that by 2050, current expectations are that by 2050, China and India will be ranked along with the United States as great powers of the first order. I noted that both […]

Approaching The Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic

So-called “business as usual” is neither sustainable, nor even possible, for much longer. Out-of-control energy corporations, Wall Street, the Pentagon, agribusiness/biotech corporations, and indentured politicians have driven us to the brink. They tell us: don’t worry; trust the experts, things will soon return to “normal.” But reality and common sense tell a different story. Extreme […]

PetroChina: warns of ‘severe’ market

The Chinese oil and gas giant saw soaring costs devour much higher revenues in the first half to post a similar profit to a year ago. PetroChina said it piled on revenues in the six months to the end of June despite “a complex macro-economic environment” which saw volatility in oil prices and poor demand […]

Developing Our Offshore Future

Whenever a new discovery like this hits the media, I immediately know what to expect. Truth be told, I didn’t think the email would take so long this time; maybe I held some glimmer of hope that he was finally seeing the bigger picture… He didn’t. Sure enough, the subject line was waiting for me […]

Libya Oil Industry May Fast Recover

Libya’s oil industry should be able to recover fairly quickly after fighting ends, but it might take a year or two to reach pre-rebellion production levels, analysts say. If the country can establish political stability, Libya could begin producing 250,000 to 300,000 barrels a day within several months, says Samuel Ciszuk, an analyst at consulting […]

John Michael Greer: An Elegy for the Age of Space

The orbiters are silent now, waiting for the last awkward journey that will take them to the museums that will warehouse the grandest of our civilization’s failed dreams. There will be no countdown, no pillar of flame to punch them through the atmosphere and send them whipping around the planet at orbital speeds. All of […]

The battle for Libya’s post-Gadhaffi’s soul (and oil)

Muammar Gadhaffi’s 42 year-old regime is in its death rattle – maybe today, maybe tomorrow, his administration that has ruled Libya with a quixotic and brutal hand is about to pass, in Trotsky’s piquant phrase, “into the dustbin of history,” prompting the question “what next?” The glittering prize is Libya’s 1.6 million barrels per day […]

The Old Faithful Peak Oil Debate

It is a well known refrain: Peak Oil is always now ! The problem is that nobody noticed, because oil prices are so high and demand growth is almost zero. The ongoing and real economic recession in almost all OECD countries more than “trims” oil demand in these countries, still taking about 45 million barrels […]

Don’t count on burning Libyan oil just yet

With the sudden collapse of the Gadhafi regime in Tripoli, the oil industry is hoping it can repair enough of Libya’s damaged export terminals, pumping stations and pipelines to get as much as one million barrels a day of oil flowing into the market within the next six to 12 months. But as I have […]

Russia Green Lights $65 Billion Siberia-Alaska Rail and Tunnel to Bridge the Bering Strait

Inhabitat reports (quoting World Architecture News and The Times – the LaRouchies also seem to have an interest in the topic) that Russia has “approved” the long talked about Bering Strait rail tunnel / energy corridor – a critical component in Bucky Fuller‘s vision of a global energy grid – Russia Green Lights $65 Billion […]

Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi

In May, the federal government simulated an earthquake so massive, it killed 100,000 Midwesterners instantly, and forced more than 7 million people out of their homes. At the time, National Level Exercise 11 went largely unnoticed; the scenario seemed too far-fetched — states like Illinois and Missouri are in the middle of a tectonic plate, […]

Why We Might Not Be Able To Return to Growth

– The basic Rogoff/Reinhart observation that financial collapses due to asset bubbles just take a long time to work through. Given the size of the 2008 collapse, historical evidence suggests that it’s going to take five or six years to recover, and that’s that. – The Tyler Cowen “Great Stagnation” hypothesis. We’ve picked through all […]

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