Sudan: Oil Conflict Threatens to Break Out

 The communities living on the South Sudan-Sudan border may face genocide if the conflict between the two countries disputing control of oil reserves is not resolved. There have been recent clashes between the Sudanese army, Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states, as […]

North American oil output will hit all-time record by 2016

Maybe Hubbert’s Peak isn’t the tallest mountain after all. North American oil production will hit a new all-time high by 2016 given the current pace of drilling in the U.S. and Canada, according to a study released by an energy research firm this week. U.S. oil production in areas like the Permian Basin, the Eagle Ford, Bakken and […]

The Saudi Budgetary Constraint on Oil Prices

You might imagine that the last decade has been pretty kind to Saudi government finances and you’d be right.  The graph above comes from a report on the Saudi government budget from Bank Saudi Fransi and shows government revenues and expenditures in billions of Saudi riyals (the riyal is pegged to the US dollar at 3.75 riyals per dollar). […]

Ugo Bardi: The renewable revolution, III – the Jevons paradox

I received an interesting comment today on my first post on the renewable revolution. In answering it, I thought that the exchange was worth publishing as a post in its own, so here it is.  Karl Northsaid…    Ugo, you are no doubt familiar with the Jevons Paradox, which says that energy efficiency gains, in […]

North Sea gas production falls 25%

North Sea gas production has slumped by 25% in the second quarter of the year, an alarming increase in the rate of decline that will cut tax revenues and could put more pressure on government to agree controversial shale gas developments. Figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) also show a 36% […]

Norway Oil Find May Be its Third Biggest Ever

An oil discovery in the North Sea could be the third-biggest find ever made off Norway, oil minnow Lundin Petroleum said after giving new estimates on Friday, breathing life into a mature oil region largely written off by the majors. The Avaldsnes/Aldous Major South find, which could already be the biggest discovery so far this […]

A peak oil Technocrat ignored the power of technology

“Hubbert’s Peak,” says U.S. energy historian Daniel Yergin, “is still not in sight.” This is true: Global oil production is still on the rise with no evident decline any time in this century. We should take a moment to acknowledge this fact. It’s not only that resurgent oil and gas reserves have abruptly extended the […]

Goldman on who’s really wagging the oil market

If you’re wondering what Goldman Sach’s view on crude is — it can be summed up in one neat sentence from their latest research note: The world crude oil market remains exceptionally tight. The reasoning is pretty straightforward. To sum up: Saudi production hit 9.8m barrels per day this summer. The oil market supply-demand balance […]

Fewer Humans, More Humanity?

80 million more births than deaths (equalling the current population of Egypt or Germany) are added each year to the 7000 million that will be here on earth this coming October 31st. A city for 1.5 million is built, somewhere, every week – inevitably paving over land, destroying habitats and increasing energy use. Authoritative (UN, […]

Exxon Starts Fracking Hard In Eastern Europe

Exxon Mobil has been expanding its footprint on shale exploration efforts in Europe. The company recently inked a pact with Ukrainian state oil and gas firm Naftogaz to explore and develop Ukraine’s shale gas reserves. [1] The move comes on the back of Exxon completing its first hydraulic fracturing operation in neighboring country Poland last […]

US tried to conspire with Japan to dump nuclear waste into world’s oceans, reveal documents

When nuclear energy production technology first began to emerge in the US in the 1950s, neither scientists nor the US government considered what would be done with nuclear reactors once it was time for them to be put out of commission. And recently-released documents reveal that, in an effort to hastily deal with this problem […]

Voices of Transition – trailer

‘Voices of Transition’ is an enthusiastic documentary on farmers- and community-led responses to food insecurity in a scenario of climate change and peak oil. Recorded in Cuba, France and the UK, those ‘voices’ tell us of of a future society where our deserts will once again be living soil, where fields will be introduced into […]

The US NGL business wrestles what to do with its gusher of supply

There’s a Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s parents cancel dinner at the Costanzas, for a very simple reason: they can’t stand them. Mrs. Costanza is then seen to be fretting, “What am I going to do with all this paella?” It’s the Spanish dish she made for the big event. As people observe the US NGL […]

Saudi Arabia May Tap Reserves for Spending Plans

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, may be forced to tap its reserves to fund spending programs as oil prices drop below the kingdom’s breakeven budget price. King Abdullah this year announced a $130 billion plan to create jobs and build homes after uprisings toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. While officials haven’t […]

Brazil, Canada, Iraq, Australia to have largest production increases

The projects in three countries with the highest increase in oil production are Brazil, Canada, and Iraq, while Australia has the projects with the highest increase in gas production, according to OGJ’s review of major projects listed in the accompanying table. The table lists projects in 44 countries that are in the construction or planning […]

Kunstler: Here Come the OWSers!

     All last week across the media landscape, in pod, blog, flat-screen, and crunkly old newsprint columns, fatuous professional observers complained that the Occupy Wall Street marchers “have no clear agenda” or “can’t articulate their positions.” What impertinent horseshit. I saw a statement on one OWSer’s sign that said it all: $70,000 College Debt […]

The big picture, and a Transition Response

This is my personal truncated version of “the” big picture, which I’ve taken to be the context in which the transition movement is experimenting, responding to the challenges we face, while we live through the unfolding of an extraordinary story. As the scale of our impact on the world becomes clearer, we’re starting to understand […]

Chevron launches solar enhanced oil recovery project

Chevron Technology Ventures launched a demonstration project at Coalinga field in Kern County, Calif., to test the viability of using solar energy to enhance heavy oil production. The project uses 7,644 mirrors to focus the sun’s energy onto a solar boiler on top of a 327-ft tower. The produced steam then is injected into wells […]

Will Renewed Attention to Climate Change Bring Back “Population Control?”

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

The 10 Commandments – Guidelines to Surviving in a Post Peak Oil World

If they are not actually “commandments” they might as well be. The original set of 10 provided a simple set of rules for members of a small community to live in reasonable harmony with one another, and that is essentially the requirement for an oil-dependent society that has necessarily fragmented into smaller communities, once its […]

New Dept. of Energy Priority-Setting Analysis Seriously Flawed

The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently issued a report called Report on the first Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR), which has as its purpose helping the DOE choose among conflicting priorities. The new report sets priories based on a distorted view of the future. One issue is that it is trying to set priorities based on an […]

Poland warns of war ‘in 10 years’ as EU leaders scramble to contain panic

Germany, France and the European Commission are scrambling to contain panic and “quash rumours” about a eurozone break-up amid repeated off-piste messages from other senior EU politicians. But even amid their desperate efforts, the finance minister of Poland, the country that currently represents the EU to the world as holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency, […]

Germany – It’s Not Easy Being Green

Forty-one years ago on Sesame Street, Kermit the frog sang a plaintive song, “It’s not easy being green.” In a gesture of solidarity, perhaps he should fax the lyrics to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government is suddenly discovering the costs of weaning itself off nuclear energy. In the wake of Fukushima, German Chancellor Angela […]

Ugo Bardi: The renewable revolution – II

After that I published in “Cassandra’s Legacy” a post titled “The renewable revolution” I was surprised at discovering that many of the commenters reacted negatively to it, taking for granted the fact that renewables, in the form of photovoltaics or wind, “have a low EROEI” and, as a consequence, are unable to exist without a […]

Five public health challenges of petroleum scarcity

It was the easy oil—that’s what fueled our prosperity. Economists associate the availability of abundant inexpensive energy with economic growth, suggesting that the modern era’s rising tide of global wealth—and health—was borne up largely on a sea of cheap oil. “We’ve been living for 150 years on a fossil fuel bubble,” is how Stuart Chaitkin, MA, […]

Crisscrossing the Rubicon of peak oil

In the minds of many of those concerned about an imminent rendezvous with peak oil, the day the world slides past the all-time peak in oil production will be a fateful and irreversible crossing. After it all the calamitous predicted consequences of the ensuing decline will become obvious–financial collapse, unaffordable energy prices, shortages of food […]

Keith Johnson: Food Security and Resilence

Keith Johnson was raised in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (where he learned at an early age he was related to Johnny Appleseed), and has been a commercial landscaper, stonemason, and organic gardener since 1976 in places as varied as subtropical Bay Area of California, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Michigan, & the mountains of W. […]

The Transition movement: Today Totnes… tomorrow the world

Its founder believes it is our best hope for a future after the worldwide banking crisis. Now, it seems, a growing number of people are starting to agree. The “Transition” movement has grown eightfold since the recession hit three years ago and is now operating in 35 countries around the world.   When the first […]

Pakistan PM feared riots over power crisis

WikiLeaks has revealed that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani feared that the electricity shortage in the country could lead to riots as well as political insecurity. A diplomatic cable sent to Washington by then US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson on November 2, 2009 discussed the meeting between PM Gilani and US Secretary’s Advisor on Energy […]

How North Dakota Became Saudi Arabia

Harold Hamm, the Oklahoma-based founder and CEO of Continental Resources, the 14th-largest oil company in America, is a man who thinks big. He came to Washington last month to spread a needed message of economic optimism: With the right set of national energy policies, the United States could be “completely energy independent by the end […]

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