OPEC ups oil demand forecast

OPEC now expects demand for oil to grow even more than it projected just a year ago, as the oil cartel said the recovery from the Great Recession took place faster than it expected. But the group’s annual oil outlook released Tuesday also worried about the risk of a new recession in the world’s developed […]

Global Economy Will Struggle for Growth

The world economy will struggle to grow above its potential over the next five years as advanced economies recover but the gain is offset by a slowdown in emerging markets, according to a global forecast released Tuesday by the Conference Board. Over time, the emergence of larger middle classes in developing markets will help global […]

Will the “economic price” limit oil production?

In a widely-circulated article in September 2011, Chris Skrebowski, who runs a peak oil consulting firm and was editor of the Petroleum Review for eleven years until 2008, argued that there are two forms of oil peak. One is, or will be, caused directly by depletion – the oil is no longer in the ground […]

Population size, growth raise capacity questions

Last week’s much-ballyhooed birth of the 7 billionth member of the living human race provides an occasion to reflect on the world population’s rapid growth and the prospects for the survival of a habitable environment as we press on toward 8 billion. For example, there is this question to consider: How many human beings can […]

Is ‘Peak Oil’ The End Of The World?

Please watch both of Alec’s video and subscribe to his channel at the following links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLazDpqmijU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS_XQNVzvXE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL The Documentary “Collapse!” Part 1: http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/50078/Collapse__part_1_/ Part 2: http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/50113/Collapse__part_2_/ An important 1 hour long lecture on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII-GxsrR2c&feature=bf_next&list=WL689… And other shorter, relevant videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/CollapseMovie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A06Jioj5zJQ&feature=channel_video_title http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHKp5vF_VoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDrBLIdn9SA

ASPO-USA Conference Takeaways

Here’s what I included as an off-topic comment I put in my weekly report at my not-related-to-investing-or-energy day job to try to give some of the people I work with a bit of a wake-up call: “Off topic: I attended the Peak Oil conference downtown last week. Here’s the key results: Peak oil is proceeding […]

Why Daniel Yergin is Wrong — Again

Peak oil has nothing to do with running out of oil. Peak oil refers to the flow rates. It refers to the fact that the “easy to get to” oil is gone. It’s the “hard to reach” oil that we now have to go after. Forbes doesn’t seem to understand peak oil. The Guardian doesn’t […]

Financial Impacts of Reaching ‘Limits to Growth’

I gave a talk on expected financial implications of the oil limits that we are now reaching at a recent meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA. My talk consisted of two parts: Why the impact of oil supply limits is expected to be more severe than simply a reduction in oil […]

As Dolphins Die, Gulf Residents Ask, ‘What About Us?’

Willie Seaman of Irvington, AL, lays carpet and floors for a living. But last summer, as the BP well gushed thousands of barrels of oil daily into the Gulf, Seaman signed up with the BP cleanup program, working on a shrimp boat several miles off shore. It was brutally hot and the smell of oil was putrid, […]

IEA economist: ‘We have to leave oil before it leaves us’

The International Energy Agency (IEA)’s annual World Energy Outlook, due for publication on 9 November, will contain alarming research that the world is on track for a catastrophic rise in global temperatures unless fossil fuel subsidies are cut, energy efficiency is improved, and more countries introduce some form of carbon pricing. Fatih Birol is the […]

Kunstler: Critical State

Portents of winter and the toothless chatter of flag-draped traitors vies with a fog of lies spread by Koch Brother messenger boys, Reagan nostalgia hucksters, suck-ups in office, Murdoch empire servlings, Banker PR catamites, and Jesus terrorists to occupy the national mind-space with a narcotic Jell-O of half-formed wish fulfillment scams. The nation is hostage […]

The Oil and the Glory: The Weekly Wrap: Nov. 5, 2011

About the impending arrival of U.S. energy independence: We return to the twist in our energy and geopolitical circumstances that we are hearing about — that, contrary to the drumbeat regarding peak oil to which we have become accustomed, there is no problem on the global energy patch. There is abundant oil, report the New […]

Can America Use All This Natural Gas from Shale?

America is swimming in natural gas from shale formations. It promises to be our bail-out from otherwise flat or falling gas supplies of other types – and provide important relief from our dependence on imported oil. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shale provided only about 14 percent of America’s natural gas in […]

ASPO-Italy 5: beyond peak oil

Peak oil is behind us. That much seems to be clear from what was said at the 5th meeting of the Italian section of the Association for the study of peak oil (ASPO) held on Oct 28 in Florence, Italy. Already in the first talk of the meeting; the one given by Ian Johnson, secretary […]

Saudis make 2011 the year of natural gas

For Saudi Aramco 2011 may be remembered as one of its most unusual years: the one in which the biggest milestone achieved by the world’s largest oil company was a natural gas field startup. If anything comes to symbolize the dawn of a “golden age of gas,” it may be the July production start from […]

The shale gas revolution

The United States is a country that has received many blessings, and once upon a time you could assume that Americans would come together to take advantage of them. But you can no longer make that assumption. The country is more divided and more clogged by special interests. Now we groan to absorb even the […]

Collapse could happen, literally, overnight

If all our debit cards stopped working suddenly, it could crash the economy. Photo: justDONQUE.images via Flickr. In the granddaddy of all collapse books, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon gave ancient Rome a full 500 years to deflate. Half a millennium for any society to collapse always seemed […]

Oil demand globally to peak before 2020

Global oil demand is expected to peak before 2020 as a “perfect storm” of regulation promotes energy efficiency, new technology and biofuel use across the world, according to a new study. The report, by respected industrial consultancy group Ricardo, challenges the widespread view that ‘peak oil’ will come as soaring emerging market demand causes oil […]

World peak oil production still years away

Brian Towler University of Wyoming Laramie, Wyo. Peak world oil production rate depends on economics and is unlikely to occur before 2018, and rising oil prices and technological developments may further delay this peak. When production rate eventually does peak, however, the decline side of the curve will not mirror the growth side as predicted […]

Thousands in D.C. protest pipeline

Thousands of protesters circled the White House this afternoon to show their in opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project. The demonstration is the latest in a series of White House protests aimed at convincing U.S. President Barack Obama to block the $7 billion project that would carry Alberta oilsands crude through six American […]

Time to Worry: World Oil Production Finishes Six Years of No Growth

As oil prices rose ever higher in the last decade, the optimists kept predicting rising production capacity and plummeting prices. Looks like they got it wrong. We are entering what may be the longest stretch of no growth in world oil production since the early 1980s. But the reasons for that lack of growth differ […]

Overpopulation the real problem

The most ghoulish thing to happen this Halloween is that the world’s human population reached seven billion. Moreover, the United Nations Population Fund is predicting that, depending upon fertility rates, the global population could exceed nine billion by 2050 and even reach 15 billion by 2100. As individuals we know how much we consume, and […]

Tech Talk – Drilling off the Atlantic Coast

When the Presidential Administration changes, particularly when that change involves different political parties, the results on energy policy, and ultimately energy availability and price can be, but are not always, significant. In recent posts I have cited Governor Perry’s Energy Plan were he to come to power, and have noted that, for some issues, the change in […]

Peak Oil Personalities

Peak Oil Personalities is a collection of biographical essays by some of those who have played – and continue to play – a crucial role in raising awareness about the impact of Peak Oil. Compiled by Colin Campbell, a pioneering exponent of the Peak Oil concept and a founder of ASPO, it shows how the […]

World War 3: A Foregone Conclusion?

The hypno-induced psychotic public can’t even hear the war drums any more, no matter how loud. They’ve become background music, white noise or something to tap your foot to. With sadistic glee still warm over Gadhafi’s public torture and execution through the streets of Libya, the bloodthirsty mind-controlled western public will count a Syrian overthrow […]

Michael Ruppert @ Occupy Santa Rosa

Michael Ruppert was interviewed by Walking Elephant Theatre Company at Occupy Santa Rosa on day 16 of the Occupation at City Hall. Mr. Ruppert will be portrayed, word-for-word, by a teen actor in the original play “Civil Disobedience – The Musical” created by the cast from interviews they conducted with brilliant and charismatic people about […]

Peak Oil: Why We Need To Plan Now

It was by teaching a course on energy in 2004 that I first became aware of the enormous challenges facing our society this century. In preparing for the course, I was initially convinced that I would identify a sensible and obvious path forward involving energy from solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, tides, waves, ocean currents, etc. […]

Iran now top threat to U.S. says military official

Iran is the biggest threat to the United States and its allies in the Middle East, surpassing al Qaeda, which is down but not out, a senior military official said on Friday. “The biggest threat to the United States and to our interests and to our friends, I might add, has come into focus and […]

IAEA report to detail efforts by Iran to develop a nuclear weapon

The upcoming report by the International Atomic Energy Agency will make the most detailed charges to date that Iran’s nuclear program is geared toward weapons development and military use, several Western diplomats briefed on the report told CNN. The diplomats said that the report, expected to be released by the U.N. nuclear watchdog next week, […]

Peak Oil and ERoEI: Still Nonsense

I wrote recently about how peak oil is a rather nonsensical concept: technology is advancing at such a rate that we’re discovering entire new planets to explore for the stuff. The latest comment to come back to me on that argues that because of ERoEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) peak oil really is a […]

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