Obama administration announces desert ‘solar energy zones’

The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled its road map for solar energy development, directing large-scale industrial projects to 285,000 acres of desert land in the western U.S. while opening 20 million acres of the Mojave for new development. The Bureau of Land Management’s long-awaited “solar energy zones” are intended to make some of the desert’s […]

New technologies revive fading oil fields

n a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper, Hal Washburn is drilling for oil. Using a black high-definition computer screen, the petroleum engineer traces the ghostly white outlines of century-year-old vertical oil wells punctuated by the bright green and red of more recent efforts. The newer wells flare with what look like thousands of tiny hairs; the […]

China Doubles Down on Nuclear Power

Beijing presses forward with its reactor building boom. China’s surging economy runs mostly on coal, which slakes four-fifths of the country’s thirst for electricity. And all over China, the consequences of that dependence are apparent: Its major cities are swathed in deadly smog, regional blackouts ensue when coal trains bog down on clogged rail networks, […]

China won’t follow US on carbon emissions

China will not allow its carbon dioxide emissions per person to reach levels seen in the US, according to the minister in charge of climate policy. Xie Zhenhua, vice chair of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that to let emissions rise that high would be a “disaster for the world”. Chinese per-capita emissions […]

Blow-By-Blow Account of the Fukushima Accident

Sometimes it takes a disaster before we humans really figure out how to design something. In fact, sometimes it takes more than one. Millions of people had to die on highways, for example, before governments forced auto companies to get serious about safety in the 1980s. But with nuclear power, learning by disaster has never really […]

Saudi oil production cut looms

Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest oil producers, may soon cut oil production. The move, which some analysts believe may have already begun, comes in response to additional supplies coming online from elsewhere. The country, which had ramped up production earlier this year in response to the Libyan crisis, has been eyeing the resumption […]

Cheniere to Export LNG: The Beginning of a New Energy Era

It takes a visionary (Sharif Souki), a surfeit of US natural gas and a 4-to-1 price disparity between what the US and what other people pay and you have the makings of perhaps, if not the biggest certainly part of the biggest, energy stories for some time.   The just announced 20 year contract between […]

Oil Puts the Squeeze On the Economy

Peak Moment 204: This turbulent, troubled global economy is precisely what Chris Martenson predicted in early 2010, “When Exponential Meets Reality” (episode 166). He asserts that we can no longer look at the economy without factoring in the terminal decline of its master resource — oil. The author of “The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future […]

7 Billion Reasons Malthus Was Wrong

You’d think after 200 years, folks would eventually say, “That Malthus guy? Kind of wrong.” Yet, with the (projected) birth today of the world’s 7 billionth occupant, there’s no shortage of media hand-wringingabout the dim prospects of our world from here. Thomas Malthus is famous (or infamous, depending on your view) for his belief that human […]

Ten Ways You Can Screw Up Your Life

Ten Ways You Can Screw Up Your Life Today we have DOTE’s inaugural guest post. Bill Hicks (a pseudonym) of the excellent blog The Downward Spiral gives us some practical advice for living in a rapidly changing world. I hope this will be the first of many guest posts by Bill and others. — Dave […]

Kunstler: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

 I landed back in the USA Wednesday from Sweden. What a downer to be reminded that more people speak English in the foreign country you just came from, and to notice what a slum airport New York’s JFK is. “Wretched refuse yearning to be free,” the poem at the statue of liberty’s base declares. How […]

Busy Bees and Biofuels

My partner and I have been reading the interesting if somewhat unusual book “Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping” by Mark Magill. One particular paragraph in the book struck me as a compelling analogy for the difference between biofuels and oil. It beautifully captures the incredible amount of work bees perform to harvest energy from […]

The Triumph of King Coal

This year’s UN climate negotiations are in Durban, South Africa. Many delegates will already be looking forward to the chance of going on safari after their labors, visiting Kruger National Park or one of the country’s other magnificent game reserves. But I have another suggestion. Visit the enemy. Just two hours’ drive up the Indian […]

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LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

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