China urges yuan settlement for oil

China should use its own currency to pay for oil imports from the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia to boost the yuan’s global role and challenge the dollar’s dominance, a top Chinese commercial bank executive said in comments published on Monday. “If the yuan can be recognized by these oil producing countries and become […]

Growing population of Middle East sets food supply priority

My son, Charlie, is 4 months old and specialises in eating and growing. He does both at an alarming rate, and so he should, as he is a very happy and very healthy growing boy. Little does he know, however, that in excelling so superbly in both aspects of his recently acquired humanity, Charlie is […]

Natural-Gas Glut Could Bypass Europe

A major transformation of the global market for natural gas is under way. Fresh international supply routes are being drawn, new exporters are emerging and established trade patterns are being turned on their heads. Yet Europe, the world’s second-largest natural-gas market behind the U.S., stands apart from much of this change. It looks likely that […]

Building Sustainable Future Needs More Than Science

Contrary to popular belief, humans have failed to address the earth’s worsening emergencies of climate change, species’ extinction and resource overconsumption not because of a lack of information, but because of a lack of imagination, social scientists and artists say. At a conference for the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) here in […]

Toward Purpose And Meaning In A Too-Late World

One night, just after moving to California in 1976, as a young man fresh out of college, I had a vivid  dream.  In the dream, I was driving my VW bug on an isolated stretch of highway when I saw three mushroom clouds rising on the horizon.  Terrified, I pulled off the road and entered […]

Economic crisis slows U.S. population growth

For two consecutive years since 2009, the nation has grown just 0.7% a year, down from annual increases around 1% in previous years and the lowest since the late 1930s. The U.S. gained 2.2 million people from 2010 to 2011 — fewer than the 2.8 million added a decade earlier — reaching a total of […]

How you can tell that the peak oil debate is (almost) over

Protestations in the mainstream media that we need not worry about a peak in the rate of world oil production anytime soon are suddenly coming fast and furious. As a result, I was reminded both of Shakespeare and Gandhi. “The media doth protest too much,” I thought (with apologies to Queen Gertrude in Hamlet). As […]

Iran cuts off oil supplies to Britain, France

The move was confirmed by the country’s Oil Ministry, with the spokesman saying that Iran will be “selling its oil to new customers”. The statement has been posted on the Ministry’s shana.ir website. It appears to be a response to the European Union decision to ban Iranian oil imports, as part of ongoing sanctions designed […]

What Happens After ‘Peak Everything’?

Those of us investing in the resource sector are likely to be very familiar with the concept of “peak everything” — the notion that the world is running out of critical natural resources that can be economically mined. Oil, phosphorous, copper, coal, lithium, neodymium, water, and many others have all been prophesied as being past […]

Should not the world find a new source of energy?

The crude oil has reigned supreme for most of the last century. But, the grim reality is that peak oil is already here. The term “peak oil” doesn’t mean that there isn’t any more oil in the world. The crude oil has reigned supreme for most of the last century. But, the grim reality is […]

Why $200 oil is the subprime mortgage of energy

What does an oil price shock have to do with subprime mortgages? Well, consider this: the global economy found itself on the edge of the abyss in 2008 when reality — in the form of wildly overvalued mortgage securities — landed hard on the illusion that real estate-related investments were a guaranteed, perpetual cash machine. […]

Civilization Starter Kit v0.01

We are proud to release version 0.01 of the Civilization Starter Kit DVD – our OSE Christmas Gift to the World for 2011. While we could go on for weeks with improvements – our Publish Early and Often Policy dictates that today is the cutoff. The full DVD contents are now online, and we will author physical DVD copies by […]

Nuclear industry seen emerging from Fukushima shock

European Commission officials and energy experts believe nuclear power has turned the corner following the Fukushima disaster a year ago. Business representatives pleaded in favour of “better communication” to society following the incident, which prompted Germany to immediately close eight nuclear power plants. The comeback of nuclear energy and fossil fuels as well as hard […]

Cutting costs at DOE, and getting some people annoyed in the process

For people who cover the US federal government and its sprawling bureaucracy for a living, the roll-out of the president’s annual budget request can be a bit like Christmas and a bit like an Easter-egg hunt. Trawling through the thousands of pages of budget documents and sitting through budget briefing can yield charming revelations–and sometimes […]

Big Oil Wants to Kill the Keystone XL Pipeline

With America on the verge of achieving energy independence in the next five years by dramatically expanding domestic energy production, why should anyone be surprised that it’s Big Oil money that’s out to kill the Keystone XL Pipeline to prevent competition. Most Americans were stunned when the U.S. State Department on January 18th denied the […]

Peak Oil & Carbon Emissions R Squared Energy

Robert Rapier discusses peak oil 9 Febuary 2012

There’s No Tomorrow

Here is an excellent new animated short that ties resource depletion, environmental destruction and the end of growth into a single tidy package. For those of you already versed in this subject matter, this might still be good review; for those of you who don’t, PLEASE DON’T PANIC! And when introducing this to people, please […]

World Energy Consumption – Beyond 500 Exajoules

Today’s post goes into the global consumption of energy and provides a dataset in Excel for researchers on global primary energy consumption from 1830 to 2010. In other words, the energy contained in fossil fuels, uranium, and biomass in their raw form before processing into electricity, heat, or liquid fuel, and direct electricity production from […]

World oil supply debate between ex-Shell chief and ASPO-USA professor

Video of a spirited debate on peak oil between John Hofmeister (Shell) and Ted Patzek (University of Texas and ASPO-USA). The former president of Shell Oil Company debated Tad Patzek, Chair, Dept. of Petroleum Engineering, University of Texas on Feb 14 at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. The subject was: “The World Oil Supply: […]

German Army Peak Oil Study within 8 years oil shortages will collapse global economy

German army peak oil study released November 2010

Has the United States beaten peak oil? Not so fast.

In the past five years, warnings about peak oil have gained a lot of traction. U.S. oil production, after all, has fallen sharply since 1970. Global oil output has plateaued of late, even as China and India are demanding ever more crude. And that’s all caused prices to soar. Yet the recent shale-oil boom in […]

Humanity’s Growing Impact on the World’s Freshwater

As the human population has climbed past seven billion, and the consumption per person of everything from burgers to blue jeans has risen inexorably, the finiteness of Earth’s freshwater is becoming ever more apparent. It takes water to make everything, and the explosion of demand for all manner of products is draining rivers, shrinking lakes, […]

No Peak Oil – Why Then is Saudi Aramco Opening Old Wells for Heavy Crude?

Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979 demand of oil from Saudi Arabia fell from ten million barrels per day (bpd) to three million bpd. As a result of the reduced production many small oil wells were closed down, including the Dammam oil field, home to Saudi Arabia’s oldest wells. Sadad al- Husseini, once the executive […]

The End of the Peak Oil Theory

Last week I got caught up in a show from a few years ago called “Mega Disasters: Oil Apocalypse” on The History Channel, spelling out the doom our economy was facing as oil production declined over the next 100 years. Domestic production was already declining, and we had no plan B. Stock up on canned […]

Update on Middle Eastern Wars

Since the U.S. Has Been Planning Regime Change In Syria For Decades, I Guess the Little Things Like Working On the Same Side as Al Qaeda – or the Risk of Picking a Fight with Nuclear Powers China and Russia – Are Ignored AP reports: Top U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Thursday that al-Qaida of […]

Tactics and Strategy at the Strait of Hormuz

Afonso de Albuquerque arrived at the Indian Ocean in 1506 commanding a squadron of five war vessels integrated in Tristão da Cunha’s Armada. In the summer of 1507, after the conquest of Socotra, the Armada’s main objective, Afonso de Albuquerque parted on its own commanding a fleet of six vessels and 500 marines to take […]

How reliable are U.S. Department of Energy oil production forecasts?

Recently the U.S. Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration (U.S. DOE/EIA) came out with their preliminary Annual Energy Outlook 2012 (AEO2012) reference case forecast with considerable fanfare. The fanfare was due in large part to the statement: “U.S. production of domestic crude oil in the AEO2012 Reference case increases from 5.5 million barrels per day in […]

Study Says Fracking is Safe In Theory But Often Not In Practice

A university study asserts that the problems caused by the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” arise because drilling operations aren’t doing it right. The process itself isn’t to blame, according to the study, released today by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. The report is likely to […]

Heinberg: The Fight of the Century

As economies contract, a global popular uprising confronts power elites over access to the essentials of human existence. What are the underlying dynamics of the conflict, and how is it likely to play out? 1. Prologue As the world economy crashes against debt and resource limits, more and more countries are responding by attempting to […]

Chris Nelder: What EROI tells us about ROI

One of the key deficiencies of “unconventional” fuels is their low energy return on investment relative to conventional fuels. Many analysts have ignored this factor because investment decisions are made on the basis of the financial, not energy, return on investment. But a growing literature suggests that the two are intimately related. But before I […]

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