Globex Failure Throws Oil-Futures Market Into Confusion

Crude futures settled higher Monday in a chaotic trading session as a failure of CME Group’s Inc.’s Globex electronic oil-trading platform shut out scores of traders and forced all trading onto the New York Mercantile Exchange floor. Brokers on the Nymex floor rushed into the normally sleepy oil-futures pit in the final half-hour of trading […]

Flawed views on peak oil rear their ugly heads again

The debate over peak oil is stalked by zombie ideas that live on, no matter how many times they are stamped upon. The latest significant article warning of declining oil supplies manages to revive not just one but at least six of these false concepts. An article by the oceanographer James Murray and the former […]

Tidal Energy: the Next Wave in Alternative Energy

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently issued its first pilot project license for a tidal energy project located in New York City’s East River. The project is owned by Verdant Power and is known as the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project. The project’s capacity is 1,050-kilowatts and uses the East River’s natural tidal […]

Gunfights in Saudi Arabia Show Spread of Iran Tensions

Armored anti-riot vehicles cluster outside the police station in Awwamiya in Saudi Arabia’s oil- producing eastern region, where unrest is turning violent. “We have enough police force to deal with any criminal or prohibited situation,” says Brigadier-General Yousef al-Qahtani as he drives through the town. In nearby al-Qatif, graffiti scrawled on a cemetery wall criticizes […]

Bahrain Favors Crude Oil Prices at $100 a Barrel

Bahrain’s energy minister said he would prefer oil prices to remain close to current levels, which allow producers to invest in output capacity without putting economic growth in the west at risk. Prices of $110 a barrel or more may “derail recoveries in a number of fragile Western economies,” Abdul Hussain Ali Mirza said yesterday […]

That falling feeling: Shale gas estimates continue downward

Estimates for recoverable shale gas just keep falling. Last year, the Potential Gas Committee, an industry consortium that focuses on long-term projections, estimated that recoverable natural gas from shale deposits in the United States would amount to 687 trillion cubic feet (tcf). (This optimistic appraisal laid the groundwork for the oft-repeated notion that the United […]

Peak Oil: Keeping Reality In Mind

A few more of those annoying facts to keep in mind as we (don’t) prepare for looming energy challenges, courtesy of three recent and excellent articles/interviews well worth the time to review in full [see Sources below for the links]: Nothing can replace oil as the lifeblood of our culture and there is no domestic […]

Peak oil moves to the mainstream

Something quite momentous happened on 26 January 2012. While most Australians were distracted with celebrating their national day, the world’s leading scientific journal, Nature, published its first serious commentary on peak oil. That’s right, peak oil took its final step from “extremist fringe conspiracy theory” to general acceptance by the world’s scientific community. The authors […]

Magical thinking: Kunstler and Berman on natural gas euphoria

Cartoon: Otherwords.org In Episode #192 of the Kunstlercast which aired February 2nd, James Howard Kunstler and Duncan Crary have done us all a great favor by interviewing noted petroleum geologist, Arthur Berman. Berman’s popular in the peak oil world. In addition to his day job as a petroleum geologist and consultant, he’s on the board […]

Is there really so much shale gas in the ground?

Shale gas fever has overtaken America, but we have seen this sort of mania before. In 2003 and 2004, a “hydrogen economy” was touted as the Next Big Thing. The United States was poised to run its 240 million cars and trucks on it some day, and wean itself off of oil. California would lead […]

Max Keiser interviews Dmitry Orlo

In this edition of the show Max interviews Dmitry Orlov from ClubOrlov.blogspot.com. He talks about how the American collapse will be the result of huge military budgets, government deficits, an unresponsive political system and declining oil production. Dmitry Orlov is a Russian-American engineer and a writer on subjects related to “potential economic, ecological and political […]

Three Major Journals Publish Articles on Limited World Oil Supply

In the past month, three major peer-reviewed journals have published articles relating to limited world oil supply: In Science, Technology is Turning U. S. Oil Around But Not the World’s, by Richard A. Kerr; In Nature, Climate Policy: Oil’s Tipping Point has Passed, by James Murray and David King; and In Energy, Oil Supply Limits and […]

The Fate Of New Truths: Peak Oil Appears On “Nature”

With the publication of a prominent article on “Nature” in January 2012, the concept of “Peak Oil” has made another step forward in the debate on resource depletion. This article has made me rethink of the past ten years of work that I did as a member of ASPO, the association for the study of […]

Sunny Diesel – Peak Oil Music Video

Recorded at People Music Studios in Toronto by my boy Brett Kibbler

U.S. Oil Fields Stage “Great Revival,” But No Easing Gas Prices

The United States has long been seen as a nation in its twilight as an oil producer, facing a relentless decline that began when President Richard Nixon was in the White House. He and every president since pledged to halt the U.S. slide into greater dependence on foreign oil, but the trend seemed irreversible—until now. […]

BP fines paid for spill may disappear into federal black hole

Barrels of bile were spilled in weeks leading up to the Florida primary. But that’s just a clean-up on aisle three compared to the epic five million barrels of crude oil that paralyzed the Gulf Coast states a couple of years ago. Well, BP’s bill is coming due and almost nine of 10 Floridians think […]

Masked men’ battle Saudi troops, 1 dies

One person was killed and three wounded when security forces exchanged gunfire with “masked men” in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich east, the official SPA news agency reported yesterday. Activists and witnesses said the casualties came when security forces opened fire on a Shiite demonstration in the Qatif district of the kingdom’s Eastern Province. “A security force […]

What An Economic Depression Looks Like In The 21st Century

Do you want to see what a 21st century economic depression looks like?  Just look at Greece.  Once upon a time, the Greek economy was thriving, the Greek government was borrowing money like there was no tomorrow and Greek citizens were thoroughly enjoying the bubble of false prosperity that all that debt created.  Those that […]

Why Going Back To Normal Is No Longer An Option For The American Economy–And Where We’re Headed Now

Former IMF chief economist Joseph Stiglitz has a message for everybody who’s sitting around waiting for the economy to “get back to normal.” Stop waiting. ‘Cause that train’s gone, and it ain’t coming back. And the sooner we accept that “normal,” as post WWII America knew and loved it, will not be an option in […]

Long live the hockey stick! Climate science fights back

The new book by Michael Mann tells the story of the reconstruction of past temperatures called “the hockey stick” because of its characteristic shape. Despite the propaganda campaign against climate science, climate scientists are standing their ground and fighting back. Repeat something a sufficient number of times and, eventually, people will believe it, no matter […]

Why Is Gasoline Consumption Tanking?

Gasoline deliveries reflect recession and growth. The recent drop in retail gasoline deliveries is signalling a sharp contraction ahead. Mish recently posted some intriguing charts depicting a significant decline in gasoline consumption (additional charts here). Then correspondent Joe R. forwarded me this stunning chart of gasoline retail deliveries, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration: (EIA) […]

Chris Martenson: Why Our Currency Will Fail

The idea that the very same economic forces that are currently plaguing Greece, et al., are somehow not relevant to the United States’ circumstances does not hold water.  As goes the rest of the world, so goes the US. When we back up far enough, it is clear that money and debt are there to […]

Extreme Risks: The 2011 Update

Extreme risks are potential events that are very unlikely to occur but would have a significant impact on economic growth and asset returns should they happen. The global financial crisis and its aftermath have demonstrated that risk management efforts cannot afford to stop at the 95th percentile (VaR95), and a holistic risk management framework should […]

Peak Everything — Why Everything Costs More

Peak Oil–No Longer the Right Question A Shell Oil geologist named M. King Hubbert predicted in 1956 that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s. When it did, Hubbert became the geologist equivalent of a rock star and gave the young environmental movement evidence for something it was seeking: a limit to growth. […]

My Decade of Being “Peak Oil Aware”

Science Magazine just published a great article about peak oil, and I realized it’s been exactly a decade since I became “peak oil aware.” 9/11 had just happened, and to try and understand the world I did something I wasn’t, as an American, supposed to do — I listened to Osama bin Laden and his […]

Pilot plant converts fruit and veggie waste into natural gas for cars

Some readers might remember the Mr. Fusion unit in Back to the Future that Doc Brown fills with household garbage, including a banana peel and some beer, to power the iconic time-traveling DeLorean. While we’re still some way from such direct means of running our cars on table scraps, researchers at Fraunhofer have developed a […]

Will Iran Be Attacked? Paul Craig Roberts

Aaron Dykes talks with economist, columnist, blogger and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, Paul Craig Roberts, about the faltering economy, the impending attack on Iran, and other topics. Washington has made tremendous preparations for a military assault on Iran. There is speculation that Washington has called off its two longest […]

Whither Crude

As Brent and WTI prices ebb and flow from local and global fundamentals and risk premia, Morgan Stanley notes that to be bullish from here, one would need to believe a supply disruption is coming. Considering conflict with Iran, sustained Middle East tensions, and the potential for sustained supply disruption their flowchart of price expectations […]

Japan’s Nuke dangers nowhere near resolved

n December, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced the “conclusion” of the meltdown crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, saying Tokyo Electric Power Co. was managing to keep the three crippled reactors cool, as well as the facility’s spent fuel pools. But a former special adviser to Naoto Kan, who was prime minister when […]

IEA Slashes Oil Demand Growth Forecast

The International Energy Agency Friday slashed its 2012 oil demand growth forecast for the second time in just a few weeks as the economic outlook weakened, just as oil production from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reached its highest level since October 2008. The IEA has cut half a million barrels a day from […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy