The Oil Production Peak: Consequences and Costs

The production of oil has not increased since 2005, despite an increase in the demand. This phenomenon, called “Peak Oil”, and its consequences on the price of the oil and for our society, are discussed in a report published in Nature in January 2012. Oil and Its Importance for Our Society Petroleum, normally referred to […]

Saudi Aramco, South Korea S-Oil sign long-term supply deal

Saudi Aramco has signed a rare long-term crude oil supply deal with S-Oil of South Korea in an apparent attempt to defray fears in the Asian country about supply losses from Iran. Last month, the European Union’s imposed sanctions (OGJ Online, Jan. 26, 2012). The deal assures S-Oil, in which an Aramco unit is the […]

Post Peak Oil

A short film by Damien Rafferty. Post apocalyptic world.

Richard Heinberg challenges “binary thinking”

When he scans the current geopolitical lay-of-the-land, California-based peak oil educator and author Richard Heinberg can only reach one conclusion. “We’re fighting over the crumbs,” Heinberg told the Straight via cellphone from 100 Mile House, where he was giving a talk on February 8. “That’s what’s happening. The world is preparing to fight over the […]

Rethinking Climate Doom in Germany: Chaos in Climate Camp

One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he […]

The new geography of trade

It is an article of faith that global trade will be an ever-growing presence in the world. Yet this belief rests on shaky foundations. Global trade depends on cheap, long-distance freight transportation. Freight costs will rise with climate change, the end of cheap oil and policies to mitigate these two challenges. At first, the increase […]

John Michael Greer: Looking Backward, Looking Ahead

Over the last few weeks, after many detours, this blog’s path has finally finished traversing a landscape I first sighted more than a year and a half ago. I’d like to take a moment here to glance back over the territory we’ve crossed together in that time, wrap up some loose ends, and then take […]

Nestle CEO: Feeding the World Will Be More Difficult

Chief Executive Officer Paul Bulckesaid feeding a swelling world population will be made more difficult by slowing crop-yield growth and scarce resources. Following are comments Bulcke made at the “Feeding the World” meeting organized by Economist Conferences in Geneva yesterday. Nestle’s products include KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafe instant coffee. “In the next 40 years, […]

How to Trigger an Ice Age the Easy Way, Killing Billions of People

The secret to killing billions and billions of people without being too obvious about it, is to make it difficult or impossible to grow enough food to feed them. Geological history demonstrates that the best way of doing this — short of a global thermonuclear war — is by triggering a global ice age. If […]

The alternative energy matrix

Breathe, Neo. I’ve been running a marathon lately to cover all the major players that may provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels this century. Even though I have not exhausted all possibilities, or covered each topic exhaustively, Iam exhausted. So in this post, I will provide a recap of all the schemes discussed thus far, […]

The politics of peak oil

Both Murray/King and Macdonald are using data from the EIA, so I’m not sure why there’s a discrepancy. It’s not clear which EIA data set the former are using, but Macdonald notes that because EIA doesn’t update its multiple data sets uniformly, he always uses the most recent Monthly Energy Review. (I did not spot […]

Energy Imagine a world without oil: Infographic

Infographic courtesy of One Block off the Grid

Iran deploys 15,000 troops to help Syria’s Assad

Prominent Syrian lawmaker says the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force has recently arrived in the country to help manage Assad’s regime brutal suppression of a 11-month-long popular unrest. A top Iranian military official is activily aiding the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in suppressing popular unrest throughout the country, a […]

Alaska Oil Production

Perception versus the reality of peak oil. I asked 10 Americans the question, “How is oil production going up in Alaska?” Nine said they do not know, and one said great. Here is the truth in my personal Chart of the Day.   Alaska produces about 10% of the oil in the US. It once was producing […]

Obama administration outlines Arctic energy policy initiatives

Obama administration officials announced a series of initiatives that they said are aimed at bringing the best available science to energy-related decisions in the Arctic. The initiatives include development of an Arctic environmental emergency response mechanism by this summer, they told the Alaska Forum on the Environment in Anchorage. “We must draw on the best […]

Are smart meters a plot to overthrow the United States?

The New York Times’ Leslie Kaufman and Kate Zernike had some fun over the weekend at the expense of an apparently large number of Americans, including a top presidential contender, who think clean energy is a subversive plot to create a world government led by the United Nations. Many people are merely annoyed by smart […]

Businessweek Gets it Wrong – Everything You Know About Peak Oil is ‘Not’ Wrong

On January 26, Bloomberg Businessweek printed an editorial by Charles Kenny titled, “Everything You Know About Peak Oil Is Wrong”. This editorial reflects several common misunderstandings. According to Kenny: Titled Limits to Growth, their report suggested the world was heading toward economic collapse as it exhausted the natural resources, such as oil and copper, required […]

Cuba on the Road to Clean Energy Development

More than a decade ago, solar electricity changed the lives of several mountain communities in Cuba. Now this and other renewable power sources are emerging as the best options available to develop sustainable energy across the island. “If the world’s clean energy potential exceeds our consumption needs, why do we insist on using the polluting […]

Iraqi Oil Production

It’s been over six months since we checked in on Iraqi oil production.  After going to the trouble of updating the spreadsheet this morning with four different data sources, I see why.  Watching Iraqi oil production grow is like watching paint dry.  It is growing, but very, very slowly.  At this rate it will take […]

Kunstler: All Screaming Id, No Brains, No Honor

A Martian psychoanalyst observing the US Superbowl on TV would be shocked by the vicious animal spirits emanating from that spectacle, starting with the triumphal trumpet blasts borrowed straight from the old 1950s Hollywood epic movies echoing the prideful mis-steps of ancient Rome, along with the by-now clichéd CGI trick in the opening credits of […]

The Real Cost of ‘Peak Oil’

Now that oil is a long way from the $145 per barrel peak it hit in July 2008, and nobody on Wall Street is predicting—as Goldman Sachs did in 2008—that oil is headed to $250 a barrel, we’re not hearing much about peak oil anymore. The peak oil model, initially developed by oil geologist King […]

Fukushima Reactors Heating Up Again … Water Fails to Cool Them Down

Steam Seen Rising from Reactors Temperatures are soaring within the reactor 2 containment vessel. And see this. Tepco says that no new nuclear chain reactions are occurring … but admits that the water may no longer be able to cool the reactor. As NHK reports: Attempts to cool the temperature in the No. 2 reactor […]

How Cheap Natural Gas Hurts Miners

Cheap natural gas creates winners and losers. Coal miners fall into the latter camp, Liam Denning reports on Markets Hub.

Peak Water: The Rise and Fall of Cheap, Clean H2O

The Earth’s surface is mostly water, yet across increasingly large swaths of the planet, H2O reservoirs are drying up. This isn’t a metaphor, and it’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact that’s changing the destinies of companies and nations. Three of the world’s greatest rivers, the Colorado in the U.S., the Nile in Egypt and the […]

Counting barrels of crude

Industry analysts lately have been counting barrels—barrels of refining capacity lost as plants shut down on both sides of the Atlantic; barrels of crude flowing into the US Midwest and their impact on prices for West Texas Intermediate; and barrels of supply that may be lost if the European Union activates its proposed embargo on […]

Liquid Wood, Anybody?

One of the most abundant forms of renewable energy available in the United States is wood residue from forestry operations. The carbon in wood residue is bound to go back to the atmosphere, either as carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of combustion (natural or controlled fire), or through methane (CH4), as a result of […]

Farmers Can Grow Food for All, as Long as Ecosystems Hold

Thomas Malthus, history’s celebrated pessimist, wrote in 1798 that, should war and disease fail to claim humanity, “gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.” The concept of “peak food,” that the production will reach an apex that can’t be topped, is […]

Community supported agriculture

Community supported agriculture is a community-led initiative connecting organic growers with local consumers, each group of consumers supporting a farm by purchasing directly from the grower, in order that the grower may have an assured market for the produce and the consumers know exactly where and under what conditions their food is grown. Each such […]

PetroChina to buy 20% of Shell’s Canadian shale gas assets

PetroChina, a unit of China National Petroleum Corp., has signed a binding agreement to purchase a 20% stake in Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s Groundbirch assets in northeastern British Columbia. “I can confirm that CNPC will join us in Canada,” said Shell’s Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser. “It’s part of our global partnership to optimize our […]

Oil, Food, Water: Is Everything Past Its Peak?

An unprecedented crisis faced America. Oil production was going to peak in just three to five years, resulting in foreign oil addiction and economic calamity. The scientist responsible for slapping the nation into consciousness implored industry and government to act: “The smug complacency that habitually blinds the American public must be torn,” wrote David White, […]

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