Plateau Oil meets 125m Chinese cars

That proved to be the pain barrier in the 1970s and again in 2008, and we are just shy of that level right now. “Oil is already capturing a higher level of European GDP than in 2008,” said Francisco Blanch from Bank of America. The rule of thumb is that a 10pc rise in crude […]

Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei Leads In Iran Parliamentary Election, As Iran Announces Huge Oil Field Discovery

The results from Iran’s parliamentary election, whose outcome will have virtually no impact on the country’s foreign, nuclear or Iran policy, and thus change the country’s course vis-a-vis Israel and the US, are in, and following a supposedly high turnout as big as 64% which critics have blasted as a sham (unlike American low turnouts […]

Global poverty on the decline: World Bank

The rate of poverty, based on the number of people living on less than $1.5 a day, declined across the developing world between 2005 and 2008, according to a World Bank report. Around 1.29 billion people lived below the defined poverty line in 2008, which was equivalent to 22 per cent of the population of […]

Two Scenarios for Our Post-Petroleum Future

Even those who admit the existence of a problem with petroleum decline are a small minority of the human race, but working within that framework we can nevertheless say that there is quite a spectrum of opinion. In the general absence of established liturgies, creeds, or canons, no absolute definitions are possible, but there seem […]

Peak oil: Meet the frackers

All the oil majors and energy agencies – including ExxonMobil, BP, the IEA and the EIA – project that we can meet growing world oil demand for the next two decades with increased production from OPEC, more unconventional oil production, biofuels, better extraction technology and massive growth in the uptake of hybrid cars. But there’s […]

Cheap natural gas slows drilling

Low prices for natural gas are rippling through the San Juan Basin, causing some drillers to reconsider their plans. Prices have been on a sharp decline as shales in Pennsylvania, North Dakota and elsewhere boomed, flooding the markets with natural gas. Oil and gas industry insiders say natural gas is now so cheap that it’s […]

Hidden in plain sight: Total Liquids is a Big Lie

There are a fair number of reports which present a particular data series: Total Liquids in Barrels over Time. For an example of this I will use a recent post to The Oil Drum which features a chart based on US DOE EIA data for total liquids in barrels over time. January Oil Supply Stuart […]

Iran Sanctions Don’t Determine China’s Oil Needs

Sanctions imposed on Iran won’t influence China’s oil imports from the country, the nation’s former energy head said. “China’s crude import costs may be pushed up by tension in Iran as oil prices could rise on supply concern,” Zhang Guobao, former head of China’s National Energy Administration, said at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference […]

Global mining boom is leading to landgrab

The global mining, oil and gas industries have expanded so fast in the last decade they are now leading to large-scale “landgrabbing” and threatening farming and water supplies, according to a report by environment and development groups in Europe, Africa and India. “The catalogue of devastation is growing. We are no longer talking about isolated […]

Paul Gilding The Earth is full

Have we used up all our resources? Have we filled up all the livable space on Earth? Paul Gilding suggests we have, and the possibility of devastating consequences, in a talk that’s equal parts terrifying and, oddly, hopeful. Paul is an independent writer, activist, and adviser on a sustainable economy.  

Combining domestic coal with nuclear energy to make oil?

As a South Central Virginia resident, I have something in common with the people in the Pacific Northwest who are concerned about the impact of coal exports from the US. Numerous coal laden trains pass through Lynchburg every day, many of them headed to the large coal terminal in Newport News. I can hear the […]

Ruppert Forecasting a collapse

For a prophet of doom, Michael Ruppert looked remarkably cheery last week surveying the vegetable plots and chicken coop in his large sloping backyard in the Graton hills. Nearly a year after moving to Sonoma County, the Southern California transplant says he’s so delighted by his new environs he has to pinch himself. But even […]

It’s time to love the bus

America needs to accept the fact that its most despised form of transport is also its hope for the future The Guardian hailed it as “a stately vehicle” that conveys “a sense of privilege.” British car mag Autocar road-tested it and praised its “brilliant economy and an interior to die for.” It isn’t a Jag […]

Sizing Up Health Impacts a Year After Fukushima

Health impacts from the radioactive materials released in the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns will probably be too small to be easily measured, according to experts assembled by the Health Physics Society for a panel discussion on Thursday. And the area cordoned off by the Japanese government as uninhabitable is probably far too large, the experts said. […]

Crude Oil And Inflation Economic Crisis

Conventional wisdom says high oil prices raise inflation and slow down economic growth. Recessions are therefore caused anytime oil prices spike, we are invited to believe. In the real world, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi has lowered interest rates twice since he took over as head of the ECB in November, as oil prices […]

BP settles Gulf spill lawsuits for at least $7.8B

BP’s settlement of lawsuits filed by more than 100,000 victims of the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history goes a long way toward resolving pending claims. But the question remains, will Americans who live along the Gulf of Mexico go for it? BP expects to pay out $7.8 billion and anticipates that a separate […]

End of growth not end of the line

Cheap, readily available fossil fuels drove unprecedented economic expansion over the past hundred years, but the tank is starting to run dry — and if we want our economy to run smoothly again, we’re all going to have to get out and push. That was the wake-up call delivered in Corvallis Wednesday night by Richard […]

Putin urges joint Arctic scientific council with Canada

Russian leader Vladimir Putin challenged Canada to set up a joint scientific council with his country to investigate issues over Arctic sovereignty and help the United Nations draw new boundaries in the northern regions, where fast-melting ice is opening channels for oil drilling, mining and shipping. There are Canadian concerns that Russia is exploring the […]

Electricity consumption in Portugal collapsing

When Portugal committed together with the other members of the European Union to the 20-20-20 targets in 2006 it would be perhaps difficult for its political leaders to imagine that they would reached so soon. Six years later energy consumption in Portugal is declining in almost all fronts, the European Energy Policy has become largely […]

Demonstrations in Eastern Saudi continue; posters call for burning of oil!

  Demonstrations continued today in oil-rich Eastern Saudi Arabia. Above, a photo of a demonstrator in Qatif raising posters in solidarity with Yemen. The smaller poster, left, shows an oil barrel; the word oil was written in both Arabic and English, and then a hand was setting fire to it, stating underneath “a message to […]

Big Oil moving fast to get ahead of Peak Oil

Christophe de Margerie, chief executive officer of France’s global integrated oil company Total SA ( TOT , quote ), has emerged as one of the highest-profile supporters for the peak oil school of thought, which contends the world will eventually run out of economically extractable petroleum. Big Oil companies like Total seem to have strapped […]

Disclosing more detail about fracking chemicals might be wise

While some in the natural gas industry may think they have gone the extra mile in making public information about the chemicals used in fracking fluids, the fact is many people don’t think the industry has come close to meeting their concerns. Go to any public hearing on drilling and sooner or later someone in […]

World Production Update

The EIA, IEA and JODI have updated their numbers so it is time for a small update on some world production charts. Figure 1. World oil production (EIA Monthly) for crude oil + NGL. The median forecast is calculated from 15 models that are predicting a peak before 2020 (Bakhtiari, Smith, Staniford, Loglets, Shock model, […]

Peak Everything and a Perpetual No Growth Economy

Many heterodox economists and post-carbon researchers – most notably Richard Heinberg in several books but particularly in his seminal The End of Growth and Chris Martenson in The Crash Course – have recognized that, among other lesser causes, because of peak oil, the core source of energy that has been driving our economy for over […]

What Would It Take for US Gas to Hit $5 per Gallon?

After returning from a business trip to California, I don’t find media speculation concerning the possibility of $5 gasoline later this year quite as far-fetched as I might have last week. Perhaps seeing $4.299 per gallon posted for unleaded regular on many street corners there, compared to $3.699 or so here, gave me a touch […]

Japan wants Alaska’s North Slope natural gas

A group of Japanese officials have been in Anchorage to discuss sending liquefied natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to Japan. Some accounts say that the Japanese are interested in building part, or even the entire, big pipeline that would take gas from the the Arctic oil fields to tidewater, but that couldn’t be confirmed. […]

CNN: T. Boone Pickens’ 5-year plan for energy prices

Billionaire energy investor T. Boone Pickens provides his plan to drastically cut foreign oil imports.

Future of food in Japan

Food is culture. This is especially true in a food-obsessed country like Japan where the national cuisine uniquely reflects the natural environment, regional diversity and underlying value system of this resilient country. If you were to think of your ten favourite Japanese dishes what would they be? Your list would likely include sushi and sashimi. […]

China’s One-Child Policy Dilemma for Leaders

As the world’s largest national congress meets in Beijing to prepare for new leadership, likely successor Xi Jinping will inherit a roadblock to growth dating back almost to the era of Mao Zedong: the one-child policy. Implemented in 1979 to alleviate poverty, the restriction on family size will cut the number of 15- to 24-year-olds, […]

Saudi Arabia Sees No Sabotage to Petroleum Facilities

Saudi Arabia said late today there was no sabotage to its oil facilities in the Qatif region. The statement came from Major General Mansour Al-Turki, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, after reports of a fire near the Ras Tanura refinery.  Bloomberg

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