Statoil big Arctic oil find could be bigger-report

A major oil find in the Arctic made by Statoil could contain an extra 350 million barrels of oil reserves, Norwegian daily Dagens Naeringsliv reported on Friday. The Skrugard oil find – so far estimated to contain between 200 and 300 million barrels, with a potential to hold up to 500 million barrels – boosted […]

peak oil is about price, not supply

Heading down to Washington to speak at the Association for Peak Oil-USA‘s Truth in Energy conference on Nov. 2, I sense a general malaise within the peak oil movement. The pequists, as they have become known, appear to be on the defensive these days as they once again roll back their dating of the dreaded […]

Peak Oil: No Quick Fix

In response to criticism of his handling of gas prices, President Obama has repeatedly stated that there is “no quick fix.”  To some extent, this is true.  But then, where has he been for three and a half years? That’s been more than enough time to fix the problem, but he’s done nothing but make […]

What US Energy Independence Would Take

The New York Times has a big story on moves toward US oil independence: Across the country, the oil and gas industry is vastly increasing production, reversing two decades of decline. Using new technology and spurred by rising oil prices since the mid-2000s, the industry is extracting millions of barrels more a week, from the […]

Unhappy public not sure who to blame for high gas

Families canceling vacations. Fishermen watching their profits burn up along with their boats’ gasoline. Drivers buying only a few gallons of gas at a time because they can’t afford to fill the tank. From all corners of the country, Americans are irritated these days by record-high fuel prices that have soared above $4 a gallon […]

A Natural Gas Reality Check

While T.Boone talks sense and gets to vent his frustration regularly on air, the sad reality is that although the obstacles for substitution to NatGas are not insurmountable, as Michael Cembalest notes we do not get the sense that an NGV fleet is imminent, even with very high gasoline prices. The best shale gas plays […]

World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate Catastrophe

Almost six years ago, I was the editor of a single-topic issue on energy for Scientific American that included an article by Princeton University’s Robert Socolow that set out a well-reasoned plan for how to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below a planet-livable threshold of 560 ppm. The issue came replete with technical solutions that […]

The Vampire Economy and the Market

1. Authoritarian Capitalism (Fascism) and Liberal Capitalism (the Free Market) What is sometimes referred to as “authoritarian capitalism,” or fascism, is in fact a variety of statism, specifically socialism, the system of political economy in which the prerogatives of ownership over the means of production and distribution are vested in the state. Under the fascist […]

Tom Murphy Interview: Resource Depletion is a Bigger Threat than Climate Change

Rising geopolitical tensions and high oil prices are continuing to help renewable energy find favour amongst investors and politicians. Yet how much faith should we place in renewables to make up the shortfall in fossil fuels? Can science really solve our energy problems, and which sectors offers the best hope for our energy future? To […]

No water, no food

Water is a basic necessity of life, yet it remains inaccessible for a large part of the world’s population. At present, almost one fifth of the global population (about 1.2 billion people) live in areas which are water scarce and a quarter live in developing countries that face water shortages. Globally the situation is getting […]

Crude Oil Prices And The ‘Peak Oil’ Environment

Peak Oil can be defined at least 4 ways but one way is simple: Peak Oil is when supplies and stocks are tight enough, relative to demand, to make price slides short and price hikes long, until and unless the economy tilts into recession or by policy decision in response to a dysfunctional and parasitic […]

America: crossing the line

The struggle between Northern and Southern models of human ecology in nineteenth-century America, the theme of last week’s post, determined more than the shape of American continental expansion. The South followed what was becoming the standard pattern in the non-European world during that century, focusing on the production of commodities that were traded on global […]

Gas Set to Test Capacity Limits

The boom in natural-gas production has hit a new pressure point: The U.S. is running out of storage space. Gas output has reached record levels in recent months, thanks in large part to the expansion of shale-gas fields. And the warm U.S. winter has reduced the amount of gas needed to heat homes and offices. […]

UK: The Dash for Gas Isn’t Over Yet

Over the weekend the UK Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, announced plans to secure a continuing role for natural gas in the UK power generation sector. Mr Davey noted; “Gas will continue to play a vital role in a low-carbon economy. Modern gas-fired power stations are relatively quick to build and twice […]

Act before 7 billion crowd urban areas

More than six billion men, women and children will inhabit urban areas around the world in 2050 when the global population would have surged to nine billion, putting stress on the natural resources that supply energy and food. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), over a quarter of population in 30 […]

Crude Oil is Going to $500 a Barrel

Today crude oil and related oil producing assets are substantially “undervalued” and misunderstood by Wall Street analysts and main street investors.  With seemingly high prices for crude oil and refined products like gasoline, widespread disbelief exists that oil can climb yet higher.  On the contrary, the sheer size of record money printing by the U.S. […]

What’s The Big Deal About “Resilience”?

On March 23, Future Tense—a partnership of Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University that explores emerging technologies, policy, and society—will hold a live event in Washington, D.C., on the concept of resilience. Academics, policymakers, and other experts will discuss resilience in the environment, business, national security, even the Constitution. Slate’s Matt Yglesias and Emily […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Parsing the Bakken

There is a lot of talk recently that “tight oil” as found in North Dakota’s Bakken and other shales in the Southwest will save America from stagnant global oil production and increasing gasoline prices. The current glut of natural gas which has brought prices to a 10-year low has forced companies drilling for gas to […]

Saudi Arabia Losing Control of Oil, McNally Says

Bob McNally, president and founder of Rapidan Group LLC, talks about Saudi Arabia’s oil production and the outlook for oil prices. Saudi Arabia can increase crude production by as much as 25 percent immediately if needed, the country’s oil minister said, seeking to allay the concern over supplies that has driven prices to the highest […]

The Jury Is Still Out on Leviathan

In 2006, American oil company Noble Energy of Houston and Israeli company Ratio Oil Exploration received a license to explore Leviathan , a deep-water gas field in the Mediterranean about 130 kilometers from Israel’s coastline. At the end of 2010, the two companies announced that Leviathan contains 450 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, […]

Latest EIA Fuel Breakdown

Recall that the recent history of total liquid production looks like this (not zero scaled): There was a sharp jump in total production last fall – October and Novermber particularly – but then it tentatively looks like it’s been rather flat since December (subject to confirmation by further data and revisions).  However, overall the world […]

Is Earth overpopulated?

Most of our serious problems in the world today can be traced back to the impact of human populations on the environment. With each person requiring energy, space and resources to survive, the stress on the planet of the world population, currently estimated to be seven billion, is enormous. Richard Cardullo, a professor of biology […]

The Age of Cheap Oil Has Ended

While motorists feel the pain of the recent ascent of the oil price to near record levels, the underlying reality of rising oil prices has profound implications right across society. Barring an unprecedented oil discovery, the world will never again see the return of cheap oil. Oil prices will certainly never return to the levels […]

Space-Based Solar Power

A solar panel reaps only a small portion of its potential due to night, weather, and seasons, simultaneously introducing intermittency so that large-scale storage is required to make solar power work at a large scale. A perennial proposition for surmounting these impediments is that we launch solar collectors into space—where the sun always shines, clouds […]

US gives exemption on Iran sanctions to 11 nations

The Obama administration on Tuesday exempted 10 European Union countries and Japan from U.S. economic sanctions because they have significantly reduced their purchases of petroleum from Iran. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton granted waivers to Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Japan, meaning that banks and […]

Trust in China’s Economic Stability Misplaced

If China’s economy stumbles even a tiny bit, the repercussions on world commodity markets could prove extreme. For the last few years, China has provided the biggest boost to global demand for commodities — including crude oil. Many analysts have expressed concern about the long-term sustainability of China’s current growth model. But well connected investment […]

Why won’t Obama mention peak oil? Blame Rush Limbaugh

Earlier this month, the one-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident came and went with barely a whimper. Now, with the two-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon spill coming up in April, the media probably won’t do much better. Instead, all the talk these days seems to be about drill-baby-drilling our way back to the […]

Surfers, Fishermen and Radiation in Post Earthquake Japan

Journalist Lisa Katayama  and filmmaker Jason Wishnow are documenting the lives of people dealing with radiation in a Post-Earthquake Japan. In We Are All Radioactive, they are including 50% footage made by themselves in the areas around Fukushima Power Plant that had a meltdown after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, and 50% footage […]

UAE to build LNG terminal that bypasses Strait of Hormuz

An energy company in the United Arab Emirates said Tuesday it is developing a terminal to receive liquefied natural gas supplies on the country’s eastern coast, bypassing the strategically sensitive Strait of Hormuz. The new terminal will be located in the port city of Fujairah, which unlike most of the country faces the Gulf of […]

Heinberg: Fun with Trends

If current population trends continue . . . The population of the United States will increase to over 600 million by 2080, and in 2150 it will equal China’s present size. World population will achieve 14 billion by the year 2075 and 30 billion by 2150. If current energy trends continue . . . By […]

« 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