Understanding The New Price Of Oil

In the Spring of 2011, when Libyan oil production — over 1 million barrels a day (mpd) — was suddenly taken offline, the world received its first real-time test of the global pricing system for oil since the crash lows of 2009. Oil prices, already at the $85 level for WTIC, bolted above $100, and […]

World Water Forum: Water crisis is looming

The 6th annual World Water Forum began in Marseilles on Monday with a call to action to curb the looming global water crisis. The 6th annual World Water Forum [5] began in the French port city of Marseilles on Monday with speeches and reports underscoring the need to curb the looming global water crisis, Reuters […]

The E-Cat Horror

Some things, in life as in fiction, are highly predictable. One of these is the plot of horror movies. As the story moves on, you know exactly the destiny of the young lady who decides to undress and take a shower while alone in the house. And you know exactly what’s going to happen to […]

Has the Global Economy Become Less Vulnerable to Oil Price Shocks?

This paper examines the impact of oil price changes on global economic growth.  Unlike some of the recent studies, this paper finds that oil price rises have had significant negative impacts on world economic growth.  A time-series analysis of the data from 1971 to 2010 finds that an increase in real oil price by 10 […]

Big Brother and the Oil Company

In the midst of an election year, tied to a flurry of headlines about high prices for gasoline, there have been a lot of questions about the value and significance of government subsidies for the oil and gas industry. On a global scale, a closer look at the role of government subsidies reveals that they […]

Michael Klare: A tough-oil world

Oil prices are now higher than they have ever been — except for a few frenzied moments before the global economic meltdown of 2008. Many immediate factors are contributing to this surge, including Iran’s threats to block oil shipping in the Persian Gulf, fears of a new Middle Eastern war, and turmoil in energy-rich Nigeria. […]

U.S. asks Saudis to lift oil output

The United States is pressing Saudi Arabia to boost oil output to fill a likely supply gap arising from sanctions on Iran, Gulf oil officials said, adding that an increase in production is unlikely to be needed before July. Saudi Arabia is the only producer with spare capacity and oil importers will rely on Riyadh […]

What About Wood Heating

A series of columns on home design and home heating with a view to energy efficiency would not be complete without a discussion of the potential wood has for heating our homes. Mary and I heat our home with wood. We like it. It helps us maintain our connection with the earth that supports us. […]

Kunstler Brings Energy Message To Vermont

Download MP3 Let’s talk about our energy future. We’ve already reached the age of peak oil and fossil fuels are too dangerous for the environment anyway. Gas from shale oil in Canada? Far more pricey to extract than the industry would have you believe. OK, renewable energies-wind and solar-that’s the wave of the energy future. […]

World Energy Consumption Since 1820

Figure 1 shows the huge increase in world energy consumption that has taken place in roughly the last 200 years. This rise in energy consumption is primarily from increased fossil fuel use. Figure 1. World Energy Consumption by Source, Based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects together with BP Statistical […]

Peak Oil Denial: How Does This Help?

Whether or not Peak Oil is true cannot possibly be in doubt. Within anything other than a geological frame of time, oil is a finite substance. When it is burned, it is gone. Without stretching our brains very far, it is easy to conclude that anything that is finite and consumed will someday be gone. Peak Oil, then, […]

The Astounding Fuel Price Conundrum

Republicans have been out in force, trying to tar President Obama with gas prices that are approaching $4 a gallon, and that appear to be shooting for an all-time high into the driving season. But no one has even tried to out-claim Newt Gingrich, who in his desperation claimed that gas would miraculously plunge to […]

Toward Energy Literacy: Our “Peak Oil” Reality

“Energy literacy” and “peak oil literacy” should be requirements for pundits – and for citizens more generally. I’ve followed these issues for many years now, and the poor energy knowledge among even the chattering classes and punditry still amazes me. A recent MSNBC show allowed a guest to state, without challenge, that U.S. oil production […]

Kuwait Pumped 3 Million Barrels a Day in February

Kuwait pumped about 3 million barrels of oil a day last month, Farouk Al-Zanki, the chief executive of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. said. KPC has a contingency plan if the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf becomes closed, he said today in Kuwait, without providing any details. Demand for the company’s […]

Heinberg: Coal, Pipeline Politics, and $5 Gas

China Coal Update World coal production and consumption data for 2011 are not yet compiled and published, but one key number is in. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reports that the country’s coal output rose 8.7 percent from 2010 to reach 3.88 billion short tons last year. For comparison, US consumption in 2010 […]

Kunstler: Intermezzo

Unless your mobile home was blown all over the county on opening day of the tornado season, this must seem like an interlude of reassuring normality in the world’s convulsive wendings. The IED known as Greece has not quite yet exploded, loud as all the graveyard whistling that emanates from Europe might be. Even the […]

Peak Oil is back with a vengeance

Oil spikes usually metastasise once energy costs reach 9 per cent of global GDP. The longer they stay there, the greater the damage. 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 […]

Peak Oil: Keeping Reality In Mind (Pt 3)

Ponder what it means that half of all the oil ever burned has been burned over the past 22 years and wonder about where the supplies will come from to fund the next 22 years. [1] Thanks to Adam Smith and those who followed him, especially the current neoclassical economic theologians, we have seen such […]

The hunger games governments play

MOST experts agree that the world’s population will level out at around nine billion by 2050. It is also accepted that over three-quarters of the population will be concentrated in urban areas and that current economic growth trends will deliver higher real incomes for many, leading to a change in diets with increased demand for […]

Anticipation as Competitive Advantage

ASPO Ireland is kicking off its first event for 2012 by inviting back the two leading economists it brought to Ireland last year, Dr. Michael Kumhof from the research team at the IMF and Professor Steve Keen from the University of Western Sydney. Both Kumhof and Keen are participating in the influential INET conference in […]

Israel to delay strike on Iran until after US elections?

White House tells Sunday Times Obama pressed Netanyahu to postpone Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities until after November, adding president ‘might visit Israel in summer’ Israel will only strike Iranian nuclear facilities in September or after the United States presidential elections in November, a White House official told the British Sunday Times newspaper after […]

Physicist sees fusion powering the world

Solar energy will become competitive in 10 years and the world is set to enter the solar/hydrogen fusion era in 20 years, renowned theoretical physicist Dr Michio Kaku has told Gulf Times. “The falling cost of solar, hydrogen, renewable, wind power, geothermal power and the rising cost of fossil fuels will cross within 10 years, […]

China: Abrupt 70% Drops in Growth, Income; Trade Balance Plunges on Crude Oil Buy-Up

China’s trade deficit hit $31.5bn in February as exports slumped, underscoring concerns about slowing global demand and cooling growth in the world’s second-largest economy. February exports from China fell 23.6 per cent from the previous month, and rose a slower-than-expected 18.4 per cent from the previous year. The fall in exports, combined with spectacularly strong […]

Oil spill aftermath: A tale of three plaintiffs

The phone at Joan Strohmeyer’s fishing lodge has been ringing steadily since 2010, but not many of the calls are from customers who want to go fishing. Mainly, they are from lawyers who want her to sue British oil company BP Plc. The tidy, 62-room Lighthouse Lodge is perched near the Gulf of Mexico on […]

Tech Talk – a recap in light of Iranian Sanctions and Canadian production estimates

This series of posts has just completed a review of the different regions of Russian oil production, with the conclusion that while Russia may maintain current production levels of around 10.4 mbd for a short while, it faces rising domestic consumption levels at the same time that it is not replacing existing production at a […]

Japan to Try Floating Wind Turbines

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry is sponsoring an experimental offshore floating wind farm project. The project will be carried out by a consortium made up of Marubeni as project integrator, the University of Tokyo, Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI Marine United, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, Nippon Steel, Hitachi, Furukawa Electric, Shimizu and Mizuho […]

Taking aim at speculators

Vermont’s congressional delegation is once again taking aim at Wall Street speculators as a major culprit in driving up prices at the pump — prices that are likely to spike well above $4 a gallon this summer. But casting investment banks and hedge funds as the sole villains isn’t so black and white, said two […]

Energy in East Africa

Poverty refers not only to one’s economic situation, but also to other factors that influence life. Especially in the past years the term “energy poverty” has become more common. Sustainable access to energy is essential in the eradication of poverty and for the improvement of access to education and health services and therefore a critical […]

The Water Sector

We’d like to start you off here with some statistics about China.  And H2O. China accounts for 30% of the world’s population but has only 7% of the world’s freshwater supply. Since 2008, China has added more than 50 million people.  Stop for a moment and think about that. That’s like adding two Australias.  Or […]

Desert Liberation Front

http://submedia.tv/stimulator/2012/03/10/desert-liberation-front/ This is a special report about the motherfuckin resistance down under. It was recently revealed that Australian uranium was used to fuel the Fukushima nuclear power plant. But the meltdown in Japan has not stopped the wholesale Australian uranium exports, including selling the mineral to countries like India that have not signed up to […]

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