Russian Energy Oligarchy’s Fears of Shale Gas Rising

Now and again Russian President Putin has warned Russian gas-giant Gazprom that it must face the growing threat of abundant shale gas. Shale gas is a massive and newly accessible energy resource ranging from North America to China to South America to Europe. But it is the shale gas resources in Europe and China that […]

A ban on oil speculation?

Joseph P. Kennedy II, former Congressional Representative from Massachusetts, and founder, chairman, and president of Citizens Energy Corporation, has a proposal to make energy affordable for all. All we have to do, Kennedy claims, is “bar pure oil speculators entirely from commodity exchanges in the United States.” Writing in the New York Times last week, […]

BP settles with private plantiffs over Gulf oil spill

BP Plc said on Wednesday it reached definitive agreements with well over 100,000 private plaintiffs to resolve claims for economic, property and medical damages resulting from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The London-based oil company said it still believes the cost of the settlement will be $7.8 billion, to be paid from a […]

Gulf of Mexico Seafood Deformities Alarm Scientists

“The fishermen have never seen anything like this,” Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. “And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 fish, I’ve never seen anything like this either.” Cowan, with Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, started hearing from fishermen about fish with […]

China to launch crude oil futures this year

China is expected to begin trading in crude oil futures within the year, a senior government official said on Wednesday, as the world’s second-largest oil consumer and crude buyer aims to increase its say in oil pricing. “Within this year, China will launch an international crude oil futures market, the third such market in the […]

Gail Tverberg: Two Energy Books of Interest

Today, I’d like to write about two fairly different books related to limited energy supply. Both are excellent, but intended for fairly different audiences, and focusing on different aspects of our dilemma. 1. “Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil” by Robert Rapier. This book is written at a fairly introductory level, […]

Natural Gas — True Game Changer

The precipitous decline of natural gas prices — to less than $2 per 1,000 cubic feet for the first time in a decade — promises to be a real game changer for U.S. manufacturing, and indeed the overall economy. The comparable price in Europe is $11 and in South Korea $14. Of course, millions of […]

Beyond Boom and Bust: Report Overview

Despite robust growth and recent improvements in price and performance, a boom in US clean energy technology (“clean tech”) sectors could now falter as federal clean energy spending declines sharply, according to a new report published today by some of the country’s top energy analysts. To both sustain clean energy growth and put the United […]

Easing Off the Gas

The Do the Math blog series has built the case that physical growth cannot continue indefinitely; that fossil fuel availability will commence a decline this century—starting with petroleum; that alternative energy schemes constitute imperfect substitutes for fossil fuels; and has concluded that a very smart strategy for us to adopt is to slow down while […]

Biosphere collapse

The shocking number of earthquakes that have rattled the globe, especially along tectonic plate boundaries, since the double 8.0+ magnitude earthquakes struck off the coast of Northern Sumatra on April 11 could be early indication the planet may be shifting towards a new catastrophic model. Romania’ s top seismologist, Gheorghe Marmureanu, told the Bucharest Herald: […]

EPA Delays Hydraulic Fracturing Rule Until 2015

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday announced it would delay requiring the use of green completion technology for hydraulic fractured natural gas wells until 2015. “We are taking a deliberate step to allow the time needed for manufacturers to make and distribute the technology to allow all oil and gas companies to rise […]

Are oil subsidies worth the price?

Anyone who has been to Indonesia knows that petrol, particularly for motorbikes, is as much as necessity of daily life in Indonesia as nasi goreng (fried rice) and es teh (sweet iced jasmine tea). That is why it is such a big decision for the Indonesian government to set the stage for a rise in […]

Making ‘Shambles’ of ‘Oil Peak Myth’

In his presentation to Montana Energy 2012, Michael Economides told Montanans, “You are already a superpower in oil production. You have already defied the trends and once again showed the can-do attitude of this industry, smashing the myth of the ‘peak oil’” “You have redefined and defied the trends suggesting strongly the future of energy […]

Iraq New Plateau Oil Production Plan Lower, Longer

–Iraq revised its medium-term oil field redevelopment plan, meaning production will peak slightly lower than 12 million barrel a day target- Deputy Prime Minister –Iraq expects to be producing between 5 million and 6 million barrels a day of oil by 2015, Deputy PM adds –Iraq plans to increase its production and exports significantly this […]

The Limits of The Limits to Growth

Forty years ago, The Limits to Growth, a report to the Club of Rome, was released with great fanfare at a conference at the Smithsonian Institution. The study was based on a computer model developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and designed “to investigate five major trends of global concern—accelerating industrial development, […]

Ahmadinejad speech sets edgy tone for nuclear meeting

Iran raised the stakes of an important meeting about its nuclear plans by insulting Arabs and picking a new fight over islands in the Strait of Hormuz. That’s right: the Strait of Hormuz, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to close in retaliation for international resistance to his country’s nuclear program. Iran says its […]

Argentina seizes control of leading Energy company

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez unveiled plans on Monday to seize control of leading energy company YPF, drawing swift warnings from key trade partners and risking the country’s further economic isolation. YPF (YPFD.BA), controlled by Spain’s Repsol (REP.MC), has been under intense pressure from Fernandez’s center-left government to boost production, and its share price has plunged […]

The Population Control Holocaust

There is a single ideological current running through a seemingly disparate collection of noxious modern political and scientific movements, ranging from militarism, imperialism, racism, xenophobia, and radical environmentalism, to socialism, Nazism, and totalitarian communism. This is the ideology of antihumanism: the belief that the human race is a horde of vermin whose unconstrained aspirations and […]

A World Without the United States – Who Would Fill the Void?

Imagine a world with no United States. No cheeseburgers. No ice-cream sundaes. No McDonald’s. No Ferris wheels. No iPhones or iPads. No Hollywood, pop music, or blue jeans. These small contributions are nothing compared to the influence the nation has had on a global scale. “For almost three centuries, the world has been undergirded by […]

David Holmgren: The reverse of globalization

In this video from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, ecologist David Holmgren traces the path of permaculture from its roots in the 1970s to its potential, in the future, to reshape how humans interact with the planet. He explains how its premise—working with nature rather than against it—will help us adapt to and […]

Everyone Is Ignoring One Troubling Statistic About Oil

Few question the prevailing wisdom that tensions with Iran have caused the recent rise in oil prices.  But another possibility exists – and it’s a much greater long-term threat to economic growth. Oil prices last spiked, in 2008, because supply and demand were tightly balanced.  Those conditions may have returned, according to Jim Hansen. Hansen […]

Obama launches attack on oil speculators

President Barack Obama called Tuesday for greater federal oversight of oil markets, his latest effort to head off market manipulation as gas prices stay high ahead of the peak summer months. “We can’t afford a situation where some speculators can reap millions while millions of American families get the short end of the stick. That’s […]

Israeli TV report shows air force gearing up for Iran attack, says moment of truth is near

‘IAF expects losses, and knows it can’t destroy entire Iranian program’ A major Israel TV station on Sunday night broadcast a detailed report on how Israel will go about attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the event that diplomacy and sanctions fail and Israel decides to carry out a military strike. The report, screened on the […]

Gas from Coal: Europe’s Opportunity

For several years, coalbed methane (CBM) has been seen as an increasingly important contributor to overall natural gas production in the United States. A low natural gas price meant CBM was not a highly-profitable source of natural gas during the 1980s and much of the 1990s. But, the higher gas price environment during the last […]

Another thermometer at Fukushima No. 2 reactor apparently not working

Tokyo Electric Power Co. indicated Sunday another thermometer may be malfunctioning at the bottom of the No. 2 reactor vessel at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex as the plant operator observed abnormal temperature readings the previous day. The thermometer was deemed unavailable for use when it showed an abnormally high electrical resistance level […]

Electric cars cheaper to run, less polluting

Electric vehicles in the United States save money on fuel and are less polluting than most gasoline-powered vehicles, even in places where electricity is made by burning coal, the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a report released on Monday. “Drivers should feel confident that owning an electric vehicle is a good choice for reducing […]

Our Electric Grid – As Unsinkable as the Titanic?

A catastrophic failure compounded by a lack of failover strategies and an inability to think the unthinkable.  These are the main reasons for the sinking of the Titanic. Could these also be the post-mortem conclusions for the next large-scale electric grid failure?  Even as we note the 100 year anniversary of that maritime tragedy, we […]

The World is Finite, Isn’t It?

Yesterday I gave a presentation to a group of distinguished business leaders.  In my presentation, I tried to show that the global rate of production of petroleum and the associated lease condensate is at an all-time high or a “peak” that at a greatly expanded scale looks like a “plateau.”  I used my published, peer-reviewed […]

China to Overtake U.S. as Biggest Tanker User

China will pass the U.S. in 2013 as the biggest user of tankers carrying oil at sea as Asian imports travel over longer distances and fewer cargoes go to the world’s biggest economy, according to Arctic Securities ASA. The CHART OF THE DAY shows tanker use based on ton-mile demand, which multiplies cargo size by […]

6 Scary Energy Sources Being Tapped to Fuel the Post Peak Oil Economy

In a few short years the term “fracking” went from obscurity, mostly mistaken for an obscenity, to a household word, now often associated with flammable tap water. The technology is not new, but the market conditions that make such reckless forays deep into the earth’s crust profitable, are new. Welcome to the post peak oil […]

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