Peak oil, economic growth and the big lie

In the commentary on Peak Oil recently published in the leading scientific journal Nature, James Murray (the founding director of the University of Washington’s Program on Climate Change) and David King (the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford) made the following statement, Historically, there has been a tight […]

While We Dither On Oil, It’s Drill, Beijing, Drill

Energy Policy: A Chinese oil company is now the world’s top producer. While we sleep and watch pump prices rise, China, India and even Cuba seek supplies the world over, including drilling off the Florida coast. Global demand for oil is rising, as is its global price, as energy-hungry economies such as China, India and […]

America: The Gasoline War

I apologize in advance to those of my readers who find military history uninteresting. The next part of the story I’m exploring just now, the story of the British Empire’s fall and its replacement by today’s American empire, can’t be understood without a sense of the military realities that drove that process, and the decline […]

China Seen Bolstering Oil Reserves

China’s crude-oil imports jumped to near-record levels in March, bolstering the belief among some energy analysts that the country is again hoarding oil for its strategic reserves. If the predictions prove accurate, China’s growing thirst for oil could underpin already-high crude prices and push the country’s oil imports above market expectations. On Tuesday, China said […]

Getting the Market to Tell the Truth

Moving the global economy off its current decline-and-collapse path depends on reaching four goals: stabilizing climate, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the economy’s natural support systems. These goals—comprising what the Earth Policy Institute calls “Plan B” to save civilization—are mutually dependent. All are essential to feeding the world’s people. It is unlikely that we […]

Peak oil spells disaster

GLOBAL oil shortages and rising fuel costs could spell disaster for Australia’s agricultural industry. That’s the dire warning from Australian Association of the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) convenor Bruce Robinson. He said farmers needed to be more alert to so-called peak oil, estimated to occur within the next five years. “We have […]

Is the oil industry underestimating it’s profits

In my last blog, I posted estimates on how much of the money you spend on gas is going to the oil industry’s profits. Our updated estimate shows that 23 cents of every dollar you spent on gasoline in February went to the oil industry’s after-tax profits.[1]  If you’re like the average driver, you pay […]

Most US Consumers Unfamiliar With Hydraulic Fracturing

Despite having unleashed a natural gas supply boom that is transforming the U.S. energy landscape and receiving extensive attention from the media, the practice of hydraulic fracturing is unfamiliar to most consumers, according to a poll conducted by the University of Texas at Austin. The poll, released Tuesday, showed that 62 percent of the people […]

Out of Africa (and Elsewhere): More Fossil Fuels

THE world’s largest energy companies have big plans for Mozambique. Until recently, the East African country was better known for its long civil war, and had few energy resources compared with regional heavy-hitters like Nigeria and Angola. But in the last 10 years, companies like Exxon Mobil, the BG Group of Britain and Eni of […]

If Things Keep Going the Way They Are… (Infographic)

Having fun with trends, an educator and author on his Post Carbon Institute blog, also reveals the absurdity at the end of a drawn-out trend line. For instance, if technology continues on its course, within 20 years transistors will be the size of an atom, and after another generation or so, he says, they will […]

Can overconfidence be overcome in advance?

One hundred years ago tomorrow, the RMS Titanic left Southampton on its maiden voyage. As we have been endlessly reminded over the last few weeks, the good ship never made it to its intended destination of New York City. Instead, the most modern ship afloat sideswiped an iceberg late in the evening of April 14, […]

Why don’t farmers just do it?

Excluding livestock from streams is possibly the single most effective Best Management Practice in animal agriculture. But too many farmers hesitate to get on board with these practices, even when it’s better for their own animals. Why don’t farmers just do it?  I mean fence their cattle out of the streams.  If farmers would do […]

Half of East Coast’s oil refining capacity set to disappear

Sunoco petrol stations are a fixture of the US eastern seaboard, their blue-and-yellow awnings touting the brand’s status as official fuel of Nascar racing. But after July, none of the petrol they sell will actually be made by Sunoco. The 126-year-old company’s decision to quit the refining business is the latest sign of the tumult […]

Drivers to pay 6 pct more for gas this summer

U.S. drivers will pay an average of 24 cents more per gallon for gasoline during this summer’s travel season, the government said Tuesday. Gasoline will cost an average of $3.95 per gallon from April through September, an increase of 6.3 percent from the same period last year, the Energy Information Administration predicted. The peak should […]

Radioactive particles from Japan detected in California

Radioactive particles released in the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were detected in giant kelp along the California coast, according to a recently published study. Radioactive iodine was found in samples collected from beds of kelp in locations along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far […]

Obama Invests $5 Million In Bullshit Energy

Just when we thought we had seen the epic failure of every single possible “alternative energy” project by this administration, along comes the announcement that the USDA is investing $5 million in a “biogas anaerobic digester” that will use “cow manure to heat an ethanol plant and create 15 permanent jobs.” Which for anyone confused, […]

Peak oil: Chris Martenson on the reality

Author, economic analyst, scientist and futurist Chris Martenson has written and spoken extensively on key issues surrounding our energy-based economy. He appeared on this show four years ago — when high oil prices were making headlines. Those headlines have returned and we check back with Martenson today to get his take on how things have […]

The Economic Implications Of Peak Oil

Peak oil came and went. It was acknowledged by the International Energy Agency, the IEA, in their World Energy Outlook 2010 Executive Summary, where on pg. 6 of their report, they write: Crude oil output reaches an undulating plateau of around 68-69 mb/d by 2020, but never regains it’s all time peak of 70 mb/d […]

The Return of The Limits to Growth

40 years after, “The Limits to Growth” is back in the news. Sooner or later, someone had to notice that the economic crisis that we are seeing all around us is something that eerily reminds the “base case” scenario of the old Limits study of 1972. Someone did, eventually. Here is a comment of mine […]

Iran’s Oil Production to Drop 500K Bopd in 2012

Iran’s crude oil production is expected to fall by approximately 500,000 bopd by year-end 2012 from 3.55 million bopd of production at the end of 2011, according the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) Short-Term Energy Outlook released Tuesday. Iran’s oil output decline sped up during the last quarter of 2011, which EIA believes is due […]

French economy grinds to a halt

Hit by the closure of the Petit-Couronne plant, owned by insolvent oil refiner Petroplus, refining activity plunged by 13 percent in February. The Purchasing Managers’ index (PMI) data last week showed the biggest decline in factory activity for 33 months in March, after briefly stabilizing in February France’s economy posted no growth in the first […]

Saudi activists fight through their fear

Mohammad Fahad Al-Qahtani is a busy man with a dangerous passion. A human rights activist and relentless writer of letters and legal briefs, he challenges a kingdom that demands unquestioned authority. He slips videos onto the Internet and fires off missives to King Abdullah, calling for the freeing of political prisoners and the arrest of […]

Kuwait eyes 4 mln bpd oil production by 2020

Kuwait is looking to increase oil production to 4 million bpd by 2020 and maintain it through 2030. Farouk Al Zanki, CEO of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), said this in the opening session of Gulf Petroleum Conference and Exhibition 2012 titled ‘The integration of Gulf petroleum industry, prospects and challenges’ Monday at Hilton Hotel. Zanki […]

Malthusian Catastrophe (Peak Oil) w/ Michael Ruppert & Joe Rogan

I follow the peak oil movement and composed this piece w/ sampled excerpts from peak oil pioneers Michael Ruppert & Joe Rogan w/ Jay-Z vibe.

Global Meat Consumption

Download Report: 041012 Global Beef Consumption.mp3 I’m Susan Allen, The world’s population is projected to grow by three billion more people in the  next 40 years. Here in big sky country it’s hard to fathom what that will mean to the rural west. When Open Range returns .Population growth like the national deficit is so overwhelming huge […]

Terrified by peak oil, FedEx turns to biofuels, efficiency

Grist has a look at FedEx’s efforts to reduce the company’s exposure to oil prices and availability – Terrified by peak oil, FedEx turns to biofuels, efficiency. FedEx owns 700 planes and tens of thousands of trucks, which is why CEO Fred Smith is crazy for energy efficiency, reports NPR. Shortly after Smith founded Federal […]

Smart Russia protects its oil resources

When the transformation of the Soviet Union began in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Russian oil industry in terms of production was at its peak. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaos that followed later impacted the industry hard. According to Daniel Yergin in his new book The Quest, the […]

Kunstler: Strange Jubilee

       Is there a Baby Boomer so dim in this land of rackets and swindles who thinks that he or she will escape the wrath of the Millennials rising? The developing story is so obvious that only an academic economist could fail to notice. Here’s how it will go: some months from now, […]

Shortage in India during Global Gas Glut

Oversupply has lead to natural gas prices crashing globally even though crude oil prices have moved up. Despite the global glut Indian households have been surprisingly hit by cooking gas shortage due to laxity of our ‘Petroleum Ministry’. Besides though prices fell globally India’s LPG subsidy bill has ballooned during the last year to nearly […]

Peak Oil: Capitalism & Sustainability

Our difficulties and our dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them   — Winston Churchill Our civilization is driven by an economic system that expects continued and limitless growth. However, during the summer of 2008 when the price of a barrel of oil reached $147, we reached a tipping point for our […]

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