Mideast fuel oil poised for tight summer

The Middle East fuel oil market is braced for a tightening third quarter as soaring power generation demand is set to curb Saudi Arabia’s exports and Western sanctions could deprive the market of Iranian supplies. But although tighter supplies should push Gulf fuel oil premiums higher and could lift the Singapore ship fuel bunkering market, […]

Rare Earth Elements and Pyrolysis Oil

In this week’s episode of R-Squared Energy TV, I talk about the significance of China’s dominance of rare earth element production, and the conversion of pyrolysis oil into fuel. The questions answered this week are: 1. Can you discuss the uses of ‘rare earth’ elements in the production of renewable energies (i.e., wind and solar)? […]

The Thorny Issue of Population Growth

Life expectancy is up and poverty is down worldwide, even with our rapidly expanding global population. Are our fears of catastrophe overblown? Last year, the world population reached 7 billion. It added the last billion in merely 12 years, similar to the time it took to add the fifth and sixth billion. Despite this rapid […]

Peak Oil Denial: The Liberal’s Dilemma (Pt 4)

We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, emotional and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture and society at large. After forming our beliefs, we then defend, justify and rationalize them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments and rational explanations. Beliefs come first; explanations for […]

Oil depletion Scenarios consensus infers 97-Mbd Peak in 2027

monthly update of TRENDLines Peak Oil Depletion Tier-1 Scenarios:  15-model consensus infers 97-mbd Peak in 2027 April 26 2012 delayed FreeVenue public release of Jan 26th TRENDLines MemberVenue guidance click today’s chart to visit its unique page for related tables, background &/or more graphs Trendlines.ca

Israel Prepares for War

Israel’s IDF has called up six reserve battalions as the situation on the Syrian and Egyptian borders deteriorates. The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, has given permission to call up an additional 16 reserve battalions if necessary, the Times of Israel reported on May 2. “This signifies that the IDF regards the Egyptian and Syrian borders […]

China’s looming conflict between energy and water

In its quest to find new sources of energy, China is increasingly looking to its western provinces. But the nation’s push to develop fossil fuel and alternative sources has so far ignored a basic fact — western China simply lacks the water resources needed to support major new energy development. If you were to fly […]

Judge allows Gulf oil spill settlement to proceed

A federal judge on Wednesday preliminarily approved a proposed class-action settlement that would resolve billions of dollars in claims against BP over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier’s ruling allows the settlement process to proceed, but he will hold a “fairness hearing” on Nov. 8 before deciding […]

Peak Oil is Here: Now What?

At least peak oil is here if I’ve understood what the peak oil argument is properly. And my problem with the peak oil argument is that it isn’t really very clear in itself as to what it means. From what I understand at some point we get to the end of cheap oil, we’ve only […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Implications

Last week we talked about the possibility that researchers have found a second and potentially useful and inexpensive way of converting hydrogen into helium accompanied by a release of significant quantities of energy. Many, of course, believe such a discovery is too good to be true, for it implies that in the long run the world […]

Heinberg: Top 11 Peak Oil FAQs

I’ve been giving lectures on Peak Oil for over a decade now, and always look forward to the question period after the main show. It’s an opportunity to interact with the audience, and to see where my presentation may need tweaking or where my thinking may be shallow or incorrect. Now Post Carbon Institute is […]

Saudi Arabia warns Iran over Gulf islands, Bahrain

Saudi Arabia repeated on Wednesday that it would not tolerate threats to the Gulf Arab states’ sovereignty, the latest warning to Iran after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to an island claimed by both Tehran and the United Arab Emirates. The warning, the third in as many weeks by a member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation […]

Southwest Airlines’s hedges

“We don’t know where the price of crude is going to be,” says [Southwest Airlines’s Chris] Monroe. But, he adds, “I think we have to be generally bullish just because we’re trying to protect against an increase … So we have a little bit of a bias that prices may go higher.” He chuckles that […]

Food price index rose 5X faster than global per capita GDP since 2000: The real factor that caused the failure of the financial economy.

It is never easy to approach this subject. When one wants to point out a problem with global food sustainability prospects, the automatic reply comes in the form of accusations of one holding Malthusian and alarmist views, which have been proven wrong, and will always be wrong. Presentation of counterfactual evidence is no longer necessary […]

What happens when oil becomes unaffordable?

When the first OPEC oil shock hit in the 1970s, President Nixon responded by lowering the national speed limit to 55 miles per hour in a bid to conserve energy. But speed limits aren’t the only thing that can change when oil prices go up. Right now, we’re seeing that rising crude prices can influence […]

Fukushima still spewing massive radiation plumes; America in ‘huge trouble,’ says nuclear expert

During a recent Congressional delegation trip to Japan, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden witnessed with his own eyes the horrific aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which we have heard very little about from the media in recent months. The damage situation was apparently so severe, according to his account, that he has now written […]

Is Another Bout Of Global Food Inflation Just Around The Corner?

While the price of food to the American end consumers has been relatively flat over the past few months (at least according to official CPI data), behind the scenes another food inflationary storm for the “rest of the world” is quietly brewing. The reason: after creeping higher all year, soybean prices are just shy of […]

U.S. Lifestyle Is Not Up for Negotiation

Just before the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, some of the industrial nations, and specifically the United States, were lambasted for their obscenely high consumption of the world’s finite resources, including food, water and energy. The world was being gradually destroyed, environmentalists warned, by unsustainable consumption. Hitting back at critics, then U.S. president […]

The Industry’s Game-Changer: Technology

Innovation and collaboration are crucial for overcoming future energy challenges, said Shell Projects and Technology Director Matthias Bichsel, a panelist during the Offshore Technology Conference 2012 session “Global Energy Outlook: Changing Patterns,” which examined the challenges and uncertainties over the future availability of oil. “Our industry is faced with great challenge,” said Chief Executive of […]

How Would You Respond to a Global Crisis?

When a global crisis strikes a region on Earth that doesn’t have the resources to recover on its own, the international community comes together in an effort to rebuild the devastated region and provide assistance to those most affected. Similarly, this past month, high school students from across the United States came together at Concern […]

The oil curse: How petroleum wealth shapes the development of nations

Michael Ross talks to Viv Davies about his recent book ‘The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations’. They discuss the irony of how those countries with the greatest social and economic deficits are also the most vulnerable to the oil curse and as a result grow less quickly than might be […]

Delta Air Lines is getting into fuel business

Delta Air Lines is doing what anybody with a huge gas bill dreams of doing – buying an oil refinery to make its own fuel. Delta said Monday that it will pay $150 million for a refinery near Philadelphia that is being sold by division of ConocoPhillips. It’s aiming to slice $300 million a year […]

Questioning growth assumptions

A wide variety of blogposts roll across my Google Reader on a daily basis. There have been some great articles on Environmentalism lately, most notably one by Paul Kingsnorth in Orion magazine. The goal here is to add to that discussion by exposing the assumptions that underlie our beliefs about growth and to locate various […]

World’s population too large to accomodate urban farming, new study finds

The debate of organic versus conventional agriculture continues as a new study published by researchers at McGill University and the University of Minnesota concluded that while organic agriculture may not be able to produce enough food for the world, it will play an important role in minimizing environmental damage for the future. The study found […]

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