IAEA defends nuclear energy post-Fukushima

Using nuclear technology for the production of energy remains its best peaceful application, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said from Vienna. Amano touted the safety of nuclear power more than a year after a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. Japan in May shut its last operating nuclear reactor for maintenance, leaving […]

Oil market misbehaves (again)

Whatever the precise trigger, the sudden plunge in Brent prices on Monday is a timely reminder that liquidity is discontinuous, even in a market as deep and heavily traded as crude oil. Markets can switch from quiet calm to a raging storm with frightening speed for any reason, or no rational reason at all. Chart […]

How QE3 Will Make The Wealthy Even Wealthier While Causing Living Standards To Fall For The Rest Of Us

The mainstream media is hailing QE3 as a great victory for the U.S. economy. On nearly every news broadcast, the “talking heads” are declaring that Ben Bernanke’s decision to pump 40 billion dollars a month into our financial system is definitely going to help solve our economic problems. The money for QE3 is being created […]

Brazil says to hold oil rights sales in 2013

Brazil plans to hold in 2013 its first oil exploration rights auction in five years, Brazil’s energy minister Edison Lobao said on Tuesday, a sale that many petroleum companies consider essential to their continued health and survival in the country. The so-called 11th Round oil concession auction will take place in May and will limit […]

Solar Meets the Peak Oil Challenge

Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Renewable Energy ASES Forum Rob Swenson

Gulf fertilizer output to surge as world population rises

Arabian Gulf petrochemicals majors are increasing output of fertilizers, amid a brewing food crisis caused by booming populations in emerging markets. Annual output of producers in the region is tipped to reach 32 million tonnes by 2016, up from 21 million tonnes last year, estimates the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association. The region’s abundant reserves […]

Saudis offer extra oil to control prices

Saudi Arabia has offered its main customers in the US, Europe and Asia extra oil supplies through the end of the year, a sign the world’s largest exporter is worried about the impact of rising prices on the global economy. The Group of Seven finance ministers last month called on oil exporters to expand production […]

Scientific Paper: “The Fukushima Radioactive Plume Contaminated the Entire Northern Hemisphere During a Relatively Short Period

We warned mere days after the Japanese earthquake that the West Coast of North America could be hit with radiation. Our concerns – unfortunately – have been validated.  See this and this. The peer-reviewed scientific journal Science of the Total Environment reports: Massive amounts of anthropogenic radionuclides were released from the nuclear reactors located in […]

Offshore Morocco: Drilling Deeper

Africa has long been a key destination for energy companies seeking oil and gas reserves. Nigeria was established as an important source of hydrocarbons in the 1950s, while other West African countries, such as Equatorial Guinea, have seen substantial increases in their oil production in more recent decades. Last year’s revolutions in the North Africa, […]

Water could lead to war, world leaders warn

Water conflicts are bubbling in many parts of the world, from China and India to the Middle East and southern Africa. A group of former world leaders is calling on the UN to make water a top security concern. As the world’s population continues to grow, so does its thirst. But not every nation is […]

New Plans to Protect Nature

At the close of the ten-day World Conservation Congress that ran from Sept. 6-15 on the South Korean island of Jeju, members of the convening International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) agreed on an ambitious four-year action plan for protecting global natural resources. Taking the form of a 24-page document, the four-year programme focuses […]

Who is going to feed your world?

As the next generation of Americans, our generation must be prepared for the challenge of feeding a growing world population. Currently, we have more than 7 billion people on the planet who are consuming the food farmers produce on a daily basis. By 2050, the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts this number may grow to […]

Has Unconventional Oil Production Peaked?

Before any peak oilers reading this article get excited, the ‘peak’ here is in no way geological. We have more than enough hydrocarbons riddling the earth’s crust to incinerate ourselves eight times over. Rather, the peak might be geopolitical. Developing awkward reserves in hard to reach places is becoming more troublesome for international players than […]

China, Japan heading towards war, says US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta

CHINA and other Asian countries could end up at war over territorial disputes if governments keep up their “provocative behaviour”, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said. Speaking to reporters before arriving in Tokyo on a trip to Asia, Mr Panetta appealed for restraint amid mounting tensions over territorial rights in the East China Sea […]

The Last 14 Days Will Go Down As A Turning Point In The History Of Economics

Whew. Those were a crazy couple of weeks we just wrapped up. Morgan Stanley’s interest rate strategist Matthew Hornbach writes: When the history books are written or market participants look at charts three months from now, the past two weeks may go down as the most important of 2012 – aside from how the US […]

Big Oil’s Political Blitz

News came out last week that fossil fuel interests have spent over $153 million in television ads attacking the President’s clean energy agenda, including criticizing new air pollution rules and the delay of the Keystone XL pipeline. This figure is likely to grow, as there is still two months before the election. And, this is […]

Libya Oil Halt Would ‘Probably’ Cause Price Surge, EIA Says

A halt in Libya’s oil output would probably cause prices to soar because OPEC’s spare production capacity is limited to about 2 million barrels a day, the head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. Unexpected outages in countries including Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Brazil have reduced output from oil producers outside of the Organization […]

Shell Delays Arctic Oil Drilling Until Next Year

In the latest in a series of embarrassing setbacks, Shell Oil Company announced on Monday that it has been forced to delay drilling for oilin Alaskan Arctic waters this year after a spill containment dome was damaged during a testing mishap. The accident further delayed Shell’s six-year, $4.5 billion effort to drill of off the […]

Ex-envoy to Israel: US will go to war with Iran in 2013

Martin Indyk believes US likely to go to war with Iran in 2013; says Israel’s insistence that US publicly declare ‘red line’ for Iran an ‘unreasonable requirement’ Former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk predicts that the United States will go to war with Iran as early as 2013. “I’m afraid that 2013 is going […]

4000 Marines Headed To Middle East As Part Of Peleliu Amphibious Group Dispatch

Up until now, the LHD 7 Iwo Jima Big-Deck Amphibious Warfare ship was all alone in the Arabian Sea, patiently awaiting orders to liberate this or that middle east country of their oil reserves. This is no longer the case: launching today in general direction – Middle East – for a brand new 7 month […]

Richard Heinberg interviewed on ABC

Ticky Fullerton, host of the ABC’s The Business program, talks to US author Richard Heiberg about Peak Oil, the limits to our current model of growth, and Richard’s new book “The End of Growth”. Richard is in Australia for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and some talks for Sustainable Population Australia. Following is Richard’s schedule: […]

The Close Tie Between Energy Consumption, Employment, and Recession

Since 1982, the number of people employed in the United States has tended to move in a similar pattern to the amount of energy consumed. When one increases (or decreases), the other tends to increase (or decrease). In numerical terms, R2 = .98. Figure 1. Employment is the total number employed at non-farm labor as […]

World Hunger: The Problem Left Behind

THE drought-induced run-up in corn prices is a reminder that we’re nowhere near solving the problem of feeding the world. The price surge, the third major international food price spike in the last five years, casts more doubt on the assumption that widespread economic development leads to corresponding gains in agriculture. The green revolution has […]

Fallout widens from island dispute between China, Japan

The widening fallout from an increasingly volatile territorial dispute between China and Japan prompted a Japanese company to halt work at plants in China on Monday, and the United States to urge the two sides to avoid letting the situation spiral out of control. The electronics company Panasonic said Monday that it was suspending operations […]

India: Blackouts Spur $18 Billion Power Grid Upgrade

Power Grid Corp. of India Ltd., the nation’s largest electricity transmission company, may exceed a 1 trillion rupee ($18 billion) spending plan to upgrade its network and avoid a repeat of the world’s biggest blackout. Revenue of the state-owned company, which is doubling expenditure in the five years through March, 2017, may rise fourfold in […]

Kunstler: What Does It Mean?

In the word-cloud of current events, the phrase “parasitic financial system” billows up to a degree that suggests even so-called thinking persons begin to understand what’s happening: that banking shenanigans are sucking the life out of advanced societies. That’s why Matt Taibbi’s metaphor of Goldman Sachs as “a Vampire Squid jamming its blood funnel into […]

Orlov: Developing Breakdown

Central banks are undertaking unprecedented actions to keep the monetary system from unraveling. Despite unlimited Quantitative Easing and wealth transfers between Europe’s economies, growth has yet to return and debt is demanding to be serviced. This process is stretching the banking system to its limit. What happens when the pretense is dropped and money loses […]

Peak Oil Denial: Blind Faith

  Optimism uninformed by realism will do us no good. [1] The Peak Oil denial movement, as with its climate change denial kin, continues to chug along providing the public with half-truths and misleading arguments. Why? What is the long term benefit in preventing millions from understanding and planning for an eventuality which will leave […]

Iran Responds to Massive U.S. Armada Gathering in the Persian Gulf

Following a story published in The Telegraph reporting an armada of U.S. and British ships amassing in the Persian Gulf, a top commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned Sunday that “nothing will remain” of Israel if his country is attacked. “Our response to Israel is clear: I think nothing will remain of Israel (should it […]

QE3: Quantitatively Easing America Further Into Inflation

Everybody knew it was coming. With the economy continuing to founder, it was only a matter of time before Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve decided to turn once again — like the proverbial pig to its wallow — to printing money in a vain attempt to jolt the moribund American economy back to life. As with […]

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