Oil: the start of a new world energy era

No sector has been spared by the global economic crisis, least of all the energy industry. At the recent Kazenergy Forum in Astana, debates centred on the hurdles facing the oil industry. The world population is growing faster than oil production – according to the World Energy Council, global demand will have doubled by 2050. […]

Romney on Energy

After last week’s review of President Obama’s energy record and campaign materials on energy, Governor Romney’s energy plans present a sharp contrast. They are based on a fundamentally different view of energy and the economy, relying on markets to allocate capital to the most productive opportunities, rather than on government to guide a mix of […]

Mexico Finds Second Oil Deposit in Deep Waters of Gulf

Mexico’s state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, has found a second significant crude-oil deposit in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, President Felipe Calderon said Friday. With the new “Supremo” deposit, Pemex expects to book new oil reserves of up to 125 million barrels, using the broadest measurement of proven, probable and […]

Big Oil: Stealing from The Poor?

Not much comment needed from me… An ethical masterpiece, from ABC Australia’s Four Corners program, absolutely vital to the public interest, worldwide. Awesome work from our public broadcaster! Watch it here, or watch it at the ABC online: Taxing Times in [East] Timor http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/09/27/3599022.htm

The new “Golden Age of Oil” that wasn’t

Forecasts of Abundance Collide with Planetary Realities Last winter, fossil-fuel enthusiasts began trumpeting the dawn of a new “golden age of oil” that would kick-start the American economy, generate millions of new jobs, and free this country from its dependence on imported petroleum.  Ed Morse, head commodities analyst at Citibank, was typical.  In the Wall […]

Compressed Natural Gas Taking Root Across the US

As more clean-burning American natural gas from the Marcellus Shale and other formations is safely produced, governors from both political parties across the United States are implementing common sense policies aimed at leveraging these abundant, affordable, domestic resources to fuel our nation’s transportation needs. Here’s a rundown of some of the recent progress on this […]

Sweden Make Gas Discovery in Barents Sea

Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum reported Friday that an exploration well targeting the Salina structure in the Barents Sea has made a gas condensate discovery of up to 41 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe). Well 7220/10-1, located on the west flank of the Loppa High in the Barents Sea in license PL533, proved two gas columns […]

$4 gas: Get used to it, and get ready for $5

President Obama may have a lot more to worry about than bombing the debate this week. Traders are starting to get particularly bullish over gasoline prices – and that is bad news for the average driver, who may also be looking to vent his spleen at the voting booth. Reports of gas shortages along the […]

Explaining Hyperinflation

This is a post in three sections. First I want to outline my conception of the price level phenomena inflation and deflation. Second, I want to outline my conception of the specific inflationary case of hyperinflation. And third, I want to consider the predictive implications of this. Inflation & Deflation What is inflation? There is […]

East Africa faces energy infrastructure issue

East Africa may be the new hotspot for explorers but the region will first need to invest in infrastructure to develop and transport the products for domestic and international consumption. The region’s regulatory and infrastructure gaps could hinder the transition from gas exploration to production in the medium term, while governments need to be more […]

Japan Revives Nuclear, Will We?

The Japanese government, which had announced a gradual phase-out of nuclear power by 2040, reversed that positionand will instead develop an energy policy “with flexibility, based on tireless verification and re-examination.” The country was faced with the difficulty of replacing the 30% of electricity it gets from nuclear energy, and altering an existing strategy that […]

Cost to replace each barrel of oil produced is up 350%

Uncertain global economic conditions have not deterred upstream capital spending. As oil prices continue to rise, companies are increasingly looking in harsher climates and deeper seas to replace reserves and make up for declining production from mature fields. The cost associated with replacing a barrel of produced oil has risen dramatically over the last 13 […]

How Coal Brought Us Democracy, and Oil Ended It

Long before politicians mewled helplessly about the power of “Big Oil”, carbon-based fuels were shaping our very political, legal, intellectual, and physical structures. It was, for instance, coal miners who brought us the right to vote. Israel’s founding had a lot to do with British fears of Palestinian labor unrest in coastal energy complexes. And […]

Neither Presidential Candidate Shows Grasp of America’s Oil Predicament

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA (ASPO-USA) expressed concern that neither candidate for the U.S. presidency demonstrates a clear understanding of the realities and risks facing U.S. oil supply.  In the first presidential debate on Wednesday night, President Obama and Governor Romney fed the misconception that America can drill its […]

The energy-water nexus

The principal challenge of this century, in my view, will be adapting to a life without abundant, cheap fossil fuels. It has been the lifeblood of our society, and turns out to have some really fantastic qualities. The jury is still out as to whether we will develop suitable/affordable replacements. But additional challenges loom in […]

Natural gas producers restricting fresh water use

Protecting water and reducing our use of this valuable resource is a key priority for Canada’s natural gas industry. Water is essential to the recovery of natural gas from conventional and unconventional sources, such as shale rock. It is needed to drill and complete a well. Once that is done and the well starts producing […]

John Michael Greer: How It Could Happen, Part One: Hubris

The news of the latest Tanzanian deepwater oil discovery broke on an otherwise sleepy Saturday in March. Thirty years before, a find of the same size might have gotten two column inches somewhere in the back pages of a few newspapers of record, but this was not thirty years ago. In a world starved for […]

Fact check: Oil and natural gas production under Obama

The facts show, and President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney agree, that U.S. production of oil and gas has increased over the past four years. But is this rise because of Obama, or “in spite of his policies,” as the former Massachusetts governor said at Wednesday night’s debate? “All of the increase […]

Lecturer explores population control issues

  Guest lecturer John Seager entered the field of population control because his old boss fired him more than a decade ago. And yesterday, Seager came to speak at Penn because the same guy invited him back. The Institute of Environmental Studies began its weekly seminar series this fall by inviting Seager to give a […]

Keeping Peak Oil Reality In Mind # 10: No More Normal

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Sara Robinson. The bottom line in Homer-Dixon’s theory* is this: Everything that Americans understand as “wealth” under the current paradigm comes from oil. It’s the foundation of our entire economy, and the ground our superpower status stands on. Our cities are built on the assumption of cheap, […]

Radical Simplicity and the Middle-Class: Exploring the Lifestyle Implications of a “Great Disruption”

Radical Simplicity and the Middle-Class: Exploring the Lifestyle Implications of a ‘Great Disruption’ Samuel Alexander 1. INTRODUCTION How would the ordinary middle-class consumer – I should say middle-class citizen – deal with a lifestyle of radical simplicity? By radical simplicity I essentially mean a very low but biophysically sufficient material standard of living, a form […]

Gulf of Mexico Poised for Oil Resurgence

The U.S. Gulf of Mexico is on track to surpass by 2019 the peak production levels last seen before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, analysts at energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie said Wednesday. With operators working full time to expand oil and gas production, Wood Mackenzie expects commercial deepwater production in the gulf will reach […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Global Dynamics

It is sometimes useful when confronted with the flood of information we all receive these days to step back to ponder the major forces that currently are shaping our civilization. Although these forces are too varied and complex to give much of a picture of what life might be like 25 or 50 years from […]

Police in Iran clash with currency protesters

Iranian riot police have clashed with protesters in the capital Tehran over the collapse of the rial, the country’s currency, which has lost a third of its value against the dollar in a week. Police on Wednesday reportedly fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators, including currency exchange dealers. It was the first sign of public unrest […]

Is unlimited growth a thing of the past?

Might growth be ending? This is a heretical question. Yet an expert on productivity, Robert Gordon of Northwestern university, has raised it in a provocative paper. In this, he challenges the conventional view of economists that “economic growth … will continue indefinitely.” Yet unlimited growth is a heroic assumption. For most of history, next to […]

Output not stockpiles key to cap food cost

* More investments needed to increase food production-Piebalgs * France proposes agricultural stockpiles to tame food prices (Adds background on French proposal, comments on biofuels) MILAN, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Building strategic agricultural stocks to curb market volatility, as proposed by France, would not be the most effective way to tame food prices, EU Development […]

Drilling for oil in the Arctic: the risks are too great for companies to take on

The floating ice cap of the Arctic has been shrinking at an alarming rate for several years, but this year’s melt was truly remarkable. The area of the Arctic Ocean covered in ice in the summer is now just half the size it was when satellite monitoring began three decades ago, with scientists now radically […]

Oil giants eye Arctic prize despite dangers

DRILLING for oil and gas has always been a risky business; overcoming technical, political and environmental challenges is part of the job. But last week the chief executive of the French oil giant Total, Christophe de Margerie, declared that when it came to the Arctic Ocean, the risk of a spill was simply too high. […]

Iran tightens measures to stem currency fall

In this Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 file photo, an Iranian street money changer holds Iranian banknotes with a portrait of late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, in the main old Bazaar of Tehran, Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the steep drop in Iran’s currency Tuesday to “psychological pressures” linked to Western sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program. […]

UK: Fuel sales down by half a billion litres

Nearly half a billion fewer litres of petrol and diesel were sold between April and June than during the same period last year, according to new figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The fall came after sales rose at the start of the year when the threat of a tanker drivers’ strike […]

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