Brent Favored Over WTI Oil by U.S. for First Time

Even the U.S. Energy Department no longer deems America’s benchmark oil grade the best guide to global prices, as rising production swells national stockpiles. The Energy Information Administration in Washington dispensed with West Texas Intermediate for its price forecasts in its Annual Energy Outlook 2013 released yesterday, adopting North Sea Brent crude instead. It’s the […]

World’s oil industry won’t be the same in the wake of shale

Last Saturday I wrote about America’s gas and oil shale ”fracking” boom and the risk-reward trade- offs involved, including ones revolving around environmental concerns. This column is about the broader implications of the fracking boom, and they are huge. Reports about the boom being a game-changer have proliferated after last month’s prediction by the International […]

Peak Oil: How to Get Educated

Short film about the limits to growth.Uploaded by sparxistmovement October 2012

This chart explains why the US is irrationally exuberant about self-sufficient oil production

Numerous authoritative voices have weighed in with a forecast that, with some help from neighboring Canada and Mexico, the US will become more or less self-sufficient in oil production in a few years and even start exporting. If they are right—has anyone yet learned the sad lessons of mass market enthusiasm?—it  will be perhaps only […]

Major quake strikes off Japan, setting off tsunami

A powerful earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Japan on Friday evening, rattling buildings in Tokyo and setting off a small tsunami. It also jarred nerves in a nation still recovering from the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 that killed thousands of people and triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a […]

Department of Energy: New report on exportation

The US Department of Energy (DOE) released a report on 5 December, 2012 which examined the question of economic benefit to the US of natural gas exportation. Last December, Deloitte issued an independent report regarding exportation which had hauntingly similar conclusions. Interestingly enough, many of the conclusions in the Deloitte report are now known to […]

Oil Watch – Rest of World Oil Production (IEA)

Executive Summary This is the final installment of the tour of global crude + condensate + natural gas liquids (C+C+NGL) production data as published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and deals with the rest of the world. OPEC and OECD production was described in earlier posts. After many decades of growth, Chinese oil production […]

U.S. natural gas: To export or not export?

The U.S. should export much more of its plentiful supply of natural gas. That’s the conclusion of a government study out today.  The study by NERA Economic Consulting found that more gas exports could give the U.S. economy a major boost without significantly raising energy prices at home. But is there a market for U.S. […]

The Next Black Swan: Global Depopulation

We’ve all heard the thesis on real estate investing: “They’re not making any more land.”  It turns out that before too long we may not be making enough people either. Global population has been expanding since antiquity, interrupted by wars, disasters, pandemics and famine.  Malthusian predictions of overpopulation, unsustainability, and resource depletion have also been […]

China Warns Vietnam on Oil Exploration

China on Thursday demanded that Vietnam stop unilateral oil and gas activity in a naval area claimed by both nations, after a spat between the two countries flared up earlier this week. The state-run Vietnam Oil & Gas Group said Monday that two Chinese fishing vessels cut the cables of a Vietnamese vessel doing seismic […]

2012 ~ The Year That Was In Nuclear Energy

On a global scale the nuclear industry had its share of pluses and minuses in 2012. Japan’s Fukushima crisis continues to dominate any list of the top ten nuclear energy issues for the year. (See more below on Japan’s mighty mission at Fukushima.) In the United States, while the first new nuclear reactor licenses in […]

Keeping Peak Oil Reality In Mind # 20: Feel-Good Option

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Sharon Astyk. The problem is that most people – including decision makers – have no time, no inclination, and no expertise to go in depth in issues such as resource depletion. So, when facing a complex and nuanced issue they tend to choose the interpretation that they […]

Chinese Urbanization in Context

Commenter  Don Johnson raised the question of how the speed of Chinese urbanization compared to other countries.  Above are some relevant comparisons – with the US, Japan, and South Korea. Data are from the UN and the US Census Bureau. China is urbanizing much faster than the US did, and probably Japan too, but not as […]

UK oil output seen rising in next few years -study

Britain’s North Sea oil output, long in decline, is likely to increase in the next few years, according to research published on Wednesday, reflecting the impact of rising investment, high prices and tax breaks. Oil output will reach 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2017 based on an oil price of $90 a barrel, […]

2012 ASPO-USA Conference in Austin Texas – reflections, ASPO-USA awards and new president for ASPO-USA

By Kjell Aleklett, President of ASPO International For the past two years ASPO-USA has had its yearly conference in Washington close to centre of political power. This year as the political pot was stirred after the presidential election they chose to move the conference to Texas. With the cooperation of The University of Texas at […]

As Fish Stocks Collapse, Overpopulated Lobsters Resort to Cannibalism

The Maine lobster population is booming, but it turns out that’s bad news if you’re a little lobster: “‘We’ve got the lobsters feeding back on themselves just because they’re so abundant,’ said Richard Wahle, a marine sciences professor at the University of Maine, who is supervising the research. ‘It’s never been observed just out in […]

How Data and Social Pressure Can Reduce Home Energy Use

Visit the website of Opower and your eye will be drawn to a counter in the corner, its digits ticking ever higher. The counter represents energy that the company says its customers have saved after it provided them data on electricity usage and employed behavioral science to change their consumption patterns. As of this writing, […]

In Saudi Arabia, unemployment and booming population drive growing poverty

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia A few miles from the blinged-out shopping malls of Saudi Arabia’s capital, Souad al-Shamir lives in a concrete house in a trash-strewn alley, with no job, no money, five children younger than 14 and an unemployed husband who is laid up with chronic heart problems. “We are […]

Why We Need a Planned Economy

The notion that a market economy is the only basis for human economy has been supported by a massive propaganda campaign of unprecedented scope.  It is taken as an article of faith by nearly every American that every planned economy must be accompanied by merciless tyranny with the Soviet Union cited normally as the principal […]

Beyond Oil: IEA Report Confirms Leading Role for Renewables

IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2012 generated a flurry of stories about the prediction the U.S. will emerge as the world’s leading oil producer by 2020. While it is important news, it is only one of several profound shifts occuring in global energy markets. Equally profound, though less reported, was the fundemental shift in the role of renewables in electricity generation. […]

Peak Oil, Peak Food…. Peak Everything

Taken from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HeEHKJxSA8 Peak Oil & Peak Everything Lecture at Cornell see also: Peak Oil & $225 Oil by 2012 Predicts CIBC Economist Jeff Rubin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qeRaBaPRmk Jeff Rubin and Andrew Nikiforuk on the future of oil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZntCQ_Me_o Jeff Rubin and Andrew Nikiforuk on the future of oil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZntCQ_Me_o

Oil Watch – OECD oil production (IEA)

Executive summary According to BP, OECD oil production (C+C+NGL) peaked at 21.67 million bpd in 1997. Monthly production data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) now suggests that production has been stable for 5 years at around 18.5 million bpd (Figure 1). The North Sea (UK and Norway) is still in steep decline. This has […]

Iran says captures U.S. drone in its airspace

Iran captured a U.S. intelligence-gathering drone that entered its airspace over the Gulf, its armed forces said on Tuesday, the latest in a recent succession of alleged U.S. violations of Iranian territory. The incident highlighted tensions in the Gulf as both the Islamic Republic and the United States seek to demonstrate their military capability over […]

Mexican Parties Agree to Break Pemex Refining Monopoly

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and leaders of the nation’s three largest parties agreed to work toward allowing competition for some of Petroleos Mexicanos’s operations and revise mining royalties. Mexico will make “the necessary reforms to create a competitive environment in the economic processes of refining, petrochemical, and transportation of hydrocarbons,” according to a document […]

Energy Efficiency, Economic Efficiency and The Pretense of Knowledge

Key facts: Energy efficiency, as defined by those who embrace it as a policy guide, is focused strictly on saving energy even if it means sacrificing overall economic efficiency. Energy efficiency programs focus on the relationship between one input into the production process, energy, relative to the output generated by that process. This simplistic view […]

Garden contingency planning

I probably won’t get to look at them until after Isaiah’s birthday and our Chanukah party next weekend, but the seed catalogs are piling up, and I’m starting to think about gardens again. I can’t wait to sink down into the couch with a stack of catalogs and dream. This was a tough year for […]

Fossil Food & Agriculture – Richard Heinberg Q&A

While researching the topic of sustainable agriculture for a paper, high school junior Rhian Moore came across the work of PCI Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg. Rhian reached out to Richard for more information on the topic. Below are Rhian’s questions and Richard’s brief responses. We think they make for a nice primer of sorts.  Rhian: […]

Identifying the “oil” we’re most worried about

World “oil” has been defined in different ways by different entities. IEA and EIA have defined it as total hydrocarbon liquids—including crude oil, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, heavy oil, oil sands, biofuels, and refinery processing gains. For his detailed studies, Colin Campbell has used the following categories: 1) regular conventional oil and gas; 2) […]

Global oil production up in 2012 as reserves estimates rise again

Global production and reserves of crude oil and lease condensate both increased in 2012, according to Oil & Gas Journal’s annual Worldwide Production report. Reserves of natural gas increased slightly between Jan. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013. OGJ estimates average worldwide oil production in 2012 at 75.72 million b/d, up 2.9% from the 2011 […]

Maugeri: IEA’s outlook for US oil output late, maybe low

  Runoff from Hurricane Sandy hadn’t dried before some were declaring it “the storm of the century.” Maybe it was, but it’s too early to say for sure. Despite the immense destruction, it certainly wasn’t the biggest natural disaster in the world or even in the US. “Historical records show that worse hurricanes have occurred […]

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