Ohio family’s tap water catches on fire after natural gas drilling

Surprise, surprise. They’re fracking in the neighborhood and now the methane levels in a family’s well have more than doubled, and what’s happening next?  Their tap water catches on fire. This is a common problem near fracking sites. NBC TODAY: And near the Klines’ house, it just so happens a natural gas company was drilling. […]

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards hold exercises in Strait of Hormuz

The naval force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has held exercises to test new equipment and battle tactics in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported on Sunday. The drills tested the IRGC naval force’s combat-readiness, speed in responding to natural disasters and familiarity with new weapons, the Fars news agency reported. […]

Can we trust the reporting of environmental issues by the mainstream media?

Among the various lessons we learned in 2012 there is also whether or not the so-called “mainstream media” really can be trusted to tell the truth about environmental issues.  Or can it be trusted to do just the opposite,  and in various diverse and difficult to detect ways? This additional “lesson to be learned” is […]

The Natural Gas Boom: Doing More Harm Than Good?

An expert panel debates the pros and cons of the natural gas boom during an Intelligence Squared U.S. debate at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. Listen Listen To The Full Audio Of The Debate Listen Listen To The Broadcast Version Of The Debate The United States is in the midst of a natural gas […]

Saudi targets $110/barrel oil

There has been no official announcement but Saudi Arabia’s effective target for oil prices appears to have risen from $100 to $110 per barrel, based on recent changes in the kingdom’s production levels. In theory, the kingdom remains committed to an informal target of $100 for Brent first announced in a CNN interview given by […]

Tech Talk – Some Thoughts on Energy in 2013

It is the beginning of a New Year, and belatedly, I hope that all readers find this new period to be one of prosperity, health and happiness. It would be encouraging if the portents for our energy future would point in that direction, but unfortunately I can’t see nearly as much optimism in that regard […]

The battle over exporting natural gas

We’ve been telling you on Marketplace about America’s abundance of natural gas as a result of the controversial drilling technology, fracking. One emerging debate is: Since we have so much, should we export it? Drillers want to, but big industrial buyers aren’t so keen, and want to keep as much as home as possible. They […]

Venezuela, Oil and Chavez: a Tangled Tale

With the rapid deterioration of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s health, it seems pertinent to ask at why the country – and by extension Chavez – plays such an integral role in the global energy market. A glance at a few statistics highlights the importance of the country’s role. It is the largest oil exporter in […]

Germany’s Bad Energy Choices Leading into Cul de Sac?

Big wind and big solar are hopelessly intermittent and unreliable forms of energy production. But Germany has rashly committed itself to supplying 40% of its power from the intermittent unreliables by 2020. As a result of this giant leap of faith, German energy planners are scrambling for ways to convert big wind and big solar […]

Almost Half Of All Food Produced Is Thrown Away

Up to half of all the food produced in the world — two billion tons of it — is thrown away, according to a report published on Thursday. The waste is caused by poor infrastructure and storage facilities in the developing world, and “buy-one-get-one-free” offers, and the fussiness of consumers in the developed world, the […]

Food Shortages in Venezuela Bigger Worry Than Constitution

At a bustling food market in downtown Caracas, armed officers belonging to President Hugo Chavez’s National Bolivarian Guard marched by boxes of lettuce and tomatoes, checking prices and storage rooms. The inspection is part of a nationwide campaign to crack down on over-pricing and hoarding the government blames for shortages of basic goods, from toilet […]

Saudi faces battle over oil market share

Fracking and a global surge in offshore exploration pose the biggest challenge to Saudi Arabia’s oil policy since the 1980s. For Saudi policymakers, the question will be how to maintain market share and export revenues amid a host of competing supplies from shale and other unconventional deposits, offshore fields in Latin America and Africa, the […]

China’s Inflation Accelerates as Chill Boosts Food Prices

China’s inflation accelerated more than forecast to a seven-month high as the nation’s coldest winter in 28 years pushed up vegetable prices, a pickup that may limit room for easing to support an economic recovery. The consumer price index rose 2.5 percent in December from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today […]

2013: Beginning of Long-Term Recession?

We have been hearing a lot about escaping the fiscal cliff, but our problem isn’t solved. The fixes to date have been partial and temporary. There are many painful decisions ahead. Based on what I can see, the most likely outcome is that the US economy will enter a severe recession by the end of […]

Iraq threatens to seize oil shipped without its consent, sue dealers after Kurds begin exports

Iraq has threatened to seize oil exports made without its consent and sue companies dealing in what it sees as contraband crude just days after the country’s self-rule Kurdish region began unilaterally exporting oil. The spokesman for Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, Safeen Dizayee, confirmed Friday that the largely autonomous territory began shipping oil unilaterally to […]

The 4-Week Manipulated Move in Oil Prices is Criminal

  No Fundamental Reason for Oil to Move Higher   When is this country going to say enough is enough and start putting people in jail for this kind of blatant market manipulation? It is obvious that the Oil market is manipulated, oil has gone nowhere for five months because there is no reason for […]

China Is Massively Boosting Stockpiles of Rice, Iron Ore, Precious Metals, Dry Milk

If there were ever a sign that something is amiss, this may very well be it. United Nations agricultural experts are reporting confusion, after figures show that China imported 2.6 million tons of rice in 2012, substantially more than a four-fold increase over the 575,000 tons imported in 2011. The confusion stems from the fact […]

Look How Much Natural Gas Gets Flared At Oil Fields In North Dakota

Boosted by the fracking boom that has opened up fossil fuel reserves trapped under the Bakken Shale, North Dakota is now the second-largest oil producing state in America. But the state has a dirty little secret: drilling companies are wasting a lot of natural gas to get to that oil. How much natural gas is […]

The World Population Will Begin to Shrink by 2070

End of the world catastrophe scenes are as silly as they are fascinating. Acid rain was once a concern, but it proved mostly imaginary. The ranges of forests it was supposed to destroy in Germany were if anything fertilized by such rain. And so it seems all this sci-fi hoopla about the world overpopulating is […]

Energy From Wind Turbines Actually Less Than Estimated

The US-DOE is envisioning the US having at least 20% of its energy from IWTs by 2050. Most of these would be located in the Great Plains, where the good to excellent winds are.   The National Renewable Energy Laboratories, NRELs, have proposed High Voltage Direct Current, HVDC, lines from the Great Plains to the […]

Shale Gas: How often do fracked wells leak?

When industry says hardly ever, that’s a myth. It’s a documented, chronic problem. One of the boldest claims made by the shale gas industry goes like this: oil and gas companies have drilled and fractured a million oil and gas wells with nary a problem. In other words fracture fluid or methane leaks are “a […]

Oil rises after Saudi Arabia cuts output

* Saudi Arabia cuts oil output to just over 9 mln bpd * Yemen oil pipeline blast halts main export flows * China export growth in December higher than forecast * Coming up: CFTC positions data 3:30 p.m. EST Friday By Joshua Schneyer NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Oil futures rose on Thursday on […]

To Stop Iran, Get a New Saudi King

On December 25, while many Americans were eating turkey or Chinese meals and otherwise distracted from the rest of the world, leaders of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf met in Manama, the capital of the island state of Bahrain, for their annual summit. The meeting was scarcely noticed by American newspapers and other […]

Keeping Peak Oil Reality In Mind # 21: The Trade-Off

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Kurt Cobb: No one–not the fossil fuel industry, not government, not private forecasters–can know for certain what our future supplies of fossil fuels will be. If those supplies are constrained as current trends and data suggest, then we will be forced to make an energy transition whether […]

About That Overpopulation Problem

Research suggests we may actually face a declining world population in the coming years. The world’s seemingly relentless march toward overpopulation achieved a notable milestone in 2012: Somewhere on the planet, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the 7 billionth living person came into existence. Lucky No. 7,000,000,000 probably celebrated his or her birthday sometime […]

UAE Plans to Lift Oil Production Capacity in 2013

The United Arab Emirates plans to raise its oil production capacity to 3 million barrels a day, from the current 2.8 million, during the current year, the country’s oil minister Mohammad Al-Hamli said Wednesday. The Gulf state’s crude output stood at 2.6 million barrels a day in December and it is currently producing at around […]

Water costs as much as gas

It is difficult for me to believe that people pay good money to buy water to drink and not complain at all. Eventually, I suppose, we will have to buy air to breathe. Yesterday, I watched with awe as a man emerged from a store bearing three big plastic bags jammed with plastic bottles of […]

Heinberg: A Theory of Change for a Century of Crisis

Conflict and Change in the Era of Economic Decline: Part 2 A theory of change for a century of crisis The following is the final part of an essay which was originally an address to the International Conference on Sustainability, Transition and Culture Change, November 16, 2012, by Richard Heinberg. For Part 1 see Museletter […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Year Ahead

There are many forces at work in our world today – climate change, Arab Spring, population growth, and mass migrations to name a few. Some of these forces may come to impact our lives in the coming year while others may not be perceptible for decades. Our concern here is the world oil and gas […]

Is ‘peak oil theory’ delayed by fracking?

About a decade ago, the theory of ‘peak oil’ stated that at some point in the near future, global oil production would peak, sending prices sky-high. But since then, the discovery of vast shale oil and gas reserves – many of them in the US – has led some to question whether that point has […]

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