Fallout level in Fukushima city keeps going up

Fallout level in Fukushima city has been increasing this February for some reason. On 2/20/2013, it reached the 3rd highest level in February, but it increased even more the next day. The fallout level on 2/19/2013 was the second highest level since May. 2012.     http://wwwcms.pref.fukushima.jp/download/1/koukabutsu421.pdf     Iori Mochizuki   fukushima-diary.com

Post Carbon David Hughes New Shale Gas Report: Drill Baby Drill

A provocative new analysis of so-called unconventional fuel reserves in the United States concludes that the exuberant forecasts are simply unwarranted based on the facts of geology. In short, the hype around shale gas is just that. Hype. We speak with the author of the Drill Baby Drill study. David Hughes is a fellow at […]

California sees record one-month rise in gasoline prices

Southern California has seen its biggest ever one-month rise in gasoline prices, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California’s weekend gas watch. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the varying regions of Southern California has now climbed 57 to 59 cents since last month. “We looked at all of the […]

Peak Oil: Not That Complicated

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Richard Heinberg: The Peak of Peak-Oil Denial Costs of production are rising inexorably—and fairly rapidly—as a result of replacement of conventional crude with oil produced from horizontal drilling and hydro-fracturing, ultra deepwater drilling, and tar sands. … Today, most new projects look uneconomic if oil prices are […]

The energy sector in coming years

Byron King gives us the realities of shale gas.

New Process Takes Energy From Coal Without Burning It

“Ohio State students have come up with a scaled-down version of a power plant combustion system with a unique experimental design–one that chemically converts coal to heat while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction. Typical coal-fired power plants burn coal to heat water to make steam, which turns the turbines […]

Peak Everything Oil Resources

The End of Oil Production is Upon Us All. The World is in Decline. Peak Oil is here and now all the Dominos will begin to Fall.

The Making of a Natural Gas Glut

A former investment banker says the explosion in shale gas development, such as frenzied activity in northern B.C., was a financial mania largely driven by Wall Street bankers intent on capitalizing upon a record $46-billion worth of mergers and acquisitions that shook up the troubled industry in 2011. In an attempt to meet unrealistic financial […]

Iran to speed up nuclear program

Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plant, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday, a defiant step that will worry Western powers ahead of a resumption of talks with Tehran next week. In a confidential report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said 180 so-called IR-2m centrifuges and empty centrifuge […]

Next oil boom could be buried beneath fertile Calif. farmland

Thousands of feet below some of the nation’s most fertile farmland could be 15.4 billion barrels of crude oil. Billion, with a “B.” The federal government believes the Monterey Shale, which lies under more than 1,750 square miles of central and southern California, has far more shale oil than anywhere else in the lower 48 […]

Biofuels Are a Loser, Despite the Hope and Hype

I’ve been spending the past hour or so reading an excellent paper written by a US Naval aviator titled Twenty-First Century Snake Oil: Why the United States Should Reject Biofuels as Part of a Rational National Energy Security Strategy. Though there is sufficient coverage of the basic chemistry and thermodynamics of agriculture and combustion processes […]

The Price of Solar Power

DOWNLOAD MP3   All across Europe feed-in tariffs and subsidies for solar power are being cut or even scraped. In Portugal and Spain these actions are justified with the debt crisis, even though they expand these states’ trade deficit. This month the Spanish government took a decisive move to scare investors away and expel most […]

Wal-Mart: “Families Are Adjusting To A Reduced Paycheck And Increased Gas Prices”

Moment ago Wal-Mart reported a top-line miss, a bottom line beat, a dividend hike and a rather subdued full year forecast ($5.20-$5.40 on Exp. of $5.39), and nobody cared. The only thing that algos and carbon-based lifeforms alike honed in on, was the recap of the most recent 13 week period, to see if WMT […]

A Bridge to Nowhere: Creating Natural Gas-Based Infrastructure

Many have advocated the transition from a coal-based to a natural gas-based energy infrastructure as a crucial advancement in avoiding the catastrophic effects of climate change. This rapid transfer from one fossil fuel source to another, spurred by the explosion of horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” fails to account for the life-cycle and vast externalities […]

John Michael Greer: In a Time of Limits

When the French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville toured the newly founded American republic in the early years of the nineteenth century, he encountered plenty of things that left him scratching his head. The national obsession with making money, the atrocious food, and the weird way that high culture found its way into the most isolated […]

Ugo Bardi: Money and collapse

Money does not really exists. Borrowing a metaphor developed by A. Mitchell-Inness, think of a concept such as a “kilogram,” a unit of measurement of weight. You can say that a certain object weighs one kg, but you can’t have a “kilogram” in your hands any more than Bodhidharma’s disciple could show his soul to […]

Saudi Arabia Seen Unlikely to Seek Nukes If Iran Gets One

Challenging what has become conventional wisdom here, a new report released here Tuesday by an influential think tank argues that Iran’s neighbours – Saudi Arabia in particular – are unlikely to pursue nuclear weapons if Iran obtains one. The 49-page report, “Atomic Kingdom: If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will Saudi Arabia Be Next?”, notes that […]

Public Health, Thermodynamics, And The Cat Food Commission

A previous article discusses the future of health systems operating under neoliberal ideology as it comes a cropper in a world undergoing degrowth.[i] Here I consider how this thrusts public health[ii] into in a “Which side are you on?” dilemma[iii] likely to separate its institutional administration from its frontline professionals –and the public it is […]

Ackerman and McPherson Dialogue: The idiot box

The following is the fifth in an ongoing dialogue (cyber-discussion) between two cultural philosophers and regular Transition Voice contributors, Dr. Sherry Ackerman and Dr. Guy McPherson. ACKERMAN:  We’ve been having a really intense winter up here in Mount Shasta, Guy. With five feet of snow currently on the ground, it’s been a challenge for us […]

A Strategy to Prevent the Next Fukushima

Among the most striking elements of the catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan were the hydrogen explosions that destroyed the upper parts of some of the reactor buildings. The hydrogen was released by a metal called zirconium in the overheated core. Since that accident, whose second anniversary falls on March 11, researchers have […]

America’s oil choice: Pay up, or get off

The oil industry has an important message for you, America: You’re not paying enough for fuel. And if you want to realize the fantasy of “North American energy independence,” you will have to pay more for it — a lot more. Getting drivers to go along with this notion will not be easy, so the […]

Saudi Arabia ready to lift oil output

Saudi Arabia expects to raise its oil output in the second quarter to satisfy higher demand from China and feed economic recovery elsewhere, oil industry sources said. The world’s largest oil exporter kept production steady at about 9 million barrels per day (bpd) last month and sources say production has since hovered around that level […]

The big shift

An energy transition has begun, but it’s probably not the one you imagined. It might have an ugly financial face, an authoritarian political mask or come in the guise of geographic disunion. But it probably won’t look like a solar panel or a windmill. And it won’t include flying cars or undersea homes. Although no […]

U.S. farmers may stop planting GMOs after horrific crop yields

Some farmers across the United States may stop planting genetically modified crops after poor yields are increasing costs beyond what they can absorb. According to Farmers Weekly, those farmers are considering returning to conventional seed after increased pest resistance and crop failures have meant smaller GM crop yields over non-GM counterparts. Farmers in the U.S. […]

“Drill Baby, Drill” Leads to Cheaper Gasoline? Think Again

The United States is undergoing an upsurge in crude oil production as shown by the first and second headlines below. Further, this significant production uptick permits east coast refineries to utilize less expensive crude oil obtained by horizontal drilling and “fracking” from the Bakken region in North Dakota (See the third headline) in contrast to […]

BP Wins U.S. Agreement to Cut Potential Spill Fine by $3.4 Billion

BP PLC ( BP ) is seeking to reduce by as much as $3.4 billion the amount it could be fined as a result of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, Bloomberg News reported Friday on its website. The U.K. company is seeking credit for the collection of 800,000 barrels of […]

Kjell Aleklett: Comments on the hearing on “American Energy Security and Innovation” before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power

“Many small creeks make a large stream” is a Swedish saying that describes well the production of shale oil and shale gas. Equivalent English sayings are, “Many a little makes a mickle”, (that originated in Scotland and then President George Washington used in a text of 1793) and “Many drops make a river”. If one […]

IEA: Oil Prices a Major Threat to Europe’s Economy

Oil prices are acting as a brake on the global economy, and harming Europe in particular, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist said at a conference in London today. Europe will need to spend 500 billion euros ($668 billion) on oil imports this year, about 200 billion euros more than average levels, if oil prices […]

Russia May Develop Heavily Sanctioned Iranian Oil

Facing embargoes from the U.S. and the EU, Iran allows Russian oil companies into its market. Under sanctions from the United States and the European Union, Iran is looking to Russian oil companies for investments, inviting them to participate in various energy-related projects. So far, only Zarubezhneft has responded; others are more wary, believing the […]

TAQA Makes North Sea Oil Discovery

Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. said it has discovered oil at the new Darwin field in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland. Two oil columns were discovered during the Darwin drilling program, which started in November, TAQA said in an emailed statement. One well has been suspended for the purpose of future well […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy