Outlook Grim in Venezuela’s Essential Oil Industry

Only the filthy water from broken sewer pipes keeps the dust down in front of Ramon Boet’s shop, which sells statues of saints and other religious objects. In the distance, massive tankers pull up to a half-century-old refinery that processes much of the oil that earns Venezuela more than $100 billion a year. “It doesn’t […]

U.S. and Israel Prepare for Summer Attack On Iran

The U.S. has designed a bunker buster penetrator bomb that will take out Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment complex, a target previously considered too fortified for conventional weapons. The new weapon, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, is considered critical to an effort by the United States to convince Israel that the U.S. […]

Israel Targeted Iranian Missiles in Syrian Attack

The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria overnight on Thursday was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, American officials said Saturday. It was the second time in four months that Israel has carried out an attack in Syria […]

Robert Rapier: The Scientific Challenges To Replacing Oil with Renewables

So, assuming the Peak Oil camp is on to something, what’s the likelihood for a disruption-free transition to another energy source that can replace the energy output we currently enjoy from oil? There’s no shortage of promising claims from new laboratory experiments, and there is a lot of optimism in political and entrepreneurial circles that […]

Plant proteins can help solve global food, fuel problems

Scientists have shown that certain proteins in plants that function as transporters can help solve global fuel and food problems, a study says. New discoveries of the way plants transport important substances across their biological membranes to resist toxic metals and pests, increase salt and drought tolerance, control water loss and store sugar can have […]

Six Billion, or Fifteen Billion People

A Discussion With Environmental Scientist Leon Kolankiewicz Leon Kolankiewicz at New Mexico’s Rio Grande Bosque © Kathy Kolankiewicz Leon Kolankiewicz is an environmental scientist, wildlife ecologist, and natural resources planner whose career spans almost 30 years, multiple states, and three countries, having worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska […]

Future looks crowded, impoverished

Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834), an English Clergyman, predicted that increasing population would be limited by famine and disease. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University professor, predicted mass starvation in the 1970s and ’80s because of increasing population. Both prophecies failed because of improvements in agricultural productivity. I’ve just read five interesting books: “Limits […]

Lower Gas Prices, But for How Long?

By now, who hasn’t heard about the oil boom in the United States? Higher oil prices and new extraction techniques are largely credited for creating a rash of new oil fields, resulting in domestic production soaring to levels that haven’t been seen in decades. In fact, many are attributing the slight dip in oil and […]

New Wyoming Lithium Deposit could Meet all U.S. Demand

The U.S. currently imports more than 80% of the lithium it uses, with the silvery metal winding up in batteries from cell phones to electric cars. According to a United States Geological Survey publication on lithium, “The only commercially active lithium mine in the United States was a brine operati on in Nevada. The mine’s […]

Approaching ‘peak oil’?

The idea of ‘peak oil’ – or the point in time when maximum petroleum extraction has been reached – is something that has been around since the 1950s. These days though, the debate centres on whether oil has or has not yet reached its ‘peak’, given that we have extracted so much of it, and […]

Israel confirms Syria strike

An Israeli airstrike against Syria was targeting a shipment of advanced missiles bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Israeli officials confirmed Saturday. It was the second Israeli strike this year against Syria and the latest salvo in its long-running effort to disrupt Hezbollah’s quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel’s air […]

Ex-Shell Chief Hofmeister Promotes US Fuel Diversity

Alternative fuels have lost some of their luster in the US, lately, for understandable reasons.  Oil production here is booming based on shale resources that keep expanding, while the market for ethanol, our most successful alternative fuel, has stalled at the long-anticipated “blend wall“, resulting in ethanol plant closures and bankruptcy filings.  More advanced cellulosic […]

If The Economy Is So Fragile That Government Can’t Allow Failure Then We Are Indeed Close To Collapse

Following today’s flashback to the most euphoric and irrationally exuberant days of market peaks (and bubbles) gone by, driven entirely by the now constant central-planner dilution of current and future wealth, these selected excerpts from Seth Klarman’s latest letter to investors is just the cold water of common sense everyone needs: From Seth Klarman of […]

Is nuclear fusion power now possible?

On 26 April, the world largely yawned as a nuclear anniversary came and went. Twenty-seven years ago, the Ukrainian SSR nuclear power plant at Chernobyl exploded, providing a severe test of the USSR’s General Secretary of the Communist Party Mihail Gorbachev’s policy of “glasnost” (“openness,”), which the sclerotic Soviet leadership signally failed, providing a less […]

Top 10 Oil & Gas Cities in the World

For years, the petroleum industry has created significant job opportunities and economic benefits through energy hubs around the world. Innovations in technology and old-fashioned determination have allowed vast supplies of oil and gas to be brought to market from key cities in nearly every country. The running list of active and pending projects, along with […]

Dr. Sami Alnuaim: Global oil reserves

As a result to the comments/discussion I had received in relation to the article that I wrote and was published in this column two weeks ago under the title: ‘The Falsehood of Peak Oil Theory’, I would like to further clarify my opinion by defining the term “Hydrocarbon Reserves” as per the official definition of […]

Possible US Budget Fix: Sell Our Strategic Oil

The U.S. economy is awash in fossil fuel production, which coincides with a stalemate over how to stanch the government’s flood of budgetary red ink. It also raises a tantalizing question for a few observers: whether the U.S. should liquidate some of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve and apply the proceeds to help close the deficit. […]

Could fracking solve China’s energy problems?

China is an oil-devouring behemoth that is almost entirely dependent on other countries for its energy needs. Also, China is fortunate enough to have massive amounts of shale gas reserves — natural gas that is trapped in sedimentary rock. Sounds like an easy solution, right? Not really. If it were, China would be tapping that rock. […]

Solar Dreams, Spanish Realities

“We had a lot of hopes and now we’re more skeptical.” That’s how Pedro Prieto, a 62-year-old global telecom engineer and solar entrepreneur, sums up Spain’s famous solar revolution. Spain’s renewable dream, of course, began as sunny-multi-billion-dollar boom. Quasi-religious images of fields of photovoltaics and radiant concentrated solar towers wowed North American greens. (Concentrated solar […]

OPEC Exports Seen Stable Amid ‘Glum’ Demand, Oil Movements Says

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will keep shipments little changed this month as “glum” demand in the U.S. and Europe counters rising consumption in Asia, tanker tracker Oil Movements said. The group that supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil will ship 23.67 million barrels a day in the four weeks to May […]

Oil Drilling Technology Leaps, Clean Energy Lags

Technology created an energy revolution over the past decade — just not the one we expected. By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae — or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. […]

Gulf oil spill is sickening fish vital to seafood industry

The seafood is safe to eat and the Gulf of Mexico tourism industry is recovering three years after the nation’s worst offshore oil spill spewed more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the waters off Louisiana. But despite that BP-sponsored commercial message, something appears to be amiss at the bottom of the Gulf’s […]

The U.S. Is Supporting the Most Violent Muslim Terrorists In Order to Wage War for Oil

The Government – Which Has Taken Away Our Liberties and Destroyed Our Prosperity to Fight An Endless War On Terror – Has Been Arming, Funding and Otherwise Backing the Very Terrorists Who Are Carrying Out Most of the Attacks Sunni Muslims commit more terrorist acts worldwide than any other group.  For example, the National Counterterrorism […]

Jeremy Grantham On The Fall Of Civilizations (And Our Last Best Hope)

In a slight digression from the usual pure market-based discussions of Jeremy Grantham’s perspectives, the fund manager addresses what is potentially and even more critical factor for the markets. As he writes, we are in a race for our lives, as our global economy, reckless in its use of all resources and natural systems, shows […]

Is Sustainability Still Possible?

On Tuesday, April 16, the Worldwatch Institute held its seventeenth annual State of the World Symposium to launch its latest book, State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? As contributors to the book, Pat Murphy and Faith Morgan were invited to attend the event, where Pat spoke on one of several panels. The […]

Iraqis, Kurds Reach Agreement over Oil Payments

The federal government in Baghdad and Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan have reached a tentative agreement to resolve a dispute over payments to foreign companies that has shut down most crude oil exports from the region, Iraqi officials said. The tentative deal was reached during a meeting earlier this week between federal Prime Minister Nouri […]

High oil prices halt growth

The man who predicted five years ago that $100 US a barrel oil was here to stay is now saying that “triple-digit oil prices” will keep the brakes on global economic growth for as long as oil remains the lubricant of the world economy. And Jeff Rubin, economist and best-selling author of The End of […]

EU Lifts Oil Embargo on Syria – Buys Directly from Al Qaeda

It was recently reported that the European Union would be lifting its oil embargo on Syria, in an effort to help fund what it calls “rebels” operating there. In the Associated Press article, “EU lifts Syria oil embargo to bolster rebels,” it states: The European Union on Monday lifted its oil embargo on Syria to […]

Bakken recoverable oil estimates are growing again

An oil-rich region of the north-central United States holds more than twice the recoverable crude supplies estimated just five years ago, a government study released Tuesday said. The Bakken Formation and Three Forks Formation — which span parts of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota — together hold about 7.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically […]

Saudi Oil Minister: America Will Remain a Consumer of Saudi Oil

Washington, Asharq Al-Awsat—Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi stated that Saudi Arabia is committed to a stable global oil market in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington yesterday morning. Naimi stressed that Saudi Arabia does not want to see a rise in oil prices, except where this reflects actual […]

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