World Bank urged to end economic study

An internal review has thrown into question the validity of the World Bank publishing a competitive economic ranking of countries according to how business-friendly they are. An independent panel set up by the World Bank’s new president, Jim Yong Kim, to look at one of its highest profile country report said yesterday the bank should […]

17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming Economic Collapse

The vast majority of Americans are going to be absolutely blindsided by what is coming.  They don’t understand how our financial system works, they don’t understand how vulnerable it is, and most of them blindly trust that our leaders know exactly what they are doing and that they will be able to fix our problems.  […]

What natural gas glut? Just export, baby, export!

Drill, baby, drill! Energy companies are doing that all over America right now, sparking fears of a natural gas glut. But the experts are not concerned, saying demand — especially from overseas — is increasing and the United States needs to simply export more of the natural gas it is producing. In what the International […]

Unsettling truth in population data

The news on the population front sounds bad. Birth rates are not dropping as fast as expected and we are likely to end up with an even bigger world population by the end of the century. The last revision of the United Nations’ world population prospects, two years ago, predicted about 10 billion people by […]

Peak Oil: Energy Independence

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Jen Alic. Overall, Americans are being misled about the nature of their dependency. Too much focus on removing the ‘foreign’ element in the foreign oil dependence equation is skewing the larger picture: Independence can only be achieved by tackling dependency on oil itself, not on the origins […]

U.S. Oil and Gas at Greater Risk for Cyber Attacks

The U.S. energy sector, including oil and gas producers, was hit by more targeted malware attacks from April to September last year than any other industry, says a new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report, citing data from a Houston-based security company, Alert Logic. U.S. oil and natural gas operations are increasingly vulnerable to cyber […]

How BP Got Screwed on Gulf Oil Spill Claims

Until this year, Tampa attorney Kevin McLean specialized in suing nursing homes for neglecting patients. In January he switched the focus of his practice to a fund BP (BP) established to compensate business losses from the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In its attempt to dilute a legal and public-relations mess of […]

Methane found in drinking water near natural gas wells

Elevated levels of methane, ethane and propane gases were found in drinking water wells in Pennsylvania, close to operations that shake natural gas loose from underground shale formations in a process known as fracking, scientists report. Detection of contaminated drinking water suggests the gas wells are leaking, according to Robert Jackson of Duke University, lead […]

Richard Heinberg Navigating the New Economic Reality Part 1

Navigating the New Economic Reality with Richard Heinberg (Part 1) Event Date: Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Kelly Rajala (Co-founder of Share Exchange) introduced Richard Heinberg. Richard is the author of ten books including the award-winning The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality. Richard in his presentation, surveys three over-arching global trends that […]

Can Frackers Be Paid Off? How One Community Is Trying to Buy Out Oil and Gas Leases

Craig Amichaux considers saving the Thompson Divide a last stand. “That’s all we’ve got left,” said Amichaux, an avid skier who runs a family campground in his native Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The Thompson Divide encompasses 221,500 acres of national forest land in five Colorado counties (Pitkin, Gunnison, Garfield, Mesa and Delta) on the Rockies’ Western […]

New UN Population Projections Released: Pockets of High Fertility Drive Overall Increase

October 31, 2011, was notable not only for the annual ritual of candy and costumes, but also for its designation by the United Nations as the date when global population reached seven billion. Although just an estimate – demographers are not able to count individuals in real time on such a large scale – the […]

Marc Rich’s Sleazy Genius

He will forever be known as the fugitive financier even though, in the end, Marc Rich was free to travel wherever he wished. Rich, who died today in Switzerland at age 78 following a stroke, was the swashbuckling commodities trader who made boatloads of money but got crosswise with Rudolph Giuliani in the 1980s. As […]

Clean Energy to Beat Gas in Power Mix by 2016,

Renewable energy may supply more electricity than nuclear reactors or natural gas by 2016, spurred by declining costs and growing demand in emerging markets, the International Energy Agency said. Wind, solar, bioenergy and geothermal use may grow 40 percent in the next five years, double the 20 percent pace in 2011, the Paris-based organization said […]

BP Challenges Settlements in Gulf Oil Spill

BP is placing full-page advertisements in three of the nation’s largest newspapers on Wednesday as the company mounts an aggressive campaign to challenge what could be billions of dollars in settlement payouts to businesses after its 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The ad, scheduled to be published in The New York Times, […]

Norway overtakes Russia as Europe’s biggest gas supplier

Russia lost its position as the main supplier of gas to EU last year as Gazprom exports fell by 10% knocked down by coal and high prices. High gas prices in the EU coupled with cheap coal from the US, have made coal a more attractive fuel for power stations, according a new energy report […]

Egypt blames rumors for acute fuel shortage

Egypt’s embattled government on Tuesday blamed rumors and corruption for an acute fuel shortage that has had drivers waiting in long lines to fill their gas tanks — straining already taught nerves ahead of planned mass demonstrations this weekend demanding the resignation of the president. Four Cabinet ministers lined up in front of cameras inside […]

Orlov: The Tapernanke has spoken

If you’ve noticed, the financial markets have been in a bit of a state lately. The latest crisis has been triggered by the Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke publicly mouthing the opinion that there shall be a “tapering off” of the frenzied free money printing and US government debt-buying scheme that he has been running for […]

World Population: The African Exception

The news on the population front sounds bad: birth rates are not dropping as fast as expected, and we are likely to end up with an even bigger world population by the end of the century. The last revision of the United Nations’ World Population Prospects, two years ago, predicted just over 10 billion people […]

Arab countries still suffering divergent demographic challenges

Secretary-General of the Arab League Dr. Nabil Al-Arabi pointed out here on Tuesday the Arab region was still undergoing divergent demographic challenges such as unemployment, marginalization, low income, and immigration despite Arab states’ efforts to strengthen and employ development opportunities. Latest data showed that a major number of Arab countries will not be able to […]

Civilization after Oil Runs Out (Full Documentary) Peak Oil

Civilization after Oil Runs Out (Full Documentary) Peak Oil … … … 2013 This documentary and the rest of the documentaries here are about important times and figures in history, historic places and sites, archaeology, science, conspiracy theories, and education. The Topics of these video documentaries are varied and cover almost everything, including ancient history, […]

Fusion: the ‘great gamble’ we have to take

Billions has already been spent on fusion since the first experimental base opened in the former Soviet Union in the 1960s. Billions more is about to be spent on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in France, which is due to come into full operation in 2023. The aim of all this expenditure is to achieve […]

Blame Canada: Greedy for oil money, the country is turning into a rogue petrostate

When I recently interviewed Canadian artist Franke James, whose outspoken appeals to her government for climate action landed her on Ottawa’s shit list, I was taken aback to hear her casually refer to her country as a “petrostate.” I knew Canada’s been spending gobs of federal money to promote its tar-sands agenda, but I didn’t […]

Big Oil’s Big Lies About Alternative Energy

As President Obama calls for greater investments in alternatives, the biggest energy companies are doubling down on riskier, more destructive oil sources Since the Gulf oil disaster in 2010, BP has spent hundreds of millions of ad dollars to cleanse its image as a dirty-energy giant. In the company’s latest TV ad, wind turbines whirl […]

Saudi says ‘cannot be silent’ at Iran, Hezbollah role in Syria

Saudi Arabia regards the involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria’s civil war as dangerous and believes the rebels must be offered military aid to defend themselves, the kingdom’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. Speaking at a news conference with U.S. Secretary John Kerry in Jeddah, Prince Saud al-Faisal added that Saudi Arabia “cannot be […]

The Energy Efficiency Gap & The Research Myth

Every time energy policy is being discussed, you’ll usually find a call for more R&D spending at the top of the list of ways to solve problems. While I agree that research is great, it’s obviously not enough and, if anything, only the first step. Unfortunately, calls for more R&D spending can sometimes be nothing […]

India helping in controlling global food prices

India has emerged as a strong player in helping cool down global food prices by exporting major farm commodities like rice and wheat, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said today. “While feeding 17% of world’s population we have emerged as strong player in international market helping to cool down the world food prices,” Pawar said at […]

Food, Farms, and Fracking in California

Jim Leap, an organic farmer in Aromas, California, had his first introduction to fracking a year ago when a bunch of large trucks showed up at his property and workers started putting out data loggers. When he asked what was they were doing, he was told that they were mapping earthquake faults. “I have to […]

Robert Rapier: Avoiding Energy’s Big Buts

This past week I posted the following graphic on my Twitter account (@RRapier) showing the explosive growth of renewable electricity, particularly over the past decade: The first response to this graphic was “But…INTERMITTENT!” It is true that wind and solar power are intermittent — points I have discussed on several occasions. Biomass and geothermal power, […]

Qatar’s emir transfers power to son

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani says he is handing over power to son and calls on countrymen to lend their support. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar for 18 years, has transferred the “reins of power” to his son. The outgoing emir made the announcement to hand over power to Sheikh […]

How America Stopped Using 2 Million Barrels of Oil Each Day

In a recent post I noted that the decline in US oil use had been a big player in the recent fall in US carbon emissions. In fact America is using two million barrels a day less oil than it did in 2005.  As some commenters noted in the last post we can get a […]

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