China takes cautious step toward carbon trading

China launched its first pilot carbon emissions exchange on Tuesday, though plans for a nationwide rollout and efforts to apply the scheme to some polluting heavy industries could be undermined by a slowdown in the world’s No.2 economy. High-emission industries such as aluminum and steel are likely to resist higher costs as they are already […]

Did Israel Attack Syria Again?

The IDF is refusing to comment on reports that Israel attacked the Al-Miza military airbase near Damascus last night, which if true could lead to a Syrian response and a massive escalation of the 27 month conflict. Image: Wikimedia Commons A Syrian television station sympathetic to anti-Assad rebels reported that Israel was responsible for the […]

The American Oil & Gas Industry Is Rescuing The Obama Economy

In Comeback: America’s New Economic Boom, author Charles Morris refers to “the new X-factor, the American energy advantage.” The “game changer”—shale oil and gas technology and production—has put the United States and Canada in the world’s leading economic saddle. An Oil Pump in western North Dakota (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Noted expert Daniel Yergin concurs. “Abundant […]

Americans Exporting More Oil First Time Since ’70s

The U.S. oil boom is moving Congress closer than it has been in more than three decades to easing the ban on exporting crude imposed after the Arab embargo. Advances such as hydraulic fracturing are leading to record production that may outstrip refinery capacity within 18 months to three years, said Benjamin Salisbury, a senior […]

75-Year Pemex Oil Monopoly to End This Year

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he’s confident Congress will end the state oil monopoly this year, opening the way for companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) to tap the nation’s reserves. In the model envisioned by Pena Nieto, state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos would develop some fields, while others are […]

Energy Export Databrowser Updated to BP 2013 data

The Energy Export Databrowser has been updated to the latest version of the BP Statistical Review. A few charts are provided below the fold that help illuminate the following stories evident in the data: The US is less reliant on imports from across the globe UK energy production from all sources continues its decline Brazil […]

Entropia: Life Beyond Industrial Civilisation

Samuel Alexander, from the Simplicity Institute, Australia, just published, “Entropia: Life Beyond Industrial Civilisation”, which is a fictional account of a post-carbon ‘utopia of sufficiency’ that emerges on the other side of civilisation’s demise. However grim the world looks, it is important to try to envision a better future. More info below: “Entropia is a […]

The “Green” Line

The recent release of the UN World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision contains some sobering reading. The global population projection for 2050 has been revised up from 9.3 to 9.6 billion and for 2100 from 10.1 to 10.9 billion. The reason is that fertility levels in a number of developing countries, particularly those in Sub-Saharan […]

“All of the Above” Energy Policy Must Be Weighted by Common Sense

“All of the Above” is just a cliché if not tempered by an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of different energy sources, and a standard basis of comparison. Renewable energy is gaining market share, but fossil fuels–especially oil and gas–will play crucial roles in the energy mix for decades. Last month, Real Clear Politics […]

Additional Iranian Oil Sanctions May Be Counterproductive

A June 6, 2013, article from Reuters is titled, “Lawmakers in new drive to slash Iran’s oil sales to a trickle.” According to it, U.S. lawmakers are embarking this summer on a campaign to deal a deeper blow to Iran’s diminishing oil exports, and while they are still working out the details, analysts say the ultimate goal […]

Different Peak Oil Denial Nonsense Is Still Nonsense

Some day (soon, I hope) audiences for whom peak oil denial nonsense is intended will ask themselves: what are the reasons—and supporting evidence—for these kinds of assertions? Good to have dreams, I say. (While they’re at it, audiences can also ask the same re: NRA-paranoid crazy statements and the idiotic pronouncements on a wide range […]

US and the Middle East

Of all the mistakes the US can make about an especially turbulent Middle East, one should be especially easy to describe and avoid. The mistake is to assume that a surge in production of oil and gas from unconventional resources in North America means the US has diminishing reason to worry about Middle Eastern affairs. […]

Unconventional oil, gas continues to change US energy landscape

While unconventional oil and gas technology breakthroughs have dramatically changed the US oil and gas outlook in the last 5 years, US Sec. of Energy Ernest Moniz said it will be important to recognize and continue progress in other forms of energy as well. “The energy security problems of many of our allies could become […]

The End Of OPEC

Saudi Arabian oil fields are drying up at a rapid pace, and the world isn’t quite ready for the end of “Old Oil.” Now, this hasn’t been very well publicized, for good reason. The fall of OPEC could lead to further instability in a region already facing considerable unrest. In fact, the biggest worry comes […]

The Unknown Unknowns And Survivor Bias

Survivorship bias helps us understand why success stories are not what actually helps us succeed. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is famous for uttering a koan-like description of the epistomological ambiguity of human experience: There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, […]

Why we should speed U.S. gas exports

John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When President Obama meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of Eight meeting this week, there should be a spotlight on our two nations’ drastically different approaches to natural gas […]

Leave coal in ground, scientists urge government

Most of Australia’s coal reserves will have to be left unburned if the world is to avoid catastrophic global warming, according to a major new report from the federal government’s Climate Commission. The report puts the key science advisory body on a collision course with some of the nation’s biggest export industries, and marks the […]

World Population to Reach 500 BILLION?!

That would be 500 with nine zeroes. Given that we are at about 7 billion now, this is not completely impossible to visualize. Look around you and consider that for each person you see, there would be 71 more people flocked around them, or about three standard classrooms more for each person in sight. I […]

Contemplating Megadeaths

“We have evolved very elegant internal retrieval mechanisms, much of that fabric spun during dreamtime. By comparison, our cultural memory is nearly as short and foggy as our memories of our dreams.” Happy Father’s Day Y’all! This week we are going to the vault for a blast from the past. We originally penned this piece […]

Economics for a finite world

“Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple,” said Woodie Guthrie. Nowhere is this more true than in books about economics. And nobody needs to get off their arrogant high horses and scale down their ambitions in light of peak oil, climate change and other ecological limits to human […]

Iran Sends 4,000 Troops To Aid Syria’s Assad

While the world awaits Russia’s formal response to last week’s US escalation in Syria (as Putin demonstratively arrived an hour late for talks on Syria with UK PM David Cameron) another country: Iran – fresh from an election in which moderate candidate Hassan Rohani became the new president – is taking matters into its own […]

British Honeybees Are Dying Faster Than Ever

UK honeybee deaths were the worst on record, the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) said in a statement on Thursday. Over the 2012-2013 winter season, 34 honeybee colonies of every 100 were lost on average — more than double that of the previous year. Widespread die-offs are being blamed largely on bad weather and a late […]

The big rigs run on natural gas

Frito-Lay is running more than 200 natural gas trucks and installing stations. A waste hauler in Connecticut has already pumped a million gallons of the stuff. At half the price of diesel (and with greatly reduced emissions), CNG and LNG are taking over the trucking business. BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT — I am standing in a parking […]

India set to overtake China in population

India’s population is set to outstrip China’s as much as 15 years earlier than previous estimates, according to a new United Nations report. But the real concern is that the scary UN numbers could trigger a drastic and counterproductive government response. “This is bound to cause a kneejerk reaction,” said demographer A.R. Nanda, a former secretary […]

Tech Talk – A June TWIP and the OPEC MOMR

The EIA has noted, in This Week in Petroleum that, for the first time, the sum of Non-OECD country demand contributed more than half to the total of liquid fuels consumed in the world.   Figure 1. Changes in the relative shares of liquid fuel consumption between the countries in and out of the OECD. […]

Developing Crisis In The Developing World

Things have been a little erratic lately here in US, but not really headline-worthy. The economy continues to grow, sort of, houses continue to sell and stock and bond prices fluctuate but can’t seem to follow through in either direction. We are not, in short, engulfed in any kind of crisis. But out in the […]

Can We Curb Our Addiction to AC?

If you are the average American, chances are your power bill will be lower this summer than last summer. It’s not because of falling energy prices or eco-friendly practices, but because this year is expected to be cooler than 2012, which was much warmer than normal. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates the average summer […]

Reasons Mexico’s Oil Production Has Stagnated

Mexico´s crude production peaked at 3.455 Mbopd in 2004 and has already declined to 2.568 Mbopd, (Feb 28, 2013). I believe it will not be possible to return to former production levels, nor even to the present official forecast of 3 million barrels per day, because of the following reasons: The giant and supergiant oil reservoirs, like Cantarell, […]

Why Oil Prices Are Bound to Stagnate

A quick look at a 10-year oil price chart reveals a clear trend: Oil prices are going up. Moreover, oil price increases are not a mere artifact of normal inflation. While the U.S. consumer price index has increased just 26.4% over the past 10 years, oil prices have gained a whopping 257%! Oil Prices vs. […]

McKinsey Disruptive Technologies Report

McKinsey has a report on emerging disruptive technologies – of interest to readers here are renewable energy, energy storage, the internet of things and – 3D printing – Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy. Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy, a report from […]

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