Transportation Woes Keep US Oil Prices High

Given increasingly abundant supplies of natural gas and crude in the U.S., some consumers scratch their heads at the sight of high gas prices, which aren’t expected to sink much as the summer season gets under way. Yet some observers point a finger at inefficiencies in the U.S. transportation system, which forces oil companies to […]

Pakistan’s growth in electricity access phenomenal

Pakistan has made substantial progress in electrification both in absolute terms and relative to the size of its population over the past two decades, World Bank’s report on ‘Global Tracking Framework showed. According to the report, 60 percent of Pakistan’s total population had access to electricity in 1990, 80 percent in 2000 while 91 percent […]

Alaska uses drones to inspect oil and gas pipelines at a fraction of the cost

No pilot was required when the Aeryon Scout took off into the leaden skies of Alaska to inspect a stretch of oil pipeline. The miniature aircraft was guided by an engineer on the ground, armed only with a tablet computer. The 20-minute test flight, conducted by BP Plc last fall, was a glimpse of a […]

Iraq Looks to Foreign Investment To Boost Oil Capacity

Technip, a French company specializing in the management of energy producing installations, received a “significant contract” in the second phase of the oil refinery project in the Iraqi province of Karbala, in what seems to be an actual manifestation of Iraq’s desire to rely on foreign investments in order to remedy the shortfall experienced by […]

Where Does America’s Oil Come From? (An Update)

In 2005, 60% of all petroleum consumed in the U.S. came from imports. The conventional wisdom then and for several years thereafter was that America was fated to become ever-more-dependent on increasingly costly petroleum imports. Peak oil alarm was in vogue, popularized by books such as Peak Oil Survival: Preparation for Life after Gridcrash (2006), Twilight in the […]

Food prices to stay high

Agricultural production is expected to slow down over the next decade, due largely to limited expansion of arable land, rising production costs, environmental pressures and resource constraints, the U.N. food agency said. “Although relatively resilient to economic downturns, the agricultural markets continue to reflect the impact of a two speed global economy with weak recovery […]

The Abundance of the Commons

Silke Helfrich: Roberto, when you talk about “abundance in the commons,” what are you talking about? Roberto Verzola: I am talking of three things: the abundance of free – or low-cost information and knowledge, thanks to new information and communication technologies (ICTs); the abundance that continually asserts itself in biological systems despite human abuse and […]

Self-destruction: A myth or a reality?

Reading Inferno, the latest novel by Dan Brown, I realize how wrong we have been in believing the myth of nature’s limitless resources. Unfortunately, this myth — thanks to Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and its successors — now believed by most motivators, is actually “a state of denial”, as Brown reminds us. I quote from […]

Has Peak Oil Newbie “Bought the Farm”?

Dr. K., I only leaned about peak oil about a year ago. I’ve discussed it with my husband and family and at least my daughter and her husband have bought a small farm and are starting to re-calibrate.  My husband and I hope against hope to sell our home so we can be near them […]

China’s Iraqi-oil dominance: Should the U.S. be miffed?

“Imperialism doesn’t pay,” says Robert Scheer at The Huffington Post. That’s the lesson we Americans should draw from last week’s New York Times report detailing how China — and not the U.S. — is cashing in on Iraq’s oil. So much for “the myth of wealth following the flag.” The U.S. spent more than $3 […]

Ecuador Oil Spill Pollutes Amazon Tributary

Ecuador’s state oil company resumed pumping through the country’s main pipeline on Tuesday, four days after it was damaged by a landslide. But crude spilled by the accident reached tributaries of the Amazon River and polluted drinking water for a regional capital far downstream. Petroecuador issued a statement saying pumping resumed at 9:15 a.m. (1415 […]

Sustaining a City in a Long-Term Power Outage

A few comments on this fascinating study from Pittsburgh (site of Carnegie Mellon, which is a center of excellence at studying critical infrastructure issues).  The key theme that emerges for me is the interaction of the liquid fuel system (particularly diesel) and the electricity system.  In a short outage, lots of critical infrastructure has diesel […]

Watts Up, Vaclav? Putting Peak Oil and the Renewables Transition in Context

  Like most serious energy geeks, I’m a huge fan of Vaclav Smil, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. His detailed and highly empirical work on energy is enormously useful for those who would have a realistic grasp on the future of energy. But for heaven’s sake, don’t forecast the […]

China joins fusion reactor project

China’s UN Ambassador, Tang Guoqiang, ratified Monday an international agreement on a project to build the world’s first fusion reactor, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Tang submitted a letter signed by President Hu Jintao to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director General Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna approving China’s involvement in the International Thermonuclear Experimental […]

Industrial Hemp: The Answer for a Greener Future

More industrial hemp is exported to the U.S. than to any other country and American consumers are purchasing over $450 million in hemp products annually. Bringing It Home explores the question of why a crop with so many widespread benefits cannot be farmed in the U.S. by illustrating its history and current industries, and by […]

Peak Oil Revisited Oil Limits Are Now Debt Limits

Greg Palast Investigative Reporter on RT… SUBSCRIBE – Win a Free Silver Coin Every Day http://freesilvernow.com/globalnetwork More info about Wealth creation with Gold and Silver https://www.facebook.com/goldandsilve…

Would-Be World’s Biggest Oil Merger Agreed at Bilderberg

Despite countless examples that prove the contrary, detractors, debunkers and non believers continually argue that the Bilderberg group holds no power, and that it is just a talking shop for elite has-beens. Now yet more evidence has emerged that policy and secret multi-billion deals between business heads and government are formulated at the meeting. The […]

More radioactive leaks reported at Japan’s Fukushima plant

The operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday admitted it had found another leak of radioactive water, the latest episode in a growing catalogue of mishaps. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), said one of its workers spotted drips coming from a tank used to store radioactive water at the site on Japan’s tsunami-wrecked […]

Cities of the Future

Globalisation has meant urbanisation, and by 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities. What should we do to survive and thrive in this brave new world? In just half a century, the island nation city-state of Singapore has transformed itself from a fishing village to a global financial centre, hailed […]

Natural gas 101: Choosing between LNG and CNG

Part 1 of the “Natural gas 101″ series discusses how natural gas has become a viable fuel for trucking. Part 2, here, goes in-depth on the key differences between compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas and what’s right for your fleet. Part 3 will run Friday and will examine how natural gas-powered trucks can […]

Comment Period Extension for Fracking Regulations Justified

The Bureau of Land Management’s 60-day comment period extension for hydraulic fracturing rules proposed last month for federal and Indian lands will be needed to allow the oil and gas industry to effectively review and comment on all existing various state and federal agency regulatory activities that overlap with much of what BLM is proposing, […]

Peak water limiting energy production

One of the most controversial subjects in the energy world is that of “peak oil”; the idea that oil production has peaked and will keep declining until we have used the last of the world’s oil resources. I will be taking a more detailed look at the peak oil issue in a future column but […]

China’s Growing Hunger for Meat Shown by Move to Buy Smithfield, World’s Leading Pork Producer

Half the world’s pigs—more than 470 million of them—live in China, but even that may not be enough to satisfy the growing Chinese appetite for meat. While meat consumption in the United States has fallen more than 5 percent since peaking in 2007, Chinese meat consumption has leapt 18 percent, from 64 million to 78 […]

The Argument Against Oil Drilling in Arctic Seas

The Natural Resources Defense Council has issued a statement concluding that recent events — most notably the grounding of a Shell Oil drilling rig in Alaska — show the oil industry is not ready to safely, cleanly drill offshore in the Arctic. I agree. There’s no logic for pushing fossil-fuel frontiers this extreme while neglecting […]

Fracking Creates Water Scarcity Issues in Michigan

Concerns about the impact to local groundwater by massive water use—on a scale never before seen in Michigan fracking operations—are coming to a head, as the plan for Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. to use 8.4 million gallons of water to fracture a single well has been stymied by a lack of water on […]

Schools Addressing Students’ Fossil Fuel Fears Without Divesting

Divesting university endowment holdings from fossil fuel companies may be technically and financially difficult, and schools considering doing so in response to student campaigns may want to consider alternatives, investment professionals say. Colleges and universities that have started divesting from fossil fuel companies say despite the difficulties, it is possible and that doing so is […]

PEMEX, China Make Landmark Deal

Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) will have access to a credit line of $1 billion from China’s Export-Import Bank to buy vessels and offshore oilfield equipment, the company announced Tuesday after signing the agreement with the bank. PEMEX stated that this loan is an important financing option for the renewal of its fleet and the modernization of […]

Food vs. Fuel: Oil and Rising Food Prices

Last week, the World Bank released a new report that further confirms what most of us have known for a long time — that rising crude oil prices are the biggest contributor to rising food prices. This may come as a shock to the growing hordes who believe the myth that corn for ethanol is […]

Peak Oil: Denial Mode

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Richard Embleton: We don’t like bad news, particularly when it has very long term implications. Individually and collectively we tend to slip into denial mode, focus on diversions, become numbed to the reality of the situation, cling to anyone willing to assure us it just ain’t so, […]

The “Chinese Dream” Come True: Gobbling Up Assets Overseas

The “Chinese dream” is the dream of the whole nation and also of every individual Chinese, explained Fu Ying, chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress. The slogan had been coined by President Xi Jinping after he’d ascended to the throne of the Communist Party. It would benefit the world, she […]

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