TheOilDrum writers: where are they now?

Nate Hagens is at TheMonkeyTrap JoulesBurn (Brian Maschhoff) is at Picojoule Euan Mearns is at Energy Matters Heading Out (Dave Summers) is at Bit Tooth Energy Rune Likvern is at Fractional Flow Gail Tverberg is at OurFiniteWorld Chris Vernon is at Chris Vernon Big Gav is at Peak Energy Australia Robert Rapier is at Energy […]

Peak Oil and the Myth of Oil-Company Profits

If the trend of the last 10 years continues, i.e. a 10-percent annual increase in price, a hundred years from now a barrel of oil will cost a million dollars — unless, of course, people decide that walking is more practical than driving a car. Yet, contrary to popular wisdom, oil company profits are in […]

World Population Estimate: 7,119,370,068 at 15:04 UTC (EST+5) Oct 22, 2013

World Population Estimate: 7,119,370,068 at 15:04 UTC (EST+5) Oct 22, 2013 newsroom America

Russia Grabs China Oil And Gas Export Deals

  Russian energy companies signed a slew of deals with China on Tuesday, seeking to lock in sales to fund costly production and pipeline projects that will direct exports away from Europe to Asia. The agreements, announced during a visit by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to Beijing, brought Igor Sechin, chief executive of state oil […]

‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’ Blamed for Mysterious Symptoms in Cape Cod

Sue Hobart, a bridal florist from Massachusetts, couldn’t understand why she suddenly developed headaches, ringing in her ears, insomnia and dizziness to the point of falling “flat on my face” in the driveway. “I thought I was just getting older and tired,” said the 57-year-old from Falmouth. Months earlier, in the summer of 2010, three […]

Peak Oil Denial: Skimming Over Facts

What is that mysterious concoction being shot underground into the shale rock, and how can it not be dangerous? Fears over pollution and contamination of drinking water and the environment from fracking fluid seem to stem from a lack of  information about what this rock-shattering mixture actually is. The secret to fracking fluid is water […]

Orlov: The Sixth Stage of Collapse

I admit it: in my last book, The Five Stages of Collapse, I viewed collapse through rose-colored glasses. But I feel that I should be forgiven for this; it is human nature to try to be optimistic no matter what. Also, as an engineer, I am always looking for solutions to problems. And so I […]

Limits to Nature

Guest Post by Graeme Maxton We cannot manage the limits of nature because they are limits. We want to live in a world without limits. Like long distance runners and racing car drivers, humankind is always trying to overcome limits, to achieve more. As we make breakthroughs, it is easy to think that we already […]

Why governments are blind to fossil fuel energy risk

Humans are capable of mass collective blindness to risk. In modern times, the financial crisis of 2008 shows us that clearly. A whole industry pushed a delusional narrative. Regulators bought it. Auditors, ratings agencies and every other segment of the financial chain bought it. We the citizens bought it, bar a few admirable whistleblowers who […]

Radiation Superstition

Nearly a million people each year die of breathing particulates from burning coal; the climate temperature may increase 2°C this century; more than a billion people have no electricity. Yet within our reach is a solution to these global crises of increasing air pollution deaths, climate change, and the growing populations of nations trapped in […]

Tech Talk – ten years is a long time to wait for power

Today the British Government are announcing the construction of the first new nuclear-powered electricity generating station in 20-years. The new plant, which will replace plants that will close will go up at Hinkley Point, and will be constructed by a French firm, with significant Chinese investment, and with a promised subsidy from the Government. It […]

Petrodollars: The surprising lack of downstream interest from China’s oil giants

State-owned behemoths PetroChina and Sinopec had at one point seemed keen on expanding in refining and storage overseas but while upstream acquisitions have continued apace, downstream investment has dwindled this year. PetroChina formed the PetroIneos trading and refining joint venture with European chemical and refining company Ineos in 2011, paying just over $1 billion in […]

14 Reasons to Be Hopeful About the Future of Food

When it comes to the future of the food system, it’s hard not to be discouraged. Nearly one billion people are hungry, and another 1.5 billion are obese or overweight. All over the world, people waste 1.3 billion tons of food each year. And according to the International Panel on Climate Change, humans are to […]

Impacts of Shutting Down Most US Coal Power, Part 2

The EPA has initiated developing new regulations to substantially reduce new and possibly existing Coal Power Plants’ carbon emissions.  In a recent TEC Post the impacts of shutting down all U.S. Coal Power (Part 1) were analyzed based on displacing this critical generation capacity with state-of-art Natural Gas Power.  While displacing all Coal Power with lower […]

The Might Of The Petro-Dollars At Work Once Again

Petro-dollars, the word used to describe the billions of dollars earned from the sale of oil and natural gas, have helped change the shape and future of many counties in the Middle East, usually for the better, but not always. In a few short years Petro-dollars have helped shape the Gulf states into the modern […]

JODI EIA Divergence

The JODI August data came out Sunday. There are several holes in the JODI data as there are six countries that don’t report to JODI. But these countries are minor and I insert the EIA data for these countries. There were seven but the largest of these produces, Kazakhstan, is now reporting. Also because of […]

Riyadh Rebukes U.N. Security Council

Abdallah Yahya A. Al-Mouallimi, Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the UN, speaks to journalists after the General Assembly’s election of his country to a two-year term on the Security Council. Credit: UN Photo/Ryan Brown UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 2013 (IPS) – When Saudi Arabia sought the presidency of the General Assembly in a bid […]

China smog emergency shuts city of 11 million people

Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China’s largest cities on Monday, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country’s first major air pollution crisis of the winter. An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading of 1,000 […]

No need to panic about ‘peak oil’

SO MUCH for “peak oil” alarmism, the dire warnings of a looming economic catastrophe when global crude oil production reaches its maximum rate and then starts to decline. Such cries of imminent doom reached a crescendo in 2008, when the oil price hit record levels on soaring demand and restricted supplies, topping out at $145/barrel. […]

The numbers don’t add up to U.S. energy independence

Energy independence sounds good, and that’s why politicians and oil company executives love to say the words. It’s so easy to say, but oh so hard to actually accomplish, which is why the United States has been a consistent importer of oil since the late 1940s. Recent overblown statements about U.S. energy independence from the […]

Water radiation soars at Fukushima No. 1

Radiation levels in groundwater under Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are soaring, Tepco said Friday after taking samples from an observation well. Tepco said 400,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting substances such as strontium were detected in water sampled Thursday from the well located some 15 meters from a storage […]

Kunstler: Growth Is Obsolete

The word that sticks in the craw of many who cogitate over economics is growth. The condition that the word refers to has proven disturbingly problematic in recent years, especially as world’s population continues to expand exponentially and the global ecology suffers in response. In fact, Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881) called economics “the dismal […]

Peak Oil, Fact or Fraud? Climbing Mt. Hubbert

by Dale Ellis – “A world become one, of salads and sun…” This post is written for those who hold the view, understandably, that peak-oil may be a hoax. I sometimes forget that skepticism of corporate power distorted by bubble-vision makes the study of peak-oil seem like the quest of a knave. But if it’s […]

How An Oil Supply Crisis Could Bring Down The Global Economy

People don’t talk much about peak oil these days, now that the U.S. is enjoying a shale boom and crude oil prices are down about 30% from the 2008 peak. Yet world oil production has basically stalled, with prices still high and emerging market demand rising, meaning the risk of a major energy crisis is […]

Saudi Heartland Dictates Pace of Modernization for King Abdullah

Abdulrahman al-Moshaigeh remembers leaving his mud-brick house and walking on unpaved roads to what was then the only elementary school serving Buraidah. “There’s no comparison,” said the former member of King Abdullah’s advisory Shoura Council, born in 1945, as he contemplates the changes that have swept his hometown, the capital of Qassim province in Saudi […]

40 Years Back, 40 Years Forward

What the 1973 Arab oil embargo taught us about energy efficiency, innovation, and moving to a fossil-free future Forty years ago, 1973, Elvis sang Aloha from Hawaii, the first global concert satellite broadcast. Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King faced off on the tennis court in the Battle of the Sexes. And The Exorcist terrified […]

Energy demand continues to rise

All sources of energy – with oil and gas at the core — will be needed to meet the rapid increase in world energy demand by 2050, Aramco CEO Khalid A. Al-Falih underlined before the World Energy Congress (WEC) 2013 in Daegu, Korea. Aramco is banking on the old adage that the energy needs of […]

Venezuela denies currency devaluation coming

President Nicolas Maduro’s government denied on Friday forecasts of an imminent devaluation due to anxiety in Venezuela over shortages of dollars and the soaring black market rate for the greenback in the South American OPEC nation. “A devaluation is not being planned here,” said Rafael Ramirez, whom Maduro recently named vice-president in charge of economic […]

Post-Modern Moonshots

“New ways of looking towards a cooler planet: biochar textiles that serve as deodorizers, plasters that absorb mycotoxins, lightweight biochar bricks, a refrigerator house in Kenya, biochar pillows and mattresses that soak up toxins from your skin and ambient electromagnetic pollution, and graphite-quality biochar for semiconductors, batteries and nanotubes.”     Mobile burn at New […]

State Of Emergency Declared As Another Oil/Gas Train Derails In Canada

Thirteen cars came off the tracks around 1 a.m. Saturday — 9 of which were carrying liquefied petroleum gas and four that were carrying crude oil. The derailment prompted local officials to declare a state of emergency and the evacuation of the nearly hamlet of Gainford about 80km west of Edmonton. As AP reports, an […]

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