The Fukushima Coverup: “Biggest Industrial Catastrophe in the History of Mankind”

We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I […]

Now the world needs new energy systems

On December 9th, the day before the Nobel Prizes are handled out in Stockholm, there is a “Nobel Week Dialogue” in Gothenburg. This year’s theme is “Exploring the Future of Energy” and participating Nobel Laureates are presented by the organizers. My contribution to the dialogue is now published by Svenska Dagbladet on “Brännpunkt” under the […]

BP Pushes Technical Limits To Tap Extreme Fields

BP’s strategy after the Deepwater Horizon tragedy: Go deeper. BP is leading an industry-wide push to develop technology that can retrieve oil from formations that are so deep under the sea floor, and under such high pressure and temperature, that conventional equipment would melt or be crushed by the conditions. One BP field in the […]

Reasons for Optimism in Iran

Here, as promised, are my reasons to feel positive about the (still unimplemented) interim nuclear deal between the Great Powers and Iran:         Just kidding. Sort of. While I believe that Iran has so far generally outsmarted, and outplayed, the West (and I include Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel as one of those countries […]

Upskilling for Post Growth Futures, Together

When I was seven, I was given an Apple Macintosh in the hope that Mavis Beacon would teach me how to touch type. It was an unreasonable expectation, for I was actually more interested in escaping to the fantasy lands of computer games such as Dungeons and Dragons, and Lode Runner. Yet, these games had […]

Gail Tverberg: The Shale Oil Boom is More “Mirage” than “Miracle”

Gail Tverberg, is a professional actuary who applies classic risk assessment procedures to global resources: studying issues such as oil & natural gas depletion, water shortages, climate change, etc. She is widely known in the Peak Cheap Oil space for her reports issued across energy websites over the years under the penname “GailTheActuary”. In this […]

Highest Radiation Level Ever, Lethal In 20 Minutes, Recorded Outside Reactor

With all the excitement about Japan’s soaring stock market (if plunging wages), crashing non-digital currency (leading to soaring energy prices), recent passage of an arbitrary secrecy bill (“Designed by Kafka & Inspired By Hitler“), and ongoing territorial spat with China, it is almost as if the Abe administration is desperately doing everything in its power, […]

At 7 Billion, What Happens Now?

World Population Crisis; At 7 Billion, What Happens Now?

Mexico New Bill to Open Oil Fields

Senators from Mexico’s two biggest political parties have released a bill to break the nation’s 75-year oil monopoly by amending the constitution to allow production sharing contracts and licenses for outside producers. The joint legislation would allow private companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) to develop fields in the largest unexplored crude area after […]

Growing population and economies will outpace energy efficiencies

The world is becoming more energy efficient, but growing economies and an increasing world population will drive more energy demand for decades, an industry expert said Saturday. This growth largely will come from emerging economies, where the average gross domestic product is expected to grow 2.8 percent annually for years, said David Khemakhem, an energy and […]

Saudi Arabia to expel up to 2 million workers

Teodros Adhanom, the Ethiopian foreign minister, has turned to Twitter almost every night for the last three weeks to tersely report the number of his countrymen expelled from Saudi Arabia. “Last night arrivals from Saudi reached 100,620,” he wrote on Friday, describing a fraction of one of the largest deportations in recent Middle East history. […]

Undersea Freshwater Reserves Could Quench the World’s Thirst for Decades

Freshwater is fast becoming a scarce resource as our global population swells. Some say World War III will be fought over access to it. But newfound reserves of freshwater under the sea may represent a vast source that has been previously overlooked. Researchers announced this week that they’ve probed the extent of freshwater reserves under the […]

Arab Water Crisis to Affect Human Development

The Arab world is facing an escalating water crisis that demands quick answers in order to avoid major humanitarian consequences, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report warned this week. The report, entitled Water Governance in the Arab Region: Managing Scarcity and Securing the Future, revealed that out of a total of 22 countries, 15 […]

Reflections on a Transition Tour

In October, Transition Movement founder Rob Hopkins made his first (and probably only) tour of the United States. Fortunately for us, the announcement that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had surpassed 400ppm for the first time in 4.5 million years made Rob rethink the no-fly pledge he had made seven years earlier after […]

10 Civilizations You’ve Never Heard Of

10 Civilizations You’ve Never Heard Of Lost languages and mysterious disappearances are just some of the interesting things about these 10 lesser known civilizations.

Worst-Case Scenario for Oil Sands Comes to Life, WikiLeak Docs Show

As environmentalists began ratcheting up pressure against Canada’s tar sands three years ago, one of the world’s biggest strategic consulting firms was tapped to help the North American oil industry figure out how to handle the mounting activism. The resulting document, published online by WikiLeaks, offers another window into how oil and gas companies have […]

Goldman tells oil market U.S. is the new China as cycle reverses

* Analyst Currie says oil cycle is reversing * U.S. oil demand growth surges as China’s slows * U.S. oil prices to remain cheap vs global markets The oil market is on the cusp of a new cycle, Goldman Sachs said on Friday, with demand in the United States growing at a faster pace than […]

The List of Companies Preparing for a Carbon Tax Keeps Growing

But . . . whether the U.S. and more governments will focus their nation’s economic priorities on a cleaner energy future and a healthier environment with a carbon tax or cap and trade program seems as bleak as ever. But for how much longer? If you know of others, help me keep track here of […]

Fukushima Nuclear Situation Still ‘Very Complex’

The UN’s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday delivered a preliminary report on their review of Japan’s efforts to plan and implement the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station that suffered a meltdown during the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of 2011. Following a 10-day visit, a 19-member team of experts praised Japan for […]

Transition Town: A Tonic for the Peak Oil Blues

The term “Peak oil” warns of the end of cheap and plentiful energy. An expanding world population of 6.5 billion suggests a limit for growth will eventually be reached (if it hasn’t been already) and no combination of current alternative energy sources will sustain the world’s accelerating thirst for power. As oil production inevitably declines […]

North Sea Oil, Gas Projections Disputed

Figures on future UK North Sea oil and gas tax revenues released by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) to coincide with Thursday’s Autumn Statement have been disputed by the Scottish government. The OBR reduced the forecast it made eight months earlier for North Sea tax revenues in the 2013/2014 fiscal year by approximately GBP […]

Noam Chomsky on Peak Oil

1998 Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production is expected to enter terminal decline. Global production of oil fell from a high point in 2005 at 74 mb/d, but has since rebounded setting new records in both 2011 and 2012. […]

Collapse: The Post-peak Narrative

A consensus appears to have been reached that the world’s production of conventional oil peaked in recent years. And to many observers, it means that from this time forward the supply of oil and natural gas, along with peaking coal and uranium, will decrease toward zero, leaving global Industrial Culture without the precious energy that […]

Which Sectors of U.S. Economy Will ‘Peak Oil’ Imperil?

This is what I’ve been talking about here, over and over again. We are not paying attention to this, and yet it’s the most important concern we are facing in Hawaii today. The Big Island’s anti-GMO bill, Bill 113, is just moving chairs around on the deck of the Titanic. The issue is so much […]

Oil led to Pearl Harbor

Few people realize that it was oil — the shortage of oil — that precipitated the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Tensions between the United States and Japan were rising throughout that fateful year. Having initiated a war with China (America’s ally) and occupied Indochina, Japan’s totalitarian government was intent on […]

Expanding Oil Drilling in the Arctic?

President Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy just doesn’t fit in many places, especially not in the Arctic Ocean. As the Arctic is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world and melting at record rates, the Obama administration wants to know if additional oil drilling in more places in the […]

BP’s learned nothing: The oil company is pursuing its riskiest strategy yet

BP is going after huge oil reserves that could make or break its fortunes In this Friday, July 16, 2010, file photo, drilling rigs and workboats operate at the site of the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico. As of December 2013, BP is leading an industry-wide push to develop technology that can […]

How to Build a Clean Energy Grid

America’s electric transmission grid is rarely thought of, and taken for granted until something goes wrong.  Yet the largely unseen network of wires is critical to our economy, to the future of energy, and to the future of the planet. The National Academy of Engineering has rated it as the most important engineering achievement of the 20th century, […]

The Saudis Still Hate Iran, Watch for Higher Crude

Saudi Arabia’s oil minister welcomed Iran back to the international market pending the removal of sanctions next year. At a rollicking OPEC meeting Saudi Arabian officials downplayed the risk of excess supply driving down prices, suggesting the nation will continue to produce at maximum capacity regardless of price. For its part Iran said it’s all […]

A Zen View Upon the World (Less is More)

This article is inspired by the Alexandrine pattern 134, Zen View. The pattern states: “The archetypal zen view occurs in a famous Japanese house, which gives this pattern its name.” Let’s start with listening to the wisdom of A Pattern Language (Please note that the illustrations of the original text are missing): A Buddhist monk […]

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