Green Capitalism: Why it can’t work

Daniel Tanuro Green Capitalism: Why it can’t work translated by Jane Ennis Merlin Press, in association with Resistance Books and the International Institute for Research and Education ISBN 978-0-85036-646-4 London, 2013 reviewed by Ian Angus Roughly speaking, there are four schools of thought about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert climate catastrophe. The […]

Arctic chill exposes weakness of U.S. natural gas system

Brutally cold weather this week laid bare critical weaknesses in the Northeastern U.S. natural gas system, leaving some states paying vast sums for supplies as arctic weather enveloped the region. Despite its location alongside the biggest natural gas deposit in the country, the northeast region saw record price spikes on Monday as an unprecedented surge […]

People have overfilled world

Our population continues to grow: From 1950 to 2013 the United States grew from 152 to 316 million and the world from 2.5 to 7.2 billion; United Nations projections suggest 9.6 billion by 2050. But ecological footprint analysis indicates we already use 1.5 world’s worth of resources to live, and would use 5.4 world’s worth […]

China to Double Oil, Gas Production by 2030

Top world energy consumer China is expected to double output of oil and gas to nearly 700 million tonnes of oil equivalent by 2030 as available resources rise, the Ministry of Land and Resources said on Wednesday. Decades of breakneck economic growth pushed China ahead of the United States to become the world’s top net […]

Safety alert issued over dangers of fracked oil

The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an unprecedented safety alert on the transport of hydraulically fractured oil from North Dakota’s booming Bakken oil fields that could also cool Canada’s unconventional oil rush. “Recent derailments and resulting fires indicate that the type of crude oil being transported from the Bakken region may be more flammable […]

Peak Oil and sustainable agriculture in Cuba

Image by Adam Jones, Ph.D. – Global Photo Archive/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) Franka Schmidt is nutritionist and food economist. She is also a creator of the blog called ‘The Truth About Food’ with latest news and background information on healthy food and sustainable farming. Currently she is also initiating ‘Veggie Travel Guide’, a travel blog […]

Slowing Population Growth Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth

What do you think are the biggest solvable problems facing humanity? Justice and inequality? Violence and war? Climate change and pollution? Today we’re going to focus on one that I believe underlies all of those: Population. The last book from today’s guest, Alan Weisman, was thought-provoking, award-winning, and best-selling. The World Without Us, which was […]

The First Five Smart Grid and Smart City Predictions for 2020

There are a number of prognostications about 2014 Smart Grid trends and anticipated accomplishments.  This article offers a longer and broader view out to 2020.  That’s a milestone year for renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in twelve states including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington. How much can change in the six years […]

UK families ‘face food shortages as the world’s population soars’

More families in Britain risk being plunged into “food poverty” shortages and price rises as the global population soars, experts warned today. The Food Standards Agency stressed demand for food supplies would rise as the world’s population spirals from seven billion now to nine billion by 2050. “This increase could weaken  resilience in the food […]

Key senator urges end to ban on U.S. crude oil exports

The top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee on Tuesday urged an end to a decades-old U.S. ban on exporting crude oil, saying it will disrupt supply and discourage U.S. production rather than keep domestic gasoline prices stable. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, at an event at the Brookings Institute in Washington, professed her support for […]

GOM Production and Other News

Not much happening on the Peak Oil front these days. I checked out the BSEE Gulf of Mexico production. Data is in kb/d with the last data point September 2013. Average production from the GOM has been relatively flat for the last two and one half years at about 1.260 million barrels per day. The […]

Don’t Worry, Drive On: Fossil Fuels & Fracking Lies

I designed and animated half of this piece in collaboration with Monstro. I did not choose the name. Producer: Dalton Crosthwait Design & Animation: Alexander Perry, Michael Wilson Sound: Ben Roider Software used: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Maxon Cinema 4D

Kunstler: Burning Down The House

Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It’s like […]

Global agro-picture: No complacency please

Where is the march towards feeding the world population at a reasonable cost? The overall situation on the food front has, in the recent past, remained far from being satisfactory with food prices ruling high all over the globe. Food prices are going up on a continuous basis with demonstrations as well as social unrest […]

The War on Christmas Trees

This week: 1. Aldeia resiste the world cock 2. The War on Christmas Trees 3. NYE Noise Demos 4. Rote Flora Defense 5. 20 years of Zapatistas 6. RATM – People of the Sun 7. Anarchists come out of the closet

Which Nations Drive, Fly, Cycle, and Take the Train Most?

Scroll down to see, and hover.  It’s interactive. Read more at http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/travels-most

Dead Sea Creatures Cover 98% of Ocean Floor Off California Coast; Up From 1% Before Fukushima

The Pacific Ocean appears to be dying, according to a new study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California recently discovered that the number of dead sea creatures blanketing the floor of the Pacific is higher than it has ever […]

Desert project illustrates selecting acid-gas removal technology

Mahmoud Abu El Ela Cairo University Egypt This article presents criteria that should be considered in preparing a short list of acid-gas removal processes that seem to be appropriate to meet treated-gas specifications. Final selection is on the basis of technical and economic criteria. A case study for development of gas producing fields of 200 […]

UN State of Energy Report

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set a target of achieving 5% of its energy mix from renewable energy by 2030 while also seeking to reduce energy intensity by 30%, according to a new 200-page report released Monday.  Like a number of countries in the Arab region, it seeks to place sustainable energy solutions at […]

The Mis-Taking of America

America was not infinite; it only seemed that way to early European explorers, conquerors, and settlers for whom the size of the known world had suddenly doubled and the quantity of effectively unclaimed resources increased by far more than that.  This sudden immeasurable and unearned abundance, it is clear, authorized a new set of cultural […]

The politics of bread

An Egyptian holds a piece of bread during a protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square Fifth Avenue is laid in gold, every mansion a citadel of money and power. Yet here you stand, a giant, starved and fettered . . . You too will have to learn that you have a right to share your neighbours’ […]

Peak Oil Denial: Nonsense Keeps Rolling Along # 3

Happy New Year to all! At the risk of starting a cat fight where truth may too quickly become a casualty, why don’t we more forcefully challenge those who deny peak oil (and global warming) and who do so for reasons that generally ignore reality in favor of narrowly-defined interests? Those motivations will ultimately do […]

Fearless Oil & Gas-Related Predictions for 2014

Well, it’s the end of the year 2013, and everyone and his or her brother is busy compiling a Top Ten Something-or-Other (take your pick: movies, songs, celebrity faux pas, football players, baseball players, basketball dunks, Miley Cyrus embarrassments, etc.)  list for 2013. Turns out I’m too lazy to compile my own Top Ten Energy Stories for […]

When Will U.S. Crude Oil Production Peak?

As recently as the mid-2000s, conventional wisdom held that U.S. crude oil production was in secular decline, while the nation’s demand for oil was expected to keep rising. But over the past five years, U.S. oil production has surged by more than 50%, while domestic demand has been more or less stagnant. Now, policymakers are […]

U.S. EPA unlikely to step up fracking enforcement

Federal regulators are unlikely to step up enforcement of potential water contamination cases linked to natural gas drilling – despite new concerns about water safety – given a lack of political will and limited resources to pursue such cases, analysts said. A report quietly made public on Christmas Eve by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s […]

Wonders yet to come: A sound basis for energy policy?

Last week when I laid out seven misconceptions about energy shared by the public and policymakers, the pushback I received had little to do with the actual data I used to demonstrate my point. This is probably because the data are from official public sources and available to anyone with an Internet connection to inspect […]

Graphene Heats Up Race For Cheap Organic Solar Cells

Does Robin Thicke’s notorious hit “Blurred Lines” contain secret references to graphene? We don’t know, but we are  interrupting our New Year’s Day Walking Dead marathon to bring you news that graphene, the notoriously hard-to-handle nanomaterial of the new millennium, has been domesticated to the point where it could help drive down the cost of […]

Study Shows Fracking Is Bad for Babies

The energy industry has long insisted that hydraulic fracking — the practice of fracturing rock to extract gas and oil deep beneath the earth’s surface — is safe for people who live nearby. New research suggests this is not true for some of the most vulnerable humans: newborn infants. In a study presented today at […]

In Bakken (ND) it is Now Mostly about McKenzie County

In this post I present an update to my previous posts over at The Oil Drum (The Red Queen series) on developments in tight oil production from the Bakken formation in North Dakota with some additional estimates, mainly presented in charts. The expansion is much about the differences between wells capable of producing, actual producing […]

Gov SWAT Teams Target “Rugged Individuals” Who Grow Their Own Food, Produce Their Own Electricity

The dream of many Americans is to get out of the hustle and bustle of the daily city grind. And what better dream to have then to move your family outside of city limits to the countryside so that you can grow your own food, produce your own electricity with solar power, and live outside […]

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