Blinkered to threat of rising oil prices

Oil production in Australia peaked in 2000. It would have peaked worldwide too by now, had it not been for the shale oil boom in the US. Some interesting work by this country’s most unrelenting peak oil proponent, retired engineer Matt Mushalik, shows that without shale oil – which accounts for 1.5 million barrels a […]

Growth in US Hydrocarbon Production from Shale Resources Driven by Drilling Efficiency

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, March 2014 Drilling Productivity Report The productivity of oil and natural gas wells is steadily increasing in many basins across the United States because of the increasing precision and efficiency of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in oil and natural gas extraction. Many resource-producing basins are experiencing an increasing yield […]

World War 1 All Over Again

“If you reduce the lie to a scientific system put it on thick and heavy, and with great effort and sufficient finances scatter it all over the world as the pure truth, you can deceive whole nations for a long time and drive them to slaughter for causes in which they have not the slightest […]

Hess starting up North Dakota natgas plant, may boost Bakken output

Hess Corp will begin selling natural gas from its Tioga, North Dakota, plant this month, firing up the station weeks after severe weather delayed its expansion, the company said Friday. The plant’s start-up may help boost oil production from the prolific Bakken shale after about 100 producing wells had to be shut earlier this year […]

Saudi c.bank: China yuan good diversifier, but far from reserve currency

Saudi Arabia thinks that the Chinese yuan is a good option for diversifying foreign currency reserves but it is still far from being a reserve currency, its central bank governor Fahad al-Mubarak said on Sunday. Asked whether it made sense to consider diversifying the central bank’s reserves to include the yuan, also known as the […]

Saudi Arabia: besieged and fearful

The Saudi regime has long been considered a pillar of political stability in the Middle East, a country that commanded respect and prudence from all its neighbors. This is no longer true, and the first ones to recognize this are those who are important internal players in the regime. Today, they feel besieged on all […]

Kunstler Chatting with Charles Hugh Smith

JHK and Charles Hugh Smith, author and blogger at OfTwoMinds.com, yak about the Deep State, our favorite new word for what used be be known as the Establishment. We also touch on Charles’s theory that the Deep State will be willing to “throw Wall Street under the bus” to save itself, if it felt threatened. […]

16% of Natural Gas Consumed in Europe Flows Through Ukraine

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, IHS EDIN, and International Energy Agency Note: Representations of international boundaries and names are not authoritative. Europe, including all EU members plus Turkey, Norway, Switzerland, and the non-EU Balkan states, consumed 18.7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas in 2013. Russia supplied 30% (5.7 Tcf) of this volume, with […]

The Creation of Society’s Shared Hallucinations

Since the advent of the printing press and general literacy, media organizations have constructed parallel realities for the general populace. Radio and silent films, followed by “talking pictures” and television went further by creating artificial worlds that can be seen and heard in the same way that the real world is perceived. The human mind […]

New Catalyst Could Revolutionize Natural Gas

  The Scripps Energy and Materials Center (SEMC) Transformer. A catalyst made with thallium (orange) readily converts methane (gray and white molecule) into liquid methanol, a starting point for producing commodity chemicals and fuels. Natural gas is great at heating our houses, but it’s not so good at fueling our cars—at least not yet. Researchers […]

The World Is Screaming For A New Financial System

One of the key lessons we can take away from history is that the global financial system changes… frequently. [12]   In ancient times, Roman coins were used across the region by Romans and non-Romans alike who engaged in trade and commerce. Given how destructively successive Roman governments debased their coins, however, the reserve burden […]

Shale gas and oil boom not sustainable

How much faith can we put in our ability to decipher all the numbers out there telling us the US is closing in on its cornering of the global oil market? There’s another side to the story of the relentless US shale boom, one that says that some of the numbers are misunderstood, while others […]

Peak Oil: Problem, Not Solution

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Knovel Corp: Fossil fuels will continue to dominate the energy sector for the foreseeable future, after a report issued by the World Energy Council made it clear that fears expressed in respect of so-called ‘peak oil’ were unlikely to be realized within the next forty years at […]

Natural Gas: A Geo-Political Tool Or Modern Weapon?

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a formidable maneuver that launched a 10+ year conflict. Today, President Obama is on the verge of another conflict in the Ukraine that involves Russia’s occupation of Crimea. Unlike Bush, however, Obama and Congress are eyeing natural gas exports as their weapon of choice to rein in Vladimir Putin […]

IEA Raises 2014 Oil Demand Estimate as World Economy Recovers

Oil demand will be higher in 2014 than previously estimated as global economic growth recovers, the International Energy Agency said. Pressure on supplies will ease in coming months as seasonal consumption dips. World consumption will increase by 1.4 million barrels a day, or 1.5 percent, this year to a record 92.7 million a day, or […]

OPEC Production Surges as Iraq Pumps Most in 35 Years

OPEC crude production rose above its target for the first time in five months as Iraq pumped the most in 35 years, according to the International Energy Agency. The 12 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries produced 30.49 million barrels a day in February, up from 29.99 million in January, the Paris-based IEA […]

Technology Emerging in 2014 with Potential to Reshape the Energy Space

Technology is the main driver for change – i.e. optimization, which leads to finding promising technological solutions for pressing global challenges – and for increased productivity in the modern world. However, for mankind to continue along this trajectory, appropriate investment is often dependent on the public’s understanding and awareness of promising technologies’ potential, as well […]

Russia, Gazprom Should Take Care of Crimea’s Oil, Gas Production

Russian companies such as Gazprom should be involved in Crimea’s oil and gas production, the speaker of Crimea’s Moscow-backed parliament told Russia’s RIA news agency on Thursday. Vladimir Konstantinov also said the Ukrainian region, which wants to join Russia, was guarding oilfields and rigs. “Russia, and Gazprom, should take care of the oil and gas […]

Building a movement for change: Positive Money

Positive Money is a movement to democratise money and banking so that it works for society and not against it. Our current financial system has left us with the highest personal debt in history, unaffordable housing, worsening inequality, high unemployment and banks that are subsidised and underwritten with taxpayers’ money. We believe that these problems […]

EPA Lifts BP Suspension, Debarment from Federal Contracts

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday lifted its suspension and debarment of BP Plc from entering federal contracts after the company pled guilty in its role in the Deepwater Horizon incident in April 2010. Under the administrative agreement, which will take effect immediately and last five years, BP is required to retain an […]

Is the Earth overpopulated?

Recently I’ve been facilitating two groups studying global warming. (I will send my annotated 10-book syllabus to anyone who asks for it). Our current discussions are based on Alan Weisman’s new book, “Countdown.” While the book contains statements indicating it is not so simple, Weisman’s main point is that overpopulation is at the core of […]

SPR oil put up for sale on the day Ukraine’s new chief is in town

One trader speaking to a Platts reporter had this to say about the decision by the Department of Energy today to sell 5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “The Gulf Coast market has plenty of barrels,” he said. “They should have done it a few weeks ago when the Gulf Coast […]

The Crocodiles of Reality

I’ve suggested in several previous posts that the peak oil debate may be approaching a turning point—one of those shifts in the collective conversation in which topics that have been shut out for years or decades finally succeed in crashing the party, and other topics that have gotten more than their quota of attention during […]

Peak Oil Denial: Nonsense, Part 1 of Infinity

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 nothing but promote more eventual […]

Permablitz – A Blitzkrieg of Permaculture Awesomeness

Kirby poses with a class of students at a permaculture design course at Heirloom Blooms. Photo by Melanie Strang-Hardy. Last week we introduced the food forest as a great way to leave an awesome trace in the world – a perennial forest gardening system designed to provide organic food and other resources while regenerating the […]

Liquefied Air to Store Energy on U.K. Grid

IEEE Spectrum has an article on a variant of compressd air energy storage being trialled in the UK – Liquefied Air to Store Energy on U.K. Grid. U.K.-based Highview Power Storage last week said that it has been awarded an £8 million grant from the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change to build a […]

Aramco keen to raise natural gas output

Saudi Aramco plans to produce 200 million cubic feet per day (cfd) of unconventional natural gas by 2018 to supply a new phosphate project and a power plant, an industry source said. Saudi Arabia aims to develop shale gas for power generation in order to save more of its crude oil for export. Aramco is […]

Stunting Consumption Growth Through Population Control

Countdown (Little, Brown and Company, 2013), by Alan Weisman, details the burgeoning effects that human population growth has on our environment. Weisman reveals what may be the fastest, most acceptable way of balancing this impact. This excerpt explores the reality that although population control is a possible solution, consumption growth is projected to continue. Mass starvation […]

OPEC Update and my argument that OPEC is producing flat out

The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is just out with OPEC crude only production numbers for February 2014. OPEC Crude production was up 258.6 kb/d in February on the strength of a big jump from Iraq. Iraqi crude oil production was up 400 kb/d to 3,397 kb/d. OPEC crude only production, less Iraq, was down 141.4 […]

Why Biofuels Tend to be Costly

Catching Up I have gotten some inquiries about my status, as I don’t typically go two weeks between posts. I am fine, but it’s been a very busy two weeks. There was lots of travel, lots of deadlines, and in between I worked in a trip to Hawaii to spend a few days with my […]

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