Depletion is winning

EROI of different fuels and the implications for society Charles A.S. Hall, Jessica G. Lambert, and Stephen B. Balogh Energy Policy, Volume 64, January 2014, Pages 141–152 “The decline in EROI among major fossil fuels suggests that in the race between technological advances and depletion, depletion is winning. Past attempts to rectify falling oil production […]

Flying Without Fossil Fuels: The Need For High Energy Density

There are few more remarkable machines than a Boeing 747. Four hundred people can be hurled half way across the planet with levels of comfort, efficiency and reliability that would have been deemed miraculous by those living a few centuries ago. A vision of the incredible technical proficiency humanity has gained since the Industrial Revolution, […]

Stanford Researcher Turns Wastewater Into Energy That Can Power Treatment Plants

A Stanford engineer has developed a way for sewage treatment plants to power themselves by taking the waste out of wastewater and turning it into energy. “We’re converting the ammonia in the wastewater to nitrous oxide gas,” said Yaniv Scherson, the Stanford researcher who created the process. Nitrogen is found in ammonia, which naturally occurs in […]

Saudi Arabia Threatens to Blockade Qatar Over Terrorism

Saudi Arabia has threatened to blockade neighbouring Qatar by air, land and sea unless Doha cuts ties with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, closes global channel al-Jazeera, and expels local branches of the US Brookings Institution and Rand Corporation think tanks. The threat was issued by Riyadh before it withdrew its ambassador to Doha and branded as […]

Ukraine: Challenging the pipelines narrative

As a former correspondent in Kiev, Moscow and Georgia at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and as someone who has an ongoing interest in events in the former Soviet space, I would maintain that the attempt to link the Ukraine conflict with pipelines and natural resources is highly debatable. There are […]

USGS: Oil, Gas Causes Cascade Of Oklahoma Quakes

Underground disposal of wastewater from oil and gas drilling likely triggered a series of earthquakes in central Oklahoma in November 2011, according to a study from the U.S. Geological Survey that will add to the controversy surrounding the impact of the U.S. energy boom. A magnitude 5.0 earthquake on Nov. 5 near Prague, Oklahoma, which […]

ITER fusion reactor power supply contract awarded

The power supply for the ITER nuclear fusion reactor’s electron cyclotron heating system will be designed by a Swiss company. Fusion for Energy (F4E), the organisation managing Europe’s contribution to ITER, has signed a contract with Ampegon to design, manufacture, install and commission the power supplies for the systems that will help heat the reactor’s […]

Heinberg: The Oil ‘Revolution’ Story Is Dead Wrong

With all the grandiosity of the media headlines touting our destiny as the new “Saudi America”, many pundits have been quick to pronounce Peak Oil dead. Here at PeakProsperity.com, one of the most frequent questions we’ve received over the past two years is: will the increased production from new “tight” oil sources indeed solve our […]

Peak Oil/coal/gas vs Global Warming

According to a commenter on my previous post, the only scenario in the current IPCC projections that results in temperature increasing by more than 2°C from now to the end of the century assumes a total consumption of coal considerably greater than the total amount believed to exist. I do not know if he is […]

Is Natural Gas-Fired Electricity An Intermittent Resource?

Wind power is only available when the wind is blowing. Similarly, cloudy skies means less solar power. The use of renewable energy resources for generating electric power is limited by the fact that renewable resources are not always available. This is why renewable energy is commonly described as an “intermittent” energy resource. Intermittency, or “ […]

Peak Oil: A Peek At The Data

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Dr. Nafeez Ahmed (quoting Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis): ‘We put the event [Transatlantic Energy Security Dialogue conference] together because the prevailing idea that we have a bright future of increasing oil and gas production that can sustain our current way of life indefinitely is based on […]

The EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report, Ghana and China

The EIA’s latest Drilling Productivity Report has been published. I found some strange things in the report. For the Bakken, their data does not jive with that posted by North Dakota. I have plotted the two together. The North Dakota includes all North Dakota but not the Montana part of the Bakken. The EIA data […]

It Will Be Shocking for the Average American: “Your Cost of Living Will Quadruple”

It’s no secret that the U.S. government is in serious fiscal trouble. So much so that our Treasury Secretary recently noted that should the debt ceiling fail to be increased, the fall-out would be “catastrophic” and last for generations. Given that sobering report, consider that everything in America, from food to fuel, is subsidized in […]

18% of global population lack access to electricity

2014 marks the start of the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL), the international effort to bring modern and sustainable energy to everyone on the planet. IEA data collected over more than a decade have been vital to the push already, establishing the size of the problem and helping determine the resources […]

A Walk in the Future

I will begin this post with apologies to my regular readers for taking a mid-winter writing hiatus this year. The truth is, in early January, my wife and youngest daughter and I moved out of the city and back to rural Colorado where we are home. After ten years of urban homesteading—creating a half-acre farm […]

Peak Oil Denial: Reality Is Still Here

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 […]

Fukushima Radiation to Hit West Coast

Very low levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster likely will reach ocean waters along the U.S. West Coast next month, scientists are reporting. Current models predict that the radiation will be at extremely low levels that won’t harm humans or the environment, said Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic […]

UN warns food security a risk to Asia-Pacific

The world must increase its food production by 60 percent by mid-century or risk serious food shortages that could bring social unrest and civil wars, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday. Demand for food will rise rapidly over the next few decades as the world population surpasses 9 billion and increasingly […]

Long Term, Is Natural Gas Better Than Oil?

The chart below from the Energy Information Administration shows current projections for U.S. energy production. Notice that crude oil production is slated to peak by around 2020 and then slowly decline. In contrast, natural gas is expected to keep climbing through 2040. Source: EIA Furthermore, prices for natural gas are projected to climb from their […]

Why the Days of Cheap Oil Are Gone

One of the biggest things I like about owning oil companies is that the math game works in their favor. For instance, it took 123 years for the global population to go from 1 billion to 2 billion people. But it only took 12 years for it to go from 6 billion people to 7 […]

Ukraine, Russia and the nonexistent U.S. oil and natural gas “weapon”

Commentators were falling all over themselves last week to announce that far from being impotent in the Ukraine crisis, the United States had a very important weapon: growing oil and natural gas production which could compete on the world market and challenge Russian dominance over Ukrainian and European energy supplies–if only the U.S. government would […]

A Gift From The Collapseniks

Of what possible use is it to imagine the end of civilization or even of the species? Is it simply a pessimistic indulgence or can it contribute to progressive and other positive results? When I was a child, my family’s pastor used to elbow into almost every sermon an admiring reference to “St. John languishing […]

Grasshoppers, caterpillars to be on your dinner plate soon

People would soon have no choice but to consume insects as it would be increasingly difficult to feed the burgeoning world population—close to 8 billion now—in near future, warned the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). How would you react if your neighbourhood restaurant serves you a menu that only lists cuisines […]

Ukraine is About Oil. So Was World War I

Pro-Russian supporters wave Russian flags to welcome the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship, the missile cruiser Moskva, entering Sevastopol bay in September 10, 2008. (Photo: AFP)Ukraine is a lot more portentous than it appears. It is fundamentally about the play for Persian Gulf oil. So was World War I. The danger lies in the chance […]

BP chief executive’s pay triples in 2013

The pay of Bob Dudley, BP‘s chief executive, tripled last year despite the legal threats still hanging over the company from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The oil boss received $8.7m (£5.2m) in salary, bonus and share awards last year, according to the company’s annual report, compared with $2.6m in 2012. When contributions to his pension […]

Economist Warns of Collapse Risk: “Will Not Allow Life to Continue As We Know It”

Earlier this week we noted that an invasion of the Ukraine by Vladimir Putin would likely lead to a complete destruction of U.S. stock markets. It’s not so much the invasion force itself, but rather, the economic maneuvers that would come with it should Russia take this course of action. Well known economist and founder of […]

IPR Make Offshore Egypt Find

Texas Independent, IPR, announced the discovery of its first drilled well (SWGEZ-5) in its Southwest Gebel El Zeit concession, located offshore Gulf of Suez, Egypt. The block is operated by IPR and was acquired from Devon Energy International in 2007. IPR constructed a modern three-slot platform, 9.5 km 8-1/2 in. pipeline from platform to shore and […]

Natural Gas Will Not Save the US Economy

Economist Kenneth Boulding famously said, “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” But it’s not just economists who believe that anymore. Such ideas are still widely accepted by thought leaders, journalists, and politicians who, together, form a strong consensus that the U.S. […]

Pollution in China in real terms

Download audio file Reports compiled by Chinese scientists have been reaching us that that pollution in Beijing, and some other major cities in China, where over a quarter of the world’s population now resides, has become so bad that it is dangerous for human life. However this is nothing new.     Jonathan Kaiman, the […]

Sunblock

“We continue to be amazed at how many commentators, otherwise very thoughtful and well-informed, seem to think that humans will find technological solutions, such as super-efficient appliances and mag-lev light rail, to cure the impending energy shortfall. That won’t happen, and our Ponzi money system is why.” Ted Glick, in “Making a Renewable Energy Revolution,” […]

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