Heinberg: What Happened to My 13 Billion Barrels?

In 2011, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy commissioned INTEK Inc., a Virginia-based consulting firm, to estimate how much oil might be recoverable from California’s vast Monterey Shale formation. Production of tight oil was soaring in North Dakota and Texas, and small, risk-friendly drilling companies were making salivating noises (within […]

A New Way to Harness Waste Heat

Image: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT Electrochemical approach has potential to efficiently turn low-grade heat to electricity. David L. Chandler, MIT News Office Vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants; researchers around the world have spent decades seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most such efforts have […]

The World’s Demand For Oil Is Slowing

According to Oil Market Intelligence (OMI), world crude oil supply rose to a record 90.2mbd on average over the past 12 months through April. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil has been remarkably flat (with some volatility) around $110 since early 2011. World oil supply has been well balanced with world oil […]

Canada moves to put toughter limits on dangerous oil trains

Credit: Jason Cohn/Reuters Emergency personnel examine the wreckage of a train derailment near Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, February 13, 2014. The 120-car Norfolk Southern Corp train carrying heavy Canadian crude oil derailed and spilled in western Pennsylvania.  In Lynchburg, Virginia, on April 30, a train carrying crude oil derailed, and some of the rail cars exploded into […]

Sustainable Land Use

I would like to thank Azniv Petrosyan for suggesting the use of remote imaging to assess land use, in particular to assess bio-diversity in wilderness areas.  Other than that I do not see how her paper “A Model for Incorporated Measurement of Sustainable Development Comprising Remote Sensing Data and Using the Concept of Biodiversity” can […]

Mike Ruppert’s Story Part 28 – Christmas

December 24 Mike came in from the stairwell where he’d been having his morning coffee and cigarette. “Actually, today I think I’m going to start an outline. For the novel. And it occurs to me that your family…..”   “Knows agents?” I thought.  I knew one who’d achieved prominence by sticking with mainstream topics and literary fiction.  […]

How investors can get ready for inflation

Last month was not a good one for inflation hawks, unless they were looking for validation. The U.S. consumer price index was up 0.3 percent in April, its largest increase in 10 months. And producer prices were up 0.6 percent – their biggest monthly rise since September 2012. Of course, that does not mean prices […]

Export Delusions: Why the rush to export natural gas is a fool’s errand

Click the thumbnails to view slideshow. © J Henry Fair, flights provided by LightHawk On a sweltering day in May last year I sat dumbfounded at a US Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee meeting. Pat Outtrim, VP of Cheniere Energy, was arguing for fast-tracking approval of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exports because it would benefit […]

The Connection Between Oil Prices, Debt Levels, and Interest Rates

If oil is “just another commodity,” then there shouldn’t be any connection between oil prices, debt levels, interest rates, and total rates of return. But there clearly is a connection. On one hand, spikes in oil prices are connected with recessions. According to economist James Hamilton, ten out of eleven post-World War II recessions have […]

The sower’s strategy: how to speed up the sustainable energy transition

… and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had […]

China steps up speed of oil stockpiling as tensions mount in Asia

Beijing has ordered an “unprecedented” build up of oil reserves as West prepares for possible oil sanctions against Russia. China is stockpiling oil for its strategic petroleum reserve at a record pace, intervening on a scale large enough to send a powerful pulse through the world crude market. The move comes as tensions mount in […]

US officials cut estimate of recoverable Monterey Shale oil by 96%

Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California’s vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national “black gold mine” of petroleum. Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled […]

China and Russia sign gas deal

China and Russia signed an eleventh hour agreement to import natural gas from Russia’s Gazprom during a state visit by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday following strenuous Russian efforts to secure what has been portrayed as a key test of closer Sino-Russian ties.  As Moscow’s relations with the west have deteriorated over the crisis in […]

Poverty and Silence

Under all our cheerful tallying of disasters there is always the one we don’t talk about: poverty. We can talk about overpopulation, resource depletion, climate change, political corruption, maybe even war, crime, epidemics, credit collapse, whatever, but in the coming years what the average person is going to be thinking about, first thing in the […]

China’s Thirst for Coal is Drying Up

As the ‘airpocalypse‘ news out of China continues to grow, what we predicted more than a year ago is now increasingly obvious – China’s seemingly endless coal demand is a myth, and the Chinese coal boom is over. What we often hear about a never-ending demand for coal in China has turned out to be […]

China Signs Non-Dollar Settlement Deal With Russia’s Largest Bank

Slowly – but surely – the USD’s hegemony is being chipped away whether by foreign policy faux pas, crossed red-lines, or economic fragility. However, on Day 1 of Vladimir Putin’s trip to China it is clear that the two nations are as close as ever. VTB – among Russia’s largest banks – has signed a […]

Shell says fossil fuel reserves won’t be ‘stranded’ by climate regulation

* Oil major says fossil fuels will be needed through 2050 * Calls “carbon bubble” theory flawed in letter to shareholders * Says decarbonisation of energy sector will take decades * Predicts it could take rest of century to resolve climate change Royal Dutch Shell has dismissed the possibility that its proven oil or gas […]

Applying Brainpower to Address the Global Sustainability Crisis

The world faces an unprecedented global sustainability crisis. It is caused by climate change, the stress on the planet’s ecosystems by developed economies, and the drive for economic growth in the developing world. While some choose to believe that the scientific analyses detailing the threats to our planet are inaccurate, common sense tells me that […]

Population Dynamics and Sustainable Development

Tatyana Haplichnik will present population trends and policies in the UNECE region at this international workshop. Organized by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), this International Workshop entitled “Population dynamics and sustainable development in CIS countries” will take place at the Parliamentary Centre of CIS Inter-Parliamentarian Assembly in St. Petersburg, Russia on 21 May 2014. The purpose […]

Global warming research suppressed due to intolerance of scepticism

A professor claims his paper questioning the speed of climate change was deliberately rejected for publication due to intolerance of views seen as “sceptical” A climate change researcher has claimed that scientists are confusing their role as impartial observers with green activism after his paper challenging predictions about the speed of global warming was rejected […]

Central Banks’ Balance Sheets, Interest Rates and the Oil Price

  In this post I present a more detailed look at developments in central banks’ balance sheets, interest rates and the oil price since mid 2006 and as of recently. Paper and digital money are human inventions. Most people truly believe it is money that powers the society and their lives because they have never […]

The Biggest Mideast Crisis You Probably Don’t Know Enough About

The Middle East’s seemingly endless conflicts are diverting attention and resources from a graver long-term threat that looms over the whole region: the growing scarcity of water. And the situation will get worse before it gets better — if it ever does get better. Years of war, careless water supply management, unchecked population growth, ill-advised […]

Peak Whiskey: supplies are running low

Bourbon lovers, you’d better stock up. A day of reckoning is quickly approaching, warns Buffalo Trace, one of the oldest distilleries in the country. A whiskey shortage may soon be upon us. While bourbon producers have seen this problem coming for more than a year, its impacts are just now beginning to hit the market and will likely only […]

Improved supercapacitors boost batteries, electric vehicles

Researchers develop novel supercapacitor architecture that provides 2 times more energy and power compared to supercapacitors commercially available today Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have developed a novel nanometer scale ruthenium oxide anchored nanocarbon graphene foam architecture that improves the performance of supercapacitors, a development that could mean faster acceleration in electric vehicles […]

Markets Work Or, How The Economics Of The Oil Industry Is Changing

Two interesting things we can glean from this report in the WSJ into the economics of the oil business. The first being that some people can be a little confused about the economics of pricing, the second being that markets really do work. For the first one we have an assurance that oil prices aren’t […]

Mike Ruppert’s Story Part 26: Pills

From Mike 11-27-2006: Ray —    I left with [a lawyer], [the] employee file [of the female employee who was suing Mike for sexual harassment] with the information that it contained large amounts of exculpatory evidence. X has reported that she has filed a sexual harrassment complaint with the Dept. of Labor but we do […]

Why you don’t have to own everything

Most people don’t have time to sit around and contemplate the commons, says Leland Maschmeyer—an award-winning creative director and author of The Triumph of the Commons—because they’re busy with the “practical and pressing” stuff of life Can we fault them? No, of course not. The commons as a worldview and set of practices can appear […]

Secret Trade Memo Calling For More Fracking and Drilling

The European Union is pressing the Obama administration to expand U.S. fracking, offshore oil drilling and natural gas exploration under the terms of a secret negotiation text obtained by The Huffington Post. The controversial document is an early draft of energy policies that EU negotiators hope to see adopted under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment […]

Orlov: Interview on Signs of the Times Radio

A wide-ranging discussion with some particularly well-informed and thoughtful commentators.

Next-Generation Infrastructure

This spring, yet another Presidential appeal for fixing the nation’s “raggedy” infrastructure (his word choice) failed to stir a response from Congress. However, bolder moves elsewhere to renew these critical services are reported here. I’m highlighting the following initiatives because they epitomize the new norms needed to “future-proof” our infrastructure. Such strategems are spelled out […]

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