6000% Increase in Cancer Rates at Fukushima Site

As reports from individuals like Chieko Shiina, a supporter of the Fukushima Collaborateive Clinic talk about exploding rates of thyroid cancer in children, as well as an epidemic of leukemia, heart attacks, and other health problems, the Abe-led government and US continue to sweep the fall out of the Fukushima disaster under the rug. Cancer rates have exploded […]

After Saudi Arabia Crushes The US Shale Industry, This Is Who It Will Go After Next

Whether it is to cripple the will of Putin and end his support of the Syria regime (thus handing the much desired gas-pipeline traversing territory over to Qatari and/or Saudi interests), a hypothesis first presented here in September and subsequently validated by the NYT, or much more simply, just to destroy any and all marginal […]

Jeremy Grantham Divines Oil Industry’s Future

  The simplest argument for the oil price decline is for once correct. A wave of new U.S. fracking oil could be seen to be overtaking the modestly growing global oil demand. It became clear that OPEC, mainly Saudi Arabia, must cut back production if the price were to stay around $100 a barrel, which […]

Everything has its limit

  Peak oil is so last year. Now we can worry about peak everything: peak food, peak soil, peak fertilizer, even peak bees. Let’s start small. We depend on bees to pollinate plants that account for about one-third of the world’s food supply, but since 2006 bee colonies in the United States have been dying […]

A lesson from the history of oil

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, BP CEO Bob Dudley took a bearish view on the price of oil, noting that the present feels like 1986, when oil slumped from $30 a barrel to $10 and did not recover until in 1990. “The fundamental supply and demand does remind me of 1986 a bit, where […]

At $200 Trillion The World’s Debt Cup Overfloweth

The world economy is still built on debt. That’s the warning today from McKinsey & Co.’s research division which estimates that since 2007, the IOUs of governments, companies, households and financial firms in 47 countries has grown by $57 trillion to $199 trillion, a rise equivalent to 17 percentage points of gross domestic product. While not as […]

Commodities explained: Oil and rig counts

The weekly US rig count data, published on Friday, have generated considerable excitement in the oil markets recently, with the numbers released by oil-services group Baker Hughes moving crude prices. What’s going on? The numbers identify the level of drilling activity and have traditionally been regarded as a gauge for the health of the US […]

Our Shitty Situation

In this sedition we look at the economic clusterfuck enveloping the globe, the mega drop in oil prices and the Greek political party that has the left screaming like Justin Beaver fans, plus some uplifting hip hop to help you pull through from your shitty situation.

Charts showing the long-term GDP-energy tie

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about why cheap fuels act to create economic growth. In this post, we will look at some supporting data showing how this connection works. The data is over a very long time period–some of it going back to the Year 1 C. E. We know that there […]

Greece Exposes The Global Economy’s Achilles Heel

The new Greek political party, known as Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, has done the unthinkable: they’ve dared to speak the truth. In this case, the truth is perfectly captured by the blunt assessment by the new Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who recently declared “I’m the finance minister of a bankrupt country.” Such honest assessments […]

Peak Food is the world’s No. 1 ticking time bomb

Global food poisoning? Yes, We’re maxing out. Forget Peak Oil. We’re maxing-out on Peak Food. Billions go hungry. We’re poisoning our future, That’s why Cargill, America’s largest private food company, is warning us: about water, seeds, fertilizers, diseases, pesticides, droughts. You name it. Everything impacts the food supply. Wake up America, it’s worse than you […]

The World After Cheap Oil

The World After Cheap Oil By Rauli Partanen, Harri Paloheimo and Heikki Waris 250 pp. Routledge – Oct. 2014. $59.95. Toward the end of this book, its authors make an astute, if self-deprecating, observation about its potential merits. They’ve been discussing how innate human biases cause us to make cognitive errors when trying to make […]

Here’s One Theory for Why Oil Is Going Nuts

Brent oil surged to $58 a barrel on Tuesday. It is now 24 percent higher than it was just a few weeks ago, meeting the technical definition of a bull market. (Some perspective: Prices are still down 50 percent since June.) One possible reason for the recent surge: an industry in despair. U.S. drillers idled 94 rigs last week, […]

The Lesson Of Greece: Only Collapse Makes Real Change Possible

  When the illusion that the Status Quo can fulfill all its promises to everybody dies, the Status Quo starts the terminal slide to effective collapse. Of the many lessons we can learn from Greece’s difficult path to rejection of debt-serfdom, the most important is perhaps the most obvious: no real change is possible until the […]

Iraq financial crisis prompts emergency action

Iraq is pursuing a series of emergency measures to finance its 2015 budget, following years of poor governance and unchecked spending that led to a financial crisis now made worse by low oil prices and high military spending demands.The government is planning to indirectly borrow from the country’s foreign currency reserves, in a plan described […]

Deloitte studies oil supply growth for 2015-16

A Deloitte MarketPoint analysis suggested large-field projects, each producing more than 25,000 b/d, could bring on 1.835 million b/d in oil supply this year of which 635,000 b/d would be from members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the rest from non-OPEC productions. In 2014, new non-OPEC large-field projects collectively brought on 2.3 […]

As Night Closes In

I was saddened to learn a few days ago, via a phone call from a fellow author, that William R. Catton Jr. died early last month, just short of his 89th birthday. Some of my readers will have no idea who he was; others may dimly recall that I’ve mentioned him and his most important […]

Central Banks Fear Deflation, But You Should Not

The European Central Bank (ECB) is planning to pump 1.1 trillion euros into the banking system to fend off price deflation and revive economic activity. The ECB president and his executive board are planning to spend 60 billion euros per month from March 2015 to September 2016. Most experts hold that the ECB must start […]

Citi: The oil (and gas) plunge isn’t over yet

The oil crash — and cheap gas bonanza — probably isn’t over yet. For a few days, oil was showing real signs of life following last year’s meltdown. Prices spiked above $54 a barrel on Tuesday after oil’s best three-day performance in six years. Drivers may have even noticed a little pop in gas prices. […]

Cheap Oil Does Not Mean That Peak Oil Is a Myth

Peak oil is a fundamental tenet of the Transition Towns concept, but the current return of “cheap oil” has muddied the waters about how to discuss it. At a recent meeting of Transition Town Reading (U.K.), we discussed the prevailing low oil price, and the group asked me to put together some salient points on […]

The peril and promise of fusion

Our species balloons like bacteria on a petri dish. But like any finite sugar supply, the fossil-based energy that permits our continued growth has its limits. Though with modern advances in the energy sector, it would seem that humankind has the ingenuity to engineer the cap right off of our own carrying capacity. Take a […]

“The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”. Really?

I first heard about Alex Epstein’s book ‘The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’ via an unsurprisingly fawning review over at the SkeptEco blog.  Its premise is so ludicrous that normally I wouldn’t read it, never mind review it.  There is no “moral case for fossil fuels”, just as there was no “moral case for slavery” […]

OPEC leader: Oil could shoot back to $200

Right now the oil market is totally focused on finding a bottom for oil prices. However, according to OPEC’s Secretary-General Abdulla al-Badri we’ve already hit bottom. Not only that, but he sees a real possibility that oil prices could explode higher to upwards of $200 per barrel in the future. He’s far from the only […]

The Entire Oil Collapse Is All About Crushing Russian Control Over Syria

While the markets are still debating whether the price of oil is more impacted by the excess pumping of crude here, or the lack of demand there, or if it is all just a mechanical squeeze by momentum-chasing HFT algos who also know to buy in the milliseconds before 2:30pm, we bring readers’ attention back […]

“Missing oil” from 2010 BP spill found on gulf seafloor

Up to 10 million gallons (38 million liters) of crude oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill has settled at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, where it is threatening wildlife and marine ecosystems, according to a new study. The finding helps solve the mystery of where the “missing” oil from the spill […]

New fighting for Libyan oil ports as UN tries to revive talks

New clashes erupted on Tuesday between rival factions fighting for control of Libya’s biggest oil ports Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, killing at least 10 people, the two sides said. The fighting came a day after the United Nations said it was seeking a ceasefire to pave the way for a new round of peace […]

The Sanctions of Mass Destruction

Under the late King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia played a role most treacherous in world affairs: its oil fueled U.S. militarism and its money funded Islamic extremists. Saudi Arabia is perhaps the greatest inherent contradiction of U.S. foreign policy. Prior to the 20th century, the value of money was tied to gold. When banks lent money […]

Orlov: No escape

Quite a few of those currently inhabiting the belly of the decrepit and senile beast of western industrial civilization are experiencing an extreme sense of unease about what the future is likely to bring. But living with such a sensation is less than pleasant. In some other, perhaps less civilized language, the resolution to this […]

There are too many of us on this planet

Earlier this month, Pope Francis made news when he said that not only was climate change real, but it was mostly man-made. Then, last week, he said that couples do not need to breed “like rabbits” but rather should plan their families responsibly — albeit without the use of modern contraception. Though the pope did […]

New King Orders $29 Billion ‘Handouts’, Tells Saudi People: “You Deserve More”

Because nothing says “we really do fear social unrest… and please stick with the new king” like Saudi Arabia spewing a massive $29.3 billion spending program that include lavish payments of two months bonus salary to all Saudi state employees and a series of subsidies. As al-Arabiya reports, King Salman bin Abdulaziz has issued a […]

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