Futureproofing America with a Yardfarming Revolution

Last week, we joined Erik Assadourian, creator of the upcoming reality TV show Yardfarmers and asked him why in the world a sustainability researcher would jump into the baser world of reality TV. Cullen: Erik, quite simply, why would you? Erik: Fair question! And one I’ve asked myself many times as I’ve navigated the world […]

Oil may have further to fall due to oversupply

Massive oversupply is likely to push oil prices down even further, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday, adding that the rebalancing of the market was likely to last well into 2016. The agency, which advises the world’s biggest economies on energy policy, said “something has to give” because the world oil market was […]

In California, Big Oil Finds Water Is Its Most Prized Commodity

California’s epic drought is pushing Big Oil to solve a problem it’s struggled with for decades: what to do with the billions of gallons of wastewater that gush out of wells every year. Golden State drillers have pumped much of that liquid back underground into disposal wells. Now, amid a four-year dry spell, more companies […]

China, Russia and India are joining forces

This month, as Newsweek goes to print, an international organisation all but unknown in the West is set to announce that its membership will soon include countries representing half the world’s population. If the hopes of its leading backers – particularly Russia – are realised, the 15th annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) […]

Donald Trump: ‘I’d bomb the hell out of the oil fields’

Real estate mogul and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would “bomb the hell” out of oil sites he says are controlled by the Islamic State terrorist group and then get oil companies to go in and rebuild them. “The situation with [Islamic Stat] has to be dealt [with] firmly and strongly when […]

Darwin’s Casino

Our age has no shortage of curious features, but for me, at least, one of the oddest is the way that so many people these days don’t seem to be able to think through the consequences of their own beliefs. Our age has no shortage of curious features, but for me, at least, one of […]

What’s the Future of Agriculture?

In a world moving towards vat-grown meats and Soylent, Bryce Oates hopes for a return to the sustainable, diverse, and local: I suppose we all have our favored notion of what’s to come, what’s preferable, how we should move along the path. Mine is more people on the land farming a mix of crops and […]

Yergin: If China loses control, look out oil

The massive selling in Chinese stocks is stoking fears that the government there may be losing control of its carefully managed economy, said Dan Yergin, a leading expert in international politics, energy, and economics—a prospect that’s pressuring oil prices. “We are seeing a panic in China. It goes back to 2008, when it always seemed […]

What Greece, Cyprus, and Puerto Rico Have in Common

We all know one thing that Greece, Cyprus, and Puerto Rico have in common–severe financial problems. There is something else that they have in common–a high proportion of their energy use is from oil. Figure 1 shows the ratio of oil use to energy use for selected European countries in 2006. Greece and Cyprus are […]

Energy Storage and the Cost of Going Off-Grid

  New energy storage offerings from Tesla and other manufacturers are widely expected to enhance the attractiveness of rooftop solar power and other renewables. However, recent analysis from the Brattle Group shows that even with rapid cost reductions, grid-independence will remain beyond the reach of most consumers. Last month’s Annual Energy Conference of the US […]

Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse

Dr. Carolyn Baker is a profound thinker on the predicament of modern industrial civilization who comes at the subject from an invaluable perspective. Whereas many of her contemporaries focus only on the logistical details of collapse preparation, she draws on a background in psychology and psychotherapy to address how we should prepare emotionally and spiritually […]

China Peak Oil: 2015 Is the Year

Domestic production looks set to peak, with some profound implications for the world market. Intense focus on the North American shale boom, Saudi Arabia, and ISIS obscures an important emerging energy trend: China’s oil production is peaking. This has profound implications for the world oil market, because China is not just a massive importer of […]

Refracking Is the New Fracking

The technique itself is nothing new. Oil crews across the world have been schooled on its simple principles for generations: Identify aging, low-output wells and hit them with a blast of sand and water to bolster the flow of crude. The idea originated somewhere in the plains of the American Midwest, back in the 1950s. […]

Kunstler: Welcome to Blackswansville

While the folks clogging the US tattoo parlors may not have noticed, things are beginning to look a little World War one-ish out there. Except the current blossoming world conflict is being fought not with massed troops and tanks but with interest rates and repayment schedules. Germany now dawdles in reply to the gauntlet slammed […]

Oil crushed

Oil is expected to spiral even lower, as concerns about global growth collide with record production and the potential for more supply from Iran. West Texas Intermediate crude futures plunged 7.7 percent Monday and were in official correction territory, with a decline of more than 11.5 percent since July 1. Brent was more than 6 […]

Islamic State suicide bombers strike Iraqi refinery

Islamic State suicide bombers and fighters attacked the center of Iraq’s northern oil refinery town of Baiji overnight, forcing the army and Shi’ite fighters to pull back, military sources and the local mayor said on Sunday. The town of Baiji and its refinery – Iraq’s largest – have been a battlefront for more than a […]

Oil Choke Points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, piracy

Due to the narrowness of the straits all of them can be disrupted with relative ease by piracy, terrorism, wars, or shipping accidents, affecting the supply of oil and world prices. The strong dependence of the U.S. economy on oil has made it of the utmost importance to guarantee the free flow of shipments through […]

Gas producers accused of profiteering, hoarding

Gas producers such as Origin Energy and Santos have been accused of profiteering and hoarding capacity on pipelines, as industrial users seek more open access to scarce supplies at competitive prices. The accusations came in submissions made to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regulator in its inquiry into gas supply on the east coast, which chairman Rod Sims has […]

Greece referendum: ‘No’ vote ahead

With more than a third of votes counted, results from the Greek referendum suggest voters have rejected the terms of an international bailout. Results published by the interior ministry showed about 60% of those whose ballots had been counted voting “No”, against some 40% voting “Yes”. Greece’s governing Syriza party campaigned for a “No”, saying […]

Sam Altman: Energy

I think a lot about how important cheap, safe, and abundant energy is to our future.  A lot of problems—economic, environmental, war, poverty, food and water availability, bad side effects of globalization, etc.—are deeply related to the energy problem. I believe that if you could choose one single technological development to help the most people […]

Americans Show Why USA Is The #1 Country In The World

The United States is the #1 exporter of freedom – and all this other stuff.

Shell Arctic oil drilling to commence within weeks

Oil and gas giant Shell is expected to begin drilling for oil in the Arctic within the next two weeks. Thirty ships left Dutch Harbor in Alaska on Thursday for the Arctic to support two initial exploratory wells. The company has already committed about $7bn (£4.5bn) to the controversial project, and is confident it will […]

Mapped: How the world became more violent

Since its publication in 2011, Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined” has sparked a rigorous debate between some of the world’s most prominent thinkers. Traversing from pre-history to hunter-gatherer times to the present, Pinker concludes that we are living in the most peaceful time in history. Compared to our […]

Greek bank closures may deplete supermarket shelves

A halt to international payments from Greek bank accounts is hurting Greek businesses and their foreign partners and threatening supplies of vital goods like food and clothing into the debt-crippled country. With banks closed, people limited to withdrawing 60 euros ($66.62) per day and Greece’s future in the euro possibly hinging on a referendum on […]

Syria rebels claim Aleppo victory

Syria rebels claim Aleppo victory

Citizens Can Sue Fracking Companies for Earthquake Damage, Says Oklahoma Supreme Court

Oklahoma almost never used to have earthquakes. But in the last six years they’ve increased so much that last year the state surged past California as the most seismically active state in the continental U.S. Prior to 2009, the state averaged two quakes of greater than 3.0 magnitude annually. By 2014 that number had soared […]

$75T in Shadow Banking Collapsing

Keep an eye on the shadow banking system – it is about to be shaken to the core.  According to the Financial Stability Board, the size of the global shadow banking system has reached an astounding 75 trillion dollars.  It has approximately tripled in size since 2002.  In the U.S. alone, the size of the […]

The End of the Oil Age

Norman Pagett (The End of More) But how can we define an oil age? It has been about 150 years since the first deep oilwells were sunk, and just over 200 years since the viable steam engine was developed. The two are linked, because the steam engine made deep drilling of oilwells possible and gave […]

Peak Oil by Jay Hanson Pt 4.. money..

Peak Oil by Jay Hanson Pt 4.. money..

Chile Elects to Revolt

This week we take a look at the 6 plus year student revolt in Chile, plus ballot burning fury in Mexico and an interview with militants from Santiago who tell us about the anarchist scene there. On the music break we bring you Chilean rapper Portavoz with “Te Quieren”

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