The Collapse of Coal

The last of the big-time U.S. coal companies has gone bankrupt, and in the hills of Appalachia, they’re looking for their next move. How will the former coal miners find new careers and build new industries? How will the liabilities of coal companies ever get paid? And how did we get into this situation in […]

The World Nears Peak Fossil Fuels for Electricity

The way we get electricity is about to change dramatically, as the era of ever-expanding demand for fossil fuels comes to an end—in less than a decade. That’s according to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that plots out global power markets for the next 25 years. Call it peak fossil fuels, a turnabout that’s happening […]

Powerful Saudi prince to meet Obama

Saudi Arabia’s powerful deputy crown prince flew to the United States on Monday for meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Saudi media reported. The visit of Mohammed bin Salman, whose powers include his role as defense minister, comes amid a diplomatic row with the United Nations and policy differences with […]

Falling global oil reserves: Pricing blip or panic alarm? — Fuel for Thought

For years global oil majors have brushed off speculation that an imminent peak in global oil reserves spells the beginning of the end of the hydrocarbon age. There is a long-term trend of new oil finds and improved recovery outpacing consumption each year, they say, underpinning future output and returns. BP’s latest benchmark energy review, […]

Noam Chomsky, Tick… Tick… Tick…

He hadn’t been in office three months when he went to Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, and delivered remarks on the world’s nuclear dilemma.  They proved to be of a sort that might normally have come from an antinuclear activist or someone in the then just-budding climate change movement, not the president of the […]

How Did Things Get To Be This Way?

Ojibway elder Basil Johnston said that a good life is impossible for people disconnected from their history. We must know who we are. The venerable historian William Cronon was the son of a history professor. One day, his father gave him the magic key for understanding the world. He told his son to carry one […]

Shale Econ 101

EDITOR’S NOTE: Rusty Braziel is president and principal consultant for RBN Energy, which provides advisory services specializing in strategy, acquisitions, and divestures. He is an authority in the field of energy information and markets, with an extensive background in energy marketing, trading, and data services. Over the past 20 years he has worked in an […]

Is oil industry’s doom approaching?

The chorus of doom surrounding the financial future of the oil sector added another voice last week, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. The firm revised earlier rosy predictions and is now forecasting that global oil demand could peak in 2030 if electric cars gain momentum and the world shifts to more recycled plastic, a […]

Hot Brain Cool Brain

“Voting these days is like choosing between the hot faucet and the cold faucet, but only the hot faucet works.“   Lion and wolf cubs, when they learn to stalk prey, learn fairly quickly that they must delay the urge for immediate gratification if they are to be successful. They have to cultivate patience. Babies […]

Can the world go all-electric?

Recently, word leaked out that Norway may ban the sale of diesel- and gasoline-powered vehicles by 2025. The move toward electric vehicles is part of a dream shared by those concerned about climate change and about fossil fuel depletion (especially oil depletion), namely, turn the world into one big all-electric paradise. Run everything we can […]

Unplanned Global Oil Supply Disruptions Reach Highest Level Since At Least 2011

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, June 2016. Note: OPEC is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC disruptions include crude oil only, while non-OPEC disruptions include crude oil and other liquid fuels.   Unplanned global oil supply disruptions averaged more than 3.6 million barrels per day (b/d) in May 2016, the […]

Anti-petroleum alarmists’ plans to soak oil companies

The oil and gas industry was born in Pennsylvania on Aug. 27, 1859, when Edwin L. Drake drilled the world’s first commercial oil well. A critic said Drake should leave the oil underground because it was needed to fuel the fires of hell, and to pump it out would protect the wicked from their eternal […]

No oil jobs in an oil-rich Kingdom

Zaid Al-Sahli thought a degree in oil engineering would guarantee him a job in Saudi Arabia. The Arab kingdom is after all the largest crude oil exporter in the world. But after spending 18 months sending his resume to hundreds of oil companies in Ryiadh and the Eastern province, it became clear to Al-Sahli that […]

Bilderberg Caused The 1973 Oil Crisis

The Bilderberg Group orchestrated the 1973 Oil Crisis and talked OPEC into playing along to ensure that Anglo-American oil companies with ties to Bilderberg would profit from oil exploration in the North Sea. Now that’s a deep secret they won’t teach you in school because, frankly, Bilderberg doesn’t want you to know. http://www.infowars.com/did-you-know-…

Is $100 oil on the horizon?

Oil investors are buying contracts that will only pay out if crude rises well above $100 a barrel over the next four years — a clear sign some believe today’s bust is sowing the seeds of the next boom. The options deals, which brokers said bear the hallmarks of trades made by hedge funds, appear […]

Does Iran have the upper hand in OPEC oil war?

Traditional rivals, Saudi Arabia and Iran, continue to fight to prove their supremacy in OPEC. Neither gives up an opportunity to hurt the other, whenever and wherever they can, and oil seems to be their favorite playground. With Saudi Arabia scuttling any chances of a production freeze in Doha in April, Iran has followed suit […]

Two-third of world population to suffer from water scarcity in 10 years

The secretary of IUESA said some experts have estimated that about two-third of the world’s population will suffer from severe or relative water scarcity by 2025. The Secretary of Iran Urban Economics Scientific Association (IUESA) Seyed Mohsen Tabatabaei made the remarks noting that that global demand for water follows extremely urbanization growth. he underlined that water and […]

Never Cry Wolf! The Worst Climate Prediction Ever Made

If you cry wolf, and the wolf doesn’t come, you’ll make a fool of yourself. But it will be much worse if you don’t cry wolf, and the wolf comes. Professor Nicola Scafetta, showing his 2010 predictions for global temperatures (from Meteo Live News). These predictions turned out to be spectacularly wrong.  The debate on […]

Harold Hamm: Oil Above $60 Would Justify New Drilling

Harold Hamm, Continental Resources chairman and chief executive officer, discusses the outlook for U.S. oil production with Bloomberg’s Alix Steel on “What’d You Miss?”

IEA Sees Tighter Markets Next Decade

The International Energy Agency (IEA) sees the present length in the global gas market – as evidenced by spot prices lower than oil-indexed prices would be – continuing, with “heavy oversupply” until 2018. But upstream investments will remain low, setting the course for higher prices by the early to mid-2020s, its latest Medium-Term Market Report for gas […]

Peak Oil? Life of M. King Hubbert

  The man and the movement – is it dead? This week we’re going to look at a life that shaped energy expectations, a whole social movement, and American military policy in the Middle East. Finally, there is a biography of M. King Hubbert, the man who warned oil companies and the world about Peak […]

Peak oil is so yesterday; now it’s all about peak auto

Remember peak oil theory? It was all the rage just a few years ago. Serious books were devoted to the idea that the world was running out of crude. Deep thinkers pontificated about its potentially dire impact on human civilization. But then all that peak oil talk peaked. Thanks to the fracking revolution, it became clear that the world […]

No Borders

Engaging new international collaborative anarchist video series “No Borders” kicks off with an episode about social struggle in New York City. “The first season of this web series was realized with the collaboration of Black Rose Anarchist Federation Locals (EEUU), Anarchistisches Radio Berlin (Anarchist Radio Berlin, Germany, part of IFA / International of Anarchist Federation) […]

Venezuela Is at a Breaking Point

Every week, hosts Tori Stilwell, Dan Moss and Aki Ito bring you a jargon-free dive into the stories that drive the global economy. Venezuela, home to the world’s biggest oil reserves, is in the throes of economic crisis. With inflation projected at nearly 300 percent this year, how do Venezuelans live amid six-hour lines for […]

Yergin Sees Beginnings of Oil Market Recovery

The global oil and natural gas industry is beginning its long-awaited recovery, but crude oil prices likely will remain in the “$50 orbit” during the third quarter, energy expert Daniel Yergin said Monday. The IHS Inc. vice chairman who often hobnobs with world energy leaders, shared the stage with Canada Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr […]

Western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than thought

Western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than previously thought, but an immediate boom is unlikely because of low gas prices, government and industry experts said Wednesday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the Mancos Shale formation in Colorado’s Piceance Basin holds about 66.3 trillion cubic feet of gas, up from 1.6 trillion estimated in 2003. […]

Big Oil’s Footprint in Washington Shrinks With Price of Crude

Tumbling crude and natural gas prices have weakened the energy industry’s influence in Washington as cutbacks in the oilfield have spread to the nation’s capital. Casualties include the army of lobbyists battling new regulations and the rosters of trade groups trying to elect friendly candidates in November. The Independent Petroleum Association of America has shed […]

Scientists identify protein which boosts rice yield by fifty percent

In collaboration with researchers at Nanjing Agricultural University, Dr Tony Miller from the John Innes Centre has developed rice crops with an improved ability to manage their own pH levels, enabling them to take up significantly more nitrogen, iron and phosphorus from soil and increase yield by up to 54 percent. Rice is a major […]

Seeking Consensus on the Externalized Costs of Gas

What is meant by “externalized costs”? Externalized costs are costs associated with energy consumption which is not reflected in the selling price of the energy. These costs are directly or indirectly paid by other sectors of the economy in forms such as increased healthcare expenditures, losses in property values, increased costs associated with natural disasters, and a […]

On Surplus

This is Part 1 of a 2 or 3 part series on the concept of surplus. Surplus is one of the most central features of modern industrial and democratic societies. In fact it is so central and its permanence so taken for granted that it is scarcely noticed and even less understood. The following installations […]

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