Why Rate Design Matters for Energy Efficiency

Today, most American households pay for electric service via a two-part electric rate. This typically consists of a small, fixed customer charge ($ per month) and an energy rate applied per unit of electricity ($ per kilowatt hour). There are some variations on this model, including energy rates that vary based on time of day […]

Asia’s Water Politics Near the Boiling Point

In Asia, it likely will not be straightforward water wars. Prolonged water scarcity might lead to security situations that are more nuanced, giving rise to a complex set of cascading but unpredictable consequences, with communities and nations reacting in ways that we have not seen in the past because climate change will alter the reliability […]

Peak Gold – Biggest Gold Story Not Being Reported

– Peak gold – Biggest gold story not being reported – Gold ‘Mining Zombie Apocalypse’ caused miners to slash exploration budgets – Decline in gold production at world’s top 10 gold mining companies – Byron King – “No new big mines being built in the world today” – Glencore CEO Glasenberg – Primary global gold output declined […]

We need to protect the world’s soil before it’s too late

The following is an excerpt from The Ground Beneath Us by Paul Bogard. It’s hard to believe that American society could possibly collapse because of a lack of soil. And it’s true that we in the States are blessed to live in a country so rich in this life-giving source. But in a small world […]

Thousands of underground gas bulges, formed by thawing permafrost, set to ‘explode’ in Siberia

Local Siberian media has reported that the very ground that people stand on is moving under their feet in the arctic regions of Siberia. Scientists have discovered 7000 gas filled bubbles according to the Siberian Times.  These, bulges or ‘bulgunyakh’ in the local Yakut language, were originally discovered last year by researchers in Siberia’s remote Bely Island. At that time only 15 […]

King Oil Is Dead; Long Live The King

Summary Oil prices are difficult to predict. Some North American oil producers are leaner and less risky than they used to be, especially those that have wiped out billions of dollars in debt via bankruptcy. I identify one such bankruptcy rebirth, which, despite less risk, trades at significantly lower multiples than its peers. There is […]

The Limits of Growth

Infrastructure investments need reliable basic conditions, according to Oliver Bäte, the chief executive of Allianz and head of the B20 working group “Financing Growth & Infrastructure.” The world economy is creaking under the burdens of weak growth, weak trade and low levels of employment – and if that wasn’t enough, it has a deficit making […]

Deadly nuclear radiation levels detected in Fukushima

Extremely high radiation levels were detected using cameras and robots in tainted water inside a reactor containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Japan Times reported Tuesday, citing Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (Tepco). The latest readings, taken six years after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, showed 11 sieverts per hour, according […]

Saudi Arabia Downgraded By Fitch To A+ On Soaring Fiscal Deficit, Deteriorating Balance Sheet

With Saudi Arabia scrambling to respond to surging US shale production in what many analysts warn is a lose-lose decision, as either Saudi Arabia will lose market share under the current status quo, or government revenue will tumble should the Vienna 2016 production cut deal be cancelled, moments ago Fitch poured some fuel on the […]

Under-$50 WTI Oil Price Will Be ‘Short Lived’

The WTI oil price of under $50 per barrel won’t last for long, according to oil and gas analysts at GMP FirstEnergy. “We think the foray below $50 per barrel (WTI) is going to be short lived as it is abundantly clear that the global crude oil market has less supply available now than it […]

How OPEC Lost The War Against Shale, In One Chart

At the start of March we showed a fascinating chart from Rystad Energy, demonstrating how dramatic the impact of technological efficiency on collapsing US shale production costs has been: in just the past 3 years, the wellhead breakeven price for key shale plays has collapsed from an average of $80 to the mid-$30s… … resulting […]

Big Oil’s Plan to Buy Into the Shale Boom

Exxon, Shell, and Chevron plan to spend $10 billion in the U.S. shale patch this year. A gas flare is seen through the window as Royal Dutch Shell’s Scott W. Scheffler drives near Mentone, Texas, in Loving County situated in a central portion of the Delaware Basin, on Thursday, March 2, 2017. Photographer: Matthew Busch/Bloomberg […]

Robot Successfully Reports Killer Radiation Levels Inside Fukushima Reactor

Tokyo Electric on Sunday confirmed lethally high radiation levels inside the primary containment vessel (PCV) of the heavily damaged unit 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. A magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 resulted in the meltdown of three of Fukushima’s six reactors. The disaster in Japan left around 19,000 people dead and more than 100,000 homeless. In the largest […]

Start Dealing

Empires have one historical constant: they fail. President Trump likes deals and campaigned on his deal-making prowess. Negotiation requires parties who respect each other enough to bargain in good faith. It is a lost art in US foreign policy, replaced by imperatives: we tell you what to do and you do it. This makes the […]

Helping Others Eschew Oil How to Make Your Life Less Oily in 2017

Part I:  Taking Stock Part II: Squeezing Oil Out of Your Travel Part III: Wringing Oil from Your Beverages, Food, Stuff, and Heat Part IV: Helping Others Eschew Oil “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller So […]

The Great Battery Race

he coming of cheap and effective lithium-based batteries will cause the greatest changes in the energy and automobile sector since Henry Ford built the model T, writes Gerard Reid, founding partner of Alexa Capital, financial analyst and co-founder of the Energy and Carbon blog. But European countries like Germany and France have no significant production, in […]

David Rockefeller, Grandson of Standard Oil Co-Founder, Dies at 101

David Rockefeller, the billionaire businessman and philanthropist who was the last in his generation of one of the country’s most famously philanthropic families, died Monday. He was 101. Rockefeller died in his sleep at his home in suburban Pocantico Hills, New York, according to his spokesman, Fraser P. Seitel. He was the youngest of six […]

Zombie Apocalypse: will it be our future?

   Caution, this is probably the most catastrophistic post I ever published: famines, cannibalism, mass extermination and more. But, hey, this is just a scenario! (Image from “teehunter“). For those of us who delight themselves in studying long-term trends, the rise of zombies as a movie genre is a fascinating puzzle. There is no doubt […]

Why Oil Forecasting Is So Difficult Now: Short-Cycle vs. Long-Cycle vs. “Peak Demand”

Oil experts are deeply divided in their views on the future of what is still the world’s key commodity. This divergence was on display at last week’s CERA Conference in Houston, which brought together industry executives, consultants, media, and government officials from around the world. Although I didn’t attend in person, the organizers provided extensive […]

Russia to cut oil output by 300000 bpd by end

Russia will cut its oil output by 300,000 barrels per day by the end of April and will maintain production at that level until the global oil cuts deal expires at the end of June, Energy minister Alexander Novak said on Friday. Russia had cut output by 160,000 bpd by the middle of March, said […]

Peak oil? Sooner than you think

EEnergyInformer For some time, there has been speculation about when global oil demand may peak – not because we will run out of oil or prices will spike making oil unaffordable, notions that are now considered passé – but because we won’t be needing as much of the stuff as we thought we would. And […]

Kunstler: Full Speed Ahead for Murphy’s Law

You might not know it, given all the ambient noise of the moment, but beyond the torments of news and propaganda there is still something called the nation. It’s more than just a political compact. Until not long ago it was also a culture, an agreed-upon set of values, practices, and customs that amounted to […]

Oleo sponge invented at Argonne National Laboratory can sop up oil in a spill

A group of researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory have developed a sponge that will collect oil from bodies of water, which could improve how harbors and ports are cleaned, as well as how oil spills are managed. The Oleo Sponge is made of a polyurethane foam whose interior surfaces are covered with oleophilic molecules […]

BP Exec to Give Global Energy Forecast

The United States could become energy self-sufficient in as few as six years, predicts multinational oil and gas company BP. Also by 2023, natural gas will replace oil as the most-used fuel in U.S. energy consumption. Global coal consumption will peak in the mid-2020s as China reins in its economic growth and uses cleaner, lower-carbon […]

Lessons from the US for Australia’s energy crisis

As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was convening an emergency meeting with gas producers last week to fix Australia’s looming “energy crisis”, The Wall Street Journal’s front page splashed with the headline that America’s “Natural Gas Glut Deepens”. Australia and the United States are two of the world’s richest endowed natural gas economies, but the difference […]

There’s a lot more oil to keep in the ground all of a sudden

Spanish oil company Repsol just announced that it has made the largest onshore oil discovery in the United States in 30 years: a find of 1.2 billion barrels beneath Alaska’s North Slope. “Keep it in the ground” has become a rallying cry for climate and environmental activists in recent years, and they’re particularly intent on stopping Arctic […]

California Has Some Of The World’s Dirtiest Oil

California is home to some of the world’s dirtiest oil, according to a study from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington, D.C., based think tank. The report looked at the entire life cycle of oil, from production to end use, and found some oils emit as much or more greenhouse gases as Canada’s […]

Beijing, Saudi Arabia agree to more oil cooperation, exports to China

China and Saudi Arabia will increase their cooperation in the oil sector, including in Saudi oil exports to China, the two countries said in a joint communique issued on Saturday at the end of Saudi Arabian King Salman’s visit to Beijing. The world’s largest oil exporter has been looking to cement ties with the world’s […]

Hans Rosling, population prophet: Five final thoughts

Hans Rosling, the Swedish professor who made global health statistics compelling viewing, died from cancer in February. Co-founder of Gapminder.org, which continues his work, he was enthusiastically trying to change old-fashioned notions of the world even as his illness took hold. In his final BBC interview – for the BBC World Service series Economic Tectonics […]

Researchers make discovery that could increase plant yield in wake of looming phosphate shortage

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers make discovery that could increase plant yield in wake of looming phosphate shortage   Phosphate is vital for best crop yields, but global supply is limited and could peak in 30 years.   (Chapel Hill, N.C. – March 15, 2017) – Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have […]

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