What Really Caused The EIA Oil Draw?

Crude prices are rebounding today, bouncing off the trampoline of price support at $48 for WTI and $50 for Brent. A surprise draw to U.S. crude inventories (not to some) has been behind the rally (see more below), while the monthly IEA report followed in OPEC’s footsteps by showing higher Saudi production, and higher OECD […]

Diesel may not be running on fumes after all

From disdain to redemption to disgrace: Rudolf Diesel’s fuel-frugal invention has travelled a rocky road in North America. “Slow, noisy and dirty” was the public perception of diesel during its disdain phase decades ago. Redemption came with the advent of turbo-diesels – such as Volkswagen’s TDI that seduced open-minded buyers with its tsunami of quiet, […]

Venezuela has a bread shortage. The government has decided bakers are the problem.

Facing a bread shortage that is spawning massive lines and souring the national mood, the Venezuelan government is responding this week by detaining bakers and seizing establishments. In a press release, the National Superintendent for the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights said it had charged four people and temporarily seized two bakeries as the socialist administration […]

Overpopulation: the life and death of a meme

The real problem with overpopulation seems to have to do with the fact that the human information dissemination and processing system (the “Cybersphere”) is unable to deal with long-range planning. A single human brain is larger than a walnut, but that makes no difference. The system reacts to new information but doesn’t really process it. […]

A Time of Seven Generations

  I am going to put off publishing another chapter of How I Survived Collapse for another week to publish instead this compilation article from posts made Inside the Diner on the topic of developing self-sufficiency.  We had a lively discussion on this topic this week, and I would like to share it while it […]

‘We’re going to be okay’: Humans not destined for extinction

Between melting ice caps, water scarcity. and a warming climate, the future of humanity can sometimes look grim. Scientists have long warned of a mass human extinction event and many believe that things have taken a turn for the worst. The iconic doomsday clock currently sits at  2½ minutes to midnight (the closest its been since the beginning of the Cold […]

Global population to use 71% more resources by 2050

The global population is set to grow by 28 per cent and is predicted to use 71 per cent more resources per capita by 2050, says an international research centre. Without urgent steps to increase efficiency, the global use of metals, biomass, minerals such as sand, and other materials, will increase from 85 to 186 […]

Exxon Could Use An Oil Price War

If Saudi Arabia’s saber-rattling leads to renewed price warfare in the oil market this year, then everyone involved will suffer — except you drivers, of course. And Exxon Mobil Corp. Exxon does not actually like getting lower prices for its primary product; its cash flow has been cut in half over the past two years. […]

Has OPEC Underestimated US Shale Once Again?

The U.S. shale cowboys are back on their horses and leading a strong recovery in the oil patch that is not expected to falter even as WTI prices dropped last week below $50 per barrel for the first time in more than two months. With lessons learned from the oil price crash and budgets streamlined […]

IEA Says Oil Market Could Tilt Into Deficit In 1H If OPEC Sticks To Cuts

Global oil inventories rose for the first time in January as the market grappled with a swell in production last year, but if OPEC maintains its output cuts, demand should overtake supply in the first half of this year, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday. The IEA’s monthly report struck a more bullish note […]

The Sad Reality Humanity Faces Today

And we thought 2016 was bad… Another week of 2017 has gone by and we continue to witness the world’s population exercise their freedom of speech and expression. Defying the odds of the status quo, the young generation is pushing back against the current world powers that seem to be pursuing 20th century political tactics. […]

An Oil Legend’s Biggest Hunt Ever: 10 Billion Barrels in Alaska

It’s hard to tell where the world ends here on the Alaska North Slope. In the subzero twilight, when the Arctic winds snarl, snow and cloud stretch to every horizon in a seamless vault of spectral white. Beyond the tundra, five miles out on the frozen sea, oil workers from a tiny outfit called Caelus […]

Pesticides: debunking the myths

New UN report at odds with agribusiness propaganda The idea that pesticides are essential to feed a rapidly-growing world population is a myth, according to UN experts: a new report presented by the Human Rights Council has heavily criticized the multinationals that produce pesticides, accusing them of “systematic denial of the magnitude of the damage”, […]

Three Reasons Why Keystone XL May Never Get Built

Almost a full decade since first applying for a presidential permit, TransCanada looks set to finally receive go-ahead in the U.S. for its massive $8-billion Keystone XL pipeline. But here’s the thing: U.S. approval, while a great leap forward for TransCanada, doesn’t guarantee the Keystone XL pipeline will ever be built. New U.S. President Donald Trump was elected […]

Saudi Aramco to resume oil product shipments to Egypt soon

Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco will resume oil product shipments to Egypt some six months after suddenly halting them, the Egyptian Petroleum Ministry said on Wednesday. The ministry said in a statement it was working out a timetable with Aramco for the resumption of shipments and that commercial reasons related to global oil prices […]

Big energy fears peak oil demand is looming

In an attempt to improve the quality of Beijing’s polluted air, the authorities are planning to mandate that every new taxi in the city must be electric or gas-fuelled, China’s National Business Daily reported last month. Beijing’s taxi drivers are no fans of the electric cabs in use there since 2014, complaining about inadequate battery […]

OPEC Cracks?

One of my go-to analysts on oil production is former Italian oilman Leonardo Maugeri, who now works at the Belfer Center at Harvard University. In my book, The End of Doom, I cited his 2012 analysis Oil: The Next Revolution published when oil prices hovered around $100 per barrel in which he correctly predicted that […]

Why I Totally Hate Big Oil – And Why You Should Too…

Did you hear the speech that Al Gore gave in Texas the other day saying that the oil industry should take climate change more seriously, that oil could peak in the next decade, that the “social acceptance” for oil was disappearing, that there needed to be a meaningful tax on carbon emissions and that he “strongly supported” […]

Asia Recovers Its Appetite for Oil

Forget oil’s drop below $50 a barrel and rising U.S. stockpiles. Emerging Asia, home to more than half the world’s population and 40 percent of forecast economic growth through 2020, is showing signs of recovering its appetite for crude. Oil exporters’ love for the region has long been unrequited. Saudi Arabia and Russia have been fighting […]

Peak Oil – Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture: Review

In 2011, while working toward a Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson began a study into the peak oil community. Approaching his subject from the perspective of a social scientist, he conducted his research by way of surveys, interviews, field notes and participant observation (the latter two gleaned through attending […]

How Shale Is Reshaping The World: Three New Wars

We recently met with geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan to discuss world events since the American election and his new book, “The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World without America.” In the book, Peter credits energy and resource innovations with reshaping the global geopolitical environment.   We covered so much ground in our visit […]

There’s ‘No Question’ Deep State at Work in Government

Friday at the White House press briefing, when asked if there is a “deep state” of government employees possibly loyal to the Obama administration’s agenda, press secretary Sean Spicer said, “I think that there’s no question when you have eight years of one party in office, there are people who stay in government — and […]

Fossil vs. Renewable Energy: How to Not Get the Worst of Both

Current US energy policies can be broadly summarized as strong support for renewable wind and solar, but no effective penalties for fossil fuels. The politics that have led to those policies are fairly obvious. We needn’t discuss them here. Less obvious, though, are the consequences. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that we’ve saddled […]

Big Oil’s Big Climate Divide

Among other things, carbon dioxide contributes enormously to cognitive dissonance. Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, demonstrated as much last week when he expressed doubts about the role of carbon dioxide emissions in fostering climate change. Only in January, the then-unconfirmed Pruitt was telling senators that “human activity” had a role in climate […]

Radioactive wild boars worry Fukushima

Hundreds of aggressive, and potentially radioactive, wild boars have prompted public safety concerns in Japan, according to news reports, as homeowners prepare to return to towns near Fukushima, where a 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at a nuclear power plant in the region. Six years after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami crippled the Fukushima […]

China to Start Work on Six Inland Nuclear Reactors

All six units are slated to be Westinghouse AP1000s similar to reactors already under construction at the Haiyang coastal site and at Sanmen, which is an inland site. China To Restart Inland Nuclear Power Program (NucNet): China is expected restart its nuclear power program in inland areas within the next four years. The statement came […]

Opening Arctic for Drilling Is Trump Priority

Senator Lisa Murkowski said President  Donald Trump is interested in opening up new coastal waters for oil and gas drilling and reversing Obama-era policies that restrict energy development in Alaska. Both Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke are weighing ways to expand opportunities to drill in Arctic waters though the changes could take years to […]

Have We Been Denying Our Human Nature For 400 Years?

Eurocentric modernism has unhinged us from our human nature, argues Rajani Kanth in his new book Across the globe, a collective freak-out spanning the whole political system is picking up steam with every new “surprise” election, rush of tormented souls across borders, and tweet from the star of America’s great unreality show, Donald Trump. But […]

Why EROEI matters: the role of net energy in the survival of civilization

  The image above was shown by Charlie Hall in a recent presentation that he gave in Princeton. It seems logic that the more net energy is available for a civilization, the more that civilization can do, say, build cathedrals, create art, explore space, and more. But what’s needed, exactly, for a civilization to exist? […]

China Official Says Two-Child Policy Showing ‘Notable Results’

China’s two-child policy is showing “notable results” with the fertility rate expected to rise through to 2020, a senior health official said on Saturday. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of China’s annual meeting of parliament, Wang Peian, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission said there were “notable results” in 2016, with […]

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