What will we eat when all the food runs out?

Last week, the Yukan Fuji (June 20) reported that 20 outlets in the Kappa Sushi conveyor belt sushi chain in east and west Japan are promoting an all-you-can-eat special, with patrons from middle-school age to 64 years charged ¥1,706 (boys and men) or ¥1,490 (girls and women). Seniors over 65 can partake in the same […]

Can U.S. Shale Survive Below $40?

Many U.S. shale drillers have said that they have full-proofed their operations for $40 oil, having lowered breakeven prices substantially over the last few years. They may soon have to prove it. Oil prices dropped to fresh seven-month lows on Tuesday, officially entering bear market territory, down more than 20 percent year-to-date. The declines have […]

Saudi Arabia Demands Qatar Shut Down Al Jazeera

From the Wall Street Journal: Saudi Arabia and other Arab states that have severed ties with Qatar issued a list of severe demands to end the worst regional diplomatic crisis in years, telling their Persian Gulf neighbor to close state broadcaster Al Jazeera, curb ties with Iran and end Turkey’s military presence on its soil….The […]

Overcapacity and the price of oil

With the Saudi Arabian-American strategy of removing ISIS and terror roots in Middle East societies and governments, the global oil and gas service companies have new projects to expand oil capacity of Saudi Arabia. This moves Saudi Aramco into overcapacity production range and a Second Downturn in early 2019 as forecast in this column six […]

Fusion Breakthrough: A Half-Century-Old Puzzle Comes Together

The secret is in regulating the speed of runaway electrons. In light of the monumental crisis we’re facing, we’re referring to global warming and climate change, of course, we’ve never had to find a new source of energy as badly as we do right now. And it’s not just any alternative source of energy. What […]

Will oil prices head to $30 or $60?

Record oil stored in tankers. Market distortion by money managers. Surging production in Libya and Nigeria. A backlog of untapped oil wells in West Texas. The oil market’s bulls and bears both have a lot to chew on these days, as forecasters offer dueling narratives about what’s going on with crude prices. On one side, […]

Finally, a Biofuel to Get Excited About

Most biofuels news is bad—our current national program incentivizes the production and consumption of corn-based ethanol that somehow manages to increase food prices, increase gas prices, hurt American refineries, and hurt the environment. It’s a boondoggle, plain and simple. But not all biofuels are terrible. You can distill ethanol from cellulosic crops, an option that’s […]

We Are Killing the World

Sperm Whales Found Full of Car Parts and Plastics The shocking discoveries add to a mysterious string of sperm whale strandings around the North Sea since the start of the year. Plastic PollutionSchleswig-Holstein environment minister Robert Habeck holds debris found inside beached sperm whales in a picture posted to Instagram. By Wajeeha Malik PUBLISHED March […]

Future Humans: How Many Of Us Will There Be?

NPR YouTube Planet Earth is a vast place, with humans scattered all over it. But how we’re distributed is far from even. About half of the planet’s 7.5 billion people live in just seven countries. China tops the list with over 1.4 billion people, while its neighbor India is catching up fast at 1.3 billion. […]

Using Energy to Extract Energy – the Dynamics of Depletion

The “Limits to Growth Study” of 1972 was deeply controversial and criticised by many economists. Over 40 years later, it seems remarkably prophetic and on track in its predictions. The crucial concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested is explained and the flaws in neoclassical reasoning which EROI highlights. The continued functioning of the energy […]

Oil Companies’ Proved Reserves in 2016 Decline for Second Consecutive Year

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Evaluate Energy. Note: Rest of world includes associated companies’ reserves with unspecified geographies. Annual reports of 67 publicly traded oil companies indicated that their aggregate proved liquids reserves declined in 2016 for the second consecutive year. The decline in proved reserves was heavily concentrated in a few companies […]

Developments in Energy Consumption and Private and Public Debt per 2016

For some time I have explored the relations in developments for total debt [private and public], interest rates, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) energy consumption and thus also the oil price. My theory has been that there are relations between changes to total debt and energy consumption and thus energy prices. Changes to total credit/debt should […]

The Problematic Assumption In The UN’s 9.8 Billion People Projection

The United Nations has a report out today looking at predictions for the size of the human population off into the future. They say that there’s likely to be 9.8 billion by 2050 and then 11.2 billion by 2100. It should be said that the earlier number looks valid as pretty much all of the […]

Energy And Civilization: a Review

If you were to find yourself huddled with a small group of people in a post-crash, post-internet world, hoping to recreate some of the comforts of civilization, you’d do well to have saved a printed copy of Vaclav Smil’s Energy and Civilization: A History. Smil’s new 550-page magnum opus would help you understand why for […]

Americans Are Back in Love With SUVs and Pickups

The car as we have known it appears to be doomed in the U.S. No, not because we’ll all be biking or taking buses or flying with jet packs or riding around in automated vehicles. Sure, a lot of people think that last one is coming soon. Technology analyst Horace Dediu is betting on bikes. And […]

Ron Paul Interviews Snowden On The “Rise Of The Deep State”

In a discussion with Edward Snowden on his weekly “Liberty Report,” Ron Paul and the former NSA contractor trace the genesis of the so-called Deep State, and discuss how the US intelligence community uses covert programs like those exposed by Snowden in 2013 to trample individual freedoms. The most sinister quality of the Deep State, Snowden […]

India to overtake China as most populous country

India’s 1.34 billion population and China’s 1.41 billion together constitute more than a third of the world population of nearly 7.6 billion. A UN report says the world population will reach 9.8 billion in 2050, with India overtaking China as the most populous country in the world.  India is one of the countries with the […]

This Breakthrough Could Solve the Most Dangerous Problem With Nuclear Fusion

Creating Nuclear Fusion could mean unlimited energy, free of any radioactive by-product or greenhouse gases. It has been the goal of physicists since the beginning of the Atomic Era. Unfortunately achieving this goal is difficult and dangerous. But a recent breakthrough could bring us one step closer. An article published in Physical Review Letters explains […]

Rout Tests World’s No. 3 Oil Reserves After Shell Decamps

Scrutiny of Cenovus, Canadian Natural deals may increase Lower prices could prompt asset sales, lower capital spending When Royal Dutch Shell Plc decided to pull out of the Canadian oil sands, the local producers doubled down with more investment. Crude’s bear market is testing their resolve. Trailing only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela in proved reserves, the sticky […]

Romania’s Government Collapses

Romania’s prime minister has been toppled after the parliament passed a vote of no confidence tabled by his party. Barely six months after winning elections, Sorin Grindeanu was ousted by almost all the MPs in his leftwing Social Democratic party (PSD) with the backing of their junior coalition partners, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats […]

Crude: Bottomless pit?

July crude oil futures go away today and it will be up to the August crude futures to find a bottom. As U.S. oil production is showing signs of faltering (up only 12,000 barrels in June as opposed to an expectation of 120,000 barrels) and seeing we are past the pain of many shale producers, […]

Is The Oil Industry Going Green? And Moving Away From Oil?

Last week’s headline in the Wall Street Journal, “Total Eclipse: Oil Giant Sees Its Future in Electricity” no doubt caused many renewable energy advocates to fan themselves like antebellum Southern belles.More than any other oil major, Total sees electricity as a hedge against oil’s eventual decline and is assembling a new business around it. Last […]

The Twilight of Anthropolatry

During the last three months, while on hiatus from blogging, I’ve looked back over the eleven-year run of The Archdruid Report. As my regular readers know, the point of that prolonged experiment in online prose was my attempt to explore the primary historical fact of our time—the accelerating decline and impending fall of industrial civilization—from […]

Saudi King Removes Crown Prince, Names Son As First Heir

In a shocking development, on Wednesday Saudi Arabia’s King Salman appointed his 31-year-old son Mohammed bin Salman (his eldest son from his third wife) as crown prince, placing him as first-in-line to the throne and removing his nephew, 57-year-old Mohammed bin Nayef – the country’s counterterrorism czar and a figure well-known to Washington – from […]

Trump’s Attack On Renewable Energy

Fossil fuels have long been subsidized by tax policies, such as the oil depletion allowance, and by infrastructure construction, such as the interstate highway system. In light of these long-standing subsidies, it’s always a little ironic when fossil fuel industry advocates complain about tax expenditures and other subsidies promoting the renewable energy business. In my […]

Peak oil in the South China Sea

China’s crude oil production has apparently peaked and is back to where it was at the beginning of 2010. Fig 1: China’s crude oil production http://www.jodidb.org/ Vietnam has become a net oil importer: Fig 2: Vietnam’s oil production and consumption At the end of 2016 tensions in the South China Sea have been rising again South […]

The Future Monetary Ecosystem

Over the next generation or two, there will be increasingly visible turf wars between money-suppliers with four very different motivations. It’s not really a fair fight, but it isn’t as one-sided as it used to be. Follow @GrahamJBarnes The spoils The general term for the benefit associated with the issuance of a currency is seigniorage. […]

The Imperial City At The Brink

David Stockman routinely refers to President Trump as the ‘Great Disrupter’. But this is not a bad quality, he insists. Rather, it is a necessary one: Stockman argues (my paraphrasing) that Trump represents the outside force, the externality, that tips a ‘world system’ over the brink: It has to tip over the brink, because systems […]

Three Mile Island is the Latest Nuclear Power Plant to Announce Retirement Plans

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Nuclear power plant data, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and IAEA Power Reactor Information System At the end of May, Exelon, the owner of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in southeastern Pennsylvania, announced its intention to retire the plant in 2019 unless the company is given assistance by the state […]

U.S. Supervolcano Hit by a Swarm of Earthquakes

Updated | Yellowstone supervolcano has been hit by a series of earthquakes, with more 400 recorded since June 12. The latest was recorded on Monday, June 19, with a magnitude 3 earthquake striking 8.6 miles north northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana. The swarm began last week, and on June 15 saw a magnitude 4.5 earthquake […]

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