Kunstler: Thirteen Russians and a Ham Sandwich

Remember that one from 1996? Funny, that was the American mainstream media bragging, after the fact, about our own meddling in another nation’s election. WASHINGTON — A team of American political strategists who helped [California] Gov. Pete Wilson with his abortive presidential bid earlier this year said this week that they served as Russian President […]

Surge in global oil supply may overtake demand in 2018

The rise in global oil production, led by the United States, is likely to outpace growth in demand this year, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: A gas station attendant pumps fuel into a customer’s car at a gas station in Shanghai, China November 17, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo The Paris-based IEA […]

Prepping for Death

  Once you become fully aware of collapse, it tends to make you a little crazy.  There is nobody I have come across in the collapse blogosphere who isn’t somewhat nuts.  Mind you, this definition of “nuts” is being measured against what is considered normal inside an insane society, so in reality it may not […]

Face reality – the world’s population is growing

In 1949 the doctor who delivered me held me up by my heels and gave me a hard whack on the butt. When I entered the world, I shared the planet with 2.4 billion people. Today, that number has swelled to 7.6 billion. In my lifetime, the human population has increased over three times. Population […]

Hezbollah Leader Threatens “We Will Open Fire” On Disputed Israeli Offshore Oil & Gas Operations

During a televised address in Beirut on Friday Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah once again warned Israel to back off its claims over disputed oil and gas field just off the southern Lebanese coast, threatening that Hezbollah could “disable [Israel’s offshore oil installations] within hours.” “If you prevent us, we prevent you; if you open […]

Fixation on timing of peak oil is ‘misguided’

The electric car revolution and stricter global rules on emissions have focused debate in the energy sector on when decades of growth in oil demand will eventually peak. But Spencer Dale, chief economist at energy major BP and former Bank of England policymaker, has challenged the industry to come up with a better question. In […]

US military expenditure a giant elephant in the room

For more than 20 years, the Government Accountability Office has never been able to produce a clean audit at the Defense Department, as required by federal law to allow appropriations for the next fiscal year, because of hundreds of millions of dollars in unaccounted annual expenditures. What does the federal government spend for military purposes? It […]

Beyond oil: We’ve come so far

This is the second of three columns dedicated to making the case that Alaska, like the rest of the world, can move beyond oil and into the clean energy economy.  Alaska’s economy was small yet stable pre-pipeline. As noted in my previous column, if we get the funding reliance switched from oil revenues to the […]

Russia Is Taking Over Syria’s Oil And Gas

It finally happened… In accordance with an energy cooperation framework agreement signed in late January, Russia will have exclusive rights to produce oil and gas in Syria. The agreement goes significantly beyond that, stipulating the modalities of the rehabilitation of damaged rigs and infrastructure, energy advisory support, and training a new generation of Syrian oilmen. […]

America: A Military Nation

Americans like to think of their country as different from those run by military regimes. They are only fooling themselves. Ever since the federal government was converted into a national-security state after World War II (without a constitutional amendment authorizing the conversion), it has been the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA that have run […]

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker — don’t believe the false doom-mongers

Towards the end of this passionate book in praise of Enlightenment values the author sounds a defiant but plaintive note. “Persuasion by facts and logic, the most direct strategy,” Steven Pinker writes, “is not always futile.” You can almost hear the “despites” in his mind. Despite the widespread belief among fashionable intellectuals that emotions and […]

The Coming Fall of the House of Saud: Austerity is in, and the Countdown to Saudi Arabia’s Fire Sale is On!

With austerity policies sweeping the globe it was really only a matter of time before they hit the more affluent parts of the Middle East, although one certainly wouldn’t expect the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be so hot on the heels of the “lazy” Greeks. The word “austerity” has however earned a bit […]

Electric cars may reduce global demand for oil by mid-2020s

The emergence of electric cars can lead to a reduction of oil consumption by road transport by the mid-2020s, the Russian Central Bank said in its report. Read also According to the Central Bank, the speed of the development of the electric vehicle market and the rate of growth of the efficiency of fuel consumption […]

Russia’s oil production in Arctic may hit peak in 2020s

Russia’s oil production in the Arctic will reach peak levels in the 2020s, head of the state commission on natural resources Igor Shpurov said. Over 2017, he said, Russia produced in the Arctic about 76 million tonnes of oil, and the production would be growing to 2026 hitting a record of 122 million tonnes a […]

The End Of The Petrodollar? China Unveils Oil-Futures Launch Date

After decades of dollar-hegemonic control, the world’s biggest oil buyer is finally getting its own crude-futures contract – the so-called ‘petro-yuan’ is born. The start of trading, open to foreigners, will mark the end of years of delays and setbacks since China’s first attempt at a domestic contract in 1993. Following December’s final successful test, in a […]

City of London financiers contemplate “imminent” 2018 US stock market crash of up to “50%”

Coming dramatic decline of US stock prices would trigger global recession, finds grim forecast to be explored at roundtable hosted by British financial services think-tank Published as part of the launch of the new beta platform for INSURGE intelligence, a crowdfunded journalism platform for people and planet. A new analysis published on the website of a […]

Oil is a Scarce Resource

Building a country or a region’s economy on the extraction of a resource is fool hardy. A resource extracted is gone! It is no longer there! Inevitably payday will come, maybe not within our lifetime, maybe not within our children’s lifetime, but it will come. True, by the time that resource is extracted, there may […]

Clean Oil That Only Costs $20

The United States is in the midst of an energy revolution. Oil production has risen by 5 million barrels per day (bpd) since 2010, an increase of nearly 100 percent. New technology, particularly techniques in shale oil drilling, has opened up vast new opportunities for oil and gas companies. The proof is in the numbers. […]

IEA: Surge In Global Oil Supply May Overtake Demand In 2018

The rise in global oil production, led by the United States, is likely to outpace growth in demand this year, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. The Paris-based IEA raised its forecast for oil demand growth in 2018 to 1.4 million barrels per day, from a previous projection of 1.3 million bpd, after the […]

$180bn investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge

Colossal funding in manufacturing plants by fossil fuel companies will increase plastic production by 40%, risking permanent pollution of the earth One million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute, with most ending up in landfill or in the sea. Photograph: Zakir Chowdhury/Barcroft Images The global plastic binge which is already causing widespread […]

Water: Why the taps run dry

The world has abundant freshwater but it is unevenly distributed and under increasing pressure, UN agencies say, as highlighted by the severe shortages in Cape Town. WATER, WATER ‘EVERYWHERE’ More than 97 per cent of the planet’s water is salty, most of it in the oceans and seas, but there is also a good supply […]

Venezuela oil production is plummeting

Venezuela’s main source of cash is dwindling at a breathtaking pace. The country’s oil output in January fell to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, not including a brief oil strike in 2003, according to S&P Global Platts. A monthly OPEC report published Monday revealed Venezuela pumped 1.6 million barrels of oil per day […]

Nuclear Fusion Could Be A Silver Bullet — And Just Around The Corner

Private investors are now actively trying to commercialize an advanced form of nuclear energy and one that would leave no environmental footprint while also delivering electricity to the world’s expanding population. At issue is nuclear fusion, which has been an elusive concept for six decades but which one firm hopes to makes real by 2025. […]

Flare Mining – Turning Waste Natural Gas into an Alternative Store of Value

Flare Mining’s innovative, flare gas capture and processing systems turn raw associated gas and from a waste into digital currency income. Gas flaring is the combustion of associated gas produced with crude oil or from gas fields. The impact of gas flaring is of local and global concern. Gas flaring is one of the most […]

Oil Prices: Collapse Now, Spike Later

Oil prices closed out the week sharply down, wiping out all the gains posted since the start of the year. Surging U.S. shale production, along with broader financial turmoil, has clearly put an end to the bullish mood in the oil market. U.S. shale struck several blows against oil prices this week. First, the EIA […]

That Antarctic ozone hole the world thought it was fixing? There may be a glitch

This is a problem the world thought it had fixed. Scientists discovered in the 1980s that chlorofluorocarbons — used for refrigeration and in aerosol sprays — were creating a hole in the stratospheric ozone layer far above Antarctica, which could have devastating consequences for life on Earth. (Ozone absorbs much of the sun’s cancer-causing and […]

The Changing Face of Energy and Environment

Having followed the energy scene in the UK for many years, it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint certain events that one remembers. Some years ago, I suggested to a civil servant that, with environmental concerns building up, perhaps energy and environment should come together. The response was that energy and environment couldn’t be in the same […]

Kunstler: Yet Another Year of Magical Thinking

A peculiar feature of the human condition is that a society in distress will call forth intellectual witch-doctors to put on a colorful show that distracts the supposedly thinking class from the insoluble quandaries that portend serious trouble ahead. This feature is on display these days in the person of freelance space pioneer Elon Musk. […]

Noam Chomsky: We’re on the Brink of Global Catastrophe

Famed linguist and activist Noam Chomsky says that the United States under President Donald Trump is driving the world closer to catastrophe than it’s been in decades. In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Chomsky pointed out that the so-called “Doomsday Clock” created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board is now closer […]

Kris De Decker: Enough Is Enough

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS In our quest to make a better world, we often strive for more efficient use of resources. But is the goal of efficiency the right one? Our guest this week on Sea Change Radio, Low Tech Magazine founder, Kris De Decker, […]

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