On the other side of the world, Kazakhs look at US shale gas

Platts Moscow-based reporter Dina Krennikova joined with Platts Washington-based reporter Brian Scheid to file this report from the Kazakhstan International Oil and Gas Conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Roughly 6,500 miles from Texas, they were talking about the Barnett Shale this week. With the Trans-Ili Alatau mountain range in the background, there was a little talk […]

16 ways to avoid being a Transition hypocrite

Martin Heidegger was obsessed with authenticity. He viewed ontological anxiety as the impetus for authenticity — a way to move us through our conformity. For Heidegger, we were born into a world of quiet conformity. Initially, everything we do, say, think and believe has been done before. The activities we regard as worthy of our […]

Our Oil Problems are Not Over!

If a person reads US newspapers, it is easy to get the impression that all of the world’s oil problems are over. But this is not really the case. An Overlooked Part of the Problem: High Oil Prices A major piece of the world’s oil problem is high price. Prices continue to be far above […]

India, China and America in one billion club by 2050

While a comparison between China and India may seem odious there is at least field where India is all set to beat China, population with America following closely By 2050 the world’s population will rise to 9.7 billion from 7.1 billion as at present. And by that time India will overtake China as the world’s […]

Southeast Asia’s Net Oil Imports to More Than Double by 2035

Southeast Asia’s net oil imports will more than double by 2035, costing $240 billion at today’s prices, to meet strong energy demand growth to fuel the region’s fast-growing economies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday. The IEA, which coordinates energy policy for developed economies, said Southeast Asia’s net oil imports will rise to […]

OPEC Relaxed about Cost-Sensitive Shale Oil

A rise in output of North American tight oil will not trouble OPEC, the group’s secretary general said on Tuesday, maintaining his view that the new supply source will not significantly impact the group’s market share. Abdullah al-Badri, attending the annual Oil and Money conference in London, referred to forecasts of rising production of tight […]

Richard Heinberg: Fingers in the dike

The 19th century novel Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates by American author Mary Mapes Dodge features a brief story-within-the-story that has become better known in popular culture than the book itself. It’s the tale of a Dutch boy (in the novel he’s called simply “The Hero of Haarlem”) who saves his community by jamming […]

A farm beyond food

Sutton Community Farm in London, England is the city’s largest arable community farm. From the seven-acre plot, London’s skyline can be seen shining through the distant haze, a constant reminder of the city this farm is attempting to feed. The Sutton Community farm was set up in 2010 as an experimental food solution to compliment […]

Charles Hugh-Smith: Peak Wal-Mart?

Walmart’s growth model may be peaking due to structural declines in miles driven, income of its customer base and rising competition from dollar stores. Structural declines in miles driven, middle and working-class income and rising competition from dollar stores may be leading to Peak Walmart. Walmart’s model of superstores built on the edge of town […]

In sign of energy dilemma, Mexico runs low on natural gas

Prices for natural gas over the border in Texas are at historic lows, so what happened earlier this month at the Gulf of Mexico port of Altamira, Mexico, might seem to defy market logic. Huge tankers arrived from distant Yemen and Nigeria to offload liquefied natural gas at a price four times the market rate […]

A Supply Side Nightmare Scenario

Paul Solman: This past winter, economic historian James Livingston, author of “Against Thrift,” denounced, on The Business Desk, “the nonsense of austerity,” arguing that the last thing the U.S. economy needs is more saving — more capital. Thursday, we feature Daniel Alpert, author of the new book, “The Age of Oversupply: Overcoming the Greatest Challenge […]

Venezuela Is Running Out of Toilet Paper

Venezuela’s government is known for its state-must-do-it-all mindset, inherited from late President Hugo Chavez and his radical followers, known as Chavistas. But late last week, the notoriously inefficient government went above and beyond to shine its populist credentials: It stepped right into Venezuelan bathrooms. On Sept. 20, President Nicolas Maduro and a new economic panel […]

Pay up or dry up – Egyptian gas at a crossroads

An offshore gas find in the Nile Delta is strong new evidence that Egypt has the resources to end power cuts and get export income flowing again. Its challenge is to persuade wary international oil companies to develop them. In the deepest well ever drilled in the delta, some 7 km under the sea bed […]

Gail Tverberg: Why I Don’t Believe Randers’ Limits to Growth Forecast to 2052

Jorgen Randers published a book in 2012 called 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next 40 Years. A note on the front says, “A report to the Club of Rome, Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of The Limits to Growth.” If we compare the new book to the book from 40 years ago, we see some surprising […]

Natural Gas is Good For US Economy

US natural gas production has been steadily rising from about 54 billion cubic feet per day in January 2007 to about 68 billion cfd in July 2012; about 27 billion from shale, and the rest from tight gas, and other sources. Natural gas replacing coal has been the primary reason US CO2 emissions have declined […]

The Big-Picture Economy, Part 3: Scarcity, Risk And Debt

When skimming and speculation are more profitable than actually increasing the production of goods and services, the discipline and incentives of a market economy are distorted to the point of no return. In the natural order of a market economy, income and credit are scarce. Income must be earned, and is thus limited by the hours […]

China’s CNOOC Plans to Double LNG Import Capacity by 2015

China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) expects to add five liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals by 2015, doubling its total capacity to 35-40 million tonnes per year (tpy), a senior company official said on Wednesday. The expansion from four terminals currently, with a receiving capacity of 18.7 million tpy, will enable China’s top offshore […]

Heinberg: Chapter 1 – This is What Peak Oil Looks Like

This article is an excerpt from Richard Heinberg’s new book SNAKE OIL: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future. Given the urgency and importance of the issues we will be serializing the book here at Resilience.org over the coming months. Read Part 1: Introduction   Oil is the linchpin of our modern industrial way […]

Substitution, not shale, is the real revolution

In this article selected from the offerings of the October issue of Energy Economist, Ross McCracken looks at the prospects for further substitution of cheaper natural gas for applications now using oil. The massive expansion of shale oil and gas liquids production in the United States has fundamentally altered the country’s perspective on future security of […]

Growth and Laissez-faire

How do you envision a successful economy without continuous growth? It helps to consider a prior question: how do you envision a successful planet earth without continuous growth? That is easy to envision because it exists! The earth as a whole does not grow in physical dimensions. Yet it changes qualitatively, it evolves and develops. […]

UN report calls for transformation in agriculture

Transformative changes are needed in our food, agriculture and trade systems in order to increase diversity on farms, reduce our use of fertilizer and other inputs, support small-scale farmers and create strong local food systems. That’s the conclusion of a remarkable new publication from the U.N. Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The report, Trade […]

Energy Poverty and Skinny Grids

Energy efficiency, not the falling price of solar, has done the heavy lifting when it comes to unlocking the economics of distributed clean energy for the poor. The reduced demand from LEDs brings the size, and therefore cost, of everything down from solar panel to battery. Imagine if we took this lesson – energy efficiency […]

Energy supply and constraints: Peak oil, revolutions and panic

There is a potentially catastrophic disconnect developing in the circuitry that powers the world. Sometime in the next 30 years, the planet may approach a point where its infrastructure and resources can no longer satisfy the exponential growth in human demands, especially among its least advantaged and most rapidly growing populations. That is, of course, […]

America’s Peak Oil Plan in Two Charts

It’s easy to talk about peak oil in a theoretical sense and ignore the real changes that are already happening. Not only is America producing more of its own oil, but overall energy consumption and oil consumption are falling. The lack of cost effective oil is a major global problem, but within the U.S. peak […]

Why Canada’s Oil Future isn’t Going South

Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said last week it was time to add more diversity to an energy sector that relies almost exclusively on the United States. New drilling technologies for shale have translated to major gains in U.S. oil and natural gas production, which itself translates to a U.S. economy that relies less […]

What Will Power America’s Future? The Case for Oil

Deep down, we all fear the world will become a scene from the film Mad Max. Global oil supplies dry up and cause a complete breakdown in law and order as we desperately search for the trace amounts of oil left. While we find the chances of this actually happening to us as extremely slim, […]

How The Economic Machine Works

The economy is like a machine. At the most fundamental level, Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio explains in this excellent video introduction, it is a relatively simple machine. But, he adds, many people don’t understand it – or they don’t agree on how it works – and this has led to a lot of needless economic suffering. […]

Peak Oil Is Real – On The Demand Side

In 1956, a little-known geologist named Marion King Hubbert published a paper predicting that oil supplies were destined to reach a peak as the cheap and easy to tap reservoirs were depleted over time. He predicted that US oil production would peak somewhere between the late 1960s to early 1970s. Others, including oil financier Mathew […]

US Military Doubles Down on Energy Efficiency

If actions speak louder than words, then the United States government is proving how devoted its military is to reducing its carbon footprint, and doing so aggressively. The Obama Administration has been steadfast in its efforts to restructure the energy output of numerous military energy efficiency initiatives throughout the country. And as the president begins […]

Heinberg: “Peak Oil Demand” = Peak Oil

A new phrase has entered our energy lexicon—peak oil demand. The essential idea: prophets of doom who warned about a looming global petroleum shortfall (“peak oil”) were wrong; instead of a downturn in supply, we’re instead seeing the shrinkage of demand for oil. A non-problem just solved itself! Nothing to see, folks; move along. What’s […]

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