Peak Oil: Ex-BP CEO Tony Hayward on high oil prices

Tony Hayward giving a very interesting interview January 2013

The Water-Food-Energy Nexus

SABMiller’s Andy Wales on how to manage the inevitable trade-offs between scarce resources. *** By 2050, demand for resources is set to increase significantly as the global population grows to nine billion and becomes more prosperous. Global economic growth is being driven largely by emerging markets. Over the medium term, the World Bank estimates economic […]

Our Investment Sinkhole Problem

We are used to expecting that more investment will yield more output, but in the real world, things don’t always work out that way. Figure 1. Comparison of 2005 to 2011 percent change in real GDP vs percent change in oil consumption, both on a per capita basis. (GDP per capita on a PPP basis […]

Drop in Oil Consumption Signals Power of Free Market

Like many people, my faith in capitalism was badly shaken by the crash of 2008 and its aftermath. I sat by, appalled as some capitalists denied climate change and used the economy as an excuse to continue their planet-destroying practices. I rooted for regulation, until Obama, who once seemed to be the environmentalist’s last great […]

Rising gas prices are hitting Americans in the wallet

With pump prices at their highest level on record for this time of year, the stage is set for a even greater climb in gasoline prices and expenditures than in 2012. Retail gasoline prices have surged 17 cents in a week to top $3.50 a gallon on average, posting the highest prices on record for […]

Oil Prices

A while since we’ve looked at oil prices around here.  The chart above shows the two main benchmarks – Brent and WTI – and the spread between them.  These days Brent is a better indicator of global oil market conditions, as well as gas prices on the US coasts, while the spread of WTI to […]

Peak Oil: Dambisa Moyo on China’s approach to securing resources.

Dambisa Moyo talking about the worlds needs for resources.CNN June 2012

Economies should be shaped to suit man

I cannot predict how the Age of Reunion will unfold in linear time. I do know, however, that by the end of our lifetimes, my generation will live in a world unimaginably more beautiful than the one we were born into. And it will be a world that is palpably improving year after year…Mines and […]

Gasoline at Highest Price Ever for This Time of Year

U.S. drivers are now paying more to fill up their gas tanks than they ever have at this time of year. The national average price of retail gasoline posted its biggest one-day increase in 23 months on Friday, rising four cents to $3.46 a gallon, according to AAA. The average price has risen 13 cents […]

Argentina orders supermarkets to freeze all prices

Argentina announced a two-month price freeze on supermarket products Monday in an effort to break spiraling inflation. The price freeze applies to every product in all of the nation’s largest supermarkets — a group including Walmart, Carrefour, Coto, Jumbo, Disco and other large chains. The companies’ trade group, representing 70 percent of the Argentine market, […]

Peak Oil’s Impact: The Gym

Oil plays an essential role in almost everything that touches our everyday lives. From the food we eat to the means by which we transport ourselves, our goods, and our services, to what we grow, build, have, own, need, and do, oil is almost always an important element. But the painful truth now and soon […]

Perhaps a Crumble Rather Than a Collapse – Part Two of Three

When discussing new ideas or concepts, or when bringing new understanding to older ideas, it is difficult to be brief because not only must the new be carefully explained, but the old must be dissected to understand what it is we think we know, but do not. So with apologies to those who are weary […]

Elevated Corn Prices Lead To Slashed Super Bowl Chicken Wing Supply

For many, chicken wings are a necessary staple of a Super Bowl Sunday diet. But getting one’s hands on the bite-sized bits may be easier said than done thanks to a spike in corn prices. According to a press release posted Tuesday on the official website of the National Chicken Council in Washington, D.C., the […]

Saudi Arabia may lower its official crude oil selling prices

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia may lower its official selling prices for all crude grades for its Asian buyers in March on expectations of weaker demand due to refinery maintenance and warmer weather, a Reuters survey showed on Friday. Saudi Arabia may lower the OSPs for Arab Light and Arab Medium by a dollar per […]

What’s Next for Oil Prices?

If you haven’t noticed, the energy space is rife with debate. On the topic of natural gas, some argue that the U.S. possesses a 100-year supply of natural gas, while others argue that domestic reserves have been massively overstated. In terms of American energy independence, there are those who think it’s coming by 2020, while […]

Why is US Oil Consumption Lower? Better Gasoline Mileage?

United States oil consumption in 2012 will be about 4.7 million barrels a day, or 20%, lower than it would have been, if the pre-2005 trend in oil consumption growth of 1.5% per year had continued. This drop in consumption is no doubt related to a rise in oil prices starting about 2004. Figure 1. […]

Employment/Population Ratios

The BLS is out with a new employment report this morning.  The headline unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9%, but my preferred employment indicators are the employment/population ratios by gender for ages 25-54.  That ratio for men is as above.  Basically, the recovery stalled out in 2012 – we ended the year much where we […]

Bus service grinds to halt in Naples: no fuel

Bus service in the southern Italian city of Naples has ground to a halt after the city transport company ran out of money for fuel. Valeria Peti, of the ANM transport company, says only 30 of the usual 300 buses left the depot Wednesday morning, and they all had to return before their tanks ran […]

Export Liquefied Natural Gas? For Whose Benefit?

Recently I received an email from Energy Citizens with an invitation to, “Join us for a telephone town hall to discuss natural gas exports on Friday, February 1st at 1:00pm. Learn more about why the world needs American natural gas and how that creates more jobs and energy security here at home.” Energy Citizens is […]

China 2013 Oil Demand Expected to Rise 4.8%

China’s oil demand in 2013 is expected to rise to 514 million metric tonnes, up 4.8 percent, a research institute affiliated with China National Petroleum Corp., the country’s biggest energy producer, said Wednesday. In an annual report, the CNPC Research Institute of Economics & Technology said oil demand is expected to “bounce back slightly” in […]

Energy literacy: visualizing the impacts of unlimited growth

Humans have already amply demonstrated the resource limitations of unbridled economic growth by not anticipating and then not addressing the myriad critical environmental and resource problems we face today, Cobb writes. It is hard to imagine a more unlikely vehicle for advancing energy literacy than a finely crafted large format picture book. Energy, after all, […]

Against growth

conversation with economist Joshua Farley Given the relation between economic production and ecological degradation, Joshua Farley is convinced that economic growth must stop. It is just a question of when. And whether cooperation will displace competition as the dominant concept in the economic paradigm. Almantas Samalavicius: The concept of ecological economics differs fundamentally from that one […]

China consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Statistics. Coal consumption in China grew more than 9% in 2011, continuing its upward trend for the 12th consecutive year, according to newly released international data. China’s coal use grew by 325 million tons in 2011, accounting for 87% of the 374 million ton global increase in coal […]

Robert Rapier: Why I Don’t Ride a Unicorn to Work

The Unicorn Analogy There is a reason I don’t ride a unicorn to work. It isn’t because it’s too far to work. Nor is it because it rains here in Hawaii nearly every day and I might get wet. It isn’t because the powerful automobile lobby has convinced me that driving a car to work […]

Re-enchanting Economics

Economics as we know it today is broken.  Unable to explain, to predict or to protect, it is need of root-and-branch replacement.  Or, to borrow from Alan Greenspan, it is fundamentally ‘flawed’.  But where do we look for inspiration in facilitating what is the mother of all paradigm shifts?  Interestingly enough, the most insightful and […]

What Is Peak Oil Theory?

My explanation of Peak Oil Theory and some common misconceptions about peak oil. New American oil discoveries in peaked in the 1960s Quality of oil in new discoveries has declined More Sulfur in the oil More energy needed to process the oil More difficult to acquire oil Companies must drill deeper and go into more […]

Gregor Macdonald: What the End of Cheap Oil Means

On the heels of Chris’ recent report clarifying the global net energy predicament, he and PeakProsperity.com contributing editor Gregor Macdonald sit down to talk in depth about the broken relationship between energy costs and economic growth. For much of the twentieth century, the developed world saw a steady march upwards in wages and living standards, […]

The End Of An Era

The economy as we know it is facing a lethal confluence of four critical factors – the fall-out from the biggest debt bubble in history; a disastrous experiment with globalisation; the massaging of data to the point where economic trends are obscured; and, most important of all, the approach of an energy-returns cliff-edge. Through technology, […]

In crisis, Greeks turn to wood-burning and choke

Fireplaces were long a status symbol for Greece’s up-and-coming middle class, like the second car and the flat-screen TV. Now, they are increasingly their owners’ only defense against the encroaching winter cold. A steep increase in heating costs has led many Greeks to switch from heating oil to wood-burning. But the price of using cheaper […]

Peugeot Citroen to introduce compressed air hybrid by 2016

PSA Peugeot Citroen’s Hybrid Air technology that combines an ICE with compressed air energy storage technology Image Gallery (7 images) Various compressed air-powered vehicles – of both the two- and four-wheeled variety – have graced our pages over the years, but with a few exceptions, such as Volvo’s Air Motion Concept, major automotive manufacturers have […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy