Societies Heading for Collapse Says Study

There’s a common thread tying together the most disruptive revolutions of human history, and it has some scientists worried about the United States. In those revolutions, conflict largely boiled down to pervasive economic inequality. On Wednesday, a study in Nature, showing how and when those first divisions between rich and poor began, suggests not only […]

US To Become Net Oil Exporter This Year

The United States will become a net oil and oil product exporter this year thanks to continued growth in production combined with slacker domestic demand, the Energy Information Administration said in its 2020 Annual Energy Outlook. Oil production, the EIA said, will continue growing until at least 2025, reaching 14 million bpd in just two years, after which it […]

US farms are getting even bigger

As the 2018 harvest approached, North Dakota farmer Mike Appert had a problem – too many soybeans and nowhere to put them. Selling was a bad option. Prices were near decade lows as U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China weighed heavily on the market. Temporary storage would only buy him a little bit […]

Why we should be wary of blaming ‘overpopulation’ for the climate crisis

The annual World Economic Forum in Davos brought together representatives from government and business to deliberate how to solve the worsening climate and ecological crisis. The meeting came just as devastating bush fires were abating in Australia. These fires are thought to have killed up to one billion animals and generated a new wave of […]

Dethroning King Coal – How a Once Dominant Fuel Source is Falling Rapidly from Favour

Electricity fuelled by coal is experiencing a record decline. 2019 is expected to show the biggest fall yet, after decades of increases. An accelerated move away from coal is imperative to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement. Coal currently accounts for 38.5% of the global power mix and generates 46% of global CO2 emissions. But, the […]

OPEC, IEA or EIA Completely Wrong in 2020 Oil Market Analysis

Somebody big has got their analysis of the 2020 oil market flat wrong. That’s the bottom line from a comparison of supply-and-demand forecasts provided by OPEC, the International Energy Agency in Paris, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed in December to deepen output curbs until the end of […]

Welcome to ‘Peak Decade,’ From Globalization to Central Banks

. Amid the Alpine peaks of the Swiss resort of Davos in the week ahead, politicians, investors and executives will be busy debating whether we are witnessing peaks in key drivers of the world economy. From oil demand, car production and the proportion of young people as a share of the population, to less-measurable themes […]

China’s Largest Utility Company Warns “Growth To Decelerate Sharply Through 2024”

Ahead of tonight’s key China data dump, State Grid, China’s largest utility company, has warned the rate of economic growth in the country could plunge to 4% within the next four years, according to internal forecasts, first seen by the Financial Times. The state-owned utility has turned bearish on the Chinese economy. It forecasts a […]

Global oil demand hits 1.26MBD — S&P Platts

Global oil demand growth is accelerating to 1.26 million barrels per day (MMB/D) in 2020, up from 0.95 MMB/D growth in 2019, with growth expected in all regions except Western Europe and Japan, S&P Global Platts, the leading independent provider of information, analysis and benchmark prices for commodities and energy markets, stated in their 2020 […]

What’s Next For Oil? No One Seems To Agree

Although oil production in the Permian Basin shows all signs of slowing down in the new year, the West Texas shale revolution is not over yet. In fact, shale oil production in the United States will keep growing, albeit at a slower rate, to reach a jaw-dropping, record-breaking 14 million barrels per day in just […]

The 2020 oil risk nobody is talking about

One New Year’s resolution to make: Do not take the price of oil for granted. As we head into a new decade, complacency about the low price of oil is running rampant. This complacency is dangerous because it may catch U.S. businesses by surprise if oil were to experience a sharp upward move. Potentially this could cause a […]

The Next Ten Years In Oil Markets

An eventful 2019 wraps up a decade of turmoil in oil markets, in which Brent Crude prices fluctuated from as high as US$125 a barrel in 2012 to as low as US$30 per barrel in January 2016. Geopolitical turmoil, economic growth, soaring U.S. shale production, and OPEC’s various policies to try to set the trends […]

World’s power demand requires fossil fuel energy

Approximately 40% of the world’s electricity is produced by burning coal. Coal is the world’s reliable energy foundation, and it’s expected to remain the leading fuel for power generation well into the future. Energy from coal power increases productivity. It builds and illuminates schools, cleanses water, powers farm machinery, drives robot assemblers, stores and moves […]

Chris Martenson: Good Riddance To The ‘Twenty-Teens’

This is my last report from the good old “twenty-teens”. In some respects, they didn’t turn out at all like I thought they would. But in many others, exactly as predicted. I badly underestimated the system’s ability to perpetuate obvious frauds and swindles without causing a social rebellion. And worse, to watch so many otherwise […]

Your electric car and vegetarian diet are pointless virtue signaling in the fight against climate change

Switch to energy-efficient light bulbs, wash your clothes in cold water, eat less meat, recycle more, and buy an electric car: We are being bombarded with instructions from climate campaigners, environmentalists and the media about the everyday steps we all must take to tackle climate change. Unfortunately, these appeals trivialize the challenge of global warming, […]

Dennis Meadows: The Limits To Growth

Fifty years ago, an international team of researchers was commissioned by the Club of Rome to build a computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth on a finite planet. In 1971, its findings were first released in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro, and later published in 1972 under the title The Limits To Growth. […]

Apocalyptic Thinking Is Wrong

“Let’s not teach our children that apocalyptic thinking is right thinking,” says Laurence Siegel. Apocalypticism “has always been wrong as a forecast, and it will continue to be wrong.” Siegel is a business consultant and the director of research at the CFA Institute Research Foundation. In Fewer, Richer, Greener, he argues convincingly that humanity has […]

Food for Stuff: 21st Century Land Use

According to projections by the UN, the global population could surpass 9 billion by 2050. That’s a whole lot of mouths to feed. Now, with about 7 billion people on earth, 800 million remain undernourished and a staggering 2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. Simultaneously, global wealth per capita is increasing, fueling higher demand for meat, […]

Could Low Energy Growth Lead To A Recession?

Many people have the impression that recessions come from financial missteps, such as the US subprime loan fiasco. If energy is involved at all, the problem comes from high oil prices as supply becomes inadequate to meet demand. The real situation is different. We already seem to be on the road toward a new crisis; […]

Our Final Exam in Madrid

“Why are we hauling giant container shiploads of Christmas decorations from Vietnam to England? Don’t the English know how to make decorations?“ Greta Thunberg, after image by Adam Ferris At this writing, negotiators struggle to get the most out of a relatively ambition-free meeting of the parties to the UN’s Paris Agreement. They’ll burn the […]

Are We In Peak Oil Demand?

Estimates are widely varied, so how can we even begin to answer this important question? No one seems to agree just exactly when POD (peak oil demand) will occur. Let’s look at some of the projections by major institutions in this regard. This is just a sampling to indicate the wide discrepancy in views. OPEC […]

Shale Has Delinked US Oil and Gas Prices

The relationship between crude oil (WTI) and natural gas (Henry Hub) prices has long been an essential one. These two sources of energy are intrinsically linked, and together supply over 60 percent of U.S. and global energy. Especially over the past decade, oil and gas are being produced by the same companies. Even the oil […]

There’s No Tomorrow

A very entertaining and informative animated film about peak oil and energy. A Film by Dermot O’Connor. “The inspiration for the film: in November 2004, on the night of the final Bush/Kerry debate, Professor David Goodstein, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Caltech, gave a public lecture on the subject of Peak Oil and […]

Oil Prices Advance on Iraq Revelation

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil prices posted solid gains Wednesday on reports that OPEC member Iraq wants the cartel to raise existing production cuts. “Petroleum markets continue to move back-and-forth remaining in their congestion ranges based upon the latest ‘news of the day,’ whether it be about the U.S.-China trade issues or […]

Will OPEC Really Risk An Oil Price Crash?

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC partners led by Russia, are now nearly two years into their production agreement and are expected to roll-over the accord through the end of June 2020 in order to stabilize crude markets and prices. Their goal has so far been elusive amid faltering demand growth and […]

Russia Opens Giant Gas Link to China

The world’s biggest natural gas exporter and one of the globe’s top consumers of the fuel cemented their energy cooperation on Monday with the launch of Russia’s giant Power of Siberia pipeline to northern China. Gas started flowing toward China through the link, which has become a symbol of President Vladimir Putin’s pivot to the […]

This Is What the Future of Food Looks Like

It’s the year 2050. With a swelling global population and once-abundant resources that are no longer available on the planet, what’s on your plate and lunchboxes is no longer the same. The 2019 you would have never recognised it all. Using technology to plug gaps that exist in the food system, trends spread faster than […]

Why Oil Demand Won’t Follow Coal’s Death Spiral

After a steady rise that lasted nearly 50 years, U.S. coal consumption peaked about a decade ago. Since the peak in 2007, coal consumption in the U.S. has fallen an astounding 44%. US Coal Consumption 1949 to 2019 Robert Rapier There are two primary reasons behind coal’s death spiral. Both were aided by legislation aimed […]

What Can We Learn From Peak Whale Oil?

The energy industry is based on what was once thought of as an inexhaustible natural resource, but over-exploitation and a growing reliance on oil has made extraction more and more costly and difficult as previously abundant areas have run dry. What’s more, in the areas where this natural resource has been depleted, what’s left behind […]

Rethinking Malthus

Of history’s great thinkers, the one most relevant to farmers and ranchers is probably the English demographer Thomas Robert Malthus. He’s famous for doubting that farmers could increase food production fast enough to feed a rapidly rising population. He thought the resulting food shortages would beget famines, diseases and wars, which would eventually reduce population […]

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