Oil – Who’s Using it all up?

The world’s three largest oil consumers are the US, Europe, and China and India. Europeans are smart, and way ahead of North Americans in their understanding of oil and energy, because it has always been more expensive there than here. Another reason is that, except for a brief period when North Sea oil was plentiful, […]

The Emergence of Localism

As long as activist energy is directed towards influencing governments, only small things will be asked for. In order for initiatives to have any hope of success, they must be framed within the context of overall government policy, and they must not be making ‘unrealistic demands’. Thus stifled in their options, the very imagination of […]

Bloomberg: China First-Half Gas Demand Rises 22% as Output Grows

July 26 (Bloomberg) — China, the world’s biggest energy user, consumed 22 percent more natural gas in the first half compared with a year earlier as the country boosted production and use of the cleaner-burning fuel to cut emissions. Demand rose after China Petrochemical Corp.’s first-half gas output jumped more than 40 percent, China National […]

I can’t believe it’s oil!

uses include: deodorants, petroleum jelly, moisturizers, rubbing alcohol, soaps, heart valves, antiseptics, hearing aids, nasal decongestants, antihistamines, moisturizers, Bactine, vaporizers, latex gloves, bandages, allergy medications, aspirin, burn lotions, insect repellents, anesthetics, artificial limbs, cough syrup, cologne, dentures, stethoscopes, syringes, glycerin, cortisone, cosmetics, dentures, vitamins and synthetic wigs. One of the biggest uses is the manufacture […]

China turns on demand power

China, the demander, gains too much leverage on exporting countries that have not managed to diversify their clientele. With a grim scenario of minimal economic growth and decreased energy consumption in store for the US, the European Union and Japan for some time to come, energy exporting states dominated by a single sector hope to […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Thinking About China

Like everyone else, Beijing is about to fall victim to rapidly increasing oil prices, and eventually, shortages brought about by peaking world oil production. The government clearly recognizes this and has embarked on multiple programs to increase the efficiency of its energy use, increase production of renewable energy, and to buy up at top dollar […]

Phil Flynn: The Energy Report

For years we heard people scold us because the United States consumes 25% of the world’s energy yet has only 5% of the world’s population. Some looked at our consumption as piggish and that somehow we were bad. Yet what those naysayers failed to realize was that consumption helped drive global economic wealth around the […]

China Passes U.S. as World’s Biggest Energy Consumer, IEA Says

China overtook the U.S. as the world’s biggest energy user last year, emphasizing that developing nations are driving global growth, according to the International Energy Agency. China consumed 2,252 million metric tons of oil equivalent in 2009 in the form of crude, coal, natural gas, nuclear power and renewable sources, IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol […]

Peak Oil per Capita

Most people have enough trouble dealing with the reality of peak oil. It’s like being married to someone who says, “I’m not an alcoholic, I just sometimes drink too much.” But perhaps to soften the blow, or maybe just to simplify the numbers, what is generally left out is the fact that it’s not really […]

Is the Next Global Food Crisis Now in the Making?

Recent weeks have produced a series of grim and related headlines: Russia has declared a state of emergency because of drought in 12 regions, while in major wheat exporter Ukraine, severe flooding may depress crop yields. Dry conditions threaten Vietnamese rice production. The USDA has projected a disappointingly low Midwest harvest, and China has raised […]

Peak Oil: Another Look At Infrastructure

“All solutions must work on a world scale. China and India will not accept a lower standard of living than we have, and will not reduce their coal burning and car usage if we demand that we all keep our cars and run our a/c any time we get warm. Neither will Russia. No narrative […]

Pickens Says Natural Gas Only Diesel Replacement

T. Boone Pickens is making a new pitch for natural gas to be the fuel of the future, especially in America’s big rigs. However, while declaring natural gas as the only replacement for petroleum diesel, the billionaire oilman seems to forget that biodiesel is already a great source to replace petroleum-based products… without having to […]

Peak Minerals: New Report Forecasts Shortages

The expert group considers that 14 raw mineral materials are critical for the European Union: Antimony, Beryllium, Cobalt, Fluorspar, Gallium, Germanium, Graphite, Indium, Magnesium, Niobium, PGMs (Platinum Group Metals), Rare earths, Tantalum and Tungsten. Forecasts indicate that demand might more than triple for a series of critical raw materials by 2030 compared with the 2006 […]

IEA sees decline in global oil-demand growth next year

Global oil demand will not grow by as much next year as it is expected to do this year, while supply from outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will continue to surge, says the International Energy Agency. In its first detailed projection for 2011, IEA said global oil demand will climb by 1.3 million […]

Barack’s Peak Oil Confession

The United States alone consumes more than 20 million barrels a year — more than China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India combined. And the Gulf spill, which could be accompanied by a disastrous ban on offshore drilling, will only make the oil shortfall worse. What’s the president supposed to say? I can only imagine his […]

Peak Oil, peak platinum, peak physics

Shaun Hendy drew our attention to some other resources that are looking decidedly finite. The specific ones he drew on are platinum and palladium, which are used for high-tech applications. Since demand for high-tech equipment is growing rather faster than our demand for oil, one might speculate we could be hitting peak platinum before peak oil, […]

Electric Cars Won’t Strain the Power Grid

Will electric vehicles bring down the U.S. power grid? The answer, equally bluntly, is: No. They won’t. (And we rather wish that certain news organizations–we’re talkin’ to you, The New York Times–could add a bit more perspective before writing about the topic in the predictable maybe-yes-but-maybe-no format.) Study by unlikely partners A comprehensive and wide-ranging […]

IEA: Global Oil Demand Seen Rising in 2011

The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that world oil demand will rise next year fueled by economic growth in developing countries, despite a drop in rich countries’ appetite for oil. In its monthly report on the oil markets — and its first detailed assessment of the 2011 period — the Paris-based agency said global oil […]

The Chinese Coal Monster

China set to consume 50% of global coal production this year Production and consumption roughly in balance Coal imports used for stock pile growth? Consumption growing >10% year on year in line with economic growth Rest of world consumption declined 7% in 2009 Figure 1 Chinese coal consumption compared with the rest of the world.How […]

UK Scientists Urge Politicians to Act on Overpopulation

Scientists estimate that food and energy production will have to increase by 50 per cent and water availability by 30 per cent to meet the demand caused by the extra 1.5 billion people living on Earth in the next two decades – an increase of nearly 10,000 people per hour. Many countries have already significantly […]

China Boosts Oil Imports to New Record

China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer, increased net crude-oil imports to a record in June as demand rose and costs fell. Net purchases climbed to 22.14 million metric tons, or about 5.39 million barrels a day, from 17.65 million tons a month earlier, according to preliminary data released by the General Administration of Customs today. […]

Richard Heinbergs Explains Peak Everything

One of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators gives us his insight into the coming century. Recorded in Orewa on Tuesday 9th October 2007.

Peak Oil: Impact # 7 – A First Look At Air Travel

I found it a bit surprising that only 4 gallons, or approximately 11 %, from every barrel of oil is typically produced as aviation fuel. As Dave Jackson noted in another recent article: “A-1 jet fuel, a high grade, moisture free kerosene, competes directly with the production of diesel. A refiner has a certain amount […]

Peak oil means expensive food

In contrast with the former rosy outlook of politicians and economists, a recent survey of 21 predictions (from national governments, oil producers, energy analyst firms and retired oil geologists and oil engineers) shows global decline beginning anytime up to 2020. Of these 21 predictions, the mean statistical date is 2013, just three years from now. […]

Global oil demand to outgrow decline

Global oil demand will grow more this year than it declined in 2009 and will surpass the 2007 record high “at least 2 years earlier than consensus projections” a year ago, said Paul Horsnell, managing director and head of commodities research at Barclays Capital. The firm expects the first annual demand increase since 2005 among […]

How Prepared is India for A Food Crisis?

Over 70 per cent of the world’s population resides in poor countries, it has access to less than 40 per cent of the world’s resources such as water, irrigated land, power, etc. This is a result of inconsistent economic progress (post-colonialisation birth pangs), rampant population growth and distractions such as internal conflicts and neighbourly tensions. […]

Heinberg: Most-Likely Scenarios for US

Oil exporters are using an ever-greater proportion of what they produce to satisfy growing domestic demand for fuel. That means that even if world crude oil production can remain on its current plateau of about 75 million barrels per day for another decade, the amount available to importing countries will inexorably dwindle. And this in […]

Bloomberg: Oil Tumbles the Most in Five Months on Signals of Slower Growth

July 1 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell the most in almost five months on concern growth in the U.S. and China will slow, curbing demand in the two largest energy-consuming countries. Oil slipped as much as 4.7 percent after U.S. manufacturing expanded at a slower pace last month and the Labor Department reported that more […]

CITIES: The Death of Sprawl

In April 2009—just when people thought things couldn’t get worse in San Bernardino County, California—bulldozers demolished four perfectly good new houses and a dozen others still under construction in Victorville, 100 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. The structures’ granite countertops and Jacuzzis had been removed first. Then the walls came down and the remains […]

The Energy Transition Is Already Underway

Lately I’ve been struck by the number of new groups and proposals calling for America to begin the transition to cleaner energy. We even heard this call from the Oval Office several weeks ago. Yet while there’s clearly much more to be done to wean ourselves from our reliance on oil and other high-carbon fuels, I’m baffled […]

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