Gas to Become World’s Primary Energy Source by 2035

Oil and gas will be crucial components of the world’s energy future, according to DNV GL’s forecast of the energy transition. While renewable energy will grow its share of the energy mix, gas will become the largest single source of energy from 2034. DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook, a forecast that spans the global energy […]

Oil fading as an energy source because of electric vehicles

The global demand for oil will peak within the next five years, driven largely by the increased market presence of electric vehicles, a top energy consultancy said. DNV GL, a Norwegian company providing risk management advice, said in an energy transition outlook that global demand for energy in general will level off by 2030 and […]

Peak oil demand in 2022

Energy demand will plateau after 2030, according to a new DNV GL (stand 5B51) model which forecasts the pace and extent of the global energy transition until 2050. While fossil fuel will still provide more than 40% Peak of the world energy demand, the consequences of the decarbonization of the energy mix and of the […]

Oil Majors See Upside At $50 Oil

  Although oil prices are now half what they used to be three years ago, Big Oil is better positioned now than it was when oil prices were sky high, Michele Della Vigna, co-head of European equity research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC in an interview on Monday. In the dizzy spending days between 2010 […]

How EIA Guestimates Keep Oil Prices Subdued

The EIA has once again undercut its previous estimates for U.S. oil production, offering further evidence that the U.S. shale industry is not producing as much as everyone thinks. The monthly EIA oil production figures tend to be more accurate than the weekly estimates, although they are published on several months after the fact. The […]

If $26 oil doesn’t do us in, 52 inches of rain won’t either

Frenzied motorists scrambled to find gasoline in Dallas-Fort Worth as reports of imminent shortages spread on social media, fueled by refinery and pipeline shutdowns along the energy-rich Texas Gulf Coast. Storm-weary homeowners and renters by the thousands fled water-filled properties with whatever they could carry, not knowing what would be left of their belongings when […]

Oil Demand Is Growing Nearly Everywhere

Earlier today I delivered the keynote address at the Uintah Basin Energy Summit in Vernal, Utah. The Uintah Basin is an oil-producing region predominantly in the eastern portion of Utah. Like many other oil-producing states, Utah saw its oil production more than double from 2004 to 2014, before retreating in the face of the oil price […]

The world could run out of food two decades earlier than thought

By 2027 the world could be facing a 214 trillion calorie deficit, says Sara Menker, founder and chief executive of Gro Intelligence, an agricultural data technology company. In other words, in just a decade, we won’t have enough food to feed the planet. We’ve long known that we might reach a point where we have […]

We’re Running Out of Fish

More and more, around the globe, fish is what’s for dinner. The average person eats more than 20 kilograms a year, double the level of the 1960s. But all those fish dinners are taking a heavy toll on ocean populations.  Bloomberg QuickTake explains the looming crisis of overfishing our oceans. (video by Dan Wallenstein, Madeline Quinn) (Source: […]

“There’s No App for That” — Richard Heinberg

Richard Heinberg published his excellent and influential book, The Party’s Over, the same year as The Long Emergency and we met many times since then on the conference circuit. Richard is Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. He’s the author of 13 award-winning books, including six on the subject of fossil fuel depletion. He […]

Why The Shale Oil “Miracle” Is Becoming A “Debacle”

Energy is everything.  This is an amazingly important concept. Yet it’s almost universally overlooked. Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate the magical role energy plays in our daily lives because most of what we experience is a derivative of it. The connection is hidden from direct view.  Because of this, most people utterly fail to detect […]

Harsh realities of global food situation

It is now a well-known fact that humans are depleting vital groundwater resources across the globe. But a new study shows one of the biggest causes of disappearing groundwater is the international food trade. About 70 per cent of freshwater around the globe goes toward irrigation. Researchers from the University College, London and NASA’s Goddard […]

Slow economic growth? ‘Who cares?’

The persistent belief that global economic growth is “dangerously slow” and fragile is just a myth, DBS said in a note on Thursday. “If you’re worried about slow growth today, get used to it. It’s probably going to be slower five years from now and slower yet five years after that,” David Carbon, chief economist […]

The end of the car as we know it

The world’s biggest oil producers are starting to take electric vehicles seriously as a long-term threat, Bloomberg noted in July. OPEC quintupled its forecast for sales of plug-in EVs, and oil producers from ExxonMobil to BP also revised up their outlooks in the past year, according to a study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance released […]

A Contrarian View On The Peak Oil Debate

Summary Because peak oil demand theory has become self-evident truth, it is hard to even suggest at this point that the theory might be wrong, even when backed by solid evidence. Conventional oil production only increased by about 1.5 mb/d over the past decade. Discovery as well as current reserves data suggest a peak and […]

No Emotions, Only Facts And Numbers

Summary Over the past quarter, the global oil market balance became more of a positive for the price of oil. Judging by the dynamics of OPEC forecasts, global oil demand has been underestimated in the current year while supply has been overestimated. There is reason to believe that, after the end of Q1 2018, OPEC […]

The Economics of an Electrified Autonomous Future

Would Autonomous Electric Vehicles Eliminate Transportation Externalities? After one of the many fun and inspiring lunch conversations here at the Energy Institute, I realized that my thoughts on the economic consequences of an electrified autonomous personal transport sector were in complete disarray. So, I am going to use this self-help outlet to clean house. As […]

Why we still don’t know when ‘peak oil’ will hit

We’ve been hearing for years now that oil supplies are on the verge of running out. Actually, let’s be a bit more specific: we’ve been hearing for years now that US oil supplies are on the verge of running out, along with those of several other key global economies in the West (including the UK). […]

Plastics choking man, fish, cows, birds and wildlife to death

Did you have some beef or fish stew for your dinner recently? Well, you may have eaten some few pieces of plastic as well. A study by the United Nations Environment Programme two weeks ago found that 15 per cent of all cows slaughtered in Nairobi are full of plastics in their stomachs. Other studies […]

Running For The Exits: Peak Oil Demand

Summary A terminal price decline in oil is inevitable. Trends in EV cost, ICE efficiency, and driverless cars will cripple oil demand. The price decline we have seen with coal — a commodity that continues to see minor demand growth — will pale in comparison to the price drop coming for oil. Investors should liquidate […]

Oil is not going away for decades- if ever

An impending terminal crisis in net energy is looming over the global economy, according to Jonathan Rutherford of Insurgent Intelligence. The kind of growth that some multinational companies have been conducting is “green growth,” he notes with no signs of “degrowth.” “In my view, at best, they will vigorously pursue ‘green’ growth, i.e. via the […]

The Oil Glut Rewrites History

The good news for oil bulls is that U.S. stockpiles of the stuff, while still bloated, are now firmly back inside the historical range. The bad news is that all that bloating means the average isn’t what it was. When the Energy Information Administration puts out its weekly summary of oil inventories, the one-pager usually […]

Electric cars may take over Indian roads by 2020

Even as Indians take to the road like never before, consumers could well be buying their last petrol or diesel car, according to a US-based expert. Using the country’s quick adaptation of smartphones as a model, Tony Seba, lecturer of Entrepreneurship, Disruption and Clean Energy at Stanford University, says electric vehicles could bring about a […]

China Won’t Reach Peak Energy Demand Till 2040

China will not reach peak energy demand until the year 2040, according to a new report from the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) on Wednesday. Previous estimates said the peak would be reached in 2035, but new figures suggest that five years later, demand would be its highest at 4.06 billion tons of oil equivalent. […]

Oil To $100? Deja Vu A Decade Later

Summary We revisit 2007, the year before oil prices leaped above $100/barrel. Worldwide excess inventories today are 2.5x higher than in 2007. US total stock are drawing 3x higher today than 2007, and could accelerate as we head into H2 2017. Call us intrigued. Goehring and Rozencwajg had previously called for $100/barrel oil by 2018 […]

Peak Oil And Peak Demand Have Entirely Different Outcomes

Following my previous article — Peak Demand? No, A New Gasoline Demand Record — I received some interesting feedback from readers. It quickly became apparent that some didn’t understand that the current discussions around “peak oil demand” are quite different than the “peak oil” arguments that were popular a few years ago. Some interpreted my […]

World GDP in current US dollars seems to have peaked; this is a problem

Falling interest rates have huge power. My background is as an actuary, so I am very much aware of the great power of interest rates. But a lot of people are not aware of this power, including, I suspect, some of the people making today’s decisions to raise interest rates. Similar people want to sell […]

The Myth Of Natural Gas As A Bridging Fuel

I often disagree with the consulting group Bloomberg New Energy Finance, but they may be spot on in questioning whether natural gas can serve as a bridge to the future.  Of course, they would say no, renewables will take over quickly, while I would say it will continue to be an important fuel, not a […]

IEA sees fall in oil demand to continue

The Paris-headquartered International Energy Agency (IEA) has been anticipating extended period of decline in the demand for oil commodities, primarily in core sectors like power and transport. In his presentation at the week-long Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) on Energy in Bohol, IEA Special Advisor to the Executive Director Amos Bromhead noted that despite doubling of […]

Which EROI do we need to collect berries?

    My wife, Grazia, collecting berries in the woods of Tuscany in a hot day of August. Maybe her ancestors were doing exactly the same, more or less in the same place, hundreds or thousands of years ago.    The question of EROI – the energy return on energy invested – is raging nowadays, […]

« 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