Oil Market In Early Stages of Sustainable Recovery

The oil market is in the early stages of a “sustainable but protracted recovery,” according to oil and gas analysts at Jefferies International Limited. “Supply/demand balances will transition to balance and then under-supply in the back half of 2016,” said Jefferies in a research note seen by Rigzone. “Oil prices may not fully react to the […]

On Doing Well

I am going to make what I imagine will be a controversial argument. Prepare yourself. Some of you may be offended. Some of you may feel like you’re being attacked. It’s ok. Just breathe through it. Try, if you can, to set aside your own perspective and listen to what I’m about to say; try […]

In Conversation: Consumerism After Fossil Fuels

The creation of the consumer economy—a complex, interconnected system of institutions, goals, rewards, and punishments—was one of the great social projects of the twentieth century, when energy was cheaply abundant and two of our chief economic problems were overproduction and unemployment. The transition to 100% renewable energy raises some key questions for the future of […]

Energy Limits: Why We See Rising Wealth Disparity and Low Prices

Last week, I gave a fairly wide-ranging presentation at the 2016 Biophysical Economics Conference called Complexity: The Connection Between Fossil Fuel EROI, Human Energy EROI, and Debt (pdf). In this post, I discuss the portion of the talk that explains several key issues: Why we are right now seeing so many problems with respect to wealth […]

Fossil Fuels Still Dominate U.S. Energy Consumption

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review   Three fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal—have provided more than 80% of total U.S. energy consumption for more than 100 years. In 2015, fossil fuels made up 81.5% of total U.S. energy consumption, the lowest fossil fuel share in the past century. In EIA’s Annual Energy […]

World’s Top Oil Trader Says Prices Won’t Rise Much Further

Oil prices won’t rise much further over the next year and a half as demand growth slows and refiners comfortably meet gasoline consumption, according to the world’s largest independent oil-trading house. “I cannot see the market really roaring ahead,” Vitol Group of Cos. Chief Executive Officer Ian Taylor told Bloomberg Television in an interview. “We […]

Demand Destruction and Peak Oil

We are fully under the influence of petroleum demand destruction. The global oil market can’t function without real oil production price discovery, which doesn’t exist in the currently deflationary global economy, which forces indebted producers to sell far below cost. Both supply and demand seem to cyclic in nature and we are not finished with […]

Why The Collapse Of The U.S. Economic & Financial System Has Accelerated

By the SRSrocco Report, The collapse of the U.S. economic and financial system accelerated this year, thus pushing the country closer to a third-world status.  Most Americans are unaware of the dire consequences facing the nation, so they continue to believe business as usual will continue indefinitely. Unfortunately, lousy reporting by the Mainstream media along […]

When the Trucks Stop Running

Alice J. Friedemann is the author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the future of transportation.”  She is also the creator of the excellent website: http://energyskeptic.com/. Ms. Friedemann is perhaps best known for “Peak Soil,” edited by David Pimentel at Cornell, Tad Patzek at U.C. Berkeley, and Walter Youngquist (author of “Geodestinies”). She lives […]

Even in crisis, EU not a lead actor in world oil

The European Union’s crisis holds political and economic leaders transfixed, but for the oil market it merely underlines the region’s established role as only a secondary engine to global energy demand. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and strikes that crippled France’s energy industry in May, elicited barely a lasting ripple on global energy […]

Why Oil Prices are Going Up, and Will Continue to Go Up

Oil prices are going up as oil supply and demand are approaching a more balanced situation, writes geophysicist Jilles van den Beukel. And they will continue to go up as supply is expected to fall below demand in the 2018-2020 period. The key factor in supply reduction is that cost cutting is leading to higher […]

The Emerging Democratized Economy

A coal miner in Appalachia, 1946. Photo by Russell Lee We’ve all heard of small towns whose economies have been devastated by the depression of a national industry that employs most of the townspeople. Appalachian coal mining towns are becoming the latest victim of this phenomenon due to the decreasing cost of renewable energy. These towns’ […]

More than One Way to Fall off a Cliff

The “energy cliff” is a central concept in ecological economics, and it’s based on a very simple ratio. But for me this principle was a slippery thing to grasp, and I eventually realized some of the most common graphs used to illustrate the Energy Cliff were leaving me with a misleading mental image. This column […]

Can Saudi Arabia Shake Its Hydrocarbon Habit?

Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth has transformed the lives of its citizens – but it needs to turn off the rampant spending if it wants to balance the books. This Bloomberg QuickTake video explores how the kingdom plans to navigate its post-oil future.

Unrest After 395% Food Price Spike Coming Soon

Preparations by various cogs of the national security complex, including FEMA, indicate a coming worldwide food shortage — and a resulting crisis marked by extreme civil unrest around the globe. As Motherboard noted of two reports published previously by CNA Corporation, but which largely escaped attention, the world’s food supply could be insufficient to maintain […]

By All that’s Holy, What’s not to Love about the End of Oil

“Launching a ship was a most important social event in these seaside towns, to which everyone looked forward with great excitement. It was considered by everybody to be an unofficial public holiday. The headmaster recorded many times in the school log that on such occasions (as at harvest time) he had to close the school […]

Oil Is Still Heading to $10 a Barrel

Back in February 2015, the price of West Texas Intermediate stood at about $52 per barrel, half of its 2014 peak. I argued then that a renewed decline was coming that could drive it below $20, a scenario regarded by oil bulls as unthinkable. But prices did fall further, dropping all the way to a […]

The Commons as a New/Old Paradigm of Human Flourishing

  I am grateful to be back in your lovely city, and I am grateful for your invitation to speak today about the commons as a new vision of “development.”  As the planet reels from the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change, we are seeing the distinct limits of the prevailing paradigms of economic thought, governance, […]

While you were watching the EU referendum, something happened at Rough

While we were all caught up in the EU referendum this week, there was an item in the news about the UK’s largest gas storage facility, Rough: Wholesale gas prices have been volatile following news that the UK’s largest gas storage facility is being shut down for 42 days. Normally, gas would be being injected […]

Will Peak Oil Meet Peak Coal?

The world’s coal resources are clearly huge. How could China, or the world in total, reach peak coal in a timeframe that makes a difference? If we look at China’s coal production and consumption in BP’s 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy (SRWE), this is what we see: Figure 1. China’s production and consumption of coal based on […]

Neither “Peak Oil” Nor “Peak Oil Demand”

“Peak oil demand” has become a fashionable concept among climate campaigners but the evidence suggests oil consumption is growing at the fastest rate for a decade and shows no sign of letting up. Global oil consumption increased by nearly 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, the largest annual increase since 2004, apart from […]

California In Power Grid Emergency: “All Customers Should Expect 14 Days Without Power”

The entire Los Angeles metropolitan area and most of Southern California can expect blackouts this summer. The power grid is under direct threat as a result of the unprecedented, but little reported, massive natural gas leaks at Alisco Canyon that was ongoing for  four months as an intense summer heat wave sets in. According to […]

Food: Trading Away our Future

Because of productivity gains in developed countries, agriculture prices dropped by some 60% in the period 1960-2000. As the productivity of the poorest farmers remained much the same, it is obvious that they have lost out. Their value of production, regardless if they eat it themselves or sell it, has gone down considerably, making them […]

Peak Oil Consumption Dead Ahead

I have no idea nor will I take any guess as to the price of oil going forward. There are too many variables to make an educated guess. If you want a bullish or bearish POV on price…this isn’t likely the article for you. All I do know is the world is likely very near […]

Get Ready for $80 Oil

Rebounding after a two-year collapse, it’s only this month that oil prices have pushed up past $50 a barrel, but Raymond James & Associates says this is just the beginning for higher prices. In a note to clients, analysts led by J. Marshall Adkins say West Texas Intermediate will average $80 per barrel by the end of next year — that’s higher […]

China: Is peak coal part of its problem?

The world’s coal resources are clearly huge. How could China, or the world in total, reach peak coal in a timeframe that makes a difference? If we look at China’s coal production and consumption in BP’s 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy (SRWE), this is what we see: Figure 1. China’s production and consumption of […]

ERoEI is unimportant and is being used incorrectly

In this article I will show that ERoEI is almost totally unimportant by itself. It does not matter if ERoEI is increasing or decreasing. ERoEI provides no guidance about which sources of energy we should pursue, nor does it offer any guidance about how much net energy will be available to us in the future. […]

Michael Lynch: Do Today’s Low Oil Prices Presage Another Spike?

Reduced capital investment and cancelled or postponed oil projects, combined with record-low drilling rig activity in the U.S. has many worried that renewed market tightness is inevitable, if not approaching.  My favorite headline is “A 4.5-Million-Barrel Per Day Oil Shortage Looms” referring to insufficient production in 2035. Apparently, “looms” means different things to different people. […]

A Realistic Look at the Local Food Movement

The farm-to-table/local food movement is very popular right now. It has expanded beyond high-end restaurants to more casual cafes, bars and coffee shops. Even in restaurants that don’t have a specific farm-to-table mission, you  can still often find a local coffee brand on the menu or cheese from a local dairy included in your sandwich. […]

Shale revolution also behind stronger dollar

BP Plc Group Chief Economist Spencer Dale says: -U.S. shale revolution means U.S. now produces more than 90 percent of its energy needs domestically, up from two-thirds a decade ago. -Despite lower investment in price downturn, BP sees U.S. gaining full energy self-sufficiency in early 2020s as country already world’s top oil and gas producer. […]

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