We Have Just Witnessed The Last Gasp Of The Global Economy

  It is difficult to find the motivation to write about the state of the global economy these days, if only because there is not much left to say. I feel like I am composing multiple obituaries for the same long dead corpse. Most of the Liberty Movement and I suspect a small portion of […]

US oil dependency on Middle East has hardly changed since 2007

This is part 2 of a series of articles on how US tight oil has impacted on oil markets The following graph shows US petroleum imports from OPEC countries starting in 1960. This includes both crude oil and petroleum products. Fig 1: US crude oil and product imports from OPEC Note: Indonesia left OPEC in […]

Oil Price Slide – No Good Way Out

The world is in a dangerous place now. A large share of oil sellers need the revenue from oil sales. They have to continue producing, regardless of how low oil prices go unless they are stopped by bankruptcy, revolution, or something else that gives them a very clear signal to stop. Producers of oil from […]

The Power of a Plan B

  When Hay on Wye was threatened with a new supermarket in what appeared to be a cosy done deal between the local authority and a developer, a group of local people responded with a ‘Plan B For Hay‘, bringing together architects, lawyers, designers and campaigners to create an alternative, viable, more popular scheme.  I […]

The Oil Crash: it is happening now!

James Schlesinger said once that humans have only two modes of operation: complacency and panic. This bimodal kind of functioning seems to be applied also to the oil market, where everything is judged on the base of a simple binary rule: high prices: bad; low prices: good. So, with oil prices falling rapidly during the […]

Heinberg: How to Shrink the Economy without Crashing It A Ten-Point Plan

The human economy is currently too big to be sustainable. We know this because Global Footprint Network, which methodically tracks the relevant data, informs us that humanity is now using 1.5 Earths’ worth of resources. We can temporarily use resources faster than Earth regenerates them only by borrowing from the future productivity of the planet, […]

American kids in the Age of Oil: ‘Economically worthless but emotionally priceless’

In colonial America, kids died young. No matter how unwelcome, Death was a frequent visitor at family firesides from Boston to Savannah, where parents could expect to lose, on average, up to half of their brood before they reached adulthood. According to 17th-century Puritan minister Cotton Mather, “a dead child [was] a sight no more […]

It is Time to Stop Measuring Fuel Efficiency in Miles Per Gallon

Due to the absurdities of history, America uses what is essentially a mediaeval unit system that appears completely untouched by the scientific revolution. Corn yields are measured in bushels; slabs of meat are measured in pounds; distances are measured in miles, feet and inches. Why such units have not been recognised as a menace to […]

China Seizes Opportunity to Fill Its Petroleum Reserve. Should Others?

China is apparently snapping up cheap oil cargoes to fill its strategic petroleum reserve. That might make sense for the US, too, if earmarked for new regional SPRs, rather than refilling the existing one on the Gulf. The Wall St. Journal has reported that state-owned oil companies in China are capitalizing on lower prices to fill […]

Is there really an oil glut?

Back in March 1999 “The Economist” magazine carried a cover photo of two men drenched in oil as they attempted to close a faulty valve that was spraying a huge stream of crude skyward. Over the photo was the headline: “Drowning in oil.” At the time it really did seem as if the world were drowning in […]

The average price of gas in the U.S. has hit $3 a gallon

The average price of gasoline in the U.S. hit $3 a gallon Friday, and should soon drop below the benchmark for the first time since December 2010. The price at the pump fell 33 cents in October, thanks mainly to plunging oil prices, according to AAA. Many exuberant drivers have taken to social media to […]

Oil – A Question of Economics

Despite the political instability in parts of the MENA region, supply has managed to keep up with demand. This is largely due to the emergence of shale oil in the United States, which has ramped up its production to 8.7 mbd, which is 1 mbd more than last year. Some commentators even suggest that US […]

How Would We Provide Enough Energy For 11 Billion People?

Reconciling energy and environmental concerns was challenging enough when global population seemed headed for a plateau around 9 billion. A new forecast of up to 12 billion people by 2100 raises large questions about the capacity of current energy technologies to meet future global needs. The combination of forecasted global economic weakness and growing non-OPEC […]

Peak conventional oil adversely impacts the economy

By Drs. Robert & Sonia Vogl President and Vice President, Illinois Renewable Energy Association Our economy was built on cheap fossil fuels, which supported our economic and technological progress. As sources of conventional low-cost oil are depleted, we have turned to unconventional sources with higher extraction costs. With current oil prices around $80 to $85 […]

Volkswagen’s New 300 MPG Car Not Allowed In America Because It Is Too Efficient

You won’t find the 300 MPG Volkswagen XL1 in an American showroom, in fact it has even been denied a tour of America because it is too efficient for the American public to be made widely aware of, and oil profits are too high in America with the status quo in place. No tour has […]

Cheaper oil: Winners and losers

IN EARLY October the IMF looked at what might happen to the world economy if conflict in Iraq caused an oil-price shock. Fighters from Islamic State (IS) were pushing into the country’s north and the fund worried about a sharp price rise, of 20% in a year. Global GDP would fall by 0.5-1.5%, it concluded. […]

Do we have an oil chicken race ahead?

A week ago I wrote my story “The falling oil price may presage a future recession”. Along the same lines Gaurav Sharma has contributed a story on Forbes with the title “Saudis Vs Oil Markets: Who’s Playing Whom?” I like to high light these part of his story: “While the world was focused on Brent […]

Economics As If Future Generations Mattered

We have turned a corner on climate change— a wrong turn– and it is happening more rapidly than we have predicted. Climate change is already disrupting society, ecosystems, and national economies. We have altered so much of our Earth that we now threaten our own survival. We know the catastrophic risks we are passing onto […]

Peak Oil is still the reality of the future

In a reply to my previous contribution, “The falling oil price may presage a future recession”, Civil Economist Magnus Grill (19 October in Swedish) says that I assert, “that Peak Oil does not mean that oil will run out rather than that demand for oil will disappear. Thus it is no longer a question of […]

Consumers spending less on energy

Better fuel efficiencies and a change in fuels used for home heating means most people are spending less on energy than before, the U.S. Energy Department said. “Because electricity and transportation spending accounts for more than two-thirds of consumer energy expenditures, increasing vehicle fuel efficiencies and changing fuels used for home heating have contributed to […]

Eight Pieces of Our Oil Price Predicament

A person might think that oil prices would be fairly stable. Prices would set themselves at a level that would be high enough for the majority of producers, so that in total producers would provide enough–but not too much–oil for the world economy. The prices would be fairly affordable for consumers. And economies around the […]

Leave it to $80 crude to shake up US petrochemicals

There’s something about $80/barrel crude that gets petrochemical markets in the US all riled up. As the energy complex slowly emerges from its latest dip, let’s take a look at how some of these key markets fared over the past two weeks. We’ll start with the usual suspects — aromatics — and move our way down […]

Oil makes the world go ’round

It’s just funny how everything has its time and place. What is right now is not comprehensible at a time in the past. We are expecting the Fed to put an end to quantitative easing next week, but many think that it deserves at least another few months. The oddest thing is that a few […]

How will Saudi Arabia respond to lower oil prices?

Oil prices (along with prices of many other commodities) have fallen dramatically since last summer. Some observers are waiting to see if Saudi Arabia responds with significant cutbacks in production. I say, don’t hold your breath. Source: FRED. When oil demand fell in the 1981-82 recession, the Saudis cut production by 6 million barrels a […]

Oil prices keep going down, but this is not good news

There is plenty of movement in the oil world: after five years of relatively stable prices, the legendary “barrel” is coming down from over $ 100 to under 90, and it looks like it will keep falling. What’s happening? Has anyone found new resources? Or is it Saudi Arabia using the “oil weapon” to bring […]

LEDs are a Bright Idea Whose Time Has Come

The day the Nobel committee began announcing its 2014 winners earlier this week, National Geographic published a list of Nobel should-have-beens. Dan Vergano’s contribution—Thomas Edison for the lightbulb—proved prescient. One day later, a Nobel for physics was finally awarded for the lightbulb. Unfortunately for the Wizard of Menlo Park, it didn’t go to Edison. The winners were […]

Oil decline: Price makes the story

So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen! —The Blind Men and The Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe When the world’s business editors sent their reporters canvassing to find out what is behind […]

Chris Martenson and Alasdair Macleod talk about Peak Oil and the economy

Chris Martenson and Alasdair Macleod talk about Peak Oil and the economy

The Tao of the Apocalypse

This is our future, and we can choose which one becomes reality! A few nights ago I had a dream that would fall under the category of post apocalyptic.  It took place in the present day, at my house, on what appeared to be a bright sunny summer day.  My son and I were out […]

Saudi Prince Warns Falling Oil Prices Could Be A ‘Catastrophe’

REUTERS/Neil Hall Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud has published an open letter on his website expressing his “astonishment” at reports that the Saudi oil minister is comfortable with collapsing oil prices. The famously eccentric billionaire investor Alwaleed (who has allegedly tossed dwarves at parties) took issue with recent media reports suggesting Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi, the […]

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