Drilling Down: Tainter and Patzek tell the energy-complexity story

Joseph Tainter and Tadeusz Patzek are authors of a soon-to-be-released book called Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma. This book is part of Charles Hall’s Briefs in Energy series with the publisher Springer. An earlier book in this series was The Limits to Growth Revisited, by Ugo Bardi. The new book, […]

More pipe, more trains: the oil production boom in North America requires it

It merely takes an industry pipeline conference to make demonstrably clear the United States’ reversal of fortune as a hydrocarbon producer. The Platts sixth annual Pipeline Development and Expansion Conference in Houston wrapped up last week, and the two days of presentations revealed a largely uniform message: We’re building pipeline infrastructure as fast and vast […]

IOCs resume crude oil, natural gas production in Libya

Total SA and Eni SPA said they have resumed production of crude oil in Libya, while state-owned Sirte Oil said it has restarted output from its eastern gas fields. “We have started producing and sending gas to the power plants of Benghazi and Zuetina,” said a Sirte Oil spokesman, adding, “Soon we won’t have to […]

Clean energy: A faded shade of green

At the start of this century, clean energy was all the rage. The revolution may still be happening, but it’s taking its time, reports Peter Huck. For clean technology fans, the dawn of the 21st century appeared to be the best of times. As the world confronted the growing scientific consensus that rising greenhouse gases […]

Who’s afraid of Daniel Yergin?

Daniel Yergin has always huffed and puffed against peak oil. But will his new cornucopian book blow the house down? Photo: World Economic Forum. Maybe you’ve tried arguing with a Fox News fan about global warming? Soon, you could start having the same kind of time-wasting exchanges about peak oil and energy depletion. The good […]

Developments show demise of oil greatly exaggerated

Oil, the other stuff that made the state’s energy fortunes, was on the decline here and elsewhere. Discussions about reaching a “peak oil” summit were taken quite seriously. Meantime, new gas discoveries — and increased use of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in shale formations — were putting more attention on gas than on oil. […]

EPA issues permits to Shell for oil drilling offshore Alaska

The US Environmental Protection Agency issued final air quality permits Sept. 19 necessary for Shell Oil Co. to proceed with oil and natural gas exploration drilling in the Arctic offshore Alaska using the Noble Discoverer drillship and a support fleet of icebreakers, oil spill response vessels, and supply ships. EPA permits assure compliance with air-quality […]

More Thoughts on Peak Oil

In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, gave his explanation of what’s wrong with peak oil. Here’s why I don’t find his analysis altogether convincing. Yergin does not offer a statement of exactly what he means by “peak oil”, though his essay refers to it as a “fear” […]

America’s New Production and the Farce of Peak Oil

Recent Discoveries Put Americas Back in Oil Companies’ Sights … New Fields May Propel Americas to Top of Oil Companies’ Lists … Brazil has begun building its first nuclear submarine to protect its vast, new offshore oil discoveries. Colombia’s oil production is climbing so fast that it is closing in on Algeria’s and could hit […]

Peak Oil Per Capita

A reader asks to see a graph of global oil supply per capita – here it is.  The global population data are from the US census bureau, and the oil supply data are from ASPO through 1979 and EIA total liquids after that (the two sources agree to within a percent or so in the […]

Daniel Yergin Comments on Peak Oil: It’s More a Plateau

Oil expert, consultant and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Daniel Yergin discusses theories surrounding peak oil and puts some fears to rest in his recent Wall Street Journal article. For decades people have feared running out of oil. As prices for oil rise, and the demand grows every year, that fear increases. Yergin says this is “the […]

Peak Oil, Daniel Yergin & Impending Doom

The theory known as “peak oil” has at its core the belief that we are rapidly running out of oil.  Reasonable people can agree or disagree on this of course. The oil expert, consultant and author, Daniel Yergin addresses peak oil theories in this lengthy piece in the Wall Street Journal.  I recommend reading the […]

Hubbert’s Peak or Yergin’s Plateau?

In 1956, Shell geologist M. King Hubbert correctly predicted that oil production in the United States would reach a peak around 1970. Since his Peak Oil theory fits so well with the Malthusian worldview of “Progressives”, anti-capitalists and anarchists, Hubbert has become a posthumous hero to the Left, an unusual role for a scientist polluted […]

Turkey, Egypt to Drill for Natural Gas in the Mediterranean, Threatening Israel’s Energy Dreams

What a difference fifteen months makes. In May 2010 Israel’s cold peace with Egypt was viable, the country was celebrating massive Mediterranean natural gas finds and Tel Aviv enjoyed a military alliance with Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation. Two events have changed that picture beyond all recognition – Israel’s 31 May 2010 attack on the […]

Tech Talk – pipelines from the Arctic

Art Berman commented, in regard to my last post on the oil and gas reserves offshore Alaska, that at one time companies looked for an estimated 1 billion barrels in reserves before they would consider starting down the long road to bringing them to market. With the rising price of oil, that number may have […]

Iraq Crude Oil Output Rises to Highest Level Since 2003 War

Iraq’s oil production rose to 2.81 million barrels a day, the highest level since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003, the Oil Ministry said today. Output at fields in the oil hub of Basra in the south reached 2.113 million barrels a day, while daily production in the northern region of Kirkuk stood […]

Indigenous Peoples’ View of Peak Oil

whatawaytogomovie.com presents another clip as part the “Why Are Things Falling Apart?” series. In this video, Jerry Mander discusses indigenous views of oil and resources, and how corporations overpower them.

U.S. Can’t Track Tons of Weapons-Grade Uranium, Plutonium

President Obama has repeatedly said his top counterterrorism goal is to prevent terrorists from acquiring the building blocks to make nuclear or “dirty” bombs. In April of 2009, Obama announced a new international effort to “secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years.” Since then, the Department of Energy has dispatched scientists […]

Petrocapita : EROEI has peaked

Haven’t heard of EROEI? You can be forgiven if its not a topic that is on the tip of your tongue with issues of sovereign insolvency, QE3 and the like dominating the airwaves. I feel confident that EROEI is an acronym that will receive much wider recognition over the next decade. What is EROEI you […]

Sharon Astyk: We are becoming the Saudi Arabia of dumb.

A few readers have asked me to comment on Goldman Sachs’ prediction that the US will be the world’s largest Oil producer in 2017. I am delighted to do so. Several possible comments come to mind. 1. Apparently Crystal Meth has become the trendy drug at Goldman. 2. How did the Yes Men get this […]

Goldman Predicts US As Top Oil Producer In 2017

On Sunday, September 11, 2011, Goldman Sachs (GS) predicted that the United States will become the world’s largest oil-producing country. This astonishing production increase is accomplished by changing the definition of oil and by using optimistic projections of liquids-rich shale production. The investment bank claims that U.S. daily production will increase from 8.3 to 10.9 […]

Porter Stansberry: U.S. Shifts to Gas Export Role

The Energy Report: You have said you don’t believe in peak oil, Porter, because as oil prices rise, the entrepreneurial spirit will lead people to find ways to extract oil either in new places or with new technology. With prices running between $80 and $100/barrel (bbl), is the era of cheap oil over? And if […]

Our Greatest Challenge – Inflation, Sovereign Defaults, Fiscal Deficits? No – EROEI

Haven’t heard of EROEI? You can be forgiven if its not a topic that is on the tip of your tongue with issues of sovereign insolvency, QE3 and the like dominating the airwaves. I feel confident that EROEI is an acronym that will receive much wider recognition over the next decade. What is EROEI you […]

OPEC: Global Oil Supply Increased in August

OPEC’s graph is above, and shows a continuing increase at a steady pace.  We are now pretty much back to the level of January (ie pre-Libya problems). In OPEC country level details: Saudi Arabia sustained and very slightly added to their recent increase, Libya is down to nothing, and nobody else has much in the […]

Iran Says Boosting Oil Output Among Top Priorities

Boosting Iran’s crude production is one of the Oil Ministry’s top priorities, the ministry’s Shana news website reported, citing Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi. Crude output must increase by 1 million barrels a day by 2013, Qasemi said at a meeting with officials in the southern city of Ahwaz, according to Shana. Iran, the second-biggest producer […]

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Problem

Saudi Arabia, home to more proven oil reserves than any other nation, has an energy problem. HSBC estimates that this year the kingdom will burn 1.2 million barrels of oil a day to generate electricity, double the amount burned in 2010. With the amount of crude oil burned domestically climbing sharply, it is leaving less and less […]

U.S. Crowned King of Coal, Some Disagree

The United States boasts over 260 billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves, or roughly 28% of the planet’s total coal reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Based on these estimates, the EIA concludes that the U.S. will not exhaust its recoverable coal reserves at current mining levels for 222 years. Not everyone […]

Is oil shale the next energy game-changer?

Peak oil remains the subject of great debate but there is little doubt we have reached the peak for cheap oil. It is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to extract enough conventional oil to maintain global output at its current level of around 87m barrels a day. Technological advances have transformed the natural gas market […]

UK oil output falls below 1 million barrels a day

UK oil production fell below 1 million barrels per day (bpd) for only the second time in more than 30 years this summer as maintenance exacerbated a decline in output from depleted North Sea oilfields. The British sector of the North Sea pumped 984,000 bpd of oil in June, down from just over 1 million […]

Tony Hayward to Spark Oil Fight in Iraq

Tony Hayward’s $2.1 billion deal for oil assets in Iraq’s Kurdistan region may spark a battle for resources from the area as its export prospects brighten. Vallares Plc, an investment firm led by the ex-BP Plc chief executive officer who left the company following the Gulf of Mexico spill last year, announced plans yesterday to […]

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