The House of Saud: rulers of modern Saudi Arabia

Crumbling mud-brick walls mark the ancestral fortress of the Saudi royal family in Diriyah, north-west of Riyadh. The opulent palaces of the offspring of King Abdul-Aziz bin Abdul-Rahman al-Saud, the founder of the modern kingdom, are dotted around this lush valley. The contrast between the palaces testifies to the remarkable transformation brought about by the […]

ASPO-USA Conference, Second Day, Before Lunch

Jim Baldauf, a co-founder of ASPO-USA, provided the opening remarks to the Plenary Sessions of the day. He noted that with a coal mine explosion, the concern over hydrofracks, and the Gulf oil spill, this year could be considered Hydrocarbon Hell. The Macondo well is evidence that we are now having to seek the more […]

Sufficient unto the day

“There is no reason for optimism,” said America’s first Secretary of Energy and former CIA director James Schlesinger at the ASPO-USA conference in Washington, DC today. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Based on his experience working for the only president who was honest with the American people about energy, Jimmy Carter, it’s […]

China and Russia Finally Tie the Knot

While US energy is mired in silly, ideologically imbued debates from the moratorium on offshore drilling to the outright preposterous environmentalists’ arguments on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, China and Russia initiated a geopolitical energy deal that will resonate for decades. During the last week in September Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry […]

Is Hydrocarbon Man the Next Terrorist Target? – Part II of III

When will terrorist cells attack Middle East pipelines? Attacks will begin when the petroleum infrastructure satisfies target criteria. The process of target selection is complicated and constantly undergoing change. Target selection in an armed conflict between states is a science and an art, and it is equally true for terrorist groups who select their targets […]

NATO Supply Trucks in Pakistan Are Attacked Again

Oil tankers parked at refueling terminals have been set on fire several times since the border was closed by Pakistan. On Wednesday, the police said attackers set fire to eight tankers and killed a truck driver, The Associated Press reported. In the first attack, the Taliban claimed responsibility for burning the trucks as they moved […]

Oil Infrastructure and Terrorism – Part I

In light of the recent attacks by militants on tankers carrying oil for NATO and U.S. troops, the series that I am posting this week is especially timely. When we consider the dependence of the U.S. and the western world on the Middle East, the potential for terrorism on oil infrastructure looms as a large […]

Can natural gas keep China from destroying the world?

One of the strongest current global trends, as we’ve been discussing, is the world’s growing glut of natural gas. We are swimming in it, and yet more keeps coming. This has both financial and political implications. On the financial side, nations relying on gas income — Australia and Qatar among them — have years to […]

New Energy Web Portal Explains Topics in Plain Language

New Energy Web Portal Explains Topics in Plain Language Energy Explained, a new web portal launched today by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), celebrates Energy Awareness Month with the most comprehensive energy education resource available from the U.S. Government. The site explains where gasoline comes from, what determines the price of electricity, how much […]

Pakistan Militants Hit NATO Convoy

More than a dozen oil tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan were torched in Rawalpindi early on Monday, not far from the national capital and the headquarters of the Pakistani military, police said. The attack was the second on NATO vehicles since Pakistan closed a major border crossing to Afghanistan last week in […]

UK government’s oil shock warning

A UK government minister is preparing for a coming global oil shock – a possible doubling of the price of oil. As Monday’s UK Daily Telegraph newspaper reported, “Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, told the Liberal Democrat conference last week that in a world facing economic “shocks” it was possible that the price of oil would […]

US Military Needs To Get Off Oil In 30 Years: ‘Fueling The Future Force’ Report

The United States military must entirely get off oil by 2040 if it wants to reduce operational vulnerabilities, reduce costs, stop new security risks caused by climate change and avoid the coming peak oil supply crunch. That’s the word from the Center For a New American Security, whose Fueling the Future Force report details the […]

Obama commits to 2011 climate bill

President Barack Obama is pledging to throw his full weight next year behind efforts to overhaul the nation’s energy and climate change policies, though he concedes such moves might need to happen “in chunks.” In an interview published Tuesday by Rolling Stone magazine, Obama lamented how the economic crisis contributed to this year’s Senate stalemate […]

US Drilling ban could be over a month early

The government agency in charge of offshore drilling will weigh in ahead of schedule on whether a ban on new deepwater wells should be lifted. The chief of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Michael Bromwich, told an investigative panel Monday that he is a month ahead of schedule in issuing a report on the […]

Why the U.S. should give up on the clean energy race

Energy alarmism is on the rise again in the United States. This time, the looming phantom is not peak oil, but the danger of the United States falling behind in alternative energy development. Reprising a role it has played well in trade circles for years, China is a primary culprit. Beijing is accused of illegally […]

Peak Oil, Transportation, and The November Elections

It’s difficult to ignore the insane workings of Washington these days, or the nearly-incomprehensible levels of narrow-mindedness and outright stupidity exhibited by some political “leaders” and pseudo-political celebrities. Have we all become that gullible and apathetic that the nonsense routinely spouted by these same public figures really doesn’t matter (or worse, that we actually find […]

Iran’s Option In Case Of Attack On Its Nuclear Facilities

Sources in the Gulf region report that Iran is preparing for a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on one or more of its nuclear production units by stockpiling arms and munitions with its proxy militias in Kuwait and Bahrain. This comes as Bahrain arrests 23 opposition leaders accused of terrorism offences and […]

China to stick with one-child policy

China will continue to limit most families to just one child in the coming decades, state media said Monday, despite concerns about the policy’s problematic side effects, such as too few girls and a rapidly aging population. China has the world’s largest population and credits its 30-year-old family planning limits with preventing 400 million additional […]

Austrailia’s PM to move quickly on climate change

Julia Gillard will move fast to try to reassert the government’s credentials on climate change when Parliament sits for the first time since the election tomorrow. The Prime Minister will announce as early as today the make-up of a committee to forge the way to a price on carbon, a signal of the government’s wish […]

Could climate change make Canada a future superpower?

In Laurence C. Smith’s new book “The World in 2050,” which focuses on the effects of climate change over the next 40 years, it is theorized that Canada could become a global superpower. Mr. Smith believes that the warmer temperatures will bring out more natural resources such as water, oil and gas. This will lead […]

Poor, violent Arab nations seen missing U.N. goals

Arab nations have made strides in boosting health and education but efforts to meet U.N. anti-poverty goals by 2015 are undermined by conflict, unemployment and insufficient aid, the United Nations says. World leaders gathered at the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York this week to assess how far the world has come toward meeting […]

Dick Lawrence Resigned from ASPO-USA

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Fellow Peak-Oilers, In the summer of 2005 I was one of three co-founders of ASPO-USA, with Steve Andrews and Randy Udall. We began the U.S. non-profit organization after Kjell Aleklett and other founders of ASPO (Europe) authorized the formation of national-level ASPOs, at the Lisbon ASPO conference in May 2005. ASPO-USA […]

Amid Tension, China Blocks Vital Exports to Japan

Sharply raising the stakes in a dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain, the Chinese government has blocked exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles. Chinese customs officials are halting shipments to Japan of so-called rare earth elements, preventing […]

How mega-crises may unfold

In a world of proliferating threats and assertive emerging powers, what kind of global security system can best tackle increasingly complex trans-national crises? One way of answering that is to examine possible future disasters and their likely results. Below is a scenario devised by Chung Min Lee, a South Korean scholar and senior fellow at […]

Obama’s fiscal stimulus no substitute for cheap oi

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with President Obama’s earmarking $50-billion (U.S.) for new transport infrastructure, or extending the Bush tax cuts to low- and middle-income American households—provided the country can afford them. But already burdened with a record budget deficit of over $1-trillion, most Americans probably think Washington’s already done far too much for the […]

Secret German strategy leaked: Plans for peak oil

A newly-leaked study — which Der Spiegel has confirmed is authentic — out of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center’s Future Analysis division — which advises the German military — paints a bleak picture of the post-peak oil world, including a complete market collapse and various forms of social unrest. The report was not meant to be […]

Japan eyes countermeasures in event China begins drilling in gas field

Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Sunday began considering specific countermeasures to be taken in the event China commences drilling at a disputed gas field in the East China Sea, Japanese government sources said. Possible countermeasures include a plan for Japan to conduct its own test drilling in the sea near the Chinese offshore facility under […]

Michael Klare: Twenty-First Century Energy Superpower China, Energy, and Global Power

The year 2009 was a bad one for the United States. And no, I’m not talking about unemployment, or poverty, or home foreclosures, or banks too-big-to-fail, or any of the other normal bad news. I’m talking about something serious. As the world’s leading maker of things that go bang in the night (and I don’t […]

SMH: Peak oil and climate must be tackled in tandem

PEAK oil and climate change are on parallel paths. Both are inextricably linked and can only be solved together, requiring a shift away from a reliance on fossil fuels into what is now called the “post-carbon economy”. For Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s climate change committee, peak oil is an inconvenient truth, and BHP Billiton chief […]

Saudi Arabia Buys Peak Oil Insurance With $60B Arms Deal

Saudi Arabia is seeking the U.S. government’s approval for the largest foreign arms sale in U.S. history. It wants to buy $60B worth of advanced fighter aircraft and helicopters. That’s significant enough to set tongues wagging inside the Beltway and elsewhere. Media discussion centers on Saudi Arabia’s supposed desire to counter potential threats from Iran […]

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