Interview with Robert L. Hirsch

James Schlesinger, President Carter’s Energy Secretary, wrote the foreword to a book written by Dr Robert Hirsch, an former US official who predicts a fall of the oil production within 5 years. Never before has a high-ranking political figure like Schlesinger given his support to such a prognosis. The book will be published in the […]

BHP Boss: Time For A Carbon Tax

The SMH has an article on a recent speech by BHP CEO Marius Kloppers, calling for a carbon tax to be introduced to Australia – BHP boss dumps on future of coal. THE world’s largest miner, BHP Billiton, has weighed into the climate change debate, warning that Australia should ”look beyond coal” and towards other […]

Cuba’s Peak Oil Experience: Looking Back Over 20 Years

Mario Arrastia Avila, a Physicist in Cuba’s energy transition agency Cuba Energia, spoke in San Francisco last week about the lessons of Cuba’s transition after its own Peak Oil disaster struck in the early 1990s. At the time, the Soviet Union’s collapse meant that North Korea, Cuba, and other communist satellites faced the end of […]

Germany, Britain brace for peak oil

Why are the folks at the Bundeswehr Transformation Centre, a German military think-tank, already planning for peak oil? Probably for the same reason the British Department of Energy, in concert with the Bank of England and the British Department of Defense, has ordered similar—and equally secret—studies on its impact. Despite repeated government assurances to the […]

9/11 – A Fourth Turning Perspective

The four turnings comprise a quaternal social cycle of growth, maturation, entropy, and death (and rebirth).  In a spring like High, a society fortifies and builds and converges in an era of promise.  In a summer like Awakening, it dreams and plays and exults in an era of euphoria.  In an autumnal Unraveling, it harvests […]

Iran denies ‘secret atomic plant’

The People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI) says it has satellite images of the facility, 120km (75 miles) from Tehran. But nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi insisted Iran had declared all of its activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). US officials said they knew about the plant but did not believe it had a […]

Are some governments taking ‘peak oil’ seriously?

One of the arguments that some bring up in defense of alternative energy is that of “peak oil.” The idea behind peak oil is that, as a fossil fuel in limited supply, eventually we will reach a point where oil production hits its maximum capability — and then begins to decline. Because there aren’t endless […]

Video: Deepwater Horizon & other Peak Oil Thoughts

KrisCan sits down with Chris Nelder, energy analyst and author of Profit From The Peak, to discuss the consequences of the U.S. shutting down domestic offshore drilling. In this first of seven video segments, he talks about the BP disaster in the Gulf and what the U.S. should have been doing with its energy policy […]

Australia: Running on empty?

The most influential progressive think tank in Australia, The Australia Institute based in Canberra, recently published a paper on peak oil and its importance for the government. Summary of the content and conclusions: Like climate change, the possibility of peak oil poses an uncomfortable challenge to citizens and governments alike in the 21st century. ‘Peak […]

The simple future beyond oil: The convergence of our economic and ecological futures and the importance of change

The human labour equivalent to the energy in [a] barrel of oil, even assuming a low rate of pay such as £5.80/hour (minimum wage), would cost £145,000 – or about $210,250/barrel! In other words, 99.97% of the equivalent labour value of oil is “free”, and so our use of energy can be seen as constituting […]

US makes bio-fuel research grants

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2010 — Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced research awards under a joint DOE-USDA program aimed at improving and accelerating genetic breeding programs to create plants better suited for bioenergy production.  The $8.9 million investment is part of the Obama Administration’s broader effort to diversify the nation’s energy […]

NYT: Job Losses Over Drilling Ban Fail to Materialize

WASHINGTON — When the Obama administration called a halt to virtually all deepwater drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon blowout and fire in April, oil executives, economists and local officials complained that the six-month moratorium would cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost revenue. Oil supply firms went […]

Mother Jones: Oh Yeah, That’s Why the Climate Bill Failed

Environmental groups spent a record amount of money on lobbying in 2009, a year everyone thought presented the best hope for signing landmark climate change legislation into law. But for every dollar they dropped, the fossil fuel industry spent almost eight times as much, according to anew report from the Center for Responsive Politics. Last […]

A Crisis of Democracy: Real Solutions to the BP Oil Spill

For Gulf residents, the BP oil spill has made the problem of unchecked corporate power painfully clear. Exxon Valdez survivor Riki Ott on why this may be the moment to overcome our political divides and take back our democracy. by Brooke Jarvis When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, Riki […]

Solving the Unemployment Problem and Preparing for Power Down Simultaneously

Here is an old idea with a potential future. Put People to Work Doing Something Worthwhile While the politicians wring their hands and cry about how awful the jobs situation is, and as they contemplate a possible stimulus package (except, of course for the Republicans who have bravely led the fight to curb the deficit […]

Oil Industry Plans “Citizen Rallies”

The leading trade association for oil and gas companies is ramping up its public advocacy campaign this summer ahead of congressional debate this fall that includes efforts to clamp down on tax benefits for the industry. The American Petroleum Institute (API) will hold a series of “citizen rallies” starting Sept. 1 with events in three […]

Green Blog: On Land, Air and Sea, a Retrofit Mission

Want to stimulate demand for renewable energy? Send in the Marines. That was Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’s message when he outlined plans to slash the Navy and Marine Corps’ dependence on fossil fuels during an appearance on Monday evening at San Francisco’sCommonwealth Club. “We use in the Navy and Marine Corps almost 1 percent of […]

Reuters: EPA proposes rules on greenhouse gas permits

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed new rules to ensure factories and power plants will be able to obtain permits they will need to emit greenhouse gases starting next year. The proposed rules, which the EPA wants to finalize before January 2 next year, are largely an administrative measure that is necessary for […]

Will NY hearing debacle damage EPA’s cred?

By Bill Holland on August 11, 2010 12:12 PM The Environmental Protection Agency’s inability to schedule and hold the final in a series of public hearings before kicking off its much-anticipated hydraulic fracturing study may be just the ammunition industry and pro-drilling landowners need to bury the concept of federal oversight of fracking. Hearings were […]

Beyond BP: Michael Klare on US Energy Policy

Why we should heed the warnings offered by Hampshire College’s famed peace and world security prof. Thursday, August 12, 2010 By Jim Cabral Michael Klare talks straight about energy and politics. The disaster engendered by the explosion and subsequent hemorrhaging of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico has thrust energy […]

DOE Announces Secretary of Energy Advisory Board

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy today announced the members of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB). Eliminated during the last administration, SEAB is being reestablished under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The twelve member board comprised of scientists, business executives, academics and former government officials will serve as an independent advisory […]

Peak oil is the villain governments needs

Climate change is a stealthy foe, hard to feel, see or identify. Unlike peak oil. So here’s another question: did western administrations know that the International Energy Agency (IEA) had been consistently concealing the imminence of peak oil? One might hope our leaders would know about something as serious as this. But if they did, […]

Foreign Policy: The Ministry of Oil Defense

Shortly after the Marines rolled into Baghdad and tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein, I visited the Ministry of Oil. American troops surrounded the sand-colored building, protecting it like a strategic jewel. But not far away, looters were relieving the National Museum of its actual jewels. Baghdad had become a carnival of looting. A […]

National Post: Can Greens and Conservatives Get Along?

August 09, 2010 3:14 PM By Jonah Goldberg Ross Douthat, Brad Plumer, David Roberts, Tim Carney, and our own Reihan, among others, have been pondering the question. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here. I for one would love to see more cooperation between greens and conservatives on the idiocy of ethanol and other corporate-welfare […]

Scenario Planning and Dynamic Cities

The global economic recession, collapsing of the credit bubble and housing bubble, combines with peak oil and climate change to create a set of future scenarios for which careful planning is needed. In this on point 25-minute presentation, Bryn Davidson, of the Dynamic Cities project, explains how scenario planning can be used to minimize risk, […]

Policymakers recognise peak oil threat, now they need to deal with it

Two years ago, the British government was still confident that oil reserves were abundant enough to meet rising demand until at least 2030. In other words, we should not worry. This cheerful message relied on the contested assessments made by the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). However, ever since numerous academic studies and industry reports […]

Independent Study: Oil Shale Is a Poor Energy Source

Independent Study: Oil Shale Is a Poor Energy Source BOUDLER, CO – As the nation looks for new sources of fuel, one option being considered is oil shale. But a new report released today by Western Resource Advocates reveals that oil shale is no solution at all because it takes nearly as much energy to […]

Al-Qaida claims oil tanker attack in Gulf

An obscure al-Qaida-linked group said Wednesday one of its suicide bombers attacked a Japanese oil tanker in the Persian Gulf last week — a claim that, if true, would be the first time the terror network has attacked the Japanese. There have been conflicting reports about what happened to the M. Star supertanker, which was […]

America’s delusions of energy independence

The problem I see with our current situation is that the vast majority of people, including pretty well all politicians and the media, don’t understand why oil is so valuable and why it is not easily replaceable.A major aspect of oil that makes it such a great energy source is that the Energy Profit Ratio […]

Europe considers drill ban following BP gulf oil spill

BP PLC’s oil spill crisis in the US Gulf of Mexico has prompted offshore safety regulators in Europe to examine the adequacy of their own response procedures to ensure a similar disaster does not happen there. The upstream sector’s reputation has been damaged, and regaining society’s trust in delivering safe and reliable supplies of fossil […]

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