Five short stories from World Energy Outlook

The IEA’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) is an annual tradition, the result of much work, data analysis and presentation. A formative volume is produced for all to read and digest, but few of us have the time to do so in the detail required. As such we rely to some extent on IEA presentations and summary […]

Coal: An underated investment opportunity?

This is not sexy, it is not glamorous, and it is not about the next Google, Apple or Facebook. This is about dirty black stuff, which pollutes the air, more than any other source of energy we use. I wish we would learn to do without, or do with less. I in fact wrote a […]

Oil rig leaks, causing explosive natural gas cloud above North Sea

The clean-up process may last for months. Total, France’s largest oil company, is following in the footsteps of BP with its own gas leak, although experts say this more recent environmental disaster isn’t nearly as damaging. Today Total announced that explosive natural gas is leaking from its Elgin North Sea platform. The leak is occurring […]

Trade Goods in the Post-Apocalypse: Alcoholic Beverages

ne of the most valuable trade items after the apocalypse will be alcoholic beverages. If you can provide consistently high quality wine, beer, and spirits, your livelihood will be assured long after the apocalyptic event fades in memory. But if you want to be ready to go into production at the appropriate time, you need […]

Denmark Commits to 100% Renewable Energy By 2050

Denmark is known for being a world leader in wind electricity. But there’s so much more to the country’s renewable energy sector that deserves attention. A recent package of targets passed by the Danish parliament illustrates why diversity is key to a strong clean energy policy. This week, lawmakers in Denmark agreed upon a new […]

Saudi Arabia Seeks Lower Crude Price for Growth, Al-Naimi Says

Saudi Arabia’s (OPCRSAUD) Oil Minister Ali al- Naimi said he wants to see lower crude prices to help stimulate economic growth. There is “no rational reason” for current high oil prices, al-Naimi said today in an editorial published in the Financial Times, echoing comments he made to reporters in Doha, Qatar on March 20. “Saudi […]

Another Fusion Breakthrough

A small New Jersey company has reported a big step toward cracking nuclear fusion, the elusive energy source that many people regard as the Holy Grail of power. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc. said it has confined a gas at 1.8 billion degrees C. Its previous highest temperature was 1.1 billion degrees C, which it hit […]

Rising powers mull BRICS-backed bank to rival IMF, World Bank in emerging markets

Developing nations again seem unlikely to propel one of their own citizens to the World Bank presidency. It may not matter. A group of rising powers is mulling its own alternative to Western-dominated lending institutions. The proposal for a new development bank is one of many to be discussed by the five fast-growing nations known […]

The bike as a lens

Culturally we believe that the car is a symbol of personal freedom. But the truth is that car ownership can be oppressive on several levels. Personal mobility represents freedom to the individual, but it’s the form it takes that tells the story of freedom. Susan B. Anthony said: Let me tell you what I think […]

Denser, More Efficient Cities Key To Coping With Population Explosion

Cities are expected to expand the combined size of Texas, California and Montana in the next 20 years, adding environmental and cultural strains from population growth and shifts away from rural living, experts said Tuesday at a conference in London called “Planet Under Pressure.” By 2030, humanity’s total urban footprint will expand by an additional 1.5 […]

Apologies to the Next Generation for the Turmoil to Come

We Screwed Up A Letter of Apology to My Granddaughter By Chip Ward [Note: I became politically active and committed on the day 20 years ago when I realized I could stand on the front porch of my house and point to three homes where children were in wheelchairs, to a home where a child […]

Oil sands profitable and promising

Oil sands projects remain highly profitable for operators and governments and highly promising as a source of oil supply, according to an annual study by the Canadian Energy Research Institute. The study estimated the constant-dollar oil price needed to recover all capital expenditures, royalties, and taxes calculated at a real discount rate of 10%/year, which […]

Young Americans Are Driving Dramatically Less – Will It Continue?

Americans under 40 are driving dramatically less, according to data from the National Household Travel Survey. The question is: Is car culture in America waning generationally or is this a temporary phenomenon linked to the recession? The recession hit younger workers particularly hard. Driving by unemployed Americans between the ages of 18-40 plummeted by 19-24% […]

Paradise paved? World’s cities to expand by more than twice the size of Texas by 2030

Cities worldwide are on track to expand by nearly 580,000 square miles – more than twice the size of Texas – in less than 20 years, according to experts at a major international science conference. Yale University professor Karen Seto said the North American suburb had “gone global, and car-dependent urban developments are more and […]

US proposes first carbon limits on power plants

The Obama administration proposed on Tuesday the first rules to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new U.S. power plants, a move hotly contested by Republicans and industry in an election year. The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal would effectively stop the building of most new coal-fired plants in an industry that is moving rapidly to more […]

East Libyans threaten to stop oil

A Libyan politician campaigning for greater autonomy for the country’s east said his movement could resort to blocking oil supplies if the central government failed to meet its demands for more seats in the national assembly. Civic leaders from the east of Libya, known as Cyrenaica, launched a push to create a federal Libya earlier […]

Oil Price Bubble vs. Demand Destruction and Decline

The ongoing bubble in global oil prices is fighting for its life against declining demand across the developed world — and the threat of a near to intermediate-term collapse in demand from emerging nations such as India and China. Fundweb: Decline in Demand Occurring First in Developed World …a volatile mix of factors is in […]

Peak oil is real and will stunt any economic recovery

As the bio on his Deep Green blog offers: Rex Weyler was a director of the original Greenpeace Foundation, the editor of the organisation’s first newsletter, and a co-founder of Greenpeace International in 1979. He was a photographer and reporter on the early Greenpeace whale and seal campaigns, and has written one of the best […]

Nuclear energy will power UAE

As the world faces up to the need for long-term sustainable energy development, we have to recognise that oil and gas are limited in reserves and unequally distributed around the globe. These significant constraints mean that nuclear power has strong advantages since it is both sustainable for a very long period, and can be developed […]

Bob Mcnally discussing Saudi Arabia’s oil production

Bob Mcnally discussing Saudi Arabia’s oil production march 2012

Brics’ move to unseat US dollar as trade currency

South Africa will this week take some initial steps to unseat the US dollar as the preferred worldwide currency for trade and investment in emerging economies. Thus, the nation is expected to become party to endorsing the Chinese currency, the renminbi, as the currency of trade in emerging markets. This means getting a renminbi-denominated bank […]

The Industrial Food System Depends To Its Peril On Cheap Oil

With a gallon of gasoline in America now averaging almost $4.00, the topic of oil dependence is timely. Cheap oil and other fossil fuels have helped create the modern American economy, and to a lesser extent, the economies of other industrialized cultures around the world.  Big industry totally depends on them.  Naturally, this includes the food industry. Let’s […]

Grid Resiliency Is Required for Improved Grid Reliability

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) co-chairs of the recent Smart Grid study titled “The Future of the Electric Grid”  just visited Silicon Valley to discuss their report with investors and entrepreneurs.   If you haven’t read the study, I recommend it because it’s an interesting read.  The study co-chairs, John Kassakian and Richard Schmalensee, cover the […]

US cuts domestic funding for fusion research

President Obama’s proposed budget for the 2013 fiscal year would cut funding for domestic fusion research in order to fund ITER, a multi-national fusion research project in France. That could mean lost jobs and a more limited market for physicists at research facilities like the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Nuclear fusion is often referred to […]

Orlov: Trained for Success, Bred to be Eaten

I ended my last post with a provocative question: Why is that reasonably rational individuals who are able to follow an argument and who are unable to refute it are at the same time incapable of making the transition from thought to action? What is stopping them? Humans are clearly smarter than yeast, what does […]

Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US

While traveling in Japan several weeks ago, Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen took soil samples in Tokyo public parks, playgrounds, and rooftop gardens. All the samples would be considered nuclear waste if found here in the US. This level of contamination is currently being discovered throughout Japan. At the US NRC Regulatory Information Conference in Washington, DC […]

Heinberg: A dark fracking future (response to Randy Udall)

In an excellent short essay, “What Hath Fracking Wrought,” Randy Udall discusses the environmental and social consequences of the application of hydraulic fracturing technology to the production of oil and natural gas. “Since year 2000, oil and gas companies have leased a staggering amount of land in the Rockies, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, New […]

Negative Population Growth Marks 40th Anniversary

Negative Population Growth (NPG) President Donald Mann has heralded the group’s 40th Anniversary this spring with a call for all Americans to pressure their elected leaders to slow and halt the nation’s fast-rising population numbers before they spin out of control and cause massive economic, social and environmental problems. Mann, the founding president of the […]

Fleet Operators Increasingly Turn to Natural Gas Power

In increasing numbers, major U.S. contract freight carriers are deploying heavy-duty natural gas-powered trucks to support their customers’ supply chain transport requirements. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. CLNE +2.19% , North America’s leading supplier of natural gas fuel for transportation, contracts with carrier fleet operators to provide compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG) […]

Benefiting From $200 Oil

Today we are concerned about peak oil because global demand in oil and gas is increasing 3% a year, while production is decreasing 3% a year. There have been tensions with Iran trying to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which will affect 35% of seaborne traded oil. The Obama administration itself is already concerned […]

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