The shale phenomenon: fabulous miracle with a fatal flaw

A Chesapeake Energy Corp. worker walks past stacks of drill pipe needed to tap oil and gas trapped deeply in rock like shale at a Chesapeake oil drilling site on the Eagle Ford shale near Crystal City, Texas. The shale formation requires constant drilling to keep up production, (Anna Driver/Reuters/File) At a petroleum conference held […]

Liquefied natural gas demand to rise 4.6 per cent annually over 15 years

The demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is forecast to rise by 4.6 per cent annually over the next 15 years. According to organisers of an industry event here, LNG is one of the fastest growing segments of the gas market, with industry research suggesting that LNG demand is forecast to rise by 4.6 per […]

Peak Oil: What REALLY Caused the GLOBAL Recession of 2008

Jeff Rubin giving his analysis of the ongoing worldwide resession starting in 2008.

Belief In Peak Oil Logically Implies Failure Of Alternative Energy

One of the most persistent beliefs among proponents of alternative energy is that we are in danger of running out of fossil fuels. This economic theory, known as “Peak Oil,” was first articulated by geophysicist M. King Hubbert in 1956. It states that for any geographic region–indeed, for the world as a whole–the extraction of […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: The State of the Union

When peak oil first came to widespread public attention some 10 or 15 years ago, there was some debate about whether peak oil was the solution to climate change caused by carbon emissions. After all, if we are forced by geology and economics to burn decreasing amounts of oil, won’t carbon emissions and global warming […]

The Economic Impact of a War Between Japan & China

Global economists are keeping their eyes glued to the Asia-Pacific region, where a bitter feud is brewing between two of the world’s most powerful nations over a small collectivity of islands in the East China Sea. The Chinese government argues that a treaty signed during the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) conferred ownership of the islands […]

Historic Drought Projected to Persist, Worsen

NOAA’s latest seasonal drought outlook projects historic drought will persist. Time is running out to avert a third summer of drought in much of the High Plains, West and Southwest, federal officials warned Thursday. Without repeated, significant bouts of heavy snow and rain in the remaining days of winter, a large part of the country […]

How Did Our Relationship with Radioactive Material Sour?

My lovely wife, knowing my atomic energy obsession, thought that I might enjoy watching Romance of Radium a 1937 movie short (10 minutes) from MGM Studios that TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is occasionally running to fill time between full length movies. It was utterly fascinating to me to watch how the filmmaker portrayed Henry Becquerel’s […]

Eugenics Movement Calls for Eco-Dictatorship

In a peer-reviewed paper by the American Institute of Biological Sciences titled “Social Norms and Global Environmental Challenges” (available ahead of print), to be published in the march 2013 edition of the Institute’s yearly journal BioScience, a group of well-known scientists calls on government and scientists to start with the planned social engineering of “norms” […]

Insane Levels of Inequality – Which Hurt the Economy – Are Skyrocketing

Preface: All capitalist systems have some inequality.  We don’t want to prevent all inequality … justeconomy-wrecking levels: Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist, adds that some inequality is necessary to create incentives in a capitalist economy but that “too much inequality can harm the efficient operation of the economy.” And you might assume that conservatives don’t […]

Can Endless Quantitative Easing Ever End?

The publication, earlier this week, of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee minutes of January 29-30 seemed to have a similar effect on equity markets as a call from room service to a Las Vegas hotel suite, informing the partying high-rollers that the hotel might be running out of Cristal Champagne.  Around the world, […]

UK economy to take oil hit in 2013 before N.Sea recovery

Oil & gas production to fall 3-6 pct in 2013 -Oil & Gas UK * Industry body survey says output down 14 pct in 2012 * Production seen rising in the period 2014 to 2017 Britain’s faltering economy will take another hit from declining UK North Sea oil production this year before a mini-recovery takes […]

Iran Says It Has Brought Down Another Foreign Spy Drone

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have brought down a foreign surveillance drone during a military exercise, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said on Saturday. “We have managed to bring down a drone of the enemy. This has happened before in our country,” the agency quoted war games spokesman General Hamid Sarkheli as saying in Kerman, southeast […]

Robert Rapier: How Much Oil Does the World Produce?

In the first installment of this series, I took a look at U.S. and global oil reserves according to the 2012 BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Today, I want to examine oil production statistics since 1965. Highlights of this article and topics that will be explored include: New global oil production record set in 2011, […]

Air Pollution Crisis: New Momentum for Regulation in China

The recent spate of severe air pollution in China has shone a spotlight on the need for strong environmental regulation in China and prompted the government to move forward with a number of new environmental policies and laws – some of which have been languishing in the proposal stage for years.                                                    Beijing, January 16, […]

Fusion Experiment JT60-SA Assembly Started in Japan

In another small step on the long path to bring the sun’s fusion fire down to Earth, the construction of the large auxiliary Tokamak JT-60SA, associated to the world’s largest fusion experiment ITER, began in Japan this year. The project is one of several large fusion science facilities built together by Japan and the European […]

China to Increase Fuel Prices

China will raise fuel prices for the first time since September amid a gain in oil benchmarks since the start of the year. Gasoline will increase by 300 yuan ($48) a metric ton and diesel by 290 yuan a ton effective tomorrow, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement on its website […]

Gail Tverberg: Twelve Reasons Why Globalization is a Huge Problem

Globalization seems to be looked on as an unmitigated “good” by economists. Unfortunately, economists seem to be guided by their badly flawed models; they miss  real-world problems. In particular, they miss the point that the world is finite. We don’t have infinite resources, or unlimited ability to handle excess pollution. So we are setting up […]

Oil Sands Mining Uses Up Almost as Much Energy as It Produces

The average “energy returned on investment,” or EROI, for conventional oil is roughly 25:1. In other words, 25 units of oil-based energy are obtained for every one unit of other energy that is invested to extract it. But tar sands oil is in a category all its own. Tar sands retrieved by surface mining has […]

Tech Talk – Thoughts on the Precautionary Principle

As Michael Brander tells it, in his book on the Scottish Highland Regiments, the Scottish Highlands produced, between 1740 and 1815 men for some 86 Highland Regiments who travelled around the world to strengthen the British Empire. But, towards the end of that period sheep were introduced into Scotland and the great land clearances began […]

Saudi sets out roadmap for major renewable energy programme

Saudi Arabia has published a roadmap for its renewable energy programme, aimed at reducing the amount of oil it burns in power stations, and targets issuing final bids for the first plants within three months. The world’s top oil exporter aims to install 23.9 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity by 2020 and 54.1 GW […]

Peak Oil Will Be Fully Discredited When Peak Government Is Realized

President Obama recently nominated Sally Jewell to head the Department of Interior. Her bona fides include growing a business — Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) — to nearly $2 billion in revenue last year. But in her new job, the question is whether Secretary Jewell will grow America’s vast, untapped domestic energy resources. Jewell is now […]

Geomagnetic Disturbances and Power Outages

On January 15, 2013, I presented a webcast on Energy Central titled, “Geomagnetic Disturbances and their Impacts on Power Transformers”. You can view the presentation here. The presentation generated many questions from the audience that I did not have time to address. This blog post addresses a few of those questions. Stay tuned for more […]

Albert Bates: Returning to the Deep

“Like our religious traditions, the agriculture we are accustomed to is a 5000-year-old relic that grew surpluses, but also bequeathed enormous and spreading deserts, centralized and hierarchical wealth systems, standing militaries, and a seemingly intractable global ecological crisis.”       Claudia Gonzales takes the Bicimachina for a spin We originally posted a version of […]

Peak oil down to war, depression and geopolitical shifts

Given the increase in the amount of oil that China and India are importing, it looks as if there will be no oil available for other countries to import in another decade, warns expert In recent months, there has been a spate on stories in the press pronouncing that any imagined energy crisis is over […]

Free market at odds in debate to export more natural gas

The free market is at odds in the debate to export more of America’s vast natural gas resources — energy officials support an expansion of the overseas market but some manufacturing executives object saying it would drive up prices and eliminate jobs. Dow Chemical is leading the effort to convince Congress and the Obama administration […]

Radioactive Waste Is Leaking From Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation

And now for a quick lesson in government spending: in the 1940s the federal government created the now mostly decommissioned Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. During the Cold War, the project was expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which […]

Americans’ consumption affects oil prices in Philippines

Amid weeks of consecutive hikes in oil prices, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla told The Manila Times that the reduction in oil price can only be dependent in a slump of the United States economy, among other global factors. Petilla said that the main factors that primarily led to the recent price hikes on petroleum products […]

OECD Oil Consumption

The above shows oil consumption in the major developed regions of the world though September 2012 (according to the EIA).  You can see that since the Arab spring (when prices went up), US and European consumption has gone down.  In the US this is mainly through improved oil efficiency reducing consumption faster than the rather […]

Twelve Reasons Why Globalization is a Huge Problem

Globalization seems to be looked on as an unmitigated “good” by economists. Unfortunately, economists seem to be guided by their badly flawed models; they miss  real-world problems. In particular, they miss the point that the world is finite. We don’t have infinite resources, or unlimited ability to handle excess pollution. So we are setting up […]

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