California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude – And The Worst Is Yet To Come

Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis.  At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and some communities are not receiving any more water at all.  As you read this article, 100 percent […]

Day Of Reckoning For Fossil Fuel Industry

The fossil fuel industry is facing its day of reckoning – and not just because one of the world’s most prominent religious leaders, Pope Francis, is calling for action. In fact, the industry’s moment of crisis has been in the making for years, as a variety of trends – from rising production costs to cheaper […]

China’s natural gas demand sputters

For global natural gas producers, no country is as important to their future as China. An expected surge in demand over the coming two decades from China is underpinning billions of dollars of investment in new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants around the world, pipeline projects from its neighbours and unconventional gasfields at home. But […]

Status on the Bakken ”Red Queen”

This post presents a study of developments of Light Tight Oil (LTO, shale oil) extraction for 8 companies in Bakken(ND) that as of April 2015 had added around 600 (or more) producing wells in the Bakken/Three Forks formations since January 2008. The 8 companies are; Continental Resources, EOG Resources, Hess Bakken Investments, Marathon Oil Company, […]

Economics for a Full World

Because of the exponential economic growth since World War II, we now live in a full world, but we still behave as if it were empty, with ample space and resources for the indefinite future. The founding assumptions of neoclassical economics, developed in the empty world, no longer hold, as the aggregate burden of the […]

An Affirming Flame

According to an assortment of recent news stories, this Thursday, June 18, is the make-or-break date by which a compromise has to be reached between Greece and the EU if a Greek default, with the ensuing risk of a potential Greek exit from the Eurozone, is to be avoided. If that’s more than just media […]

Global Oil Production Substantially Lower Than Believed

Even the paper of record for the oil industry, Oil & Gas Journal, got it wrong. With the release of the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy, media outlets appeared to be taking dictation rather than asking questions about which countries produced the most oil in 2014. If they had asked questions, they would […]

Peak Oil? Yes, Absolutely – Peak Oil Demand

You should never bet against the capability of oil investors to turn the world completely upside down. A great example occurred on Wednesday of last week, as Arthur Berman argues in this excellent article. He points out that Brent crude surged from $62 a barrel to $65 a barrel on 10 June, despite the US […]

The Dark Side Of The Shale Bust

The fallout of the collapse in oil prices has a lot of side effects apart from the decline of rig counts and oil flows. Oil production in North Dakota has exploded over the last five years, from negligible levels before 2010 to well over a million barrels per day, making North Dakota the second largest oil producing […]

World’s Groundwater Draining At Alarming Rate

Two new studies show that the world’s population is consuming groundwater at a rapid pace even without knowing when it might run out. Satellite data revealed that a third of the world’s largest groundwater basins are in extreme distress. However, it is difficult to say how much water still remains in them. Findings of both […]

Two Billion People Are Running out of Water

Forget about peak oil—we should be worrying about peak water: Groundwater basins that supply 2 billion people are being rapidly depleted, according to a new study. Worse: No one knows how long those reserves will last. A research team led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, examined the world’s 37 largest aquifers between 2003 […]

Sins of Omission: Stories The Media Overlook

Jenna Orkin, Court Dorsey (Project Unspeakable) and Rob F. (Worldwatchers.info) discuss the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King as well as the environmental disaster of 9/11 and other stories distorted or shunted by the mainstream media.

A year after the crash, oil markets risk more trouble ahead

A year on from the start of one of the biggest oil price crashes in history, the driving force behind the slide remains intact: there is still too much crude. While output continues to grow, the economic outlook has darkened in top energy consumer China, where oil demand has been one of the few bright […]

North Dakota’s Oil Production Has Peaked

North Dakota’s crude oil output has peaked, according to the latest production data published by the state government, as the slump in prices takes its toll. The state produced 1.17 million barrels per day (bpd) in April, down from a peak of 1.23 million in December, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) reported on Friday. […]

US companies bet on nuclear power revolution

The Pentagon’s top arms provider and firms partly funded by Silicon Valley billionaires Bill Gates and Paul Allen are among dozens of companies collectively betting more than US$1.3 billion that a new wave of nuclear power can be a force to fight climate change. Advanced nuclear power plants, which will employ techniques such as using […]

The Oil Production Story: Pre- and Post-Peak Nations

In reviewing BP’s latest Review, the big story for world oil last year was obvious: the USA’s third straight record-breaking increase in average annual production. Just over 75% of the net increase in world oil production during 2014 came from the USA; add in Canada and 90% of the total increase came from North America.  […]

Iran is playing the world for suckers

The dovish case for negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program always was an “if-then” proposition. If Iran was prepared to give up its military nuclear program in exchange for inducements, then wouldn’t that be great? The answer, of course, is that it would be. But is Iran really prepared to do that? Iran hawks […]

The Future History of Political Economy – Part 2

You can read Part 1 here. Ecological Economics represents the extension into economics of the thermodynamic revolution of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In physics, that revolution dethroned Newton and brought relativity. In biology, it was midwife to the birth of ecology, the study of ecosystems as wholes in which energy networks—food webs—are a defining […]

Our Phantom Economy

Those who believe that phantom recoveries and phantom metrics can be substituted for reality are in for a shock in the next downturn. Stripped of artifice, there are only two kinds of media stories: those that support the status quo narrative, and those that are skeptical of that narrative. What is the status quo narrative? […]

Peak Oil: Myth Or Coming Reality?

In 1956, a geoscientist named M. King Hubbert formulated a theory which suggested that U.S. oil production would eventually reach a point at which the rate of oil production would stop growing. After production hit that peak, it would enter terminal decline. The resulting production profile would resemble a bell curve and the point of […]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly When Oil Giants Shift to Natural Gas

Six large European oil and gas companies recently announced a commitment to engage on climate policy, calling for a price on carbon. The now-emerging picture of their coordinated corporate talking points, however, leaves no doubt that promotion of natural gas is a core part of the group’s position. Is this development a beneficial push to help […]

Economic Growth and its Inequality

The discourse on economic growth has been one associated with increased wealth and subsequent happiness. The notion of ‘trickle down’ has been used to pursue levels of staggering economic growth over the past century and enabled governments to implement policy initiatives, which have been argued to supposedly benefit the poorest in society. However, this is […]

Guess on how long Bakken oil will be pumped

Million Dollar Way – A Long Rambling Note on a Bunch of Things Regarding the Bakken – If you are still wondering why I am so powerfully positive on the Bakken, check out Mr. Oksol’s post. My overly compressed summary: With the current estimates of total oil in place (likely understated) which excludes a couple of […]

Argentina’s Oil Output Up Yr/Yr

Argentina’s oil output rose in April thanks to increased production by state-controlled energy company YPF, the government said on Monday, marking the first year-on-year monthly increase in 2015. YPF, taken over by the government in 2012, is Argentina’s biggest energy company. The state seized control of YPF after accusing its previous parent company, Spain’s Repsol, […]

Kunstler: Jeb and Hil

T he Floridian clod seeking to don the mantle of Millard Fillmore made an amazing foreign policy speech at an economic conference in Berlin last week. Inveighing against Russian President Vladimir Putin, he gave a very vivid impression of a man who has no idea what he is talking about. “Russia must respect the sovereignty […]

Ethical Population Control

No one wants to talk about population control, but we already consume more resources than the planet can sustain. As we approach 9 billion people there are ethical and humane solutions to this controversial problem. In 1804 there were 1 billion people on the planet, around 200 years later there is 7 billion; and in […]

Could This Trigger A New Oil Boom In Mexico?

Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos or Pemex, says it’s discovered one of the most copious group of oil fields in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, its largest such discovery in five years. The five fields, situated off the states of Campeche and Tabasco, have total proven, probable and possible reserves that […]

This Changes Fuck All

“This Changes Fuck All” our rant where  we take on the NGO led spectacle called the People’s Climate March, plus a look at Peru’s spectacular resistance against a copper mine, and the call from the east to disrupt oil extraction and infrastructure. On the music break, Ontario based hip-hop group Flowtilla with “Stop Line 9″. […]

Fighting Extinction

“This is a true challenge. If the story is told as one of avarice, private gain and exceptionalism, the human race will go extinct.” At the G7 last week, the leading industrial nations agreed to cut greenhouse gases by phasing out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century. While that may […]

The retreat of ‘peak oil’

The recent OPEC meeting provides an opportunity to understand the mysteries of the global oil market. As expected, OPEC decided not to cut its oil production. Barring unanticipated developments, prices will drop, says oil analyst Larry Goldstein. Potential oil supply, including drawdowns from bloated inventories, exceeds demand. Goldstein rightly cautions, however, that no one knows […]

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