Remember Peak Everything? It seems that a few years ago that’s all we wrote about on TreeHugger, Peak Oil, Peak Water and yes, Peak Helium. The use of helium for frivolous things like party balloons and inflatable Kermits was particularly galling, since it was also needed for scientific uses and for superconductors in MRI machines. […]
One recent headline from RT had me shaking my head: “Running on empty: Russia has less than three decades of oil remaining.” Yogi was right: “It’s deja vu all over again.” Remember Energy Minister Victor Khristenko’s warning in 2005 that Russian oil production “will reach a certain plateau of production within the time frame of 2010.” Remember […]
The “energy cliff” is a central concept in ecological economics, and it’s based on a very simple ratio. But for me this principle was a slippery thing to grasp, and I eventually realized some of the most common graphs used to illustrate the Energy Cliff were leaving me with a misleading mental image. This column […]
Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth has transformed the lives of its citizens – but it needs to turn off the rampant spending if it wants to balance the books. This Bloomberg QuickTake video explores how the kingdom plans to navigate its post-oil future.
Markets don’t like uncertainty, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that oil prices initially dropped by 5% in the wake of the UK’s unexpected vote last week to leave the European Union. One impact of the vote was a substantial strengthening of the dollar against many other currencies. Because the majority of the world’s oil […]
Iraq secured a $2.7 billion loan from the United States on Wednesday to fund ammunition and maintenance of fighter jets, tanks and other military equipment for use in the war against Islamic State. Baghdad will have eight and a half years, including a one-year grace period, to repay the loan, which carries a 6.45 percent […]
The outcome of last week’s vote concerning Britain’s membership in the European Union has set off anguished cries and handwaving across much of the internet and the mass media. The unexpected defeat of the pro-EU camp, though, has important lessons to offer, and not just for those of my readers who live in Britain; the […]
Venezuela’s oil output, already the lowest since 2009, is set to slide further this year as contractors scale back drilling after the cash-strapped country fell more than $1 billion behind in payments. The Latin American nation’s oil production, which generates 95 percent of export revenue, will decline by about 11 percent to 2.1 million barrels a […]
A report by consultancy Deloitte has revealed that the oil and gas industry may find itself unable to improve its reserves replacement rate and overall performance over the next five years due to a huge shortage of cash of as much as US$2 trillion. Deloitte notes in the report that oil and gas exploration and […]
For several weeks I have been researching and writing a review post on high altitude wind power. It has grown into a 6000 word monster that should hopefully fly on Monday. While doing this it has been difficult to find time to write other posts. Hence this is a preview of one section on Energy […]
Back in December I posted a trailer for The Crisis of Civilization. Based on the work of security analyst and political scientist Dr Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, this new documentary explores the interconnections between climate change, peak oil, terrorism and our ongoing financial crisis. Mat has also written about Ahmed’s work on the connections between peak […]
Preparations by various cogs of the national security complex, including FEMA, indicate a coming worldwide food shortage — and a resulting crisis marked by extreme civil unrest around the globe. As Motherboard noted of two reports published previously by CNA Corporation, but which largely escaped attention, the world’s food supply could be insufficient to maintain […]
“Launching a ship was a most important social event in these seaside towns, to which everyone looked forward with great excitement. It was considered by everybody to be an unofficial public holiday. The headmaster recorded many times in the school log that on such occasions (as at harvest time) he had to close the school […]
Back in February 2015, the price of West Texas Intermediate stood at about $52 per barrel, half of its 2014 peak. I argued then that a renewed decline was coming that could drive it below $20, a scenario regarded by oil bulls as unthinkable. But prices did fall further, dropping all the way to a […]
We’ve heard a lot of buzz recently about the Anthropocene, the geologic epoch of man and machine. Does it exist? Are we in it right now? Later this summer, the International Stratigraphic Union will convene and attempt to answer these weighty questions. Deciding whether or not we’ve entered a new chapter in geologic history isn’t […]
The Polish news channel TVP Info reports French and German foreign ministers are ready to reveal a super state “ultimatum” to EU countries in response to Brexit. European SUPERSTATE to be unveiled: EU nations ‘to be morphed into one’ post-Brexit https://t.co/3pmUi3V7x0 pic.twitter.com/rDOvKH95gh — Voice of Europe (@V_of_Europe) June 27, 2016 The totalitarian proposals will strip […]
Last week, my article on the Saudi Arabian oil and solar outlook, titled Saudi Arabia’s Solar Planning Is Paved in Oil Production, certainly shook up a hornet’s nest in the Twittersphere. In the piece, I postulated that the Saudis – under the de facto leadership of 30-year old Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) – would move […]
I am grateful to be back in your lovely city, and I am grateful for your invitation to speak today about the commons as a new vision of “development.” As the planet reels from the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change, we are seeing the distinct limits of the prevailing paradigms of economic thought, governance, […]
Wait a minute. They’re already dead. Brexit just reveals that not everybody’s brains have been eaten. A viral contagion now threatens the zombified institutions of daily life, especially the workings of politics and finance. Just as zombies exist only in the collective imagination, so do these two principal activities of society operate mainly on trust, […]
The implications of the global water footprint of energy generation are phenomenal, writes Gary Bilotta of the University of Brighton. He warns that if policy makers fail to take into account the links between energy and water, we may come to a point in many parts of the world where it is water availability that […]
“It is difficult to imagine how anyone who encounters these stories as a youth could grow up to have anything other than profound respect for the latent power of the natural world.” On the comments page for a popular environmental radio show a listener asked for suggestions for books or stories on nature themes to […]
The fretting in the financial markets after Great Britain’s voters narrowly decided to leave the European Union (EU), a move dubbed Brexit, was less about immediate effects–there aren’t any since it would take Britain up to two years to withdraw–and more about a foreboding that other countries will want out, too. In addition, some think […]
While we were all caught up in the EU referendum this week, there was an item in the news about the UK’s largest gas storage facility, Rough: Wholesale gas prices have been volatile following news that the UK’s largest gas storage facility is being shut down for 42 days. Normally, gas would be being injected […]
At first glance it is hard to see how oil, interest rates and debt are connected. Two of them are human constructs while oil (fossil sunlight), a gift from Mother Nature, took tens of millions of years to process. Oil is an endowment extracted from a confined underground stock and is now the most dense […]
For decades, financial and political leaders have preached the inevitability of globalization, promising nations that by sacrificing some of their sovereignty and dropping national barriers they could reap far greater rewards through economic integration and cooperation. And that turned out to be largely true. But Britain’s surprise vote to leave the European Union signals a […]
Abstract Two of the most fundamental concepts in the current debate about future oil supply are oilfield decline rates and depletion rates. These concepts are related, but not identical. This paper clarifies the definitions of these concepts, summarizes the underlying theory and empirically estimates decline and depletion rates for different categories of oilfield. A database […]
Guys, today I wanted to write about kittens and string. No wait, I wanted to write about global warming and peak oil. Sorry, this is what Twitter has done to my mind. Global Warming Have you seen the news lately? Record temperatures are being reached every year around the globe! In India, Europe, the US. […]
Well that escalated quickly…Speaking from in front of 10 Downing Street, UK PM David Cameron just stated that he will step down as Prime Minister, explaining that “I think the country requires fresh leadership.” As The Wall Street Journal reports, “There are times when it is right to ask the people themselves, that is what […]
The break-even price for Permian basin tight oil plays is about $61 per barrel (Table 1). That puts Permian plays among the lowest cost significant supply sources in the world. Although that is good news for U.S. tight oil plays, there is a dark side to the story. Just because tight oil is low-cost compared […]
Saudi inventories fall for longest running stretch in 15 years Kingdom supplying the market with more oil than it’s producing Saudi Arabia, a country nearly synonymous with plentiful crude supplies, is offering one of the strongest signs yet that the glut that has plagued the oil market since 2014 is coming to an end. Despite […]
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