Exxon, Chevron spurned by Iraq after deals with Kurdistan Government

By virtue of signing contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government, ExxonMobil and Chevron simultaneously established a business deal in Iraq and were banned from doing business in Iraq. Confused? Don’t be. It’s just another day of doing business in the Middle East. The beef Essentially, the Iraqi central government has a problem with the autonomy […]

The Hidden Cost of Peak Oil

Most of what you’ve heard about “peak oil” is wrong. In fact, there’s a hidden cost to peak oil that’s very real. And it’s coming to a pump near you any day now. I know you’ve read the same headlines that I have…how we are going to “frack” our way to energy independence by exploiting […]

Starting the Great Debate

We at Earth Tribe call it “The Great Debate” and it will be one that will grow more heated in the coming weeks, months and years ahead. It matters to you and it has serious implications for the environment on this planet. Ignore it at your peril. The Great Debate revolves around the U.S. oil […]

Accelerating Innovation in the Electricity Sector

With the help of more than 50 participants, advisors, and support staff, Rocky Mountain Institute convened the first meeting of the Electricity Innovation Lab (“eLab”) on June 25-28 in San Diego, California. Strong forces—the growing need for major infrastructure investments, climate change, new demands for electricity services, rapid technological development and cost reduction—are aligning to […]

Aspen Ideas and how to really talk about population growth

This was my first time attending the annual Aspen Ideas Festival, and what a week it was! Suffice it to say, my head still hurts from all the information I took in from some of the country’s top thinkers and doers. From the polarization of U.S. politics to the Supreme Court’s health care decision and […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Middle Eastern Chaos

In surveying the multiple, uprisings, insurgencies, insurrections, confrontations and what have you currently going on in the Middle East, it is hard to believe that all this turmoil will not eventually find its way to our local gas pumps. In the last week the overall situation clearly has taken a turn for the worse with […]

Israel hints at pre-emptive action against Iran

Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak has hinted that the Jewish state may take pre-emptive action against Iran to foil its nuclear ambitions in case sanctions against the Islamic Republic fail to deter it. Addressing a gathering at the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) National Security College, Barak said his country may have to take “tough and […]

China in the oil patch, should we ‘fear the dragon’?

During his visit to China in February, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had two things on his mind: pandas and oil. For Canada, the trip was a success. Harper had his picture taken with two of China’s cutest inhabitants, and told China’s leaders often and loudly that Canada’s oil and gas companies are open for business […]

Fukushima – Local Children Unwitting (And Unwilling) Radioactive Guinea Pigs

Seventeen months after the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s six–reactor complex at its Fukushima Daiichi, discussions continue about the possible effects of the radiation “dusting” the prefecture’s inhabitants received, and their consequences. Far outside most media coverage, 2012 is shaping up to be the media battleground between the massed proponents […]

Journeyman Documentaries: Peak Oil

Is the age of cheap oil about to come to an end? According to many experts, we are about to reach the point of “peak oil” — the level at which supply can no longer keep up with demand. This, say the doomsayers, could send economies spinning into turmoil and up-end our comfortable, urban lifestyles. […]

The Oil Prices and The Economy

This is the presentation of The Cause and Effects of Oil Prices in the Economy for Professor Feltgen – OST2335 Communication in the workforce, prepared by Team 4. Team 4 is composed by Fernando Trillo, Ryan Donato, Keith Lares, and Giovanni Picasso.

The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country

Peter Bane’s handbook, while not quite encyclopedic, is nothing if not authoritative. I can honestly say, without fear of exaggeration, that I hold my head a little higher as I stride about my miniscule fiefdom, now that I’ve read The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country. The stones Bane leaves unturned are few […]

John Michael Greer: The Upside of Default

Writing The Archdruid Report has its pleasures, and one of them is the wry amusement to be had when some caustic jab of mine turns into an accurate prediction of the future.  Longtime readers may recall a comment of mine late last year to the effect that ordinary investors would surely find some way to […]

Peak Oil’s Impact: U.S. Olympic Training Centers

Imagine, if you can, that there is a resource everyone likes to use.  They like to use it for convenience: it lets them go places, have neat things, eat the foods they want no matter what time of year it is…. Now imagine, if you can, that this resource begins to become scarce. Imagine that the […]

The Collapse of Complex Systems

We talk about energy depletion, global climate change, overpopulation and a host of other problems, but these are only symptoms of the true problems. In focusing upon these symptoms, we do not look at the larger problems and so are in no way prepared to begin seeking a solution. What is really happening is that […]

A soaring food price fear

Markets are bracing for a surge in global political unrest, as the worst US drought in half a century sent corn and soybean prices soaring to record highs overnight. The combination of scorching temperatures and a lack of rain has now pushed corn and soybean prices above the peaks they reached during the 2007-08 food […]

Myths, Lies and Oil Wars

The myth of oil scarcity is one of the foundations that have allowed four giant oil corporations along with a handful of Wall Street banks to control the world’s largest and most essential commodity: oil. The myth originated in the 1950′s from a speech by a geologist at Shell and was revived in 2003 at […]

Oil industry, BP still haven’t learned from fatal mistakes

The deaths were never far away. They hovered over the esoteric discussions of safety processes; they were brought up by members of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board who were conducting the two-day public hearing and by members of the audience who were married to offshore oil workers or who had lost a parent in a […]

First U.S. Tidal Power Project Launches in Maine

The ocean is a tremendous bank of energy. Covering more than two-thirds of our planet, the amount of energy embodied in the ocean’s tides, currents, and waves, not to mention temperature and salinity gradients, could power the world—if we were able to commercialize the technology to harness its renewable power. While technologies harnessing energy from […]

How America Lost Canada To The Chinese

After 1949 when the Communists defeated the Nationalists for control of China, the mournful refrain from Washington, D.C. was “Who Lost China?” This arrogant display of superpower Cold War finger pointing ended with a number of careers destroyed and an unfair smear on the U.S. State Department that in some ways has never been entirely […]

Chris Nelder: Is peak oil dead?

Is peak oil dead? One might think so, judging by a slew of optimistic new forecasts for oil production. Even George Monbiot, notable for his thoughtful previous coverage of peak oil in The Guardian, threw in the towel with his July 2 mea culpa, “We were wrong about peak oil. There’s enough to fry us […]

Chevron Barred from Central, Southern Iraq

The second largest U.S. energy company Chevron Corp. will be barred from contracts in central and southern Iraq because the Californian company bought stakes in two oil-exploration blocks in the Kurdish region of Iraq, an Iraqi oil ministry statement said Tuesday. Chevron is the second major western oil company to be banned by the central […]

Is peak oil a non-event?

Ken Parish at Club Troppo draws attention to a remarkable new report that confounds the conventional wisdom on peak oil and has important implications for cities. It’s published by Harvard University’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs. It concludes that oil supply capacity is growing worldwide at such an unprecedented level, it might outpace […]

Webster Tarpley: Why Price of Gasoline must keep Rising

Webster Griffin Tarpley is an American author, historian, journalist, lecturer, and critic of US foreign and domestic policy: (1) To keep dollar at the same exchange rate since dollar is tied to oil, and (2) To promote underdevelopment of Asia, Africa and south America, China and India in particular

Short History of Progress Book Review

Excerpts taken from Ronald Wright’s book Short History of Progress and put to music and images.

US fusion in budget vice

For years, US researchers have been steadfast in their support of ITER, the world’s largest fusion-energy experiment, which is under construction near Cadarache, France. But with funding commitments to ITER now putting the squeeze on three existing facilities in the United States, enthusiasm for the international project is becoming as difficult to sustain as a […]

On Our Radar: Canadian Oil and China

Taking issue with Canada’s leaders and Alberta’s provincial government, British Columbia’s premier warns that the environmental risks of selling Canadian oil to Asia through the Northern Gateway pipeline would outweigh the economic benefits. [The Globe and Mail] The Canadian oil and gas company Nexen agrees to be acquired by the China National Offshore Oil Company […]

The story of change

Can shopping save the world? Put down your credit card and start exercising your citizen muscles with Annie Leonard’s new film. I used to think the truth would set us free. Like many who care about the environment, I spent years thinking that information would lead to change. If only people realize the mess our […]

Orlov: Politics of the Unconscious

Across the US flags are flying at half-mast in honor of the twelve people killed and 58 injured by James Holmes during the midnight premiere of the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado. Meanwhile, Norway is commemorating the 69 people shot dead by Andras Brevik at the Labor Party youth camp […]

The Saudis are Going Green

Middle East governments are rolling out ambitious renewable energy programs, even as austerity measures hamper such development in Europe. Among the latest signs of an apparent mass Arabian conversion to environmental activism is Saudi Aramco’s July 8 launch of a clean-energy venture capital arm. “Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV) represents a significant step forward in […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Is It Time To Abandon the Idea of Phasing Out Oil and Gas?
• More than 20% of global refining capacity at risk of closure
• Charles Hugh Smith Blog: Fire, Then Ice Our Deflationary Future
• Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser says energy transition strategy ‘visibly failing’
• 100 million-degree ‘artificial sun’ sets new records in hunt for energy’s ‘Holy Grail’

• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy
• US seeks to buy up to 3 million bbls of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• Desertification: the world is losing healthy land at an astonishing rate
• US oil production will keep booming in 2024, setting up a possible showdown with Saudi Arabia
• Saudi Arabia piles pressure on UAE to shift COP28 focus away from oil and gas
• US Warship, Commercial Ships Under Attack In Red Sea