Iran crude oil exports rise to highest since EU sanctions

Iran’s crude oil exports in December leapt to their highest level since European Union sanctions took effect last July, analysts and shipping sources said, as strong Chinese demand and tanker fleet expansion helped the OPEC member dodge sanctions. Exports rose to around 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) in December, according to two industry sources […]

Bus service grinds to halt in Naples: no fuel

Bus service in the southern Italian city of Naples has ground to a halt after the city transport company ran out of money for fuel. Valeria Peti, of the ANM transport company, says only 30 of the usual 300 buses left the depot Wednesday morning, and they all had to return before their tanks ran […]

Israeli jets bomb Syria-Lebanon border

Israeli fighter jets have struck a convoy on the Syria-Lebanon border suspected of carrying sophisticated Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, Al Arabiya correspondent Ziad Halabi reported from Jerusalem on Wednesday. Halabi said “security indications” pointed to a convoy carrying surface-to-air missiles being smuggled into Syria via the Lebanese border. The Lebanese army had reported a heavy presence […]

Export Liquefied Natural Gas? For Whose Benefit?

Recently I received an email from Energy Citizens with an invitation to, “Join us for a telephone town hall to discuss natural gas exports on Friday, February 1st at 1:00pm. Learn more about why the world needs American natural gas and how that creates more jobs and energy security here at home.” Energy Citizens is […]

China 2013 Oil Demand Expected to Rise 4.8%

China’s oil demand in 2013 is expected to rise to 514 million metric tonnes, up 4.8 percent, a research institute affiliated with China National Petroleum Corp., the country’s biggest energy producer, said Wednesday. In an annual report, the CNPC Research Institute of Economics & Technology said oil demand is expected to “bounce back slightly” in […]

Overfishing Threatens Critical Link in the Food Chain

The fish near the bottom of the aquatic food chain are often overlooked, but they are vital to healthy oceans and estuaries. Collectively known as forage fish, these species—including sardines, anchovies, herrings, and shrimp-like crustaceans called krill—feed on plankton and become food themselves for larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. Historically, people have eaten many […]

Energy literacy: visualizing the impacts of unlimited growth

Humans have already amply demonstrated the resource limitations of unbridled economic growth by not anticipating and then not addressing the myriad critical environmental and resource problems we face today, Cobb writes. It is hard to imagine a more unlikely vehicle for advancing energy literacy than a finely crafted large format picture book. Energy, after all, […]

Why Economists Get Things Wrong

Following today’s 3-sigma miss in GDP by the greatest and goodest economists of the world, we thought David McWilliams brief ‘Punk Economics’ clip on “why economists get things wrong” was particularly appropriate. With Mark Zandi’s “this didn’t really happen” comment this morning on GDP, McWilliams starts by warning of the most dangerous of economic soothsayers […]

Newest Solar Energy Development Could Be Gamechanging

If you’re keen into reading about new technologies, it’s easy to notice developments all around the world taking place by the day, if not by the hour.  The renewable energy sector has been no exception – New gadgets and unique ways to harness energy are making the wildest dreams of today become the legitimate possibilities […]

IMF and resource scarcity

During the past week the future of the world economy has been discussed in Davos, Switzerland. Below, I think it is appropriate to quote Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In her speech of 23 January she presented the following viewpoint: The burning question is this: how we can make […]

2012 Liquid Fuel Supply

We now have December data for global liquid fuel production, which allows us to see the whole year. What has been striking about 2012 is that oil production has been remarkably flat, with no significant rise across the year (there was a small 0.25mbd/yr trend overall, but that was not statistically significant). This is in […]

Oil Watch: Drill Baby Drill

Executive summary In January 1995 there was a total of 1738 oil and gas rigs drilling globally (excluding the former Soviet Union (FSU)). By February 2012 that number had more than doubled to 3850. Global C+C+NGL production grew from 68 to 84 million bpd (24%) over the same period. Global drilling for oil and gas […]

Against growth

conversation with economist Joshua Farley Given the relation between economic production and ecological degradation, Joshua Farley is convinced that economic growth must stop. It is just a question of when. And whether cooperation will displace competition as the dominant concept in the economic paradigm. Almantas Samalavicius: The concept of ecological economics differs fundamentally from that one […]

China consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Statistics. Coal consumption in China grew more than 9% in 2011, continuing its upward trend for the 12th consecutive year, according to newly released international data. China’s coal use grew by 325 million tons in 2011, accounting for 87% of the 374 million ton global increase in coal […]

China’s environment: An economic death sentence

The hazardous conditions in Beijing and northern China is merely of one many wake-up calls for the Chinese government. Will it be enough to spark change? For a long time, environmental activists, economists, and China scholars have warned about the coming environmental disaster in China. Such a catastrophe finally appeared in the most dramatic form […]

Robert Rapier: Why I Don’t Ride a Unicorn to Work

The Unicorn Analogy There is a reason I don’t ride a unicorn to work. It isn’t because it’s too far to work. Nor is it because it rains here in Hawaii nearly every day and I might get wet. It isn’t because the powerful automobile lobby has convinced me that driving a car to work […]

Minor oil spills are often bigger than reported

By analysing satellite images, oceanographers have found that small oil spills in the heavily drilled northern Gulf of Mexico are often much larger than reported. The researchers presented their results last week at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Small oil spills — ranging from oil-drilling mishaps […]

House Of Rothschild Hoarding Gold In Face Of Coming Collapse?

A recent appointment of Rothschild as “financial advisor” by the Board of Directors of gold exploration company Spanish Mountain Gold is yet another unmistakable indication that the ancient family is moving the world’s gold supply to both “emerging markets” and Central Banks worldwide, strengthening the family’s monopoly position when the fiat-based house of cards comes […]

Turning agriculture into oil – bio oil, that is

Pour a few handfuls of chopped-up corn stalks or switchgrass into a hopper. Heat rapidly. Funnel the resulting mixture through an intricate network of metal pipes and canisters. Out the other end – drip, drip – comes a thick brown liquid that looks an awful lot like oil. Called bio oil, it is not quite […]

Life after Chernobyl: Sergei Gaschak’s photography from inside ‘the zone’

VIEW GALLERY Sergei Gaschak’s photography offers an unparalleled glimpse at animal life inside “the zone”, the area of Ukraine and Belarus that has been officially closed off to human habitation since the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe of 1986. Using camera traps to take photographs mechanically, as well as taking photographs personally, Gaschak has captured what few […]

Re-enchanting Economics

Economics as we know it today is broken.  Unable to explain, to predict or to protect, it is need of root-and-branch replacement.  Or, to borrow from Alan Greenspan, it is fundamentally ‘flawed’.  But where do we look for inspiration in facilitating what is the mother of all paradigm shifts?  Interestingly enough, the most insightful and […]

Netanyahu Deploys ‘Syrian’ Iron-Dome As Israeli Minister Claims US Preparing ‘Surgical’ Strikes Against Iran

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says his nation must prepare for the threat of a chemical attack from Syria, amid concern at enemy efforts to test a post-election coalition Israel, and, as Bloomberg reports, has deployed its new Iron Dome anti-missile system near the border with its northern neighbor. Along with this concern, as many have perhaps suspected, […]

Why EROEI Means Mining in Space will Never Work

The prospect of exploration in space for minerals has been the substance of science fiction, but in the face of a rapid depletion of non-renewable resources, and a likely downturn in funding for space projects in general, in these times of austerity, “mining asteroids” has emerged as an apparently serious proposition. Two companies, “Planetary Resources” […]

What Is Peak Oil Theory?

My explanation of Peak Oil Theory and some common misconceptions about peak oil. New American oil discoveries in peaked in the 1960s Quality of oil in new discoveries has declined More Sulfur in the oil More energy needed to process the oil More difficult to acquire oil Companies must drill deeper and go into more […]

Kunstler: The Master Meme

     The gentlemen and ladies of the meme-o-sphere, where collective notions are birthed like sleet from clouds, have decided lately that the USA has entered a full-on broad-based bull market – a condition of general happiness and prosperity as far advanced beyond mere “recovery” as a wedge of triple-cream Saint-Andre cheese is advanced over […]

Gregor Macdonald: What the End of Cheap Oil Means

On the heels of Chris’ recent report clarifying the global net energy predicament, he and PeakProsperity.com contributing editor Gregor Macdonald sit down to talk in depth about the broken relationship between energy costs and economic growth. For much of the twentieth century, the developed world saw a steady march upwards in wages and living standards, […]

The Coming Oil War … Against al-Qaeda

A consortium minding security issues for journalists working in hostile territory warned that credible reports revealed a threat to oil installations in Libya. Islamists based in Libya were said to have played a role in deadly January attacks on the In Amenas natural gas facility in eastern Algeria. Those attacks were said to be in […]

Perhaps a Crumble Rather Than a Collapse

Why even question the obvious? When contemplating a complex subject, especially one in which I hold a strong emotional investment, I find it extremely valuable to seriously and consistently challenge my own thinking, to play devil’s advocate with my oftentimes emotional mind. A ‘truth’ untested, particularly one I’m emotionally bound to, is little more than […]

Can we avoid a collapse?

“Population Bomb” author & Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich on his Royal Society Paper “Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?” From Tasmania, forest expert Dr. David Bowman: wild fires drive more global warming. Economist John Talberth suing the U.S. Government over risky ocean oil leases in the Arctic. Three interviews from a world […]

Peak Oil: This Probably Isn’t Good News

Lost in the all the recent news about shale gas, tight oil, technology, ingenuity, etc., etc., have been discussions about production outside of North America. While it’s hardly an ignored subject, it was easy for media to get caught up in what seems such good news about our own “vast” resources and massive “potential” and […]

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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