How can we link monetary systems to the natural world?

Money may not grow on trees, but it does grow at a much faster rate – particularly when created by banks as interest-bearing debt. In modern economies, nearly all money is created in this way. To maintain a stable money supply, debtors must repay both the initial loan and the interest on the loan.  This […]

China Maps Out Venezuela’s Valuable Resources

An agreement signed by the government of Venezuela and the Chinese state-owned company Citic Group for prospecting and mapping the country’s mining reserves is being challenged by both the opposition and experts who argue that it will leave valuable natural resources dangerously exposed. Oil and Mining Minister Rafael Ramírez said “the mining map will be […]

Russia is Back to Stay in the Middle East

Russia is back. President Vladimir Putin wants the world to acknowledge that Russia remains a global power. He is making his stand in Syria. The Soviet Union acquired the Tardus Naval Port in Syria in 1971 without any real purpose for it. With their ships welcomed in Algeria, Cuba or Vietnam, Tardus was too insignificant […]

Mexico (Sort Of) Liberalizes Its Oil Industry

Mexico relies on 1/3 of its government revenues from national oil company Pemex. Yesterday, they announced they’ll be inviting foreign investment to expand production: In what would be a historic step, Mexico’s ruling party is expected to modify its political statutes Sunday to allow private investment in state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos and the possibility […]

Threat of Oil Price Spike Has Passed

The days of worrying about the threat of a devastating oil price hike are over, according to a white paper from The Boston Company Asset Management (TBC), LLC, the Boston-based equity specialist for BNY Mellon. For decades, pundits have been trying to predict the point at which a sustained climb in oil prices would spark […]

India suffered peak power shortage of 9% in 2007-12

India witnessed a peak power shortage of 9 per cent during the five years ending 2012 when over 50,000 MW new generation capacity was created, the Economic Survey said today. “During the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12), nearly 55,000 MW of new generation capacity was created. Yet there continues to be a peak shortage of […]

Cyberattack leaves natural gas pipelines vulnerable to sabotage

Cyberspies linked to China’s military targeted nearly two dozen US natural gas pipeline operators over a recent six-month period, stealing information that could be used to sabotage US gas pipelines, according to a restricted US government report and a source familiar with the government investigation. From December 2011 through June 2012, cyberspies targeted 23 gas […]

No End in Sight for Iraq Oil Dispute

Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of  the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq,  is criticizing Baghdad for threatening to cancel the contracts of companies operating in the country’s southern oil fields if they refuse to stop dealing separately with the Kurds. “Instead of warning companies to choose between the KRG or Baghdad, it’s in Iraq’s interest to cooperate […]

UK Energy Production Falls for 11th Straight Year

U.K. energy production fell for the 11th consecutive year in 2012, although at a slower rate than in 2011. Figures from the Department for Energy and Climate Change, released Thursday, showed primary energy production fell 10.7% on the year as maintenance activity and a long-term output decline led to sharp falls in output from the […]

Pessimistic people ‘live longer’

Older people blighted by pessimism and fear for the future are more likely to live longer, according to scientists. A study, into 40,000 adults across ten years, has found those with low expectations for a “satisfying future” actually led healthier lives. In contrast, people who were “overly optimistic” about the days ahead had a greater […]

Nuclear Expert: “The Melted Core Cracked The Containment Vessel, There Really Is No Containment” At Fukushima Reactors

Steven Starr – Director of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at the University of Missouri/Senior Scientist at Physicians for Social Responsibility – said: The Japanese basically lied about what happened with the reactors for months. They said they were trying to prevent a meltdown, when in fact they knew within the first couple of days […]

BP Praised Halliburton Work on Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig

BP Plc (BP/) officials praised Halliburton Co. (HAL)’s cement work on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig just hours before the drilling platform exploded and sent oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, according to e-mails made public in court. BP supervisors overseeing the Macondo well off the coast of Louisiana said the Halliburton […]

Food Production and Energy Usage, Efficiency

In a world where billions of people go hungry every day, the very idea that a good chunk of our global food production goes to waste sounds outrageous. But this is what happens. The problem is so serious that it has prompted the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to […]

The Top Oil Finds Of 2013

Last year was a record one for major new discoveries, and 2013 has so far demonstrated that the road to discovery still has plenty of mileage. The past two months alone have netted new finds in Egypt, a flurry of promising exploration results in East and West Africa, some important moves toward commercial viability in […]

National Breakdown of Recent Oil Supply Flatness

In trying to understand why global oil supply has flattened out lately (in 2012 for the whole world, and since late 2010 for non-OPEC supply), I found it helpful to make the above graph which shows the top ten countries, and bottom ten countries, for change in oil supply between the second half of 2010, […]

American Petroleum Institute Addresses Record-High Gasoline Prices

American Petroleum Institute (API) held a press conference Tuesday addressing high gasoline prices and noted that more crude oil production and efficient consumption of oil products are key to addressing higher gasoline prices, API’s Chief Economist John Felmy told reporters. “We have very large oil resources here in the United States and technologies that are […]

Can we live again in 1964’s energy world?

“Everything has to get worse. We are behaving so badly.” Vaclav Smil, you should know, talks very fast in staccato bursts and doesn’t own a cell phone. The University of Manitoba professor, perhaps one of Canada’s most precise energy analysts, also doesn’t want to be the servant of a communication machine. “Everyone wants a piece […]

The impending threat of peak oil

In my ideal America, we’d all be tree-hugging, granola-crunchin’ environmentalists living in log cabins powered by solar panels. Every child would have a deep reverence for nature. We would not view nature as a separate entity, but seek out our own place in it, aware of the impact our species has on the greater ecosystem. […]

Orlov: Monkey Trap Nation

A few weeks ago I flew back to Boston from St. Petersburg. Nine time zones is a lot to fly through in a day, especially when flying west. It all adds up to a single very long day that just won’t end. When I had left Boston, I set up the boat to stay above […]

Iran Said to Plan Countering Offer by World Powers

Iran is preparing a counteroffer to a proposal by the U.S. and its partners to ease some banking, petrochemical and gold sanctions if the nation curbs its atomic activities, according to two officials close to negotiations over the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear program. At the talks today in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Iran was offered limited sanctions […]

Bernanke Testimony To Senate: Defends QE

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke defended the central bank’s unprecedented asset purchases, saying they are supporting the expansion with little risk of inflation or asset-price bubbles. “We do not see the potential costs of the increased risk- taking in some financial markets as outweighing the benefits of promoting a stronger economic recovery,” Bernanke said […]

Britain signs off on more North Sea oil

British energy company Maersk Oil announced it was approved to develop an oil field in the North Sea that could hold as much as 9 million barrels of oil. Maersk said its field development plan for the Balloch oil field about 140 miles off the coast of Scotland, was approved by the British Department of […]

World powers and Iran begin nuclear talks

Iran said it was prepared to make an offer to major powers in talks on its nuclear programme in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, after the United States proposed limited sanctions relief in return for a halt to the most controversial work. The first meeting in eight months between Iran and the five permanent members of the […]

Local currency, tick. But what about our national currency?

Local currencies for local economies. Since the launch of the Bristol Pound there can be no doubt that it’s been a tremendous success in raising awareness of shopping local, supporting independent retailers and strengthening connections between local businesses and people in Bristol. But what about the national economy? In any realistic vision of the future […]

Peak Oil’s Impact: Antifreeze

Oil plays an essential role in almost everything that touches our everyday lives. From the food we eat to the means by which we transport ourselves, our goods, and our services, to what we grow, build, have, own, need, and do, oil is almost always an important element. But the painful truth now and soon […]

The Coming Water Wars

Water is not scarce. It is made up of the first and third most common elements in the universe, and the two readily react to form a highly stable compound that maintains its integrity even at temperature extremes. Hydrologist Dr. Vincent Kotwicki, in his paper Water in the Universe, writes: “Water appears to be one […]

US oil imports from Middle East increase

The US was more reliant on the Middle East for its oil imports last year, underscoring the critical importance of the politically unstable region for the country despite the growing energy independence its shale gas revolution is bringing. That domestic production boom has triggered intense debate over whether the US would still guard the world’s […]

Morning in America? U.S. economy poised to accelerate

Famed U.S. economist Milton Friedman once observed that a recovery from recession is like plucking a guitar string: The harder the economy is pushed down, the faster it snaps back. That didn’t happen when America began to exit a deep downturn in 2009. Now, though, after years of paltry growth and despite a government austerity […]

Heinberg: Deficit Reduction = Recession

The math is not difficult. The US has an annual GDP of $14 trillion, and the nation’s current $1 trillion in annual deficit spending is seven percent of its GDP. Growth in GDP has recently been running at about two percent annually (though in the last quarter of 2012 the economy actually contracted slightly). The […]

Next Generation Biofuels: Pathways To Production

Biofuel technologies for the commercial fleet While gasoline drives consumer mobility, it’s diesel that we turn to for the heavy-duty vehicle (HDV) fleet. Diesel fuel use accounts for roughly 20 percent of U.S. petroleum use and has an even greater share in European markets. Although ethanol is the primary biofuel used to displace gasoline, biofuel […]

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LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Is It Time To Abandon the Idea of Phasing Out Oil and Gas?
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• Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser says energy transition strategy ‘visibly failing’
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• 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