Russia arms its energy weapon

Russia finds itself once again in a row with one of its neighbors over gas prices — a constant theme since the early 2000s — triggering renewed fears that Moscow is again using energy as a weapon to put pressure on its customers. Back in the spotlight is Belarus, which has already been confronted with […]

Why Do We Pretend to Clean Up Ocean Oil Spills?

When the Deepwater Horizon well operated by BP (formerly British Petroleum) exploded and contaminated the Gulf of Mexico with at least 650 million litres of crude oil in 2010, blue-smocked animal rescuers quickly appeared on television screens. Looking like scrub nurses, the responders treated oil-coated birds with charcoal solutions, antibiotics and dish soap. They also […]

My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

The diary of a desperate mother trying to put food on the kitchen table. By Fabiola Zerpa | July 18, 2016 Photographs by Bloomberg Versión en español → Editor’s note: The looting, the blackouts, the mob lynchings, the hospitals with no supplies. Venezuela’s collapse into disarray is of a scale unseen in the Western Hemisphere […]

Is This the End of Alaskan Oil?

Oil and Alaska have maintained a close relationship since oil producers started pumping crude from the Alaskan North Slope region in the 1970s. For decades, Alaskan oil has created a large portion of the U.S.’s overall production, while the proceeds from oil created the bulk of the Alaskan economy. Recently, though, the U.S. Energy Information […]

Goldman Sachs sees ‘hidden demand’ for oil in China

China’s continued economic expansion, recent stimulus measures and still-growing consumption for some oil products appears to have upped its oil demand, Goldman Sachs said on Monday. “Conventional demand measure understates consumption as it misses processing gains and trade data such as LPG and mixed aromatics,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note to clients. The […]

The limits to society’s attention span: peak oil ten years after the ASPO-6 meeting in Pisa

  The concept of peak oil has gone through a peak, too, about ten years ago, approximately coincident with the sixth meeting of the association for the study of peak oil (ASPO) in Pisa, Italy. Ten years later, peak oil has nearly completely disappeared from the attention of the media and of the public.   […]

Kunstler: A Dark Prospect

I was in the streets of Chicago in 1968 during the Democratic Convention. It was only a few months after Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were shot to death. The “establishment,” as we called it back then, was all set to nominate Vice-president Hubert Humphrey who had started out in Washington as a Midwestern […]

Why This Oil Crisis Is Different To 2008

They say history repeats itself, and given the cyclical nature of the oil and gas business, many look to the past when trying to guess what is coming next, but past experience doesn’t always offer an exact model for the present. Much has changed between the 2008 oil and gas downcycle and the one the […]

The Laws of Capitalism are Being Rewritten

Poland, 1503: A young man named Nicolaus Copernicus returns home after years spent studying Catholicism and astrology among the priests and clerics of Italy. He is schooled in the ideas of Ptolemy, the Ancient Greek who had originally popularized the idea that the planets, sun and moon revolved around the earth. This idea had become accepted as […]

what it is ain’t exactly clear

Don’t know if I’m going up or down  -Jimi Hendrix Golden years Shu bop , shu bop – David Bowie Greetings       The big story in American politics seems to be that both parties have lost touch with middle america.    And middle america isn’t happy.   Now they are looking for someone to […]

Russia’s Arctic Oil Rush

High in the Arctic circle, three oil terminals on Russia’s northern coast are already exporting as much crude oil as Libya — and that flow could double in the next five years. Russian Output It’s a sign the development of remote deposits in the country’s harsh and fragile north will play an increasingly important role as […]

When Eisenhower Took on Big Oil

Republicans weren’t always opposed to big government intervention, and one of the party’s icons wasn’t afraid to do it against the wishes of the oil industry. In a presidential campaign pivoting on the assumption that corporate America rules America, we should remember that the perceptions and reality of corporate control have fluctuated wildly over the […]

Venezuela’s oil production just sank to a 13-year low

Venezuela’s oil production plunged to a 13-year low in June as the economic crisis continues to eat into the nation’s only source of export revenue. Venezuela’s oil production has declined by 170,000 barrels per day since the start of 2016, dipping to 2.18 million barrels per day (mb/d) in June, according to the IEA’s latest […]

M. King Hubbert and the future of peak oil

Almost synonymous with the term “peak oil” is M. King Hubbert, perhaps the foremost geophysicist of the 20th century, who first theorized about the eventual decline of oil production in the 1930s. His life has now been chronicled by science writer Mason Inman in a new biography entitled The Oracle of Oil. Depending upon whom […]

Is Oil Going Back Under $40?

In recent weeks the oil market has seen negative sentiment drive prices lower based on expectations of heightened output (some of which have been realized) from recent problem areas including Canada, Nigeria and Libya while refining margins have collapsed and Brexit has added to macro/demand concerns. Over the last two months speculators have trimmed net […]

Three Signs the End of Oil Exports is Coming

The first sign of the end of oil exports has already happened. The second is expected in about six yearsand the third in twenty years, by which time the price of oil will have dramatically increased and worldwide  oil exports will have effectively ceased. Broad systemic change involving new technologies has historically taken longer than […]

Coup In Turkey Fails

Defiant Turks prepare for a fresh uprising after 250 are killed: Brave civilians take to the streets again after seeing off a failed military coup, dragging cowering soldiers from their tanks and beating them in the streets Civilians reclaimed Turkey from their own military after helping to end coup to overthrow ruling President Erdogan Ordinary […]

Some reflections on the Twilight of the Oil Age (Part II)

by Louis Arnoux (Part I here) Part 2 – Enquiring into the appropriateness of the question Let’s acknowledge it, the situation we are in, as depicted summarily in Part 1, is complex. As many commentators like to state, there is still plenty of oil, coal, and gas left “in the ground”. Since 2014, debates have […]

The Fuel That May Halt The Electric Car Revolution

Electric cars are often touted as the nail in the coffin for gasoline-powered vehicles. However, there’s another fuel revolution in the developing world, which is changing the economics of electric cars. Whether it’s CNG, LNG, autogas, or propane, gaseous-hydrocarbon fuels turn conventional cars into dual-fuel vehicles, and limit the uptake of electric cars in these […]

Peak Oil; Climate Change; & System Justification

Research has powerfully illustrated that a lack of knowledge in domains such as energy and the environment can lead to bad decisions and erroneous beliefs that hinder a society’s ability to create change in domains that require it KNOWLEDGE & UNDERSTANDING Rather self-evident, isn’t it? Certainly that observation is not limited to energy and environment, […]

Oil Prices Lower Forever? Hard Times In A Failing Global Economy

Two years into the global oil-price collapse, it seems unlikely that prices will return to sustained levels above $70 per barrel any time soon or perhaps, ever. That is because the global economy is exhausted. The current oil-price rally is over, as I predicted several months ago, and prices are heading toward $40 per barrel. Oil has been re-valued to affordable levels based […]

The Rise of the Supermarkets

The origins of the supermarket are steeped in social purpose. They emerged initially as co-operative societies formed among the working classes as a means of securing a supply of good quality food for their members. With obvious connections to, and sharing similarities with the ‘seditious’ benefit clubs of the eighteen century, the first co-operatives date […]

100000 oil jobs could be coming back

Good news laid-off oil workers: U.S. energy companies could soon face a serious worker shortage. Goldman Sachs believes the American oil industry is about to stage a big comeback from the painful downturn and big job losses caused by oversupply. As more oil fields come on line and America’s oil boom gets back on track, […]

Is peak oil demand in sight?

Our latest research suggests lower long-term growth in demand for oil than previously forecast. This warrants a fresh, critical look at energy investments. Energy outlook: Key insights Our business-as-usual case integrates the latest McKinsey view on economic-growth fundamentals and granular sector and regional insights. Six key points have emerged: Growth in global energy demand will […]

Biodiversity falls below ‘safe levels’ globally

Levels of global biodiversity loss may negatively impact on ecosystem function and the sustainability of human societies, according to UCL-led research. “This is the first time we’ve quantified the effect of habitat loss on biodiversity globally in such detail and we’ve found that across most of the world biodiversity loss is no longer within the […]

French experts to build experimental reactor in Iran

 Iran has reached an agreement with France to participate in an international project for the construction of the experimental reactor ITER, the Iranian news agency Fars announced today . The Iranian representatives have come to a general agreement with France on the issue of cooperation in the international project on nuclear fusion, which is known […]

In World Of $50 Oil, Shale Beats Deepwater

U.S. shale is the lowest cost option for new oil production and is likely to be more competitive than conventional offshore drilling, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie. The U.S. shale industry has weathered the oil price downturn, tweaking drilling practices and cutting costs in order to stay in business. A new report […]

Heinberg: What We as a People Can Do

Ed. note: This is Chapter 10 of Richard Heinberg’s and David Fridley’s new book, Our Renewable Future, now available from Island Press. Post Carbon Institute’s companion website, ourrenewablefuture.org has also just been launched and contains additional content not in the book. Sound national and international climate policies are crucial: without them, it will be impossible […]

The Dawn of a New Dark Age

By Ian Morris “The end of a world,” ABC News called Britain’s vote to leave the European Union on June 24. As if in agreement, the pound immediately racked up its biggest-ever one-day loss against the dollar. Over the next three days, the Dow Jones index fell 4.8 percent, London’s FTSE 100 lost 5.6 percent, […]

Link between U.S. oil drilling and rise in earthquakes

Stopping an earthquake before it starts? It sounds like a feat possible only for a superhero. But in Kansas and Oklahoma state policymakers are showing that insofar as humans are causing earthquakes, they can stop them, too. After restricting oil and natural gas operations in certain hotspots, Oklahoma is feeling an average of about two […]

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