The Inevitable Death of Natural Gas as a ‘Bridge Fuel’

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently announced the city is scrapping plans for a multi-billion-dollar update to three natural gas power plants, instead choosing to invest in renewable energy and storage. “This is the beginning of the end of natural gas in Los Angeles,” said Mayor Garcetti. “The climate crisis demands that we move more quickly to end dependence […]

Global Population Decline And Economic Growth

Rising population was thought to be bad for our standard of living, with classic books such as Limits to Growth and Population Bomb projecting fewer resources per person and environmental collapse. A new book, Empty Planet, makes the forecast that world population will hit a peak and then decline. The authors take this as positive […]

Pak-India Nuclear War Can End World Population By 90%

The US expert warned that other neighbouring countries would also have to face heavy losses in case of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Islamabad (Pakistan Point News – 23rd February, 2019) The Pak-India war can reduce the world population by 90 per cent, a US expert has observed. The US expert has made […]

Empty Supertankers Uncover Truths About Today’s Oil Market

They are slowly plowing their way across thousands of miles of ocean toward America’s Gulf of Mexico coastline. As they do, twelve empty supertankers are also revealing a few truths about today’s global oil market. In normal times, the vessels would be filled with heavy, high sulfur Middle East oil for delivery to refineries in […]

Anyone Buying This Venezuela Bullshit Is A Complete Fucking Moron

#VenezuelaAidLive is trending on Twitter in the USA as I write this, forced to the forefront of public consciousness and into everyone’s eyeballs by a concert staged by billionaire plutocrat Richard Branson. Branson’s Virgin Group controls hundreds of companies and brings in some $21 billion annually, with Branson himself valued at around five billion dollars. […]

Food shocks increase as world warms

More than ever, the world’s ways of keeping hunger at bay are taking a pounding as food shocks become more frequent. Potatoes are being baked in heat waves. Corn is being parched by drought. Fruit is being bitten by frost. And a long-term study suggests that for the world’s farmers and graziers, fishing crews and fish […]

Cracks Begin To Form In Saudi-Russian Alliance

Could cracks be forming in the bromance between Saudi Arabia and Russia over oil production quotas? According to one analyst, the answer could be – yes. The background for one of the biggest structural changes in global markets in recent history dates back only a few years when OPEC defacto leader Saudi Arabia mismanaged its […]

BP’s ‘Peak Oil’ Demand Prediction Falls Flat

Always mandatory reading, BP just released its Energy Outlook 2019.  It has caused quite a stir again this year. But, this time the commotion that I see surrounds BP’s forecast that the global war on plastics will be the main factor in cutting global oil demand faster than previously expected. As such, for the first time BP’s outlook predicted a “peak” […]

Gail Tverberg: Have We Already Passed World Peak Oil and World Peak Coal?

Most people expect that our signal of an impending reduction in world oil or coal production will be high prices. Looking at historical data (for example, this post and this post), this is precisely the opposite of the correct price signal. Oil and coal supplies decline because prices fall too low for producers. These producers […]

The World’s Largest Battery To Power The Permian

Borden County, Texas, is set to become the home of the world’s largest battery storage system in 2021. IP Juno, a unit of Intersect Power LLC, has recently outlined plans to build a 495-MW storage system together with a solar farm of the same size in Borden County, a small community in West Texas in […]

Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?

Great civilisations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives. So concluded the historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History. It was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilisations. He was right in some respects: civilisations are often responsible for their own decline. However, their […]

Iran Starts Massive Drill in Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman

Iranian naval forces on Friday started a massive three-day drill, codenamed “Velayat 97”, in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. The drill is being held in an area of two million square kilometers, from the Strait of Hormuz to the southeastern coasts of Makran, the Sea of Oman and the northern parts of […]

It’s Not Just The Permian. Super Basins Are A Global Phenomenon

Forget what you may have heard. Fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere. There is a lot of excitement, and deservedly so, about renewables, but the foundation of our energy supply is and will continue to be hydrocarbons for at least the next few decades. There are several reasons for that, but an important part of the […]

The Road To 10 Billion: Where Is Global Population Actually Headed?

It was a girl. On Sunday, October 30, 2011, just before midnight, Danica May Camacho entered the world in a crowded Manila hospital, bringing the human population of our planet to seven billion. Actually, the scales could have tipped a few hours later, in a village in Uttar Pradesh, India, with the arrival of Nargis […]

Get ready for pushback in the war on plastic

© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Petrochemicals are becoming increasingly important to the oil industry as cars go electric. The fossil fuel industry’s lobbying has been effective in Washington, slowing efficiency improvements for cars, rolling back light bulb regulations, and so much more. But the rise of the electric car is expected to put a big dent […]

Fueling a Green New Deal with Liquefied Natural Gas

Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has gotten much attention by proposing a Green New Deal, a far-ranging proposal to shift the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels over the next decade while somehow creating millions of good-paying jobs. Her plan amounts to turning success into failure by ignoring the vast economic and environmental benefits natural gas […]

The Biggest Problem Behind The US Shale Boom

U.S. shale production is expected to continue to soar well into the 2020s. And that is a major problem. Over the past decade, U.S. oil production has more than doubled, surging from 5 million barrels per day (mb/d) to close to 12 mb/d today. Natural gas also rose significantly, rising from 21 trillion cubic feet […]

New Oil Discovery Could Spur China’s Shale Boom

A PetroChina test oil well at a shale field in western China could finally mean a strong commercial potential for shale oil for the first time in the world’s top crude importer, according to Morgan Stanley. PetroChina achieved a daily production rate of 100 tons of oil, or 733 barrels, from the Jimsar oil field […]

As More Electric Cars Arrive, What’s The Future For Gas-Powered Engines?

Most American automobiles are powered by internal combustion engines: Gas or diesel goes in, tiny explosions power pistons and turn a crankshaft, the car moves forward, and carbon dioxide goes out. But a growing chorus environmental activists, business analysts and auto executives are predicting a sea change as battery-powered electric vehicles grow in popularity. Going […]

Iranian Says Israel ‘Looking for War’

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the EU needs to be willing to ‘get wet’ [Andreas Gebert/ Reuters] more on Iran Iran summons Pakistan envoy to protest deadly suicide attacktoday Iranian FM Zarif says Israel ‘looking for war’today Rouhani unveils Iran’s cruise missile-equipped Fateh submarinetoday Javier Solana on possible arms race in Europe: ‘I’m […]

Which species are we sure we can survive without?

Two years ago I asked the question in the title of this piece. Now comes a wide-ranging study that suggests we are about to test that question in a major way. The study predicts that at the current rate of loss of insect species, 40 percent could be gone “in the next few decades.” What […]

Oil Will Continue to Play Significant Role

Although the precise outlook is uncertain, the world looks set to consume significant amounts of oil for several decades. That’s according to BP’s latest Energy Outlook, launched in London on Thursday, which considers a range of scenarios. All the scenarios in BP’s 2019 outlook suggest that oil will continue to play a significant role in […]

Big Oil’s Big Issue With Embracing ‘Big Energy

Oil majors increasingly are trying their hand at being alternative-energy minors. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which traces its roots back to the late 19th century, just bought Greenlots, a California software company serving the electric-vehicle charging sector. This follows other deals by Shell — along with the likes of BP Plc, Chevron Corp. and Total SA — […]

It’s All Going Wrong Again for OPEC

Even as oil producing states in OPEC and beyond begin implementing the output cuts they agreed in December, the world’s need for their crude is shrinking further, suggesting that they will need to extend the deal through the second half of the year. The latest forecasts from supply-and-demand studies of the oil industry’s most-watched organizations – […]

Nature doesn’t need people

Harrison Ford is a man who has the knack of being in the right place at the right time. And if he didn’t, he’d likely now be a retired carpenter who worked doing odd in and around Los Angeles. Maybe he’d be living on a pension in one of those boardwalked coastal towns up and […]

Mexican president announces bailout for cash-strapped Pemex

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced a $3.9 billion bailout for the country’s cash-strapped, state-owned oil company Friday and promised it an additional $1.6 billion in revenue, making it a rescue package of up to $5.5 billion. Lopez Obrador has made rescuing Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, a centerpiece of his first 100 days in […]

1st contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima

A probe touched melted nuclear fuel debris in a destroyed reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, a long-awaited milestone in the battle toward decommissioning, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Feb. 13. The rod-like probe, fitted with 3-centimeter-long claws, lifted pieces of the nuclear fuel debris during the eight-hour operation at the bottom of […]

Saudi Aramco Is Coming Out to Play

According to Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia’s energy and industry minister and chairman of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., “the world is going to be Saudi Aramco’s playground.” If it is, then that will be partly because some others have ceded ground. In an interview with the Financial Times published this week, Al-Falih sketched out plans for Saudi […]

Who is Elliott Abrams, US special envoy for Venezuela?

Almost immediately after Venezuelan Juan Guaido declared himself the country’s interim president on January 23, the United States led a chorus of other countries in recognising the opposition leader as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president. President Nicolas Maduro, who enjoys the support of the highest ranks of the military, as well as China, Turkey and Russia, […]

Kuntler: Worms Turning

And so now along comes Andy McCabe, former Number Two at the FBI, publicizing his new book, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, on this Sunday’s CBS 60-Minutes show, confirming what I said on this blog two years ago — that the Deep State would try to […]

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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