Texas Hit Hard By Shale Slowdown

Texas’ economy is perhaps the most vulnerable to oil price swings given its leading role in the country’s oil industry. Recently, as prices have remained low, talk has begun about the outlook for the state’s economy. According to a recent Reuters report, for example, smaller independent oil and gas producers in the Lone Star State […]

s a new Arab Spring unfolding in the Middle East?

As the last of the Middle Eastern summer fades away, is the region slipping into a new Arab spring? In Iraq, demonstrators are being shot dead in the streets. In Lebanon, protesters have paralysed the country and seem set to bring down the government of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. In recent weeks the Egyptian security […]

‘Mission creep’: US to block Russian, Syrian forces from vast oil fields

The U.S. mission in Syria has morphed far beyond counterterrorism operations and now puts American forces in a position where they could battle Russian troops for control of Syrian oil. A day after President Trump announced a successful raid that resulted in the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Pentagon officials said the […]

Nuclear Fusion: Still Frustratingly Far Off Despite Recent Signs of Momentum

Governments are not giving up on nuclear fusion making a meaningful contribution to the global decarbonization efforts, despite the technology’s obvious challenges. Last month, for example, the U.K. government pledged £220 million ($283 million) toward getting a fusion power plant up and running by 2040, as part of moves to cut the country’s emissions to […]

Oil majors struggle to counter Extinction Rebellion narrative

Oil companies are squarely in the aim of Extinction Rebellion’s campaign against fossil fuels, and they are struggling to find a response. Instead of running away when confronted by climate change activists, it is time the industry’s top executives from companies such as BP, Shell and Total provided these campaigners with some hard economic facts […]

The oil age is coming to a close

The oil industry faces an uncertain future. The world is rapidly waking up to the severity and immediacy of the threat from climate change. At the same time, electric vehicles are getting cheap enough to compete with internal-combustion engines. Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects electrics to begin taking over in about a decade: Meanwhile, concerns […]

Will OPEC+ Extend the Cuts?

OPEC+ will, at the very least, extend production curbs beyond the March 2020 deadline. That’s according to Stephen Brennock, an oil analyst at PVM Oil Associates, who said failure to do so would send oil prices “plunging into the abyss” and is not in line with the group’s “long-held commitment to stabilize the oil market”. Fitch […]

World ‘Awash’ in Oil as U.S. Sees Its Shale Boom Barreling Ahead

Global markets are “awash” in crude thanks to the surge in U.S. oil output, and the boom looks set to continue, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in a Bloomberg TV interview. U.S. shale production has turned the world “on its head,” and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is “off a bit” in a report last […]

Are Concrete Blocks the Next Batteries?

Energy VaultYouTube Energy storage is an increasingly large problem with renewable energy. Energy Vault wants to solve it by storing extra energy as potential energy in concrete blocks. The company recently received a major investment from Japanese holding company SoftBank. That money will allow Energy Vault to build its first full-scale prototypes. In August 2019, […]

Ukrainian Rhapsody

“Our future will be more about artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and non-state actors than stump speeches from the back of a bunted caboose. Facebook and Twitter have been weaponized.“ There has been a recurrent theme here at The Great Change over the past several months. It began with revelations from whistleblowers from Cambridge Analytica speaking to […]

Report From Iran: The Country Moves Onward

  Above, Ugo Bardi giving a talk at the University of Tehran, October 2019 Iran is a country that maintains something of the fascination it had in ancient times, when it was both fabulous and remote. In our times, it remained somewhat remote, but also something that couldn’t be ignored as it went through a […]

Blowout: Rachel Maddow

Charismatic frackers. Poisoned pets and people. Creating earthquakes in Oklahoma. Sleeper Russian agents living in sleepy American neighborhoods. An unflappable oil executive and future secretary of state. Russian thugs. Deepwater Horizon. More Russians. A corrupt dictator’s son who loves spending his oil “earnings” on everything but especially Michael Jackson memorabilia. Rachel Maddow takes on the […]

Extreme Climate Change Has Already Arrived

As I record this radio show the temperature in San Jose is already over 100 degrees. So this week’s show is not just about the future hazards of global warming, but the fact that extreme climate change has already arrived. I know that a hot day in San Jose is just a reflection of the […]

I Feel It Coming – Natural Gas Exports To Mexico Swell, But Is a Tidal Wave Coming?

For some time now, natural gas producers in the Permian and the Eagle Ford have been counting on rising pipeline exports to Mexico to help absorb a lot of the incremental production in their plays. Their hopes have been bolstered in the past couple of years by the build-out of a number of new pipelines […]

Renewed protests challenge Iraqi government as death toll rises

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi’s year-old government hung on to power Friday, as mass protests over corruption, unemployment, and poor services — and a heavy-handed government response to recent demonstrations — brought parts of Baghdad and southern Iraq to a standstill. The Iraq Human Rights Commission said late Friday that at least 30 people […]

“We Want To Keep The Oil”

“Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand, workin’ in the dark against your fellow man. But as sure as God made black and white what’s down in the dark will be brought to the light.” ~ Johnny Cash/traditional, ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’ The Grayzone has an excellent new article out titled […]

The First ‘Commercially Viable’ Fusion Power Plant in the Making

Clean Energy is the need of the hour and UK is taking charge to build the first commercially viable fusion power plant for unlimited clean, safe, and carbon-free energy. Fremont, CA: Fusion researchers have always faced criticism due to the unfulfilled promise of nuclear fusion reactor from the critics. However, in recent years, the fusion […]

Pentagon readying plan to contain Islamic State, safeguard oil

U.S. military leaders are preparing a plan that could keep Islamic State fighters from regaining a foothold in Syria, while preventing Syrian oil from falling into the hands of Iran or the militant group, a Republican senator said on Thursday. “There’s a plan coming together from the Joint Chiefs that I think may work, that […]

Megadam: ‘Obsolete Technology’ Wreaks Havoc across the Americas

It’s a technology that’s been all but abandoned in wealthy countries, where costs began outpacing benefits decades ago. Yet a global boom in major dam construction, mainly in developing countries, is currently underway, with an estimated 3,700 now under construction or in the planning stages. Latin America is ground zero for much of this development, with nearly 400 […]

Washington Thwarts Maduro’s Devious Oil Debt Scheme

The U.S. Treasury is blocking for 90 days creditors from seizing shares in Venezuela’s U.S. subsidiary Citgo, temporarily shielding the prized Venezuelan asset in a win for Venezuela’s opposition and its leader Juan Guaidó. Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA must make a payment of US$913 million on a 2020 bond on Monday, October 28, but […]

6 Warning Signs That Civil Unrest Is Imminent

This week has been “interesting” in South America. Interesting, indeed, but as in the ancient Chinese curse style. For those of us in this side of the hemisphere, having been able to witness first-hand, in the front line, how the very same plot that made us get the heck out of our country, is unleashing a vendetta […]

Peak Shale: How US oil output went from explosive to sluggish

  Photo: James Durbin Jerry Moore, driller onboard Robinson Drilling rig #4, stands outside the control room of the rig Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, in Midland County. James Durbin/Reporter-Telegram America’s shale boom got the world accustomed to soaring production. Now growth has slowed, and a cloud has formed over the industry. Hydraulic fracturing pushed the […]

The Myth That People Work Harder Under Capitalism

In the not so distant past, people didn’t work hard, but not for the reasons the ahistorical or socialists think. There were no happy peasants laboring a few hours in the fields and spending the rest of the day in leisure. They were starving and had no energy to work hard. Far from an idyllic […]

Major Blaze At Iran Oil Refinery Raises Suspicions Of Saudi Revenge Attack

A section of Iran’s sprawling Abadan oil refinery in the southwest of the country went up in flames Saturday, and state media sources reported the emergency was under control as of Sunday morning. State media is describing it as “a fire in a canal carrying waste from Iran’s Abadan oil refinery,” with Iranian official broadcaster IRIB saying, “The […]

Greta Thunberg’s climate change rally is crashed by counter-protest led by truck convoy of oil and gas workers in Canada

Greta Thunberg joined thousands of protesters marching in Canada‘s energy heartland Alberta yesterday as a smaller counter-rally led by a truck convoy of oil and gas workers also converged on the provincial capital Edmonton. A crowd of several thousand led by indigenous drummers with students, young people and families marched slowly from a downtown intersection […]

Our Economy Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It.

Last week at the UN Headquarters in New York, experts, ministers, civil servants and development workers gathered from around the world to discuss sustainable development. But they weren’t the only ones who were mobilising. For the last year or so, young people have been marching in their thousands – their hundreds of thousands – to […]

violent clashes hit Chile, Hong Kong, Lebanon and Barcelona

Here’s the latest in each of the country’s affected by unrest Riot police fire tear gas to disperse demonstrators during a protest targeting the government over an economic crisis, near the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon October 18, 2019. Reuters Protests have broken out in several countries across the world, with citizens unhappy for different […]

Chile declares state of emergency amid student riots

Protests and rioting have intensified in Santiago, where students are opposing a hike in the price of subway fares. Authorities enacted a state of emergency after a night of vandalism and violence. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera declared a state of emergency in parts of Santiago early Saturday morning after protesters started fires at subway stations […]

Venezuela’s Water System is Collapsing

Fetching water from a mountainside in the Venezuelan capital Caracas.CreditCreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Isayen Herrera Oct. 19, 2019, 10:13 a.m. ET     The brick shack on the outskirts of Venezuela’s capital is crowded with tubs, jugs and buckets. The water they hold must last the family of […]

U.S. Department of Transportation Proposes Major Rule for the Safe Transportation of Liquefied Natural Gas by Rail Tank Car

Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), announced that it is publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG).  The proposed rule will seek comment on changes to the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) to […]

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