US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design

On Friday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it would be issuing a certification to a new nuclear reactor design, making it just the seventh that has been approved for use in the US. But in some ways, it’s a first: the design, from a company called NuScale, is a small modular reactor that […]

Saudi Arabia announces peak production in 2027

The information received less comment than the “check” exchanged between Joe Biden and Mohammed bin Salman. However, it is more important for the energy future of humanity. During his meeting with the US President on July 16, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia announced that the country’s oil production is set to peak at 13 […]

U.S. Plans to Push Down Oil Prices Won’t Be Straightforward

The Biden administration announced plans Tuesday for the next tranche of sales from the strategic petroleum reserve, as well as a proposal for future purchases to refill the SPR. The sales announcement is the latest under the administration’s plan announced in March to sell 180 million barrels from the SPR over a six month period, […]

Earth ‘Overshoot Day’: human consumption exceeds what planet can produce in a year

Mankind marks a dubious milestone Thursday, the day by which humanity has consumed all earth can sustainably produce for this year, with NGOS warning the rest of 2022 will be lived in resource deficit. The date – dubbed “Earth Overshoot Day” – marks a tipping point when people have used up “all that ecosystems can […]

Kunstler: Playing Chicken with the Fates

…The Senate is scheduled to be in recess August 6 to September 6 for politicking back home. Maybe after that Senator Grassley will actually produce his whistleblowers in open session…. Who is surprised that the US government’s war on the American people is not going any better than its sponsored war in Ukraine? The only […]

Peak Gold and Peak Oil are Here

With the world consuming five times more oil than it is discovering, Peak Oil and Peak Gold have finally arrived.  However, the world hasn’t figured this out yet, but it will.  And, when it does, we will see much higher prices for precious metals in the future.  Why?  Peak oil equals peak gold and peak […]

Europe can withstand Russia’s energy threats

Not since World War II has the threat to global energy security been as severe as it is today. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and the consequent geo-economic war between the Kremlin and the West disrupted global gas markets at a scale unprecedented in recent history. The Kremlin’s use of its power over energy markets […]

Russia And China Announce “New Global Reserve Currency”

If you’ve blinked over the last month, you may have missed it… China and Russia are taking their shot at the U.S. dollar. And as often happens with consequential news in the United States and the West, no one seems to notice or even care. Since the beginning of the year, I have been writing […]

We Appear To Be Very Close To Peak Global Oil Production, And That Has Enormous Implications For The Entire Global Economy

What do you think is going to happen when we get to a point where the world simply cannot produce any more oil than it is already producing?  It is often said that “energy is the economy”, and to a large degree that is true.  Very wealthy nations with large GDPs tend to use a […]

Is China’s Population About to Start Shrinking?

The Chinese population is projected to shrink this year for the first time since the Great Famine that took place between 1959 and 1961. China is currently the world’s most populous country, with a population of more than 1.4 billion people – more than one sixth of the entire world’s population. However, according to China’s […]

Is President Biden About to Cripple Big Oil?

With the stroke of a pen, President Biden could single-handedly gut the U.S. oil industry. And some believe that’s what he’s about to do. After Sen. Joe Manchin announced he wouldn’t vote for a bill that addresses climate change, environmentalists, scientists, and policy leaders are calling for the president to declare a climate change national […]

Europe Must Cut Gas Usage 20% To Survive Winter

After calling on all member states to reduce gas consumption by 15% in the face of the threat of a complete Russian gas cutoff, the IEA says the European Union will need to cut even more in order to get through the winter. “Even if there is no single accident… #Europe still needs to reduce […]

Saudi Arabia Nears Its Oil Pumping Limit

Saudi Arabia has limited additional capacity to ramp up oil production, according to people familiar with its pumping ability, a constraint that would make it difficult for Riyadh to increase global supply even if it were willing to do so. President Biden recently wrapped up a high-profile trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he expected the […]

Who Really Controls The World’s Oil Reserves?

Big Oil majors in the United States have found themselves the target of much pressure to boost production lately, as prices go wild amid a tight—and tightening—market. At the same time, the U.S. government, as well as the EU, have been looking all over the world for more supply. Wood Mackenzie just had some bad […]

Tehran ‘capable of building nuclear bomb’

Tehran is technically capable of making a nuclear bomb but has yet to decide whether to build it, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Al Jazeera’s Arabic service on Sunday. Tehran will also directly respond against Israel should its security be targeted, the report says citing the advisor. “In a few […]

How Fossil Fuels Made the Human Race Dependent on a Finite Resource

Carey King of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin discusses how the last 70 years of economic and population growth have been fueled by the transition to petroleum, how a decreasing supply of it has increased political polarization, and what the future might hold as supplies continue to dwindle. Carey’s book, The […]

The Story of Oil 1822–1922

IN 1822 the oil industry was in full swing. Around the world, the smelly process of heating up whale blubber to extract the precious liquid went on as fast as the boats could bring it in. This was the oil which lubricated the engines and machines of the industrial revolution. As well as blubber, a […]

Biden’s Saudi visit aims to balance rights, oil, security

President Joe Biden met Friday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man he once pledged to shun for human rights violations, and shared a cordial fist bump as he tried to reset an important diplomatic relationship, bolster Mideast security and increase the global flow of oil. It was the first encounter for the […]

You Will Own Nothing And Be Happy Now

You will own nothing and you will be happy. This may sound like a crazy idea, but it’s something that more and more people are starting to believe in. In an article published in Forbes by the World Economic Forum, the authors talk about how we will eventually live in a system where your whole […]

World Population To Hit 8 Bn This Year

The world’s population is expected to reach eight billion on November 15, the UN forecast Monday in a report that said India will surpass China as the most populous country on earth in 2023. That overall population milestone “is a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect […]

How Much Fossil Fuel is Left?

Fossil fuel powers the economic engine of civilization. With a minor disruption in the supply of fossil fuel, crops wither and supply chains crash. With a major disruption, a humanitarian apocalypse engulfs the world. Events of the past few months have made this clear. Without energy, civilization dies, and in 2020 fossil fuel continued to […]

With world in energy shock, Saudi oil cushion gets very thin

When French President Emmanuel Macron whispered in Joe Biden’s ear last month that top global oil exporter Saudi Arabia has very little additional capacity to increase output, the U.S. President looked surprised. Biden is due to land in Riyadh later this month, and he will likely hear the same sobering message – don’t count much […]

The Landfill Economy

Our economy is in a crisis that’s been brewing for decades… The Chinese characters for the English word crisis are famously – and incorrectly – translated as danger and opportunity. The more accurate translation is precarious plus critical juncture or inflection point. Beneath its surface stability, our economy is precarious because the foundation of the global economy – cheap […]

Millions Of Barrels From US Emergency Oil Reserve Sent Abroad, Including To China

With a growing number of people realizing that the Biden administration has drained more oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve, which is meant to be used during real emergencies not fake, made up ones such as Democrats facing a catastrophic failure at the midterm elections… … more people are starting to ask the next […]

Hydrocarbon Myths Dispelled

We are experiencing the full range of energy comments in the U.S. these days, some true and others completely void of any facts to support their assertion. In this article, we will look at common hydrocarbon myths being circulated to explain why oil prices are up, “Big Oil” is fixing prices at elevated levels, and […]

The Benefits of World Hunger

We sometimes talk about hunger in the world as if it were a scourge that all of us want to see abolished, viewing it as comparable with the plague or aids. But that naïve view prevents us from coming to grips with what causes and sustains hunger. Hunger has great positive value to many people. […]

Biochar from Bamboo

“How fast can the climate of earlier centuries be restored?“   In an Hawaiian origin legend, the Polynesian creator god Kāne brought forth light from endless blackness while Lono created sound and Kü created substance. The first man was molded in clay by the three deities in the image of Kāne. Aloha, the traditional greeting, […]

The End of the Industrial Age

The fourth enduring theme of my blogging over the last sixteen years, the decline and fall of modern industrial civilization, is also the one that most people try hardest to misunderstand. It’s not just that so many people blankly insist that it can’t happen and of course we’re on our way to the stars, just […]

‘Warning of Easter Island’ is one that humanity must not ignore amid our population explosion

Nervous youths waited for the cue to throw themselves headlong into the ocean. In those next few moments, they would risk drowning, shark attacks, or falling to their deaths. Before them were small, near-inaccessible islets teeming with seabirds returning to nest. Somewhere out there, more than a mile across treacherous seas, was the prize – […]

Bezos Slams Biden Over Call for Lowering of Gas Prices

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos criticized a tweet from US President Joe Biden calling for oil executives to reduce gasoline prices. Bezos was responding to Biden’s criticism of companies running gas stations and setting prices for consumers. “This is a time of war and global peril,” the president tweeted on Saturday. “Bring down the price […]

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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