Category: Peak Oil

Peak Oil will change the way the world works and our long-held assumptions about the world around us is going to be overturned. Peak oil will render millions of people jobless. Those who depend on food made thousands of kms away from where they stay will find food very expensive. That includes all of us who stay in big cities. So the future is a bit rocky. What should our response be? The intuitive thing that people think when confronted with the problem of oil depletion is that the answer lies in oil conservation. Oil conservation is a good idea but of little help when it comes to tackling the systemic changes that peak oil brings. Why is peak oil missed by the mainstream? I see two reasons. One is human nature which likes to avoid bad news and always believes in the magical power of science and technology. […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

We live in an era of limited resources—peak oil, peak phosphorous, peak everything. With the world population at nearly 7.4 billion and people living increasingly energy-intensive lifestyles, there has never been a more pressing need to conserve natural resources and develop renewable energy sources. A recent report from James Hansen and 16 other leading climate experts found that the international target of limiting global temperatures to a 2°C rise this century will not be nearly enough to prevent catastrophic melting of ice sheets that would raise sea levels much higher and much faster than previously thought possible. To make matters even worse, as 2015 shapes up to be the hottest year on record , scientists warn the world is set to pass the 1°C point this year. The icing on the cake? We won’t even have wine, coffee, tequila or chocolate to cope with runaway climate change .

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

That’s one dark perfect storm. Oil rig photo via Shutterstock. Economists, an irrational tribe of short-sighted mathematicians, are now calling Canada’s declining economic fortunes "a perfect storm." It seems to be the only weather that complex market economies generate these days, or maybe such things are just another face of globalization. In any case, economists now lament that low oil prices have upended the nation’s trade balance: "Canada has posted trade deficits every month this year, and the cumulative 2015 total of $13.6 billion is a record, exceeding the next highest, in 2009, of $2.95 billion." But this unique perfect storm gets darker. China, which Harperites eagerly embraced as the globe’s autocratic growth locomotive , has run out of steam. As the country’s notorious industrial revolution unwinds, China’s stock market has imploded. Communist party cadres are now putting their money in foreign housing markets in places like Vancouver. Throughout […]

Click here to view full article at thetyee.ca

The global financial and political scene is now undergoing a transition that goes largely unnoticed and escapes general comprehension. Many facts and indicators provide mounting evidence that the status of the US dollar as international reserve currency is being seriously threatened by the BRICS economic block and that alternative arrangements for international trade and commerce, planned two or three years ago, are being systematically implemented via the Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank and the Shanghai Gold Exchange. It might seem puzzling to some why any change would be necessary. The only logical explanation is that the super-elite group of bankers and royal families that secretly control global affairs have come to realize what’s threatening the world’s future prosperity today. Even though governments are not discussing this, statistics that apply the correct accounting and forecasting methods show that we reached peak oil in 2014. Many industry experts contend that 2015 […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Why are commodity prices, including oil prices, lagging? Ultimately, it comes back to the question, “ Why isn’t the world economy making very many of the end products that use these commodities? ” If workers were getting rich enough to buy new homes and cars, demand for these products would be raising the prices of commodities used to build and operate cars, including the price of oil. If governments were rich enough to build an increasing number of roads and more public housing, there would be demand for the commodities used to build roads and public housing. It looks to me as though we are heading into a deflationary depression, because prices of commodities are falling below the cost of extraction. We need rapidly rising wages and debt if commodity prices are to rise back to 2011 levels or higher. This isn’t happening. Instead, Janet Yellen is talking about […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Many believe we have a teetering world economy, even without Greece as an indicator. Now Greece is looming ever larger as a critical if unknown actor. It is mostly considered a bad one, for the entire European, and even the worldwide, financial system and economy. The Greek economy is approaching an almost unprecedented standstill. For clear reasons it probably will never get back to a "normal" or desirable level of consumption. When stepping back from witnessing the daily crisis, it would appear timely to ask what are the real factors in the big picture? Was the crisis brought on just by second-rate policies combined with inefficiency, corruption, and oppression? Or have longer-term characteristics of industrialism and Western Civilization’s relentless, aggressive growth caught up with us to undermine our future as a species? If so, the discussion about what’s wrong and how to deal with it has to change, and […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

Amazon subsidiary looks to wind power to meet energy needs of cloud-based subsidiary in North Carolina. File Photo by UPI/Pat Benic SEATTLE, July 15 (UPI) — The first utility-scale wind farm in North Carolina is part of a broader effort to reduce the carbon footprint, an arm of online retailer Amazon announced. The technology infrastructure division of the retailer, Amazon Web Services, announced it contracted Iberdrola Renewables to help build and operate a 208 megawatt wind farm in North Carolina . Dubbed Amazon Wind Farm U.S. East, the facility will generate about 670,000 megawatt hours of electricity and be the state’s first utility-scale wind farm once up and running by December 2016. The Amazon subsidiary in November committed to getting 100 percent of its electricity needs from renewable resources, with the aim of meeting 40 percent of that goal by the end of 2016. Jerry Hunter, a vice president […]

Click here to view full article at www.upi.com

The EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook came out a few days ago. That is where they try to guess the future production and price for oil, for the USA as well as the world. As of late they seem to be getting a little timid with their predictions. They are saying not much growth is happening until the fourth quarter of 2016, and only a slight bump then. (Click to enlarge) This chart is Non-OPEC Total Liquids in million barrels per day. Production of N.O Liquids surged upwards from September of 2012 until December 2014, gaining 6.38 million barrels per day in those 27 months. That’s an average increase of 236,000 barrels per day per month. But then in January 2015 there was a drop of 800,000 bpd. Non-OPEC total liquids still have not reached that December high again but the EIA thinks they will by August. I have my […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Image Credit: REUTERS/Stringer Domestic production looks set to peak, with some profound implications for the world market. Intense focus on the North American shale boom, Saudi Arabia, and ISIS obscures an important emerging energy trend: China’s oil production is peaking. This has profound implications for the world oil market, because China is not just a massive importer of crude; it is also among the world’s five largest oil producers , trailing only the U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia, and virtually neck-in-neck with Canada. China’s oil industry has delivered impressive oil and gas production growth over the past decade. Yet a range of data and historical analogies increasingly suggest that, at global oil prices between $50-to-$100 per barrel, China’s oil supply capability is plateauing and may peak as soon as this year. Lower or higher prices would accelerate or extend this timing. China’s crude oil output has stagnated for the […]

Click here to view full article at thediplomat.com

Pope Encyclical Quote In my life there are two things that have the effect of at least somewhat isolating me from others. The first is being a writer on climate change, peak oil, and the economic crises bound up with those modern predicaments. The other is being a Christian environmentalist. In the first case, my essays, as well as my social media presence, fairly well run counter to the whole of my society and culture, even when a few outliers add concurring thoughts to the mix. But in the end, by writing a write a blog about what people shouldn’t do, about the things we should give up and forsake for a concept of the greater good, about the ways our habits imperil the world and especially our children and future generations, I can kind of come off like a scold even in my most mild iteration. Even when […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

Today, I want to focus on black gold production south of the Rio Grande. Latin America’s political leaders believe (or claim to believe) that the economic future of the region is promising. They avail themselves of every summit, every conference or bilateral gathering to express their full confidence in growth, progress and development (today called “sustainable,” even when the Amazons continue to suffer). The Cuban president and his minister for the economy, for instance, insisted that this year we would grow like doped-up champions, by no less than 4 %. I think this is magnificent, charming. The one, tiny problem is that, in order to grow like that, exponentially, one has to burn oil at the same pace. So, what legs do we have to stand on? See country graphs below. Does Latin America have the fuel needed to reach such an ambitious goal? Might this not be another […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

You should never bet against the capability of oil investors to turn the world completely upside down. A great example occurred on Wednesday of last week, as Arthur Berman argues in this excellent article. He points out that Brent crude surged from $62 a barrel to $65 a barrel on 10 June, despite the US Energy Information Administration announcing on that very same day that the global oil production surplus in May rose to almost 3 million barrels. ‘Not to worry, ‘demand growth is robust,’ the oil markets seemed to be saying. But if you look at the same EIA report, you will find that whilst worldwide oil production declined by 106,000 barrels per day, consumption fell more by 156,000 barrels per day. It is supposed the job of oil futures markets to anticipate the future – that’s why they are, of course, called futures markets. Perhaps, therefore, they […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

CALGARY, Alberta Canadian energy producers are giving up hoping for a big rebound in oil prices, preparing instead to embark on a course of belated hedging if crude prices edge just a few dollars higher. As crude markets collapsed during the first half of this year, Canada’s oil producers held back on hedging on concern they would lock in prices at barely break-even rates. That may be about to change. A rally in U.S. crude CLc1 from $60 a barrel today to about $65 could trigger a wave of selling from Canadian companies eager to build up protection against a second price slump, according to market sources in Calgary. Many allowed their hedging activity to lapse since last year, when oil tumbled to a six-year low near $42 a barrel. Canadian producers are between 10 percent and 20 percent underhedged compared with the same time last year, banking sources […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

In 1956, a geoscientist named M. King Hubbert formulated a theory which suggested that U.S. oil production would eventually reach a point at which the rate of oil production would stop growing. After production hit that peak, it would enter terminal decline. The resulting production profile would resemble a bell curve and the point of maximum production would be identified as Peak Oil, a point of no return. The original peak oil curve Image Source: Cornell University Hubbert first predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970 and then start declining rapidly. His prediction turned out to be partly true, as U.S. crude oil production peaked that same year, not to be eclipsed again until the shale boom began. Annual crude oil production (in thousands of barrels per year) for entire United States, with contributions from individual regions as indicated. “The end of the oil age is in […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Apparently it is necessary to point out that Peak Oil doctrine is still wrong. Ronald Bailey explains Hubbert’s Peak Refuted: Peak Oil Theory Still Wrong . He points out an author who has written multiple books defending Peak Oil. I just checked Amazon and can find four books from the mentioned author, written in 2001, 2005, 2008, and 2010. All are selling well. Not great, but okay. I’m astounded that so many people still believe that foolishness. Article gives some info I’ve not seen before: As I have explained earlier geologist M. King Hubbert famously predicted in 1956 that U.S. domestic oil production in the lower 48 states would peak around 1970 and begin to decline. In 1969 Hubbert predicted that world oil production would peak around 2000. Yes. The ol’ gig of my precisely calculated, ironclad calculation of the date of disaster is totally wrong so I will […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Container terminal image via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission. The world needs to end its dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. That’s the only sane response to climate change, and to the economic dilemma of declining oil, coal, and gas resource quality and increasing extraction costs. The nuclear industry is on life support in most countries, so the future appears to lie mostly with solar and wind power. But can we transition to these renewable energy sources and continue using energy the way we do today? And can we maintain our growth-based consumer economy? The answer to both questions is, probably not. Let’s survey four important sectors of the energy economy and tally up the opportunities and challenges. The electricity sector: Solar and wind produce electricity, and the fuel is free. Moreover, the cost of electricity from these sources is declining. These are encouraging trends. However, […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

BP statistical review finds Russia leading in terms of declines in gas production and pipeline deliveries just as the Kremlin holds out its reserves as a key to European energy security. File Photo by UPI Photo/BP/HO LONDON, June 10 (UPI) — BP in a statistic review said Russian natural gas production declined, just as the Kremlin holds out its reserves as a component of European energy security. BP in the 64th edition of its statistical review of world energy said global natural gas production last year grew by 1.6 percent, which is nearly a full percentage point below the 10-year average. Production from members of the European Union declined 9.8 percent to its lowest level since 1971, though in terms of overall volume, Russia’s decline of 4.3 percent was among the largest drops in the world, the review found. European economies rely on Russia for about 20 percent of […]

Click here to view full article at www.upi.com

Delayed gratification is said to be a sign of maturity. By that standard OPEC at age 55 demonstrated its maturity this week as it left oil production quotas for its members unchanged . It did so in the face of oil prices that are about 40 percent lower than they were at this time last year , delaying once again a return to the $100-per-barrel prices seen during the past four years. Why OPEC members chose to leave their oil output unchanged is no mystery . The explicit purpose for keeping oil prices depressed is to close down U.S. oil production from deep shale deposits–production that soared when oil hovered around $100 a barrel, but which is largely uneconomic at current prices. That production was starting to threaten OPEC’s market share. If OPEC were to cut its oil production now and drive prices back up, it would only lead […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

But the company’s focus on cash distributions to shareholders, and the fact that its oil and gas production is lower now than immediately after Exxon bought Mobil back in 1999, certainly look like evidence that it has given up on long-term revenue growth. Exxon is the world’s largest listed energy group, and like all big international oil companies it is facing structural challenges that make it difficult for it to grow. Stability while throwing off a lot of cash may be the best they can do. Critical strategic question Rex Tillerson, now in his tenth year as chief executive, faces a critical strategic question. Does Exxon accept that fate, curbing capital spending and returning cash to investors whenever possible? Or does it attempt to break out by making a large acquisition ? The decline in Exxon’s number of shares outstanding has been dramatic. In 1999, the newly merged company […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Major technological advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) have dramatically expanded U.S. oil and gas production. By year-end 2014, U.S. daily crude oil production from shale layers had increased 230 percent over 2010 levels, and total U.S. crude oil production had risen 67 percent. Despite that dramatic, unprecedented growth, the price of West Texas Intermediate (“WTI”), used as a global benchmark for oil pricing, remained between $80 a barrel (bbl) and $110/bbl from October 2010 until late November 2014. The unrelenting and massive increase in U.S. oil supply should have driven down the global price of oil. It didn’t because as these new U.S. supplies were coming online, geopolitical conflicts were flaring up in key oil-producing regions around the world. For example, there was a civil war in Libya. Iraq faced threats from ISIS. Both the United States and Europe imposed new sanctions on Iran, significantly curtailing […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Oil rising to $60/bbl is displeasing some people, particularly the shorts. Some of the more extreme –those calling for oil in the $20’s – have wisely fallen silent. Others, like Goldman Sachs, who a few months ago had set their flag in the 30’s, have unfortunately not gone so silent. They recently moved their flag into the 40’s but they continue to talk a lot. A better strategy – though one that would require some humility — would be to stop talking and listen. Recent and compounding data will soon wash away the walls of worry erected by the experts. Four consecutive weeks of inventory draws, each one larger than the last is irrefutable proof that a 60% decline in the rig count means something. Shorts will downplay this trend and point to last week’s surge in US production. But this could have had as much to do with […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Something is wrong with the economy. No kidding, you might reply, but what is the underlying cause? Is it Peak Oil? Or is capitalism just a system that doesn’t work and is destined to failure? Are we just stuck with inevitable deterioration in living standards for the majority, or is there at least theoretically something we can do about it? Would political decisions help or are we just doomed to watch the disintegration of civilization as the oil runs out? In an interview a few weeks back with Tom O’Brien of the From Alpha to Omega podcast , KMO asked him about the predictions of Peak Oil collapse and why they seem to have not come to pass the way some people thought they would: Tom O’Brien: “Think if we lived in Syria or Egypt. We might think [about] things slightly differently. I don’t know about yourself KMO, but […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

This week’s meeting of the world’s oil cartel will show how much its power has diminished amid sweeping changes in the global energy market. Oil prices have plummeted in the past eight months because of a half-decade surge in U.S. production and weak international demand. Brent crude for July delivery ended Friday near $65 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange, far below the $100 needed by several members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to balance their budgets. In the past, OPEC forced prices higher by cutting production , or it steadied them by flooding the market during crisis, war or when it wanted to make a point about its collective might. The 12-country group’s meeting in Vienna on Friday is likely to result in a very different response: doing nothing. OPEC delegates expect the group to keep its current production ceiling of 30 million barrels […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com

From Earth Insight by Nafeez Ahmed, hosted by the Guardian, Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will ‘break economies’ : Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008. Dr. Miller critiqued the official industry line that global reserves will last 53 years at current rates of consumption, pointing out that “peaking is the result of declining production rates, not declining reserves.” Despite new discoveries and increasing reliance on unconventional oil and gas, 37 countries are already post-peak, and global oil production is declining at about 4.1% per year, or 3.5 million barrels a day (b/d) per year: “We need new production equal to a new Saudi Arabia every […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

The second half of the 1960s was a boom time for nightmarish visions of what lay ahead for humankind. In 1966, for example, a writer named Harry Harrison came out with a science fiction novel titled “Make Room! Make Room!” Sketching a dystopian world in which too many people scrambled for too few resources, the book became the basis for a 1973 film about a hellish future, “ Soylent Green .” In 1969, the pop duo Zager and Evans reached the top of the charts with a number called “ In the Year 2525 ,” which postulated that humans were on a clear path to doom. No one was more influential — or more terrifying, some would say — than Paul R. Ehrlich , a Stanford University biologist. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” sold in the millions with a jeremiad that humankind stood on the brink of apocalypse […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

Three recent news items remind us that energy transitions take time, a lot of time–far too much time to be shrunk down into a television special, a few talking points, or the next big energy idea. For example, the complex management task of putting together the international fusion research project called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) has resulted in estimated final costs that have tripled since the 2006 launch . Fusion could theoretically offer clean and abundant energy almost indefinitely because it uses ubiquitous hydrogen* as fuel and creates helium in the process. (Water you’ll recall is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom and is therefore the most abundant source of hydrogen.) Despite nine years of effort, ITER has yet to carry out a single experiment; and, the project is not expected to do so for another four years. The idea for such an international project was […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Whenever oil prices abnormally elevate due to a variety of reasons, some of which are beyond human control and some the result of human intervention – the world often panics and the press is filled with articles highlighting that the world is running out of oil, ‘peak oil theory’, and oil prices are likely to increase to $250/bbl etc. The term peak oil was originally coined in the 1950s by M. King Hubbert who predicted US oil production would peak in 1970, and decline at the same rate it arose. But in the history of the petroleum era, Matt Simmons will be remembered for calling attention to peak oil. T. Boone Pickens, another peak oil proponent said in a statement, “You had to admire his advocacy and his ability to focus on the need to better prepare for a new energy future.” In reality, like many Malthusian beliefs, the […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Slowing productivity growth in the United States has been in the news in recent months. It has become a concern to policymakers because they believe it is one of the primary contributors to a middle-class economic squeeze  according to the annual report of the White House Council of Economic Advisors . Simply put, productivity growth refers to the growth in economic output per worker or more precisely, per hour of work. When this growth slows, the potential for real wage increases diminishes since the growth in wages typically reflects the ability of workers to create more output per unit of time. To the obstensibly naive observer the following idea may seem a plausible explanation: Higher-cost energy inputs into the production of goods and services reduce productivity growth because the economic output per dollar of energy consumed declines. And, though energy inputs aren’t the only thing to consider, they are […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

If there was one thing most economists agreed on at the start of the year, it was this: Plunging oil prices would boost the U.S. economy. It hasn’t worked out that way. The economy is thought to have shrunk in the January-March quarter and may barely grow for the first half of 2015 — thanks in part to sharp cuts in energy drilling. And despite their savings at the gas pump, consumers have slowed rather than increased their spending. At $2.74 a gallon, the average price of gas nationwide is nearly $1 lower than it was a year ago. In January, the average briefly reached $2.03, the lowest in five years. Cheaper oil and gas had been expected to turbocharge spending and drive growth, more than making up for any economic damage caused by cutbacks in the U.S. oil patch. Consider what Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said in […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

The past year’s drop in crude oil prices will be fundamentally different from previous downturns. What started in June 2014 with a growing imbalance between soft demand in Asia and robust North American shale-oil production seemed typical: Brent crude prices started to fall from $105 per barrel, the market went in contango in October, and expectations were high in anticipation of the late-November OPEC meeting as oil was hitting $75 per barrel. The expectation was that things would revert quickly with a reduction of production quotas. The story went off script when OPEC announced it would not act, sending oil prices crashing below $50 per barrel. Subsequent announcements by influential members of the cartel confirmed that pricing for crude oil would be based on free-market economics. That marked a fundamental shift from over 100 years of price-setting from the Seven Sisters and OPEC, which had governed periods of stability […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

We have for years been hearing about the potential for ‘peak oil’ and more recently about ‘peak metals’ but for the first time, several peer reviewed articles are warning us other peak resource constraints are threatening several key areas of product supply, including food. Peak oil has been discussed for a number of years, but its timing has been pushed out into the future by the emergence of high environmental impact mining techniques like shale oil, oil sands and fracking of natural gas (also used as an oil substitute) across the world. This change in timing is particularly notable in the US, where for the first time in many decades the nation is not dependent on imported supplies of fossil fuels. Coming at a time when OPEC is trying to retain some control of world markets, this has resulted in a massive price drop that is not truly related […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Air pollution image via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission. On May 18 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report titled “ How Large are Global Energy Subsidies? ” The question is a bit misleading: most readers, when they see the word subsidy, probably tend tothink of tax breaks or cash gifts to specific industries. The report, however, uses the term mostly to refer to environmental externalities—and not ones tied to all energy use, but ones related to fossil fuel combustion in particular. An economic externality is an impact of a commercial activity that is not reflected in the prices of goods or services traded. There can be positive externalities: if I buy organic, responsibly farmed food, I usually expect to pay more—thus the beneficial impact of my food choice upon the environment isn’t reflected in a price that would reinforce my behavior; just the opposite is true. […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

How the anti-green ‘Breakthrough Institute’ misrepresents science to advance a technocratic agenda and undermine grassroots environmentalism. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass — What can lobbyists do when science contradicts their political messages? Some simply deny the science, as many conservatives do with climate change. Others pretend to embrace the science, while ignoring or purging the disagreeable content. That’s what the Breakthrough Institute (BTI) is doing with one of the most widely discussed issues in 21st century science, the proposal to define a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. BTI has been described as “the leading big money, anti-green, pro-nuclear think tank in the United States, dedicated to propagandizing capitalist technological-investment ‘solutions’ to climate change.”[1] Founded in 2003 by lobbyist Michael Shellenberger and […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Air pollution image via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission. On May 18 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report titled “ How Large are Global Energy Subsidies? ” The question is a bit misleading: most readers, when they see the word subsidy, probably tend tothink of tax breaks or cash gifts to specific industries. The report, however, uses the term mostly to refer to environmental externalities—and not ones tied to all energy use, but ones related to fossil fuel combustion in particular. An economic externality is an impact of a commercial activity that is not reflected in the prices of goods or services traded. There can be positive externalities: if I buy organic, responsibly farmed food, I usually expect to pay more—thus the beneficial impact of my food choice upon the environment isn’t reflected in a price that would reinforce my behavior; just the opposite is true. […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

A world without crude oil is almost unthinkable. And yet, there are indications that such a transition is happening. OPEC is jockeying for market share. Russia is increasing production and US tight oil producers as well as their Canadian oil sands counterparts have found themselves priced out of the market. So what is going on? As humans, we tend to like to place things in neat little boxes. So we look at coal and natural gas and think electricity generation. We look at crude oil and think transportation sector. And all this is correct. But trends are emerging that are likely to turn this on its head. For instance, on shore wind and solar are gaining traction as viable energy production means. Costs are falling rapidly and Lazard now estimates that onshore wind is the cheapest provider of electricity on a levelized cost basis. Solar is not far behind […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

Very slowly, environmentalists have begun to convince the world we can have our cake and eat it too. They argue human civilization can transition away from fossil fuels without suffering a significant blow to the global economy. Capitalism, continual growth, and high standards of living can all continue, and continue without the onset of catastrophic climate change. We can transition to renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, and hydro—which, in recent years, have become substantially more economically viable. And that allow us save the planet while continuing to update to the latest iPhone each year and without forgoing the annual vacations in Hawaii. But Richard Heinberg argues this optimistic future is a fantasy. It is absolutely imperative that the world does move away from fossil fuels, he maintains. But it is not going to happen without severe economic sacrifice, political upheaval, and a “simplification and decentralization of […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

The recent oil price crash signals the impending demise of the oil and gas industry as a major world energy producer. That should be a good thing, in principle, but something wicked may still come out of the process. With the ongoing collapse of the oil prices, we can say that it is game over for the oil and gas industry, in particular for the production of “tight” (or “shale”) oil and gas. Prices may still go back to reasonably high levels, in the future, but the industry will never be able to regain the momentum that had made its US  supporters claim “energy independence” and “centuries of abundance.” The bubble may not burst all of a sudden, but it surely will deflate. So, what’s going to happen, now? The situation is, to say the least, “fluid”. A great rush is ongoing to convince investors to place their money […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

The recent oil price crash signals the impending demise of the oil and gas industry as a major world energy producer. That should be a good thing, in principle, but something wicked may still come out of the process. With the ongoing collapse of the oil prices, we can say that it is game over for the oil and gas industry, in particular for the production of “tight” (or “shale”) oil and gas. Prices may still go back to reasonably high levels, in the future, but the industry will never be able to regain the momentum that had made its US  supporters claim “energy independence” and “centuries of abundance.” The bubble may not burst all of a sudden, but it surely will deflate. So, what’s going to happen, now? The situation is, to say the least, “fluid”. A great rush is ongoing to convince investors to place their money […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Enlarge Credit: Jm Verastigue/public domain Researchers report that as the world population increases and food demand has grown, globalization of trade has made the food supply more sensitive to environmental and market fluctuations. This leads to greater chances of food crises, particularly in nations where land and water resources are scarce and therefore food security strongly relies on imports. The study assesses the food supply available to more than 140 nations (with populations greater than 1 million) and demonstrates that food security is becoming increasingly susceptible to perturbations in demographic growth, as humanity places increasing pressure on use of limited land and water resources . "In the past few decades there has been an intensification of international food trade and an increase in the number of countries that depend on food imports ," said Paolo D’Odorico, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and one of […]

Click here to view full article at phys.org

History has been so fascinated with oil and its price movements that it is indeed hard to imagine our future without oil. Over the last few months, we have witnessed how oil prices have fluctuated from a 6 year low level of $42.98 per barrel in March 2015 to the current levels of $60 per barrel. It is interesting to note that, in spite of the biggest oil cartel in the world deciding to stick to its high production levels, the oil prices have increased mainly due to falling US crude inventories and strong demand. However, the current upward rally might be short lived and there may yet be another drop in the international oil price when Iran eventually starts pumping its oil into the market at full capacity, potentially creating another supply glut. In these endless price rallies, it is important to take a holistic view of the […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

The green energy movement in America is dead. May it rest in peace. No, a majority of American energy over the next 20 years is not going to come from windmills and solar panels. One important lesson to be learned from the green energy fad’s rapid and expensive demise is that central planning doesn’t work. What crushed green energy was the boom in shale oil and gas along with the steep decline in the price of fossil fuel that few saw coming just a few years ago. A new International Energy Agency report concedes that green energy is in fast retreat and is getting crushed by “the recent drop in fossil fuel prices.” It finds that the huge price advantage for oil and natural gas means “fossil plants still dominate recent (electric power) capacity additions.” This wasn’t supposed to happen. Most of the government experts–and many private investors too–bought […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article called, Glut of Capital and Labor Challenge Policy Makers: Global oversupply extends beyond commodities , elevating deflation risk. To me, this is a very serious issue, quite likely signaling that we are reaching what has been called Limits to Growth , a situation modeled in 1972 in a book by that name. What happens is that economic growth eventually runs into limits. Many people have assumed that these limits would be marked by high prices and excessive demand for goods. In my view, the issue is precisely the opposite one: Limits to growth are instead marked by low prices and inadequate demand . Common workers can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that the economy produces, because of inadequate wage growth. The price of all commodities drops, because of lower demand by workers. Furthermore, investors can no longer […]

Click here to view full article at oilprice.com

This is the cleft stick within today’s global energy supply: too little ‘cheap energy’ to enable economic growth, too low a return on capital to allow investment in higher production. A few weeks ago tremors rocked the world of ‘fracking’ in the USA – though few heard them. The US Energy Information Agency (USEIA) had issued its latest Monthly Drilling Report and the news was not good. It wasn’t simply the economic failure of fracking (covered in The Ecologist last December ) and the subsequent collapse in drilling ( covered in January ). The news from the USEIA was far more grim for those who understood its deeper meaning. Their press release was very matter-of-fact: “EIA’s most recent Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) indicates a change in the crude oil production growth patterns in three key oil producing regions… The DPR estimates include the first projected declines in crude oil […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com