Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– CERA-week: Total’s Upstream Chief Says Peak Oil Is Around The Corner
– CERA Energy Conference: Oil Industry Giddy With New Discoveries
– Michael Klare: America’s Fossil Fuel Fever
– Nader: Obama Can Do More on Oil Prices
– Dr. Colin Campbell: Playing with Fire
– Peak todo (Spanish – peak everything)
The city of Boulder, Colo., has won the right to take its power supply—and carbon emissions—away from corporate control. The change for Boulder came in November when voters passed two ballot measures that allow the city to begin the process of forming its own municipal power utility.
-Rolling Stone Responds to Chesapeake Energy on ‘The Fracking Bubble’
-Why Not Frack? – Book & Film review
-Fracking: The New Global Water Crisis – Report
-Kept in Dark by BC’s Oil and Gas Commission
-A Fresh Scientific Defense of the Merits of Moving from Coal to Shale Gas
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-Gasoline and election 2012
-A New EIA Report on East Coast Refining
-Gas: Climate Panacea or Industry Propaganda?
-Estimates Clash for How Much Natural Gas in the United States
-The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom
-Poland May Cut Shale Gas Estimates After Data From Wells
-China claims world’s biggest shale gas reserves
In recent years African countries have enjoyed interest from abroad, thanks in part to a great amount of available land apparently ideal for cultivating crops for providing food security and for the production of biofuels. However, insufficient legal protection for the local population often leads to the signing of contracts that deprive these people of their source of subsistence…And if the locals are in fact consulted at all on the matter, they can typically count on a campaign of misinformation from the government.
Dr. John Mashey investigates the right-wing billionaires & corporations who pay alleged “charities”, bloggers, and old weathermen to deny climate science. Then Canadian journalist Margaret Munro on government muzzling scientists, plus an update from Union of Concerned Scientists Francesca Grifo on science freedom in U.S.
In New York State, some 82 towns and counties have passed ordinances outlawing fracking, a natural gas drilling method known for causing severe water pollution. Another 35 have ordinances in the works. But until last week, no one knew quite what would happen when those ordinances were—inevitably—challenged by drilling companies.
Now, in a resounding win for activists, two different state Supreme Court justices have upheld fracking bans in two different New York towns.
– Rich people more likely to take lollies from children: study
– Foreclose: Rehousing the American Dream (Museum of Modern Art)
– Get a Job
– Die ökologische Revolution
Vom Ende eines Produktionszeitalters – und vom Beginn eines neuen
Alberta’s energy regulating agency yesterday held a technical briefing for media on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing. The picture that emerged was of a province playing catch-up with continental events that have other governments’ regulators and researchers on high alert.
Gas prices are going up again, resulting in a lot of discussion by people who don’t normally think about the oil markets, and therefore aren’t necessarily that well informed about the subject. As a certified oil-obsessive these last seven years, I thought I’d put up a “cheat sheet” with just the key graphs that would allow you to understand the major forces that affect the behavior of gas prices over time.
Rising oil and gasoline prices are of concern to many people today. I see three basic issues involved: “Stalled out” growth in world oil supply, concerns about Iran, and artificially low interest rates. In my view, the biggest contributor to high oil prices is the first one–stalled out oil supply. At this point, the interaction between oil demand and oil supply does not work in the way most people expect it would. Even if the price of oil rises, world oil production doesn’t increase by very much, if at all.
