Articles
Currently viewing articles tagged with Peak Oil.
-
Keynes and ‘National Self-Sufficiency’
today’s world it may seem that I am trying to link Keynes with the autarky of, say, North Korea, but of course I am quoting the title of an article he wrote in 1933, in that prior period of great economic crisis of the 1930s, in which he argued the case for national self-sufficiency or, more precisely, for less international finance and less international trade. “I would sympathize… with those who would minimize rather than those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations [a marvelous phrase]. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel – these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily local.”
-
Scouring Scum and Tar from the Bottom of the Pit
Faced with the undeniable reality of “Hubbard’s Peak” in global conventional oil supplies, the world’s largest multinational energy corporations are now hell-bent on squeezing oil out of tar in northern Alberta, like junkies desperately conniving for one last giant fix in a futile attempt to quench America’s insatiable “addiction to oil” (described so eloquently by President George Bush II). Along the Athabasca River near Fort McMurray, a sub-arctic town almost 1,000 kilometres north of the U.S. border, tar literally seeps out of the riverbanks where Aboriginal peoples once used it to patch their birch-bark canoes. But most of the tar sands lie hidden below northern Alberta’s boreal forest, in an area larger than the state of Florida.
-
Peak Oil and Alternative Energy
The world is beginning to wake up to the fact that peak oil is real. Various financial institutions, as well as oil companies, independent geologists, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a range of corporations eager to cash in on alternative energy sources have stressed its importance. Sweden and Norway have both initiated plans to be essentially free of fossil fuels by 2020, and a small number of municipalities are beginning to incorporate energy consumption and production into their core planning activities. In other words, plans are already underway to prepare for an energy future that no longer relies on cheap energy.
-
Responding to the Challenge of Peak Oil
Over the past two years the price of oil has climbed relentlessly. This is true not just of the volatile spot price, but also of the five-year futures price, which for many years held reliably close to the U.S. $20 mark. At this time of writing, both the spot and futures prices are near $70. North Americans know that this translates to high gasoline prices, and, since they can scarcely live without their cars, many are worried and angry.
-
Why We Need To Nationalize Oil and Gas
As most experts agree, the production of natural gas and oil is nearing its peak. At the same time, the demand for both commodities is rising — and rising rapidly — as both China and India begin to experience their industrial revolutions.
The first thing that this unprecedented new situation of approaching peak oil and gas has meant is that prices have gone through the roof. What’s more, it’s very likely that these prices are going to stay sky-high for the foreseeable future and beyond.
-
The American Empire Meets Peak Oil
Following the Soviet collapse in 1989, the U.S.’s economic empire was left without any effective constraints except two: global warming and peak oil.
While Canada’s economic elite continues to push further integration into the American economic empire, it seems blissfully ignorant of the fact that globalization, the American Empire, is a falling star that is simply running out of gas.
-
The Party’s (Almost) Over
To the long list of wearying apocalyptic scenarios facing the future of humankind must, unfortunately, be appended yet another. One which, nonetheless, at least has the merit of focusing attention by virtue of its sheer immediacy.
According, then, to many of the world’s most prestigious (independent) oil geologists and institutions, not only is the era of cheap oil now almost certainly at an end, but by the end of this decade — and likely before — the price of a barrel of oil will rise well past $100, and will continue to climb quickly and inexorably thereafter.
- Page 1 of 1
