Fossil Fuels

The human factor

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It was the enlightenment, certainly, through which a whole host of new political views about public voice and the independent integrity of the individual emerged into the mainstream, even if took another 150 years, or even 200, to work themselves out. And at the same time it was the beginning of the age of extraction, when humankind started to use the stored resources of the planet at scale for their profit and endeavour. Both of these ideas are still the dominant frames of our public discourse, certainly in the richer world, and shape (almost completely) competing arguments about sustainability.

How the fracking mess is about to make the mortgage mess worse

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One fact ought to tell you all you need to know about the risks faced by homeowners signing leases for natural gas drilling on their property: Wells Fargo & Company, both the largest home mortgage lender in the United States and a major lender to the country’s second largest producer of natural gas, Chesapeake Energy Corp., refuses to make home loans for properties encumbered with natural gas drilling leases.

Oil report from the “Diplomatic Council on Energy Security”

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It feels as though we now have the first informed American report on the oil issue. One is struck by how well they describe the problem that ASPO and my research group have attempted to raise awareness of during the last 10 years. That this group of Americans perceive reality in a different way than is common in the USA is presumably because they are diplomats who have been outside the USA’s borders and have studied their nation from a different perspective.

ODAC Newsletter – May 18

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The prospect of weaker oil demand in the face of the Euro crisis was balanced this week by warnings from the IEA and Saudi Arabia. Sadad al-Husseini, the former head of Exploration and Production at Saudi Aramco, wrote that “$100 for Brent is quite a correction and it will be a challenge to sustain such a low price beyond the short term”…

Oil – May 18

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-Dump the pump: could peak oil be voluntary?
-Shell’s Majnoon deal highlights Iraq oil target verdict
-Insight – Peak, pause or plummet? Shale oil costs at crossroads

Energy and peak oil – May 17

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– Can we please just declare the end of ‘peak oil’ and start worrying about something important?
– The U.S. Has A Lot Of Shale Oil, So What?
– Chevron VP: Technology can unlock new fields, curb fears of peak oil
– The Biggest Threat to High Oil Prices
– Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy (video)
– U.S. energy independence is no longer just a pipe dream