Geopolitics & Military

Yemen’s Oil-Deadly Decline Rate

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The failed Christmas plane bomber’s links to Yemen brought that country back under the geopolitical microscope. But a dark headline about Yemen the day before Christmas went virtually unnoticed. The below-the-radar message: “Yemen Reports Disastrous Drop in Oil Revenues.” Yemen’s oil production, and the national budget it has recently propped up, is cratering. And the plane bomber’s training on Yemeni soil will likely add a risk premium to the very investments needed to help slow down Yemen’s oil slide.

Peak Moment 159: It’s the End of the World as We Know It (transcript added)

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Taped in late 2005 before Peak Moment began, this conversation feels eerily prescient about the effects of the 2008 financial collapse. William Stewart reflects on the shadow side of the fossil fuel bonanza, which enabled hyper-individualism and mobility that have shredded our connections to community and place, along with increased violence and dysfunction. Likening our oil-dependent culture to an addict who must first bottom out, he suggests there may be a silken lining after collapse: the possibility of more communal and connected ways of life.

Review: The American West at Risk by Howard G. Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson and Richard W. Hazlett

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The American West at Risk’s 13 chapters examine some of the major human-caused environmental problems now threatening the 11 contiguous Western states…Citing trustworthy, peer-reviewed studies in support of its arguments, and written by three trained scientists, this book has every claim for credibility—and is an enlightening and gripping read for scientists and laypeople alike.

Jevons’ Law: Enforcing the Age of Energy Decline – Part 1

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In his 1865 book “The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal-Mines,” English economist William Stanley Jevons made the observation “Of the Economy of Fuel” that when improvements in technology make it possible to use a fuel more efficiently, the consumption of the fuel tends to go up, not down.

Peak oil & (and gas!), prices, and supplies – Jan 12

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-Interview with BP’s chairman of the board Carl-Henric Svanberg
-In New Gas Wells, More Drilling Chemicals Remain Underground
-Low-Carbon Recovery
-Is the United Kingdom facing a natural gas shortage?
-National Grid appeals for more gas as imports fail to arrive
-Saudi craving for oil comes at a price
-Iraq Could Delay Peak Oil a Decade