Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Traders have adopted a new yardstick for oil security, and it’s influencing the abrupt climb of oil prices. Call it the Flaming Oil Port Index. It’s a notional appreciation of how many more OPEC countries may see fighting, taking their oil production with them.
– Guardian on oil prices: Green light from the black stuff
– China Reportedly Plans Strict Goals to Save Energy
– UK facing 1970s-style oil shock which could cost economy £45bn – Huhne
– Libya, oil production, OPEC responses, Saudi Arabian capabilities and the SPR
– David Strahan: My2050@lastoilshock
– Calls Mount to Tap U.S. Oil Reserves
– White House considers tapping oil reserves
– Crude Oil Heads for Its Third Weekly Gain as Unrest Spreads to Middle East
– Oil no immediate threat to recovery; fundamentals different from 2008
– WSJ: U.S. Wavers on ‘Regime Change’
– Video: Libya rebels control oil port
– Saudi Arabia bans public protest
– Muammar Gaddafi’s opposition: How Libya’s revolt has stalled
-The Invisible Food Crisis
-Food prices reach record highs
-Climbing fuel prices trigger alarm
-Caught in the Food Pirates’ Trap
Continued violence in the Middle East kept oil prices high this week. Libyan exports are down at least 1 million barrels a day and fears are escalating that the stand-off there could turn in to a protracted civil war. The unrest spread to Oman this week where security forces clashed with demonstrators. Meanwhile news of the arrest of a Shi’ite cleric demanding democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia sent the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange down 11%.
As the upheavals in the Middle East drive the oil price ever higher, the report identifies a litany of questionable assumptions that underpin the forecasts of the International Energy Agency (IEA), on which UK policy is based.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
Whatever the outcome of the protests, uprisings, and rebellions now sweeping the Middle East, one thing is guaranteed: the world of oil will be permanently transformed.
What we see is fairly simple – and incredibly complicated. The intertwining of markets, of energy and food, tied by biofuel production and national policies, and the fact that we are not in control of either one. And that when food and energy prices spike, the world is transformed.
Radio and television host and author of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight Thom Hartmann talks about ways we can all help combat global warming. Speaking from the grounds of Wisconsin’s 2010 Fight Bob Fest, Hartmann insists that Americans need to change the way we live if we are going to save the planet, and the first step has to be getting active in the political process.
Southwestern Michigan caught winter’s blast last week. It’s not nice to lose power in the coldest month of the year, especially when you’re sick of snow, ice, heavy coats and that frozen bleakness that makes you feel as though winter will never end. It’s been 35 years since I’ve had to live through a long power outage but this one gave me an opportunity to consider some new meaning in the value of energy and its effect on life both at home and in my community.
