Peak Oil and the Curse of Cassandra
…the peak oil Cassandras — Kunstler included — are perfectly positioned to trigger the kind of anxiety-induced focus needed to accelerate a move away from petroleum dependence.
Oil
Saudi oil and the world economy
Matthew Simmons, an oil industry analyst and CEO of Simmons & Company International, will be online Thursday, August 4, at 3 p.m. ET to discuss Saudi oil supplies.
The Ghost of Colonel Drake
The life and times of Col. Edwin Drake, who drilled the world’s first commercial oil well near Titusville, PA in 1859. It is not overstating the case to say that the seed of the modern world, so dependent as it is upon energy and materials derived from petroleum, was planted by Col. Drake.
Oil: A Hole In The Ground
The first oil wells, paraffin and President Lincoln.
The Last Foot of Rail, the End of the Line
Using the Trans Canada Railroad as an analogy, King recounts the timeline of geologic history up to the present. Within the span of the last few inches of a 4,500 mile timeline, humankind will have consumed all of the Earth’s oil heritage.
Peak Oil: Geology Is Destiny
Peak Oil is a real phenomenon, based on hard science. Ignore it at your peril. At root, the Peak Oil guys are right. How can I emphasize it properly? OK, they are “right, right, right.” Everybody else is “wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Ohio was once oil king, but production peaked in 1896
An oil boom swept across the Ohio River when John Newton and Mophet Dye struck oil in 1860 in Macksburg, just north of Marietta…Hundreds of wooden derricks soon poked the Ohio skyline as petroleum speculators and businessmen drilled deep into the ground searching for black gold.
Barrels of Oil, Miles of Mud
Early days in the oil fields: wildcatters, investment fever and dead horses
Has oil production peaked?
The post-peak oil world will look a lot like the bleak 1970s. But much worse.
A recession will grip the globe because the price of oil, and everything tied to it, will skyrocket.
Starvation will abound because oil-based fertilizers we’ve grown to depend on will be in short supply. Energy wars could erupt to control the remaining oil fields.
Oil: Looking In All The Right Places
Wildcatting and exploration in the Canadian Maritimes — how an oil geologist and investor sees the landscape.
Rockefeller and Co. turned oil into local gold
Oil is the world’s biggest business and one of its most combustible. It has drawn all sorts of eccentrics, from H.L. “Boy” Hunt, gambling host and bigamist, to Armand Hammer, Kremlin confidante and bull semen salesman. It has fueled inflation, recession, pollution, scandal and war.
Early on, oil made modern Cleveland.
Where Is the Hirsch Report?
Here, then, is a significant report produced by an independent research company for the US Department of Energy, warning of a global problem of “unprecedented” proportions with economic, social, and political impacts that are likely to be extremely severe. The authors forecast “protracted economic hardship” for the United States and the rest of the world. It is a problem that deserves “immediate, serious attention.” Yet, half a year after release, discussion of the Hirsch report is conspicuously absent from the press and the halls of Congress. [updated version late 7/31]
