Energy companies

- My Decade of Being "Peak Oil Aware"
- Peak oil educator Richard Heinberg challenges “binary thinking”
- U.S. Oil Fields Stage “Great Revival,” But No Easing Gas Prices
- Robert Rapier: Peak Oil & Carbon Emissions (video)

Va. Governor Bob. McDonnell is on a GOP VP short list and recently threw his endorsement to candidate Mitt "corporations are people, my friend" Romney. But in an era of energy decline it's worth learning how heavily Big Coal funds McDonnell, who calls himself a "friend of coal," and how uncommitted he is to clean energy.

- Peak Oil Scare Fades as Shale, Deepwater Wells Gush Crude
- Oil, Food, Water: Is Everything Past Its Peak?
- Fulsome Fossil Fuels And The 'Peak Oil' Myth
- Peak Oil--No Longer the Right Question
(Note: several of these articles actually concede most of the points made by peak oilers.)

- Kunstler interviews Arthur E. Berman, Petroleum Geologist: Magical Thinking and Fracking (audio)
- Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit (video from The Onion)
- Energy.gov: Where information goes to die

High oil prices ensured that profits at the major oil companies rose again in 2011 – Shell’s full year profits leapt 54% to $28.6 billion while Exxon’s increased 35% to $41.1 billion. With this kind of money at stake it is no surprise it is almost impossible to get a sensible debate about our energy future...

As long as we allow proponents of unconventional oil and gas to claim a false choice between energy and economic security and the environment, and as long as we allow them to vilify opponents as being somehow unpatriotic or radical, we run the very real risk of losing a battle where the future of our planet and species is at stake. Ok, so maybe I am being a little bombastic. But am I wrong?

The prominent scientific journal Nature has just published an article that supports what we in the peak oil world have been saying for years.

James Murray of the University of Washington and David King of the University of Oxford say that global oil production peaked in 2005 at about 75 million barrels a day.

The "supply of cheap oil has plateaued," said King. "The geologists know where the source rocks are and where the trap structures are," according to Murray. "If there was a prospect for a new giant oil field, I think it would have been found."

(Excerpts from news articles about the article.)

Here is one more thing for those of us who live in the northeastern U.S. to start worrying about - the refineries that make our gasoline, diesel, heating oil, etc. are dropping like flies.

In today's economy, these refineries are simply losing so much money that their owners who are not major oil companies that make billions from oil production are having put them up for sale or close them down.

- Boston Globe on McKibben: The man who crushed the Keystone XL pipeline
- David Suzuki: What’s So Radical About Caring for the Earth and Opposing Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline?
- After Keystone XL Decision, Don't Believe GOP Hype on Energy

This Wednesday afternoon, the Obama administration rejected the permit for Keystone XL, a 1,700 mile oil pipeline that would have run from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. The announcement is a huge victory for the grassroots climate movement. While the fight to stop the Keystone XL pipeline is over for now, the political battle over the consequences of Obama's decision is just beginning. Big Oil front groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are already spending millions of dollars on TV ads to bash the President over Keystone XL.

Global oil consumption fell 300,000 barrels/day in Q4 of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010 according to the IEA's monthly oil report released this week. This was the first such fall since 2009 and reflects renewed economic weakness.

-Cornell Study Links Fracking Wastewater with Mortality in Farm Animals
-U.S. Shale Bubble Inflates After Near-Record Prices for Untested Fields
-Study needed on shale gas effects on health: group
-Ministers slammed over fracking
-Fracking is 'pretty safe', says British Geological Survey
-Bulgarians protest, seek moratorium on shale gas

- Biofuels become a victim of own success - but not for long
- Brazil, short of biofuel, can't open spigot to US
- Keystone XL pipeline: Oil chief issues threat to Obama over decision
- Oil sands pipeline battle turns ugly
- Arab News: Renewables making inroads in emerging global energy mix

The Japanese government is launching a large-scale cleanup of the fields, forests, and villages contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. But some experts caution that an overly aggressive remediation program could create a host of other environmental problems.