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• Time to Call Iran's Bluff on Oil?

  Iranian lawmakers this week expressed support for a measure that would beat the European Union to the punch by cutting off oil exports before the summer. Tehran's measure amounts to a statement of economic warfare to some degree as the European economy continues to drag on the rest of the global market. Yet, if Iran is shipping only 20 percent of its oil to European markets, its more than likely the Europeans would be able to weather the storm. European lawmakers voted to ban any new crude oil export contracts with Iran and put existing contracts on hold as part of…

• Companies Closing Shale Operations: Where Does the Industry Go from Here?

  On January 23, 2012, Chesapeake Energy announced that it would curtail drilling in shale gas plays in the United States. Subsequently, other operators have followed suit. While the outcome of this announcement is unclear, it is a signal that the industry is in distress. One can argue that this distress stems from a lack of discipline as market price began to decline. After gas prices collapsed in mid-2008, U.S. operators continued to drill as if price did not matter. Many reasons were given to justify the economics of on-going activity including to hold acreage by production, to fulfil contract obligations…

• Green Energy's Positive Impact on the World's Poor

  Renewable energy is often thought of as an initiative of advanced, sane countries such as Portugal and Germany. But there is another arena where green energy is making an impact– on the lives of the world’s poorest populations, in the global South. For them, it is not a luxury or prudent planning for the future or a dutiful attempt to save the planet from the looming catastrophe of climate change fuelled by humans pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Rather, it is a way of solving their present, low-tech energy crisis. Kevin Bullis explains that many villagers use expensive kerosene…

• Poland Gears Up to Build First Nuclear Power Plant

  Among the few “gifts” not forced upon Poland during its more than four decades as a Soviet satellite state was a nuclear power plant (NPP). But now, given the European Union and NATO state’s surging energy needs, Poland is about to construct its first NPP. Why the retrograde step? Simple – burgeoning energy needs. Poland currently depends on coal to supply 94 percent of its energy needs but authorities in Warsaw want to diversify the country’s energy matrix with nuclear, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and shale gas projects to align its economy with the European Union's climate goals. Poland currently…

• Shedding Some Light on Peak Oil

  On January 26, Bloomberg Businessweek printed an editorial by Charles Kenny titled, “Everything You Know About Peak Oil Is Wrong”. This editorial reflects several common misunderstandings. According to Kenny: Titled Limits to Growth, their report suggested the world was heading toward economic collapse as it exhausted the natural resources, such as oil and copper, required for economic production. The report forecast that the world would run out of new gold in 2001 and petroleum by 2022, at the latest. Limits to Growth gives a table that might be interpreted to show that oil and gold new extraction will be exhausted…

• Ecological Economics: The Battle to Preserve the Natural World

  In September of 1982, a group of scholars met in Stockholm intending to reform -- even to revolutionize -- the study of economics. The new ecological economists saw the economy as embedded in, and supported by, natural systems; nature was not simply a factor in, but the foundation of, economic activity. By integrating models from ecology and economics, ecological economists sought to provide scientific arguments for preserving the natural world. The Stockholm meeting came at a critical time. During the 1970s, prominent environmentalists, encouraged by what they saw as a public awakening to environmental concerns, issued best-selling books and reports…

• Global Wind Power Capacity up 21% in 2011

  On Tuesday the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) released statistics that claim a total of over 41 gigawatts of new wind power were installed around the world in 2011. This represents an increase of 21% to a global capacity of 238 gigawatts. 75 countries can now boast wind power installations, with 22 countries having more than 1000 megawatts (1 gigawatt). Steve Sawyer, GWEC Secretary General, said that “Despite the state of the global economy, wind power continues to be the renewable generation technology of choice. 2011 was a tough year, as will be 2012, but the long term fundamentals of…

• Canada, North American Energy Powerhouse, Now Faces Fracking Protests

  Mexican President Jose de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz Mori once reputedly said nearly a century ago, “¡Pobre México¡ Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos¡” (“Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!”) In 2009 eminent Mexican author Carlos Fuentes updated Diaz’s aphorism to proclaim, “'Poor Mexico and poor United States, so far from God and so near to each other.” America’s Great White North neighbor, Canada, might paraphrase Fuentes to state, “Why do the uppity Yanks repeatedly bash their major energy supplier?” According to the U.S. Energy Administration, the United…

• Bad Timing for Scottish Independence

  Scotland under First Minister Alex Salmond announced plans to hold a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom in 2014. Edinburgh maintains it can support itself without the help of London, largely through its oil and natural gas fields in the North Sea. Scottish finance officials said there are trillions of dollars worth of oil reserves left in the North Sea yet an economic assessment found that Edinburgh would take its first step as an independent nation while shouldering massive debt.  The discovery of oil off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea in the 1970s breathed new life…

• Why Oil Companies Don't Want Us Talking About Climate Change

  If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet -- as we shall see -- it’s unfortunately largely invisible to us. In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology.  Last month, for instance, NASA updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization’s gallery: “Blue Marble,” originally taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. The spectacular new high-def image shows a picture…