Category Archives: Oil

Pentagon report: collapse within 20 years from climate change

Preface. The report that the article by Ahmed below is based on is: Brosig, M., et al. 2019. Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army. United States Army War College. It was written in 2019, before covid-19 and so … Continue reading

Posted in Arctic, Blackouts, Climate Change, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Military, Over Oil | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Updates to Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy

Updates to “Life After Fossil Fuels” Last updated 20 March 2023. Other posts related to this book here. My book is about our many dependencies on fossil fuels, quickly depicted in these very short videos:  Life without Petroleum  A Day … Continue reading

Posted in Biofuels, Fusion, Groundwater, How Much Left, Hydrogen, Life After Fossil Fuels, Peak Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Youngquist: the extraordinary geodestiny of Saudi Arabia and other gulf nations

Preface. I was fortunate enough to know Walter for 15 years. He became a friend and mentor, helping me learn to become a better science writer, and sending me material I might be interested in, and delightful pictures of him … Continue reading

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How much oil left in America? Not much

Preface. If you think we have no worries because we can get arctic oil, think again. We can’t because icebergs mow drilling platforms down in the ocean. On land, massive amounts of expensive new drilling rigs, roads, rail lines, platforms, … Continue reading

Posted in How Much Left, Peak Oil | Tagged , | 6 Comments

The Golden Age of Russian Oil Nears an End

Preface.  One huge factor in Russia’s future oil decline not mentioned below is how incredibly corrupt and inefficient Russia’s oil and gas companies are, as Rachel Maddow describes in her book “Blowout”. A few quotes: The Russian oil and gas … Continue reading

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Global oil discovered 7.7 times less than consumption in 2019

Source: Rystad Energy (2020) in “Global oil and gas discoveries reach four-year high in 2019, boosted by ExxonMobil’s Guyana success“. Preface.  The global conventional discovery chart above lists natural gas and oil discoveries since 2013.  The fossil fuel that really … Continue reading

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Giant oil field decline rates and peak oil

Preface. Of the roughly 47,500 oil fields in the world, 507 of them, about 1%, are giant oil fields holding nearly two-thirds of all the oil that has ever been, or ever will be produced, with the largest 100 giants, … Continue reading

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Will covid-19 delay peak oil?

Preface. Here is my take on the effect this pandemic will have on oil production. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, and “Crunch! Whole … Continue reading

Posted in How Much Left, Oil & Gas, Peak Oil | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Getting Arctic oil and natural gas will take decades or more

Preface. Only one exploratory well can be drilled in the short arctic summers, and many more need to be drilled to even find and then explore the size of a potential oil field to see if it is worth extracting.  … Continue reading

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Vaclav Smil: from wood to coal to oil, energy transitions take a long time

Preface.  This post has a shortened, reworded, and heavily commented on article from Scientific American in 2014.  You can also see two much longer articles about energy transitions by Smil from n 2008 and 2010 here: A transition from fossil … Continue reading

Posted in Alternative Energy, Coal, Dependence on Oil, Energy Infrastructure, Vaclav Smil | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment