Tractors for Stockbrokers, Maseratis for Farmers

Says Jim Rogers...

U.S. Farmland Values Reach Record on High Crop Prices

U.S. farmland values are at a record high even as the rest of the country suffers the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression, with the highest crop prices ever pushing up agricultural real estate.

The value of all land and buildings on farms averaged $2,350 an acre at the start of this year, up 8.8 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in an annual report. Surging corn, wheat and soybean prices boosted values in the Northern Plains, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, by 15.5 percent, the biggest increase in the country, according to the report.

(Click the subject line to read the full bloomberg article.)

Warren Buffet on Peak Oil and resource depletion

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/28/07

Oil Rises on Signs U.S. Gasoline Supplies Dropped a Fourth Week

Crude oil in New York rose to the highest close since Aug. 15 on speculation that U.S. gasoline supplies declined for a fourth week.

Gasoline supplies fell 2.3 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 24, according to the median of responses by 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The crude-oil market often follows gasoline during the summer. Prices were down earlier on speculation that subprime-mortgage losses in the U.S. will spread through the economy, reducing growth and demand for fuels.


The Gasoline Crisis in Iran

In late June 2007, the Iranian government launched a comprehensive gasoline rationing policy, necessitated, in part, by the growing demand for gasoline in Iran's domestic market that could not be met by its oil production infrastructure.

Although Iran is among the world's major exporters of crude oil, it has limited processing and refining facilities, and thus must import most of its refined oil for domestic use. There has been no significant investment in developing its oil refining facilities since the Shah's era, and Iran depends entirely on imported gasoline.


Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, America on the Downward Slope

Pick up the paper any day and you'll find tiny straws in the wind (or headlines inside the fold) reflecting the seeping away of American power. The President of the planet's "sole superpower" and his top diplomats and commanders have been denouncing Iran for months as the evil hand behind American disaster in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.


Energy Report is Handgrenade in Bubblewrap

The working draft of the National Petroleum Council’s forecast of global oil and gas trends runs to nearly 500 pages. Weighing as much as the chunk of foam that brought down the Space Shuttle Columbia, this curious document reads like a hand grenade encased in Bubble Wrap. Since its release, the report (and a more digestible 40-page executive summary) has received 750,000 hits. (www.npc.org.).

Facing the Hard Truths About Energy is perplexing, even schizophrenic. In maddening fashion, it blends numerous cautions about the “accumulating risks” to global oil and gas production with repeated, rosy reassurances that we “aren’t running out,” as if anyone said we were.


The last straw? Alongside debt, rising food prices threaten industrial growth

Just when the world economy seemed to have found immunity to rising world fuel prices, the rising world grain price may be the shock that finally ends its long upturn, as costlier food baskets eat into household budgets.

A surge in world oil prices - to over $70 per barrel this month, almost double the level of two years ago – has not caused a return to the production downturns and price rises (‘stagflation’) that followed previous petroleum shocks in 1973 and 1979. The global economy continues to grow strongly, with emerging markets expanding fast and a pick-up in the EU offsetting signs of slowdown in the US. Relocation of industrial production, and a widening range of services, to low-cost countries is suppressing northern hemisphere inflation rates. Among the biggest of the emerging markets, Russia’s boom is being fed by oil, China’s is still largely powered by coal, Brazil is rapidly substituting its fossil energy needs from biofuel, and India’s rising exports and capital inflows have stopped its growth being checked by rising oil demand.


Meat prices set to soar as production costs mount: analyst

The price of meat may soon increase as production costs mount and demand outstrips supply, a British analyst said Tuesday.

Richard Crane, a London-based analyst with the consulting firm Deloitte, said beef, pork and poultry producers are struggling with rising feed costs. Grain prices reached an unprecedented peak of $7.44 U.S. a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade market last week after climbing steadily for months.


How Weak Dollar Affects OPEC

When oil price spikes have occurred in the past, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has quickly increased supply, taking advantage of the high U.S. dollar selling price, but also thereby eventually driving down the oil price, making Americans and everyone else who uses oil happy.

But now, even with oil prices nearing a record high, opec is not stepping up production. Why?


OPEC has set unofficial target price of 70 usd per barrel for oil - IEA

OPEC has set an unofficial target oil price of around 70 usd per barrel, which could weigh on growth, said Claude Mandil, director general of the International Energy Agency, in an interview with the Arab Oil & Gas monthly.

'The market has become aware' that OPEC 'has set an implicit new objective of keeping prices at or around 70 usd per barrel and that the organisation is trying to defend this level,' said Mandil.


July oil output drops at Mexico's Cantarell field

Crude oil output dropped in July at Mexico's aging Cantarell offshore field, according to data published on the energy ministry's Web site on Monday. Cantarell, closely watched by the oil industry after sharp dips in output in recent months, produced an average of 1.526 million barrels per day versus 1.570 million bpd in June.

The figure meant Cantarell accounted for just 48.2 per cent of Mexico's overall crude oil output last month, continuing a steady decline over the past year at the field, which once produced around 60 per cent of the country's oil.


The end of oil is not a possibility but a certainty

Regardless of how long you've been alive, whether you're 16 or 60, it's never been a problem to get gasoline. The ability to fill our gas tanks has often felt as guaranteed to Americans as free speech and free press. However, the privilege of gas may become a thing of the past quicker than we may think.

There is one fact often overlooked when dealing with the issue of oil and that is this: We cannot make a finite resource infinite.


How Corn Ethanol Could Pollute the Bay

Despite rising food prices, it seems that nearly everyone is turning to corn-based ethanol as their choice for alternative fuel. Hidden behind these headlines, though, is an equally important but less visible cost: water pollution.

Corn is a "leaky" crop, losing more nitrogen per acre than most other crops. In the Washington region, much of this excess nitrogen ends up polluting the Chesapeake Bay and robbing fish, crabs and oysters of oxygen.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/30/07

Malthusian misery's comeback

The great demographer and economist Thomas Malthus was 23 years old the last time a British summer was this rain-soaked, which was in 1789. The consequences of excessive rainfall in the late 18th century were predictable. Crops would fail, the harvest would be dismal, food prices would rise and some people would starve. It was no coincidence that the French Revolution broke out the same year.


When life hands you vegetable oil, make biodiesel fuel

A teacher at Bloom High School has been awarded a $10,000 grant to fund a student project that will create a waste vegetable oil recycling program.

Barry Latham’s student project is titled "Free Energy for Me." A chemistry and physics teacher, he received an A+ for Energy grant from BP America.


Depleting water level a big problem

An international study group has warned that the water shortages in India and other parts of the world will be a serious problem in days to come. “Scores of countries are overpumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs, including each of the big three grain producers —China, India, and the US. “More than half the world’s people live in countries where water tables are falling,” Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute has said.


Chomsky: There Will Be a Cold War Between Iran and the U.S.

In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria. Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important.

As was the norm during the Cold War, resort to violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush send s more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq -- a country otherwise free from any foreign interference, on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world.


Peak oil - expensive food

At one time the need for more food resulted in the worldwide increase in arable land via the clearing of forests and irrigation of arid land. The land available has peaked and is decreasing because of salination of irrigated soils, diversion to bio-fuels and the growth of cities. Cheap fossil fuels allowed pumping of water for irrigation, and cheap food transport encouraged the growth of cities away from the centres of food production.


Forget Big Oil - politicians bowing to Big Ethanol

When the Senate passed an ethanol-friendly energy bill last month, there was no particular scientific or economic reason for setting 36 billion gallons - six times what is used today - as America's renewable fuels requirement within 15 years.

But there was a political reason for that number: Senators wanted to one-up President George W. Bush, who had called for 35 billion gallons in his State of the Union message.


The choice is ours: Big Oil or Chavez?

In the coming century, the world will transition from cars that run on liquid fuels to cars that run on something else, perhaps electricity or hydrogen. Until then, we have a choice. Either support the "Big Oil" companies that are SEC and IRS regulated, traded on the major stock exchanges, contribute to our economy and national security, and whose employees are our neighbors, or butt into energy myths and stand by idly (gleefully?) while Hugo Chavez ejects "Big Oil" from Venezuela.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/16/07

IEA calls for Opec to increase production

World oil demand growth will accelerate in 2008 to 2.5 per cent from this year’s 1.8 per cent despite high oil prices, the industrialised countries’ energy watchdog said on Friday.

The International Energy Agency’s forecast comes as Brent oil rose to a fresh 11-month high of $77.60 a barrel , about $1 below the all-time high set last August.


World not running out of oil, says report

Proponents of “peak oil”, the theory that global crude oil production is nearing its zenith, are unimpressed with a US oil industry group’s findings that the world has plenty of oil.

This week the US National Petroleum Council, a board of high-level US oil industry executives, releases its study titled, Facing the Hard Truths about Energy, conducted at the behest of US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.


On the precipice: Energy security and economic stability on the edge

I am a Major in the United States Army. When looking at this report for the first time, one may legitimately ask why an Army officer is writing about energy issues.

The genesis for this project began many months ago when I was conducting research for a project related to the development of the future force in the US Army. I believed it was important to include an effective assessment of what the world might look like in the year the force was projected to complete its initial fielding (2030).


New Oil Reports Add Confusion To 'Peak Oil' Theory

Proponents of "peak oil" -- the theory that global crude oil production has hit its zenith and is headed for a steep decline -- are upset with a U.S. oil industry group's findings that the world has plenty of oil. Next week the U.S. National Petroleum Council -- a board of high-level U.S. oil industry executives -- releases its study titled "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy," conducted at the behest of Energy Secretary Sam Bodman. According to the report's executive summary obtained by Reuters, the world is not running out of oil but there are "accumulating risks" to securing supply through 2030. In a draft letter to Bodman outlining its findings, the National Petroleum Council says, "The world is not running out of energy resources, but there are accumulating risks to continuing expansion of oil and natural gas production from the conventional sources relied upon historically."


In West China, saving the go-go juice

I heard about a village two hours from Chongqing City with old city walls surrounding smoke stained wooden beamed homes, cobble stone streets and stone carvings chiseled into cliff faces 400 years ago. Along the way to Lai Tan, I wanted to gaze out of bus windows and simply compare the differences between Chinese and western methods of fossil fuel use and human power, but first I had to get to the bus station.


Energy's Manpower Peak? - Why the biggest problem might not be oil.

For headhunters like Tom Zay, business couldn’t be better. “I have never seen demand like this,” says Zay, a managing director in the Houston office of Boyden, an executive worldwide search firm. “We’ve had cycles in the past. But this is different.”

Indeed it is. While Zay looks for executives and top-level managers, the entire energy industry – from welders, tank builders, and roughnecks to petroleum engineers, nuclear engineers, and technicians – is strapped for talent. And the problems are likely to get substantially worse before they get better. Nor is the labor shortage limited to the U.S. and the hydrocarbon sector. Rather, it is worldwide, and being felt in industries ranging from coal mining to nuclear power. The reasons for the labor crunch are many: an aging workforce, lagging student interest in engineering, a lack of interest in blue-collar jobs like welding, and perhaps most important, the strong commodity prices that have led to a boom in energy projects of all types.


Potential Energy Crunch May Bring Other Fuels to Fore

World oil and gas supplies from conventional sources are unlikely to keep up with rising global demand over the next 25 years, the U.S. petroleum industry says in a draft report of a study commissioned by the government.

In the draft report, oil-industry leaders acknowledge the world will need to develop all the supplemental sources of energy it can -- ranging from biofuels to nuclear power to oil extracted by unconventional means from the oil sands of Canada -- to meet soaring demand. The surge in demand is expected to arise from rapid economic growth in such fast-developing countries as China and India, as well as mounting consumption in the U.S., the world's biggest energy market.


Energy: the new cold war

Since the close of the cold war, we have been growing used to threats such as terrorism where the enemy has no state or territory. But soon we will have to get used to new strategic challenges, such as energy security, where fossil fuels will be used as weapons to achieve political ends. Energy security will be synonymous with national security and economic security.


Oil 'could hit $95 a barrel this year'

The key Middle Eastern members of oil cartel OPEC were tonight coming under pressure for an immediate increase in production after a warning from Goldman Sachs that prices could hit a peak of $95 a barrel by the end of the year.

With a new bout of speculative activity today driving Brent crude to within a few cents of the record $78.65 reached last summer, Goldman said shortages of supply were behind the steady rise in oil prices.


Disaster at the end of the cheap energy era

While warning signs are appearing of associated crises in the rapidly rising Third World populations and the rising prices for diminishing world resources of food and raw materials, the International Energy Authority has belatedly accepted the reality of peak oil and the fearful impact this will have on the future of the world.

The devastating nature of this issue is that humanity has used up half of the world's oil reserves, with the remaining half overwhelmingly lower in quality and in less accessible fields.


Are these the last days of the Oil Age?

Oil ruled the 20th century; the shortage of oil will rule the 21st. There is now no doubt about the rising trend in oil prices. In 2003 a barrel of Brent crude sold for $29; in 2004 it rose to $38; in 2005 it rose to $54.50; in 2006 it rose to $65. Last Friday the price closed at $77.50. Some dealers expect it to test the $80 level quite shortly.


Crude Oil Rises to 11-Month High as North Sea Production Drops

Crude oil rose to an 11-month high in New York and London after a pipeline shutdown and maintenance work reduced North Sea Brent oil production.

Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said they lost output from North Sea fields that produce oil and gas after BP Plc closed the pipeline. BG Group Plc said its Armada oil field in the North Sea has been shut for maintenance since June. The International Energy Agency said in a report today that global oil demand will rise 2.5 percent next year.


A new dawn for nuclear power

Despite its environmentally unfriendly image, nuclear power is firmly back on the world's energy agenda thanks to the need to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. Paul Norman, Andrew Worrall and Kevin Hesketh describe how the next generation of nuclear power stations will be cleaner and more efficient than ever


Peak Oil Passnotes: Peak Oil Zombie Attack

As we have made clear many times in this column we hold little truck with many of the whackos who inhabit the wondrous world of ‘Peak Oil’. Yes, despite the title of the column. No sooner do people start talking about energy supply crunches, plateauing production or acreage inflection then a host of bedraggled crazies rise forth from their graves to tell us a number of scary items.

Firstly, we are often told humanity is going to “die off.” What a great idea. It could almost be a book, or a series of books and a website. Oh wait. It is. Like an energy-related version of the film 28 Days Later. Every lazy person around the planet can argue how many people will be alive in 2050 or 2100 and no one can prove them wrong. Ker-ching!


"Peak oil" advocates blast U.S. industry study

Proponents of "peak oil" -- the theory that global crude oil production has hit its zenith and is headed for a steep decline -- are steamed with a U.S. oil industry group's findings that the world has plenty of oil.

Next week the U.S. National Petroleum Council -- a board of high-level U.S. oil industry executives -- releases its study titled "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy," conducted at the behest of Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.


Net Oil Exports and the "Iron Triangle"

As Matt Simmons pointed out several years ago, the critical problem with post-peak exporting regions is that we would have two exponential functions (declining production and generally increasing consumption) working against net exports. From the point of view of importers, it is quite likely that we are facing a crash in oil supplies. In my opinion, what I have described as the “Iron Triangle” is doing everything possible to keep this message from reaching consumers.


Iran Asks Japan to Pay Yen for Oil, Start Immediately

Iran asked Japanese refiners to switch to the yen to pay for all crude oil purchases, after Iran's central bank said it is reducing holdings of the U.S. dollar.

Iran wants yen-based transactions ``for any/all of your forthcoming Iranian crude oil liftings,'' according to a letter sent to Japanese refiners that was signed by Ali A. Arshi, general manager of crude oil marketing and exports in Tehran at the National Iranian Oil Co. The request is for all shipments ``effective immediately,'' according to the letter, dated July 10 and obtained by Bloomberg News.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/08/07

Around the Markets: Biofuel demand gives lift to commodities

Sugar, corn, wheat and cotton may be among the best commodity investments in the next one to three years, driven by biofuel demand and rising incomes in China and India, according to UBS, the world's largest money manager.

"Investors can expect to see a 6 to 10 percent plus return per year on those investments," Stuart Fox, UBS's head of commodities in Asia Pacific, said by phone from Hong Kong. His energy and commodities traders and sales team in Asia has more than tripled to 16 people in the past 12 months.


Green facade: Why the state's eco-friendly cars aren't doing the job

During the past two years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration sunk more than $17 million into a state fleet of cars and trucks designed to be environmentally friendly.

So far, the 1,138 "flex-fuel" vehicles have traveled a collective 10 million miles and burned more than 413,202 gallons of gas.


Real Alternative Energy Sources

If Congress is going to subsidize energy to free us from dependence on foreign oil, it should — at the very least — spend our hard-earned taxpayer dollars on something that will work.

The unfortunate truth is that neither ethanol nor any other so-called renewable alternative energy now being discussed on Capitol Hill is likely to make any significant contribution to our energy needs.


Marchetti's Curves

This is a brief account of the Energy Susbstitution Model developed by Cesare Marchetti in the 1970s at IIASA. Using data from the latest BP Statistical Review the evolution of the energy market is compared with the model to understand why the Hubbert Peak of fossils fuels represents a problem today.


World 'building up risks over energy supplies'

The world is not running out of crude oil and natural gas but there are 'accumulating risks' to securing global supplies through 2030, a high-level board of US oil company executives found in a report.Those risks include "political hurdles, infrastructure requirements and availability of trained workforce," according to the study by the US National Petroleum Council, conducted at the behest of US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.

The NPC, whose members include executives of big oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron, will present the study at its July 18 meeting.


Oil hits 10-month high near $75 on Nigeria, demand

Oil surged over 2 percent to nearly $75 a barrel on Thursday on strong demand and as fresh violence in Nigeria spurred supply concerns.

London crude rebounded after slipping from earlier highs on U.S. government data that showed crude supplies rising and refiners ramping up gasoline output to meet summer holiday driving demand.


Is Fear About Climate Change Causing a Nuclear Renaissance?

Some prominent environmentalists are urging that we reconsider nuclear power. But they have been met with resistance from many who believe nuclear power never will be a solution to global warming.

Sitting in the belly of the beast -- Dominion's 2,000-megawatt Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Connecticut -- the company's chief nuclear officer, Dave Christian, seems an unlikely environmentalist. But he says concern about climate change is what got him involved in the peaceful pursuit of the atom in the first place.


IAEA: Iran Slowing Expansion of Nuclear Enrichment Capabilities

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has slowed the expansion of its nuclear enrichment capabilities.

In Vienna Monday, Mohamed ElBaradei said IAEA inspectors have seen a slowing in the installation of centrifuges that enrich uranium at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.


Opec has little power to ease oil price – Algeria

Algeria’s Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil said yesterday there was “not much” Opec could do to bring down high oil prices as global crude stocks were already sufficient.

“There is plenty of stocks. It’s a problem with capacity and refining,” Khelil said ahead of a gas pipeline conference in Brussels. “Even if it (Opec) increases production, it’s just going to increase stocks and not have any effect because prices are drawn by petroleum product prices.”


World facing oil ‘supply crunch’ as demand soars, agency warns

The world faces an energy squeeze as soaring demand for fuel exceeds the rate of growth in the supply of crude oil, the West’s leading energy forecaster has predicted.

In a gloomy appraisal of the global oil balance, the International Energy Agency yesterday predicted a world of increasing market tightness beyond 2010. The world faces a “supply crunch” by 2012, according to the agency’s Medium-Term Oil Market Report, with weak increases in oil output from nonOpec countries colliding with strong demand and diminished spare capacity within the cartel of oil producers.


Exploding a fair few wordy myths

AFTER recent comments from Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, debate is raging over whether America and Australia went to war in Iraq because of oil.

This is absurd. Nobody was more surprised to discover that Iraq had oil than the Allies. Goodness, with all that fuel around, it was just as well that those weapons of mass destruction were only prevented from exploding by the fact that they didn't exist. Otherwise, the whole country could have gone up in flames. Oh, wait a minute … Anyway, here are some ideas that should probably be blown up.


Iran's oil output to fall without investment - report

Iran's oil production capacity will fall by five percent a year without new investment, a senior oil official was quoted on Sunday as saying by the Iran's student news agency ISNA.

Iranian officials have previously put production capacity at a little more than 4 million barrels per day (bpd), with actual output -- limited to a quota set by the oil cartel OPEC -- running at a little below 4 million bpd.


Corn ethanol could be a dead end

As the nation fights to lower its dependence on foreign oil and Colorado works toward a new energy economy, the buzz word in energy circles is “ethanol,” and using it to power cars, trucks and electricity has become a hot topic.

But as the conversation continues, ethanol experts and politicians are beginning to agree that corn-based ethanol may not be the magic energy solution many have come to see it as.


Can I diet my way to a lighter eco footprint?

Lose weight and save the planet. It has all the hallmarks of a zeitgeist diet book and perhaps a TV series in which I will travel around putting punters on scales, measuring out their porridge for the day, and perhaps changing their light bulbs. But there is some validity to the idea that you can simultaneously shrink your waistline and your carbon footprint.

An extra 100lb of weight carried in your car, for example, reduces fuel economy by around 2 per cent. Even Richard Branson recently signed up to losing a stone before he takes an inaugural flight on one of the superlight carbon-fibre Boeing jets he has bought in order to save an extra 36lb of CO2. Given that his fleet allegedly produces 7.4m tonnes of CO2 a year, that's not a hugely rewarding diet


Will the coming oil crisis be the end of suburbia?

Three years ago, when I started to teach Introduction to Sociology for Lamar Community College, my brother sent me the DVD, “The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream,” concerning the “coming oil crisis."

I showed it to my class to help the students better understand “social change” and what would happen to society during such a crisis. They hadn’t even heard that we were going to face such a crisis. It’s no surprise, most Americans hadn’t heard of it either; that was three years ago.


Peak Oil Passnotes: $80 Oil Beckons

The price of a barrel Brent crude is working its way back up to its records of $78.64 set last August 7. A steady and sure combination of factors has pushed it over $75 per barrel.

But when it pushes up against levels of $78 per barrel, which way is it going to go then?


Academic challenges global warming theory

An Australian academic has spoken out against the popular view that global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. He believes that global warming and climate change are caused by cycles in the sun's electro-magnetic radiation. He says scientists are taking a narrow view and politicians are making policy with the wrong information.

Emeritus Professor Lance Endersbee AO is a former Dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monash University. He told Tom Harwood, ABC Western Queensland's Morning Program producer that the world has been warming naturally due to increased magnetic radiation from the sun.


Ethanol, Corn, Milk, Prices Increase

It appears that oil and gasoline aren't the only things that are going up in price these days. Milk, everyones favorite beverage, has gone up in price once again.From $3.80 to almost $5.00 a gallon. But milk however, isn't the only thing that will be on the rise. Other dairy products such as butter, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream will too.


Sugar, Grains, Cotton May Be Best Commodity Buys, UBS Forecasts

Sugar, corn, wheat and cotton may be among the best commodity investments in the next one to three years driven by biofuel demand and rising incomes in China and India, according to UBS AG, the world's largest money manager.

``Investors can expect to see a 6 to 10 percent plus return per year on those investments,'' Stuart Fox, UBS's head of commodities in Asia Pacific, said by phone from Hong Kong. His energy and commodities traders and sales team in Asia has more than tripled to 16 people in the past 12 months.


North Sea is running too dry to meet target

The energy industry warned yesterday that government targets of keeping Britain's oil and gas production at 3m barrels a day by 2010 look like being missed. North Sea competitiveness is falling and financial backers are losing confidence in the wake of tax increases introduced 18 months ago.

Civil servants have been working with oil companies to find ways to boost output offshore, but the 2007 Economic Report issued by the industry organisation Oil & Gas UK says the goal looks like being missed after five years of rising hopes.

Energy Links Jamboree - 05/29/07

Limits To Growth?

In 1972, the Club of Rome published the infamous Limits To Growth. The book (which I read in the early eighties) used a computer model to simulate the world and predicted that we would be running out of a lot of key resources by, well, now. It said, simply enough -- that there were limits to growth.

NZ may still have 10 billion barrels of oil - GNS

Up to 10 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from future significant discoveries around New Zealand, an expert in oil exploration says.

"New Zealand is surrounded by sedimentary basins. . . and the probability of significant oil. . . 10 billion barrels," said David Darby, a "new business" manager for GNS Science.

Darfur: Forget genocide, there's oil

To paraphrase the famous quip during the 1992 US presidential debates, when an unknown William Jefferson Clinton told then-president George Herbert Walker Bush, "It's the economy, stupid," the present concern of the current Washington administration over Darfur in southern Sudan is not, if we look closely, genuine concern over genocide against the peoples in that poorest of poor part of a forsaken section of Africa.

Efficiency, Not Just Alternatives, Is Promoted as an Energy Saver

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters makes a lot of money selling individual servings of ground coffee in white cups that are churned out by the millions from a hissing, clanking production line here. But it recently found a way to generate even greater profits from the operation that will require only a modest investment.

Peak oil requires new thinking for a new age.

The consequence of Peak oil means that we need new thinking as to what will drive the world's economies in the post oil era to come.

In our series of articles addressing the issue of Peak Oil we have looked at some of the implications of the end of cheap oil. Today we switch gear and publish a lengthy set of proposals for building an electric economy which provides greater energy security and sovereignty over the generation and distribution.

The Future of Crude Oil is Sour and Heavy

What the hell is going on in with crude oil? Normally, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is oil’s benchmark. At sixty-five bucks, the WTI price isn’t alarming. It’s doing what oil’s been doing for the last year, hovering stubbornly between USD$60 and USD$70.

When Oil And Water Mix

The concoction becomes lethal. America’s relentless drive to dominate the Middle East and its oil, blends well with Israel’s insatiable appetite for water and unstoppable expansion. It is said that oil and water do not mix – but when they do, it becomes a lethal concoction with no easy solution. The fatal blend engulfing the Middle East today seems to have no end in sight other than darker clouds showering more innocent blood.

Biodiesel demand drives up soybean prices

Soybeans rose to their highest price since 2004 on Friday, extending this month's rally, as production of crop-based fuels increased demand for vegetable oils while reducing supplies available for food production.

The European Union wants biodiesel to make up 5.75 percent of transportation fuels by 2010. Government subsidies helped lift U.S. biodiesel output to 250 million gallons, or 946 million liters, last year from 75 million in 2005.

Russian natural gas exports fall 20.2% in Jan-April - ministry

Russian natural gas exports dropped 20.2% year-on-year to 60.4 billion cubic meters in the first four months of 2007, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said in a report on the Russian economy that was distributed on Monday.

Tilling our own soil: Preparing a surge capacity for food

“What percentage of the food we eat in the Rogue Valley is grown here?” I asked a local farmer for his best estimate while handing him a $500 check last spring for a season’s worth of produce in weekly boxes big enough to feed four. When you sign up for community-supported agriculture (CSA) or graze tables covered with produce at a growers market, it’s easy to overestimate how much food is grown locally. The farmer’s reply startled me. “The figure could be as high,” he replied, pausing, “as high as one percent.” Nobody knows for sure.

Energy Links Jamboree -05/14/07

Will Warming Chill the Global Economy?

The planet's environment is going through an epochal upheaval in weather patterns. A key question from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services' point of view is, What might that mean for economic growth?

EIA Chief: OPEC Should Increase Oil Output Before Sep

Energy Information Administration chief Guy Caruso said Monday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should increase production before its next meeting in September, especially following ongoing problems in Nigeria that have cut production in the country by almost one-third.

Caruso also predicted that national weekly average gasoline prices should hit record highs in a tight product market exacerbated by the Nigerian cuts.

With the consumption of oil exceeding new finds the Peak Oil crisis is almost upon us.

The growth in oil demand now exceeds the rate of new discovery - meaning a looming crisis for the industrial world!

Last September the BNP organised a small conference with some key industrial players in the New Forest to discuss the political impact of the Peak Oil crisis. As a political topic it has rarely made the mainstream, rarely mentioned by the Old Gang Lib/Lab/Con party but the article in Saturday's Daily Mail has not only played 'catch-up- to the BNP but has forced the issue into the consciousness of over a million of its readers.

US to halt oil purchases for strategic reserve until peak season ends

The US does not plan to buy more oil for its strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) until after the end of the peak demand summer driving season, US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said.

Speaking at the biennial ministerial meeting of the International Energy Agency in Paris, Secretary Bodman said the US currently holds around 600-700 mln usd in cash which is available to buy oil for the SPR.

Ethanol will take 27% of this year’s U.S. maize crop

The fuel ethanol industry will absorb 27% of this year's US corn crop, projected to be a record 12.46bn bushels, challenging US farmers' ability to satisfy food, feed and fuel demand, the US Dept. of Agriculture said on Friday. The Agriculture Department said US maize stockpiles will run low going into the next crop year when ethanol demand will rise again.

Got Milk? Not Enough, as Dairy Demand Outpaces Output

Milk prices worldwide are rising at the fastest rate ever and won't be falling anytime soon because of growing demand in China and Latin America and dwindling government supplies.

Can Europe end the lose-lose game with Iran?

As the world powers gathered in Berlin last week to discuss new punitive measures against Iran's nuclear program, Europe is faced with a daunting task.

On the one hand, it must remain tough and steadfast against Iran's defiance of two UN Security Council Resolutions. On the other hand, it must redefine suspension of enrichment in order to kick-start much needed negotiations and end the current lose-lose game being played between the West and Iran.

Peak Oil Passnotes: Blair’s Legacy, Missing Oil

Many commentators in the U.K. have been able to wax long and lyrical about the resignation of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Indeed many others from many other countries have done the same. Finally he is ready to stand down on June 27 after many, many months of his departure being an open secret.

IS ETHANOL ADM'S GET RICH SCHEME?

Ethanol is an agribusiness get-rich-quick scheme that will bankrupt our topsoil. Nineteenth century western farmers converted their corn into whiskey to make a profit (Rorabaugh 1979). Archer Daniels Midland, a large grain processor, came up with the same scheme in the 20th century. But ethanol was a product in search of a market, so ADM spent three decades relentlessly lobbying for ethanol to be used in gasoline. Today ADM makes record profits from ethanol sales and government subsidies (Barrionuevo 2006). -Energy Bulletin

Energy, foods drive PPI up by 1% in March

Higher prices for food and energy pushed up producer prices by 1% in March, but core prices at the wholesale level were unchanged, the Labor Department reported Friday. See full story.

Economic Report: Consumer sentiment falls to 8-month low

As gas prices climbed higher, U.S. consumer sentiment fell in early April, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index released Friday. See full story.

Commodity Markets Analysis, Meat, Gold, Corn and Peak Oil

Where's the Beef?? It Better be in Your Freezer - Several different things I want to address first before getting to analysis of the HUI. The first one has to do with meat. The governments do not include the price of food or energy in the core rate of inflation (soon they will be including those that lie in graveyards into their index to further “average” the price down I am sure of it) so everything that you or I have to buy in the grocery store no matter how much costs rise is not “their definition of inflation”. This is the government's way of hiding the volumes of money being created out of thin air.

Cuba and Venezuela turn against ethanol

Castro and Chávez attack US backing for biofuels
Leaders say diverting crops for fuel starves poor

Who Said Peak Oil

don’t want to turn this into a peak oil blog, but one of my readers just sent me a fantastic list in response to my post the other day. Some of the items overlap with my ideas, but I wanted to share because some good thought went into these items.
From Ross J.

1. We will see a resurgence of home canning. (of all that home-grown food) Natures bounty is plenty but fleeting…

Oil, climate change threaten food supply: B.C. report

Climate change and rising oil prices are a threat to B.C.'s ability to feed itself in the future, scientists and planners say.

B.C. farmers produce only 48 per cent of the meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables that we consume, according to a report prepared by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture. The report, titled B.C.'s Food Self-Reliance, says that the area of farmland with access to irrigation in B.C. would have to increase by nearly 50 per cent by 2025 to provide a healthy diet for all British Columbians.

Corn is not the future of U.S. ethanol - DOE

New technology to make ethanol from crops such as grasses and trees instead of corn could ease price spikes of the grain within a decade, a U.S. Energy Department official said on Wednesday.

"I'm not going to predict what the price of corn is going to do, but I will tell you the future of biofuels is not based on corn," U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in an interview.

In small town America, some say Ethanol boom will hurt more than help the environment

This tiny western Kansas town, with its single-story frame homes that sidle up to neatly plowed fields, looks like just the place for one of the new ethanol plants that have been turning up across the Midwest.

Many of the 400 people around here certainly could use the jobs and money the plant would bring in. But others are worried about how much water would be needed to run the plant and grow the corn that is the base for most U.S. ethanol and requires more water than many other crops.

Massive Diversion Of U.S. Grain To Fuel Cars Is Raising World Food Prices

"If you think you are spending more each week at the supermarket, you may be right. The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide," says Lester Brown, President of Earth Policy Institute. (See report.)

Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years, and rice prices are rising too. A Bloomberg analysis notes that the soaring use of corn as the feedstock for fuel ethanol "is creating unintended consequences throughout the global food chain."

Seven Questions: The Ethanol Effect

Ethanol, often derided as a political boondoggle or hailed as the key to energy independence, is finally taking off. But the resulting boom in corn prices is pushing up the cost of basic foods in the developing world. For this week’s Seven Questions, FP asked Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute what’s going on.

How global warming goes against the grain

Experts worry food shortages triggered by crop devastation are a more immediate threat than flooding, MARTIN

Greencore condemned for rejecting ethanol move

CONVENIENCE food group Greencore was condemned yesterday for its failure to produce ethanol at its former sugar plant in Mallow.

Greencore last year exited sugar processing in Ireland after 80 years and plans to redevelop its beet processing sites in Mallow and Carlow at a cost of €1.5 billion in one of the largest property deals in recent years.

The group has roughly 950 acres of land including the two sugar processing sites in Ireland and some surplus land in Britain.

Ethanol: World’s grain for food or profit?

The grain to fill a 25-gallon SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. The diversion of grains for the world’s 800 million cars will increase the price and decrease the production of food to feed the 2 billion poorest people of the world who spend at least half their income on food, according to the Earth Policy Institute. Thus, endangerment of the world’s food supply is one addition to the list of serious threats to our world stemming from the growing energy crisis.
The move to develop biofuels as an oil alternative was embraced in Bush’s State of the Union speech.