To hear some people talk about it, Keystone XL is the answer to many of America’s current woes. It will free America of the scourge of foreign oil dependence, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, weaken the enemies that threaten the union, and bring on the good times once again. While the good times may … Read More
Twenty years ago, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was then largely unknown in the west either as an environmental activist or writer, started touring the capitals of Europe to drum up support for the Ogoni campaign against the oil giant Shell. Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni had many issues with Shell – the fact that they had received … Read More
That the international oil majors face unprecedented challenges in growing their resource base is well known. Shut out of the richest pickings in OPEC countries and increasingly out performed by national oil companies, they have been forced to invest in the world’s most extreme oil resources. The tar sands is one such example. Ultra-deepwater and … Read More
Why Canadian oil does not make America secure Political turmoil in the Middle East once again exposes America’s dependence on oil and its vulnerability to global price spikes. On Capitol Hill, Big Oil’s political lackeys are stepping up their campaign for supply solutions and the current must-have item on their list is the Keystone XL … Read More
The U.S. already imports over 2 million barrels a day from Canada. It did not protect us from rising prices in 2008, it hasn’t this time, and it never will.
At one point yesterday, Brent crude, the European benchmark grade of oil was topping $108 a barrel—its highest level in 2½ years. Such is the surge in oil prices caused by the Libyan crisis that it could derail the global economic recovery according to Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist. Analysts argue that … Read More
When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper met Barack Obama at the end of last week he asked the American president to support a highly controversial $7-billion pipeline that could double the amount of dirty tar sands that could be exported to the United States. TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline has been on hold since last … Read More
Disaster One. New estimates put the amount of oil per day pouring into the Gulf of Mexico at one million gallons a day. If this is so, BP’s disaster may have spilt more oil than the Exxon Valdez, when at least eleven million gallons poured from the stricken tanker. Disaster Two. There is another ecological … Read More
Timing, they say, is everything. Yesterday I blogged on the US military’s latest warnings on peak oil and how we face a severe energy crunch. The military planners examined different production methods and flagged up potential problems. With the Canadian tar sands they warned that “legal constraints may discourage investment.”
It’s that time of year again. It’s January, snow is on the ground (and no that doesn’t mean that climate change is not happening), it’s freezing outside and … Russia is having an energy dispute with its neighbours. Somethings never change. This time it is Belarus and the spat is about oil rather than gas, … Read More
