Thoughtocracy » Peak Oil

Iran and the West Rediscover Oil as Weapon

thinker — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:47:45 +0000

Hark back to the 1970′s: Iran and the West Rediscover Oil as Weapon

Spoofed Vote4Energy commercial puts pressure on Big Oil

thinker — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:06:28 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

PolluterWatch.com (a project of Greenpeace that holds polluters accountable for the work they’re doing to block the transition from the dirty fossil fuels of the past to the clean energy sources of the future) recently spoofed an oil ad meant to sway US voters towards the interests of Big Oil.

Philip Radford (Executive Director, Greenpeace) announced this spoof ad on the HuffingtonPost.com website under the title “Trimming Astroturf From the American Petroleum Institute’s ‘Vote 4 Energy’ Ad”.

Oil Barrens Threaten the President of the United States

thinker — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:39:36 +0000

Jack Gerard – the head of the American Petroleum Institute has threatened the President of the United States over the construction of the Keystone oil pipeline.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The pipeline obviously represents a huge commercial interest, and they are willing to fight for the money invovled.

Corruption in Nigeria

thinker — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:53:02 +0000

The longstanding practice of bribery in the oil industry is discussed in this 10-minute Frontline excerpt. It is interesting for another reason: Dick Cheney undoubtedly had full knowledge of this and still he has managed to deny direct involvement.

Gasoline powered lawn mowers

thinker — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:08:13 +0000

Sometimes information about energy use shows up in unlikely places, such as this article about gasoline powered lawn mowers that showed up in The Straight Dope, by Cecil Adams.

Blood Oil in Asia

thinker — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:13:51 +0000

Chevron and French energy giant Total have been implicated in claims that hired soldiers in Burma murdered civilians and forced them into hard labor to keep gas exports flowing:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100706/wl_time/08599200196200

This type of report typifies what Thoughtocracy has predicted: that as oil supplies are depleted, the violence to control them will increase.

Colorado at forefront of Energy Deregulation

thinker — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:08:23 +0000

Colorado is trying to do away with what little regulations it has on its oil and gas drilling. The state is a key player in this movement because it has one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the United States, and the public should fear the pollution of the nation’s water supply when dangerous practices are not regulated (as detailed in the HBO documentary, Gasland).

A new deregulatory push in the energy heartland (Salon, Friday, JUL 2, 2010).

Ongoing Oil Spills in Africa

thinker — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:43:40 +0000

The media’s eye is on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but there has been ongoing leakage in Nigeria for 50 years as much as 546 million gallons of oil by some estimates. The crabs and shrimp are all gone, and life expectancy is the lowest in Nigeria, and people struggle to make a living as their environment dies.

Little attention is paid to this impoverished area, and attempts to publicize the plight are squelched. The spokeswoman for Shell Oil in Lagos, said, “We don’t discuss individual spills,” and witnesses have reported that soldiers guarding an Exxon Mobil site beat women who were demonstrating last month.

The environmental damage to the Niger delta may provide good clues for what type of damage Americans can expect to see in the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html

Reach of Oil Spill

thinker — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:45:42 +0000

Satellite Images

More images can be viewed here:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/oilspill/

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?project=gulfofmexico

Projections

Mexico’s Dwindling Oil Supply

thinker — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:17:01 +0000

Just as the oil supply of the United States fell in the 1970s and it had to transition to being an importer of oil instead of an exporter, Mexico’s wells are also going dry; it could become an oil importer by 2020. This March 8, 2010 New York Times article, Mexico Oil Politics Keeps Riches Just Out of Reach, states that Mexico’s production has fallen from almost 3.5 million barrels a day in 2004 to a projected average of 2.5 million barrels this year (2010), which is exactly the type of trending that occurred in the United States and elsewhere as more and more oil fields go dry.

Mexico is one of the three leading foreign suppliers of oil to the United States, along with Canada and Saudi Arabia, and as Mexican production and exports wayne, the United States will have to get its oil more and more from unfriendly countries like Venezuela or unstable countries like Nigeria and Iraq. This shift of where America gets its oil is well-known to policy makers in Washington, and there are surely adjustments to foreign policy and military strategy that accompany it