Monthly Archives: February 2011

Why are WTI and Brent Prices so Different?

We have all heard at least a partial explanation as to why West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent prices are so far apart. We have been told that the Midwest is oversupplied because of all of the Canadian imports, and … Continue reading

Posted in News Related Post | Tagged , , , | 25 Comments

A Look Behind Rising Food Prices: Population Growth; Rising Oil Prices; Weather Events

This is a guest post by Dr. Gary Peters. He is a retired geography professor and author of Population Geography. Rising food prices, crowned by a recent record high spike and chronicled in the graph below, have played a role … Continue reading

Posted in Food issues | Tagged , | 37 Comments

Is “shale oil” the answer to “peak oil”?

Readers have been asking questions about a couple of shale oil articles recently. One is an AP article called New drilling method opens vast oil fields in US. A similar article is a CNBC article titled Massive New US Oil Supply … Continue reading

Posted in Oil and Its Future | Tagged , , , , | 43 Comments

Networked Resources, Declining Quality and Peak Oil

This is a guest post by David Clarke (also known as “aeldric”) from Australia. He has written posts (here and here) on failures of networked systems for The Oil Drum. This post was originally published on The Oil Drum – … Continue reading

Posted in Oil and Its Future | Tagged | 34 Comments

Don’t count on natural gas to solve US energy problems

We often hear statements suggesting that by ramping up shale gas production, the US can raise total natural gas production and solve many of its energy problems, including adding quite a number of natural gas vehicles, and replacing a large … Continue reading

Posted in Alternatives to Oil | Tagged , | 10 Comments