David (Dave) Summers is a Curators' Professor Emeritus of Mining Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology (he retired in 2010). He directed the Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Center at MO S&T off and on from 1976 to 2008, leading research teams that developed new mining and extraction technologies, mainly developing the use of high-pressure waterjets into a broad range of industrial uses. While one of the founders of The Oil Drum, back in 2005, he now also writes separately at Bit Tooth Energy.
When I last wrote about the global supply of oil, it was back in October, as the fall in oil prices was developing. Since then…
The oil markets are concerned that there is too much oil currently available on the market, and that, as a consequence, oil prices may continue…
The recent news that Saudi Arabia has not found natural gas to be as available as it had thought from its shale deposits, and is…
It is difficult to see any positive interpretation of the changes and conflicts that are increasingly filling the headlines of the press. Fluctuating optimism over…
One problem with defining a peak in global oil production is that it is only really evident sometime after the event, when one can look…
A single picture is sufficient to tell the story of the fate of the Baiji Refinery in Iraq. Recently reached by the ISIS forces, it…
The recent agreement between Russia and China for the sale of some 38 billion cu m of natural gas a year for 30 years, at…
Underlying many of the projections of future energy supply that are now being made there are, as mentioned earlier, a lot of assumptions that are…
As the President moves further into his second term, he appears to be growing more willing to tackle the concerns that his supporters have over…
Filling up at the local gas station yesterday I noted that prices are still below $3.00 a gallon, though at $2.99 only just below. Going…
Today the British Government are announcing the construction of the first new nuclear-powered electricity generating station in 20-years. The new plant, which will replace plants…
There has been considerable comment this week over the telephone call between President Obama and the President Rouhani of Iran. Certainly the election of a…
The news that Saudi Arabia is planning to employ 200 drilling rigs next year (up from 20 back in 2005) suggests that there is a…
There has been considerable fanfare this week over the Hyperloop idea, put forward by Elon Musk. In this concept, which was, in this case developed…
The development of the shale gas deposits in the United States, led by the drilling and fracking of horizontal wells into the Barnett Shale of…
The turmoil in the Middle East shows little sign of ending in the near future, and the potential lack of enough cheap fuel for the…
The continuing conflict in Syria, and the slow spread of violence in the region around it, continue to make it difficult to make accurate predictions…
The EIA has noted, in This Week in Petroleum that, for the first time, the sum of Non-OECD country demand contributed more than half to…
There is often quite a debate in the Peak Oil community over the difference between a reserve and a resource. Simplistically a resource is the…
News of the future was, in my youth, something that one found by crossing the palm of a lady in a dark tent with a…