The Oil Drum seeks to facilitate civil, evidence-based discussions about energy and its impacts on the future of humanity, as well as serve as a leading online knowledge-base for energy-related topics.
The following interview is a guest post by Matthieu Auzanneau, a freelance journalist living in Paris. This article previously appeared in Le Monde.Olivier Rech developed…
With relatively little fanfare on the international stage, Lundin Petroleum and Statoil (and partners) have just recently jointly discovered one of the largest oil fields…
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”…
Does Thursday's announcement that the EU is considering to ban oil imports from Iran epitomise the draining of power from west to east? The big…
Hall and Day (2009) report that the EROI for coal might be as high as 80 and that for hydropower, EROI is 40. Does this…
David Cameron describes the economic downturn as "no normal recession" UK Prime Minister David Cameron to party conference, 5th October 2011. This is the fourth…
It is clear there are limits to the pollution a given ecosystem can absorb, the level of resources that can be depleted, and debt that…
At the intersection of global energy depletion and concerns about human impact on the environment lie some serious and oft overlooked issues. Largely gone from…
As we look to transition away from fossil fuels, solar and wind are attractive options. Key factors making them compelling are: the inexhaustibility of the…
This is a guest post by Raymond Kaiser, LEED AP, Director of Green Building Services for Stewart Engineering Consultants. Mr. Kaiser has considerable experience in…
This is a guest post by Dr. Minqi Li. Dr. Li was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to 1992. He received a PhD…
The small archipelago nation of Bahrain can't seem to stay out of the news lately, as the government continues its containment of civil protests that…
Shell recently announced that their Prelude floating LNG project off northwest Western Australia has passed another milestone, with the $US12.6 billion ($11.8bn) project receiving final…
Power satellites are an idea that has been around since the late 1960s but not developed commercially because we don't know how to build an…
Over the past 50 years, when oil prices moved up sharply, causing inflation, or remained high with annual average price around $100, recession has followed…
It has been a tumultuous month when it comes to oil and fuel markets. As of the writing of my Oil and Fuel column in…
Synopsis: The causes of the fall of the Soviet Union are thought to be inefficiency and the Soviet response to the Reagan Administration’s military buildup…
Back in 1989, during the craze of the “cold fusion” announcement by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, a colleague of mine told me about the…
The Post Carbon Institute undertook this report in order to examine three widespread assumptions about the role that natural gas can and should play in…
Below is an essay by Jeremy Grantham, the Chief Investment Officer of GMO Capital (with over $106 billion in assets under management they are one…