Some optimism from the Long Now Foundation.

Fusion power, like nuclear fission power, would cost less per kilowatt hour than wind (and far less than solar), yet would be less capital intensive than fission. For the constant baseload power no carbon is involved, no waste stream, no possibility of meltdown or weaponization, and there is no such thing as peak hydrogen.

Jeremy Leggett in the Guardian.

Big as BP's problems are as a result of failed risk assessments, it will very probably soon become worse. Growing numbers of people doubt its annual review of oil reserves, published today.

Who to believe? Much hangs on that. A global oil crunch would be worse than the credit crunch, especially if oil-producing companies start husbanding their resources, cutting back on exports. For some oil-consuming countries, energy crisis then morphs very quickly into energy famine. This would be something far worse than a regional oil spill, with worse liability implications for the companies society might blame for hiding the risk.

Guardian report.

Oil firm Rockhopper Exploration has raised £48.5m from the stock market to fund its drilling operations off the Falklands Islands.

[...]

However, the Argentinian government remains opposed to the drilling. Twenty eight years after the Falklands War, it still hopes that Britain's hold on the islands can be loosened. Later today the Organization of American States (OAS) will debate "the colonial situation of the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and adjoining maritime spaces".

Dmitry Orlov writes.

The drawing of parallels between industrial accidents is a dubious armchair sport, but here the parallels are just piling up and are becoming too hard to ignore:

- An explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 spewed radioactive waste across Europe

- A recent explosion and sinking of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform is spewing heavy oil into the Gulf of Mexico

Reuters report.

Global oil demand will hit a record high this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday, revising up consumption estimates as the world economy recovers from recession. The Paris-based adviser to industrialized economies raised its forecast for world oil demand growth this year to 1.67 million barrels per day (bpd), up 100,000 bpd.

Interview with Richard Heinberg on MMNews.

We have reached a fundamental turning point, foreseen in the "Limits to Growth" study of 1972. For a while, world leaders may be able to redistribute wealth in various ways--most likely from the poor to the rich--in order to make it appear that the global economy is continuing to grow. But I suspect that this will work only for a very few years at most. At some point soon, it will become clear that economies are contracting. And then most people will look for someone to blame. No doubt politicians will oblige by trotting out various scapegoats.

At some point the dollar will indeed fail as a currency. Whether this failure comes about as a result of oil exporters dumping the dollar, or simply because of problems inherent to the U.S. economy remains to be seen. And it is impossible to know whether that moment is a few months or many years ahead of us.

From the "In the end we're all debt" blog. The Pentagon report referred to is here (PDF).

A report from the American Joint Forces Command published March 15 predicts that in 2015, the world capacity for petroleum prouction could be 10 million barrels per day less than the demand.

Telegraph report.

The decision was part of a broader strategy, Mr Obama said, that also included expanding the production of nuclear power to "move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on home-grown fuels" and clean energy.

Press release from the Post Cabon Institute.

In an exclusive interview published March 25 in Le Monde, Glen Sweetnam, the Obama administration's official expert on the oil market, confirmed nearly every element of the "Peak Oil" scenario that many analysts both in and outside the oil industry have warned of for years:

-- A decline of world oil production could begin soon--perhaps next year, and

-- Only extraordinary levels of investment by the oil industry can maintain current rates of production much longer.

After decades of ignoring the "Peak Oil" theory that predicts global oil production will peak and then rapidly decline, Sweetnam's admission marks a profound shift in the U.S. government's position on energy depletion.

Le Monde blog by Matthieu Auzanneau.

The U.S. Department of Energy admits that "a chance exists that we may experience a decline" of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 "if the investment is not there", according to an exclusive interview with Glen Sweetnam, main official expert on oil market in the Obama administration.

[...]

Page 8 of the presentation document of the round-table, a graph shows that the DoE is expecting a decline of the total of all known sources of liquid fuels supplies after 2011.

The graph labels as "unidentified" the additional supply projects needed to fill in a gap that is expected to grow after 2011 between rising demand and decline of known sources of supply that the DoE supposes will start that year. The declining production foreseen by the DoE concerns the total of existing sources of liquid fuels plus the new production projects that are supposed to come on-stream before 2012.

BBC report.

Shares in Desire Petroleum have almost halved after the oil explorer said a well being drilled off the Falkland Islands may not be economically viable.

Guardian report.

In a significant policy shift, the government has agreed to undertake more work on whether the UK needs to take action to avoid the massive dislocation that could be caused by the early onset of "peak oil" -- the point that marks the start of terminal decline in global oil production.

Jeremy Leggett, the executive chairman of the renewable power company Solar Century and a leading figure in the UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security, said the meeting, to be held at the Energy Institute, showed a welcome new sense of urgency.

"Government has gone from the BP position -- '40 years of supply left, the price mechanism works, no need to worry' -- to 'crikey'," he said.

Finian Cunningham on Global Research.

In this context of a major realignment in the world's energy economy -- one where there will be a continuing diminished role for the US -- Washington's blustering rhetoric about democracy and peace and war on terror or alleged Iranian nuclear weapons can be seen as a desperate attempt to conceal its fear that it stands to be a big loser. Encircling Iran with wars and threatening gas supplies to possibly the world's top future gas customer -- China -- is the real deal. US actions are more accurately seen as putting a knife to the energy arteries of a world economy that it will no longer be able to dominate.

Telegraph report.

Jorge Taiana, Argentina's foreign minister, will travel to New York on Wednsday to demand secretary general Ban Ki-moon's intervention to kick-start negotiations with Britain over the ownership of the South Atlantic islands.

The Argentine position was buoyed by the unanimous backing of a 32-country group of Latin American and Caribbean nations including Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.

The group also included 12 Commonwealth nations and is almost entirely composed of non-White former Spanish and British colonies.

Times report.

Washington refused to endorse British claims to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands yesterday as the diplomatic row over oil drilling in the South Atlantic intensified in London, Buenos Aires and at the UN.

Despite Britain's close alliance with the US, the Obama Administration is determined not to be drawn into the issue. It has also declined to back Britain's claim that oil exploration near the islands is sanctioned by international law, saying that the dispute is strictly a bilateral issue.

BBC report.

Latin American and Caribbean leaders have backed Argentina's claim over the Falklands, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has said.

At a regional summit in Cancun, Mexico, a document has reportedly been drafted giving Argentina unanimous support.

It comes a day after a British oil rig began drilling for oil off the islands, a move Argentina formally objected to.