Energy Flow, Emergent Complexity, and Collapse

Civilizations grow in complexity given the right circumstances. And all too often they end up collapsing. History is replete with examples. Joseph Tainter, among others, has examined collapse from the standpoint of decreasing marginal return on investment in increasing complexity, which he posits is the most common factor in collapsed societies. The key question one […]

Kjell Aleklett: Peak oil in Davos: Oh yes it is, oh no it isn

The title above was borrowed from the Financial Times. Last week the World Economic Forum in Davos celebrated its 40th anniversary and one of the sessions addressed the world It is now 9 years since Colin Campbell wrote the term

Scientist in climate row speaks out

Academic breaks silence to deny covering up flawed data about global warming The scientist at the centre of the “Climategate” controversy last night denied claims that he covered up flawed data about rising world temperaturs. Professor Phil Jones, the former head of the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit, said the 20-year-old study questioned […]

Is the world awash in oil?

There is a growing consensus among world oil experts that the planet has an abundance of oil While there’s still an argument about oil’s long-term future, there’s no denying the evidence of newly abundant oil. In November 2007, Brazil announced a massive offshore discovery of five billion to eight billion barrels of oil. A year […]

Heinberg – China or the U.S.: which will be the last nation standing?

Silly me. Here I had thought that world leaders would want to keep their nations from collapsing. They must be working hard to prevent currency collapse, financial system collapse, food system collapse, social collapse, environmental collapse, and the onset of general, overwhelming misery I know, that sounds unbearably cynical. And in fact it may not […]

A New Clean Economy

Since his election, President Barack Obama has emphasized the importance of developing new sources of energy and cultivating the jobs that will come with them. “I am convinced that whoever builds a clean energy economy, whoever is at the forefront of that, is going to own the 21st-century global economy,” Obama told a bipartisan meeting […]

James K. Galbraith belongs to the most distinguished economists in the United States today. In the following exclusive interview that was conducted for New Deal 2.0 in the USA and MMNews in Germany, he talks about the financial / economic crisis and the phenomenon of Peak Oil, points at future tasks and explains why he […]

The Myth of Self Reliance

A mass emailing went out a while back from a prominent permaculturist looking for I took a Googling cruise around the internet and found that

David Strahan: How long before the lights go out?

Bad news for energy consumers continues to come thick and fast. Bills have more than doubled in the past six years, and could rise a further 25 per cent in the next decade according to a wide-ranging report published yesterday by Ofgem. But even more worrying was the watchdog’s analysis of Britain’s energy security The […]

T. Boone Pickens: The Oil Crisis Isn't Over

“The oil crisis is over.” Not so, says T. Boone Pickens in the latest commercial for his energy plan, aptly named “The Pickens Plan.” The oil tycoon and chairman of hedge fund BP Capital is championing natural gas and wind energy to wean America off foreign oil, which he calls a national security threat. This […]

Scant Arctic ice could mean summer "double whammy"

Scant ice over the Arctic Sea this winter could mean a “double whammy” of powerful ice-melt next summer, a top U.S. climate scientist said on Thursday. “It’s not that the ice keeps melting, it’s just not growing very fast,” said Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. In January, Arctic […]

New ORNL system provides hybrid electric autos with power to spare

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed, fabricated and demonstrated a PHEV traction drive power electronics system that provides significant mobile power generation and vehicle-to-grid support capabilities. “The new technology eliminates the separate charging mechanism typically used in PHEVs, reducing both cost and volume under the hood,” said Gui-Jia Su […]

U.S. Energy Dept cancels surplus uranium transfers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Department has canceled plans to put into the market during 2011 extra government-owned surplus uranium supplies, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Congress on Thursday, but the uranium transfers will continue for this year. The department had planned to transfer next year up to 1,125 tonnes, or about 2.48 million […]

Habit-Learning Device will Lower Energy Bills Under New Clean Energy Scheme

Smart control units that learn householders’ energy habits and provide immediate feedback on consumption could give home energy savings of up to 20% without compromising comfort. The new energy-saving As well as working with standard energy supplies, the Wattbox will help people get the most out investments, such as solar panels, made in line with […]

Soft intelligence for hard decisions

An approach to decision making based on soft metrics could allow problems to be solved where no definitive “yes-no” answer is possible in fields as diverse as healthcare, defense, economics, engineering, public utilities and science. Writing in the International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems Mihaela Quirk of Los Alamos National Laboratory explains how. Progress […]

According to new survey, Americans support strong climate, energy policies

Despite a sharp drop in public concern over global warming, Americans Funding more research on renewable energy, such as solar and wind power (85 percent) Tax rebates for people buying fuel-efficient vehicles or solar panels (82 percent) Establishing programs to teach Americans how to save energy (72 percent) Regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant (71 […]

World Oil Capacity to Peak in 2010 Says Petrobras CEO

Mr. Gabrielli, the CEO of Petrobras, gave a presentation in December 2009 in which he shows world oil capacity, including biofuels, peaking in 2010 due to oil capacity additions from new projects being unable to offset world oil decline rates. Gabrielli states in his presentation that the world needs oil volumes the equivalent of one […]

John Michael Greer: Endgame

…For many years now, people in the peak oil scene We may no longer have that option. If I read the signs correctly, America has finally reached the point where its economy is so deep into overshoot that catabolic collapse is beginning in earnest. If so, a great many of the things most of us […]

A Boom in

As big solar power plants planned for the desert Southwest remain bogged down in environmental disputes, utilities increasingly are turning to so-called distributed solar rooftop arrays and small photovoltaic farms that can be built close to transmission lines. Over the past few weeks, some 1,300 megawatts Two weeks ago in California, regulators authorized utility Southern […]

Researcher on Climate Is Cleared in Inquiry

WASHINGTON While the Pennsylvania State inquiry, conducted by three senior faculty members and administrators, absolved Dr. Mann of the most serious charges against him, it is not likely to silence the controversy over climate science. New questions about the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to which Dr. Mann was a significant contributor, […]

World oil demand to peak around 95-110 mbpd – BP CEO

LONDON (Reuters) – World oil demand will peak sometime after 2020 at a maximum of around 110 million barrels per day (bpd), BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said on Thursday. “World demand will peak before its supply peaks because there is plenty of oil in the world, there really is,” he said in an interview […]

California Sets Up Statewide Network to Monitor Global-Warming Gases

California is preparing to introduce the first statewide system of monitoring devices to detect global-warming emissions, installing them on towers throughout the state. The monitoring network, which is expected to grow, will initially focus on pinpointing the sources and concentrations of methane, a potent contributor to climate change. The California plan is an early example […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Revisiting the Electric Car

Although the current crop of hybrids certainly runs some of the time on electric motors, the future of electric vehicles are those that plug into the grid and get all, or at least much, of their energy from this source. There is no question that electric vehicles are intrinsically superior to the current combustion engines […]

CEOs request DOE loan guarantee change

Eleven CEO Specifically, the loan guarantee program is requiring a long-term, fixed-price offtake agreement as a key determining factor in evaluating whether a project has a reasonable prospect of repayment as required in the law establishing the loan guarantee.

Barton bought stake in gas wells from lobbyist

DALLAS Barton said at a hearing last month of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that he was “a small, small partner in a natural gas well in Johnson County in the Barnett Shale.” He later told a reporter that he couldn’t remember exactly how he obtained the interest. Mize, who died in 2008, had […]

Proposed national standard for phosphorus derailed by critics

Last summer, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials floated a nationwide standard to limit the amount of phosphorus farmers could apply to fields. But by December, they had pulled it back in the face of stiff opposition from a group of agriculture scientists. Their decision disappointed many of the scientists and advocates working on Chesapeake Bay […]

U.S. to Receive First Yemeni LNG Cargo Over Boston Objections

(Bloomberg) — The United States will receive its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from Yemen this month over the objections of Massachusetts officials who have said the vessels may be targets for terrorists. U.S. Coast Guard officials announced plans yesterday to allow an LNG tanker from Yemen to pass through Boston Harbor into GDF […]

Falklands oil plans anger Argentina

Argentina has lodged a protest with the UK over London’s plans to begin offshore oil exploration off the north coast of the disputed Falkland Islands. Jorge Taiana, the Argentinian foreign minister, said that Argentina “firmly rejects” the UK’s plans to authorise oil and gas exploration “in the Argentine continental shelf area”. “We will do everything […]

Interior Secretary Sees Little Hope for Consensus on Wind Farm

ABOARD THE IDA LEWIS Mr. Salazar has set a March 1 deadline for the tribes and the project

In Texas, Resistance Over Stricter U.S. Smog Limits

HOUSTON But the Obama administration

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