ASPO-9: the ghost of hyperinflation to come

What if hyperinflation is the next big thing? At ASPO-9 in Brussels, Jeff Rubin and Douglas Reynolds said exactly that. At the 9th conference of the Association for the study of peak oil (ASPO) in Brussels, one of the speakers said that it was time to stop economists bashing. That is probably correct: economists are […]

Glencore: Profiteering From Hunger and Chaos

The rapid rise in prices for food, fuel and commodities has been disastrous for the world’s poor, including Indonesian market vendor Lia Romi. But it’s a bonanza for multinational trading firms such as Glencore. While Romi has trouble feeding her family, Glencore – the world’s largest diversified commodities trader – is planning a US$11billion share […]

Is Portland prepared for peak oil?

Jim Jackson, adjunct professor of geology at Portland State, delivered a lecture last month for the Yachats Academy of Arts and Sciences titled “Peak Oil: All Geology is Local,” which covered the history and future of oil production, the many estimates of how much oil remains and the fact that global analysis of these issues […]

Peter Gleick on peak water

Like our use of oil, our use of water has the potential to reach peak limits. EarthSky spoke with world-renowned water expert Peter Gleick, head of California’s Pacific Institute. He said: As much as 40% of the water humans use come from non-renewable resources, like northern China groundwater, or groundwater in the state of California, […]

US calls on China to spend more

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has called on China to rely more on its own spending and less on exports. “The challenge is to lay the foundation for a new growth model, driven more by domestic demand,” he advised his Chinese counterparts. His comments came at the start of a two-day bilateral summit on security […]

Fracking Linked to Tainted U.S. Drinking Water

A controversial natural gas production technique, which is key to a century of U.S. domestic supply, is causing contamination of drinking water, a report released by the National Academy of Sciences said on Monday. Scientists from Duke University collected 68 drinking water samples which showed potentially harmful levels of methane in drinking water near drilling […]

IEA: Demand, not speculation, cited for rising oil prices

High oil prices are here to stay, and they’re caused by surging demand and limited new supply, not Wall Street speculators. That’s the message from Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency. “Speculators are only responding to what is going on in the markets,” Birol said. “We don’t see enough oil in the […]

The New Middle Ages

We will go kicking and screaming down the path to the new Middle Ages as fossil fuels desert us. With the decline of available energy, those of most of us who have sat at the top of the energy pyramid will become the new peasants. With the popular view of the Middle Ages as a […]

What really triggered oil’s greatest rout

A range of factors, both economic and political, were also at play. The recent rise in raw goods has been fueled in part by the U.S. Fed pumping cash into the markets by purchasing $600 billion in bonds. This program has pushed interest rates extraordinarily low, making borrowing essentially free once adjusted for inflation. Investors […]

You and your slaves

“A low-energy policy allows for a wide choice of lifestyles and cultures. If, on the other hand, a society opts for high energy consumption, its social relations must be dictated by technocracy and will be equally degrading whether labeled capitalist or socialist.” — Ivan Illich In 2009 a British family living in a four-bedroom house […]

Peak Oil’s Impact: Concerts

Not too long ago, I had the good fortune of attending an outstanding concert performance by a blues/rock guitarist whose music I recently “discovered.” The musician (Joe Bonamassa*) played in central Massachusetts, and I attended the performance with my brother, who lives at the western end of the state. While his trip was a bit […]

Cuba is going to drill for oil; what’s the US reaction?

Could the prospect of a foul oil spill between the US and Cuba bring the two together? The US Treasury Department in late April granted a special license to the International Association of Drilling Contractors that would permit Cubans to attend a conference hosted by a US-based organization in Trinidad–a request that was months in […]

India Revives Energy Ties with Iran

In a visible attempt to re-engage with Iran’s energy sector, India has submitted a reworked master development plan for Iran’s Farsi natural gas block. A consortium led by ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd, won the bid in 2002, but is yet to develop the gas […]

Obama administration floats draft plan to tax cars by the mile

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive. The plan is a part of the administration’s Transportation Opportunities Act, an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly. The White […]

Media Ignores Fukushima Fire

Image captures of video footage from the Fukushima nuclear plant appear to show a fire. According to Alexander Higgins and other bloggers, the Japanese shut down the webcam after the images below appeared on the internet. Lucas White Field Hixson posted the images last night, according to Higgins. There is also an animation of the […]

Peak oil? Now it’s peak cars

listen now | download audio Australian and world peak car ownership per capita was in 2004 and since has shown a slow decline. It marks an end to car dependence. Teenage car ownership has dropped markedly. Figures suggest a big cultural shift as well as structural change within cities. Some very large cities such as […]

Population Control : Stopping Falling Population

According to a UN 2009 revised population forecast, world population will peak at around 7 billion in 2030, and begin to fall. How can that be? In 1980, world population was forecasted to be at least at 15 billion by 2050. In UNdata | record view | Total fertility rate (children per woman) by 2030, […]

Witnessing the End of an Era

In March this year (2011) the science journal Nature announced what many people already knew, that there are clear indications that the world’s Sixth Mass Extinction is already underway. The last mass extinction came some 65 million years ago when a comet or asteroid slammed into the Yucatan peninsula, in modern-day Mexico, causing firestorms whose […]

A Review of Green Energy Growth Prospects

Energy is the primary resource of ecological and economic growing systems (Robert U. Ayres & B. Warr 2005). Conventional economic theory does not recognise this simple obvious truth to its full extent; preferring to convolute and substitute. Well it appears this works no more… There is growing global concern that inefficient energy consumption in the […]

Peak Oil: Security

Having a strong community is the best security. A rent a cop is only as good as the community behind it and its preparedness

Peak Oil And The WikiLeaks Story That Got Away

On Thursday Ursula put up a short sharp post with a graphic that said it all. The petroleum party we have been enjoying for the last century has to end. And end it will, most likely sooner rather than later. To further the discussion along I want to raise the specter of a WikiLeaks story […]

We’re Dancing as Fast as We Can

Back in the days of the 1920’s and ‘30s a fad known as Marathon Dancing swept the nation at the height of the Great Depression. In these contests, entrants paid a small entry fee to dance until they dropped. The last couple standing, that the judges deemed actually were dancing would take home a small […]

Solar Fire Breakthrough

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a breakthrough on the Solar Turbine project. We are adopting the Solar Fire concentrator technology as our official solar energy platform. OSE and Solar Fire are entering into partnership – with a single purpose of creating a state-of-art, replicable, open source platform for solar concentrator power applied to electricity, space […]

Max Keiser interviews Kurt Cobb on peak oil

this issue takes max to the issue of peak oil, and the problems surrounding the exaustion of our planets fossil fuels

Japan wants to halt 3 nuclear reactors

Officials at a Japanese power company were finalizing a decision Saturday following a government request that it suspend all three reactors at a coastal nuclear plant while steps are taken to prevent a major earthquake or tsunami from causing another radiation crisis. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Friday that he had asked Chubu Electric Power […]

World energy use in 2010: over 5% growth

Energy markets have combined crisis recovery and strong industry dynamism Enerdata analyses the trends in energy demand, based on its 2010 data for G20 countries. Energy consumption in the G20 soared by more than 5% in 2010, after the slight decrease of 2009. This strong increase is the result of two converging trends. On the […]

Southeast Asian Nations’ Leaders Debate Global Competition for Food and Energy

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Saturday raised the spectre of increasing global competition for food and energy resources in the coming years as the world’s population grows from seven billion to nine billion by 2045. Speaking at the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Leaders’ Summit here, Yudhoyono warned fellow Asean leaders that […]

War and the Global Economic Crisis: Collapse of the American Standard of Living

As the economy stumbles the American standard of living recedes. 44 million people are using food stamps and in one year that figure will be 60 million. Washington and Wall Street say, what me worry? Of course not they are the masters of the universe. We are 24 months into an inflationary depression and it […]

Speculation Explains High Oil and Gasoline Prices

WTI (West Texas Intermediate) Crude Oil futures traded at its lowest in almost two months in New York on Thursday, May 5 in its biggest selloff in two years, plunging 8.6% on the day to below the $100 mark (Fig. 1).  Brent crude on ICE also dropped as much as $12.17, or 10%, which was […]

Ugo Bardi: Peak oil, thermodynamics, and stoic philosophy

I had plenty of time for my talk at the conference “Peak Oil: fact or fiction?” held in Barbastro (Spain) on May 4-7 2011. So, I could ramble a little on various subjects, from the entropy of complex systems to the stoic philosophy of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (above). Perhaps too many things but, in any […]

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