“The Sequel”: How 2011 Is A Repeat of 2008—Only Bigger, Longer, and Uncut by Bailouts

I might have missed it, but I don’t think anyone has noticed this simple truism: The structural causes that led to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 are identical to the structural causes that are leading us to another systemic financial crisis in 2011. You saw this one already? The only difference is the kind […]

Gail Tverberg: Oil Limits, Recession, and Bumping Against the Growth Ceiling

The issues we are confronted with today seem to be a subset of the issues foretold in the book Limits to Growth back in 1972. At some point, the economy cannot continue to grow as rapidly as it did in the past. It appears to me that the most immediate limit we are hitting today is […]

U.S. to Invest Up to $510 Million in Biofuels for Planes, Ships

The Obama administration will spend as much as $510 million in the next three years to build or overhaul biofuel plants and refineries. The U.S. departments of Agriculture, Energy and Navy will invest with private companies that will have to at least match the U.S. contributions, according to a statement today. “America’s long-term national security […]

The Pros And Cons Of Density

By the year 2025 we will have finally come to grasp that in virtually every human endeavor, density pays. Silicon Valley has known this since Gordon Moore coined his eponymous law nearly half a century ago, predicting the exponentially increasing density and decreasing price of the processing power crammed onto microchips — a dynamic that […]

Vertical Farming – Solution to Feeding Growing World Population

Vertical farming is known as a highly promising means to meet the growing demand for food and clean water in growing cities around the world. Columbia University professor, Dr. Despommier, dubbed the Father of vertical farming, taught “Medical Ecology.” In 1999 his class gave birth to the concept of vertical farming. His students decided they […]

Time to refine energy security

What are we to make of the energy debate? If good public policy is the art of distilling the signal from the noise, the challenge has never been greater. How to balance the risks of climate change against the costs of doing anything about it? And what, in turn, might these decisions mean for energy […]

North Sea Finds Linked in ‘Giant’ Oil Discovery

Statoil ASA (STL), Norway’s biggest oil and gas producer, said two North Sea finds are probably part of a single field that could be the country’s largest oil discovery since the 1980s. The Aldous and Avaldsnes oil discoveries located on the Utsira High may make up a combined structure of 500 million to 1.2 billion […]

Cassandras

The “base case” or “standard run” of the first edition (1972) of “The Limits to Growth”. Note how the start of the decline of the industrial and agricultural world production occurred around the start of the second decade of the 21st century What is most impressive in the recent world events is not so much […]

Food and Population Control as a Weapon in Africa

Few parts of the world aptly fit the description of hell better than Somalia’s crumbling capital city, Mogadishu; a nation ravaged by imperialism, domestic instability and economic sabotage from foreign forces. Parades of malnourished Africans queuing up to receive rations are trumpeted in thirty second news pieces on most mainstream media outlets, of which offer […]

Weirdest Alternative Fuels

From human waste to rabbits to … love handles, there’s no doubt scientists are exploring a wide, weird range of sources to fuel our energy demands. President Obama has most recently announced new fuel standards for trucks, and energy sources ranging from coal to oil to nuclear have been under scrutiny. New sources of fuel […]

Change and the Process of Transformation

There is a key difference between change and transformation. We often speak of “change”–as a potent political slogan, as a permanent feature of life, as a “good thing”–but we rarely speak of the often-wrenching process of change. I think the reason is self-evident: change often involves loss. This is why Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief […]

Israel-Lebanon Oil Dispute Must Be Stopped Short of War

The chance of armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is increasing. Renewed hostilities would be disastrous for all involved, so the U.S. and its allies need to act now to prevent events from spinning out of control. Energy companies say that large oil and gas reserves might lie off the Israeli and Lebanese coasts. The […]

Exploring Transition in England – Part One

Upon arriving at the ferry port in Hollyhead, Wales, I boarded a train with my destination to be Chesterfield, England. The train snaked its way through Wales, where all the signs were once again in two languages, English and Welsh (another form of Gaelic). At first we followed the coast, where many off-shore wind turbines […]

Rebels say Tripoli encircled; Gaddafi defiant

Libyan rebels said on Monday they had seized a second strategic town near Tripoli within 24 hours, completing the encirclement of the capital in the boldest advances of their six-month-old uprising against Muammar Gaddafi. In a barely audible telephone call to state television overnight, a defiant and apparently isolated Gaddafi called on his followers to […]

Where would we be today, without the fall of the Soviet Union?

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the country that was the “big growth story” was the Soviet Union. Its oil consumption grew by leaps and bounds. Its space program grew; its military program grew; and it became much more industrialized. But then something happened to stop the amazing growth story. The Soviet Union became the […]

Kunstler: High Corn

Looking every inch the Assistant Manager of a J.C. Penny, Rick Perry of Texas stepped on-board the touring evangelical freak show that the Republican pre-primary parade has turned into. I like to think of him as George W. Bush without all the encumbering intellect. I give it three months before media snoops catch him in […]

The Impending Demise of Globalism; How It Will Cripple Corporate America

Globalism, which has enriched Corporate America, has been an absolute disaster for U.S. manufacturing and the American worker. But, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. So let’s make an objective analysis and a prediction of how globalism, the darling of the free traders and transnational corporations, will cease to […]

10 Signs That Economic Riots And Civil Unrest Inside The United States Are Now More Likely Than Ever

You should let the video footage of the wild violence that just took place in London burn into your memory because the same things are going to be happening all over the United States as the economy continues to crumble.  We have raised an entire generation of young people with an “entitlement mentality”, but now […]

Indonesia’s oil output declines

Indonesia’s BPMigas oil and gas regulator says that national fields are in decline. Apparently confirming that Indonesia’s oil production has hit a decline as predicted by “peak oil” proponents, BPMigas spokesman Gde Pradnyana said Indonesia will have to reduce its dependency on oil. He said the country will take steps to shift to natural gas […]

Biomass is the next obvious source of energy

The global demand for energy continues to increase at a steady pace. China just passed the United States in total energy demand, fueled not only by domestic growth but by the demand for exports. We continue to lead the world in per-capita consumption of energy and in nearly anything you wish to measure such as […]

Jevons’ coal question: Why the UK Coal Peak wasn’t as bad as expected

In his book The Coal Question from 1865 William Stanley Jevons examined for how long the United Kingdom could continue to fuel its economy based on cheap supplies of coal. At the time the UK consumed about 93 million tons of coal providing nearly all of its energy supply. His estimate was that within a […]

Nuclear Expert: Radioactive Rain-Outs Will Continue For a Year – Even In Western U.S. and Canada – Because Japanese Are Burning Radioactive Materials

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says in a new interview that the Japanese are burning radioactive materials. The radioactivity originated from Fukushima, but various prefectures are burning radioactive materials in their terroritories. Gundersen says that this radioactivity ends up not only in neighboring prefectures, but in Hawaii, British Columbia, Oregon, Washington and California. He notes that […]

Shale Gas Reports to Energy Secretary Chu

A cross-section of experts advising the Obama administration on how to proceed with shale gas have said producers need to chill out so that the public warms up. As such, it is demanding more monitoring and greater transparency. The moves would not just satisfy a segment that has grave concerns, says the advisory committee that […]

After peak oil, peak globalisation

The reality of a globalised economy is that poverty is its only sustainable phenomenon. For decades the world economy has been on a path towards globalisation. The drive to achieve ever larger economies of scale at ever lower marginal costs pushed manufacturing to standardise, slashing expenses by outsourcing and supply chain management, consolidating suppliers, eliminating […]

When the sovereign falls: Is this the endgame for world markets?

Back in May in response to a question during an interview I suggested that when the sovereign debt of a major nation is finally questioned, it will signal the endgame for the worldwide bull market in just about everything. That moment has arrived, and my thesis will now be tested. And, I’m not talking about […]

U.K North sea oil spill

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has said it is working to stop a leak at one of its North Sea oil platforms. The leak was found near the Gannet Alpha platform, 180 km (113 miles) from Aberdeen, Scotland. Shell would not say how much oil had been released so far, merely describing it as “not […]

Peak Oil Blues – We’re All Bozos on this Bus

My own reaction seemed so crazy to me,” says psychologist Kathy McMahon of her response to Peak Oil. Wondering if she was the only “wacko”, she started the Peak Oil Blues blog to explore her own and readers’ responses. As the “Peak Shrink,” Kathy formulated a delightfully tongue-in-cheek “Panglossian Disorder” — an unrealistic optimism about […]

Earth at seven billion

In an era of high anxiety, few issues rattled people in the 1960s and 1970s more than the Earth’s seemingly runaway population growth. The sense of imminent overcrowding doom was chillingly articulated by Paul Ehrlich, the Stanford University biologist whose 1968 book, The Population Bomb, became an unlikely bestseller, propelled in part by the academic’s […]

Obama, Saudi king urge end to Syria crackdown

President Barack Obama spoke with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Britain on Saturday and all three called for an immediate end to the Syrian government’s crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad, the White House said. Obama and Saudi King Abdullah “agreed that the Syrian regime’s brutal campaign of violence against the Syrian people […]

The other side of the oil story

Just a few months ago, oil prices were all about supply. Not anymore. What a difference five months make. Five months ago, I was in Saudi Arabia, hoping to gain perspective on the global oil markets and whether the kingdom could maintain its role as the world’s oil price cop. Back then, the oil story […]

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