The ITER Project: International Collaboration to Demonstrate Nuclear Fusion

As one of the few options for a large-scale, non-carbon future supply of energy, fusion has the potential to make an important contribution to sustainable energy supplies. Fusion can deliver safe and environmentally benign energy, using abundant and widely available fuel, without the production of greenhouse gases or long-term nuclear waste. From celestial fusion to […]

Global Food Prices Continue to Rise

Continuing a decade-long increase, global food prices rose 2.7 percent in 2012, reaching levels not seen since the 1960s and 1970s but still well below the price spike of 1974. Between 2000 and 2012, the World Bank global food price index increased 104.5 percent, at an average annual rate of 6.5 percent. Global food prices […]

Robert Rapier: Test Your Oil IQ

As a result of the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) revolution, US oil and natural gas production have been rising for several years. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), US oil production has risen by 27% over the past 5 years. In reviewing the data for individual states, I came across some interesting trivia. So I […]

The Culture Behind Peak Oil

So, what are the root cultural problems in society that are causing this issue, and will ensure that nothing it done to fix it until it is too late?

Water scarcity likely to worsen as world population grows

In a study prepared for World Water Day on March 22, the Worldwatch Institute released a study that indicates the world’s water supply will continue to become scarcer in the years to come. At the global level, 70 percent of water withdrawals are for the agricultural sector, 11 percent are to meet municipal needs and […]

Despite boom, peak oil still a concern

Oil and gas production in the U.S. has surged in recent years, leading to a new sense of optimism within the energy industry. Many imagine this recent boom will mean the end of the drive for engineering research in renewables, or at least a major blow, and a stop to the once rampant talk of […]

IMF Cuts Global Growth Outlook

The International Monetary Fund trimmed its global growth forecast and urged European policy makers to use “aggressive” monetary policy as a second year of contraction leaves the euro area’s recovery lagging behind the rest of the world. The global economy will expand 3.3 percent this year, less than the 3.5 percent forecast in January, after […]

Raising kids for a future of peak oil and climate change

Your baby absorbed so many early-learning podcasts in utero that when she’s born she doesn’t know if she’s supposed to be Baby Einstein, Baby Mozart or Baby Bill Gates. Your husband or wife had to call in some big favors to reserve little Emma or Alessandra a place in a top preschool. After that, you’ve got […]

Orlov: Understanding Organizational Stupidity

Is it morning in America again, or is the bubble that is the American economy about to pop (again), this time perhaps tipping it into full-blown collapse in five stages with symphonic accompaniment and fireworks? A country blowing itself up is quite a sight to behold, and it makes us wonder about lots of things. […]

Urban overgrowth: The next great development challeng

Cities are becoming exponentially bigger by the day. As a result, the development problems and the danger of large-scale human tragedies are growing with them. The aftermath of devastations like Superstorm Sandy and the terrible 2010 earthquake in Haiti are examples of the tragic humanitarian consequences that can occur from the failures of urban systems […]

US natural gas resource estimate rises 25% in 2 years

Technically recoverable US natural gas resources were a record 2,384 tcf at yearend 2012, 25% (486 tcf) more than the previous record-high assessment 2 years earlier, the Potential Gas Committee reported. Most of the growth came from new evaluations of shale gas resources in Atlantic, Rocky Mountain, and Gulf Coast states, PGC indicated. The biennial […]

Stuart Staniford: Monthly Oil Supply Update

Time for the monthly update on global oil supply in which I summarize the numbers for global oil production from the various oil agencies into a small set of convenient charts. This is for the benefit of those of us who like to do micro-tracking of peak-oil related issues.  This month, I have made one […]

Urban Living and Population Growth

Hi everyone! Apologies for the delay in posting over the last couple of days. We are in the middle of moving into our new house in Auckland and doing some *cough* minor renovation work on it. We’ll be laughing when we move in, hopefully sometime next month, but there’s a lot of work to do […]

Heinberg: There’s Only One Real Option for Averting Economic and Ecological Ruin — So Why Aren’t We Talking About It?

he following excerpt is reprinted from the new book Energy: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, edited by Tom Butler and George Wuerthner, published by Post Carbon Institute and Watershed Media, in collaboration with the Foundation for Deep Ecology. Energy conservation is our best strategy for pre-adapting to an inevitably energy-constrained future. And it may be our only real option for […]

The Lurking Inconsistency

Ecological economics of course has roots in ecology and biology as well as in economics. Most of ecological economists’ and steady-state economists’ time has been well-spent correcting economics in the light of biology and ecology. And there is still more to do in this direction. However, we should be careful to avoid importing some deep […]

Major 7.8 Earthquake Strikes Iran Leaves “Hundreds Dead”

It was only a week ago that Iran was shaken by a major 6.1 earthquake, striking just 100 km away from the Busher nuclear power plant: a location so “opportune” some, so inclined, saw in this phenomenon anoter demonstration of the HAARP’s capabilities. Those same people will then hardly be surprised to learn that moments […]

Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground. That is not wild-eyed hippie talk. It is the assessment of the utilities themselves. Back in January, the Edison Electric Institute — the […]

Commodities Crunched: Gold Gored, Crude Oil Runs Red

The action on Wall Street Monday was in the commodity markets, where a selloff got underway early and picked up speed. Crude oil was down more than 2% and below $90 a barrel, while gold slumped almost 6% to near $1,400 an ounce. The drop came as a reading out of China showed economic growth […]

Protests held in Bahrain ahead of Formula One

Thousands of Bahrainis have demonstrated near the capital, Manama, urging democratic reforms, part of a series of protests planned by the political opposition ahead of next week’s Formula One Grand Prix. Under the banner “Democracy is our right,” the crowds marched in the Shia area of Aali south of the capital, waving Bahraini flags and chanting […]

Saudi Aramco’s Manifa Oil Field On Stream Ahead of Schedule

State-oil giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, said Monday it has started production at its vast Manifa oil field three months ahead of schedule. Output at Manifa is expected to reach 500,000 barrels a day in July, which will gradually increase to 900,000 barrels a day by the end of 2014, Aramco […]

OPEC Reacts to US Shale Oil Boom with New Strategy

The first signs are emerging that key Persian Gulf members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are adjusting their strategies to cope with the growing threat that North American shale oil is making to their long-term dominance in global energy markets. The OPEC moves lag behind other international players such as Statoil and […]

Peak Oil: Tar Sands To The Rescue—Not!

An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Kjell Aleklett: The IEA now considers that conventional crude oil production reached its maximum in 2008 and that it will decline by 2035. We, the IEA and IHS CERA all agree that crude oil production from currently producing fields is declining by 0.4 Mb/d per year and […]

Making Enhanced Geothermal Energy Real

Ormat has produced 1.7 megawatts of power using enhanced geothermal methods from inside an existing geothermal field, the first power from this source to get on the electric grid. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) are controversial because drilling into hot rocks deep below the earth’s surface has been associated with earthquake-like seismic tremors in Switzerland and […]

Chavez Heir Maduro Wins Venezuela Vote

Nicolas Maduro was elected Venezuela’s president today after pledging to deepen 14 years of the late Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution that cut poverty by half. The 50-year-old former bus driver received 50.7 percent of the votes, the national electoral council said after about 99 percent of ballots were counted. Henrique Capriles Radonski, who temporarily stepped […]

Unchecked population growth strains resources, is major international issue

It’s easy to forget that there are nearly 7 billion people living on our planet. Our own lives demand so much attention that we often don’t consider the greater implications of our choices. Something like the decision to have a child is immensely important for anyone, given that it has the capacity to completely change […]

And You Thought Peak Oil Was Dead and Buried

Our resident lithium reserves expert, Juan Carlos Zuleta in La Paz, Bolivia brought to my attention an interview Washington Post reporter Brad Plummer did with energy analyst Chris Nelder, who in Plummer’s words, “has spent a lot of time scrutinizing the claims of the oil triumphalists.” Nelder’s view? “Our newfound oil resources, he argues, aren’t […]

For ExxonMobil, having oil is one thing, but pumping it is another

Here is a puzzle: ExxonMobil has sufficient proven oil and gas on its books to produce at current levels for 16 years. It has 55 years of supply in its total resource base, which is those proven reserves plus deposits to which it hasn’t yet committed the development dollars required before legally calling them “proven.” […]

An Update on Peak Oil

If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you already know the basics about peak oil: It’s not a kooky conspiracy theory. The obsessively mainstream International Energy Agency, which refused to even acknowledge the possibility of peak oil for years, officially admitted it was real three years ago. Not only that, they even put a date […]

Nuclear Is NOT a Low-Carbon Source of Energy

Why Do People Claim that Nuclear Power is a Low-Carbon Source of Energy? Even well-known, well-intentioned scientists sometimes push bad ideas.   For example, well-known scientists considered pouring soot over the Arctic in the 1970s to help melt the ice – in order to prevent another ice age.  That would have been stupid.  Even Obama’s top […]

China Takes Another Stab At The Dollar, Launches Currency Swap Line With France

One more domino in the dollar reserve supremacy regime falls. Following the announcement two weeks ago that “Australia And China will Enable Direct Currency Convertibility“, which in turn was the culmination of two years of Yuan internationalization efforts as summarized by the following: “World’s Second (China) And Third Largest (Japan) Economies To Bypass Dollar, Engage […]

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