Argentina: about 15,000 vehicles are converted to natural gas

The figures provided by the CNG Management of the National Gas Regulatory Agency (Enargas)  indicate that during the first quarter of this year, 44.489 vehicles were converted to natural gas, although the number is set to be higher, since the agency’s records are not yet complete. Therefore, the monthly average of transitions to CNG accounts […]

Hitchhiking Tweaked for Our Peak-Oil (Near) Future

When the Soviet Union collapsed back in the early ’90s, and shut off the spigots in Cuba, this island people was suddenly wrenched off the big oil tit. In short order, they started growing food organically inside their cities, losing weight (average 20 pounds that first winter), walking and biking more, and a law was passed that made […]

Food security: Ag’s big challenge

CAN the world’s plant breeders and crop producers continue to increase food production at a pace to match a global population growth rate that is predicted to increase from the current 7.2 billion people to 9.6 billion by 2050? That was one of the weighty questions the world’s top wheat breeders grappled with at the […]

Have We Reached The Limits Of Growth?

Robert Gordon has painted a dark picture of the world’s long-run economic growth prospects. But if the past is any guide, he will likely join the band of earlier distinguished economists who proved to be far too pessimistic about the human capacity to innovate. Dennis Robertson, the renowned Cambridge economist and a contemporary of John […]

Heinberg: The Gross Society

Seeing only its title, a prospective reader might guess this essay is about our nation’s epidemic of obesity. Or could it be a sarcastic observation on the evolution of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society? Might it be a jeremiad about the gross (i.e., offensive and disgusting) ways we waste and over-consume natural resources, or a comment on current television trends? […]

Peak Oil: Then What?

Diminishing returns occurs when it takes more and more energy or other resources to produce the same amount of goods. In the case of oil supply, we reach diminishing returns because companies extract the easy-to-extract oil first. Thus, the price of oil rises because the oil that can be produced cheaply is mostly gone. If […]

War Makes Us Poor

Preface: Many Americans – including influential economists and talking heads – still wrongly assume that war is good for the economy. Many congressmen assume that cutting pork-barrel military spending would hurt their constituents’ jobs. As demonstrated below, it isn’t true. Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that war is bad for the economy: Stiglitz wrote in 2003: War is widely thought to be linked to economic […]

Imminent peak oil could burst US, global economic bubble

A new multi-disciplinary study led by the University of Maryland calls for immediate action by government, private and commercial sectors to reduce vulnerability to the imminent threat of global peak oil, which could put the entire US economy and other major industrial economies at risk. The peer-reviewed study contradicts the recent claims within the oil […]

Eight Energy Myths Explained

Republicans, Democrats, and environmentalists all have favorite energy myths. Even Peak Oil believers have favorite energy myths. The following are a few common mis-beliefs,  coming from a variety of energy perspectives. I will start with a recent myth, and then discuss some longer-standing ones. Myth 1. The fact that oil producers are talking about wanting […]

Natural Gas Vehicles – It’S The Old Problem Of Chicken And Egg

For those of us who follow these things, the glut of articles regarding natural gas as a better alternative for commercial vehicles continues to come at a fast and furious rate.  But, there is a chicken and egg thing here.  You need the infrastructure to retail the fuel before you will see vehicles, but you […]

Peak Oil: Energy Supply Nonsense 2

This is the second half of my observations about a recent addition to the endless parade of hide-most-of-the-facts nonsense from oil industry cheerleaders. The first part is here. The subject matter is an article * published a few weeks ago by Gene Epstein, entitled “Here Comes $75 Oil” in Barron’s. This one was a gold […]

Most Americans don’t know where their oil comes from

You can hardly blame Americans for believing that the vast majority of our oil imports come from the Middle East. Ever since the 1973 oil crisis, when Middle Eastern countries refused to sell oil to the United States as punishment for backing Israel in that year’s Arab-Israeli war, the American political conversation has dominated by […]

Food shortage could occur within 40 years

Less than 40 years. That’s all the time available to try to find a way to avoid the looming crisis of a food shortage that will have serious implications for people and governments. “For the first time in human history, food production will be limited on a global scale by the availability of land, water […]

Peak Oil is Here

Discussions I’ve seen of peak oil focus upon it as an issue in geology: how many years until production begins to decline [name your fossil fuel]. As an economist, however, that’s irrelevant, reflecting a misperception that underlies the 1980 Simon – Ehrlich bet. In an economy, there are many margins of adjustment. As a starting […]

A Case Study in Community Sustainability

Have you ever heard of Feldheim, Germany? If not, it’s ok. Truthfully, I wasn’t familiar with the town until a few months ago and have been meaning to use the small town as a perfect example of how a community working together can create sustainable solutions without (and in some cases in spite of) government […]

3D Printing and other Technologies Could Lead to an Economically Utopian Society

Without a doubt, their is a tremendous amount of suffering in this world. People are starving to death every day, many lack a warm shelter to come home to, and numerous governments around the globe are oppressing their people. The word “Utopia” likely isn’t something that could ever be imagined by many of these individuals, […]

Are You Ready For The Price Of Food To More Than Double By The End Of This Decade?

Do you think that the price of food is high now?  Just wait.  If current trends continue, many of the most common food items that Americans buy will cost more than twice as much by the end of this decade.  Global demand for food continues to rise steadily as crippling droughts ravage key agricultural regions […]

Peak Oil and Peak Water vs. Peak Network

Over the next decade and a half, 2.5 billion people in China, India and other developing countries will join the global middle class. They are going to need skyscrapers to live in and superstores to shop in. They are going to want smartphones, cars, flank steaks, air conditioning, pet clothing, Disneyland vacations, and probably some […]

Peak Oil: Energy Supply Nonsense 1

Apparently, the possibility that some innovations might be introduced, if they aren’t already in an undefined but probably—or at least likely—manner in certain instances where there could be some potentially good news provided that certain other events fall into place exactly as some are hoping for at some point, but in a good way (just […]

Oil Supply, Oil Price and the Economy

  There has been considerable debate lately on what effect the supply and price of oil is having on the economy. It is, to my mind, a lot more serious than the vast majority of economists believe. In fact one can just look at what is happening today to see the effect of a constrained […]

Everything We Are Told About Deflation Is A Lie

“The European Central Bank has given its strongest signal yet that it is prepared to embrace quantitative easing to prevent the euro zone from sliding into deflation or even a prolonged period of low inflation.” – ‘Draghi strengthens QE signal’, Financial Times, April 4, 2014. Yes, heaven protect Europe’s embattled citizens and savers from a […]

Food Shortages Might Doom Humanity by 2050

Expand Hey, not to freak anyone out or anything, but the world might become a post-apocalyptic wasteland where people fight to the death over taquitos within the next 40 years. OK, obviously, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration; we’re not going to go full-on Road Warriors until 2075 at the earliest. We think we […]

John Michael Greer : A Novel of the Deindustrial Future

I’m delighted to report that my deindustrial novel Star’s Reach, which appeared in episodes as a blog between 2009 and late last year, is now available in print and ebook formats from Founders House Publishing. I’ve suggested here more than once that narratives are among the most important tools we have for understanding and shaping […]

Rapidly rising food costs sting at supermarket

Alert shoppers are accustomed to watching food prices go up and down. But a string of forces—from droughts to diseases—is raising the cost of a trip to the grocery store at a rapid clip. And it looks like it will be a while before the price pressure eases. Getty Images A clerk rings up a […]

Gas Prices Continue To Surge, Reach $4 In Some Cities

Gas prices continue to move sharply higher as the Memorial Day driving seasons approaches. Nationwide, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas has reached $3.667. A month ago, the price was $3.538 according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. The average price of a gallon of premium has crossed $4 nationwide to […]

US exporting a ‘tidal wave’ of gasoline, other fuels

U.S. refiners are sending a “tidal wave” of gasoline, diesel and other refined products onto the world market, taking advantage of the surge in domestic oil development that has helped drive Gulf Coast crude stockpiles to record levels, according to a new report. The jump in domestic oil supplies means the U.S. is on track […]

Food shortages could be most critical world issue by mid-century

The world is less than 40 years away from a food shortage that will have serious implications for people and governments, according to a top scientist at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “For the first time in human history, food production will be limited on a global scale by the availability of land, water […]

Nicole Foss aka Stoneleigh – A Century of Challenges – Peak Oil

Nicole M. Foss is co-editor of The Automatic Earth, where she writes under the name Stoneleigh.

The Age of Diminishing Returns

The Earth’s Mineral Supplies: The Age of Diminishing Returns A Q&A with Ugo Bardi, author of Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth is Plundering the Planet   Q: Which of the rare earth minerals that fuel our industrial system are most likely to be depleted first (at current mining levels)? Are there any resources […]

Is This The End Of China’s Coal Boom?

“The End Of China’s Coal Boom,” is a new, must-read chart-filled report from Greenpeace. It documents the response of China to the almost unimaginable life-shortening air pollution caused by its rapid growth in coal use. One of its charts highlights the stunning statistic that over half of the growth in global carbon pollution in the past decade has come […]

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