Gas pipeline not enough to avert New England energy crisis

New England is facing an energy crisis brought on by high natural gas prices, and the call by governors in the six states for a new, publicly funded natural gas pipeline does not go far enough to solve the problem, according to a detailed analysis of the region’s energy options. The 30-page analysis, released on […]

Feeding global population without degrading the environment a major challenge

Scientists are warning we are undertaking “the greatest challenge we have ever faced” in trying to get more from the earth to feed the world’s growing population. Writing in and editing a special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Professor Guy Poppy, of the University of Southampton, says the world’s approach needs […]

Middle-class consumers to increase 4.8b by 2030

Middle-class consumers will increase to 4.8 billion by 2030 and 95% of them will be from developing countries, said United Kingdom Foreign Secretary’s special representative on climate change, Professor Sir David King. He said, currently the world has 1.8 billion middle-class consumers and that 3 billion more were expected by 2030. “Ninety per cent of […]

15 Reasons Why Your Food Prices Are About To Start Soaring

Did you know that the U.S. state that produces the most vegetables is going through the worst drought it has ever experienced and that the size of the total U.S. cattle herd is now the smallest that it has been since 1951?  Just the other day, a CBS News article boldly declared that “food prices […]

Reaching Limits to Growth: What Should our Response Be?

Oil limits seem to be pushing us toward a permanent downturn, including a crash in credit availability, loss of jobs, and even possible government collapse. In this process, we are likely to lose access to both fossil fuels and grid electricity. Supply chains will likely need to be very short, because of the lack of […]

DIY Home Brewing – The Home Brewery

A few years ago I started a series of essays dedicated to homebrewing (Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3 can be found here).  At the time when those articles were written I was still working in the brewing industry.  Since then, as I have alluded to in a few recent posts, I am no longer working in […]

Five Potential Sources of Gas for Europe

In his assessment of potential sources of gas for Europe at the European Gas Conference 2014, John Roberts, Energy security Specialist, Methinks speaks, said it was too early to judge the potential of natural gas from the Eastern Mediterranean. “We know that there’s about 1TCF of reserves there, there’s probably more to be found,” he remarked. […]

We Can Be Certain Of This

Just as the addict feels “I can’t live any other way,” so we continue clinging to a way of living that is equally self-destructive because we too see no other way to live. Yesterday I discussed the intrinsic uncertainties in complex systems. (Certainty, Complex Systems, and Unintended Consequences). Amidst this sea of uncertainty we can […]

Is This Already the End for Natural Gas Vehicles?

A joint study, published in the journal Science on Friday has revealed that natural gas as a transportation fuel provides no net benefit to the climate, when compared with diesel. The report, written by numerous researchers from some of the United States’ most prestigious universities, as well as NOAA and the Department of Energy, flies […]

Coal Makes A Comeback Despite Natural Gas Abundance

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Cheap natural gas was supposed to be the answer to our dependence on dirty old coal. But now, it seems, coal is making a comeback. The bitter winter, the coldest in 30 years, has pushed natural gas prices to some of their highest levels in four years, and that has […]

Peak Oil and the Effects on Public Health

This is an educational video discussing the issue of peak oil and the effects on public health.

Project envisions post oil Vegas

The demands of a changing environment are being met by the innovative students in the school of architecture. The department for landscape agriculture and planning hosted an event envisioning a post peak oil Las Vegas along with Cal Poly-Pomona, Jan. 30 in the architecture library. The event furthered a much needed dialogue on local sustainability. […]

Robust Demand Tightening Oil Market, IEA Says

Stronger-than-expected demand has drained oil inventories to the lowest level since 2008, tightening the market and defying predictions of a glut, the West’s energy watchdog said on Thursday. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said oil inventories in the developed world plummeted by 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the last three months of 2013, […]

Will We Reach ‘Peak Cars’ Within Our Lifetime?

“Peak oil” is the term given to the date after which extraction and production of oil enters terminal decline. It doesn’t mean the oil is necessarily running out–more that its extraction becomes less viable as time goes on. Some suspect a similar thing is happening with automobile use in the U.S, as running a vehicle […]

Will That $25 Light Bulb Really Save You Money?

y use, LED lights 1 13 1 15 You’re familiar with the situation.  You go to the store to replace a couple light bulbs that burnt out and you’re faced with an entire aisle of options: incandescents, LEDs, CFLs, halogens.  Which one do you buy?  There are many factors that will influence your decision, but […]

The return of peak oil and Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Peak oil entered our lexicon in 1956 and has since framed countless discussions regarding the finite nature of our Earth’s hydrocarbons. In the energy world, no other phenomenon has more frequently traversed the ground between relevance and obsolescence. However, the idea itself has several interpretations. Peak oil is relatively independent of the volume of total […]

Tech Talk – The BP Energy Outlook 2035

BP begins its new forecast for the energy future with the statement: We project that by 2035 the US will be energy self-sufficient while maintaining its position as the world’s top liquids and natural gas producer. This illustrates the optimism which BP are projecting in their image of future production. But it carries with it […]

Electric companies relying too much on natural gas

There’s something to the old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket, yet that’s what we are doing in the case of electricity generation. Nearly all new electricity generation projects are using natural gas. This lack of diversification increases risks for the future. Why is this happening? There are two reasons. The […]

Ecological Agriculture and Sixteen Wonderful Farms that Point the Way

Ben Falk’s Vermont farm “If we don’t get sustainability right in agriculture first, it won’t happen anywhere.”  — Wes Jackson, http://www.landinstitute.org/ “We’ve got examples [of agricultural sustainability], but you’re not under any obligation to be an optimist. And you’re not under any obligation to construct a hope for the whole human race. What you are […]

Gas Prices Set to Rise

AAA warned gas prices are set to rise this spring, after winter weather across many parts of the country kept demand low and provided a slight reprieve in recent weeks. Prices typically climb higher during the spring when refineries cut production to do seasonal maintenance. A regulated switch to summer-blend gasoline can also limit supplies, […]

The Oil Boom Doesn’t Care if Your Chickens Are Freezing to Death

Propane tank car/Wikipedia Propane is a byproduct of both natural gas production and crude oil refining. Just in the past year, its production has spiked by 15 percent, and a good chunk of that new production is considered surplus, to be exported from brand new fuel terminals. In fact, just since 2012, propane exports have […]

Peak oil isn’t dead; it just smells that way

Energy analyst Chris Nelder fires back at the latest fact-free commentary on peak oil.   The Oil Drum, a Web site dedicated to informed discussions about peak oil and energy, announced on July 3 that it is closing down. (For a brief primer on peak oil, see my conversation with Brad Plumer in the Washington Post.) […]

Here’s What It Looks Like When Your Country’s Economy Collapses

Argentina is a country re-entering crisis territory it knows too well. The country has defaulted on its sovereign debt three times in the past 32 years and looks poised to do so again soon. Its currency, the peso, devalued by more than 20% in January alone. Inflation is currently running at 25%. Argentina’s budget deficit […]

A Bridge Made of Natural Gas Is a Shaky Thing

When will we start to manage our natural gas resources? For the last half century, domestic natural gas policy has looked something like this: Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels. It is versatile and economical. So, let’s pull it out of the ground and use it as fast as we can. In […]

When Conventional Success Is No Longer Possible, Degrowth And The Black Market Beckon

“Phantom economies tend to give rise to gray and black markets in proportion to the deviance of the phantom economy from reality.” College graduates around the world are discovering that getting a university diploma no longer guarantees the conventional success story of a secure job and a life of ever-rising consumption. Doing all the things that […]

‘Polar vortex’ brought record natural gas demand

The “polar vortex” of early January and the deep freeze not long after resulted in record demand for natural gas, Bentek Energy said Monday. The extreme winter weather in January resulted in seven out of the 10 biggest demand days on record for the U.S., said Bentek, an unit of Platts. January natural-gas demand averaged […]

John Michael Greer: The Steampunk Future

For those of us who’ve been watching the course of industrial civilization’s decline and fall, the last few weeks have been a bit of a wild ride.  To begin with, as noted in last week’s post, the specter of peak oil has once again risen from the tomb to which the mass media keeps trying […]

Tina Clarke on resourcing your Transition initiative

Tina Clarke is a Transition Trainer and more recently a REconomy trainer, helping to develop new REconomy trainings for Transition groups.  On Tuesday February 11th between 19.00 and 20.30 GMT (14.00 -15.30 EST), she will be presenting, along with Transition Network Funding Manager Nicola Hillary, a free webinar called Getting Ready to Fundraise – resourcing your  […]

Natural gas shortage affects Calif. power supply

Californians were urged to voluntarily cut their electricity use Thursday in a rare mid-winter conservation alert, after frigid weather across the U.S. and Canada caused a shortage of natural gas for Southern California power plants. “While the natural gas shortage is only impacting Southern California power plants, statewide electricity and gas conservation will help free […]

Limits to Growth–At our doorstep, but not recognized

How long can economic growth continue in a finite world? This is the question the 1972 book The Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows and others sought to answer. The computer models that the team of researchers produced strongly suggested that the world economy would collapse sometime in the first half of the 21st century. […]

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