Forget peak oil; peak trash is the world’s real concern

Forget about peak oil. An Ontario researcher says the real concern facing the planet should be peak trash. “Solid waste is an incredibly useful proxy for total global impact,” said Daniel Hoornweg of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, who published a commentary on the issue in Wednesday’s edition of the science journal Nature. […]

Natural Gas Waits for Its Moment

CARS and trucks powered by natural gas make up a significant portion of the vehicle fleet in many parts of the world. Iran has more than two million natural gas vehicles on the road. As of 2009, Argentina had more than 1.8 million in operation and almost 2,000 natural gas filling stations. Brazil was not […]

Heinberg: Chapter 6 – Energy Reality

This article is an excerpt from Richard Heinberg’s new book SNAKE OIL: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future. Read Part 6: Chapter 5 – The Economics of Fracking: Who Benefits? During the past year, article after article in the mainstream press has gushed over the prospects for American oil independence and natural gas […]

The World’s Number One Fuel Source Isn’t Even a Fuel

The first ever Energy Efficiency Market Report was just released by the International Energy Agency, and it clearly illustrates for the 11 countries* it examined that between 1974 and 2010, energy efficiency was the largest energy resource. In 2010, alone, (the most recent year for which data is available) savings from energy efficiency was greater […]

Peak Oil : A Look At “Peak Demand”

High value crude oil — the good stuff with 5.8 million BTU per barrel that we can make into diesel and gasoline and a million other things — has been generally holding on to a global production plateau since 2004. Global production will fall when the decline of mature fields overwhelms new additions. When, precisely, […]

Will The World Run Short Of Oil?

One of the most discussed topics in the energy sector is “Will the world run short of oil?”. This question, often in the form of ‘peak oil’, has been the topic of discussion across the industry for decades and a driver of key decisions made not only in the oil industry, but across the energy […]

World Energy Congress report dismisses fears of peak oil

Fossil fuels will continue to dominate the energy sector for the foreseeable future, after a report issued by the World Energy Council made it clear that fears expressed in respect of so-called “peak oil” were unlikely to be realized within the next forty years at least. Following the recent World Energy Congress in Daegu, Korea, […]

The problem with (affordable) helium

If I had had space, I would have included a subtitle for this piece as follows: Things do not have to run out to become unavailable. So, now you have a general idea about the problem with helium, a problem to which I’ll return shortly. But, first let me discuss the broader issue my subtitle […]

Getting the most warmth for your money

In the face of petroleum’s massive price jump over the last decade, more and more homeowners are moving away from oil to heat their homes. And up until recently that move has been toward natural gas, which has also begun to rise in price this year. The average price of heating oil has tripled between […]

Global demand for fossil fuels continues to rise

Despite concerted global efforts to reduce carbon emissions through the expansion of clean and renewable energy resources, fossil fuels continued to dominate the global energy sector in 2012, according to new figures released yesterday by the Worldwatch Institute. Coal, natural gas and oil accounted for 87 percent of the world’s primary energy consumption last year, […]

Consumers rejoice: Lower gas prices are coming!

Gas futures are trading around a 52-week low, which is not too unexpected—gasoline demand is always weakest in the fourth quarter. But with the recent selloff in crude, and more downside predicted, gas will trade even lower. If you look at the charts going back 10 years, you will see that in just about every […]

US airlines supersize their rides, packing people onto bigger planes

Want to gauge how well US airlines are doing in controlling fuel costs? Try the word “gauge.” US airlines all reported solid quarterly profits this week and again touted how they were able to hedge, refine, design, merge, cut or slim their way to fuel-efficient gains. That includes the term “upgauging” — basically the equivalent […]

T. Boone Pickens: We Should Embrace Natural Gas

BP Capital Chairman and CEO T. Boone Pickens gives his take on natural gas and America’s energy future. He speaks with Trish Regan and Adam Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.”

Turn your bike electric just by changing the wheel.

FlyKly Smart Wheel “looks like any other rear wheel, except that it has a monster-sized hub stuffed full of electronics,” Gizmodo says. It’s like the Prius of bike wheels — it stores energy as you pedal and while you’re going downhill. And then it uses that energy to speed you along, if you want, at […]

Crude oil: another collapse ahead?

  Oil prices have been showing a downward trend, recently. Is this the start of a new collapse of the oil market? (image above from oil-price.net) In January 2008, I was writing on the blog of ASPO-Italy that, “…[oil] prices could very well increase over $100 per barrel and even much more, but will continue […]

The global economy sinks under its debts as the real cost of energy rises

ALTHOUGH the economy is improving, this is turning out to be “a recovery, but not as we know it”. Britain may be getting better off, but people keep getting poorer, as the costs of essentials continue to grow much more rapidly than incomes. Yet far from being a uniquely British problem, this is a worldwide […]

Chinese oil demand: and now, a decline

China’s apparent oil demand* in September fell by 2.3% to an average 9.66 million barrels per day (b/d) or 39.55 million metric tons (mt) versus year-ago data, according to a Platts analysis of Chinese government data.   This marks the first time that China’s apparent oil demand showed a contraction since August 2012 and follows […]

Kashmir: Food security and agriculture

Millions earn a better living, and ensure a better future, when investments are made in rural development and agriculture. Agriculture – a proven pathway out of poverty with unbelievable potential for future – more the growth of nutritious food more will be we food secure. Success stories, like the development progress in Ghana’s economy was […]

Kiss the hand that blows the leaves

Leaf blowers maintain a line against the enemy. Photo: hecrorir/Flickr. I’ve never understood the benefit of a gasoline-powered leaf blower over a rake or a broom — except to create an ear-splitting whir whose only possible satisfaction must be to make the tool-wielder feel more macho. But yesterday I came to realize that the leaf […]

Heinberg: Chapter 5 – The Economics of Fracking: Who Benefits?

This article is an excerpt from Richard Heinberg’s new book SNAKE OIL: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future. Given the urgency and importance of the issues we are serializing the book here at Resilience.org. Read Part 5: Chapter 4 – Fracking Wars, Fracking Casualties BUY THE BOOK In the 1980s, two Oklahoma twentysomethings, […]

A question of scarcity

‘Tis the season for untold numbers of undergraduate students around the world to receive their first exposure to “Principles of Economics.” During the first couple of lectures, economic terms and concepts are thrown at impressionable young minds at a dizzying pace: opportunity costs, rational choice, marginal change, market economies, and the mother of them all, […]

Energy, ecology & economics–part III

This is the third and final post in a series revisiting HT Odum’s classic Ambio paper on the 3Es (Ambio, 1973). The article was republished in Mother Earth News, and the reprint is still available online through Minnesotans for Sustainability. The first 15 points are covered in part one and part two of the post […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Cars, Trucks & Buses

It is time to take a break from the gloom and doom in Washington and the Middle East and look at for some better news about the future of energy. Every day I look at a web site run by the folks over at Green Car Congress. Now the Congress’ primary interest is following developments […]

Peak Oil and the Myth of Oil-Company Profits

If the trend of the last 10 years continues, i.e. a 10-percent annual increase in price, a hundred years from now a barrel of oil will cost a million dollars — unless, of course, people decide that walking is more practical than driving a car. Yet, contrary to popular wisdom, oil company profits are in […]

14 Reasons to Be Hopeful About the Future of Food

When it comes to the future of the food system, it’s hard not to be discouraged. Nearly one billion people are hungry, and another 1.5 billion are obese or overweight. All over the world, people waste 1.3 billion tons of food each year. And according to the International Panel on Climate Change, humans are to […]

Kunstler: Growth Is Obsolete

The word that sticks in the craw of many who cogitate over economics is growth. The condition that the word refers to has proven disturbingly problematic in recent years, especially as world’s population continues to expand exponentially and the global ecology suffers in response. In fact, Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881) called economics “the dismal […]

How An Oil Supply Crisis Could Bring Down The Global Economy

People don’t talk much about peak oil these days, now that the U.S. is enjoying a shale boom and crude oil prices are down about 30% from the 2008 peak. Yet world oil production has basically stalled, with prices still high and emerging market demand rising, meaning the risk of a major energy crisis is […]

40 Years Back, 40 Years Forward

What the 1973 Arab oil embargo taught us about energy efficiency, innovation, and moving to a fossil-free future Forty years ago, 1973, Elvis sang Aloha from Hawaii, the first global concert satellite broadcast. Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King faced off on the tennis court in the Battle of the Sexes. And The Exorcist terrified […]

Energy demand continues to rise

All sources of energy – with oil and gas at the core — will be needed to meet the rapid increase in world energy demand by 2050, Aramco CEO Khalid A. Al-Falih underlined before the World Energy Congress (WEC) 2013 in Daegu, Korea. Aramco is banking on the old adage that the energy needs of […]

New Chevy Will Run On Natural Gas And Gasoline

General Motors says the 2015 Chevy Impala will have a “bi-fuel” version that runs on both natural gas and gasoline. Natural gas has long been seen as a solid alternative fuel. But it’s not nearly as available as gasoline. “It’s very, very affordable, less than two dollars a gallon,” says Kelly Blue Book analyst Alec […]

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