The End of Growth: Rubin & Suzuki

Economist Jeff Rubin and environmentalist David Suzuki might seem an unlikely pairing. But they’ve been touring Canada together, talking about the natural limits to growth from their very different perspectives. We listen in as they try to convince a Calgary audience that we’ve already exceeded the capacity of the planet. Jeff Rubin is a former […]

Rise of South “Unprecedented in Speed and Scale

The world’s 132 developing nations, largely part of the global South, are ascending at a pace “unprecedented in its speed and scale”, according to the latest Human Development Report (HDR) released Thursday by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP). Khalid Malik. Photo Courtesy of UNDP And “never in history have the living conditions and prospects of […]

U.S. sending more natural gas to Mexico

Planned natural gas pipelines from the United States to Mexico could double the amount of U.S. gas exports south by 2014, the U.S. Energy Department said. The Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said several pipeline projects planned to Mexico could add 3.5 billion cubic feet per day, double the current capacity, by 2014 if they […]

A Community-Based Alternative To The Welfare State

It is important to discuss alternatives before the Status Quo devolves and collapses, so we have an intellectual framework to guide healthier, more sustainable alternatives once the current system implodes. Two of the key characteristics of an empire in terminal decline are complacency and intellectual sclerosis, what I have termed a failure of imagination. (The […]

Let’s stop fooling ourselves: Americans can’t afford the future

The American spirit is rooted in the belief of a better tomorrow. Its success has been due to generations of men and women who toiled, through both hardship and boom times, to make that dream a reality. But at some point over the past several decades, that hope for a better tomorrow became an expectation. […]

US Oil, Gas Production to Climb While US Energy Consumption Declines

U.S. oil and gas production will continue to rise through 2040 from 2010 levels as unconventional oil and gas resources and production from the deepwater Gulf of Mexico come online, while U.S. energy consumption is forecast to decline during the same time period, ExxonMobil Corp. reported in its 2013 energy outlook. U.S. oil and gas […]

China expects regional energy security concerns to intensify

Asian-Pacific nations can be expected to intensify their efforts to improve their energy security as North America achieves that goal, a senior researcher at China’s Energy Research Institute said. Yang Yufeng made that observation as he described conclusions Chinese policymakers reached as they prepared the country’s first Energy Outlook last year. China potentially could produce […]

Ugo Bardi: The World is a Fountain

The world is complex, variegated, convoluted, multi-faceted, interconnected, complicated, circuitous, and more. And, yet, there is a logic in the way it works. Look at the Trevi Fountain, in Rome, it is complex and variegated, but in the end there is a logic: water always goes down. It is physics: it is the gravitational potential […]

EIA: Worldwide liquid fuels consumption to rise in 2013-14

Worldwide liquid fuels consumption will reach 90.1 million b/d in 2013 and 91.5 million b/d in 2014, due to a moderate recovery in global economic growth, the US Energy Information Administration forecast in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. EIA estimates that world liquid fuels consumption was 89.1 million b/d in 2012. As oil product inventories […]

When agriculture stops working: A guide to growing food in the age of climate destabilization and civilization collapse

This is Part 1 of an essay in 2 parts. Part 1, below, outlines the issues. Part 2, which will appear here tomorrow, offers ‘Ten Recommendations for Growing Food in the Anthropocene Source: photoblog.statesman.com/dry-season-the-texas-drought-of-2011 “Well it’s hotter ‘n blazes and all the long faces / there’ll be no oasis for a dry local grazier” – […]

Australia’s Liquid Fuel Security

The NRMA has issued a report on Australia’s fuel security – Australia’s Liquid Fuel Security (pdf). As the world’s ninth-largest energy producer, Australia has abundant renewable and nonrenewable energy resources. Despite these resources, we are heavily dependent on imports of refined petroleum products and crude oil to meet our liquid fuel demand.This import dependency has […]

The great unskilling

The cost of learning In a society where people tend to be defined by what work they do, the question: “So what do you do?” is one that I find difficult to answer. I’m a classic Jack of all trades, master at none, and naming all the skills that I’ve collected over more than four […]

Emerging Market Demand to Support Oil Prices, Goldman Sachs Says

Oil prices will be supported by emerging market demand, a lack of spare supply and improvements in transporting U.S. output, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) said. Relatively low oil inventories around the world, limited spare capacity in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and continued demand growth among emerging-market economies will sustain the market’s current […]

Noam Chomsky: Can Civilization Survive Capitalism?

There is “capitalism” and then there is “really existing capitalism.” The term “capitalism” is commonly used to refer to the U.S. economic system, with substantial state intervention ranging from subsidies for creative innovation to the “too-big-to-fail” government insurance policy for banks. The system is highly monopolized, further limiting reliance on the market, and increasingly so: […]

Oil’s average price posts new records and they’re telling us it’s abundant!

It is a slick piece of public relations to convince people to disregard what is right in front of them and believe the opposite. And yet, that is what the oil industry has achieved with an oh-so obviously coordinated campaign to tell the public and policymakers that there is no need to be concerned about […]

Chris Martenson talks to the students at Ecotech Institute

Part 2 of a very informative interview with Chris Martenson on natural gas,fracking,algae to diesel etc. 19 Febuary 2013

Can Natural Gas Replace Regular Gasoline?

Natural gas is abundant, clean and far cheaper than diesel. That has the U.S. transportation and auto industries looking for ways to kick their dependence on dirtier fossil fuels. After years of debating how to tap domestic energy sources, new innovations in the sector have created a boom in U.S. energy production. And natural gas […]

Peak Coal in Britain

Figure 1. British coal production from 1815 to 2004. The data from 1815 to 1860 are from Cook and Stevenson, 1996. The data from 1860 to 1946 are from Kirby 1977; the data from 1947 up to present are from the British Coal Authority (accessed 2006). The production data are fitted with a Gaussian function […]

The Economist: Focus Peak oil

THE theory of peak oil, the idea that global crude production may be at or near its limit, is based on the work of M. King Hubbert, a geologist working for Shell in the 1950s. His  prediction that oil output in the lower 48 states of America would peak by around 1970 has been adopted […]

Why mainstream community economic development? Because it works

Localise West Midlands (LWM) has just completed some research which we wanted to share with those interested in the  REconomy project. It is closely related to REconomy thinking, and we hope (have to hope) it has potential to increase how “reconomics” can be integrated into mainstream economic development. The UK economy is one of the […]

India set to halt Iran oil imports over insurance

India is set to halt all crude imports from Iran because insurance companies in the country have said refineries processing the oil will no longer be covered due to Western sanctions, the head of refiner MRPL said on Friday. India is Iran’s second-largest buyer, taking around a quarter of its oil exports worth around $1 […]

The Strange Surge in US Oil Imports

On Thursday we learned that the U.S. trade deficit widened in January by a surprising 16 percent, to $44.4 billion. The $6.3 billion increase was almost entirely the result of a sudden spike in oil imports. Excluding crude, the deficit was basically flat at around $20 billion, according to Bloomberg. What makes this so odd […]

EROEI | the worm

A key concept in understanding where we’ve been and where we’re headed, and one which unfortunately very few people are even aware of, is the ratio of energy returned on energy invested, or EROEI. This is basically the amount of net energy you get from a particular source. When people first started poking holes in […]

U.S. Coal Consumption Down

Despite record amounts being spent to propagandize the coal industry and the ridiculous concept of “clean coal”, United States coal consumption has gone down.  Sort of. A recent report from the Energy Information Administration indicates the U.S.’s relative consumption has gone done, while the world consumption continues to rise at a nauseating rate.  This matters […]

Consuming Our Way to Prosperity is Macro Folly

A Note from Paul Solman: We first encountered John Papola via “Fear the Boom and Bust,” his stunning Keynes vs. Hayek rap, made in collaboration with old friend Russ Roberts. The rap lyrics are extremely even-handed debating the merits of Friedrich Hayek vs. John Maynard Keynes. While the Hayek character may be the less attractive […]

Railroad to make shift to natural gas locomotives

The freight railroad company BNSF made a big announcement today. It’s going to do a little experiment and switch from diesel to natural gas to power its locomotives. BNSF happens to be owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is betting big on natural gas. If this latest natural gas play works, it could mean […]

Kunstler: Why Our Current Way of Living Has No Future

All the sordid and spellbinding rackets working their hoodoo on the financial scene have obscured a whole other dimension of the fiasco that America finds itself in, namely the way we have arranged the logistics of everyday life on our landscape: the tragedy of suburbia. I call it a tragedy because it represents a sequence […]

Canada Is Most Important Energy Partner to U.S.

Canada is the U.S.’s most important energy partner and the most responsible choice for crude imports, Joe Oliver, Canada’s natural resources minister, said today at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. “Canada and the U.S. have what is arguably the closest and most important bilateral energy relationship in the world,” Oliver said. The country became […]

Peak Oil and Economic Contraction

Business as usual and the current ‘growth’ paradigm is over. WATCH IN HD For more information go to www.poaec.com Get your report card at http://poaec.com/grader

The Peak Oil Crisis: An Electric Car in Your Future?

Every now and again some good news shows up, so this week I am going to share it with you. It has to do with electric-powered cars. Now hybrids have been on the market for a decade or so and modern battery-only models for about three years. While the hybrids are selling pretty well, sales […]

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