Will high oil costs permanently ruin world’s economy?

For President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney, the race for the White House seems indisputably centered around one issue: Who can do more to bolster the sputtering U.S. economy. But to some experts, spikes in oil prices over the last several years have signaled an ominous turn that could make it nigh on […]

Recycling Reality: Humans Set to Trash Most Elements on the Periodic Table

Almost all lead is recycled, among the only elements on the periodic table to earn that distinction. With good reason, mind you: the soft metal is a potent neurotoxic known to impact children’s brain development, among other nasty health effects. Today, nearly all lead is used in batteries (though it was once put into gasoline, […]

Auto Companies Meet For Natural Gas Plan

With nearly two dozen states looking to add natural gas-powered vehicles to their government fleets, it ultimately could push the public to follow suit in purchasing cars and trucks powered by cleaner, affordable and domestically produced fuel, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said Wednesday. Fallin spoke to a group of automobile manufacturers and dealers, and purchasing […]

Back to 4 Dollars

Analysts expect West Coast gas prices to rise beyond $4 a gallon after a fire knocked out a key section of one of the nation’s largest oil refineries. Meanwhile, the same U.S. Chemical Safety Board team that investigated the oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico was standing by with state and company inspectors waiting […]

Oil demand slows as global economy falters

Oil demand will rise more slowly than expected in China, Europe and the United States next year as economic growth falters, pushing up stockpiles of fuel and offering some relief to consumers facing high prices. The West’s energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency (IEA), said on Friday it had cut its estimates of oil use […]

Where Did All the Global Growth Go, Long Time Passing?

A year ago, economic analysts were giddy with optimism about the prospects for economic growth in the developing world. In contrast to the United States and Europe, where the growth outlook looked weak at best, emerging markets were expected to sustain their strong performance from the decade preceding the global financial crisis, and thus become […]

Towards an Energy-Positive Food System

It’s not uncommon to find me wandering through fields and forests in search of whitetail deer. I find that first track, and away I go. I study where the whitetail move, where they’re eating, and where they’re bedding down. I find the stubble left from where they’ve nibbled at grasses and forbs, I find scrapes […]

Mexico inflation hits over 2-year high on food price surge

* Annual inflation highest since March 2010 at 4.42 pct * Main driver is egg and fresh produce prices * Markets stick to bests interest rates will stay on hold MEXICO CITY, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Mexican annual inflation accelerated to its highest rate in more than two years i n July on a surge […]

EIA projects slightly higher global oil demand growth

  Worldwide liquids fuels consumption will grow by 800,000 b/d this year and by 900,000 b/d in 2013, according to the latest outlook from the US Energy Information Administration. In last month’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA projected that global oil demand would climb by 700,000 b/d during both 2012 and 2013. The new outlook […]

US Midwest Hit By Perfect Gasoline Storm

Retail gasoline prices in the U.S. Midwest were as much as 50 cents higher than in the rest of the country. By Monday, the price of a gallon of regular unleaded jumped 13 cents from last week in Detroit to settle at $3.99.  The spike in retail gasoline prices follows a series of pipeline spills […]

US infrastructure, highways and power grids, failing under relentless heat wave

America is falling apart, literally, and the extreme weather events of the past few months and years surely have not helped the situation any. A recent New York Times (NYT) piece explains that various roads, bridges, and even nuclear power facilities all across the country are crumbling, or otherwise undergoing severe structural damage, as a […]

Orlov: Revolutionary Conditions

Travel advisory: Starting in 2013, in many parts of planet Earth there will be too little food and too much political unrest to make them pleasant destinations. Food is about to get very expensive everywhere: farming states in the US are living through the worst drought since the Dust Bowl; in Russia and Ukraine, heat […]

Our Rube Goldberg Economy

Two prominent energetic systems principles that drive our complex economy are hierarchy and autocatalysis. Earlier posts highlighted the concepts of energy transformity and hierarchy. The concept of autocatalysis can be seen in many circular loops in our current society, such as current proposals for geoengineering technology to fix the problems that industrial and post-industrial technology […]

Open Source Ironworker Machine – Prototype II Completed

Hello World, it’s Brianna again, with the final update on Ironworker Prototype II. You can see former work on Prototype I from 2 years ago. The build of the Prototype II has been completed  with great success on some fronts, and failure on other fronts. The machine was successful in that it shears even more […]

Oil in 2013: aberration or paradigm shift?

Short-term forecasts for the oil market over the next 18 months portray a starkly different picture to the long-term outlook. While some aspects of this variance may be temporary aberrations from trend, others can be put in the context of longer-term developments based on policy direction and technological innovation. It may be time for a […]

Pickens: Let’s make the switch to natural gas

Four years ago, we kicked off the Pickens Plan and changed forever the discussion of energy in the United States. From a standing start we attracted 1.7 million Pickens Plan supporters who have been able to keep up a conversation with their state legislators and members of Congress to make sure the issue of reducing […]

Petroleum Demand in Developing Countries

Oil Prices Rise, But Demand Growth Remains Strong Access to affordable, stable energy supplies is critical for economies throughout the world. For developing countries, affordable energy can offer a pathway to a better quality of life. But between 2000 and 2010, world oil prices became much less affordable. The average global oil price advanced from […]

Economist Richard Duncan: Civilization May Not Survive ‘Death Spiral’

Richard Duncan, formerly of the World Bank and chief economist at Blackhorse Asset Mgmt., says America’s $16 trillion federal debt has escalated into a “death spiral, “as he told CNBC. And it could result in a depression so severe that he doesn’t “think our civilization could survive it.” And Duncan is not alone in warning that […]

Indian grid failure offers lesson to us all

A little conservation is in order. As is an upgrade to the US electrical grid. Photo: Woodley Wonder Works via Flickr. A Washington Post story yesterday about the (so far) two-day electricity blackout that affected 600 million citizens was a study in trying to find an answer to the acute predicament facing Mother India. Numerous […]

All Power Grids are Vulnerable — Not Just India’s

Power has been restored to blacked-out portions of North and East India. But the danger is far from passed. A series of failures and excessive demand on the national grid knocked out power for 640 million people in northern and central India on July 31, a day after a separate blackout left 360 million in […]

Permaculture and Peak Oil – Beyond Sustainability Interview

Permaculture and Peak Oil – Beyond Sustainability Interview

Dmitry Orlov: Reinventing Collapse & Preparing for Survival

Ian Gordon and Dmitry Orlov return to update us on the “progress” of the breakdown of social order in the Western world caused by debt/GDP levels that far surpass those of the 1930s. Orlov’s book, Reinventing Collapse outlines the stages of decline starting with the financial system and ending with a basic breakdown of infrastructure, […]

Second India blackout in two days cuts power to 670 million

Grids supplying electricity to half of India’s 1.2 billion people collapsed on Tuesday, trapping coal miners, stranding train travellers and plunging hospitals into darkness in the second major blackout in as many days. Stretching from Assam, near China, to the Himalayas and the northwestern deserts of Rajasthan, the outage was the worst to hit India […]

Iran’s Oil Minister Sees $100 as Fair Price for Crude

Iran views $100 as a “fair” price for crude oil, the state-run Mehr news agency reported, citing the OPEC-member nation’s oil minister. Rostam Qasemi said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries no longer needs to hold an emergency meeting to address declining prices, as crude sells now for more than $100 a barrel, according to […]

Life after grid crash

What would you do if the lights went off tomorrow, the power cut off for good? If you aren’t already living off-grid you’re going to be in for a bumpy ride. If you are, great! But what happens next? If your supply breaks how will you fix it? This is the type of worst case, […]

An Optimistic Energy/GDP Forecast to 2050

We talk about the possibility of reducing fossil fuel use by 80% by 2050 and ramping up renewables at the same time, to help prevent climate change. If we did this, what would such a change mean for GDP, based on historical Energy and GDP relationships back to 1820? Back in March, I showed you […]

Grid Collapse in India Leaves 360 Million People Without Power

India’s worst power-grid failure in a decade cut electricity supplies to almost 360 million people in seven northern states today, shutting transport networks, triggering commuter chaos and halting water supplies. About 50 percent of the system has been restored and the remainder should resume in 3 to 4 hours after all generation plants start functioning, […]

Peak Oil’s Impact: The Olympic Games

Imagine, if you can, that there is a resource everyone likes to use.  They like to use it for convenience: it lets them go places, have neat things, eat the foods they want no matter what time of year it is…. Now imagine, if you can, that this resource begins to become scarce. Imagine that the […]

China’s coal to chemical future

In this post an overview is given of developments in China to create a coal to chemicals industry, primarily using methanol as an intermediary feedstock. To my surprise in doing this research, the Chinese chemical economy is advancing rapidly in its use of coal as a chemical feedstock, as opposed to crude oil in other […]

India Bans Iran Oil Tankers From Delivery

India has finally agreed to follow U.S. sanctions against Iran and recently banned at least four shipments of crude oil to the country. India was allowing the local Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) and some other state refineries to import Iranian crude oil on cost, insurance and freight  basis — wherein Tehran was to arrange for […]

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