Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed The Environmental Point Of No Return?

Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff? The hapless predator ran straight out off the edge, stopped in midair as only an animated character could, looked beneath him in an eye-popping moment of truth, and plummeted straight down into a puff of dust. Splat! […]

The rise of re-use

Last week I read that the glitzy world of virtual reality created instant multi-millionaires and several billionaires when Facebook went public selling shares. Last week I also noted the important real world problem of some 250 million tons of solid waste a year in our country alone. Guess which “world” gets the most investment, status, […]

Drill, Baby, Drill! More drilling doesn’t necessarily mean more oil

The United States has a problem. An oil problem. No matter how many wells are drilled oil companies just can’t seem to raise production to anywhere near the figures required to reach the holy grail of energy independence. Looking at the oil production data, active rigs in use and footage drilled over the last forty […]

How will we feed world’s growing population?

The world’s population is projected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050. More people and rising living standards mean that global agriculture will have to double food production by mid-century. Yet farming and ranching already exact a daunting toll on the environment: burn down rain forests to create more arable land, dump fertilizers onto […]

Greasing the wheel: Oil’s role in the global crisis

Between January 2002 and August 2008, the nominal oil price rose from $19.7 to $133.4 a barrel. This led to a large increase in oil revenues for oil exporters and a deterioration of the current account for oil importers (Figure 1). Between 2002 and 2006, net capital outflows from oil exporters grew by 348%, becoming […]

Peak Oil’s Impact: Re-Visiting College Graduations

On the heels of a recent article by Tim Worstall (which I’ll discuss in an upcoming post), expressing his confusion about the absence of any visible and immediate consequences of Peak Oil, and with the graduation season full upon us again, I thought it might be a good idea to provide a “for example” to […]

Americans are Driving Less

Good news for Memorial Day weekend: Since peaking at a national average of $3.93 on April 5, the price of regular gasoline has fallen almost 25 cents per gallon. That’s like a $25 billion tax cut for consumers. In fact, gasoline is cheaper now than it was a year ago at this time. Futures markets are […]

The controversy over peak oil, oil prices & technological advances

            Much has been made in the past few years of the triumph over peak oil theorists, courtesy of the higher prices, which made the extraction of a higher proportion of oil in place possible, and also provided incentives for a robust unconventional petroleum industry to develop and flourish.  Canada’s oil sands projects have been […]

Easter Islanders killed virtually every fish

Geologically one of the youngest inhabited territories on Earth, Easter Island was, for most of its history, the most isolated. Its inhabitants, the Rapanui, have endured famines, epidemics of disease and cannibalism, civil war, slave raids, various colonial contacts, and have seen their population crash on more than one occasion. The ensuing cultural legacy has […]

Highlighting the Role of Fertilizers, Crop Nutrition and Soil Health in Global Agriculture

Last week, the global fertilizer industry cooperating organizations announced the “Roots for Growth” campaign to highlight the important role that fertilizers play in addressing global food security responsibly, efficiently and sustainably. Much of the campaign highlights agricultural achievements through the use of processed fertilizers and the ambitious goals that must be met to feed a […]

IEA: Global oil demand growth accelerating

After posting near-zero annual growth in the fourth quarter of 2011, global oil demand growth will gradually accelerate throughout 2012, culminating in an increase of 1.2 million b/d by this year’s final quarter, the International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly oil market report. Global oil consumption is set to rise by 800,000 b/d […]

Want World Peace? Try Super-Smart Farming

A lot depends on the world’s ability to expand agricultural production over the next 30 years. As the grain price spikes and resulting food riots of 2008 and 2010 attest, nothing less than geopolitical stability is at stake. The world’s population, currently 7 billion, is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050. Already a […]

The end of fish

Want to see how severely we humans are scouring the oceans for fish? Check out this striking map from the World Wildlife Fund’s 2012 “Living Planet Report.” The red areas are the most intensively fished (and, in many cases, overfished) parts of the ocean — and they’ve expanded dramatically since 1950: To measure how intensively […]

E15 Could Put Some Engines at Risk

More on the potential risk to America’s car and truck fleet posed by E15 – gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol that has EPA approval: Just-released research indicates that more than 5 million existing cars and light trucks, which EPA says are OK for E15 use, could develop engine problems as a result. Why this discrepancy?  […]

Israel becomes lab for electric car network

Israeli entrepreneur Shai Agassi has begun rolling out the world’s first nationwide electric car network. Now, will the drivers come? After more than $400 million in outlays and months behind schedule, dozens of electric cars have hit the road in Israel, the test site Agassi chose for his Better Place venture. Four stations where the […]

Why Are Gas Prices Going Up When Demand Is Going Down?

The price of crude oil—and more importantly, gasoline—has climbed to painful levels once again. As of early April, the quote for Brent crude, the international yardstick, was about $126 per barrel—only some $16 below the $142 peak seen in the summer of 2008. But domestic West Texas Intermediate crude is only getting $107 per barrel—a […]

Japan trades nuclear power for fossil fuels

Energy is the lifeblood of modern economies and there’s no more amazingly useful form of energy than electricity. That’s why I was initially startled to read the recent news that the last of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants has been shut down, a turn of events that makes Japan the first major economy of this […]

Resilience or death: Preparing our farms for the end of agriculture (…as we know it)

“[G]lobal food production is hitting an array of ecological constraints, while population growth and changing diets are driving up demand. …[C]urrent food production is massively subsidised through fossil fuel inputs, and…as those inputs become less available, and people become poorer due to economic contraction, food productivity and access will be undermined. …In totality, we are […]

Saudis, soaring costs may keep oil above $100

Oil industry executives and bankers are assuming oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel in the year ahead, despite mounting economic worries, as any fall below that level would trigger a cut in Saudi Arabia’s output and force closures at high-cost projects around the world. A straw poll by Reuters of oil executives, traders, […]

Stuart Staniford: Feeling my Inner Kunstler

I’m currently in Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold Coast of Australia in order to give a talk for work.  If you are in a bad mood when you frame the photo, the place looks like the above.  Or like this if you try to make it look good (say be capturing the sunrise from your […]

U.S. coal generation drops 19 percent in one year, leaving coal with 36 percent share of electricity

Power generation from coal is falling quickly. According to new figuresfrom the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal made up 36 percent of U.S. electricity in the first quarter of 2012 — down from 44.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011. That stunning drop, which represented almost a 20 percent decline in coal generation over […]

Orlov: Down the Skyscraper

It was Andrew Lawrence, the inventor of the skyscraper index, who pointed out that the building of the world’s tallest buildings is a good proxy for dating the onset of major economic downturns. His index has stood the test of time; the few times when it made an incorrect prediction can be adequately explained by […]

How high priced oil is changing our lives

Fewer cars and commuters, but also lower emissions Only rich people will be able to afford cars. Everyone else will be taking public transit. Commuters will move into Toronto and other urban centres, leaving the suburbs to revert to their former status as farmland. The only provinces creating jobs will be those with oil. The […]

Kunstler: Still Standing Amid the Wreckage

The New Urbanists held their big annual meet-up for four days last week and I stomped a big carbon footprint flying down to West Palm Beach for the doings. I don’t know who exactly picked West Palm, but it was at once peculiar, disheartening, instructive, and exhausting.    The Congress for the New Urbanism has […]

What Is Our Energy Future?

Global energy consumption will double by mid-century, regardless of what the United States does. It’s not from the 1 billion people already using vast amounts of electricity, or the 1 billion using modest amounts of electricity.  It results from the 1.6 billion people that do not have any access to electricity whatsoever, the 2.4 billion that […]

Japan to Experience Power Shortages This Summer

Kansai Electric Power Co. (9503) and two other Japanese utilities may have power shortages this summer without supplies from nuclear reactors, a government panel said. Kansai Electric, the utility most dependent on nuclear power, may face the biggest shortage of 14.9 percent, the independent committee said in a draft report published May 12. Kyushu Electric […]

Oil prices could double by 2022, IMF warned

Global trade would be profoundly affected if crude prices permanently doubled from current historic high of $113 a barrel The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been warned by its internal research team that there could be a permanent doubling of oil prices in the coming decade with profound implications for global trade. “This is uncharted […]

The 10 Cities That Are Most Screwed By Peak Oil

Gas prices may finally be cutting into American sprawl, as cities have started growing faster than suburbs and people are driving less than they used to. So what happens if gas prices keep going higher? You can’t live in a cities like Merriam, Kansas without driving everywhere, as Maggie Koerth-Baker observes in Before the Lights […]

Saudi says $100 per barrel great price for oil

Top crude exporter Saudi Arabia wants an oil price of around $100 a barrel and would like to see global inventories rise before demand picks up in the second half of the year, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Sunday. International Brent crude settled at $112.26 on Friday, well off a peak of over $128 […]

How will peak oil affect the economy

Economist Richard Douthwaite discusses the impact of peak oil, May 2011

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