Kunstler Brings Energy Message To Vermont

Download MP3 Let’s talk about our energy future. We’ve already reached the age of peak oil and fossil fuels are too dangerous for the environment anyway. Gas from shale oil in Canada? Far more pricey to extract than the industry would have you believe. OK, renewable energies-wind and solar-that’s the wave of the energy future. […]

World Energy Consumption Since 1820

Figure 1 shows the huge increase in world energy consumption that has taken place in roughly the last 200 years. This rise in energy consumption is primarily from increased fossil fuel use. Figure 1. World Energy Consumption by Source, Based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects together with BP Statistical […]

The Astounding Fuel Price Conundrum

Republicans have been out in force, trying to tar President Obama with gas prices that are approaching $4 a gallon, and that appear to be shooting for an all-time high into the driving season. But no one has even tried to out-claim Newt Gingrich, who in his desperation claimed that gas would miraculously plunge to […]

Peak Oil is back with a vengeance

Oil spikes usually metastasise once energy costs reach 9 per cent of global GDP. The longer they stay there, the greater the damage. That proved to be the pain barrier in the 1970s and again in 2008, and we are just shy of that level right now. “Oil is already capturing a higher level of […]

The hunger games governments play

MOST experts agree that the world’s population will level out at around nine billion by 2050. It is also accepted that over three-quarters of the population will be concentrated in urban areas and that current economic growth trends will deliver higher real incomes for many, leading to a change in diets with increased demand for […]

Taking aim at speculators

Vermont’s congressional delegation is once again taking aim at Wall Street speculators as a major culprit in driving up prices at the pump — prices that are likely to spike well above $4 a gallon this summer. But casting investment banks and hedge funds as the sole villains isn’t so black and white, said two […]

Energy in East Africa

Poverty refers not only to one’s economic situation, but also to other factors that influence life. Especially in the past years the term “energy poverty” has become more common. Sustainable access to energy is essential in the eradication of poverty and for the improvement of access to education and health services and therefore a critical […]

Heinberg: China Coal Update

World coal production and consumption data for 2011 are not yet compiled and published, but one key number is in. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reports that the country’s coal output rose 8.7 percent from 2010 to reach 3.88 billion short tons last year. For comparison, US consumption in 2010 was just over […]

Why High Oil Prices Are Now Affecting Europe More Than the US

The world is presently sharing a limited supply of oil. When oil prices rise, oil production doesn’t rise very much, if at all. Figure 1. Brent oil spot price and world oil supply (broadly defined), based on EIA data.The issues then become: Which buyers get the oil? What uses get priced out of the market? […]

EIA sees oil consumption outpacing production

Quote of the Day Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo DaVinci Yesterday was the largest one day decline for a variety of risk asset classes this year as the ongoing headwinds finally caught up with the bulls. This was the first correction this year that can be categorized as a bit of a sentiment changer. […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: East Coast Refineries Redux

It has been six weeks since we last discussed the problems that could be in store for the U.S.’s East Coast due to closing of refineries in the Philadelphia area. Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a second, more detailed report on what could happen to the availability of oil and prices in […]

A review of Local Dollars, Local Sense

I hastened to buy Local Dollars, Local Senseby Michael Shuman, because I was attracted to the title and had high hopes for the emphasis on localization.  Shuman’s book represents a small step in a needed direction, but I was yearning for much deeper. The cover claims that it is “a Community Resilience Guide” — I […]

Peak or Plateau Oil, Oil Prices and Economic Growth

There does seem to be a supply shortage in the oil markets at present. Well, of course, obviously there is, that’s why the price has risen. We’re all entirely out of $80 oil which is why the price is higher than $80. However, I think there’s a small thing being left out of this particular […]

Reviewing Jevons’ Paradox

Wired has a look at the accuracy of Jevons Paradox and the implications for energy efficiency strategy – Clive Thompson on Unsaving the Planet. We put a lot of stock in energy efficiency. It is regarded as the quickest and easiest way to reduce carbon emissions. Al Gore even ended An Inconvenient Truth with a […]

Natural Gas Demand To Quadruple

Gary Kendall, former Exxon chemist US oil billionaires, Robert Hefner III and T. Boone Pickens have championed natural gas as oil’s successor for around 15 years. They’ve done this mainly by pushing the ‘green’ attributes of natural gas. Calling it ‘the bridge’ to a cleaner future… Which it may be in some ways… Pickens even […]

Urban agriculture: Growing green in grey concrete

Half of the world’s population today lives in cities. By 2015, almost 26 cities of the world are expected to have a population of 10 million or more. At least 6,000 tonnes of food must be imported every day to feed a city of this size. Low income urban dwellers spend between 40% and 60% […]

Plateau Oil meets 125m Chinese cars

That proved to be the pain barrier in the 1970s and again in 2008, and we are just shy of that level right now. “Oil is already capturing a higher level of European GDP than in 2008,” said Francisco Blanch from Bank of America. The rule of thumb is that a 10pc rise in crude […]

Global poverty on the decline: World Bank

The rate of poverty, based on the number of people living on less than $1.5 a day, declined across the developing world between 2005 and 2008, according to a World Bank report. Around 1.29 billion people lived below the defined poverty line in 2008, which was equivalent to 22 per cent of the population of […]

Global mining boom is leading to landgrab

The global mining, oil and gas industries have expanded so fast in the last decade they are now leading to large-scale “landgrabbing” and threatening farming and water supplies, according to a report by environment and development groups in Europe, Africa and India. “The catalogue of devastation is growing. We are no longer talking about isolated […]

Combining domestic coal with nuclear energy to make oil?

As a South Central Virginia resident, I have something in common with the people in the Pacific Northwest who are concerned about the impact of coal exports from the US. Numerous coal laden trains pass through Lynchburg every day, many of them headed to the large coal terminal in Newport News. I can hear the […]

It’s time to love the bus

America needs to accept the fact that its most despised form of transport is also its hope for the future The Guardian hailed it as “a stately vehicle” that conveys “a sense of privilege.” British car mag Autocar road-tested it and praised its “brilliant economy and an interior to die for.” It isn’t a Jag […]

Electricity consumption in Portugal collapsing

When Portugal committed together with the other members of the European Union to the 20-20-20 targets in 2006 it would be perhaps difficult for its political leaders to imagine that they would reached so soon. Six years later energy consumption in Portugal is declining in almost all fronts, the European Energy Policy has become largely […]

Peak Everything and a Perpetual No Growth Economy

Many heterodox economists and post-carbon researchers – most notably Richard Heinberg in several books but particularly in his seminal The End of Growth and Chris Martenson in The Crash Course – have recognized that, among other lesser causes, because of peak oil, the core source of energy that has been driving our economy for over […]

What Would It Take for US Gas to Hit $5 per Gallon?

After returning from a business trip to California, I don’t find media speculation concerning the possibility of $5 gasoline later this year quite as far-fetched as I might have last week. Perhaps seeing $4.299 per gallon posted for unleaded regular on many street corners there, compared to $3.699 or so here, gave me a touch […]

Japan wants Alaska’s North Slope natural gas

A group of Japanese officials have been in Anchorage to discuss sending liquefied natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to Japan. Some accounts say that the Japanese are interested in building part, or even the entire, big pipeline that would take gas from the the Arctic oil fields to tidewater, but that couldn’t be confirmed. […]

Future of food in Japan

Food is culture. This is especially true in a food-obsessed country like Japan where the national cuisine uniquely reflects the natural environment, regional diversity and underlying value system of this resilient country. If you were to think of your ten favourite Japanese dishes what would they be? Your list would likely include sushi and sashimi. […]

Heinberg: $5 Gas = Long, Hot, Crazy Summer

Here in northern California gasoline is now retailing for $4.20 a gallon. Prices haven’t been this high since mid-2008. Forecasts for $5 per gallon gas in the US this summer are now commonplace. What’s driving prices up? Most analysts focus mostly on two factors: worries about Iran and increased demand from a perceived global economic […]

US Dec oil demand down almost 5 pct from yr ago

U.S. oil demand in December was 231,000 barrels per day more than previously estimated, but still down 984,000 bpd from a year earlier, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. U.S. oil demand in December was revised up by 1.25 percent to 18.738 million bpd from EIA’s earlier estimate of 18.507 million bpd. Demand was […]

All those cars

Auto industry leader wonders how planet is supposed to hold cars produced by an industry regaining its health ALONGSIDE recent stories about the auto industry’s reboundcomes this touch of irony: Bill Ford, great-grandson of Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford and the company’s current executive chairman, frets about how all these cars will fit on […]

Peak oil, price fluctuations and globalization

Chen and Hsu have published a recent study about oil price volatility and its impact on global trade. A large annual panel data set covering 84 countries has been examined and the evidence shows that trade will be lower when oil prices fluctuate significantly. This supports the ideas presented earlier by Rubin in the book […]

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