The World has Passed Peak Oil, says Top Economist

Despite high prices, crude oil production has stayed basically flat for roughly five years. It seems this is the all-time high-water mark, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency. “We think that crude oil production for the world has already peaked in 2006,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “I think it would […]

The most surprising demographic crisis

DOES China have enough people? The question might seem absurd. The country has long been famous both for having the world’s largest population and for having taken draconian measures to restrain its growth. Though many people, Chinese and outsiders alike, have looked aghast at the brutal and coercive excesses of the one-child policy, there has […]

Gasoline Gangsters Episode 18: Transport Revolutions

In this episode I cover a recent presentation by Richard Gilbert, the co-author of Transport Revolutions. Richard tells Post Carbon Toronto about his life in England at the beginning of their oil age and gives us some of his solutions for moving people and freight in the post peak oil world. youtube.com

How Much is Oil Worth?

The reason that oil company profits are so volatile is that sometimes the price of oil becomes pretty disconnected from the cost to produce it and convert it into finished products. This is because oil is a globally traded commodity, and like other commodities such as corn, iron, and pork bellies, the price is set […]

John Michael Greer: The Downside of Dependence

I’m not sure if last week’s Archdruid Report post hit a nerve, or if thoughts similar to the ones I discussed there have been busy all by themselves stirring up nightmares in the deep places of our collective imagination, but it’s been fascinating to note how many blog posts over the past few days have […]

Where will China find the oil to power its economy?

With OPEC tapped out, where will China find the oil to power future economic growth? The obvious answer is it will take a big chunk out of the 19 million barrels the U.S. economy burns every day. And China doesn’t have to build a blue water navy or engage in an arms race to take […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Peak Oil Elasticity

Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the average national price for regular gasoline in the U.S. was now $3.96 a gallon. Don’t feel too bad though; last week the Kremlin banned gasoline and diesel exports from Russia to alleviate domestic shortages sending gasoline prices in Germany to a record $9.10 a […]

How Highly Oil-Dependent Nations Will Get Hurt By Peak Oil More Than Others

There’s been a lot written lately about more and more people in high places recognizing peak oil isn’t just something cranky ex-petroleum geologists and environmentalists reading too much Jared Diamond go on about. In fact both those groups have probably been right all along about peak oil, and it increasingly looks like we are either […]

Interview: Chris Vernon from The Oil Drum Europe

Chris Vernon from The Oil Drum: Europe answers questions on the impact of peak oil for poorer countries, how peak oil will affect the UK, the potential contribution of biofuels and the relationship between peak oil and climate change. Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas Interviewee: Chris Vernon

The death of Osama bin Laden and the threat of peak oil

With the death of Osama bin Laden, can America now face threats to our future more dangerous than Al Qaeda — peak oil and climate change? After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush called for the American people to show our unity with each other and our defiance of terrorists who would target the American […]

Interview with Kunstler: The Small Cities at the End of the Tunnel

We all know there’s a conventional worldview out there—call it consensus reality. It’s football on Saturdays, Bud Light, Banks that Care, America the Greatest Country of All. A lot of people—more and more every day, it seems—view consensus reality as bogus. You’ve got your conspiracy theorists (Mossad!!! The Trilateral Commission!!!), and then there are those […]

Peak Oil and Soil

When discussing the value of soil especially in the context of Peak Oil, the devil is in the details. There are two parts to this: First is that readers may not realize the gravity of the situation concerning food and Peak Oil. There is a wing of the Peak Oil argument that statistically demonstrates how […]

Why Water Will Never Be the Next Oil

If you want to glimpse what the future of water will look like, start with a cruise ship — where it is a carefully measured commodity. Every drop of water used on a cruise ship is either purchased at a dock or manufactured using on-board desalination systems fired by expensive fuel. Ships are closed loops […]

What happened to our millions?

Fifty-six, I told the financial planner. That was the magical number I wanted to retire at. My husband said 62. At the time, I had an 18-month-old daughter who I was caring for full time, a husband who had just been promoted, and two 401Ks that were heavily funded in our 20s, as we had […]

China may have bankrupted itself building high-speed rail

We’re all about high-speed rail, but not if it’s going to bankrupt the world’s second largest economy. Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a longtime critic of high-speed rail, said he worries that the cost of [the country’s high speed rail] project might have created a hidden debt bomb that threatens China’s […]

Freedom through Frugality & Transition Towns

Montpelier resident Jane Dwinell has followed the method in Your Money or Your Life to live frugally and retire in her mid-fifties. She celebrates and elaborates on the method in her new book, Freedom through Frugality. Annie McCleary is coordinator for Transition Town Montpelier, part of the worldwide Transition movement, which helps Vermonters take control […]

A few observations from the world of oil price mania

I’ve been interviewed recently by two separate television networks, and either the producer or on-camera “talent” felt it necessary to say the same thing: “I’m sick of this gasoline story.” How many times can you stick a microphone in somebody’s face, asking them to comment on their feelings as $4 gasoline flows into their SUV and the […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Dimming of the Globe

Late last month a newly enhanced web site, www.energyshortage.org, dedicated to collecting articles concerning energy shortages around the world reappeared on the web after an absence of some months. The stories deal with coal, electricity and natural gas shortages as well as oil. In the course of the past month the web site has located […]

Sharon Astyk: It Isn’t Gridcrash that Makes the Lights Go Out

A lot of us worry about extended power outages, and for good reason – they are incredibly disruptive to large areas. The more one knows about our extant outdated electric grid with its weak infrastructure, the more this sort of thing is worrisome. I certainly do think that there are some compelling reasons to worry […]

Debt Crisis, Peak Oil, & Hyperinflation

This video explains the links between the current sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the bursting of the debt supercycle, it’s detonator peak oil, and the likelihood of a velocity of money lead hyperinflationary event which will lead to systemic financial collapse

Scarcity of Phosphorus: Looming Threat to Food Production

In Feb., 2011, two Australian experts in global phosphorus said that instability in the Middle East and North Africa could threaten food security in the world because the region boasts high proportion of global phosphate rock reserves. Instability is really a component in a looming supply-demand gap in global phosphorus resources. It is predicted that […]

American Hellholes

The U.S. economy is dying and we are heading for the next Great Depression.  The talking heads in the mainstream media love to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn’t take a genius to see what […]

Heinberg: Won’t innovation, substitution, and efficiency keep us growing?

This article is the summary of Chapter 4 of Richard Heinberg’s new book ‘The End of Growth’, which is set for publication by New Society Publishers in September 2011. This chapter explores the possibilities of innovation, substitution and efficiency to maintain economic growth. Access previous chapters here. Read Chapter 4: Part 1 Read Chapter 4: Part 2 Read […]

China: Thousands of Truck Drivers Riot in Shanghai Over Fuel Prices

Cryptogon points to some recent reports about unrest in China over fuel prices – China: Thousands of Truck Drivers Riot in Shanghai Over Fuel Prices. ZeroHedge is right: China is now between a rock and a hard place: will it continue happily importing Bernanke’s inflation exports or finally retaliate. Unfortunately for its economy, the appropriately […]

Brooklyn Grange: World’s Largest Rooftop Farm Kicks Off Second Growing Season

The second growing season is in full swing for the rooftop urban farmers at Brooklyn Grange. Located atop a six-story 1919 warehouse, the 40,000 square foot organic rooftop farm built by Bromley Caldari Architects is believe to be the largest of its kind in the world! The almost 1-acre farm is an oasis surrounded by […]

Economic Resilience #3. Rethink the idea of “Jobs”

“Jobs” as we know them today — paychecks from large corporate employers — are a very recent phenomenon in human history. Within our new understanding of the future economy, this form of earning a living is not too likely to continue. Even the idea of “green jobs” is deeply flawed. Many of the “green” jobs […]

Bilderberg Wants Gas Prices at $7 a Gallon

In a follow-up to his American Free Press article, veteran newspaper reporter and Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker told Alex Jones today that the globalists fully intend to launch a ground invasion of Libya and also jack up the price of gas to $7 per gallon. (See also: Kissinger Calls For US Ground Invasion Of Libya.) […]

Jeff Rubin: When will we see demand destruction for oil?

How high must oil prices go before they start killing the very demand that feeds them? Everybody from the International Monetary Fund to the International Energy Agency (IEA) is warning of dire economic consequences if today’s triple digit oil prices persist. Curiously though, the IEA, which is warning of a potential global recession due to […]

Gasoline Gangsters Episode 14: The Last Suburb Standing

Peak oil is here and suburbia will fail. But not all of suburbia will collapse at the same time. In this episode I try to predict the likely order of collapse for the American dream.

Global Demography: Population Inflation

The global demographic landscape is a complex one, and not surprisingly very difficult for many to comprehend. The media is alive with projections that the global population will reach seven billion people by the end of 2011, and will exceed nine billion by 2050, with much of this growth occurring in the least-developed countries, where […]

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