World may not have enough food by 2050: Report

The world may not be able to feed itself by 2050 if it doesn’t increase food productivity, according to a report released Wednesday. The report, from the Global Harvest Initiative, states that with a world population expected to be at least 9 billion people in 2050, the demand for food, feed, fiber and fuel will […]

Over the Peak – Why Peak Oil Matters

In the last few days (written 14 October 2014) the headlines have focused on the increase in oil production from OPEC producers, now at its highest level since the summer of 2013 – In its monthly oil market report, OPEC said its oil production rose by 402,000 barrels a day in September 2014 to total 30.47 million barrels […]

Oil Falls After IEA Cuts Demand Forecasts

Brent crude fell to a fresh low below $88 a barrel on Tuesday, trading at the weakest level since 2010 after the West’s energy watchdog cut its estimates for oil demand this year and next. The global oil benchmark has dropped almost 25 percent from its 2014 high in June as supplies have risen and […]

Energy, Diminishing Returns and the Future of Food

It was another warm summer morning as I set off on a lightly used trail, venturing east through the forest and then through a wetland left dry by sparse rain over the previous few weeks. After passing through a bottomland forest I find, off to the trail’s right, the elm I’d met the previous year. […]

Global Collapse, Local Survival

* The world is collapsing from overpopulation and its converse, declining reserves of natural resources such as oil (petroleum). The entire world economy is tied to oil and other fossil fuels for manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, mining, electricity, and so on. * World oil production in the year 2030 will be about half that of the […]

Bill Reiner Interview: Peak Oil

This posting is the first in what will be a series of Monday posts which are portions of an interview that I was privileged to do with Bill Reinert this past summer. Reinert has about the most wide-ranging knowledge and understanding of energy issues of anyone that I’ve ever come across. I also happen to […]

Peak Travel: Envisioning a post-air-travel age

One of the more disruptive consequences of peak oil is likely to be peak air travel. What does peak air travel mean? Why is it likely? Why haven’t you already heard more about it? And what business and investment opportunities does this coming disruption create? I’ve been writing about the unsustainability of air travel for […]

Oil: More About Supply Than The Dollar

Summary The dollar has pulled back this week and oil prices are still falling. Saudi Arabia appears to have shifted its stance. US output is strong, inventories high, refineries slowing. The US dollar’s upside momentum has faded, but oil prices remain depressed. Many observers try, too hard perhaps, to link the decline in commodity prices […]

A Billion Tons of Food Wasted Yearly While Millions Still Go Hungry

In his parody of the Michael Jackson hit “Beat It”, the American satirist and singer Weird Al Yankovic has a parent urging his son to eat the food on his plate, warning that “other kids are starving in Japan”. The parody has raised smiles since it was released 30 years ago, but today “Eat It” […]

Schools of Thought on Degrowth

The economy of the future is described by different groups with different words in different languages and they do not always exactly translate into an identical idea. However, the words, like “Degrowth”, “Decroissance”(French) or “Postwachstum”(German) share an idea of contraction of the economy in order to stay within ecological limits while at the same time […]

Energy Efficiency Backfire in Emerging Economies

Countries that expect to consume much more energy will likely experience higher levels of energy efficiency rebound, concludes a new Breakthrough report, recently released. Rebound is the phenomenon in which energy efficiency measures increase demand for energy, which diminishes expected energy savings. Lighting, Electricity, Steel: Energy Efficiency Rebound in Emerging Economies presents three historical case studies […]

In the US, a Turning Point in the Flow of Oil

The Singapore-flagged tanker BW Zambesi set sail with little fanfare from the port of Galveston, Tex., on July 30, loaded with crude oil destined for South Korea. But though it left inauspiciously, the ship’s launch was another critical turning point in what has been a half-decade of tectonic change for the American oil industry. The […]

Pillars of the New Economy

Noel Ortega is Coordinator of the New Economy Working Group at the Institute for Policy Studies. As part of PCI’s “Weaving the Movement” project, a series of interviews and group conversations with leaders in the new economy and community resilience movements, we spoke with Noel about putting new economy ideas and principles into practice, a new […]

China: The Dragon takes an oil breather

We’ve known it for the past decade: The primary factor underpinning strong oil prices was China’s fire breathing demand for more and more energy. Based on today’s updated outlook from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Dragon’s economy is pausing to inhale. And oil prices are showing signs of asphyxiating. But like breathing in and […]

An Economics Fit for Purpose in a Finite World

Causation is both bottom-up and top-down: material cause from the bottom, and final cause from the top, as Aristotle might say. Economics, or as I prefer, “political economy,” is in between, and serves to balance desirability (the lure of right purpose) with possibility (the constraints of finitude). We need an economics fit for purpose in […]

IEA Acknowledges Rebound Effects

Clean Energy Equivalent of 4 to 19 Australias Required to Meet Gap Created by Rebound A new International Energy Agency report finally acknowledges the major role that efficiency rebound effects will play in future energy demand, and a Breakthrough analysis finds that the consequences are significant. Rather than their previous estimate of global rebound at […]

Nobel laureates call for a revolutionary shift in how humans use resources

Eleven holders of prestigious prize say excessive consumption threatening planet, and humans need to live more sustainably Eleven Nobel laureates will pool their clout to sound a warning, declaring that mankind is living beyond its means and darkening its future. At a conference in Hong Kong coinciding with the annual Nobel awards season, holders of […]

CNG and LNG: the next big step in the field of alternative fuels?

A new EU directive will set forth ambitious goals regarding the use of CNG and LNG as alternative motor fuels. As a result, an overhaul of the relevant Hungarian legislation is expected. Many tend to believe that electricity is the sole workable solution in the field of alternative fuels. However, it is also expected that […]

WSJ Gets it Wrong on “Why Peak Oil Predictions Haven’t Come True”

by Gail Tverberg On Monday, September 29, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a story called “Why Peak Oil Predictions Haven’t Come True.” The story is written as if there are only two possible outcomes: The Peak Oil version of what to expect from oil limits is correct, or Diminishing Returns can and are being […]

Is Current Oil Glut Symptomatic of Long-Term Consumption Depletion

As the short-term oil price scenario continued a post-Labor Day swoon, well into the latter part of September, questions began to be raised as to whether an inverted supply/demand direction was in store for the fourth quarter of 2014. The current commodity surplus, which has also affected copper, steel, iron ore, and assorted agricultural products, […]

World on the brink of oil war as Opec bickers over price

A secretive group of the world’s most powerful oil ministers will soon gather in Vienna to take arguably one of the most important decisions that could affect the still fragile world economy: whether to cut production of crude to defend prices at $100 per barrel, or keep open the spigots as winter looms among the […]

Energy Use of a 100-Watt Light Bulb per Year by Source

Lighting “consumes about 19% of the world’s electric power, more than all nuclear and hydroelectric plants can produce together (which is about 15% in total),” according to Grant Feller of the World Economic Forum. With significant future projected power demand and over a billion people without proper access to electricity (see Breaking Energy ‘energy poverty’ […]

Matt Simmons: Peak Oil Now, Oil Perhaps to $300

Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co. International in Houston, talked yesterday with Bloomberg’s Rhonda Schaffler about the need to address energy use, his view that global supply has peaked and the likelihood oil prices could reach as much as $300 a barrel.

America: You’ve got three more years to drive normally! – Part 2

Part 1 of this series stirred up a lot of interest with Rag Blog readers, and it was reposted by Resilience.org where it was also popular. I imagine the article’s somewhat alarming title struck a nerve, calling attention to the repressed fears that challenge our suburban, car-centric American culture. Fears that stem from our culture of denial in response to […]

Oil Prices Continue Decline, Pressured by Saudi Action to Defend Market Share

Crude oil prices continued their decline on Thursday, with the American benchmark dropping below $90 a barrel during the day and its main international equivalent falling as well. Now at their lowest levels since 2012, crude prices have been under pressure in recent months. The increase in global demand for oil this year is turning […]

The World’s 10 Biggest Energy Gluttons

Next time you get into your car and drive to the supermarket, think about how much energy you consume on an annual basis. It is widely assumed that Westerners are some of the world’s worst energy pigs. While Americans make up just 5 percent of the global population, they use 20 percent of its energy, […]

The Great Natural Gas Grab

Any power utility executive will tell you that the industry has been burned by unexpected natural gas price spikes a number of times over the past 10 years. In some cases, regulators refused to allow the utility to pass on the fuel cost to ratepayers, and investors took the hit in the form of lower […]

Who Is Buying The Islamic State’s Illegal Oil?

In June 2014, computer files captured from a courier for the Islamic State shortly after the fall of Mosul revealed that the group had assets of $875 million, largely gained in the sacking and looting of Mosul and its central bank. The size of the group’s bank account has now risen to an estimated $2 […]

What Happens if Oil Soars to US$150 a Barrel?

Anyone who thinks today’s markets are boring is an imbecile. Anyone who thinks there aren’t any investing opportunities just isn’t looking hard enough. There are plenty of investment opportunities. Some of them are obvious. Others are less obvious. One of the biggest opportunities is in the ‘Dying Empire’. The death of which may still be […]

The Collapse of the American Economy Has Begun

Susan Duclos recently interviewed “V” the Guerrilla Economist and the following information was revealed in this landmark interview: “The process of undermining the US dollar is well on schedule as well; more than 105 countries have decided that the dollar no longer works for them, joining Russia, China and other BRICS nations in leaving the […]

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