Our energy future: “They’ll think of something”

With oil prices hovering near historic highs and coal, natural gas and uranium prices yo-yoing during the last several years, concerns about the future of fossil fuel and uranium supplies often elicit the response: “They’ll think of something. They always do.” This kind of thinking is usually premised on the idea that the future will […]

Kunstler: Returning to the ‘Real’

A paradox of life in these times is the inverse relationship between technological wizardry and the satisfactions of being a live organism in a real place (i.e., on the planet Earth).  It probably boils down to a proposition that the American public is not ready to entertain: that the virtual is not an adequate substitute […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Labor Day 2013

While awaiting further developments in the Syrian poison gas crisis, it is good time to review the general deterioration going on across the Middle East and the outlook for oil production from the region. Hardly a month goes by without some new Middle Eastern crisis arising with implications for the region’s oil exports. Last week […]

Peak Oil Denial: From WAY Out in Left Field

We don’t like bad news, particularly when it has very long term implications. Individually and collectively we tend to slip into denial mode, focus on diversions, become numbed to the reality of the situation, cling to anyone willing to assure us it just ain’t so, that things are going to get better. You can’t live […]

Peak Oil and the Future of Energy

Full Documentary

The Last Drumbeat

Is the idea of peak oil a false projection or impending reality? The world has recently been exposed to many optimistic estimates on the future of oil production and the media has eagerly picked up these projections. International Energy Agency estimates that by 2020, the USA is projected to become the largest global oil producer, […]

Is the idea of peak oil a false projection or impending reality?

A mixed panel deconstructs the hyperbole. Ledetta Asfa-Wossen reports. Charles HallProfessor Charles Hall, Emeritus Professor at State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, USA The world has recently been exposed to many optimistic estimates on the future of oil production and the media has eagerly picked up these projections. International Energy […]

When The Oil Drum Peaked

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:27 — 44.0MB) TWiE: discusses with Dr. Dave Summers, co-founder of The Oil Drum, natural gas & fracking, global oil supplies, solar on the White House (again) & parasitic loads in our homes all of that & more! Hosts: Kirsten Hasberg (Denmark & Germany) and Bob Tregilus (U.S.A.). Guest: Dr. David Summers […]

What To Expect During The Next Stage Of Collapse

For years now at Alt-Market (and Neithercorp.us) I have carefully outlined the most likely path of collapse to take place within the U.S., and a vital part of that analysis included economic destabilization caused by a loss of the dollar’s world reserve status and petro-status.  I have also always made clear that this fiscal crisis […]

What do we mean by peak oil?

Another EarthWise piece I wrote aired on WAMC Wednesday.  This one was a very basic introduction to the concept of Peak Oil, which is pretty much what it had to be, since it was a 2-minute piece for a general radio audience which might not have even heard of peak oil. You can listen to […]

The spectre of peak oil still looms over us

The Syrian conflict is full of complicating factors, but oil isn’t one of them. Syria accounts for less than half of one per cent of global production, most of which is consumed domestically. That said, Iran and Saudi Arabia stand on opposite sides of Syria’s civil war – and of the world’s most important oil […]

The Oil Drum, peak oil and why some good blogs don’t last

At the end of this month, The Oil Drum will be archived after eight years. A flurry of commentary when this was first announced concluded that it’s shutting down because of the demise of peak oil. Noah Smith, Forbes and Reuters’ John Kemp, among others, have concluded that extraction from new sources, particularly shale gas […]

Peak Oil: a fertile concept

This article is a reflection originated by the recent demise of the “Oil Drum” website. Some people have taken this event as a demonstration that the concept of peak oil is dead and buried. But the situation is much more complex: peak oil is a fertile concept; it provides a complete worldview that sheds plenty […]

Wealth is not Property

[Guest post by Ellen, a long-time reader of this blog that I’ve only just heard from recently. She makes a valid point, one I couldn’t have made better myself. It makes me happy that a woman is making it, although that doesn’t make it any less incendiary (for some people).] Thank you for your series […]

Reaching “peak bashing” of peak oil

The discussion of the death of peak oil has ramped up along with the increased hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling into tight sands and formations across North Dakota and Texas.  In fact, even people that think peak oil will correlate to significant problems for society shy away from the term.  But just as it is […]

Peak Oil Denial: Abundant Nonsense # 3

We don’t like bad news, particularly when it has very long term implications. Individually and collectively we tend to slip into denial mode, focus on diversions, become numbed to the reality of the situation, cling to anyone willing to assure us it just ain’t so, that things are going to get better. You can’t live […]

Gail the Actuary almost gets it right

In the entry of July 11th, I commented on Gail Tverberg’s list of monetary problems that arise in connection with energy technologies that have an EROI as low as 5.0 in the methodology employed by Charles Hall until quite recently when he began to collaborate with Pedro Prieto who has added many (but not all) […]

Peak oil is dead: long live peak oil!

Perhaps the news of the death of Peak Oil have been a bit exaggerated. Despite the tsunami of hype related to the new dreams of abundance, the concept of peak oil remains entrenched simply because it makes sense. Some economists have been arguing for decades that depletion was not an urgent problem and sometimes that […]

John Michael Greer on Richard Heinberg: Well and Truly Fracked

The reduction of contemporary debates about the future to ritual theater, the theme of last week’s post here on The Archdruid Report, isn’t limited to the specific technological issues I discussed in that essay—the increasingly dubious quest for fusion power, on the one hand, and the prospects for the internet’s survival in an age of […]

The solution that has no name

We all want to make a difference and have a good time–that’s the key to happiness. But how? We’re often not sure what to do. During the 1960s, I discovered something that transformed my life: the Highlander Center, the educational center where Rosa Parks was trained. Highlander was the hidden secret of the civil rights […]

“Nothing will change”

“Nothing will change” sounds like a tagline to Francis Fukuyama’s End of History, the celebration of ‘liberal democracy’ as the final evolution of human governance. Perhaps fittingly, these were the words that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden used to describe his greatest fear after he contributed evidence of the global US/UK surveillance operation that scaffolds western […]

What are the Largest Risks to U.S. Energy Security?

The security of U.S. energy supply has been a major Federal Government priority since the Arab OPEC oil embargo in 1973.  Since the energy crises of the 1970’s (1973 and 1979) numerous regulations were implemented to improve U.S. energy security by reducing the need for high risk oil imports.  Improvements included developing alternatives to petroleum […]

The Blood of the Earth by John Michael Greer

The Blood of the Earth: An Essay on Magic and Peak Oil By John Michael Greer 178 pp., first edition hardcover. Scarlet Imprint – May 2012. $75.00. Also available in paperback for $24.95. It was as an inquisitive young man during the 1970s that John Michael Greer—now an accomplished author and an indispensable source of […]

Peak Oil Denial: Abundant Nonsense

We don’t like bad news, particularly when it has very long term implications. Individually and collectively we tend to slip into denial mode, focus on diversions, become numbed to the reality of the situation, cling to anyone willing to assure us it just ain’t so, that things are going to get better. You can’t live […]

Those That Are Not Preparing For The Coming Economic Depression Are Going To Bitterly Regret It

The next great economic crisis is rapidly approaching, and most people are going to be totally blindsided by it.  Even though the warning signs are glaringly obvious, most Americans continue to believe that our “leaders” know what they are doing and that everything will be just fine.  But what will happen when the next great […]

John Michael Greer: The Ritual Theater of Progress

This habit of drafting my ideas on the future of industrial society right out here in public has its disadvantages, to be sure, but there are benefits as well. One of the more unexpected of these is the way that the illogic that swims through the hidden places of the collective consciousness of our time […]

What Is Peak Oil?

Peak oil — the point in time when global oil production peaks and begins to drop — has been looming on the horizon for decades. Countless research reports, government studies and oil industry analyses have tried to pin down the exact year when peak oil will occur, to no avail. The stakes are undeniably high: […]

Expanding In The Midst Of Contraction

Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist, writer and lecturer, and whose philosophy is often summarized by his phrase, “follow your bliss,” once said, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new […]

Peak Oil Denial: Abundant Nonsense

Two sides to a story … hell of a concept!   All the Information?   Imagine if we could have honest dialogue about energy policy and/or public policy where all the facts were offered for public consumption. Imagine if the high-art of cherry-picking and “spin” were relegated to back-room ideological debates where partakers recalled the […]

How will I explain Peak Oil to my son?

I haven’t written or commented on TOD in quite some time, but the experience carries me forward everyday. I always came at peak oil not from an “if” or even “when” but “then what do we do”? At Kyle’s invitation, I brought my personal blog, Peak Oil NYC, to The Oil Drum in September 2005. […]

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