The Peak Oil Crisis: Load Shedding

Largely unnoticed in America are the increasingly frequent electricity shortages developing around the world.

Many of these are caused by shifting weather patterns that are leaving hydro-electric dams with insufficient water to produce at full capacity. While some aspects of global climate change are temporary, many, such as the melting of glaciers, seem destined to last for decades, or perhaps centuries, thereby depriving the world of some of the best sources of cheap, renewable electric energy.

Thermal power production across the globe is struggling to cope with high prices and shortages of coal, fuel oil and diesel. Several poorer countries have shut down the bulk of their generation capacity as they are no longer able to pay the fuel bills to keep going.

Then there is the inexorable growth of the world