Staff

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, nuclear energy and government

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As we see news of the possible (and increasingly likely) bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by the US Treasury, I am reminded of something that I have been writing about nuclear energy, ie that it should be financed by the State, and I’d like to extend on why I think there are fascinating similarities between the two topics, however distinct they may seem.

Oil demand destruction & brittle systems

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People think we can insulate ourselves from supply disruptions, from our dependence on potentially unreliable foreign sources of oil, by improving our efficiency and eliminating “unnecessary” oil consumption. In my opinion, this is backward. I will argue that, because the demand that is destroyed first in a free market is the demand that is easiest to eliminate, the resulting consumptive system is more inelastic, more brittle, and more susceptible to systemic shock from supply disruption.

Russia: There is life after peak oil

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Several years ago, at what seemed to be one of the darkest moments of the Russian collapse, I was walking in one of the avenues of Moscow. I noticed a series of large signs hanging from lampposts, showing traditional Russian buildings and landscapes. One of my Russian colleagues translated the text of the signs for me as saying, “Nobody will help Russia, so Russia will have to help herself”. Government propaganda? Sure, but that is what the Russians did. Never underestimate a country that has survived peak oil.

US oil companies finding more oil in old fields

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If the peak theory proves true, the intersection between rising worldwide demand and a decline in world production would likely drive prices much higher, giving drillers even more incentive to go after every last drop of oil they can find in old fields as well as new ones. (Texas oil man Jim Baldauf, co-founder of ASPO-USA, is interviewed.)

Oxen power for family farms

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We read in the Bible of war-horses; of horses drawing chariots. But we never find an allusion to horses employed in the tillage of the land; for which by their gentleness, by the nature of the food which they require, by their great docility, oxen seem to have been formed by nature.