Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– Happiness theory at center stage in Soros economic conference
– The ‘I’m-happy-I’m-green’ consensus won’t placate our lust for novelty
– Simplicity Institute report shows that less can be more
– Prophets of the Environmental Apocalypse
– Venezuela Comes Sixth in Gallup “Wellbeing” Survey
According a new study by Berkeley Lab’s China Energy Group, the steeply rising curve of energy demand in China will begin to moderate between 2030 and 2035 and flatten thereafter. There will come a time—within the next two decades—when the number of people in China acquiring cars, larger homes, and other accouterments of industrialized societies will peak.
Where have all the people gone? Not to mention the citizenry, human beings, neighbors, inhabitants, individuals, men, women, adults, children, workers, employees, employers? Suddenly, everywhere, gone, all of them. Their places taken by consumers.
Rising petrol prices and huge oil company profits combined to put pressure on President Obama this week. Prices are reaching around $4.00/gallon, levels not seen since 2008 and a psychological barrier for many Americans whose entire infrastructure is designed around the motor car.
In other words, Mr. Horsnell is saying that since the world previously thought that the Saudi’s were producing less in December than they actually were, then the estimated worldwide “buffer” production capacity was significantly less than believed, as well. Also, his observation that the Saudi’s evidently needed to produce at 9 million b/d in order to balance the market is the exact opposite of what Mr. Naimi said, four weeks later….In turn, if the Saudi’s can’t really sustain even 9 million b/d, then this would have serious implications for the world in that the next, more intense manifestations of Peak Oil may be nearer than we think.
-How close is peak oil?
-Russia halts petrol exports
-EIA budget cuts to curb some energy data gathering
-University Vows to Lock Out Students Opposed to ExxonMobil
In just a century, we’ve become almost entirely dependent on cheap oil. We rely on oil for just about everything, in fact the global economy is reliant on its free flowing supply. So what would happen if the well started to run dry and demand outstripped supply? Some oil industry experts think we’ve already hit Peak Oil and we should brace ourselves for the imminent Oil Crunch.
Late last month a 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 and linked to nearly 200 stories that deal with some aspect of the developing global energy shortage. Most of these stories come from local paper and taken together paint a distressing picture of looming societal breakdown in many parts of the world that is not as yet generally appreciated by the public.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-China
-Catalyst Online Edition: Oil Crunch (video)
-Fleeing Vesuvius, the US Edition
-Imagining a world without oil
The trading floor with coke, hookers and fistfights is gone, but speculation has only gotten worse in the era of peak oil.
I think most of us ought to be preparing for a life without electricity, regardless of whether we are concerned about natural or structural disruptions in the electrical grid.
