Consumption & Demand

Economy so old that it’s new

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Documentaries that cover peak oil or deal with resource depletion tend to be downers on the whole, offering few pleasures beyond the snarky joy of Schadenfreude. “The Economics of Happiness” is different. Yes, it’s realistic about climate change, resource depletion, overpopulation and the other horsemen of the globalized industrial apocalypse. But it’s also hopeful about the future, showing how we could all live with more dignity, fun and humanity once we graduate from the consumerist rat race.

Doing Due Diligence

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To people who follow the energy industry closely, it’s a common occurrence to come across announcements from companies proclaiming to have developed the key to the ‘next big thing’ — for solving the world’s energy crisis. Maybe they say they can take any sort of waste biomass and turn it into fuel — ethanol, diesel, pyrolysis oil, mixed alcohols — at very low cost. Or they say they can produce renewable electricity at a price competitive with coal.

The layperson reads the news release and is curious: “Is this real?”

‘Fracking’ comes to Europe, sparking rising controversy

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As concerns grow in the U.S. about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to extract natural gas from shale, companies have set their sights on Europe and its abundant reserves of this “unconventional” gas. But from Britain to Poland, critics warn of the potentially high environmental cost of this looming energy boom.

Commentary: How much oil will be recoverable?

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It seems to me that above some imaginary line, resources can be extracted and producers can make a profit selling them, and the economy can use them successfully. Below the imaginary line, the cost of production will be so high that if a price that is adequate for a producer to make a reasonable profit is charged, the high price will send the economy into recession.

Oil versus light: Jeremy Leggett

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This civilization uses oil for its blood. Almost everything we make, buy, and use has oil in it’s food chain. You know that. Never mind that we are bleeding carbon into the sky and the ocean, or the developing climate shift. Even if oil was lily white, we are still running out of the cheap stuff – that we need for a global economy feeding billions of humans. And we are determined to drive right off that cliff, without a Plan B.