Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Energy expert Byron King on peak oil, natural gas and rare earth [video]
-Chart of the week: a picture of world oil
-Europe shale push shaken by Exxon’s Poland pullout
-‘Carbon capture’ too risky, earthquake prone: US study
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman likes to pose the following problem to audiences to illustrate our habitual modes of thinking: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 together and the bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Here I describe some interesting new research on modifying Hubbert’s model of peak oil to take into account the incentives for additional production that higher oil prices would be expected to bring.
The IMF research should help raise awareness of an issue that remains underappreciated by many economists, which is that we will eventually reach a point, and may have already, at which quite significant increases in price and improvements in technology can produce only modest increases in production, or may be insufficient to prevent outright declines in annual crude oil production levels.
– Dan Yergin’s Dilemma: Energy ‘Reality’ Vs. Climate Reality
– Daniel Yergin in the NY Times
– A peak oil follower despairs of his movement’s future
– Coal’s resurgence undermines fight against global warming
This week saw the release of the annual BP statistical energy review. In the words of the press release 2011 was a year of “disruptions to supplies and ever-increasing demand”. The big stories for oil were supply disruption in Libya, a record average oil price of $100/barrel, an average annual Brent price rise of 40%, a decline in OECD consumption of 600,000 bpd, and an increase in US production of 275,000 bpd — the largest increase outside OPEC…
Few international figures have been as consistent in warning about the threat posed by global warming as economist Fatih Birol, of the International Energy Agency. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Birol explains why the situation is worsening and what needs to be done to significantly slow emissions.
– Germany Meets Half Its Energy Demand From Solar, Briefly
– The new new hydropower: Small-scale turbines have big potential
– National Defense: Efficiency and Conservation Not Enough to Achieve Energy Security
– Energy now hitting pop charts (Muse and the 2nd Law of thermodynamics)
– Dmitry Orlov: Fragility and Collapse: Slowly at first, then all at once
– Policy-makers slow to take peak oil action
– Colin Campbell discusses changes in world energy supplies (video)
– Global debt and oil prices
– North Carolina Ignores Science, Tries To Make Sea Level Rise Illegal
– Jan Lundberg: The 2012/Aliens/Consciousness Movement: a potential New-Age Tea Party?
– The Denialism of Progressive Environmentalists
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
– Oil and the global economy
– Europe at a turning point
– The Iranian nuclear talks
– China faltering?
– Quote of the week
– Briefs
When our society relies on an understanding of economics that did not predict, prevent, or mitigate the current economic crisis, and that, more importantly, does not effectively address climate change or resource depletion, it is time for a new and different approach to understanding the economy. That premise is the foundation of Energy and the Wealth of Nations, an important book by ecologist Charles Hall and economist Kent Klitgaard, who together are pioneering the new discipline of biophysical economics.
The military imperative is to prepare. In many ways, it’s leading the way in the development of new energy sources, said Brandon Fureigh, advocacy director for the Truman National Security Project. And with a massive budget and an oversized carbon bootprint, the military is in a good position to drive innovation. “The military has always been a good testing ground for technology in general and one reason is they have a large budget,” he said, noting how ideas sparked by military research trickle into the general business arena. Its budget for clean energy has tripled in the last four years to $1.2 billion.
