Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The post-peak oil world will look a lot like the bleak 1970s. But much worse.
A recession will grip the globe because the price of oil, and everything tied to it, will skyrocket.
Starvation will abound because oil-based fertilizers we’ve grown to depend on will be in short supply. Energy wars could erupt to control the remaining oil fields.
Early days in the oil fields: wildcatters, investment fever and dead horses
Oil is the world’s biggest business and one of its most combustible. It has drawn all sorts of eccentrics, from H.L. “Boy” Hunt, gambling host and bigamist, to Armand Hammer, Kremlin confidante and bull semen salesman. It has fueled inflation, recession, pollution, scandal and war.
Early on, oil made modern Cleveland.
Wildcatting and exploration in the Canadian Maritimes — how an oil geologist and investor sees the landscape.
The granddaddy of fossil fuels that has fouled the air, poisoned the waters — and created the industrial revolution — will also be the fuel of the digital age. Coal, called an antique fuel by some environmentalists, still produces more than half the electricity in the nation.
The life and times of Col. Edwin Drake, who drilled the world’s first commercial oil well near Titusville, PA in 1859. It is not overstating the case to say that the seed of the modern world, so dependent as it is upon energy and materials derived from petroleum, was planted by Col. Drake.
The first oil wells, paraffin and President Lincoln.
Here, then, is a significant report produced by an independent research company for the US Department of Energy, warning of a global problem of “unprecedented” proportions with economic, social, and political impacts that are likely to be extremely severe. The authors forecast “protracted economic hardship” for the United States and the rest of the world. It is a problem that deserves “immediate, serious attention.” Yet, half a year after release, discussion of the Hirsch report is conspicuously absent from the press and the halls of Congress. [updated version late 7/31]
New discovery by oil companies – sustainability /
Car columnist says cheap oil gone forever /
Systems, interdependencies and peak oil /
Strapped commuters seek fuel bargains /
Oilcast: Riots, power cuts and Colin Campbell… /
Huge oil profits go for exploration /
Big oil’s output is shaky, but not its profits /
Wales: Fears over future energy sources /
Oil depletion? It’s all in the assumptions
What is the third date in the great Peak Oil saga? It is the year in which alternate energy sources finally offset the equivalent decline in crude oil production. Prior to that date, oil production will in general keep falling but the energy equivalent delivered by solar, wind, nuclear, etc. will always be less.
The big losers from the energy shortage are likely to be the world’s poor nations. Between them, the U.S., Western Europe and Japan—the old industrial centers—and the rising economies of Asia are driving up prices to levels that most of sub-Saharan Africa and countries such as Yemen and Bangladesh will not be able to afford.
“It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil,” notes Chevron Corporation’s two full-page ad that began appearing in July in the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Financial Times and elsewhere. “We’ll use the next trillion in 30,” the ad continues, thus quietly admitting to the Peak Oil that the industry has not previously disclosed.
