New Book: Powerdown by Richard Heinberg
Powerdown is a brilliant analysis of the options available to a civilization facing resource depletion, biosphere collapse, and financial insolvency.
Fossil Fuels
Getting warm in the search for future energy supply
Once production peaks then it can’t meet demand and then prices will rise and it will be the equivalent of the oil shock in the 1970s. That will be a huge boost to renewables.
Stark choices face us on energy use
Human nature is such that we tend to wait for a crisis to happen before we react. However, as the current series of articles on the looming energy crisis highlight, we do so at our peril.
Trouble in the World’s Largest Oil Field-Ghawar
The data I am being told by engineers who have worked on Ghawar suggests that this decade will see it’s peak. As Ghawar goes, so goes the world.
Globe’s growing thirst poses challenge to big oil
In best-case scenarios, like Exxon Mobil, production is relatively flat. Many more energy companies are pumping less oil than they were a year ago.
It’s the End of the World as We Know It
In a fascinating new documentary, The End of Suburbia – Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, the central question is this: Does the suburban way of life have a future? The answer is a resounding no.
Puerto Rico: Energy Challenge
With the end of cheap oil on the horizon, Puerto Rico continues to move toward alternatives, but is it moving fast enough?
Simmons: The Implications of Saudi Arabian Oil Declining (transcript – part 1)
There is no other oil producer on earth that can even begin over time to replace a significant short fall in Saudi Arabia’s oil. So if in fact, Saudi Arabia is at their peak production, then so is the world.
Simmons: The Implications of Saudi Arabian Oil Declining (transcript – part 2)
Energy demand has become a runaway train. There’s no way we can stop that train until we hit a brick wall.
Is Saudi Arabia Running Out of Oil?
When oil prices have doubled to $80 and a second Great Depression threatens global political stability, our president will assemble a 9/11-style commission to explain the intelligence and policy failures that led to the crisis. The verdict will be familiar: The stunning blow to the world economy brought about by the sudden, unexpected depletion of fossil fuel should have been anticipated and prevented.
China’s dependence on coal for energy causing pollution at home and abroad
China is relying on coal-fired power plants to meet severe electricity shortages, but such heavy polluters are damaging the environment and harming its people and its neighbours.
Use less or save more
The oil majors are quietly panicking because they cannot find sufficient new projects or fields big enough to make a material difference to companies of their size.
