Media & Communications

What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable Society Must Have? Part 2: The Economic Cost of Energy, EROI, and Surplus Energy

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In real economies, energy comes from many sources – from imported and domestic sources of oil, coal and natural gas, as well as hydropower and nuclear, and from a little renewable energy – most of that as firewood but increasingly from wind etc. Most of these are cheaper per unit energy delivered than oil. So let’s look at what this real ratio of the cost of energy (from all sources, weighed by their importance) is relative to its benefits.

Meet a young farmer leading a greenhorn ‘guerilla’ movement

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Severine von Tscharner Fleming is the director of the forthcoming film The Greenhorns and founder of the crucial new young farmer organization of the same name. Here’s her no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners perspective on the young farmers movement. Make no mistake, this woman is dedicated and smart — and she’s recruiting.

The Activist – Spiritual Divide

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Can we bridge the divide between the activist  and the interior / personal side of ourselves? I think we’ll need to if we’re to deal with the intense challenges we now face. The intense challenges are the steps in the transition to a low-carbon future, steps we must collectively take, willingly or no. The problem isn’t a lack of technology so much as a lack of evolutionary preparedness in us. Integrating the activist and the interior / personal side of ourselves is a challenge we’ve scarcely considered. We’re going to.

Government ‘Peak Oil Summit’ Starts the Process of Government Acknowledging Peak Oil?

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On Monday Peter Lipman and I represented Transition Network at an event which could potentially be the day people look back to as the day when UK government finally starting to ‘get’ peak oil. Fascinating and frustrating in equal measure, the event, “Policy Response to potential future oil supply constraints”, was billed as “a half-day workshop hosted by the Energy Institute in partnership with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, under Chatham House Rules”. For those who don’t know what Chatham House rules are, it means that the contents of what was said can be discussed, but none of it can be attributed to anyone.

Deconstructing Dinner: Collapse of honey bees on Vancouver Island/Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery

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We examine the latest setback in the ongoing struggle to maintain healthy honey bee populations around the world…And with Vancouver Island receiving Spring the earliest of any location in Canada, farmers there are reporting catastrophic results from the winter with some farmers having lost up to 90% of their colonies. Yet while populations elsewhere in Canada have also been hit in recent years, it appears (at least at this point), that Vancouver Island’s significant losses are an isolated incident…And we’ll also travel to Vancouver Island to meet Bob Liptrot of Tugwell Creek Honey Farm & Meadery.

Breathing Room Economics

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When I graduated from college, I was trapped underneath a mountain of debt. I had no money in the bank, $25,000 worth of student loans, and an interesting, but low-paying job doing research on economic and environmental policy…After adding up rent, food, loan repayment, and other basic expenses, I didn’t have any money left at the end of each month. It became obvious very quickly that I was stuck – I didn’t have something that I truly desired: breathing room.

Non-OPEC Oil Production Hits the Wall

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In the last year I’ve read several articles expounding on the many non-OPEC* oil discoveries that have been made in recent years and how large the oil resource is within the non-OPEC sphere of the world. The objective of these articles is to reassure the reader that all is well for non-OPEC oil production, now and in the foreseeable future. If all is so well outside OPEC, one must ask why the non-OPEC oil production rate has not exceeded the level achieved in 2004 in spite of the elevated price of oil since then.