Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There are many reasons to believe that contemporary civilization has reached the point of diminishing returns from complexity. Proposals that rely purely on technical fixes for our energy problems tend to increase complexity. Thus, new technologies may fail to deliver their promised results.
China is exploring ways to use some of its huge foreign exchange reserves to buy imported oil, the Shanghai Securities News reported, citing an unidentified source.
The newspaper said the plan, which was first proposed as early as 2000, would reach the twin objectives of making better use of the nation’s foreign exchange and ensuring vital oil supplies.
Kick-off article for the Plain Dealer’s coming series on “the end of cheap oil, the search for new energy sources and the implications of both.”
Online Powerpoint book on Peak Oil: the importance of oil, possible substitutes and coming difficulties.
This article about M. King Hubbert reprinted from a 1970s fishing magazine (of all places) reminds us that after Hubbert there were many forecasts that greatly overestimated the US total recoverable oil resources, including the major institutions making similar global preditions today.
About 200 news sites published this summary of Peak Oil this weekend. The list includes Forbes, Newsday (NY), NY Times, SF Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, LA Times, ABC News, CBS News — all the biggies. This is a major development in getting the Peak Oil story out.
Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz has been admitted to hospital for medical examinations, the royal palace said in a statement carried by the official news agency SPA.
…the idea of a world production peak is no longer the province of a small band of “peak oil” cranks. It’s gone mainstream.
FOX owned cable channel FX looks set to deal with the events of a sudden catastrophic loss of oil imports due to a shipping disaster.
We use more oil than we find, and if producers are fixing their figures the end could be closer than thought
Heinberg and others who subscribe to the peak oil theory… believe that once the peak is crossed, the supply of oil will be outstripped by demand, and our petroleum-based industrial civilization, with no other plentiful cheap energy source readily at hand, will inevitably collapse. The only question is how hard the fall will be.
The Cost of Energy is a new grassroots energy education web site from American Lou Grinzo that is outlining the issues (and the jargon!) in an approachable question and answer format. We asked Lou to outline his starting assumptions and provide some background on the project and himself.
