Oil

Peak Oil and the Importance of EROI (review of Fleeing Vesuvius, Part 2)

by

Obviously getting by without fossil fuels (owing to impending shortages of oil, natural gas and coal) will be an incredibly rude shock for all of us. Our current telecommunication, transportation and retail infrastructure, as well as our current system of industrial agriculture, are based on the abundant availability of cheap fossil fuels. On the plus side, Fleeing Vesuvius is full of a number of specific strategies, currently being tried in Ireland and elsewhere, for building resilient communities to withstand this transition to a non-fossil energy society.

World energy consumption – beyond 500 exajoules

by

Today’s post goes into the global consumption of energy and provides a dataset in Excel for researchers on global primary energy consumption from 1830 to 2010. We are now burning 10 times as much energy as a century ago to provide the goods and services we consume. Energy consumption is still increasing rapidly

 

‘Breathing new life into the concept of resilience’: the notes from my ‘Four Thought’ talk

by

I wondered whether in seeing resilience just as something we do in order to be prepared for a crisis, we were missing a trick: that we might instead see it as an opportunity. How might our settlements look if we began to think in terms of resilient food, resilient energy, resilient economies? Might this shift in thinking actually contain the potential for an economic and cultural renaissance for the places we live? It felt to me to be a powerful question.

Fossil fuels: I’m not dead yet

by

Having looked at the major alternatives to fossil fuel energy production (summarized here), we come away with the general sentiment that the easy days of cheap energy are not evidently carried forward into a future without fossil fuels. That’s right, fossil fuels will be dead and gone. Is it time to pile them on the cart to be hauled away?

The imperial way: American decline in perspective, Part 2

by

While the principles of imperial domination have undergone little change, the capacity to implement them has markedly declined as power has become more broadly distributed in a diversifying world. Consequences are many. It is, however, very important to bear in mind that — unfortunately — none lifts the two dark clouds that hover over all consideration of global order: nuclear war and environmental catastrophe, both literally threatening the decent survival of the species.

Design in the light of dark energy

by

When the new Italian Prime Minister, Mr. Mario Monti, gave his acceptance speech to the Italian Senate before Christmas, he used the word “growth” 28 times and the word “energy” – well, zero times. Why would this supposed technocrat neglect even to mention the biophysical basis of the world’s economy? Energy, after all, is at the heart of industrial growth society: industrial production, our cities, our transport systems, our buildings and infrastructure, food and water flows, the internet – they all critically depend on oil and gas.

Peak oil – Feb 14

by

– Peter Tertzakian: Mr. Darcy’s earth shattering results
– Four Scenarios For The Future Of Energy
– Le pic de pétrole passé depuis 2005 ? Un expert (Jean Laherrère) nous répond
– Flawed views on peak oil rear their ugly heads again
– Ex-Shell CEO Hofmeister takes on Tad Patzek in debate on oil crisis (Feb 14 in Madison)

Three major journals publish articles on limited world oil supply

by

In the past month, three major peer-reviewed journals have published articles relating to limited world oil supply. This is significant, because articles in the mainstream press, such as Bloomberg in a recent article , seem to suggest that our oil problems are past. While the US oil supply situation may be a little better, the world supply situation is still very bad, and oil prices are still very high around the world.