There's More To It Than Oil, By Chris Clugston

There's More To It Than Oil, By Chris Clugston

The end of our industrial lifestyle paradigm will be dictated by Liebig’s Law, and by humanity’s response to its consequences. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know at this point which increasingly scarce nonrenewable natural resource (NNR) or NNR combination will ultimately prove to be industrialized humanity’s limiting factor. Consequently, humanity’s global societal collapse may be triggered by scarcity associated with one or more NNRs other than those commonly considered “most critical” to the perpetuation of our industrial lifestyle paradigm—fossil fuels, or oil specifically. After all, the space shuttle Challenger disaster was caused by a faulty o-ring.

Tough Oil:  Five Public Health Challenges Of Petroleum Scarcity

Tough Oil: Five Public Health Challenges Of Petroleum Scarcity

Economists associate the availability of abundant inexpensive energy with economic growth, suggesting that the modern era’s rising tide of global wealth—and health—was borne up largely on a sea of cheap oil. “We’ve been living for 150 years on a fossil fuel bubble,” is how Stuart Chaitkin, MA, a retired energy policy analyst and senior associate in Environmental Health Sciences (EHS), describes the current situation. “You can’t just simply replace oil for many of its uses. Oil is the world’s master resource.”

Peak Oil, Debt, and The Concentration of Power, By Charles Eisenstein

Peak Oil, Debt, and The Concentration of Power, By Charles Eisenstein

When theorists approach the peak oil problem from the perspective of finding a substitute that will allow us to maintain our present energy infrastructure, their conclusion is one of despair. There may be many substitutes for oil as a concentrated form of storable energy, but none of them are nearly as good as oil itself. Those invested in the status quo would, quite understandably, like to maintain it, but it is becoming apparent even to the most highly invested that the status quo is doomed; that it can be maintained only temporarily, and at a rapidly accelerating environmental cost. The transition before us is not merely a transition in fuel types. It is also a transition in the whole energy infrastructure, both physical and psychological; a transition away from big power plants, distribution lines, and metered consumers; away from capital-intensive drilling, refining, distribution, and consumer fueling stations. More broadly, it is a transition away from centralization, concentration, and all the social institutions that go along with it.

The Relationship Between Peak Oil and Peak Debt, Part 2, By Gail Tverberg

The Relationship Between Peak Oil and Peak Debt, Part 2, By Gail Tverberg

With peak oil, what is likely to happen is that the default rate on existing debt will rise, so many people who own bonds (or other debt instruments) will discover that they are worth less than they thought, perhaps nothing. And banks and insurance companies and pension plans will discover that quite a few of their assets aren’t what they thought–they will never be repaid with interest.

The Relationship Between Peak Oil and Peak Debt, Part 1, By Gail Tverberg

The Relationship Between Peak Oil and Peak Debt, Part 1, By Gail Tverberg

Peak oil tends to cause peak debt. Some will argue with me about this, because they believe it is possible to decouple economic growth from energy growth, and in particular oil growth. As far as I am concerned, though, this decoupling is simply an unproven hypothesis–the normal connection is that a flattening or decline in energy supply causes a slowdown or actual decline in economic growth, and this slowdown causes a shift from an increase in the amount of debt, to a decrease in the amount of debt, as it did for US non-governmental loans in 2009 and 2010

The New 30-Years' War: Winners And Losers In The Great Global Energy Struggle To Come, By Michael Klare

The New 30-Years' War: Winners And Losers In The Great Global Energy Struggle To Come, By Michael Klare

Think of us today as embarking on a new Thirty Years’ War. It may not result in as much bloodshed as that of the 1600s, though bloodshed there will be, but it will prove no less momentous for the future of the planet. Over the coming decades, we will be embroiled at a global level in a succeed-or-perish contest among the major forms of energy, the corporations which supply them, and the countries that run on them. The question will be: Which will dominate the world’s energy supply in the second half of the twenty-first century? The winners will determine how — and how badly — we live, work, and play in those not-so-distant decades, and will profit enormously as a result. The losers will be cast aside and dismembered.

Planning For Higher Food And Energy Prices And Their Wider Impacts, By Gail Tverberg

Planning For Higher Food And Energy Prices And Their Wider Impacts, By Gail Tverberg

If you are able to move quickly as conditions change, this flexibility has its advantages. Losing your job is probably the biggest risk right now. Think about how you might deal with the situation. Also, we don’t know how things will change in the future. One area may be affected by a lack of water; another by an electrical system that no longer works, and can’t be repaired in any reasonable time frame, perhaps after a storm. If you are not too tied to where you are, you can make better decisions regarding changes.

The Global Energy Crisis Deepens: Three Energy Developments That Are Changing Your Life, By Michael Klare

The Global Energy Crisis Deepens: Three Energy Developments That Are Changing Your Life, By Michael Klare

As for the bad news: the world faces an array of intractable energy problems that, if anything, have only worsened in recent weeks. These problems are multiplying on either side of energy’s key geological divide: below ground, once-abundant reserves of easy-to-get “conventional” oil, natural gas, and coal are drying up; above ground, human miscalculation and geopolitics are limiting the production and availability of specific energy supplies. With troubles mounting in both arenas, our energy prospects are only growing dimmer.

Why Time Is Short Now That We're Past Peak Oil, By Chris Martenson

Why Time Is Short Now That We're Past Peak Oil, By Chris Martenson

The only thing that could prevent another oil shock from happening before the end of 2012 would be another major economic contraction. The emerging oil data continues to tell a tale of ever-tightening supplies that will soon be exceeded by rising global demand. This time, we will not be able to blame speculators for the steep prices we experience; instead, we will have nothing to blame but geology.

Peak Oil: A Chance To Change The World, By Richard Heinberg

Peak Oil: A Chance To Change The World, By Richard Heinberg

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA invited Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, to give the commencement speech at its 2011 graduation ceremonies on May 14. When students heard this, many were surprised and upset. As Linnea Palmer Paton of Students for a Just and Stable Future put it in a letter to the college president, “[W]e, as conscientious members of the WPI community and proud members of the Class of 2011, will not give [the Exxon CEO] the honor of imparting … his well-wishes … for our futures … when he is largely responsible for undermining them.” The students then invited Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute, to give an alternative commencement speech. After a few days of negotiations, the college administration agreed to give Heinberg the podium immediately after the main ceremony. Many students chose to walk out during Tillerson’s address. This is what Richard Heinberg had to say.