peak oil

PKOM / Shutterstock.com

Our financial system has been built assuming that economic growth will continue indefinitely. There is significant risk that the recessionary influences of high oil costs will bring down the current economy.[read more]

oil production/shutterstock

I have written in recent posts that oil limits are more complex than what many have imagined. They aren’t just a lack of a liquid fuel. Debt limits are also closely tied to oil supply limits.[read more]

world crude oil prices

We have all heard the story about oil supply supposedly rising and falling for geological reasons. But what if the story is a little different from this–oil production rises and falls for economic reasons?[read more]

peak oil/shutterstock

Inadequate world oil supply isn’t exactly the problem. We in the United States, the Euro-zone, and Japan are already past peak oil demand. Oil demand has to do with how much oil we can afford.[read more]

peak oil?/shutterstock

The fact that oil demand may be flattening out is a positive sign for the climate; at least the near-term pressure to pull all the oil out of the ground as fast as possible has lessened.[read more]

limited resources/shutterstock

Many from the “peak oil” community say we should worry about a decline in world oil supply. In my view, the danger is quite different: The real danger is financial collapse, coming much earlier.[read more]

shale gas/shutterstock

Governments and industry must recognize that shale gas and oil are not cheap or inex­haustible: 70% of US shale gas comes from fields that are either flat or in decline.[read more]

alexmillos / Shutterstock.com

A new forecast of global oil production from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government indicates that oil production could expand by about 20% by 2020 from current levels. And that could be bad news for renewables.[read more]

Borna_Mirahmadian/Shutterstock

As the summer driving season approaches, drivers can take to heart –albeit temporarily – that gasoline prices are slightly lower than they were at this time last year. The reprieve comes against the backdrop of falling crude oil prices in anticipation of progress to be made in talks between the US, Europe and Iran regarding Iran’s nuclear program.[read more]

Image via This in MONEY.co.uk.

The world is clearly reaching many limits. From peak oil to debt crises, limits seem to be dominating the headlines. What other limits are the human and natural systems reaching now?[read more]

It is a curious thing when a mindset develops. Thoughts, data interpretation, reactions, and behaviors become solidified into expectations about what is normal and what is to come as that sense of normal changes. It's an important process of human development, and it is a particularly interesting thing to look at on a national scale --...[read more]

US petroleum product exports have been in the news, along with the welcome discovery that we are apparently on track to become a net exporter of these fuels this year, for the first time since the 1940s. This is a far cry from energy independence, as various oil skeptics have been quick to point out, but it's still a noteworthy...[read more]

Some eye-opening energy numbers from the Institute for Energy Research's new North American Energy Inventory:Together, the U.S., Canada and Mexico have nearly 1.8 trillion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil - oil likely to exist based on geologic characteristics that can be extracted with current technologies.North...[read more]

I have just returned from the annual ASPO conference in Washington, D.C. This was only my 2nd ASPO conference; the first one I attended was in 2008 in Sacramento. There were many familiar faces; some of whom I had previously met and some I only knew by reputation. The mood seemed remarkably calmer than in 2008. That year, oil prices were...[read more]

Daniel Yergin’s peak oil commentary in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal has set the econoblogosphere to chattering, or at least those of us in the energy corner. In addition to the clash of the titans, i.e. James Hamilton’s “More thoughts on peak oil” rejoinder to Yergin, the mere mortals are going at it, too. Michael Levi did a quick...[read more]