Nafeez Ahmed writes: An extensive new analysis says that proved conventional oil reserves as detailed in industry sources are likely “overstated” by half. According to standard sources, the world contains 1.7 trillion barrels of proved conventional reserves. However, according to the new study, this official figure is almost double the real size of world reserves….
Read More about Where did all the oil go? The peak is back
The focal point of The Oracle of Oil, the first biography of King Hubbert, is his distinction as the first person to recognize the phenomenon of peak oil. Hubbert spent decades studying petroleum and natural gas reserves data, hypothesizing that output from large regions—such as the United States, or the whole world—would tend to follow a bell-shaped curve….
Read More about Bookshelf: The Oracle of Oil: A Maverick Geologist’s Quest for a Sustainable FutureThe physics of energy and the economy evokes some trepidation. An economy seems to be a dissipative system, but what does this really mean? Not many people understand dissipative systems, and very few understand how an economy operates. The combination leads to an awfully lot of false beliefs about the energy needs of an economy….
Read More about Gail Tverberg: The Physics of Energy and the Economy
Ugo Bardi writes: Something like Trump was unavoidable. He is best defined as the visible effect of the ongoing social phase transition. A symptom of the ongoing breakdown of the social pact in the West. A discrete change in our path in the direction of collapse, in turn precipitated by depletion of resources, especially energy….
Read More about Connecting the rise of Donald Trump with global resource depletion
Gail Tverberg writes: We are experiencing a world economy that seems to be reaching limits, but the symptoms are not what peak oil groups warned about. Instead of high prices and lack of supply, we are facing indirect problems brought on by our high consumption of energy products. I have called it a double pump problem….
Read More about Our economic growth system is reaching limits in a strange way
We have identified two different limits to globalization. One has to do with limits on the amount of goods and services that developed countries can absorb before those imports unduly disrupt local economies. The other occurs because of the sensitivity of many developing nations to low commodity prices, because they are exporters of these commodities….
Read More about Gail Tverberg: Globalization is reaching its limits; here’s why
In this article, Sagar Dhara examines Capitalism’s crucial tipping points: The first, the impending energy and natural resource crisis, related to the sourcing of raw materials. The second, inequality, related to the production of goods and services. The third, global warming, which is related to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in excess of the earth’s sink capacity….
Read More about Global capitalism is facing three tipping pointsChris Martenson writes: The data seems to confirm this: Humanity is not going to painlessly wean itself off of fossil fuels. Instead, we will hit some sort of a wall: a food/population crisis, a climate crisis, or a debt/fiscal/economic crisis. Each of those candidates has its roots in our global society’s addition to fossil fuels….
Read More about Industrial civilisation can’t wean itself off fossil fuels painlessly
Nityanand Jayaraman writes: A new report warns that India’s plans to import 12 nuclear reactors from ailing American equipment suppliers is financially fraught and irrelevant for India’s electricity needs. If built, the reactors will cost anywhere between Rs 6.3 lakh crore and Rs 11 lakh crore, thereby translating to unaffordable and obscenely high electricity tariffs….
Read More about Why is India importing US nuclear reactors that even the US doesn’t want?
Gail Tverberg writes: Economists have put together models of how an economy works, but these models were developed years ago, when the world economy was far from limits. These models may have been reasonably adequate when they were developed, but there is increasing evidence that they don’t work in an economy that is reaching limits….
Read More about Economic growth: How it works; how it fails; why wealth disparity occursJuan Cole writes: In 2015 energy companies invested more in new renewables power plants than in fossil fuel plants for the first time in history. The majority of these plants were planned for developing countries, a sign that the technology is now viewed as less expensive. It is clear there is a secular trend upwards….
Read More about Video & Report: How renewable energy is already taking over the worldThe high water intensity of global energy generation is leading to water-coal conflict caused by coal power production. Greenpeace International has prepared a groundbreaking analysis of the impacts of the world’s coal power plants on global water resources. The world’s coal power plants are consuming water that could meet the basic requirements for nearly 1 billion people….
Read More about How the coal industry is deepening the global water crisis
Elanthemag.com
Virtually everything in our homes, everything in our stores, got there on a truck. Prior to that, 90 percent of those items were transported on a ship and/or a train. If trucks, trains, and ships stopped running, our global economy and way of life would stop too. Alice Friedemann’s new book examines precisely this prospect….
Read More about Bookshelf: When trucks stop running, so does civilization
Shail Shrestha writes at Local Futures: Technology transfer from the North to South has long been regarded as the path to a better life in less-developed regions of the world. But even the best and the most sustainable technology proposed in Paris would make Nepal less sustainable than it is today, leading us in the wrong direction….
Read More about The Paris Climate Talks: A Nepali ViewFred Pearce reports: As part of India’s modernization program, Prime Minister Narenda Modi has called for doubling the nation’s coal production by 2020. If it moves forward, India seems set to create a mounting tide of victims — from the cycle-wallahs and refugees of Jharia’s coal fires, to the country’s air quality, to the planet’s climate….
Read More about On burning ground: The human cost of India’s push to produce more coal
Since the renewable energy revolution will require trading fossil fuels for alternative ones (mostly wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass), there will be some hefty challenges along the way. Therefore, it makes sense to start with the low-hanging fruit and with a plan in place, then revise our plan frequently as we gain practical experience. …
Read More about Richard Heinberg: 100% renewable energy is possible, here’s how
We are hitting something similar to “Peak Oil” right now, but the major symptoms are unexpected. There is a glut of supply, and prices are far below the cost of production. Perhaps we should call it “Limits to Growth,” rather than “Peak Oil,” because it is a different type of problem than most people expected….
Read More about Gail Tverberg: We are at Peak Oil now; we need very low-cost energy to fix itAl Gore, former US Vice President and Founder, The Climate Reality Project, spoke at the recently concluded 2016 TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. According to him, the future of our planet looks very different today than it did when he last spoke on the TED stage nearly a decade ago….
Read More about Video: Al Gore makes the case for optimism on Climate Change
Unlimited growth and consumerist culture is incompatible with a finite world. We call for an urgent paradigm shift, from the currently dominant model of consumption-led development, to creating frameworks of human and ecological well being. This transition should be defined by the principles of sustainability, equity, and justice. (Adopted at the Bijli Vikalp Sangam, Bodh Gaya)…
Read More about Towards Energy Democracy: A Vision Statement
Sukumar Muralidharan reports on Catch News: This year’s economic survey is a catalogue of crises. For one thing, it records that the situation in agriculture has been dismal on account of two successive years of poor monsoons. This is only the fourth time in 115 years that such a misfortune has hit the Indian economy….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #85
