Fabius Maximus

Summary: A common concern in the comments expresses fear of resource exhaustion, perhaps even leading to collapse of civilization. Here we examine the theory, evaluate the risks, and point to sources of more information.

The global recession has accelerated the transition, revealing the current order’s weaknesses, and showing the people in the emerging nations that they have outgrown it. The major nations continue to defend the current systems, a futile effort wasting time and resources that could be better spent adjusting to the new world now evolving. (Report from a group that includes officers and ex-officers of the U.S. military)

Peak oil might hit sometime during the next five years. How might this affect the world economy. We examine important dynamics about oil prices, some misunderstood by many writing about Peak Oil — from doomsters to cornucopians. The bottom line: we cannot reliably forecast what will happen. Peak oil might have little effect — or crush the economy.

One of the saddest aspects of the Internet is that it so often fails to make us smarter. In a mutant version of Gresham’s Law, loud amateurs too-often drown out the voices of experts. Here we an excerpt from a 1975 book that tells us more about Peak Oil than a typical dozen posts on most peak oil websites. [Excerpt from Sir Ronald Prain’s classic “Copper: the anatomy of an Industry”]

America is in better shape than Europe and Japan. We have good demographics, sound fundamentals, relatively easily solved problems, and no powerful enemies. Why the constant sense of crisis? QE2, hyperinflation, climate armageddon, Obama the socialist, AIDS, alar on apples, jihadists, debt, swine flu – a constant drumroll of doom. Answer: elites govern a weak people by exploiting their fears. For example, look at the “government is broke” panic.

Summary: Optimists about energy give glowing forecasts of new technologies, often with wildly underestimated estimates of when when these can generate substantial fractions of our energy. In the real world technologies take decades to evolve from the laboratory to commercialization. And then building new energy sources on a large scale takes decades. Here we sketch out realistic timelines.