Consumption & Demand

The dawn of the great California energy crash

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California, which imports over 25% of its electricity from out of state, is in no position to lose half (!) of its entire nuclear power capacity. But that’s exactly what happened earlier this year, when the San Onofre plant in north San Diego County unexpectedly went offline. The loss only worsens the broad energy deficit that has made California the most dependent state in the country on expensive, out-of-state power.

Spatial emergy concentration and city living

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How do cities concentrate energy and materials spatially? What is the relative emergy basis for modern cities, agrarian towns, and rural spaces? Do city dwellers use more or fewer resources than suburban or rural dwellers? Are big cities more sustainable in descent, as some propose, and how do we maximize empower in the future for our cities?

Evidence that oil limits are leading to limits to GDP growth

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The usual assumption that economists, financial planners, and actuaries make is that future real GDP growth can be expected to be fairly similar to the average past growth rate for some historical time period. This assumption can take a number of forms–how much a portfolio can be expected to yield in a future period, or how high real (that is, net of inflation considerations) interest rates can be expected to be in the future, or what percentage of GDP the government of a country can safely borrow. But what if this assumption is wrong, and expected growth in real GDP is really declining over time?

Tight oil could not render OPEC irrelevant

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Steve Levine has a blog post discussing the idea that the “unfolding new age of fossil fuel abundance” will have profound effects on various things, including OPEC…The key factor behind this kind of thinking is the rapid rise of production of oil from tight rocks like the Bakken in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in Texas. I haven’t taken a strong position on what the limits of production are from these sources – it just isn’t clear to me yet from the data that I have available. But we could certainly place some limits on how much geopolitical impact this could have on OPEC.

TED-Stravaganza

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My wife calls it spying. I call it data. To-may-to, To-mah-to. It’s true that I know what she’s been up to (electrically) while I’m away. And it’s true that I can access this information anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. But domestic surveillance is not my aim (cameras and microphones would be far more informative in that regard). I just care about the energy angle.