Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Seeing One Car Run on a Fuel Cell or Hydrogen Gas Does Not Make It a Solution for Anything, Especially If You Invest More Energy in the Hydrogen Than You Get from Burning It or If You Make More Greenhouse Gas at the Hydrogen Factory or If You Can’t Afford to Ship or Store It
Get out of the way. American capitalism has declared war on the laws of physics.
Asian stock markets were mostly lower Wednesday amid continuing concerns about high oil prices and the impact this could have on the global economy.
“Ghawar is dying.” Could those three simple words signal the beginning of the end for the industrialized human civilization on Planet Earth?
A global-scale energy crisis looms ahead, according to Nobel laureate Richard E. Smalley, who said that nanotechnology will figure centrally in providing technological solutions.
The realization that modern industrial society is approaching the peak in available net energy to fuel the economy is a powerful shock to one’s entire belief system.
FTW Science Editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer sets out a detailed picture of the climate change issue and its paramount importance. Part two will consider the dreadful convergence of global climate change and the peak of global oil production.
The Statement is designed to be published in national and local newspapers, news magazines, the United Nations, NGO newsletters, and any other organ of public discussion.
A study of the impact on China’s economy of an oil price shock ($95 per barrel) published in a Rand Corporation report. See link for full text.
An interesting email discussion between Richard Duncan and Richard Heinberg concerning Duncan’s Olduvai Theory of industrial collapse.
Predictions of imminent oil shortages have been made throughout the 20th century. Although all previous predictions have been false, in recent years a new generation of predictions based on the Hubbert model have become ascendant and attracted media attention.
In 1973 and 1979 a pair of sudden price increases rudely awakened the industrial world to its dependence on cheap crude oil. Prices first tripled in response to an Arab embargo and then nearly doubled again when Iran dethroned its Shah, sending the major economies sputtering into recession. Many analysts warned that these crises proved that the world would soon run out of oil. Yet they were wrong.
