Category Archives: Experts

experts in energy, ecology, collapse, carrying capacity, biophysical and neoclassical economics, etc.

The Hidden Costs of Oil. U.S. Senate hearing 2006.

[ This post has excerpts from the 2006 U.S. Senate hearing “The Hidden Cost of Oil”.  It is a timely reminder, now that gasoline prices are low and peak oil off the radar, that we are nowhere near the American … Continue reading

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Tar sand EROI 2013 Poisson and Hall

Alexandre Poisson, Charles A. S. Hall. 2013. Time Series EROI for Canadian Oil and Gas. Energies 2013, 6, 5940-5959 [ This is an extract from this 20-page paper. Tar sands are the hope offered by techno-optimists that a great deal … Continue reading

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Peter Turchin: violence and social unrest in the U.S. and Europe likely by 2020

Preface. Peter Turchin, an expert on the cycles of history and the rise and fall of civilizations, has used mathematical models of complex systems to predict political instability. Debora MacKenzie at NewScientist interviewed him about his upcoming book “Ultrasociety” in … Continue reading

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Climate change impacts on transportation 2008 U.S. Senate hearing

Senate  110-1199. June 24, 2008. Climate change impacts on the transportation sector. U.S. Senate Hearing. Excerpts from this 135 page document follow. DANIEL K. INOUYE, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII The transportation sector is a major indicator of the overall economic … Continue reading

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How much net energy return required to prevent collapse?

Preface. Charles Hall, one of the founders of EROI methodology, initially thought an EROI of 3 was enough to run modern civilization, which is like investing $1 and getting $3 back. But after decades of research, Hall concluded an EROI … Continue reading

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Oil shocks and the potential for crisis U.S. House 2007

Preface. There have been two oil shockwave “oil crisis stimulations”, summaries of both from 2005 and 2007 are below.  Oil Shockwaves confront a mock U.S. cabinet with highly plausible geopolitical crises that trigger sharp increases in oil prices. Participants must … Continue reading

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Methane hydrates are still decades away. U.S. House hearing 2009.

[ The U.S. Department of Energy says: “At today’s gas prices, there are no economically recoverable deposits…and the commercialization of methane hydrates is likely to be several decades away….Although the size of the global methane hydrate resource is estimated to … Continue reading

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Achieving U.S. energy independence with our “neighbors” oil

[ The main U.S. interest becoming more energy independent by getting oil from our “neighbors” Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, and Canada, while at the same time minimizing growing Chinese and Russian attempts to get their oil and other natural resources. … Continue reading

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Schlesinger predicts investments in 2006 will cause oil glut and denial of peak oil in future

Energy Security and Oil Dependence. Two Senate hearings from 2006. In these two 2006 hearings (excerpts below), there is a constant refrain of our dependence on oil,  yet now, many congressional hearings are about our energy independence.  Apparently congress has … Continue reading

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Oil Dependence and what to do about it. Senate hearing 2007

[ In recent years there have been so many hearings proclaiming energy independence that I thought I should publish more sessions where Congress admits to a dependency on oil. The same old solutions and ideas appear: drill baby drill, ethanol, … Continue reading

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