Category Archives: Peak Oil

M. King Hubbert and the future of peak oil by Kurt Cobb

Preface. M. King Hubbert predicted that if we were unable to replace fossil energy with water, nuclear and solar power, that we would go back to an agrarian existence (Hubbert MK (1949) Energy from Fossil Fuels. Science). That is how … Continue reading

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Gail Tverberg: Why peak coal, oil, and natural gas will all happen at the same time

China: Is peak coal part of its problem? by Gail Tverberg,  OurFiniteWorld.com  | Jun 20, 2016 The world’s coal resources are clearly huge. How could China, or the world in total, reach peak coal in a timeframe that makes a … Continue reading

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Failing states, collapsing systems: biophysical triggers of political violence

Preface. In this post I summarize the sections of Nafeez’s book about the biophysical factors that bring nations down (i.e. climate change drought & water scarcity, declining revenues after peak oil, etc.) The Media tend to focus exclusively on economic … Continue reading

Posted in Cascading Failure, Caused by Scarce Resources, Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsed & collapsing nations, Drought & Collapse, Exports decline to ZERO, Food production, Interdependencies, Limits To Growth, Middle East, Net Energy Cliff, Other Experts, Over Oil, Overpopulation, Peak Oil, Violence, War & Violence | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

How Much Oil is Left?

The Power of Exponential Growth: Every 10 years we have burned more oil than all previous decades Preface. There is a lot of oil left. The problem is, most of the remaining oil is unconventional, which needs a lot more … Continue reading

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Scientific American: Peak oil and coal may keep catastrophic climate change in check

[ Since conventional oil, 90% of supply, peaked in 2005-6 we’ve been on a plateau.  Since the rate of conventional oil decline exponentially decreasing, and population is still exponentially increasing, it is unlikely unconventional oil like shale “fracked” oil, tar … Continue reading

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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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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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Shale Euphoria: The Boom and Bust of Sub Prime Oil and Natural Gas

[ U.S. house hearings have stated that the U.S. is energy independent, that shale oil and gas will give us a century of energy independence: House 112-176 in 2012, House 113-1 2013, and several others.  In fact we have so … Continue reading

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GAO asks Congress to prepare for Peak Oil

[The Department of Energy (DOE) asked Robert Hirsch to come up with a peak oil risk management and mitigation plan which was published in 2005.  Nothing happened, so in 2007 the Government Accountability Office asked Congress to prepare for Peak … Continue reading

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Another reason to think oil production probably peaked in 2005

[ In this Kurt Cobb post, Texas oilman Jeffrey brown explains why the story of oil production growth from 2005 to 2014 is probably wrong, because the increase came from lease condensate, not oil.  If this is true then Brown … Continue reading

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