News from January 2012

Resilient people, resilient planet: a future worth choosing

The Report of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing, contains six sections in its entirety: Section I – The Panel’s vision Section II – Progress towards sustainable development Section III – Empowering people to make sustainable choices Section IV – Working towards a sustainable economy Section [...]

China and UAE ditch US Dollar, will use Yuan for oil trade

The US dollar is fast losing out its reserve currency status with China aggressively replacing the dollar with the Yuan as a currency for bi-lateral trade. The latest is an agreement signed between the China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which will use the Yuan for oil trade. The deal is worth around $5.5 [...]

The End of Elastic Oil

The last ten years have brought a structural change to the world oil market, with changes in demand increasingly playing a role in maintaining the supply/demand balance. These changes will come at an increasingly onerous cost to our economy unless we take steps to make our demand for oil more flexible. We’re not running out [...]

Global Oil Production Update: A Strange Future Has Arrived

Since 2005, European oil consumption has fallen by 1.5 million barrels a day. And, in the same period, US oil consumption has fallen by 2 million barrels a day. If oil was priced at $60 a barrel, rather than $100 a barrel, then a fair portion of that lost demand might return. Instead, since 2005, [...]

The Price of Growth

Growth. It’s what every economist and politician wants. If we get ‘back to growth’, servicing debts both private and sovereign become much easier. And life will return to normal (for a few more years). There is growing evidence that a major US policy shift is underway to boost growth. Growth that will create millions of [...]

Biological Conservation Journal: Peak Timber

Buzz words sprout from controversies of the day. From the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, “subpoena” and “alpha lists” spilled into chatter at barbershops and even diplomatic receptions. Emerging issues mint new buzz words. “Peak timber” is one of them. “Tropical countries should consider implications of ‘peak timber’… [even as] it has become [...]

Peak Oil: The Crisis No One Is Talking About

The conversion of energy, from forms that aren’t useable to forms that are, is the basis of the survival of any living thing. Any creature, when given an abundance of energy to consume, will either find balance between their numbers and the source of energy, or will multiply until that resource is gone and have [...]

Saudi Arabia says it can cover any oil shortages

* Oil minister says can respond to shortages due to investment * Growing domestic demand won’t crimp ability to export * To rely more heavily on gas for rising domestic demand Saudi Arabia can meet any future world oil shortages thanks to massive investment, and its rising gas output will mean crude exports will not [...]

A Shrinking Trust Horizon – And Hard Times In The City

Nicole Foss, who under the pen name Stoneleigh co-edits the Automatic Earth website, just did a long-form interview with an Italian magazine where she lays out her peak energy, societal collapse thesis in the coherent, accessible way that fans of her writing have come to expect. One part was especially interesting: When you have economic [...]

Texas ain’t the oil king that it used to be

Texas used to be a king of the energy industry, but Texas circa-2012 isn’t the same oil giant that it was in the 1970s – in fact few states are, according to a new report. Economist James Hamilton wrote in his new National Bureau of Economic Research paper that the boom in domestic oil production [...]