Peak Oil News and Message Boards

I was recently asked to give a talk called, “The Approaching US Energy-Economic Crisis.” In other words, how might the United States encounter problems that lead to a crisis? As we will see, many of the problems that could lead to a crisis (such as increased wage disparity and difficulty in collecting enough taxes) are issues that we are already beginning to encounter. In this talk, I first discuss the connection between energy and the economy. Without this connection, it doesn’t make sense to talk about a crisis arising with respect to energy and the economy. I then discuss seven issues that could lead to a US energy-economic crisis. Economic Growth Is Closely Tied to Energy Consumption If we look at world data, it is clear that there is a close tie between energy consumption and economic growth. Slide 2 On an individual country basis, there

A groundbreaking study in Elsevier’s Ecological Economics journal by two French economists for the first time proves the world has passed a point-of-no-return in its capacity to extract fossil fuel energy: with massive implications for the long-term future of global economic growth.

The “illusion of decoupling,” Ward and his colleagues argued, has been maintained through the following misleading techniques:

1. substituting one resource for another;
2. financialization of GDP, such as through increasing “monetary flows” through creation of new debt, without however increasing material or energy throughput (think quantitative easing);
3. exporting environmental impacts to other nations or regions, so that the realities of increasing material throughput can be suppressed from data calculations.
4. growing inequality of income and wealth, which allows GDP to grow for the benefit of a few, while the majority of workers see decreases in real income—in other words, a wealthy minority monopolises the largest fraction of GDP growth, but does not increase their level of consumption with as much demand for energy and materials.

pstarr wrote:No one in their right mind claimed global oil production peaked in 2005. Though in retrospective it has become quite apparent that something did happen.

pstarr wrote:No one declared victory about such a tragic event.

pstarr wrote:Sorry but I don't have the time or interest to troll the archives. Perhaps you can direct me to all that?

AdamB wrote:Gail, from TOD, proclaimer of peak oil in 2008, proclaimer of high prices = bad, and proclaimer of low prices = bad, and with zero experience in energy and economics...has spoken!!! Again. Is the proclamation of doom count (for whatever reason) into the double digits yet? I think it is.

peripato wrote:She only has to be right once. Lol.

asg70 wrote:

peripato wrote:She only has to be right once. Lol.

In the meantime, Gail's gotta eat, and saying the end is nigh is what puts food on the table.

pstarr wrote:

jedrider wrote:Very bad translation. But, you get the point. No one try to emulate this vocabulary as you will get called out on it!

Just when we thought we peaked a decade ago, we appear to have more energy 'produced' than ever!

No one in their right mind claimed global oil production peaked in 2005. Though in retrospective it has become quite apparent that something did happen.

KaiserJeep wrote:I coughed up some coffee on that one. The Chevron station down the street is $2.65/g, there are plenty of stations around here where gas is $3.50/g or more. The citizens cannot be bothered to cross the street to save a quarter a gallon when filling up a 20 gallon tank - a sawbuck is not worth the extra 30 seconds it would take them.

Outcast_Searcher wrote:-snip-
Thanks for that - I just learned that a sawbuck is a $10 bill in addition to something used for lumber.
-snip-