peak oil

Documentary on end of world as we know it is surprisingly uplifting

The new documentary The Crisis of Civilization is the most user-friendly exploration of imminent doom you’ll ever see. Through interviews, found footage, and animation, the film actually manages to make the unwinding of our conventional, fossil-fueled, more-is-more industrial civilization accessible. And importantly, it pays just as much attention to solutions as to problems. Nafeez Ahmed, […]

How’s it feel to already be living in a post-peak oil apocalypse?

The International Energy Agency says peak oil came and went — in 2006. The only reason we're not already paying $10 a gallon for gas and generally Mad Maxing it up is that there was this thing called a recession. Well, that, and cough cough the tar sands saved our asses cough cough. Unconventional sources […]

Each American consumes as much energy as a 40-ton dinosaur

Yesterday, at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, where retired petroleum geologists talk about how we're all going to end up like Viggo Mortensen's character in The Road, emeritus professor William Catton pointed out that every American uses so much fossil fuel energy that if it were […]

Interactive graphic shows just how few resources are left

Scientific American has put together an interactive feature where you can watch resources disappear before your very eyes. The dates for when things will "run out" are a little fuzzy — they've got animals pretty much running out five minutes from now, even though they're endangered but not extinct. But there are informative videos, and […]

Why small cities are poised for success in an oil-starved future

Cross-posted from Urbanite. A couple of years ago, while I was reporting on a redevelopment plan in Buffalo, N.Y., I met up with Robert Shibley, an architecture professor who had long been interested in a renaissance for his once-great Rust Belt town. Buffalo, along with cities like Utica, Syracuse, and Rochester, had the sort of […]

'Peak Coal' comes to Appalachia

By 2015, coal production in Appalachia will be half what it was in 2008. Some coal industry advocates argue that such a drop is due to increased regulation by the Obama administration (go figure). But geologists and others who work in the industry say it's actually the result of a much more basic fact: Appalachia is running out of coal.

'The Quest' questioned

A read of Daniel Yergin's new book, The Quest, reveals holes in his arguments, mostly centered around his discussion of peak oil.

Wall Street Journal embraces peak oil denialism

Daniel Yergin is to peak oil and limits to growth what Richard Lindzen, Anthony Watts, Christopher Monckton, the Heartland Institute and Exxon Mobil are to climate change. That is, Yergin's entire reason for being in the public eye is his rejection of the possible arrival of this calamity.

So of course it's perfectly logical that the Wall Street Journal, long a bastion of climate change denial, would give Yergin a stage on which to spew his unique brand of half-truths.

America and oil: declining together?

Oil fueled the United States' rise as a global superpower. Now, as oil declines as a major source of energy, is it bringing the U.S. down with it?