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Recent Posts
- Ramping Up Renewables Can’t Provide Enough Heat Energy in Winter
- Why No Politician Is Willing to Tell Us the Real Energy Story
- The world’s self-organizing economy can be expected to act strangely, as energy supplies deplete
- Why raising interest rates to reduce inflation may work out very badly
- A Few Insights Based on CDC Data Regarding COVID and its Vaccines
- Is the debt bubble supporting the world economy in danger of collapsing?
- The world has a major crude oil problem; expect conflict ahead
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Academic Articles
- An analysis of China's coal supply and its impact on China's future economic growth
- An Oil Production Forecast for China Considering Economic Limits
- Analysis of resource potential for China's unconventional gas and forecast for its long-term production growth
- China's unconventional oil: A review of its resources and outlook for long-term production
- Financial Issues Affecting Energy Security
- Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis
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Author Archives: Gail Tverberg
Ramping Up Renewables Can’t Provide Enough Heat Energy in Winter
We usually don’t think about the wonderful service fossil fuels provide in terms of being a store of heat energy for winter, the time when there is a greater need for heat energy. Figure 1 shows dramatically how, in the US, the residential usage of heating fuels spikes during the winter months. Solar energy is most abundantly available in the May-June-July period, making it a poor candidate for fixing the problem of the need for winter heat. Continue reading
Posted in Energy policy
Tagged battery storage, competitive pricing, energy modeling, wind energy
3,188 Comments
Why No Politician Is Willing to Tell Us the Real Energy Story
Politicians want to get re-elected. They want citizens to think that everything is OK. If there are problems, they need to be framed as being temporary, perhaps related to the war in Ukraine. Alternatively, any issue that arises will be discussed as if it can easily be fixed with new legislation and perhaps a little more debt.
Most high-level politicians are aware of the energy supply issue, but they cannot possibly talk about it. Instead, they choose to talk about what would happen if the economy were allowed to speed ahead without limits, and how bad the consequences of that might be. Continue reading
Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications
Tagged limits to growth, solar energy, wind energy
4,427 Comments
The world’s self-organizing economy can be expected to act strangely, as energy supplies deplete
It is my view that when energy supply falls, it falls not because reserves “run out.” It falls because economies around the world cannot afford to purchase goods and services made with energy products and using energy products in their operation. It is really a price problem. . .
It is my expectation that these and other issues will lead to a very strangely behaving world economy in the months and years ahead. The world economy we know today is, in fact, a self-organizing system operating under the laws of physics. With less energy, it will start “coming apart.” World trade will increasingly falter. Fossil fuel prices will be volatile, but not necessarily very high.
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