Item of General Interest
July 25. I received notice today that an article I helped write is available for free download for the next fifty days. The corrected free link for the article is "An Oil Production Forecast for China Considering Economic Limits." The article discusses the possibility that oil prices may not rise endlessly, and evaluates three future price scenarios. Under the "low" scenario (prices remain under $50 per barrel), oil production in China has already peaked.
Category Archives: Financial Implications
What really causes falling productivity growth — an energy-based explanation
What really causes falling productivity growth? The answer seems to be very much energy-related. Human labor by itself does not cause productivity growth. It is human labor, leveraged by various tools, that leads to productivity growth. These tools are made … Continue reading
Intermittent Renewables Can’t Favorably Transform Grid Electricity
Many people are hoping for wind and solar PV to transform grid electricity in a favorable way. Is this really possible? Is it really feasible for intermittent renewables to generate a large share of grid electricity? The answer increasingly looks … Continue reading
An Updated Version of the “Peak Oil” Story
The Peak Oil story got some things right. Back in 1998, Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère wrote an article published in Scientific American called, “The End of Cheap Oil.” In it they said: Our analysis of the discovery and production of oil … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged Conventional oil, oil glut, peak oil, recession, resource limits, unconventional oil
1,968 Comments
Energy limits: Why we see rising wealth disparity and low prices
Last week, I gave a fairly wide-ranging presentation at the 2016 Biophysical Economics Conference called Complexity: The Connection Between Fossil Fuel EROI, Human Energy EROI, and Debt (pdf). In this post, I discuss the portion of the talk that explains several … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications
Tagged coal prices, commodity prices, debt levels, oil prices, peak coal
1,725 Comments
