Tag Archives: commodity prices

No one will win in the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Gail Tverberg

Russia is in some ways like a heavily armed, suicidal old man, who can no longer earn an adequate living. The economic system of Russia is no longer working as it should. Russia is incredibly well-armed. The situation reminds a person of the story of Samson, in his old age, taking down the temple of the Philistines and losing his own life at the same time. Russia has no reason to back down in response to sanctions. Continue reading →

Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications, News Related Post | Tagged , , , , | 4,785 Comments

Have We Already Passed World Peak Oil and World Peak Coal?

Posted on February 22, 2019 by Gail Tverberg

Most people expect that our signal of an impending reduction in world oil or coal production will be high prices. Looking at historical data (for example, this post and this post), this is precisely the opposite of the correct price … Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Implications | Tagged , , | 1,593 Comments

Energy limits: Why we see rising wealth disparity and low prices

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Gail Tverberg

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 , , , , | 1,725 Comments

Why Globalization Reaches Limits

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Gail Tverberg

We have been living in a world of rapid globalization, but this is not a condition that we can expect to continue indefinitely. Each time imported goods and services start to surge as a percentage of GDP, these imports seem … Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Implications | Tagged , , , , , , | 1,263 Comments

The Physics of Energy and the Economy

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Gail Tverberg

I approach the subject of the physics of energy and the economy with some trepidation. An economy seems to be a dissipative system, but what does this really mean? There are not many people who understand dissipative systems, and very … Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Implications | Tagged , , , , , , | 1,942 Comments