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- Losing the Iran War May Be the Best Outcome for the World
- A New Explanation for Tariffs and Bombings
- Understanding Deglobalization: The Role of Diesel and Jet Fuel
- 2026: Expect a very uneven world economic downturn
- Too many promises; too few future physical goods
- A lack of very cheap oil is leading to debt problems
- What has gone wrong with the economy? Can it be fixed?
- Sierra Club talk that may be of interest
- Why oil prices don’t rise to consistently high levels
- Worrying indications in recently updated world energy data
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Tag Archives: limits to growth
How Does the Economy Really Work?
The world economy is an amazingly complex, physics-based, self-organizing system. The three major elements are extracted resources including energy resources, human population, and demand coming through the financial system. All three of these elements tend to increase over time, but both population and extracted resources tend to hit limits because the world is finite. Continue reading
2024: Too Many Things Going Wrong
In 2024, the world economy is acting more and more like an 80-year-old man than like a young vigorous economy. Perhaps the economy can continue for quite a few more years, but it increasingly looks like it is in danger of falling apart, or of succumbing as a result of what might be regarded as minor problems. Continue reading
Can India come out ahead in an energy squeeze?
The slower the growth, the more sustainable an economy is over the moderately long term.
Energy consumption and the use of complexity tend to rise together.
Too much complexity can lead to collapse.
In general, the most “efficient” economies can be expected to do best.
Over the long term, all economies will collapse.
There have been shifts in which economies get a major share of available energy supplies. Shifting patterns are likely again in the future.
India may come out ahead in an energy squeeze because its warm climate and conservative culture allow its energy consumption per capita to remain low. Continue reading
Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications
Tagged complexity, fossil fuels, limits to growth, sustainability
2,991 Comments
Fossil Fuel Imports Are Already Constrained
The big question for any fuel is, “Can consumers afford to pay a high enough price to cover all the costs involved in getting the fuel from endpoint to endpoint, at the time it is needed?”
Citizens become very unhappy if the cost of winter heat becomes extremely expensive. They demand subsidies and rebates from the government, in order to keep costs down. This is a sign that prices are too high for the consumer.
Both coal and natural gas are also heavily used in manufacturing. Their prices vary greatly from location to location and from time to time. If coal or natural gas prices rise in a particular location, the cost of manufactured goods from that location will also tend to rise. These higher prices will particularly hurt a manufacturing country, such as Germany, because its manufactured goods will become less competitive in the world marketplace. Continue reading
Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications
Tagged limits to growth, natural gas prices, peak oil
3,123 Comments
