The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality (49 page)

3. Kjell Aleklett, “Spin Slips Off Production Numbers — World Energy Outlook 2010 Is a Cry For Help,” Aleklett’s Energy Post, posted November 11, 2010.

4. Jeremy Gilbert, “No We Can’t: Uncertainty, Technology, and Risk,” presented at the ASPO-USA 2010 Peak Oil Conference, Washington, DC, October 9, 2010.

5. Jessica Bachman, “Special Report: Oil and Ice: Worse Than the Gulf Spill?”
Reuters.com
, posted November 8, 2010.

6. Charles Maxwell, quoted in Wallace Forbes, “Bracing For Peak Oil Production by Decade’s End,”
Forbes.com
, posted September 13, 2010; Eoin O’Carroll, “Pickens: Oil Production Has Peaked,” The Christian Science Monitor, posted June 18, 2008.

7. Clint Smith, “New Zealand Parliament Peak Oil Report: The Next Oil Shock?” Energy Bulletin, posted October 1, 2010,
energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-14/next-oil-shock
; Stefan Schultz, “Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis,” Spiegel Online, posted September 1, 2010; UK Industry study; US Joint Forces Command, The Joint Operating Environment 2010 (Suffolk, VA: USJFCOM, 2010).

8. See, for example,
peakoil.net/headline-news/toyota-we-must-address-the-inevitability-of-peak-oil
.

9. Ben German, “The Other Peak Oil: Demand From Developed World Falling,” Scientific American. October 13, 2009.

10. Robert L. Hirsch, Roger Bezdek, and Robert Wendling, “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management,” a report for the US Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, February 2005; Stefan Schultz, “Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis,” Spiegel Online, posted September 1, 2010.

11. Michael Klare, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Petroleum Dependency (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2004); Michael Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2008).

12. Jeffrey Brown and Sam Foucher, “Peak Oil Versus Peak Exports,” Energy Bulletin, posted October 18, 2010,
energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-18/peak-oil-versus-peak-exports
; Gail the Actuary, “Verifying the Export Land Model — A Different Approach,” The Oil Drum, posted October 1, 2010,
theoildrum.com/node/7007#more
.

13. Thanks to Nate Hagens for this insight.

14. Buttonwood, “Engine Trouble: A Rise in the Cost of Extracting Energy Will Hit Productivity,” The Economist, October 1, 2010.

15. Tadeusz W. Patzek and Gregory D. Croft, “A Global Coal Production Forecast with Multi-Hubbert Cycle Analysis,” Energy 35 (2010), pp. 3109–3122; S. H. Mohr and G. M. Evans, “Forecasting Coal Production Until 2100,” Fuel 88 (2009), pp. 2059–2067.

16. Richard Heinberg and David Fridley, “The End of Cheap Coal,” Nature 468 (November 18, 2010), pp. 367–369.

17. Recent US Geological Survey assessments of some of the most important mining regions show rapid depletion of accessible reserves. US Geological Survey, Coal Reserves of the Matewan Quadrangle, Kentucky — A Coal Recoverability Study, US Bureau of Mines Circular 9355,
pubs.usgs.gov/usbmic/ic-9355/C9355.htm
; James Luppens et al., Assessment of Coal Geology, Resources, and Reserves in the Gillette Coalfield, Powder River Basin, Wyoming, USGS Open-File Report 2008–1202, 2008,
pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1202/
.

18. Zaipu Tao and Mingyu Li, “What Is the Limit of Chinese Coal Supplies — A STELLA Model of Hubbert Peak,” Energy Policy 35, no.6 (June, 2007), pp. 3145–3154; WorleyPar-sons et al., Strategic Analysis of the Global Status of Carbon Capture and Storage (Global CCS Institute, 2009).

19. Christopher Schenk and Richard Pollastro, Natural Gas Production in the United States, US Geological Survey Fact Sheet FS-0113-01, January 2002,
pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0113-01/
.

20. Gail the Actuary, “Arthur Berman Talks About Shale Gas,” The Oil Drum, posted July 28, 2010,
theoildrum.com/node/6785
.

21. A report by David Hughes on the future of unconventional natural gas will be published in May 2011 by Post Carbon Institute.

22. Richard Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle: Net Energy Limits and the Fate of Industrial Societies (International Forum on Globalization and Post Carbon Institute, 2009).

23. This conclusion is supported by P. Moriarty and D. Honnery, “What Energy Levels Can the Earth Sustain?” Energy Policy 37, no. 7 (July, 2009), pp. 2469–2474. Abstract: “Several official reports on future global primary energy production and use develop scenarios which suggest that the high energy growth rates of the 20th century will continue unabated until 2050 and even beyond. In this paper we examine whether any combination of fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy sources can deliver such levels of primary energy — around 1000 EJ in 2050. We find that too much emphasis has been placed on whether or not reserves in the case of fossil and nuclear energy, or technical potential in the case of renewable energy, can support the levels of energy use forecast. In contrast, our analysis stresses the crucial importance of the interaction of technical potentials for annual production with environmental factors, social, political, and economic concerns and limited time frames for implementation, in heavily constraining the real energy options for the future. Together, these constraints suggest that future energy consumption will be significantly lower than the present level.”

24. Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle.

25. Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle, chapter 3.

26. This conclusion is largely supported by James H. Brown et al., “Energetic Limits to Growth,” Bioscience 61, no.1 (January 2011), pp. 19–26: “The bottom line is that an enormous increase in energy supply will be required to meet the demands of projected population growth and lift the developing world out of poverty without jeopardizing current standards of living in the most developed countries. And the possibilities for substantially increasing energy supplies are highly uncertain. Moreover, the nonlinear, complex nature of the global economy raises the possibility that energy shortages might trigger massive socioeconomic disruption.”

27.N ate Hagens, “Applying Time to Energy Analysis,” The Oil Drum, posted December 13, 2010,
theoildrum.com/node/7147#more
.

28. Charles A. S. Hall, “Provisional Results from EROI Assessments,” The Oil Drum, posted April 8, 2008,
theoildrum.com/node/3810
.

29. “Drowning in Oil,” The Economist, March 4, 1999.

30. International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 1998 (Paris: IEA Publications, 1998), p. 78.

31. Chris Nelder, “World Will Soon Face an Oil Supply Crunch,” Energy & Capital, posted September 18, 2009.

32. Richard Heinberg, “Goldilocks and the Three Fuels,” Reuters, posted February 18, 2010.

33. James Hamilton, Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, March 2009.

34. Joe Cortright, “Driven to the Brink: How the Gas Price Spike Popped the Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs,” White Paper, CEOs for Cities, 2008,
ceosforcities.org
.

35. Jad Mouawad, “For OPEC, Current Oil Price Is Just Right,” The New York Times, September 9, 2009.

36. Jon Talton, “With Oil Prices Around $90, Recovery is Over a Barrel,” The Seattle Times, December 9, 2010; David Murphy, “Further Evidence of the Influence of Energy on the US Economy,” The Oil Drum, posted April 16, 2009,
netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5304
; Jeff Rubin, “We Have Run Out of Oil We Can Afford to Burn,” The Globe and Mail, October 6, 2010; “Oil Price is Risk to Economic Recovery, Says IEA,” BBC News, posted January 5, 2011; Derek Thompson, “How Oil Could Kill the Recovery,” The Atlantic, posted January 6, 2011.

37. Cameron Leckie, “Economic Growth: A Zero Sum Game,” On Line Opinion, posted November 25, 2010.

38. Carey W. King, “Energy Intensity Ratios as Net Energy Measures of United States Energy Production and Expenditures,” Environmental Research Letters 5 (October to December 2010).

39. Recent reports warn that groundwater is depleting at increasing rates “Groundwater Depletion Rate Accelerating Worldwide,” Science Daily, posted September 23, 2010; and that the world’s rivers are in a “crisis state.” World’s Rivers in ‘Crisis State’, Report Finds,” Science Daily, posted October 1, 2010. The situation in many areas is grim and worsening. Robert F. Worth, “Earth is Parched Where Syrian Farms Thrived,” The New York Times, October 13, 2010. For an excellent overview of the situation, see Sandra Postel, “Water: Adapting to a New Normal” in The Post Carbon Reader, Richard Hein-berg and Daniel Lerch, eds. (Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media and the Post Carbon Institute, 2010); see also Peter H. Gleick and Meena Palaniappan, “Peak Water Limits to Freshwater Withdrawal and Use,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 107, no.25 (June 22, 2010), pp. 11155–11162.

40. United Nations Environment Program, Global Environment Outlook 4 (Malta: Progress Press Ltd., 2007).

41. Yoshihide Wada et al., “Global Depletion of Groundwater Resources,” Geophysical Research Letters 37 (October 26, 2010).

42. Felicity Barringer, “Rising Seas and the Groundwater Equation,” Green: A Blog About Energy and the Environment, The New York Times, posted November 2, 2010.

43. Tim P. Barnett and David W. Pierce, “When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?” Water Resources Research 44 (March 29, 2008).

44.N ational Energy Technology Laboratory, Innovations for Existing Plants Program, “Water-Energy Interface,”
netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/–ewr/water/power-gen.html
.

45. “The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change famously predicted [the Himalayan glaciers] could disappear as soon as 2035. It turns out that guesstimate was based on misquoting a researcher in a 1999 news article — not a result from any kind of peer-reviewed scientific study. The incident reflects a breakdown in the IPCC process but it doesn’t undercut the reality that glacier loss, particularly in what are technically tropical regions such as the Andes and Himalayas, continues to accelerate in the 21st century. Though they likely won’t disappear entirely for centuries, losing the glaciers will eventually be bad news for the billions around the world who rely on meltwater to survive.” David Biello, “How Fast Are the Himalayan Glaciers Melting?” Scientific American podcast, posted January 21, 2010,
scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=how-fast-are-himalayan-glaciers-mel-10-01-21
. Actual melt rates are a matter of ongoing study, but there is general agreement that, on the whole, the glaciers are retreating rapidly. In the Indian Himalaya, the Chhota Shigri Glacier has retreated 12 percent in the past 13 years and the iconic Gangotri Glacier, where the River Ganga originates, has retreated 12 percent in the past 16 years. See Richard S. Williams, Jr., and Jane G. Ferrigno, eds., Glaciers of Asia, US Geological Survey Professional Paper 1386–F (Washington, DC: US GPO, 2010), online at
pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386f/
.

46. “Desperate Water Shortage in Somaliland,” Inside Somalia, posted August 4, 2009.

47. N ancy L. Barber, “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005,” US Geological Survey, 2009,
water.usgs.gov/watuse/
.

48. Kevin F. Dennehy, High Plains Regional Groundwater Study, U. S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet FS-091-00, 2000,
co.water.usgs.gov/nawqa/hpgw/PUBS.html
.

49. Paul D. Ryder, “High Plains Aquifer,” in Groundwater Atlas of the United States: Oklahoma, Texas, US Geological Survey publication HA 730-E, 1996,
pubs.usgs.gov/ha/ha730/index.html
.

50. Barber, “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005.”

51. “Industrial-Agricultural Water End-Use Efficiency,” California Energy Commission website,
energy.ca.gov/research/iaw/industry/water.html
.

52. “Membrane Desalination Power Usage Put in Perspective,” American Membrane Technology Association, April 2009,
amtaorg.com/amta_media/–pdfs/7_MembraneDesalinationPowerUsagePutInPerspective.pdf
.

53. Jeremy Miller, “California Drought is No Problem for Kern County Oil Producers,” Circle of Blue, posted August 24, 2010.

54. Barber, “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005.”

55. Peter Boaz and Matthew O. Berger, “Rising Energy Demand Hits Water Scarcity ‘Choke Point’,”
IPSNews.net
, posted September 22, 2010,
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52939
.