References: Peak Oil And Resource Depletion (up to 2010)

Although I have several articles on the threats posed to industrial civilization by runaway global warming and ecological degradation on Sublime Oblivion (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), I have yet to cover the Charybdis of resource depletion in as much detail (1, 2, 3, 4). As such, I have assembled many links to relevant articles on blogs such as the Oil Drum and Energy Watch Group to provide a foundation for the layman interested in exploring these very important concepts. With time I will write short descriptions next to some of the more important links summarizing what they are about.

EDIT Dec 2010: The Best of TheOilDrum.com 2005-2010 is ultra-recommended.

Basic Summaries

• The Coming Oil Crisis (Lionel Badal)
• Life after the Oil Crash (Matt Savinar)
• Hubbert’s Peak Mathematics (Luís de Sousa)
• Peak Oil Overview – June 2009, June 2008, June 2007 (Gail Tverberg)
• Oil Quiz – Test your Knowledge (Gail Tverberg)
• Mind-Sized Hubbert (Ugo Bardi)
• Is Peak Oil Real? A List of Countries Past Peak (Praveen Ghanta)
• Global oil & gas depletion: an overview (R. W. Bentley)
• The Dawn of Scarcity Industrialism (Michael Greer)
• Jay Hanson and Dieoff.org (Jay Hanson)
• Peak Oil Glossary (Peak Oil NYC)

Core Books on Resource Depletion

• Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update (Meadows et al)
• The Last Oil Shock (David Strahan)
• Beyond Oil (Kenneth Deffeyes)
• The Party’s Over (Richard Heinberg)
• Twilight in the Desert (Matthew Simmons)
• The Long Emergency (James Kunstler)
• Global Catastrophes and Trends (Vaclav Smil)
• The Long Descent (Michael Greer)
• Our Ecotechnic Future (Michael Greer)
• When the Rivers Run Dry (Fred Pearce)
• The Collapse of Complex Societies (Joseph Tainter)
• Collapse (Jared Diamond)
• World Made by Hand (James Kunstler)

Peak Oil Projections

• Analysis of Decline Rates (Sam Foucher)
• Oil Report (Energy Watch Group)
• Insights Regarding Future World Oil Production (Rembrandt)
• World Oil Production Forecast – Update November 2009 (ace)
• World Oil Capacity to Peak in 2010 Says Petrobras CEO (ace)

Energy Accounting & Geopolitics

• EROEI Series – Boundaries & Calculations, Price-Estimated EROEI, Boot-strap EROEI (Jeff Vail)
• Geopolitical Feedback Loops in Peak Oil (Jeff Vail)
• Net Oil Exports and the Iron Triangle (Sam Foucher)
• Geopolitical Disruptions – Theory of Disruptions to Oil and Resource Supply & Identifying the Feedback Loops (Jeff Vail)
• A Net Energy Parable: Why is ERoEI Important? & A Net Energy Parable Revisited (Nate Hagens)
• Part I: Why EROEI Matters I, Part II: Imported Oil, Natural Gas, Part III: Unconventional Oil: Tar Sands and Shale Oil, Part IV: The Energy Return of Nuclear Power, Part V: Passive Solar, PV, Wind and Hydro, & Part VI: Wave/Geothermal (Charles Hall)
• At $100 Oil – What Can the Scientist Say to the Investor? (Charles Hall)
• Managing the Peak Fossil Fuel Transition: EROI and EIRR (Gail Tverberg)

Energy & the Economy

• Oily Origins of the Economic Crisis (Anatoly Karlin)
• The Economics of Oil: Supply and Demand Curves (Prof. Goose)
• Oil Demand Destruction and Brittle Systems (Jeff Vail)
• Oil price: where next? (Euan Mearns)
• Oil price: where next? – and thoughts for 2010 (Euan Mearns)
• Accounting for Growth: The Role of Physical Work (Robert Ayres)
• Implications of the Ayres Warr Model of Economic Production: An Introduction (Gail Tverberg)
• Delusions of Finance: Where We are Headed (Gail Tverberg)
• Predator-Prey Dynamics in Demand Destruction and Oil Prices (Jeff Vail)
• Temporary Recession or the End of Growth? (Gail Tverberg)
• Oil Production is Reaching its Limit: The Basics of What This Means (Gail Tverberg)
• What Peaked at the Same Time as Oil Prices? Lots of things. (Gail Tverberg)
• Where we really stand with respect to oil and natural gas supplies (Heading Out)
• An Overlooked Detail – Finite Resources Explain the Financial Crisis (Gail Tverberg)
• Economic Impact of Peak Oil Part 3: What’s Ahead? (Gail Tverberg)
• Where we are headed: Peak oil and the financial crisis (Gail Tverberg)
• The fragility of global trade and infrastructure (Alice Friedemann)
• The Hirsch Report

Limits to Growth

• Peak Oil and Limits to Growth: Two Parallel Stories (Ugo Bardi)
• New World Model – EROEI issues (Chris Vernon)
• Mind-sized Hubbert (Ugo Bardi)
• A New World Model Including Energy and Climate Change Data (Chris Vernon)
• Limits to Growth Model Worth Another Look (David Murphy)
• A Comparison of the “Limits to Growth” with 30 Years of Reality (Graham Turner)
• The Net Hubbert Curve: What does it Mean (David Murphy)
• The Fifth Problem: Peak Capital (Ugo Bardi)
• Long term agricultural overshoot (Peter Salonius)
• When Is “Global Peak Energy?” According to Publicly Available Data, Probably Sooner Than You Think (Chris Clugston)

Coal, Natural Gas & Uranium

• Coal Report (Energy Watch Group)
• Uranium Report (Energy Watch Group)
• Forecasting Coal Production to 2100 (Steve H. Mohr & G. M. Evans)
• The Coal Question (Prof. Goose)
• Australia: A Rising Source for LNG Exports Using Coal Seam Gas? (Big Gav)
• Shale Gas Estimates Perhaps Optimistic – An Interesting and Worrying Talk at ASPO (Heading Out)
• The Future of Nuclear Energy – Nuclear Fission Energy Today, What is known about Secondary Uranium Resources?, How (un)reliable are the Red Book Uranium Resource Data?, and Energy from Breeder Reactors and from Fusion? (Francois Cellier)
• Is Space Based Solar Power a Viable Solution to Our Energy Crisis? (Brandon Miller)
• Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security (NSS)
• Peak Coal (Wikipedia)
• Peak Uranium (Wikipedia)
• Uranium supplies are likely to be adequate until 2020 (Engineer-Poet)
• The Coal Question and Climate Change (Prof. Goose)
• Greenwash: Why ‘clean coal’ is the ultimate climate change oxymoron (Fred Pearce)

Renewables

• Renewable Energy Outlook 2030 (Energy Watch Group)
• Wind Power Report (Energy Watch Group)
• Wind powered factories: history (and future) of industrial windmills (Kris De Decker)
• Energy from Wind: A Discussion of the EROI Research (Nate Hagens)
• Renewable Transition: Targets & Troubles & EROEI Uncertainty (Jeff Vail)
• Renewable Fuel Contenders, Pretenders and Niches (Robert Rapier)
• Some Cautionary Thoughts about Wind (Gail Tverberg)
• Space Solar Power: Star Player on the Bench (Darel Preble)
• Solar Satellite Power with Laser Propulsion and Reusable Launch Vehicle (Keith Henson)
• Scientific American’s Path to Sustainability: Let’s Think about the Details (Gail Tverberg)

Metals & Mineral Depletion

• Seabed Mining: The Unplumbed Riches of the Deep (The Economist)
• Peak Gold, Easier to Model than Peak Oil? & Part II (Jean Laherrére)
• Peak Minerals (Chris Vernon)
• Metal Minerals Scarcity and the Elements of Hope (Rembrandt)
• The Universal Mining Machine (Ugo Bardi)

Energy & Societal Collapse

• Notes on “The Collapse of Complex Societies” (J. Tainter) (Anatoly Karlin)
• “Peak Civilization”: The Fall of the Roman Empire (Ugo Bardi)
• Notes on “The Olduvai Theory” (R. Duncan) (Anatoly Karlin)
• World Energy and Population: Trends to 2100 (Paul Chefurka)
• Dancing at the Edge of the Precipice – After Peak Oil (Gail Tverberg)
• The Zero Growth Mind (Ugo Bardi)
• Is the 2000 Watt Society Sustainable in Switzerland? (Francois Cellier)
• Peak Oil and the Preservation of Knowledge (Alice Friedemann)
• Waiting for the lights to go out (Bryan Appleyard)
• A distant mirror: Ireland’s great famine (Ugo Bardi)
• Energy Flow, Emergent Complexity, and Collapse (Gail Tverberg)
• Bottleneck by William Catton – A Review (George Mobus)

Regional Analyses

• Algeria & Morocco: Natural Gas Cartels, Fertilizer Mercantilism and Rising Tensions (Jeff Vail)
• Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves? (Jeff Vail)
• Canada’s Oil Sands Part 1 & Part 2 (Gail Tverberg)
• The Breaking Point (Peter Maass)
• Iraqi Oil: Black Gold or Black Hole? (Nawar Alsaadi)
• Africa in 2040: The Darkened Continent (Paul Chefurka)
• Iraq Could Delay Peak Oil a Decade (Gail Tverberg)
• Russia’s Oil Production is About to Peak (Sam Foucher)
• When Will Russia (and the World) Decline? (Stuart Staniford)
• Russia’s Unique SVBR-100 Nuclear Reactor (Christopher Babb)
• Britain’s Energy Crisis: How Long till the Lights go out? (The Economist)
• Turkmenistan, Nabucco, Azerbaijan, and Russian natural gas (Heading Out)
• Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map (M K Bhadrakumar)
• Peak Water in Saudi Arabia (Ugo Bardi)
• If We Can’t Get Oil from Mexico… (Heading Out)
• Italy like Ryanair: can it exist with oil over $ 100 per barrel? (Ugo Bardi)
• Depletion Levels in Ghawar (Stuart Staniford)
• Agriculture: Wisdom of the Uncivilized Crowds (Suraj Kumar)
• Is the United Kingdom facing a natural gas shortage? (Rembrandt)

Politics & Psychology of Resource Depletion

• The Psychological and Evolutionary Roots of Resource Overconsumption Revisited (Nate Hagens)
• Dopamine Returned on Energy Invested (DREI)? (Jason Bradford)
• Peak oil and the psychology of work (Nate Hagens)
• Heads in the Sand? Or, Why Don’t Governments Talk about Peak Oil? (Gail Tverberg)
• Jevons’ Law: Enforcing the Age of Energy Decline – Part 1 (Gail Tverberg)