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)
The Age of Oil has driven our growth over the past 100 years. The entire basis of our modern civilization is built on oil and other fossil fuels. It has enabled the industrial revolution, a massive increase in population, and our current standard of living in the West. One way or another, the passing of this Age will change us forever.
http://www.watchinghistory.com/2009/12/age-of-oil.html
You can run an online World Simulation of the food system, the population system, the pollution system, the nonrenewable resource system, and the industrial system. It is based on the World3 model used by the Club of Rome the publishers of the Limits to Growth report:
Online World Economy and Resource Depletion Simulation