Gail Tverberg

Latest articles from Gail

• Forget Peak Oil, Worry About Financial Limits

  Published 01 April 2013 | viewed 14,309 times

  Resource limits are invisible, so most people don’t realize that we could possibly be approaching them. In fact, my analysis indicates resource limits are really…

• The Darker Side of Renewable Energy

  Published 21 March 2013 | viewed 18,093 times

  Based on the sound of the name renewable, a person might think that using only “renewable” energy is ideal–something we should all strive to use…

• 12 Negative Aspects of Globalization

  Published 02 March 2013 | viewed 1,264,443 times

  Globalization seems to be looked on as an unmitigated “good” by economists. Unfortunately, economists seem to be guided by their badly flawed models; they miss…

• How Low Wages can Lead to High Oil Prices

  Published 19 February 2013 | viewed 8,051 times

  In my view, wages are the backbone an economy. If workers have difficulty finding a job, or have difficulty earning sufficient wages, the lack of…

• Our Investment Sinkhole Problem

  Published 16 February 2013 | viewed 5,130 times

  We are used to expecting that more investment will yield more output, but in the real world, things don’t always work out that way.Figure 1.…

• Why has US Oil Consumption Steadily Fallen since 2004?

  Published 02 February 2013 | viewed 41,828 times

  United States oil consumption in 2012 will be about 4.7 million barrels a day, or 20%, lower than it would have been, if the pre-2005…

• How High Oil Prices Lead to Recession

  Published 26 January 2013 | viewed 10,349 times

  There is ample evidence that spikes in oil prices leads to recession, at least in the US, which is an oil-importing nation. James Hamilton has…

• Ten Reasons Why High Oil Prices are a Problem

  Published 19 January 2013 | viewed 19,738 times

  A person might think from looking at news reports that our oil problems are gone, but oil prices are still high.Figure 1. US crude oil…

• Why 2013 Will End in a Severe Recession

  Published 08 January 2013 | viewed 26,559 times

  We have been hearing a lot about escaping the fiscal cliff, but our problem isn’t solved. The fixes to date have been partial and temporary.…

• Why does World Coal Consumption continue to Grow?

  Published 23 December 2012 | viewed 12,550 times

  A primary reason why coal consumption is rising is because of increased international trade, starting when the World Trade Organization was formed in 1995, and…

• Why the Fossil Fuel Revolution Prevented the World from Starving

  Published 15 December 2012 | viewed 11,518 times

  Most of us have heard that Thomas Malthus made a forecast in 1798 that the world would run short of food, and that great famine…

• How Energy Leveraging has Increased Global Unemployment

  Published 08 December 2012 | viewed 9,446 times

  If an employer wants to maximize profits, it will want to leverage its use of high-priced energy sources.  From an employer’s point of view, there…

• The Fiscal Cliff and its Effect on Oil Markets

  Published 30 November 2012 | viewed 10,573 times

  The United States’ fiscal cliff is very much related to several changes we have been going through recently, and will likely continue to experience:1.    High…

• Why Current Methods to Combat Climate Change Don’t Work

  Published 24 November 2012 | viewed 19,259 times

  World leaders seem to have their minds made up regarding what will fix world CO2 emissions problems. Their list includes taxes on gasoline consumption, more…

• IEA Manipulates Stats to Predict Unrealistically High Oil Forecasts

  Published 15 November 2012 | viewed 9,705 times

  The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides unrealistically high oil forecasts in its new 2012 World Energy Outlook (WEO). It claims, among other things, that the…

• Peak Oil and the Challenging Years Ahead

  Published 25 October 2012 | viewed 8,588 times

  We seem to hear two versions of the story of limited oil supply:1. The economists’ view, saying that the issue is a simple problem of…

• Why Natural Gas Won’t Save the World

  Published 20 October 2012 | viewed 13,960 times

  We keep hearing about the many benefits of natural gas–how burning it releases less CO2 than oil or coal, and how it burns with few…

• The Devastating Economic Impact of Constantly High Oil Prices

  Published 03 October 2012 | viewed 38,750 times

  Prof. James Hamilton of University of California recently wrote a post called Thresholds in the economic effects of oil prices. In it, he concludesAs U.S.…

• The World is Suffering from High-Priced Fuel Syndrome

  Published 01 October 2012 | viewed 41,190 times

  Governments and economists around the world have not figured out that what the world economy is suffering from, to varying degrees, is “high-priced fuel syndrome“.High-priced…

• The Link between Energy Consumption, Employment, and Recession

  Published 22 September 2012 | viewed 20,484 times

  The number of jobs available to job-seekers has been a problem for quite a long time now—since 2000 in the United States, and longer than…