This week a study on peak oil by a German military think tank was leaked on the Internet. The document shows that the German government is closely studying the issue of peak oil, and is aware of the potential for serious consequences as oil production declines. The study is reminiscent of the Hirsch Report, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, that warned of the risks posed by peak oil. ... Below is a friend's translation of the major points in the report.

Iowa is to corn ethanol what Saudi Arabia is to oil. At present Iowa has the capacity to produce 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol per year, which is 26% of the nation's total. This is of course due to the large amount of corn production in Iowa, enabled by ample rainfall and rich topsoil.

A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China continues to grow

Brenda Boardman continues to do pioneering work in the field of fuel poverty in Britain. She is Emeritus Fellow with the Lower Carbon Futures at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. Twenty years ago, Boardman wrote her landmark study, Fuel Poverty: From Cold Homes to Affordable Warmth, which provided the first quantifiable definition of fuel poverty (ie. when a household spends more than 10% of its income on energy services).

A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The internal draft document -- leaked on the Internet -- shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis. (excerpts)
Update: English translation of table of contents and lead paragraphs.

I teach at a prestigious (high-on-ranking-lists) Swedish technical university, but when I mention peak oil, the students just don't "get it", or refuse to contemplate it. I have thus had to think about starting points I personally take for granted and emphasize these in my talks so as to increase the likelihood of my audience "getting it". These 4+1 assumptions are interrelated and they form a logical chain that is easy to follow but hard(er) to refute.

Although climate change, decreasing exports, and depleting mineral resources will all eventually impact China's ability to grow economically, the availability and affordability of oil is still likely to impact first.

Too much to read? Try these picks from the EB co-editors.

This paper has two goals. First, it provides a systematic review of oil depletion models produced to date. This serves to make obscure past works (often difficult to find) available to a wider audience so as to limit repetition of past efforts. Second, this paper provides synthesizing critique of previous modeling efforts, with the aim of improving future oil depletion modeling.

As economists focus on the Sacred GDP number, which must remain positive to maintain the statistical recovery myth, there is another crisis brewing in the world of crucial resources. In yesterday's post Energy Consumption And Progress, I alluded to the Age of Resource Competition. Today this competition is most evident in the production of rare earth elements—

Despite the volumes of material that have been written on peak oil, there still did not exist (to the best of my knowledge, anyway) a single online reference that presents this very complex topic in a form that's both accessible to newbies, and that links to the deeper data and theory. So I built one, on contract with ASPO-USA, based on some of their existing material and my old "Peak Oil Media Guide" from 2008. It's still a fairly skeletal first draft, comprising only 16 web pages, but hopefully it will grow, and serve as a useful guide to the public, the media, and others.

I've written lately that economists are the high priests of Progress. I don't subscribe to the doctrine of Progress, which is a faith-based view of our future. Apparently, for most people all of the time, the alternative is simply unthinkable. The truth is that we had wars 4,000 years ago, and we have wars now. The large majority of human beings were poor and disenfranchised 4,000 years ago, and the large majority still are today.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-China - the costs of growth
-Macondo - the blame game

When I ran Energyfiles, which was a commercial concern, I was concerned about being linked too closely with the peak oil movement. For years it was not mainstream and, although developed by excellent scientists and promoted by good organizations such as ASPO and the Oil Drum, it had many weird hangers-on, just like in the environmentalist movement. It was not treated seriously by most of my potential clients.

"How to Boil a Frog" is that rare beast, a funny movie about peak oil, climate change, etc. Early versions have been circulating to the delight of those lucky enough to see it. It's good news indeed that the movie will now be viewable by the public.

Simon du Fleuve (Simon of the River in English) is a realistic comic book series in the Franco-Belgian tradition depicting a rather classic, if somewhat idealistic, post-apocalyptic world. It is not without its flaws, but it explores better than others some aspects of the more advanced stages of the coming energy descent... Our problem is to build resilient local institutions, so that they can remain democratic even as the state apparatus erodes away. This is not an easy task, and in many places we will fail, but picturing the countryside as a place of redemption, a kingdom of virtue, opposed to morally bankrupt cities, certainly won't help.

The balanced personality would want three things: 1) That we have a reasonably large stockpile of critical goods in case of a temporary disruption of flows, 2) that what we rely on for our survival be by and large renewable, and 3) that our demand for renewable resources would come into balance with the supply we can reasonably expect--considerably less than fossil fuels have provided us.

This essay [by the co-originator of the permaculture concept] provides a framework for understanding the ideological roots of the current global crisis that I believe is more useful than the now tired Left Right political spectrum. I use this framework to provide a commentary on current political machinations around Climate Change and Peak Oil. Building from the same energetic literacy that informs Permaculture and Future Scenarios, it challenges much of the strategic logic behind current mainstream climate change activism.
(Excerpts)

For a few days last week, global news agencies pursued the peculiar story of the world's worst traffic jam, which was reported to have lasted for around nine days and stretched across about 100 kilometres of a major highway leading to Beijing. China's latest instance of leading the world, now in the scale and size of traffic jams, is a direct consequence of the modern uses and abuses of energy.