Jim Puplava featured Robert Hirsch for a long, in-depth interview on his Financial Sense program last weekend, which I recommend to the attention of anyone interested in peak oil. It covered a full range of the topic’s complexity, including data on reserves, production, discovery and demand;  economic implications; the reasons why the US Government has maintained silence on the issue while other developed economies are grappling with it; and the likely responses to the crisis as it unfolds over the next couple of years–including rationing, priority allocation, and interruption of food supplies. You won’t find a better or more expert testimony anywhere. Listen to it here:

RealPlayer | WinAmp | Windows Media | MP3

Hirsch is the co-author of a new book on peak oil, designed for an educated layman audience, entitled The Impending World Energy Mess. He is a Senior Energy Advisor at MISI and a consultant in energy, technology, and management. His primary experience is in research, development, and commercial applications. He has managed technology programs in oil and natural gas exploration and production, petroleum refining, synthetic fuels, fusion, fission, renewables, defense technologies, chemical analysis, and basic research.

I don’t know if I’m the first one to notice this, but it was too good to pass up. Compare these two covers of Time Magazine:

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For Green Chip Stocks last week, I continued my two-part series on investment themes for the next decade, including my predictions for oil, natural gas, coal, renewables, uranium, efficiency, water, and agriculture.
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Here are my notes from the 2009 ASPO-USA Peak Oil Conference, October 11-13, 2009 in Denver, Colorado. Length: 71 pages.

View the Web version below the fold, or download the PDF.

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For last week’s Energy and Capital, I offered my first report of a series from the 2009 ASPO-USA peak oil conference, updating the numbers on supply, demand, peak and the current outlook for oil and gas.

[Part 1 of a series of reports from the 2009 ASPO Peak Oil Conference.]

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And now for something completely different…

I had the honor of speaking at the Rothbury Festival over July 4th weekend, and have been meaning to write up some thoughts and observations about it. After several weeks’ delay, here they are.
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For this week’s Energy and Capital, I argue that instead of forming climate policy around what comes out of the smokestacks and tailpipes, we should be focusing on what we put into the engines and encouraging renewable energy with incentives like feed-in tariffs.
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Posting an excellent paper with lots of interesting graphs from Prof. Charles Hall, net energy (EROI) guru, and his graduate students on the declining net energy of primary fuels and the economic vulnerability of the US. This is crucially important stuff that is still not properly recognized in energy policy or economic theory. “Peak Oil, EROI, Investments and the Economy in an Uncertain Future”

A related post by Hall’s graduate student (and all around great guy) David Murphy on The Oil Drum this week is also worth a read: “The Net Hubbert Curve: What Does It Mean?“

For my Energy and Capital article this week, I deconstruct the inflation/deflation debate, and conjecture that we may have reached an inflection point in economic history, where the price at which energy is high enough to sustain new production is the same price at which things become too expensive, leaving us no option but to downsize.
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For my Energy and Capital column this week, I celebrate Earth Day by finding many reasons for optimism in the wave of green initiatives sweeping the nation, but also find a market still staggering under the weight of a broken financial system.
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