IEA Report

This year's report from the International Energy Agency forecasts that the United States will surpass Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer.  This increased production seems largely due to the hydraulic fracturing of shale.  It's not clear how much of the potential will pan out or what the net energy return would be.

Of perhaps greater significance is a statement in the report that no more than one third of proven fossil fuel reserves can be consumed by 2050 if global warming is to stay below 2 degrees Celsius.  Meanwhile, carbon dioxide emissions grew by 2.5 percent in 2011.

Update (November 19):  Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed takes a critical view of fracking.

Update (November 22):  A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers concludes that staying below the 2 degree Celsius target requires 5.1 percent annual reductions in carbon emissions (relative to GDP) for the next 40 years.

Update (November 30):  Michael Klare points out that the US will be the top oil producer by default as Saudi and Russian production declines.

Update (December 3):  Robert Howarth argues that fracking will speed up climate change.

Update (April 1, 2013):  Brad Jacobson reports that shale gas production has been hyped and may not be sustainable.

Update (April 5, 2014):  Michael Klare gives examples of "carbon delirium".

Update (May 21, 2014):  Louis Sahagun reports that the U.S. Energy Information Administration has revised their estimate of the amount of recoverable oil from the Monterey Shale deposits in California.  The new estimate of 600 million barrels (about one month of U.S. consumption) is about 96 percent below a previous estimate of 13.7 billion barrels.  The Monterey formation contains two-thirds of the U.S. shale oil reserves.

Update (June 7, 2014):  IEA estimates that $48 trillion needs to be invested to meet growing energy demand by 2035.  Richard Heinberg points out that the oil industry is actually cutting back on investment because oil prices are too low to justify development of harder to reach sources.

Global Inequality

In their report Born Equal, Save the Children demonstrates that while the number of people in extreme poverty has decreased from about 2 billion to less than 1.3 billion since 1990, the income gap between the poorest and richest children has grown 35 percent.  That gap is larger than that between adults.

A child in the richest 10% of households has 35 times the effective available income of a child in the poorest 10% of households.

The distribution of poverty has changed.  In 1990, 93 percent of people in poverty lived in low income countries.  Now 70 percent live in middle income countries.  The effect is that while absolute poverty is declining, many poor people struggle with relative poverty - unable to meet their needs where they live.

Taxes and the Economy

A report by the Congressional Research Service was withdrawn from official circulation after Senate Republicans raised concerns.  What could those possibly be?

The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment and productivity growth.  The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.  However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.

Antarctic Sea Ice Grows

Climate is complex and while Antarctic sea ice has expanded slightly due to wind patterns, the net change globally is a loss of sea ice.

Update (September 19, 2014):  Antarctic sea ice extent is on track for another record year, but the growth is explained in part by melting land ice that refreezes when it reaches the ocean.

Update (October 13, 2014):  Joe Romm explains how expanding sea ice in Antarctica is a manifestation of global warming.

Update (February 26, 2017):  That growth trend in Antarctica suddenly reversed and now we see record low extent at both poles.

Relief

Update (November 4, 2018):  Ten years.

Fuel from Air

Peak oil presents a liquid fuels problem.  Transportation depends heavily on oil and nothing is in place to take on the demand.  Every once in a while, a new technology hits the news.  Air Fuel Synthesis is a company with a process that reacts hydrogen with carbon dioxide to produce gasoline.

Now, it's probably helpful to have a process to produce fuel that doesn't depend on crude oil or biomass.  And it's nice to extract some carbon dioxide from the air.  But electrolyzing hydrogen from water involves a net energy loss.  The plan calls for renewable energy to do that, but we're better off using that power more directly.  They hope to produce a ton per day in two years and don't mention any energy return on energy invested.

There seems to be a never ending quest for a silver bullet to solve intractable problems.

Update (April 3, 2013):  Research at the University of Georgia is using a modified microorganism to directly produce biofuel from atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Update (April 8, 2014):  The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has demonstrated using carbon dioxide and hydrogen from seawater to produce hydrocarbon fuel.

Update (August 1, 2016):  A study published in Science describes using a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide which is easier to further convert into hydrocarbon fuels.

Seeds of Destruction

Chrystia Freeland argues that as people start to accumulate wealth, they seek to protect their own position and transform an inclusive society of economic mobility into an extractive one where elites try to get as much as they can out of the rest of society.  She reiterates a point made by Stiglitz that growing inequality has led to lower mobility.  The super rich are confusing their own interests with the common good.