Presentation to the American Geophysical Union fall meeting, December 17, 2015, San Francisco; Union Session on “Is Peak Oil Dead and What Does It Mean for Climate Change?” To view a video of this talk follow the instructions at...
COP21 in Paris is over. Now it’s back to the hard work of fighting for, and implementing, the energy transition. We all know that the transition away from fossil fuels is key to maintaining a livable planet. Several...
Post Carbon Fellow Michael Shuman’s report Vermont Dollars, Vermont Sense was reviewed in the November/December edition of Vermont Woman. From the article: The authors challenge trends widely accepted by Wall Street’s “globalization.” That “too big to fail” corporate economy...
The Bakken Play, located in North Dakota and Montana, is the birthplace of tight (shale) oil and in many ways the poster child of the so-called “shale revolution.” Between 2010 and 2014, oil production in North Dakota grew nearly...
In October 2014, Post Carbon Institute published the results of what likely remains the most thorough independent analysis of U.S. shale gas and tight oil production ever conducted. The process of drilling for shale gas and tight oil is...
Economic theories, though social constructions, can reflect reality to varying degrees. In the face of dire environmental challenges, adopting a realistic theory is key to the survival of global civilization. The neoliberal emphasis on limitless growth and monetary flows,...
Has Well Productivity Peaked in the Nation’s Largest Shale Gas Play? The Marcellus shale gas play of Pennsylvania and West Virginia came onto the scene in 2007 in a big way and has grown to become the nation’s...
By Joan A. Casey and Brian S. Schwartz Indoor radon levels in Pennsylvania have been slowly rising since 2004, around the time that unconventional natural gas development using hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) began in the state. In our new study...
The press has been all abuzz the past few weeks speculating on what the drop in oil prices will mean for U.S. shale oil (tight oil) production. Pundits have been falling over themselves quoting various estimates of the breakeven...
The beginning of the Blue Nile near its outlet from Lake Tana in the highlands of Ethiopia. Photo by Ondrej Zvácek/Creative Commons Earlier this month, the foreign ministers of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia reached agreement on basic principles for managing what...