We the Six Billion: The Ammonia Economy

His presentation, entitled "The Gulf of Maine: What Lies Beyond the Fossil Fuel Horizon," was billed as "describing the role that off-shore wind can play in reducing Maine's unsustainable dependence on fossil fuel based energy resources."

At the Strand he pulled no punches in describing the challenge he believes we are facing. According to Simmons, heating oil will probably not even be available in five or ten years. Not only is oil running out, but fresh water is running out too, with even more dire consequences. Then he proposed a solution: floating offshore windmills that will produce both fresh water and liquid ammonia.

I found it fantastical. I do not doubt that increasing demand for oil, combined with its limited supply, is bound to make it more expensive over time, and that Maine's dependence, especially on heating oil, is a disaster in the making. What I find incredible is the idea that we are going to solve the problem by fueling our cars and heating our homes with ammonia, and that this ammonia - let alone a significant supply of fresh water - is going to be produced by windmills in the Gulf of Maine.

Pemex Proved Reserves May Drop 2.8% This Year

(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, said proved reserves of crude-oil equivalent may drop for an 11th straight year as existing fields dry up and discoveries are smaller than expected.

Proved reserves may decline 2.8 percent to 13.9 billion barrels this year, Vinicio Suro, director of planning at Pemex’s exploration and production unit, said in a presentation on the company’s Web site. Reserves may rebound again in 2013, he said.

Pemex, as the Mexico City-based company is known, has failed to replace dwindling output of oil at its offshore Cantarell deposit, the world’s third-largest deposit when it was discovered in the 1970s.

Market cornered for rare minerals

As resource-hungry China scours the world for crude oil and natural gas supplies, it has managed to corner the global market for a group of obscure metals used to make iPods, wind farms and electric cars.

The mainland supplies at least 95 percent of the world's rare earths - 17 chemical elements with names such as praseodymium and yttrium - essential for a wide range of high-tech devices and green technologies.

China, which has long recognized the value of these metals, is tightly controlling the supply of these vital natural resources.

Richard Heinberg - Searching for a Miracle: ‘Net Energy’ Limits & the Fate of Industrial Society

Perhaps the most significant limit to future energy supplies is the “net energy” factor—the requirement that energy systems yield more energy than is invested in their construction and operation.

THIS REPORT IS INTENDED as a non-technical examination of a basic question: Can any combination of known energy sources successfully supply society’s energy needs at least up to the year 2100? In the end, we are left with the disturbing conclusion that all known energy sources are subject to strict limits of one kind or another. Conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, coal, and nuclear are either at or nearing the limits of their ability to grow in annual supply, and will dwindle as the decades proceed—but in any case they are unacceptably hazardous to the environment. And contrary to the hopes of many, there is no clear practical scenario by which we can replace the energy from today’s conventional sources with sufficient energy from alternative sources to sustain industrial society at its present scale of operations. To achieve such a transition would require (1) a vast financial investment beyond society’s practical abilities, (2) a very long time—too long in practical terms—for build-out, and (3) significant sacrifices in terms of energy quality and reliability.