Corrigendum: The Mineral Question: How Energy and Technology Will Determine the Future of Mining

A concept has been mistakenly attributed to the authors of the book while it should have been attributed to the authors of an article in it. The reference of the following sentence should therefore be Valero et al., 2010 rather than Stanek et al., 2010. 'The exergy of mineral deposits can be referenced to a "zero level" state that corresponds to the average concentration of the elements of the ore in the crust.' The References change also accordingly

A Net Energy-based Analysis for a Climate-constrained Sustainable Energy Transition

The transition from a fossil-based energy economy to one based on renewable energy is driven by the double challenge of climate change and resource depletion. Building a renewable energy infrastructure requires an upfront energy investment that subtracts from the net energy available to society. This investment is determined by the need to transition to renewable energy fast enough to stave off the worst consequences of climate change and, at the same time, maintain a sufficient net energy flow to sustain the world's economy and population. We show that a feasible transition pathway requires that the rate of investment in renewable energy should accelerate approximately by an order of magnitude if we are to stay within the range of IPCC recommendations

peak oil 20 years later failed prediction or useful insight

Abstract 20 years ago, in 1998, Scientific American published a paper by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrere titled "The End of Cheap Oil" [1], starting a debate on oil depletion continuing to the present day. It was the return of a viewpoint on oil depletion which had been proposed more than 40 years before by Marion King Hubbert [2]⁠ and, in later years, largely forgotten. In their paper, Campbell and Laherrere updated Hubbert's model with new reserve estimates and proposed that the world's crude oil production would peak around 2004–2005, and then start an irreversible decline. Shortly afterward, Colin Campbell proposed the term "peak oil" for the highest global oil production level. The term was to become popular over the following decade, generating a true movement of ideas sometimes called the "peak oil movement." Today, these predictions turn out to have been only partially correct, mainly because the role of "non-conventional" oil was underestimated. The peak oil movement seems to have faded away, while the concept seems to have disappeared from the debate and to be commonly described has having been "wrong." The present paper reviews the cycle of the peak oil movement, examining how the peak oil concept was understood with the public and the decision makers and what caused its diffusion and its demise, at least up to the present time