I was at Coop Power’s excellent annual renewable energy summit in western Massachusetts recently. Richard Heinberg was there as a presenter. He discussed his well-regarded peak oil projections, and he then put that curve next to his peak uranium and peak coal projections. That visual drew gasps from the crowd — especially the peak coal bit.
Sure we’ve got lots of coal, but its quality ain’t what it used to be, and won’t go as far. Check his data. This got me thinking of all the indexes we might put forward to track important trends on this ever-shrinking planet.
The next one I’d promote, given our perilous reliance on the mobile hives that are driven from farm to farm to pollinate our crops, plus this winter’s mysterious honeybee population crash, would have to be peak bees. And how about peak freshwater. What would you propose?
