Spot on. The decline in EROEI doesn't just lead to a "simplified" society; it triggers what we might call Systemic Cannibalism.
When a complex system can no longer pay its "complexity tax" with new energy flows, it stops growing and starts eating itself. We are seeing this play out in real-time: institutions, social classes, and nations are no longer cooperating to expand the pie, but are actively fighting to liquidate each other’s assets to maintain local stability.
Well said. That’s a surprisingly rare viewpoint despite being so obvious to those that have become aware of the interconnection of energy and society. There’s a cascade effect from declining EROEI which I have written about across various articles. Without sounding forward, you’ll likely enjoy my work if you wish to check it out.
Well done, a very plausible analysis. It had to come some time, but 2026 looks like peak oil. We can only hope it augurs a rapid collapse of industrialism and a rapid decline in carbon emissions.
What's amazing to me is that stock markets have yet to react to the near certainty of global economic recession. They say that markets are "forward looking", but right now they seem to be blind. A perfect example of being "energy blind".
Marching like lemmings right off the cliff.* I'm expecting severe hardship in these waning years of my life (close to 70). I wasn't expecting retirement to be like this, but (gestures).
I would have rather we all did less well and could survive. Unfortunately, survival of the ecosystem and human civilization is in question. I fear for my kids, grandkids, and great grandkid.
There are things I've seen that they will never see because they're permanently gone. That's worth far more to me.
While true physical supply of oil has plateaued, debt based fiat currency has not. So that tells you that the equity markets are facades inflated by all these fiat currencies which have no where to go. Fake unbanked fiat currency = fake equities.
It does appear that way. I wonder if this is a product of algorithmic trading. I've been thinking about the quick responses to ceasefire news by the market and think that may be a factor.
This is excellent news. Instead of intentionally cooperating in the destruction of the planet, Trump accidentally collapsed the global economy, thus saving the planet. Way To Go MAGA!
I've suggested elsewhere that given the US president's obsession with his legacy and naming things after himself, we have the Donald J Trump Global Recession.
Stephen J Newbury demurs, saying this belief is a common misconception which misreads American intentionality. He claims "the US went into this conflict knowing exactly what effect it would have on the essential flows through Hormuz. They did it anyway, gaming that the damage would be entirely fatal to their adversaries."
Newbury suggests that Trump & Co are well aware of resource and oil depletion and are proactively seeking to both destroy the competition (Eurasia) and shore up as much as they can for the US.
This argument is quite plausible in light of 1)Tariffs, 2) Venezuela and the threats to Cuba, Greenland, Canada etc which seem deliberately aimed at creating a 'super continent of America' which hogs as many resources as possible, while bankrupting everyone else.
Thank you. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into writing these. Your posts are the only ones I read every single time one lands in my inbox.
One can't dedicate ALL their energy to research and writing--and engage in discussion too. That is, you never engage in conversations in the comments. Again, understandable. But you should recognize it makes you, unavoidable, a bit blind.
This is not true, in my experience. "Everyone admits that what we are going through is the biggest energy crisis in history, yet western governments, the media and heads of corporations act as if nothing’s happening."
I don't believe that's what most people believe, which you point out yourself in the essay. We believe it will "go away in a few months".
Even if it doesn't most people don't care. Why? The more you talk to people the more you'd understand that aspect of it.
So I read the article, took an hour, very dense but well-written. It was mildly depressing, with many many caveats. Can't vouch for the calculus, been a while, I'm 85, BS Physics. But the real punch in the mental gut was the lead sentence in the conclusion: "This is the optimistic scenario." Thanks, I think...
A terrific paper. I was excited to find this declaration about being able to distinguish between conventional and biophysical economics:
"The neoclassical model predicts that crack spreads normalize within 6–12 months as supply chains adapt and substitution occurs. The biophysical model has an equally clear prediction: crack spreads remain elevated because the substitution is hardware-constrained and cannot occur on that timescale. These predictions are mutually exclusive and empirically distinguishable."
I have a long-running debate with an economics instructor about the limits to growth. Maybe this will become a counter-example to "substitution" and unlimited human resourcefulness.
Thanks, sorcerer. I'm not an economics theorist or financial pundit. I honestly have a hard time understanding certain financial concepts because my mind doesn't move in those directions. I don't want to smash someone economically or triumph in a skewed, corrupt market.
However, I have "forecasted" for myself so that I can prepared financially and make certain decisions in my life. E.g., I've decided to move ahead with certain household items I put on hold because I don't see those items returning in the near future once they're gone.
I saw the effects of the Covid shutdown quite clearly. Many supply routes never returned. The shelves in many stores were never stocked again to their full capacity. I.e., pull the front items off the shelves and nothing is behind them. Selection became more limited and of cheaper quality. Stores like Costco recovered offering new items, but I suspect their reach provides them opportunities most stores don't get.
I've noticed a marked deterioration of produce in Whole Food store. Markedly so. I no longer trust their produce.
From a simple consumer POV, I can well predict that what returns after this war will be meager and meager for years. My one hope is that local artisans and growers step up to fill new gap. I'm hoping more supply by more local routes.
The items needed in homes, once they return, will be cheaper than ever. Some won't be worth owning. I bought three lined flannel shirts for this last winter, and only one is worth keeping because the other two--made in China--were so poorly sewn. I'm buying now and won't be buying in future years. I'm on a limited retirement income and must make each purchase count.
"My one hope is that local artisans and growers step up to fill new gap. I'm hoping more supply by more local routes."
I built an online farmers market from scratch starting in 2021. Right now it works anywhere in the US (location by zip code). Doing what I can to fill this need of re-localizing food. Check it out at farmor dot org.
Looks great, Gary! I created an account, but when I tried to log in, it said it "could not create a session." Let me know, please, what I'm doing wrong. Thanks! (P.S. When the email verification showed up in my mail, it was an http address which I copied into a browser window and which Farmor said was verified.)
Western culture is based on debt, greed and corruption. No thought of impact on the killing of innocents, the degradation of our planet, the loot and shoot to grab resources .And now we have AI and quantum compute to force the peasants to a life of slavery , while our assets are stripped. Reality has arrived to slap us in the face. Hard.
Amish culture is based on strong community, independent of energy, electronics and fuel. And they survive. They work the land, focus on trades that support their community needs and they trade their ego for humility.
When Jesus walked the earth, he wasn't a politician , a banker, an arms dealer . He was a teacher , a healer and sacrificed his life for us, too stupid to rip the veil of delusion from our face, our brain, our mind.
Interesting to see the '73 embargo given so much weight in "kickstarting" the industrial decline of the West. As tidy narratives go, I like it.
So whose brilliant idea was it to put the "Holy Land" in the same region as all these crucial resources, along with multiple narrow shipping chokepoints? That's a tidy story too!
I called this timeline months ago. June and July 2026. I said it when there was no data to support it. I said it when people thought I was wrong. I said it when even the AI systems I work with told me I was getting ahead of the evidence. I said it because I could see the convergence coming through my training in systems analysis and because something deeper than data was telling me the timeline was right.
Now the data is here. And it confirms everything.
I have run this research across four separate large language models. I have cross-referenced every claim against the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the International Energy Agency, Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Fortune, the Associated Press, Reuters, PBS, CNN, and the United Nations. I have verified the expert assessments from Carlyle Group, Rystad Energy, Shell, Chevron, and the EIA administrator himself.
What I am about to show you is not speculation. It is not opinion. It is the documented, sourced, verified trajectory of the global oil supply as it exists right now, on May 8, 2026.
I read the article and there's no objection: previous crises linked to various oil shocks have had long-term effects, and this latest war will only metaphorically add salt to the wound. It remains to be seen when this current one will end, given that the drums of war are already beating. A small note: there are some little-known aspects of previous oil crises that are not known to the general public, and some information can be found in Eric Laurent's book "La face cachee du petrole," published by Plon in 2006. P.S.: the financial aspect must also be considered, given the current situation and the debt crisis of various countries...
This post is along the lines of what I was envisioning for my next post, "Not Your Grandpappy's Oil Crisis, Part II - only much, much better than I could have done. A must read!
I've been wishing for years that humanity could figure out a way to do a managed decline that minimized pain but simultaneously being hugely skeptical that we have that capacity. It seemed/seems way more likely that we would have to push to collapse and then deal with it. It seems like the latter is happening so now my question to myself is, "is this a net gain?". Obviously a huge question to which I don't know the answer but I'm curious for other's take on this.
My 2 cents: Ultimately, the only potential survivors of climate change are going to be isolated, tight-knit traditional cultures, like Pacific islanders. A worst-case oil disruption could be a positive if it further isolates those people and gets them extra focused on primitive self-sufficiency. The more lead time for those people the better. In the meantime, I picture nothing good happening amongst the huddled masses on the continents. The most merciful population drawdown there is a pandemic supervirus.
To that, i would add the other question that's been floating around in my head lately which is how do we make decisions about acting on behalf of currently existing lives versus future potential lives? (including human and non-human)
This is a credible analysis in my opinion. It doesn't overstate things, it simply points to today's situation and how it compares to past oil disruptions. That the current situation looks extremely bad by comparison is the inescapable conclusion.
Spot on. The decline in EROEI doesn't just lead to a "simplified" society; it triggers what we might call Systemic Cannibalism.
When a complex system can no longer pay its "complexity tax" with new energy flows, it stops growing and starts eating itself. We are seeing this play out in real-time: institutions, social classes, and nations are no longer cooperating to expand the pie, but are actively fighting to liquidate each other’s assets to maintain local stability.
Well said. That’s a surprisingly rare viewpoint despite being so obvious to those that have become aware of the interconnection of energy and society. There’s a cascade effect from declining EROEI which I have written about across various articles. Without sounding forward, you’ll likely enjoy my work if you wish to check it out.
The red Queen 🫅 race morphs into a fight! We will plunder the wildlife and coal and wood 🪵 to extinction and no one will give a fuck.
I will give a fuck, but there really isn't a fucking thing I can do about it.
Sure you can. Dig the holes ahead of time and when the Evils come around, fill the holes and start composting for nature...
Well done, a very plausible analysis. It had to come some time, but 2026 looks like peak oil. We can only hope it augurs a rapid collapse of industrialism and a rapid decline in carbon emissions.
What's amazing to me is that stock markets have yet to react to the near certainty of global economic recession. They say that markets are "forward looking", but right now they seem to be blind. A perfect example of being "energy blind".
Marching like lemmings right off the cliff.* I'm expecting severe hardship in these waning years of my life (close to 70). I wasn't expecting retirement to be like this, but (gestures).
*Which they really don't do, but...
70 of the most luxurious years of humanity, I think you came out on top.
I would have rather we all did less well and could survive. Unfortunately, survival of the ecosystem and human civilization is in question. I fear for my kids, grandkids, and great grandkid.
There are things I've seen that they will never see because they're permanently gone. That's worth far more to me.
In typical human fashion, we accuse lemmings of our own failings.
The stern of the Titanic reaching record highs was not a good sign. All I can think of watching this stock market .
While true physical supply of oil has plateaued, debt based fiat currency has not. So that tells you that the equity markets are facades inflated by all these fiat currencies which have no where to go. Fake unbanked fiat currency = fake equities.
It does appear that way. I wonder if this is a product of algorithmic trading. I've been thinking about the quick responses to ceasefire news by the market and think that may be a factor.
Algorithmic trading? How about insider trading based on Taco?
This is excellent news. Instead of intentionally cooperating in the destruction of the planet, Trump accidentally collapsed the global economy, thus saving the planet. Way To Go MAGA!
I've suggested elsewhere that given the US president's obsession with his legacy and naming things after himself, we have the Donald J Trump Global Recession.
Stephen J Newbury demurs, saying this belief is a common misconception which misreads American intentionality. He claims "the US went into this conflict knowing exactly what effect it would have on the essential flows through Hormuz. They did it anyway, gaming that the damage would be entirely fatal to their adversaries."
Newbury suggests that Trump & Co are well aware of resource and oil depletion and are proactively seeking to both destroy the competition (Eurasia) and shore up as much as they can for the US.
This argument is quite plausible in light of 1)Tariffs, 2) Venezuela and the threats to Cuba, Greenland, Canada etc which seem deliberately aimed at creating a 'super continent of America' which hogs as many resources as possible, while bankrupting everyone else.
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-brittle-fracture-arrives-why?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=7011593&post_id=196647956&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1byuzq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Thank you. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into writing these. Your posts are the only ones I read every single time one lands in my inbox.
One can't dedicate ALL their energy to research and writing--and engage in discussion too. That is, you never engage in conversations in the comments. Again, understandable. But you should recognize it makes you, unavoidable, a bit blind.
This is not true, in my experience. "Everyone admits that what we are going through is the biggest energy crisis in history, yet western governments, the media and heads of corporations act as if nothing’s happening."
I don't believe that's what most people believe, which you point out yourself in the essay. We believe it will "go away in a few months".
Even if it doesn't most people don't care. Why? The more you talk to people the more you'd understand that aspect of it.
You might be interested in this by John Peach, a key member of the Peak Oil Facebook group I am a member of:
https://www.wildpeaches.xyz/blog/2026-04-30-hormuz-closure
So I read the article, took an hour, very dense but well-written. It was mildly depressing, with many many caveats. Can't vouch for the calculus, been a while, I'm 85, BS Physics. But the real punch in the mental gut was the lead sentence in the conclusion: "This is the optimistic scenario." Thanks, I think...
A terrific paper. I was excited to find this declaration about being able to distinguish between conventional and biophysical economics:
"The neoclassical model predicts that crack spreads normalize within 6–12 months as supply chains adapt and substitution occurs. The biophysical model has an equally clear prediction: crack spreads remain elevated because the substitution is hardware-constrained and cannot occur on that timescale. These predictions are mutually exclusive and empirically distinguishable."
I have a long-running debate with an economics instructor about the limits to growth. Maybe this will become a counter-example to "substitution" and unlimited human resourcefulness.
Thanks, sorcerer. I'm not an economics theorist or financial pundit. I honestly have a hard time understanding certain financial concepts because my mind doesn't move in those directions. I don't want to smash someone economically or triumph in a skewed, corrupt market.
However, I have "forecasted" for myself so that I can prepared financially and make certain decisions in my life. E.g., I've decided to move ahead with certain household items I put on hold because I don't see those items returning in the near future once they're gone.
I saw the effects of the Covid shutdown quite clearly. Many supply routes never returned. The shelves in many stores were never stocked again to their full capacity. I.e., pull the front items off the shelves and nothing is behind them. Selection became more limited and of cheaper quality. Stores like Costco recovered offering new items, but I suspect their reach provides them opportunities most stores don't get.
I've noticed a marked deterioration of produce in Whole Food store. Markedly so. I no longer trust their produce.
From a simple consumer POV, I can well predict that what returns after this war will be meager and meager for years. My one hope is that local artisans and growers step up to fill new gap. I'm hoping more supply by more local routes.
The items needed in homes, once they return, will be cheaper than ever. Some won't be worth owning. I bought three lined flannel shirts for this last winter, and only one is worth keeping because the other two--made in China--were so poorly sewn. I'm buying now and won't be buying in future years. I'm on a limited retirement income and must make each purchase count.
"My one hope is that local artisans and growers step up to fill new gap. I'm hoping more supply by more local routes."
I built an online farmers market from scratch starting in 2021. Right now it works anywhere in the US (location by zip code). Doing what I can to fill this need of re-localizing food. Check it out at farmor dot org.
Looks great, Gary! I created an account, but when I tried to log in, it said it "could not create a session." Let me know, please, what I'm doing wrong. Thanks! (P.S. When the email verification showed up in my mail, it was an http address which I copied into a browser window and which Farmor said was verified.)
Go to the thrift stores. Loads of good quality clothing for practically nothing.
Western culture is based on debt, greed and corruption. No thought of impact on the killing of innocents, the degradation of our planet, the loot and shoot to grab resources .And now we have AI and quantum compute to force the peasants to a life of slavery , while our assets are stripped. Reality has arrived to slap us in the face. Hard.
Amish culture is based on strong community, independent of energy, electronics and fuel. And they survive. They work the land, focus on trades that support their community needs and they trade their ego for humility.
When Jesus walked the earth, he wasn't a politician , a banker, an arms dealer . He was a teacher , a healer and sacrificed his life for us, too stupid to rip the veil of delusion from our face, our brain, our mind.
Slap. Slap. Slap.....
Interesting to see the '73 embargo given so much weight in "kickstarting" the industrial decline of the West. As tidy narratives go, I like it.
So whose brilliant idea was it to put the "Holy Land" in the same region as all these crucial resources, along with multiple narrow shipping chokepoints? That's a tidy story too!
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/eight-weeks-to-empty-shelves-sixty-days-to-famine-what-caused-it-and-what-you-need-to-do-immediately
I called this timeline months ago. June and July 2026. I said it when there was no data to support it. I said it when people thought I was wrong. I said it when even the AI systems I work with told me I was getting ahead of the evidence. I said it because I could see the convergence coming through my training in systems analysis and because something deeper than data was telling me the timeline was right.
Now the data is here. And it confirms everything.
I have run this research across four separate large language models. I have cross-referenced every claim against the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the International Energy Agency, Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Fortune, the Associated Press, Reuters, PBS, CNN, and the United Nations. I have verified the expert assessments from Carlyle Group, Rystad Energy, Shell, Chevron, and the EIA administrator himself.
What I am about to show you is not speculation. It is not opinion. It is the documented, sourced, verified trajectory of the global oil supply as it exists right now, on May 8, 2026.
Found this article on the substack of Mark A. Shryock. Red, is that you?
I read the article and there's no objection: previous crises linked to various oil shocks have had long-term effects, and this latest war will only metaphorically add salt to the wound. It remains to be seen when this current one will end, given that the drums of war are already beating. A small note: there are some little-known aspects of previous oil crises that are not known to the general public, and some information can be found in Eric Laurent's book "La face cachee du petrole," published by Plon in 2006. P.S.: the financial aspect must also be considered, given the current situation and the debt crisis of various countries...
This post is along the lines of what I was envisioning for my next post, "Not Your Grandpappy's Oil Crisis, Part II - only much, much better than I could have done. A must read!
The refusal to acknowledge that ANYTHING IS HAPPENING or could go wrong is a lot puzzling and scary to me
In 1973, we didn't panic, but we surely did not pretend it was not happening
I've been wishing for years that humanity could figure out a way to do a managed decline that minimized pain but simultaneously being hugely skeptical that we have that capacity. It seemed/seems way more likely that we would have to push to collapse and then deal with it. It seems like the latter is happening so now my question to myself is, "is this a net gain?". Obviously a huge question to which I don't know the answer but I'm curious for other's take on this.
My 2 cents: Ultimately, the only potential survivors of climate change are going to be isolated, tight-knit traditional cultures, like Pacific islanders. A worst-case oil disruption could be a positive if it further isolates those people and gets them extra focused on primitive self-sufficiency. The more lead time for those people the better. In the meantime, I picture nothing good happening amongst the huddled masses on the continents. The most merciful population drawdown there is a pandemic supervirus.
To that, i would add the other question that's been floating around in my head lately which is how do we make decisions about acting on behalf of currently existing lives versus future potential lives? (including human and non-human)
This is a credible analysis in my opinion. It doesn't overstate things, it simply points to today's situation and how it compares to past oil disruptions. That the current situation looks extremely bad by comparison is the inescapable conclusion.
I'm curious if you've seen this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTJGr78-zyw
One man's idea of how the Iran war fits into the MUCH bigger picture. Fascincating!