The case is made that the global economy, which has been propelled over the 20th century by cheap oil, is about to get a nasty slap in the face. The day of cheap oil is over. We are drilling through thousands of metres of sea water and bedrock to get at the stuff, and boiling it out of the frozen, mucky sand of northern Alberta. The effort has signs of desperation written all over it. Ah, but what about technology? We can find better ways to burn oil, invent more efficient vehicles and develop less costly ways to heat our homes.
Technology will save us, won't it? Not according to Rubin, who argues that all of the impressive gains in efficiency over the past 50 years have done nothing to reduce overall consumption.
All they have done is to reduce the cost to consumers, thus encouraging even larger homes and vehicles. Yet Rubin's talk of peak oil and depleting supply isn't really new.
In some ways, most of this book has been written dozens of times already. No serious economist would deny the premise of "peak oil" or, at the very least, that "plateau oil" is upon us, save for the vested interests in the energy patch with share prices to protect. The book's more valuable contribution is in the description of how the depletion of cheap energy will make our world smaller.
Actually, I think he's got the analogy wrong; rather than getting smaller, our world is about to get much, much bigger. China will seem much further away. Grapes imported all the way from Chile will be an extravagance. If globalization made the world smaller, costly oil is about to make it bigger once again. But this is a quibble. Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller is a powerful and provocative book that explores what the new global economy will look like and what it will mean for all of us.
In a compelling and accessible style, Jeff Rubin reveals that despite the recent recessionary dip, oil prices will skyrocket again once the economy recovers. The fact is, worldwide oil reserves are disappearing for good. Consequently, the amount of food and other goods we get from abroad will be curtailed; long-distance driving will become a luxury and international travel rare.
Globalization as we know it will reverse. The near future will be a time that, in its physical limits, may resemble the distant past. Can you tell my mind is sort of blown? Jan 02, Terry rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction. We can pretty much say that by oil resources will be exhausted - where will the massive and growing energy inputs come from that are needed to drive global activity, outputs and civilization?
How can exponential economic growth be sustained? Why is economic theory moving us more rapidly towards collapse and, at worst, extinction? One critical point the book thus fails to raise - is that when the transitions and pain of depleting oil and other energy resources becomes more profound, then hist We can pretty much say that by oil resources will be exhausted - where will the massive and growing energy inputs come from that are needed to drive global activity, outputs and civilization?
One critical point the book thus fails to raise - is that when the transitions and pain of depleting oil and other energy resources becomes more profound, then history will naturally repeat itself with wars, strife, unrest, mass migrations and more.
However, before the global system ultimately collapses from exhaustion - one should sadly expect one final war to have its grim say in global matters. And there is no-one to blame, as we are just playing into the hands of applied universal and mathematical laws - entropy and exponents. Jan 13, Nigel Shaw rated it really liked it Shelves: books-i-own.
Excellent introduction to the concept of "peak oil" and an interesting exploration of some of the potential consequences of the end of cheap oil. Having said that it is speculative in that it presupposes no replacement sources of energy that would reduce the economic impact. This book was written in and in the medium term oil prices have not conformed to his expectations. Perhaps they will during the 's. Nov 19, Tejashwi Sharan rated it it was amazing.
Economist Jeff Rubin, explained how oil is the prime factor for running global economy. Every price tag you see, oil has made its mark. Due to cheap oil globalization attained a such a celebrating status.
Nov 04, Gary Walters rated it it was amazing. Jun 16, Dave added it. Loved this book as it helped me understand globalization, energy, and what the future might hold! Feb 24, Lyndi McDonald rated it liked it. Interesting discussion on the results of Climate Change. Unfortunately the book was written in and is sadly out of date. Jul 02, Yasir Khan rated it really liked it. This book has been eye opening but I must admit it was too long and dry to read.
Mar 14, Guy rated it liked it Shelves: economics. An engaging and entertaining book that suffers from repetition and some poorly thought out arguments, particularly in its second half, which feels a little gadfly-ish. Rubin does a good job of making some very complex issues the economic implications of peak oil pretty clear and overall achieves what he sets out to do, which is prove why localization rather than globalization is going to be the buzzword of the next generation.
I particularly liked his summary of the evidence in favor of the pe An engaging and entertaining book that suffers from repetition and some poorly thought out arguments, particularly in its second half, which feels a little gadfly-ish. The frequent repetition of points was a little irritating, but not as much as I would have expected because he writes in a breezy and informal style rather than pedantic schoolmasterly tones.
Nevertheless the book would have greatly benefitted from a clearer structure and some rigorous editing. Much more problematic were the fair number of occasions in which Rubin's logic was faulty even though oddly enough usually his conclusions were correct. To take just one of many examples: on p. Firstly, this is a misunderstanding of the key advance that has permitted just-in-time inventories -- namely, supply chain optimization due to vastly improved predictability of production needs as a result of extensive use of integrated logistics software i.
Despite this, Rubin is probably right that just-in-time inventories are going to disappear Companies got a taste of the downside on minimal inventories when the recent recession shut down trade-financing and thus trade overnight And that's what is going to reverse the past couple of decades of supply chain optimization, not higher transport costs. And then there are the times his conclusions are wrong Most of the time he's right.
So, in sum, the book is worth your time if you want to understand the economic implications of peak oil. There's a better book to be written about the subject, but if it exists, I haven't come across it yet. Jul 05, Waco Sinker rated it really liked it Shelves: energy. This book is about oil depletion and its economic repercussions.
The First Hydrocarbon Age is already in the books. We just mostly don't appreciate that fact, yet. Useful energy. I This book is about oil depletion and its economic repercussions. It's something the modern world has had in spades ever since oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in the s. Incredibly energy dense, incredibly versatile in economic application, and stupefyingly abundant, oil is an amazing substance that you and I can scarcely live without. Think this is not so?
Look around you now. Oil and oil energy is embedded in so much of what you see. Food, transportation, medicine, communication, entertainment, you name it and it's history is predicated on energy from hydrocarbons. No, corrects Ruben. Predicated on cheap energy from hydrocarbons. For Ruben, and many of his contemporaries, peak oil is primarily an economic phenomena. The price point of oil, not geology by itself, is determinative.
Because there is still a gobsmacking lot of oil in the ground. The problem is increasingly that this oil is hard to get at and it is, more often than not, low quality oil, stuff a previous generation of oilmen would have scoffed at. In the first century-and-a-half of oil, the oil industry quite logically went after the high quality and easy to get. Stick a straw in Texas and up came the bubbling crude. For a single barrel of oil energy invested in the ground a wildcatter could reasonably expect to get upwards of 80 barrels of oil in return.
But oil is a finite resource. Oil fields peak. Oil exporting countries peak and become oil importers. Or, as with Saudi Arabia, their own oil consumption needs grow so quickly that domestic production of oil trumps oil exports. Today the world needs about 85 million barrels of oil a day just to keep the global economy churning and it's thirst for oil continues to grow each year.
Rubens draws on years of experience in energy as chief investment analyst to one of Canada's biggest banks to tell stories that illustrate how the modern oil industry works to move, if not quite heaven, then certainly a lot of earth to try and keep up with demand. And it can and it does but at a steeper and steeper market price, and environmental price. Ruben addresses climate change as well. And as the cost of bunker-fueled transport continues to climb, there goes the Norwegian salmon market in N.
America, and, all that it portends for globalization. If you've never read a book on peak oil, if you have but want a more accessible and optimistic take than books like J. The takeaway. The world is not running out of oil. It is running out of oil it can afford to burn. Jul 04, Julie rated it really liked it Shelves: business-and-society.
Rubin's book is all about one thing: oil. More importantly, it presents the argument that we're running out of oil, and that's going to have far-ranging consequences. The oil shocks of , Rubin argues, weren't a blip but the new reality, and the only reason oil prices have come down recently is because of the recession.
As soon as the economy pi Rubin's book is all about one thing: oil. As soon as the economy picks up, so too will oil prices, and we'll be back where we started. The consequences of higher oil prices are going to be far-reaching.
For one thing, people will drive less and live closer together. Food will become more expensive. Transportation costs, especially for trans-oceanic transportation, are going to become prohibitive, leading to more domestic manufacturing jobs and less imported Chinese goods. Rubin argues that as oil prices rise, globalization will naturally erode, causing the world to become "smaller" and more local.
I think Rubin makes a particularly compelling case, but he ignores one key area: war. Already we've seen the U. I don't think it's a far stretch to assume that as oil becomes ever more expensive, as demand rises and supply shrinks or at least stagnates , countries are going to start grasping at the last pieces of the pie. Historically, as food prices rise, there are revolts, uprisings, and wars. Rubin's imagined future, harsh as it is, doesn't even begin to cover this aspect of human conflict.
Otherwise, though, I think this is a prescient book. I can see the next ten years or so being very much as Rubin describes them. For those who have never heard of "peak oil" before, or who are unconvinced, this is a well-written, well-researched book on the subject, and I recommend it.
Jul 28, Mike Smith rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction. This book is about the coming oil shortage, a phenomenon known as peak oil. The issue, as author Rubin makes clear, is not that we will run out of oil anytime soon, but that oil will become more and more expensive as supply fails to match demand. This book is a bit dry, with a lot of figures trotted out, percentages and prices of this and that rising and falling as peak oil plays out.
It would have benefitted from some charts or diagrams to illustrate the predicted trends. The book covers pretty This book is about the coming oil shortage, a phenomenon known as peak oil. The book covers pretty much the same ground as Kunstler's "The Long Emergency", but is not nearly as gloating or strident.
Rubin agrees with Kunstler that major changes are coming to the way we live, but glosses over the hardship of the transition phase from then to now. Rubin discusses the effect of rising oil prices on transportation, global trade, food production, global warming burning less oil leads to fewer carbon dioxide emissions; a good thing from a global warming perspective , and suburban living arrangements. The book has endnotes to back up some of the figures given, but they are not extensive.
If you're a peak oil believer, there's not much new here. If you haven't heard of peak oil before, this is not a bad book to introduce the topic, although you might be better off with Thomas Homer-Dixon's "The Upside of Down". Oct 26, Muneeb rated it really liked it Shelves: economics-fin. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here. I've been interested by the concept of peak oil for a while now. I had heard of this book before n I found this by luck in the University Library.
This book was a very thought-provoking book. The author shows us how the current world came to all because of cheap oil, from the place which was designed when prices of oil were around 25cents to the suburban sprawls which were all possible because it was cheaper to live outside n commute daily. It talked about how and where the world will change when I've been interested by the concept of peak oil for a while now. It talked about how and where the world will change when the era of cheap oil is over and the triple digit oil is common place.
Our relationship with black oil is a very old one and we should start thinking of alternatives for the time when oil becomes a luxury. I would suggest this book to residents of the OPEC region.
The world will be a very different place when the current energy center moves to some other place. Aug 07, Cyrus Shahriari rated it liked it. In hindsight, I downgraded my rating from It appears Jeff Rubin was wrong in his predictions at least in the medium term.
My original review is included below: To some readers, Jeff Rubin may sound like an Alarmist concerning the world's rising energy costs, especially the price of oil. In this book, he makes the case that "oil prices, not delinquent subprime mortgages, are what brought down the global economy," Page In fact, one can notice a spike in Brent barrel petroleum spot prices In hindsight, I downgraded my rating from In fact, one can notice a spike in Brent barrel petroleum spot prices in the summer of several months before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15 of that year.
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