This is the cleft stick within today’s global energy supply: too little ‘cheap energy’ to enable economic growth, too low a return on capital to allow investment in higher production. A few weeks ago tremors rocked the world of ‘fracking’ in the USA – though few heard them. The US Energy Information Agency (USEIA) had issued its latest Monthly Drilling Report and the news was not good. It wasn’t simply the economic failure of fracking (covered in The Ecologist last December ) and the subsequent collapse in drilling ( covered in January ). The news from the USEIA was far more grim for those who understood its deeper meaning. Their press release was very matter-of-fact: “EIA’s most recent Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) indicates a change in the crude oil production growth patterns in three key oil producing regions… The DPR estimates include the first projected declines in crude oil […]