MuseLetter #398 / May 2026 by Richard Heinberg Download Printable PDF Version Small Modular Nuclear Reactors are a Dead End The nuclear power industry is currently promoting designs for small modular reactors (SMRs) that will supposedly be cheaper, safer, and faster to build than older nuclear power plants. Bill Gates and Amazon are investing in […]

MuseLetter #397 / April 2026 by Richard Heinberg Download Printable PDF Version The 2026 Energy Crisis and Our Wile E. Coyote Moment Pop culture has long memorialized the Warner Brothers cartoon gag in which Wile E. Coyote, lured by his nemesis, the Roadrunner, races off a cliff. Instead of immediately falling, Coyote keeps running, then […]

MuseLetter #396 / March 2026 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The Future of Forests Our species’ origin and destiny are entangled with the roots and branches of trees. We evolved in and around trees, and we’ve learned to breed and plant them for their fruit, nuts, wood, and blossoms, taking their seeds with […]

MuseLetter #395 / February 2026 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version The Empire Crumbles: Part I—The Big Picture In the wee hours of Monday, January 19, US president Donald Trump sent a now-infamous text message to the prime minister of Norway (full text and analysis here): “Considering your Country decided not to give me […]

MuseLetter #394 / January 2026 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Nourishing the Bioregional Economy: Essential Resources In a recent article I summarized arguments for reversing the trend toward globalization of economies and cultures, aiming instead for the flourishing of communities rooted in their bioregions (i.e., regions defined by characteristics of the natural environment rather […]

MuseLetter #393 / December 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Electricity Price Squeeze: Something’s Going to Give Using current economic trends to predict the future can be misleading, since all trends are subject to limits and countertrends. In this article, I’ll apply that truism to a trend that a lot of people are […]

MuseLetter #392 / November 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version What Futures Are Possible? People have been forecasting the future for as long as they’ve had language. Premodern ideas of what’s to come often featured either a catastrophic end of the world or an eventual paradisiacal condition of peace and plenty. This was true both […]

MuseLetter #391 / October 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Gratitude in the Great Unraveling Here’s a paradox. On one hand, terrible things are happening. Earth’s climate system is being destabilized, the oceans are turning acidic, wild animals are disappearing, economic inequality is soaring, politics are becoming more polarized and democracies more dysfunctional, […]

MuseLetter #390 / September 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Seven Questions and Answers for a New Generation Gen Z is a generation born into a world full of anxieties—from school shootings to climate Armageddon, to a pandemic and political violence. But I’m here to give you one more thing to worry about! […]

MuseLetter #389 / August 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version Lately I’ve been reading Andrew Schelling’s Tracks Along the Left Coast, a biography of linguist, anthropologist, and anarchist Jaime de Angulo (1887-1950). De Angulo was a character worth knowing about. His affluent Spanish parents gave him a civilized upbringing in fashionable Paris; nevertheless, he had a wild […]

MuseLetter #388 / July 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version In the course of human events there are times when everyone seems determined to pick sides and brawl. A prime example was the First World War: over a dozen countries divided into two camps—the Allied Powers and the Central Powers—and fought for four […]

MuseLetter #387 / June 2025 by Richard Heinberg Download printable PDF version AI Utopia, AI Apocalypse, and AI Reality Recent articles and books about artificial intelligence (AI) offer images of the future that align like iron filings around two magnetic poles—utopia and apocalypse. On one hand, AI is said to be leading us toward a […]