Peak oil – Apr 16

April 15, 2006

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage


100 years of oil?

Chris Vernon, The Oil Drum (UK)
Spending as much time reading, writing and talking about peak oil and energy as many of us here do I think it’s sometimes easy to forget just how small a minority we actually are.

Monday and Tuesday this week I was at the Royal Society in London for their conference Energy… for the future. I had high hopes for this event, expecting it to stimulate a forward looking, rigorous debate between internationally renowned scientific experts addressing the fundamental challenges ahead.

I was wrong.

Despite the description published before the event including this sentence:

This is timely as we face the global challenges of addressing climate change, providing a secure and reliable supply of energy and the depletion of oil.

Oil depletion was mentioned a grand total of three times over two days – twice by myself in questions from the floor and once in a slide suggesting there’s enough oil for another 100 years.
(15 April 2006)


Jakob von Uexkull speaks about the World Future Council

Henri Laupmaa, Greengate news
The founder of the the Right Livelihood Award gave a speech in Estonian Academy of Sciences. Among other global issues he touched upon he marked the following: “Then we get again something that Club of Rome warned about thirty years ago in their “Limits of Growth” – oil. The so called peak oil scenario – not that we ran out of it but that after two-three years it becomes scarcer and scarcer resource with ever increasing prices. And our whole civilization is built not on oil but cheap oil. Suddenly this again has become conventional wisdom.”

Jakob von Uexkull is a remarkable man. And a remarkably presistent man. When he approached the Nobel comission in 1979 and proposed to fund two additional prizes – for ecology and engaged activism in developing countries he was turned down. So he sold his rare stamp collection and set up his own prize “The Right Livelihood Award” which has over time become so well established that its ceremony is now held in Parlament of Sweden and it is known around the world as the alternative Nobel prize. It has granted kind of diplomatic immunity to its recepients and opened prison doors for some. In 1993 he set up the Estonian Renaissance Award. Now he is up to much larger task of setting up a World Future Council – a voice which will speak up on behalf of the future generations.

What is the institution proposed and what’s the state of the world which calls for it? To find that out dear reader … you have to listen to him yourself.

The film recording of the speech is up at Google video:
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2880028612525875603&q=Uexkull&pl=true
Description:

A speech in Estonian Academy of Sciences made in March 22, 2006. The event was hosted by UNESCO. Introduction given by … >all » Toomas Tiivel. Jakob von Uexkull is the founder of the Right Livelihood Awards known as alternative Nobel prize and the Estonian Renaissance award. This is part I of the speech, second part contains Q&A session.

Right Livelihood Awards: www.rightlivelihood.org/

“May the North find a wisdom to match its science, and the South to find a science to match its ancient wisdom.” – Jakob von Uexkull
(15 April 2006)
Uexkull addresses political problems and solutions for climate change and peak oil, from a European point of view. Starts off a little slow, but I found it worthwhile.

I was able to reach the video, but not the original article (site overloaded?). -BA


Michigan energy fair June 16-18

Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association
Join us for the Michigan Energy Fair June 16-18, 2006. The Fair will be held at the Manistee County Fairgrounds in Onekama, Michigan. …

The Fairgrounds will host an enormous gathering, bringing people together around renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable living. Exhibitors and vendors will be on hand to display energy technologies. Educational workshops will be held on a wide variety of topics including green building, solar architecture, small wind systems, energy efficiency upgrades, alternative fuel vehicles, and much more. Live music and local foods will also be featured.

Join GLREA as we bring together energy experts, vendors, companies to educate the public about solutions to our energy future. Learn how businesses in Michigan and elsewhere are offering products and services that help save money, build energy security, independence, and benefit the environment. Dozens of booths will offer education and will connect participants with information and services concerning energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainable technologies.

…The 2006 Michigan Energy Fair is brought to you by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association in partnership with the Energy Fair Coordinating Committee, a collective of over 40 state and local agencies, businesses, non-profit organizations, and interested citizens of Northwestern Michigan.
(April 2006)


Petrocollapse conference in Washington DC May 6

Petrocollapse.org and CultureChange
A conference on the effects of peak oil and the growing global energy crisis will take place in Washington, DC on May 6th at the All Souls Church, Unitarian from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. Speakers include peak-oil author Richard Heinberg.

Conference organizer and speaker Jan Lundberg is a former oil industry analyst who ran the market research firm Lundberg Survey. Lundberg, who quit serving the oil industry so he could put his knowledge to use to protect the environment, says “M. King Hubbert, who developed the theory of peak oil, observed that we do not have an energy crisis but rather a culture crisis. This fits with the theme of the Washington DC Petrocollapse Conference that there is no technofix for our energy dilemma. Society will have to bring about a closer level of community and rediscover what local economics are about.”

The May 6th conference will feature Richard Heinberg, the most-read peak oil author (The Party’s Over, and Powerdown). Films and music will be also offered as part of a varied program to stimulate discussion and action by attendees. Heinberg and Lundberg and others will perform music including oil-satire songs. Films will include premiers of “Our Synthetic Sea” (plastics pollution in oceans) and “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.”

Lundberg says the Petrocollapse Conference asks, “What we can do in advance of the social upheaval and chaos that may produce a ‘national New Orleans,’ to prepare or mitigate? What will the future look like during and after a transition to non-petroleum living?”

Speakers
Albert Bates Global Ecovillage Network; author
Diana Leafe Christian Communities Magazine
John Darnell Ph.D Energy advisor
Richard Heinberg Author of Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World
Michael Kane Investigative reporter for fromthewilderness.com
Jan Lundberg Oil industry analyst, founder of Auto-Free Times and culturechange.org
Jenna Orkin Moderator; World Trade Center Environmental Organization
Mark Robinowitz Author of Permatopia: a graceful end to cheap oil and Oil Empire: a political map to understand Peak Oil
David Room Energy Preparedness; Global Public Media
Joel Salatin Organic Agriculturalist
(April 2006)


Tags: Fossil Fuels, Oil