Peak oil – May 13

May 12, 2006

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

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

Peak Oil and the Environment conference – wrap-up
Heading Out, The Oil Drum
Last afternoon
The last afternoon of the Forum was aimed at addressing the opportunities that lay in addressing the demand issue. From that point of view the presentations focused more on the need to develop some form of policy, with the emphasis more on the global, rather than the local level, although that was also discussed.
(Speakers were eco-economist Herman Daly, Richard Heinberg, Pat Murphy, Jack Santa Barbara, Megan Quinn)

A final comment
Until now I have tried to give you the fairly honest reporting of what the folks said at the Peak Oil Forum, without indulging too much in editorial comment. Since this is going up on a Friday, when our readership drops off, maybe I won’t get drummed off the page until Monday, but I thought I would conclude my review of the Peak Oil and the Environment Forum with a few comments from an opinionated observer. They should not be taken as detracting from a meeting I found enlightening, and full of information and contacts.

(10 May 2006)
Great coverage, Heading Out!


New ASPO Newsletter for May

Dr Colin Campbell, ASPO Ireland

Articles In ASPO Newsletter 65 (May 2006)

We also have a full archive of all ASPO newsletters.

Each month, ASPO releases a newsletter which follows the latest peak oil related news and developments. The newsletter is written by Dr Colin Campbell of ASPO Ireland. You can browse the full archive or download PDF copies of the newsletters.

Download ASPO Newsletter 65 (May 2006)
(May 2006)


My Science Project: Peak Oil
(MP3 – 58.2 MB)
CITR Radio, University of British Columbia via Dynamic Cities Project
[2006] CITR Radio at the University of British Columbia. An hour-long discussion on Peak Oil with DCP director Bryn Davidson, fuel cell researcher Justin Roller, and DemocracyNow! media wiz Frank Lopez. (1 hour including musical breaks)
(no date)
I had trouble getting the big MP3 file to load on my machine. It didn’t seem to be set up for streaming.
Also on the site is an interview with Matthew Simmons.


Julian Darley featured On Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now
DEMOCRACY NOW!- a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 350 stations in North America, which pioneered the largest public media collaboration in the U.S – features a debate on peak oil.

Julian Darley of Post Carbon Institute and Michael Lynch of the Strategic Energy & Economic Research, debate on the topic of: Has Global Oil Production Reached Maximum Capacity?
(28 April 2006)
We previously had a link to the debate on the Democracy Now site.


Peak Oil: The cavalry is not coming

Alan Wartes, So Long Hydrocarbon Man
Tom Whipple, who writes for the Falls Church News-Press, is one of the handful of American journalists who can be credited with helping bring Peak Oil into the mainstream of American awareness. His analysis of the problem generally cuts through the fog of the government and oil industry party line to tell it like it is.

However, in his latest piece, Peak Oil: Powerdown or Collapse? he misses the mark and seems to join the ranks of many wishful thinkers who are like architects who show us the nice artist’s drawings of the proposed building, but never the blueprints. Call me a skeptic, but the parts of the structure that seem to float in air will probably never be home to anybody.

…But, I am not really as pessimistic as I sound. My purpose in writing is not to cast a shadow of gloom. Where some seem to believe in the power of governments, or “market forces” to rise to meet any challenge, I believe in the creativity, resourcefulness, and power of individual people. Any faith we invest in far-away bureaucracies is grievously misplaced. Although Peak Oil will be described by historians in socio-economic terms, and according to how it affected nation-states, it will be lived on the ground by real people, one day at a time, on the scale of households and small communities. That is also the scale at which the most reliable and most meaningful solutions will be found.

I don’t know any better than anyone what shape the aftermath of Peak Oil will take, or where on the spectrum it will fall. But I do know that, when it falls, any time spent watching the horizon waiting for the cavalry to arrive is completely wasted. Better to start right now thinking small, looking to each other, and figuring things out for ourselves.
(12 May 2006)
According to the site’s About Us: “Alan Wartes is a writer, poet, musician, geologist, and filmmaker. He has produced and directed for theater and film for ten years. Alan is also an award-winning journalist. Several of his short films can be viewed on this site.”


Tags: Education, Fossil Fuels, Oil