Potpourri – Dec 12

December 12, 2010

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

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage.


End of consumerism

The Press (New Zealand)
It’s not the end of the world, just the end of consumerism. We are about to wave goodbye to the dream of endless economic growth – always, every year, more stuff. However, we have enough already. We really do.

Dr Susan Krumdieck, an engineering professor at the University of Canterbury, addresses her audience with a smile. The message is radical, but she believes it will be good news once we have had time to get used to it.

A change is about to be forced on society because energy consumption pretty much is the economy. And we are about to run short of the cheap energy which has been driving the past century of unchecked economic expansion.
(11 December 2010)
EB contributor Bill Henderson writes: “Five star stuff, wish we had such press here in BC.”


Peak oil novel: “Player One: What is to Become of Us”

Cameron Martin, New York Times
PLAYER ONE
What Is to Become of Us.
By Douglas Coupland.

Where will you be when the apocalypse drops? For the anguished strangers in this novel by the author of “Generation X,” the answer is the cocktail lounge of an airport hotel in Toronto. Karen, a lovelorn divorced mother, is here to meet a man from her online discussion group about peak oil.
(10 December 2010)


Carbon-Neutral Sail-Powered Cargo Ships Scheduled to Return to European Waters in 2012

Matthew McDermott, TreeHugger
What comes after fossil fuel powered containers shipping is a pet topic of mine to contemplate and a new story from CNN on what the folks at B9 Energy (primarily a wind power company…) are planning in the way of carbon-neutral three-masted cargo ships is really pretty inspiring–even if some of the react and contextual quotes in the article show a decided lack of vision. But the ultra-cool you’ve got to go backward to progress cargo ship first.

It’s Not A Question of If Sail Returns, But When
Planned to go into production by 2012, the cargo ships will be sail powered, with the sails automatically adjusting to wind conditions and employing kite sails where appropriate. A biofuel-powered engine (which can also run on liquid natural gas) will provide 40% of the propulsion.
(10 December 2010)


Leaked document shows EPA allowed bee-toxic pesticide despite own scientists’ red flags

Tom Philpott, Grist
It’s not just the State and Defense departments that are reeling this month from leaked documents. The Environmental Protection Agency now has some explaining to do, too. In place of dodgy dealings with foreign leaders, this case involves the German agrichemical giant Bayer; a pesticide with an unpronounceable name, clothianidin; and an insect species crucial to food production (as well as a food producer itself), the honeybee. And in lieu of a memo leaked to a globetrotting Australian, this one features a document delivered to a long-time Colorado beekeeper.

All of that, plus my favorite crop to fixate on: industrial corn, which blankets 88 million acres of farmland nationwide and produces a bounty of protein-rich pollen on which honeybees love to feast.
(10 December 2010)


Tags: Consumption & Demand, Food, Transportation