Charcoal fuel gets green light
A shift from burning wood to burning charcoal in African households could save millions of lives and substantially reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, say US researchers.
A shift from burning wood to burning charcoal in African households could save millions of lives and substantially reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, say US researchers.
BHP Billiton and BP Plc are among petroleum companies that may commit this year to spend more than A$5 billion ($3.9 billion) in Australia, mostly to produce natural gas as oilfield discoveries decline.
Treasurer Peter Costello has delivered a blunt warning that Australia is running out of oil as existing fields near the end of their productive lives.
But even if [Cornucopian economists] are right about the miraculous and timely appearance of oil substitutes, are they right that the things we would do as a global society to prepare for world peak oil production are a “waste of resources?”
[Cuba has] created what may be the world’s largest working model of a semi-sustainable agriculture, one that doesn’t rely nearly as heavily as the rest of the world does on oil, on chemicals, on shipping vast quantities of food back and forth… No one’s predicting a collapse like the one Cuba endured – probably no modern economy has ever undergone such a shock. But if things got gradually harder? … It’s somehow useful to know that someone has already run the experiment.
So if the head of San Ramon’s ChevronTexaco is prepared to gamble more than 16 billion bucks on oil prices staying at stratospheric levels, I’m ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And reading between the lines, that means only one thing.
Peak oil.
We’re basically there.
Oil company BP’s existing oil and gas fields are posting production declines of about 3 per cent, Tony Hayward, the company’s chief executive for exploration and production, said on Wednesday.
If the energy and materials to build nuclear power plants must be taken from other forms of construction, which projects will be sacrificed? Military bases abroad, or houses, schools and hospitals at home?
Report from a regional thinktank, concluding that exporting natural gas is not the best strategic option for the Arab World.
Text of speech “We can’t leave this to central government. They are not interested. The structure of Central government is such that they will not respond to Peak Oil until it is too late.”
Audio interview with David Holmgren, co-originator of the permaculture concept, and Barry Jones of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA).
A House committee voted on Wednesday to expand U.S. daylight-saving time by two months to help reduce energy consumption, but rejected a plan to shave total U.S. oil demand by 1 million barrels a day.