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Army Foresees Natural Gas Crisis
Stephen Trimble, Defence Tech
The Pentagon has been talking recently about going oil-free by 2050, a fairly radical initiative given the hidebound nature of the institution and the complexity of the technologies it employs. But oil apparently is among the least of the Army’s energy problems.
According to this [pdf] newly-minted memorandum, the Army’s assistant chief of staff for installation management is more worried that the worldwide supply of natural gas will dry up within 25 years.
Says the memo: “Current Army assumption is that natural gas may cease to be a viable fueld for the Army within the next 25 years based on price volatility and affordable supply availability.”
If the Army’s assumptions are correct, the situation may “threaten the Army’s ability to house, train and deploy soldiers,” adds the memo. What will replace natural gas? This is certainly not my field of expertise, but perhaps readers or other bloggers may have something to add here. ..
(14 Mar 2007)
Peak Oil Task Force recommends Portland cut fossil fuel use
Hillsborough Argus
The Portland Peak Oil Task Force, a twelve member citizen committee appointed by Portland’s City Council in May 2006, today delivered a strongly worded report advising that the City accelerate efforts to curb the use of oil and natural gas
The report’s key recommendation is that the City take action to reduce fossil fuel use by half over the next 25 years. The report finds the best path to this goal is in accelerating current initiatives such as high-density planning and zoning, public transportation and acquiring electricity from renewable resources. Additional recommendations suggest specific actions elected officials can take to move towards the goals.
“This is an achievable imperative,” said Task Force chairman Bill Scott, General Manager for Flexcar Portland, a car sharing company. “Rising energy prices are likely to force major change in any case. Portland has an economic stake in getting ahead of those price signals.”
(16 March 2007)
Prophecy, Peak Oil and the Path for the Faithful (video)
Rev Sam Norton, Elizaphanian (blog)
The video of my last talk summarising the previous 12 sessions, outlining a Christian response to Peak Oil and the other accumulating crises of our time.
(16 March 2007)
Rev Sam Norton is Rector of the Church of St Peter & St Paul, West Mersea, Essex, England. His blog, Elizaphanian has many posts on peak oil and related issues. -BA
Author points out signs at energy crossroads
Scott A. Yates, Capital Press via TOD
SPOKANE – The majority of Paul Roberts’ presentation at Washington State University’s All Extension Conference addressed America’s role in responding to the world’s energy crisis, but he acknowledged something more important than fueling cars or industry.
“All these other things we are trying to hold onto are secondary,” he said. “If we lose food security, we have lost the whole game.”
Roberts, author of “The End of Oil,” which examines America and the world’s response to declining oil stocks, was the keynote speaker at the March 6-8 extension conference in Spokane. The conference was built around an energy theme for a reason. Roberts told the assembled educators and outreach personnel their job is to push back when people say there is no problem.
“You are in a new world in which energy will be constrained. You need to be persuasive for energy. The status quo is no longer stable,” he said, arguing that energy must become an issue politicians can’t avoid.
In a speech that was by turns thought-provoking and humorous, the Leavenworth, Wash.-based author listed a variety of reactions to today’s energy crisis: those who are completely oblivious to the problem; those who believe whatever they do must be OK if they can afford it; and those who have faith that, whatever the problem, “the market and divine intervention” will create a solution in 20 to 30 years.
“We want a quick fix. We get down one or two layers and say, ‘Oh, we handled that,’ and then in five years we are in the same place,” he said. “We can patch it and limp along, or we can transform it. This is the most exciting and biggest opportunity this generation has had since World War II. We have no choice. It is being forced upon us. The question is how we respond.
“Waiting for another all-purpose energy source to present itself isn’t the answer.
(16 March 2007)
Movie Review: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Montereyan, Blue House Diaries
Last night I checked out from my local library a film called The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. The film covers the Cuban response to the “Special Period”, when oil imports were cut by over 50%, leaving the nation on the verge of total collapse.
What does the film teach us about how to respond to our own looming oil crisis? How has Cuba adapted to face the challenge, and have they been successful in doing so? Does Cuba offer any lessons to us gringos?
…Cuba’s agricultural response had three main pillars – emphasizing urban food production, sustainability, and land use. Urban food production was key to survival – food now had to be grown locally because of the high costs of transportation. The filmmakers argue this was a net positive because it fostered better community relationships, and ultimately made healthier communities as veggies became the core of the Cuban diet.
Sustainable practices were a necessity as well, and Cubans re-learned the importance of “working with nature instead of against it,” as one Cuban says in the film. Here we see the importance of recovering lost knowledge – only elderly farmers remembered how to train and use oxen, so they were employed to train others.
…we cannot build a new ag infrastructure overnight. As several scenes in the film make quite clear, decades of chemical-based farming methods have left most of the soil in a damaged state. To return nutrients to the soil takes a while – up to 5 years in some cases. The sooner we act, the better off we will be.
None of this would have been possible in Cuba without the government. As urban residents in Havana and elsewhere reclaimed vacant land for gardening, government had to sanction this practice. In the US, land ownership might make it difficult for quick and rapid conversion of urban land in such a manner, and we can expect our government to do what it has always done – side with property over people. Cuba also imposes a rationing system to prevent hoarding and to try and ensure the food that they now produce reaches as many people as possible. In the US, where such government actions are seen as alien, we can expect much more of a free for all.
While it is a fascinating insight to the ways Cuba has dealt with the oil crisis, the film leaves out some important topics. The filmmakers want to show a positive and inspirational story, but that is not the entire story either.
Politics are left out of the film almost entirely. .
…As a socialist I am inclined to support Castro and the Cuban Revolution. But neither am I blind to its problems, and as noted above, the role of government was essential to the development of Cuba’s sustainable practices. Politics matters a great deal in responding to peak oil, and I would have been curious to see how the Cuban state helped or hindered this response, some sense of the range of debate, such as it may have been.
(11 March 2007)
Peak oil in 30 seconds
Big Gav, Peak Energy
I’m well over arguments between “peak oil now” doomers and “there is no peak oil” cornucopians at this stage – both camps seem largely impervious to reason and rely on a very selective interpretation of events to keep themselves happily repeating their dogmas. I would hope by now its obvious to most that peak oil is inevitable, it’s impossible to tell when (because the data is so bad) and that the prudent course of action is to switch to an electric transport / energy efficient economy – and this solves the global warming problem as well – so there is no reason not to do it other than keeping the fossil fuel industries happy. And who likes them anyway ?
(17 March 2007)
Big Gav sums it up while commenting on “Selective reporting does not disprove peak oil” by Patrick “The Unplanner” Ford. (I still think the fossil fuel industries will make out handsomely no matter what.) -BA
The Coming Decline of Oil
Lester Brown, Treehugger
…This analysis comes down to whether production will actually increase enough in the eight pre-peak countries to offset the declines under way in the 15 countries where production has already peaked. In volume of output, the two groups have essentially the same total production capacity. If production begins to fall in any one of the eight, however, world output could decline.
Another way to consider oil production prospects is to look at the actions of the major oil companies themselves. While some CEOs sound very bullish about the growth of future production, their actions suggest a less confident outlook.
One bit of evidence of this is the decision by leading oil companies to invest heavily in buying up their own stocks. ExxonMobil, for example, with the largest quarterly profit of any company on record-$10.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005-invested nearly $10 billion in buying back its own stock. ChevronTexaco used $2.5 billion of its profits to buy back stock. With little new oil to be discovered and world oil demand growing fast, companies appear to be realizing that their reserves will become even more valuable in the future.
Closely related to this behavior is the lack of any substantial increases in exploration and development in 2005 even with oil prices well above $50 a barrel. This suggests that the companies agree with petroleum geologists who say that 95 percent of all the oil in the world has already been discovered. “
(16 March 2007)
