Year: 2011

Inconceivable: Why failure should be a part of this plan, but isn’t

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My own argument, which I’ve been making for some years, and which has come to have some little currency in at least some areas of agricultural planning, is that we should turn it around and presume failure. That is, we should ask ourselves “what strategies are most effective and least risky in failure situations…given that systems failures happen all the time.”…It creates, in the end a different way of looking at our world, and one, I would argue, we desperately need.

What color is your prophecy?

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As I entered the Fred Flinstone structure that characterizes the convention center in Palm Springs, I was intensely curious about what kind of people would come to The Prophet’s Conference on 2012. It was odd enough that I was there. Such an expedition into the high dessert for a weekend of lectures by speakers dispensing insight into the Mayan prophecy required serious wu wu credentials.

I did have a journalist’s curiosity and, having reported mostly from the doomer’s corner concerning planetary demise, I thought there might be interesting parallels in the prophecy corner.

Memo to market: High oil prices are DE-flationary

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As the European Central Bank prepares to raise interest rates to prevent inflation, the bank cites rising commodity prices, particularly oil prices, as a sign of that inflation. What the bank and other market participants don’t seem to understand is that high commodity prices and, in particular, high oil prices are deflationary.

Nuclear crisis in Japan – March 13

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– Japanese Scramble to Avert Meltdowns as Nuclear Crisis Deepens After Quake
– Meltdowns Grow More Likely at the Fukushima Reactors
– US lawmakers say go slow on nuclear energy
– Japan nuclear fears as systems fail at second reactor
– Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries
– Background
– More links at TOD

How black is the Japanese nuclear swan?

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We need to evaluate the potential for a nuclear future in light of the disaster in Japan. This was not unpredictable, and should have been accounted for in any realistic assessment of nuclear potential. It cannot realistically be described as a black swan event.

Human behaviour can easily turn what should be a one in one hundred thousand reactor-year event in to something all too likely within a human lifespan. Nuclear power may allow us to cushion the coming decline in fossil fuel availability, but only at a potentially very high price. (Excerpts)

Powering down – March 13

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– Lights go out in Seoul amid energy crunch
– Monbiot: UK must follow Spain down the road to lower speed limits
– Scrapping the fuel duty rise will hurt Britain economically
– “Repair-Ware” Household Gadgets Designed To Last Forever With Easy Fixability
– Maine Report Finds Solar Hot Water Would Save Mainers $, Oil

The oil addiction – March 12

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– Obama Confronts Oil-Policy Critics
– “We Want More Millionaires In America”: With Gas Prices Soaring, Lawmakers Call For President Obama To Stop Picking On Oil Industry
– Demanding Cheaper Oil is Disastrous
– Q & A with geologist Sally Odland
– Should West Help Oil States Kick the Oil Habit Too?

Nuclear – March 12

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-Japan battles to contain nuclear crisis after huge quake
– On the Brink of Meltdown: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
– 2 Japanese plants struggling to cool radioactive material
– Spent nuclear fuel; more opportunity than threat

Censored scientists, dirty politics and the nuclear distraction

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NASA climatologist James Hansen’s book, just out in paperback, is a fascinating look at his crusade to get America a rational climate policy before it’s too late. He wants to levy a carbon tax, entirely phase out coal and leave unconventional fossil fuels in the ground. But he also likes nuclear power. Reactor meltdown on Hansen Island?