Rachel Lalchan

U.S. shale gas: Less abundance, higher cost

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Shale gas has become an important and permanent feature of U.S. energy supply. Daily production has increased from less than 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day (bcfd) in 2003, when the first modern horizontal drilling and fracture stimulation was used, to almost 20 bcfd by mid-2011. There are, however, two major concerns at the center of the shale gas revolution. Despite impressive production growth, it is not yet clear that these plays are commercial at current prices because of the high capital costs of land and drilling and completion. Reserves and economics depend on estimated ultimate recoveries based on hyperbolic, or increasingly flattening, decline profiles that predict decades of commercial production. With only a few years of production history in most of these plays, this model has not been shown to be correct, and may be overly optimistic.

Peak oil perceptions: how Americans view the risks of major spikes in oil prices

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A strong majority of Americans say it is likely that oil prices will triple in the coming five years and that such a tripling would be harmful both to the economy and to public health. Conservatives and those dismissive of climate change are among the most concerned by the threat of a major spike in oil prices, suggesting that a broad cross section of Americans may be ready to engage in dialogue about ways to manage the risks associated with peak petroleum.

Why you can’t fight climate change without peak oil

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Clive Hamilton has been researching energy and its problems for years. But judging by his book on why the world’s governments have failed to slow industrial society’s slide towards climate disaster, Hamilton is either willfully ignorant of peak oil, or too scared to talk about it. But like too many people who care about climate change, he’s only getting half the story — and helping to handicap the climate movement in the process.

Models for a movement

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The new book GWR: The Global Warming Reader leaves a reader wondering why, given the evidence, there’s not a robust movement to replace the causes of the warming. But the situation is unlike any other that’s arisen, and our historical models of resistance or mobilization may mislead us. Many of these differences are painfully apparent to those trying to build a movement; in the aggregate they are daunting and suggest the need for some additional tactics, including a kind of initiation.

The Peak Oil Crisis: Parsing the GDP

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Lost in the furor over the debt crisis last week came the news that the U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of only 0.4 percent in the first quarter and 1.3 percent in the second. As these numbers were well below what economists were expecting, the revelation that the US was not coming out of the “great recession” was quite a shock for those who have not been paying attention.

Place, Power, Transition & the Uncut Movement

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To resist the attempts of those who seek to drag yet more wealth away from ordinary people to fill the coffers of those who brought us the financial crisis, we need to clarify our understanding of how the system as a whole is changing and needs to change, fast; and create the spaces for prefiguring the kind of society we want.

Good news: Economic recovery stalls!

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While many impacts of the recession are tragic, these are the pains of adjusting to a new reality: the end of growth. They are a necessary part of a temporary phase. We might call it the cocoon phase, as we metamorphose into something more beautiful.