Peak oil review – March 28
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Conflict in the Middle East
-Japan
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
Tom Whipple
Commentary: Restrictions on world oil production
Based on geology, many analysts have forecast the onset of the decline of world oil production in the next 2-5 years. Legitimate national interests, mismanagement, and political upheaval can only hasten that onset.
parliament of bees
Famously these corporations work by being invisible, but as we come together, as we swarm to defend our colony and our hive we’re bringing to light exactly who and what is raiding it. There’s a buzz in the air. Spring is coming on earth, and not just for the flowers.
Nuclear options going forward
The question is whether we can continue to ramp up electrical production by 2% or more a year if the contribution from nuclear is declining. If nuclear production needs to be scaled back, we may need a major downshift in our expectations regarding future electricity consumption.
Tainter’s law: where is the physics?
Joseph Tainter’s interpretation of the cause of the collapse of civilisations is that social structures generate negative returns when they become too complex (see graph). We could call this relationship as “Tainter’s law”. But what is it exactly that generates this behavior? In this post, I’ll try to make a simple model that explains the law.
Plastics now and forever!
We use more and more plastics every year. Much of it ends up in the oceans and eventually in the continent-sized North Pacific Subtropical Gyre – or one of the other four world ocean gyres. Plastics is over time broken down into smaller and smaller pieces that work their way further and further down the marine food chain. The long-term effects are unknown and there are similarities with our carefree use of fossil fuels 50 and 100 years ago.
Nuclear crisis in Japan – March 27
– Nuclear Rules in Japan Relied on Old Science
– Countering Radiation Fears With Just the Facts
– Nukes and Quakes (prescient 1996 article)
– Permaculture Research Institute: What To Do With Nuclear Boy?
Our tangled web – March 26
– Obama administration announces massive coal mining expansion
– Leading German climatologist on Fukushima
– How to Boil a Frog video excerpt – “Exponential Curves”
– Carolyn Baker interview (audio and transcript)
Managing the 21st century’s sustainability crises (program 192)
“ There are no real solutions, there are only responses.” So say the expert contributors in The Post Carbon Reader, pointing to society’s complex, interdependent systems squeezed by growing demand and declining resources. Co-editor Daniel Lerch tells us renewable energy will never be able to replace fossil fuels. Thus resilience — the capacity of a system to withstand disturbance while retaining its fundamental integrity — needs to replace sustainability as a guide to action.
Dr. Helen Caldicott on the nuclear disaster in Japan
Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and speaker known throughout the world for her clear warnings about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and nuclear power. (transcript and audio)
“It’s the end of the nuclear industry. As soon as I heard about this accident, that’s what I thought … I’ve been doing this crazy work for 40 years, and I said all that time: it will take a major melt-down to end the industry. And here we have not one, but six possible melt-downs, and cooling pools as well.”
Fukushima Dai-ichi status and slow burning issues
Fukushima is like a cancer eating away at the habitat of the East coast of Japan. Whilst the situation appears to be stable, a number of slow burning processes must inevitably be eating away at the heart of these reactors…It seems possible that the current meta stable condition may persist for many more weeks, and all the while the release and accumulation of radioactive isotopes in the environment will continue. And there is still risk of a catastrophic failure due to heat or corrosion that would result in the status degrading rapidly. It is too early to call this crisis over.
ODAC Newsletter – March 25
Bombing raids began on Libya this week as western powers combined to enforce the UN mandated no fly zone. The offensive has succeeded in its initial aim of slowing down Gaddafi’s forces, but the precise remit is unclear and a protracted conflict in the country is still highly likely.
