Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Post Carbon Institute Energy Bulletin, like the Post Carbon Institute and much of the broader peak oil movement, is based on a much more useful and accurate foundation than the assumptions underlying most corporate media and government planning discourses — who generally take as a given continuing growth in access to energy.
In 2005, Americans woke up to the reality of peak oil. In 2006, we started seeing more attention to the two paths that can lead us forward:
energy efficiency and renewable energy. A number of good ideas have surfaced.
The turning of the worm [soil]
Toward energy self-sufficiency
Why educating girls pays off more
New initiative to deglobalize economy of SF Bay Area
To paraphrase my late father: Use your brains. The nation that is ignoring the poor now, when there is fuel to be had, will be even less inclined to pay attention to them if there is too little fuel available for everybody’s transportation and life-support needs.
Democrats want to shift oil tax, give to green energy
Oil group blasts Democrats’ tax agenda
Interview: California environmental adviser Tamminen
Alternative-energy spending fizzles out
Europe lays out plan to tackle energy dilemma
Oil tension in Sao Tome and Principe
India’s PM says West is environmentally wasteful
Vision for a new low-energy economy
The returns are not in yet, but anecdotal evidence is accumulating that many parts of Africa, Central America, and Asia are starting to shut down. For these peoples, the oil age, such as it was, is already over.
A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry’s disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action.
The prominent journal Nature has a detailed report on peak oil and its skeptics. (Excerpts)
Interview with “Subdivided” filmmaker
Revenge of the small
Chicago architects envision the future city
Parin Shah on urban environmental accords
Comparing a slide rule with a pocket calculator suggests a set of four principles critical for selecting technologies meant to survive peak oil and function in the deindustrial age that will follow it.
Biofuels 2006: How is the value chain shaping up?
Animal fat as biofuel?
Corn faces ethanol challenge (switchgrass)
Iowa faces fuel vs. food dilemma
Soybeans may grow scarce
Poor harvests to push bread prices up
