Transport – Aug 5
Salting the Earth (the viability of auto fuels and technologies) / Qantas challenged by soaring fuel costs / US carmakers suffer drop in sales / “Electric Car” director on Daily Show
Staff
U.S. energy policy – Aug 5
What should Southern Co. do about global warming? (utility company) / Q&A with Jeremy Rifkin / How California failed in efforts to curb oil addiction / NYT: Delusional thinking about energy in the Senate / But where are the solar-powered ICBMs?
Urban design – Aug 5
London: How to write low-carbon policies /
Jane Jacobs, reconsidered / Stockholm: goodbye, for now, to a successful traffic congestion tax
Energy policy – Aug 5
A net energy parable: ERoEI explained / What is carbon trading, and can it save the world from global warming? / Rationing could be key to war on climate change / The inconvenient truth about “An Inconvenient Truth”
Middle East at a crossroads
The unfolding crisis has enormous implications both for the world as a whole and for the small but growing community of people involved in preparations for Peak Oil. Mainstream reporting seems to miss much of the context of events and, when discussing the Middle East, the geopolitical struggle for control of energy resources nearly always forms much of that context.
…At the ASPO conference a well-connected industry insider who wishes not to be directly quoted told me that his own sources inside Saudi Arabia insist that production from Ghawar is now down to less than 3 million barrels per day, and that the Saudis are maintaining total production at only slowly dwindling levels by producing other fields at maximum rates. This, if true, would be a bombshell: most estimates give production from Ghawar at 5.5 Mb/d.
Nuclear – Aug 3
Analysis: Iran’s nuclear fuel debate /
Nigeria to exploit nuclear energy for peace /
Gorbachev – Australia must avoid nuclear & sign Kyoto Protocol /
Swedish nuclear reactors stopped
Geopolitics – Aug 3
The Three Energy Wars /
Sistani Threatens US over Israeli War on Lebanon /
Kunstler: Afghanistan, Iraq and The American Dream (Video) /
Lebanon, Syria, Iran and the Coming Imperialist Re-Division of the World /
Saudi Arabia rules out oil weapon
The challenges of healthcare relocalisation
The relocalisation of healthcare is going to be a huge challenge. In the early 1900s local hospitals were dotted all over the map, each at the centre of a circle the radius of which was the length of a hurried trip by horse drawn transport.
Media attacked for ‘climate porn’
“So we use a loud rumbling voice to talk about the challenge, about melting ice and drought; yet we have a mouse-like voice when we talk about ‘easy, cheap and simple’ solutions, making them sound as tiny as possible because we think that’s what makes them acceptable to the public… In fact it makes them seem trivial in relation to the problem.”
The peak oil crisis: Portland takes the lead
The total abrogation of responsibility by the federal government has led to a handful of local governments to start considering action on their own to prepare for what is sure to come. The furthest along is Portland, Oregon.
Peak Oil – Aug 3
King Abdullah’s First Year: A Personal Perspective /
Cantarell 2006 Production to Decline 8% /
Etopia News: PO interviews with Randy White, Dr. David Goodstein and Dan Bednarz /
Are we on the plateau? /
An end to subsidized parking /
Time for Action: A Midnight Ride for Peak Oil (Conference)
Oceans – Aug 2
Lebanon oil spill crisis /
Altered Oceans: 5-part series on the crisis in the seas /
A ‘jaw dropping’ discovery in earth’s oceans: Many more bacteria than expected
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Scientists try to find out why the krill is gone
