Drilling down – March 3
-Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers
-Wastewater Recycling No Cure-All in Gas Process
-Politics Seen to Limit E.P.A. as It Sets Rules for Natural Gas
Staff
What If…we stopped using money?
If you have something and you want something else then you have three basic options: you can just take the thing you want from the person who has it; alternatively you can give some of what you have in exchange for the thing you want; finally, you can sell some of what you have in exchange for something that has no intrinsic worth, but on paper (coin, slate, bead, wooden disc…) has some pre-agreed value, then use that virtual value to purchase the thing that you want.
Peak oil notes – March 3
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
The Real El Dorado
Resiliency demands something quite different than specialization and diligent professionalism. Resiliency calls for an equally amazing and profound rise in competence on the part of citizens, consumers, eccentrics, dissenters, minorities…
Beyond Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
You learn extraordinary things living among the poor. The first thing you learn [from people] in poverty is that there is an enormous creativity. You cannot be an idiot if you want to survive.
Corporations are fueling our peak oil crisis
Radio and television host and author of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight Thom Hartmann talks about ways we can all help combat global warming. Speaking from the grounds of Wisconsin’s 2010 Fight Bob Fest, Hartmann insists that Americans need to change the way we live if we are going to save the planet, and the first step has to be getting active in the political process.
In field and for food, the return of structural adjustment
Africa is being measured for its land profitability potential. So are other regions in the political South. This process is part of the new structural agri-food adjustment programmes that are already in place in the developing South. It includes agri-investor friendly new industrial policies, the disinvestment by and withdrawal of government equity in profitable public sector enterprises, financial sector ‘reform’ that ushers in private banking and asset management.
Roundup Ready alfalfa — Monsanto’s big goof?
I think RR alfalfa is a big mistake for another reason. Weeds are rarely a problem in alfalfa cut for hay, so who needs the stuff. Alfalfa seed is expensive enough as it is. If biotech alfalfa seed goes up horrendously in price like biotech seed corn has, who would want to buy it?
Transition and the cuts: a report from Camden
It was heartbreaking to be at Camden Council last night. Because of the government-imposed cuts libraries, playgroups, breakfast clubs and after school care are being swept away in a borough that has always prided itself on its public services, especially for the young. Protests outside the council turned into chaotic and ugly scenes and the police prevented demonstrators entering the building on public order grounds. A few made it in and loudly berated councillors for cutting services. Council had to be adjourned at one point.
Doing Due Diligence
To people who follow the energy industry closely, it’s a common occurrence to come across announcements from companies proclaiming to have developed the key to the ‘next big thing’ — for solving the world’s energy crisis. Maybe they say they can take any sort of waste biomass and turn it into fuel — ethanol, diesel, pyrolysis oil, mixed alcohols — at very low cost. Or they say they can produce renewable electricity at a price competitive with coal.
The layperson reads the news release and is curious: “Is this real?”
Gaddafi’s rehabilitation with the West and Libya’s current oil production
Despite the “Lockerbie” attack on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 it seems as though the required help arrived since production increased to around 1.4 Mb/d during the 1990s. Despite this increase, there was still the possibility of further expansion but that would require the advanced technologies possessed by the international oil companies and could not occur in secret. The September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001 opened doors for Gaddafi and he played his cards well.
The distant sound of hoofbeats
Half hidden among the roar of recent news, a pair of stories point toward the uncomfortable reality that the current economic order is coming apart around us. As that process accelerates, pragmatic steps to cut costs and save energy — such as this week’s example, insulated window coverings — will take on an unexpected importance.
