The shale gas shell game
With the election frenzy behind us, and the Fed printing money like there’s no tomorrow, it seems like a good time to return to the shale gas “boom” in the Marcellus.
Dave Cohen
Sixty Lame Minutes
So, last night CBS hauled Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, on board their flagship Sunday infotainment vehicle, 60 Minutes… McClendon told the credulous Leslie Stahl and the huge viewing audience that America “has two Saudi Arabia’s of gas.” Now, you know immediately that at least half the viewers misconstrued this statement to mean that we have two Saudi Arabia’s of gasoline.
Straight Talk with James Howard Kunstler: “The world is going to get rounder and bigger again”
The world is going to get rounder and bigger again. We’ll discover — surprise! — that the global economy was a set of transient economic relations that obtained only because of a half century of cheap energy and relative peace between the big nations.
A question of trees
Just as locally sourced organic food benefits the local community in myriad ways, compared to produce trucked in from elsewhere, so do locally grown native trees. Each time we plant an appropriate native, we are helping mend and strengthen the biotic community, of which our human community is a part.
The sincerest form of reverence
The technological triumphalism so popular in today’s industrial cultures loves to boast about dominating Mother Nature; the primitivist counterpoint heard now and then from society’s fringes prefers being dominated by her. Somewhere in between these sadomasochistic extremes may be found other alternatives. With the assistance of Charles Darwin and an assortment of homegrown vegetable seeds, the Archdruid explains.
Peak coal in China
Coal is very vital to China and decreasing exports, together with increasing import clearly show that they have a supply problem. But whether this is due to resource problems, production problems or infrastructure bottlenecks is hard to say yet. A more comprehensive study of the Chinese coal assets needs to be done.
The peak oil crisis: Did we vote ourselves to extinction?
The disconnect between the American body politic and reality grows larger every day. In reviewing hundreds of pages of commentary on the election, one searches in vain for analysis that even come close to describing what is happening to the nation – i.e. we are in the midst of a massive deflating credit bubble and running short of affordable liquid fuels at the same time.
Enough is enough
I have a running dialogue with my steady state friends and colleagues. The subject is best described with the metaphor of a horse and cart. I say, if we want to succeed in replacing the outdated goal of economic growth with a steady state economy, we have to put the horse before the cart. The horse is the public opinion and political will needed for this change. Without this horse, I say, we have little hope of pulling a cart of steady state policies into the economic policy arena.
Mia Birk has a message for Seattle cyclists
Birk has just the right message to the bike community: Don’t get defensive, hold your ground and push ahead, because in the end even your opponents will come to appreciate the progress you make. … “We’re driving a cultural shift where you trade off motor vehicle space for bike lanes. This is deep, fundamental change. It’s not like just adding a bike lane and Boom, you’re done.”
Oil demand to decline in the west, according to International Energy Agency
For those addicted to more roads, airports and the sweet smell of gasoline, the IEA’s 2010 World Energy Outlook includes some pretty sober reading.
The limits of ownership
Market-based ownership models have damaged the public and social interest. Innovation is inevitable.
Brand new Tadelakt
Had great fun over the weekend plastering my shower with this amazing stuff called Tadelakt. Tadelakt is a traditional Moroccan plaster, a lime-based, polished waterproof plastering technique. Originally used for waterproofing cisterns, and then used for public bathing houses, Tadelakt had almost disappeared from use before being rediscovered and there is currently a revival in its use.
