ASPO-8: The 2009 International Peak Oil Conference in Denver

This year’s international ASPO conference in Denver was organized in collaboration with ASPO-USA and coincided with their national annual conference. Sunday’s parallel sessions held before the formal start of the conference offered interested Denver residents the opportunity to inform themselves about Peak Oil. Meanwhile, Peak Oil identities from around the world were given the opportunity to give presentations on their various activities and research results.

U.S. Peak Oil Conference Conflicted Amidst The Oil Recession

Upon the first global recession influenced by the peaking of oil extraction and record high prices, the question for “peak oilers” arises: does peak oil and energy decline mean great profits for modernizing industry, or is peak oil the beginning of huge changes in lifestyle toward sustainability after societal collapse? Those were the two main concerns at play at the fifth annual meeting of the U.S. chapter of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO-USA), in Denver, Oct. 11-13.

Shale Gas Estimates Perhaps Optimistic – An Interesting and Worrying Talk at ASPO

Unfortunately I have had to miss the ASPO Meeting in Denver this week, and so cannot provide the daily reports that I have written in the past. But I notice that at least one of the talks has already caught a significant amount of press, and that is the one by Arthur Berman on the gas production from shale deposits such as the Barnett, Haynesville and Marcellus.

The Twilight of Money

Speculative bubbles have become an increasingly common feature of modern economies, as concrete wealth has been replaced by its abstract representations. Behind the ever more fictive finances of an industrial world caught in the trap of trying to meet concrete needs with manufactured money lies a vaster speculative bubble focused on money itself. When it pops, as it will, the detonation may echo for a very long time. The third and last post of a series.

“No One With Land Should Be Without A Job”

If you have some land, even an acre, you have the means for making at least part of your income and in the process gain a more secure life. Surely that is what it means to “have a job.” Our society hasn’t endorsed that notion yet, but I think that we are evolving toward that kind of economy.

Climate & environment – Oct 15

-Pulling CO2 from the Air: Promising Idea, Big Price Tag
-U.S. headed for massive decline in carbon emissions
-Catch Me If You Can: Does the IEA’s Carbon Capture Plan Make Any Sense?
-Giants in Cattle Industry Agree to Help Fight Deforestation
-Organizing The Biggest Day Of Action The World Has Ever Seen