Staff

Holiday slowdown

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Outlook is for reduced posting over the next week, with occasional flurries of activity.

Thanks to the many contributors, writers and readers of Energy Bulletin. And of course to Post Carbon Institute for making it possible.

Aviation fuels and peak oil (thesis)

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Future aviation fuel supply is compared to future aviation fuel demand. … This scenario envisages a substantial lack of jet fuel by the year 2026. The aviation industry will have a hard time replacing this with fuel from other sources even if air traffic remains at today’s level. (Thesis advisor: Kjell Aleklett of ASPO).

The barn raising

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“… what followed in the wake of the tornado during the next three weeks was just as awesome as the wind itself. In that time — three weeks — the forest devastation was sawed into lumber and transformed into four big new barns. No massive effort of bulldozers, cranes, semi-trucks, or the National Guard was involved. The surrounding Amish community rolled up its sleeves, hitched up its horses and did it all. Nor were the barns the quick-fix modern structures of sheet metal hung on posts stuck in the ground. They were massive three-story affairs of post-and-beam framing, held together with hundreds of hand-hewn mortises and tenons.”

The moment of darkness

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I am a father, and I want my daughter to have a decent life in a strange time. I am in my 30s now, but I knew five of my great-grandparents, all born in the 19th century, and my daughter, if she is lucky, may live to see the 22nd. Her life might span humanity’s most important decades, and before she is even an adult, the world could grow much more difficult – energy shortages, food shortages, economic collapses and a Malthusian crush. I want her to be able to realize what is happening, and not to be bewildered by a domino line of solitary unthinkables.

Will Canada be Our Salvation?

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There have been occasional claims from U.S. media sources that oil from Canada, specifically oil from the Athabasca oil sands region, can be the salvation for US oil woes in the future, assuming drilling everywhere in the US doesn’t do the trick. An example of such optimism was exemplified in a 60 Minutes segment about a year ago which gave the impression that the Athabascan region could supply much of the future U.S. oil needs.