Consumption & Demand

Peak oil — a crisis postponed

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As the global economy goes, so goes oil demand. If the outlook for the global economy is not so good, oil consumption will stagnate or increase very slowly. If oil demand grows slowly or not at all, consumption will remain below the world’s productive capacity, as measured in millions of barrels-per-day. If oil demand remains below the available supply, there will be no oil price shock.

BP-style extreme energy nightmares to come

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On June 15th, in their testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the chief executives of America’s leading oil companies argued that BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was an aberration — something that would not have occurred with proper corporate oversight and will not happen again once proper safeguards are put in place. This is fallacious, if not an outright lie.

Petrostates: What BP spill?

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When Big Oil breaks ranks, and one partner in a world-class deal accuses the other of gross negligence, you know that fear has overcome the industry. But fear of what? One presumes it’s the permanent loss of future — or even currently permitted — drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico because of the disastrous oil spill, in addition to offshore deals around the world. After all, as I’ve written here before, the primacy of Big Oil rests on its claim to technological superiority.

Deepwater Horizon and the education of desire: A review of “Everyday Ethics and Social Change”

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Anna L. Peterson’s “Everyday Ethics and Social Change: The Education of Desire (EE) concedes that is it is our nature to hope, even “when nothing in our world indicates progress is possible” (Pg. 1). She’s not a Pollyanna, noting there are no “valid arguments to justify moral and political hope… This book is about the connection between ‘that which is hoped for’ in our everyday lives and the possibility of [bringing about] this good on a larger and more lasting scale”.

Getting the actual people in your house to eat the healthy food

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In a perfect world, our partners, roommates, children and other assorted members of our lives would say “Oh, I’m so thrilled you are growing a garden/part of a CSA – now I can get rid of the honey-barbecue chips and the fast food, and start really appreciating rutabagas like I’ve always wanted to.”

Natural gas – June 21

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-The Costs of Natural Gas, Including Flaming Water
-Marcellus Shale gas drilling put under microscope: Moratorium weighed as towns, people wary of potential mishaps
-Struggle for Central Asian energy riches
-Russia Cuts Gas Deliveries to Belarus

Waiting for the Millennium, part 2: The limits of magic

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The first half of this essay sketched out the unfamiliar terrain that’s beginning to open out in front of the peak oil community as the concept of hard energy limits seeps back out into public awareness, after thirty years of exile in the Siberia of the imagination where our society imprisons its unwelcome truths. One probable feature of that landscape is the rise of revitalization movements among people in the industrial world.