Consumption & Demand

The U.S. Exports More Corn Ethanol

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In the past twelve months, ethanol exports from the United States have increased from 4 million gallons in March of ’09 to 46 million gallons in March of this year to places like United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Canada, and the Netherlands. This year’s March figure is about 4 percent of the 12 billion gallons mandated for domestic biofuel use this year. Ethanol producers are thrilled.

BP beyond the oil spill, business as usual? – May 25

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-Reflections on an Oil Spill: A New Orleans Native Speaks Out
-Fishgrease: DKos Booming School
-Human Health Tragedy in the Making: Gulf Response Failing to Protect People
-Screw the Environment: BP and the Audacity of Corporate Greed

Singularity > Climate Change > Peak Oil > Financial Crisis

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While lying awake late at night worrying about what kind of world my children will inherit, I find it helpful to come up with schemas for the most obvious and inevitable of the large societal problems.  It makes them seem slightly more manageable to place them in order of importance, or time.  Further, being clear on what are the biggest and most important problems is an essential prerequisite to thinking about solutions: these problems all interact, and solutions to the smaller of them may not be radical enough to address the larger of them.

The relentless pursuit of extreme energy

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Yes, the oil spewing up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in staggering quantities could prove one of the great ecological disasters of human history.  Think of it, though, as just the prelude to the Age of Tough Oil, a time of ever increasing reliance on problematic, hard-to-reach energy sources.  Make no mistake: we’re entering the danger zone.  And brace yourself, the fate of the planet could be at stake.