Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
3 years, 8 months and a day ago, 400 of us gathered here in this hall to ‘Unleash’ what we had just decided to call ‘Transition Town Totnes’. It was an extraordinary evening which I am sure some of you will remember. Since then, TTT has grown to become a powerful force in this community…At the Unleashing, we committed to work towards the creation of an EDAP for Totnes and district, and today, here it is.
-Crews dealt setback in placing containment dome in Gulf oil spill
-Oil production hit for decades after BP spill
-How big is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?
-Tread carefully, Mr Obama. You need big oil
The news was dominated this week by the race against time to stem the flow of oil from the Transocean Deepwater rig disaster, and the potentially devastating ecological impact of the spill. BP’s mitigation effort has been painfully slow to watch, and once again placed a spotlight on the high risk world of deepwater oil extraction.
The explosion and destruction of the Horizon deepwater rig and the subsequent oil spill disaster are only the latest in a series of wake-up calls you’ve received. Are you listening now? Your first warning came in 1956, with the publication of M. King Hubbert’s model of US oil production, which correctly predicted its peak in 1970. When Hubbert updated his model on camera in 1976, he also nailed the peak of worldwide conventional oil production in 2005.
The drawing of parallels between industrial accidents is a dubious armchair sport, but here the parallels are just piling up and are becoming too hard to ignore.
Peak oil theorists predict an impending terminal decline of world oil production, with no adequate alternate resource and technology available to replace oil as the backbone resource of industrial society. Instead of endlessly debating whether peak oil theorists are right or wrong, let us simply ask what would happen if they were right. Based on historical case studies I suggest that there would be different reactions in different parts of the world, ranging from predatory militarism to authoritarian retrenchment and the mobilization of local resilience.
-Groundhog Day for Oil
-Oil disaster may prove tipping point for world oil production
-Mother of all gushers could kill Earth’s oceans
-Peak Oil and the Return of the Jet Set
-Not So Fast: With Gas Prices Low, A Return To Oil
-Caution Required for Gulf Oil Spill Clean-Up, Bioremediation Expert Says
It gives me the greatest pleasure this morning to launch the Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan website. The site makes the full version of the UK’s first EDAP freely available, invites comments and discussion, and will act as a dynamic portal for people to discuss the Plan and reshape subsequent revisions.
Occasionally you come across an anti-peak-oil polemic that’s so self-defeating that it makes you wonder if our problems might not in fact be a lot greater, and more urgent, than you had previously considered.
-BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs
-Toyota’s Bill Reinert on Peak Oil
-How Bad Is the Oil Spill? Ask the Pelicans
-Asean members try to forge agreement on oil and gas rich Spratly Islands
-Track the Gulf of Mexico oil spill movement in animated graphic
-Response options for BP oil spill
The conventional wisdom in energy-and-environment circles is that China’s economy, which is growing at a rate of eight percent or more per year, is mostly coal powered today and will continue to be so for decades to come…Most of this conventional wisdom is correct, but some of it is plain wrong—so wrong, in fact, that environment-, economic-, and energy-policy wonks are constructing scenarios for the future of U.S. and world energy, and for the global economy, that bear little or no resemblance to the reality that is unfolding.
As oil companies reported sharply increased profits this week, an estimated 5000 barrels of oil a day was spewing into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. This ecological disaster comes just a month after President Obama gave the green light to expand drilling off the US coast, and while the timing of the disaster could hardly be worse for big oil’s PR…
