Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
China swoops on PetroKazakhstan for $4.2bn / Oil coup for China, India cries foul / How to Escape the Oil Trap / Winter forecast for heating homes: costly / What’s a luxury car driver to do? / Will GOP pay for high gas prices?
The Cleveland Plain Dealer — the only major newspaper in the US that’s taking Peak Oil seriously — has run almost two dozen articles on different aspects of the energy crisis in their “Crude Awakening” series.
“After the Crash: An Essay-Novel of the Post-Hydrocarbon Age,” is now available in print-on-demand format
The government’s recent move of raising prices of cooking gas has led the people in the countryside to resort to using wood for baking bread in their clay oven. … An owner of a shop in Ibb selling clay ovens used for baking bread said he was nowadays selling two to three ovens a day while before the new rise in prices of oil products he was not selling that number in a week.
The Government has made the call to people to appreciate the looming crisis arising out of the unabated price of oil in the world market. According to Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye the country should face this challenge squarely and close ranks.
Most people would agree that the United States needs a new source of fuel: something renewable and nonpolluting with which to replace gasoline … something that could be produced right here at home. Deep in America’s heartland, a lot of people think they know the answer: ethanol, a fuel made from fermented corn.
…the peak oil Cassandras — Kunstler included — are perfectly positioned to trigger the kind of anxiety-induced focus needed to accelerate a move away from petroleum dependence.
The post-peak oil world will look a lot like the bleak 1970s. But much worse.
A recession will grip the globe because the price of oil, and everything tied to it, will skyrocket.
Starvation will abound because oil-based fertilizers we’ve grown to depend on will be in short supply. Energy wars could erupt to control the remaining oil fields.
Huge, tarlike deposits in Canada and Venezuela will be critical over the next 50 years to the supply of liquid fuels as the world’s production of easily pumped oil plummets. Yet, turning this nonconventional oil source into synthetic oil is not likely to be the solution to our energy crisis, as some claim. Canada is no Saudi Arabia.
PowerSwitch recently held a conference outside London, titled Peak Speak, providing a platform to discuss the causes, consequences, and mitigation of the peak and decline in global oil production, and action that can be taken. Report includes notes on the speakers, topics they covered, and links to presentations.
On 11 October 2005, in London, a major conference will look at the peak
oil problem and its impact on climate change, the world’s food supply and
the world economy. Speakers include Michael Meacher MP, Tim Lang and
Andrew Simms (of NEF), and the chair will be Dr Ian Gibson MP. The
conference is being organised by East Anglia Food Link, CRed, Sustain and
PowerSwitch.org.uk.
Peak Oil is coming soon, no doubt about it in my mind. But like religious groups who set the date for the Second Coming only to end up looking like fools, some caution is advised. If Peak Oil is postponed for a few more years due to a recession, the number of peak oil books and websites will also decline. If that happens, the actual peak in oil production may arrive with more of a whimper than a bang…
