Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Peak coal in China?
-China
-Nigeria
-Another warning in the UK
-Briefs
-Quote of the week: “With price increases largely reflecting scarcity in export supply, global competition for securing foodstuffs is set to intensify.” –UN Food and Agriculture Organization
We own cars so we can go to work. Why do we have jobs? So we can pay for the cars! It sounds simple enough to figure out, but billions of people are participating in this destruction of themselves and the planet.
– The Tea Party Targets… Sustainable Development?
– Here’s where we should cut: corn ethanol subsidies
– Walmart local food?
– U.S. Oil Imports Shrink, Yet Worries Loom
– Dmitry Orlov on Collapse
– UC Santa Barbara research group issues report: “Peak Energy, Climate Change, and the Collapse of Global Civilization: The Current Peak Oil Crisis”
– The Economy Is Not Coming Back
Rarely is the public treated to such inaccurate, misleading and unhelpful “journalism” as in “There will be fuel” by New York Times correspondent, Clifford Krauss (New York Times, November 17, 2010) , even in this era of political spin and smoke and mirrors surrounding energy. The facts of the matter are that no nation on earth is more dependent on imported oil than the U.S
I have been searching for methods to bring the basics of peak oil and climate change out of the realm of the abstract, and this is my first public attempt to do just that.
– BBC: Oil shock warning to government from UK business
– Protect us from peak oil, says Richard Branson (and others)
– Big names warn of danger of UK’s ‘addiction’ to oil
– Steve LeVine: Peak or no peak?
– Ken Deffeyes: IEA on Board, Sort Of
– IHS CERA study says oilpatch costs rising
– WSJ: China’s Coal Crisis
– ‘Peak coal’ to see prices soar (audio)
– Should we be planning for the end of cheap coal?
– The Chinese Coal Monster – running out of puff
– The Atlantic: Dirty Coal, Clean Future
– Cleaning Up Coal
– Fridley, Heinberg discuss ‘peak coal’ in NATURE journal
The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster has increased the risk of an imminent global oil crunch — so says the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Insecurity (ITPOES). The group, whose members include Virgin and Stagecoach among others, called on the government to speed up adoption of renewables and energy efficiency measures…
The idea that coal is cheap and plentiful drives much thinking about future world energy consumption. It can explain the resistance of the United States and China to carbon-cutting policies — both countries have lots of coal, and they don’t plan to stop using it anytime soon. But is it a reasonable assumption? Richard Heinberg and David Fridley argue in this week’s Nature that coal prices are likely to start rising much sooner than everyone thinks — perhaps by the end of this decade.
This week, science journal Nature says the world is on the verge of exhausting its cheap coal supplies. With rising demand and dwindling supplies of high quality usable coal, prices could be much higher by the end of the decade. The finding could also have implications for the controversial technology, carbon capture and storage. ABC (Australia) reporter Greg Borschman interviews Richard Heinberg.
The disconnect between the American body politic and reality grows larger every day. In reviewing hundreds of pages of commentary on the election, one searches in vain for analysis that even come close to describing what is happening to the nation – i.e. we are in the midst of a massive deflating credit bubble and running short of affordable liquid fuels at the same time.
