Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A newly available graph of projected oil supplies prepared by the U. S. Energy Information Administration shows us exactly how much faith it takes to practice faith-based economics. To be a true believer one has to wager the entire future of our oil-dependent civilization.
Review of two recent additions to the post-petroleum literary canon:
– Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson
– Crossing the Blue by Holly Jean Buck.
It was with some fear and trepidation that Alexis Rowell, a Camden Borough councillor and the author of the upcoming Transition Guide to Local Authorities (LA), and I arrived in a deeply conservative part of the country, Norfolk, to do a day with them on peak oil, climate change and the Transition town model and practice.
World Energy ministers met this week in Cancun for the latest session of the International Energy Forum. The meeting resulted in a declaration committing its 66 signatories to an “enhanced global producer-consumer energy dialogue”. As if on cue, the oil price reached its highest point in 2010 on Wednesday at over $83/barrel…
A weekly round-up including:
– Prices and production
– Venezuela’s Power Crisis
Margot McDowell is a sail maker and seamstress in Anacortes, Washington. She has a counterpart here and there in the region, such as a woman in Port Townsend and a woman in Bellingham. Considering the number of sailboats and ongoing demand for more sails and sail repair, these sail makers barely comprise a local industry. This is because the great majority of sails are made in Taiwan — made out of Dacron, a petroleum product.
Dear theoildrum.com readers. Many of you may have wondered about my absence here over the last 6 months or so. Suffice it to say that I’ve had a sea change of understanding about both our situation and on the opportunities it presents. As such, I’ve made some career change decisions, which Kyle and Gail are allowing me to share with you here (based on my prior efforts at TOD). Starting May 1, I have accepted an offer from Goldman Sachs to become a Managing Partner in a new energy and resource hedge fund where I’ll be one of three people responsible for security selection and risk management. Details, and the story of how I came to ‘see the light’ on resource depletion opportunities are below the fold. Basically I feel like a kid in a candy store.
Think of it as a tale of two countries. When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the consumption of oil and other key industrial materials. Not so China.
-Drill, baby, drill: The myth of energy independence
-Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time
-Expect a new peak for oil next year
-So Much for Peak Demand… Try 134mb/d by 2030
I invested a lot of time into finding our post-carbon landing pad. I tend to side with realtors on this one: location, location, location.
The sparkling, sanitized waterfront of Cardiff, Wales, reveals barely a hint of the country’s grimy industrial past. Where one of the busiest ports anywhere once shipped Welsh coal out into the world, a complex of upscale shops, pubs, and restaurants now dominates the area. Out are the sailors, brothels, and seedy watering holes. In are tourist-friendly pubs, fusion restaurants with names like ffresh, and a circus carousel. The locally favored Brains brewery (“People who know beer have Brains”) has survived nearby.
In the years leading up to the crash of the Housing Bubble in 2006 and the subsequent financial meltdown in 2008, there was no shortage of people telling us America’s continued prosperity was not in jeopardy. All that talk was nonsense, of course. In 2010, the situation is eerily similar in the natural gas business. We are told that we have 100 years of supply, implying that we will still be producing cheap shale gas long after the oceans are devoid of fish. As in the pre-Housing Bubble days, a few skeptics are crying foul. There are underground rumblings that things are not on the up & up with shale gas.
