Peak oil notes – Feb 9
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
Fossil Fuels
Obama’s energy stool
The Obama administration’s renewable energy stool, with its three legs of biofuels, solar, and wind, has now tipped over, as all three legs start to crumble. The final push came from the recent closing of Range Fuel Corp.’s cellulosic ethanol plant in Soperton, Ga.
A new oil boom?
A flurry of new mainstream media articles telling people not to worry about Peak Oil and hydrocarbon depletion have begun appearing on financial sites like Bloomberg, Forbes or The Wall Street Journal. I though it would be worthwhile to analyze some of their arguments. At least some media outlets are willing to even discuss peak oil at all—most remain completely silent.
Fracking: the rest of the story
As Gasland director Josh Fox is led away in handcuffs, a Congressional Committee proceeds to attack the EPA for discovering ground water contamination in Wyoming. We hear from victim Fred Fenton, and then audio from the Hearing. Then to “the rest of the story” – the seldom covered AIR pollution from fracking, as explained by Theo Colborne of TEDX, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange. Ends with the story of the EPA whistleblower who won, Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo.
The history of carpooling, from jitneys to ridesharing
The word “carpooling” usually conjures images from the 1970s: service stations warning “No Gas”, lines at the pump, and bell-bottom pants. For many people, carpooling brings to mind quaint notions of penny-pinching habits that went out of style along with turning the thermostat down.
But the history of carpooling goes back almost as far as the invention of the automobile itself, and has endured well-beyond its heyday in the late 70s, according to a publication by MIT’s Rideshare Research.
After the gold rush: A perspective on future U.S. natural gas supply and price (updated February 9)
On January 23, 2012, Chesapeake Energy announced that it would curtail drilling in shale gas plays in the United States. Subsequently, other operators have followed suit. While the outcome of this announcement is unclear, it is a signal that the industry is in distress. One can argue that this distress stems from a lack of discipline as market price began to decline.
School lunchrooms put planet and kids at risk
If an alien species were to visit our school cafeterias at lunchtime, it might conclude that we don’t value the health and well-being of the most vulnerable members of our society—our developing children. Not only are our youth daily served low-quality processed products, they are inculcated, at a young age, to the factory-farm model at the heart of our worst environmental problems, namely water pollution, soil erosion, global climate change and fossil fuel depletion.
Peak oil bashing – Feb 7
– Peak Oil Scare Fades as Shale, Deepwater Wells Gush Crude
– Oil, Food, Water: Is Everything Past Its Peak?
– Fulsome Fossil Fuels And The ‘Peak Oil’ Myth
– Peak Oil–No Longer the Right Question
(Note: several of these articles actually concede most of the points made by peak oilers.)
Energy – Feb 7
– Kunstler interviews Arthur E. Berman, Petroleum Geologist: Magical Thinking and Fracking (audio)
– Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit (video from The Onion)
– Energy.gov: Where information goes to die
Energy and presidential politics
Va. Governor Bob. McDonnell is on a GOP VP short list and recently threw his endorsement to candidate Mitt “corporations are people, my friend” Romney. But in an era of energy decline it’s worth learning how heavily Big Coal funds McDonnell, who calls himself a “friend of coal,” and how uncommitted he is to clean energy.
Economist calls gateway pipeline an inflationary ‘threat’
In a detailed analysis submitted to the National Energy Board, Robyn Allan, the former president and CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, concludes that “Northern Gateway is neither needed nor is in the public interest.” Moreover the project, if built, would raise the price of every oil barrel by $2 to $3 dollars in Canada over the next 30 years, and thereby create an inflationary price shock that would have “a negative and prolonged impact… by reducing output, employment, labour income and government revenues.”
Will peak oil spell the end of capitalism? (review of Fleeing Vesuvius)
The basic theme of Fleeing Vesuvius, which is aimed at the growing sustainability movement, is TEOTWAWI (The End of the World as We Know It). The title refers to the volcano that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD, specifically the large number of residents who failed to save themselves, despite weeks of earthquakes, gaseous clouds and other obvious signs that an eruption was imminent. For more than a decade, a growing body of evidence suggests that the planet is on the verge of economic and ecological collapse. Yet the vast majority of us do absolutely nothing to prepare for the stark conditions ahead.
