Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The guys on the campaign trail keep trying to ig nore the trillion-pound rhinoceros in the room. But soaring oil prices thunder the obvious: America had better prepare for a possible fall in world oil output if it doesn’t want to be left without affordable energy options.
OIL at more than $50 a barrel concentrates the mind. What looked like a spike in prices is now taking on an air of permanence. Even when the price subsides, as it will, it will remain higher than seemed likely even a few months ago.
Renewable energy works almost solely on the basis of using local resources, and can’t contribute efficiently to a grid in the quantities desired. What Amory Lovins knows, deep down, is that the peak of oil extraction globally will not allow for a transition to a less-intensive energy diet. His plan would have made sense three decades ago, perhaps, when global warming seemed just a theory.
IT’S often said that truth is the first casualty of war. During a presidential campaign, that may be more apt than ever. Consider a seemingly simple question: What is the cost of the Iraq war to the United States?
No war for oil, says the Michael Moore branch of the antiwar movement, meaning that the United States shouldn’t fight to advance the interests of the petroleum industry.
The presidential candidates are touting their plans to reduce the USA’s reliance on foreign energy sources. Are the campaign promises simply running on empty?
….If not already aware of all this, readers of The Nation should be on notice that both the imminence and the timing of peak oil matters–big time….
If this scenario [of an early peak] is even somewhat credible, American and international leaders should drop whatever else they are doing and devote their full attention to preparing the world for post-peak petroleum.
The renewable energy expert Harald Rostvik has warned of an imminent collapse in the oil and gas industries as supplies run dry.
Mike Tooke of PowerSwitch.org.uk has produced an informative 20 page booklet introducing the topic of peak oil which can be downloaded for free.
In an excellent speech given in Johannesburg earlier this month, George Monbiot looks frankly and damningly at the state of corporate journalism, who’s institutional interests are at odds with any potential policy changes addressing climate change and resource depletion, such as the imminent global oil peak.
Energy tycoon Boone Pickens says “we’ve seen $40 oil for the last time” and expects “$10 natural gas” probably within “four months”
Thomas Gold, before his death, proposed that the origins of oil may be abiotic (non-biological) – arguments now repeated by many to suggest that there is no danger of oil peaking. The following is a scientific dialogue critiquing Gold’s work, not easy reading for the layperson, but important nonetheless.
