Fossil Fuels

How we misjudge the risks of oil depletion and climate change

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Many people dismiss the risks associated with oil depletion and climate change–even many who accept the two issues as problems. They judge those risks to be small or at least manageable. Since no one can know the future, we cannot be sure whether they are right or wrong. But even if they are right, should we be so sanguine? As we examine this question, keep in mind that we are talking about probabilities and the level of risk, not absolute knowledge which none of us can have about the future.

The new “Golden Age of Oil” that wasn’t

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Last winter, fossil-fuel enthusiasts began trumpeting the dawn of a new “golden age of oil” that would kick-start the American economy, generate millions of new jobs, and free this country from its dependence on imported petroleum. It turns out, however, that the future may prove far more recalcitrant than these prophets of an American energy cornucopia imagine.

Heroic Endeavor: NRDC Community Fracking Defense Project

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Abandoned by the state of Pennsylvania and drilling company Rex Energy after the state’s testing found no evidence of groundwater contamination, distressed residents (whose well water is discolored and reeks, and whose families have suffered rashes and other ailments) had nowhere else to turn for clean water but their community. That’s when a group of area churches, including the Presbyterian church where my dad is a pastor, joined together to supply jugs and bottles of clean drinking water to affected families.

ODAC Newsletter Oct 5

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News of Turkish military retaliation to a mortar round fired from inside Syria spooked oil markets this week. Former Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan has warned that there is a danger that the Syrian conflict could spread and destabilise the region, although the Turkish Prime Minister said on Thursday that his country had no intention of starting a war…

Oil – Oct 4

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-How Coal Brought Us Democracy, and Oil Ended It: Lessons from the New Book “Carbon Democracy”
-Keystone
-Cost to replace each barrel of oil produced is up 350%
-Iraq oil output likely to hit 3.4m bpd in 2012

How It Could Happen, Part One: Hubris

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It’s easy for discussions about future crises to remain stuck in a realm of abstractions that never quite get down to talking about the lived reality of events as they happen. The toolkit of narrative fiction is one of the few useful ways to get past that roadblock of the imagination. This week’s post, therefore, is the first of a five-part series providing, in fictional form, a glimpse at one way the American empire could go the way of Nineveh and Tyre.

Hofmeister: A difficult decade ahead for oil prices and supplies

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I, along with my editor Sam Avro, recently conducted a broad-ranging interview with John Hofmeister, former President of Shell Oil. The topics touched upon included future oil supplies and prices, climate change, U.S. energy policy, and topics familiar to R-Squared Energy readers such as Peak Lite and the Long Recession. I will present this interview in a series of stories covering some of the various topics. In this first story, I will discuss Mr. Hofmeister’s detailed answer to the question, “What do you feel is the potential for expanding global oil production, and the time frames?”