Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Transport Revolutions presents an ambitious vision of a world, 15 years from now, that is well on its way to kicking oil and being run on renewably produced electricity. The book’s authors, internationally recognized transport policy experts Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, readily acknowledge the enormity of this challenge, with transport worldwide currently 95 percent dependent on oil.
The project of a “green wizardry” based on 70s-era appropriate tech requires a clear understanding of matter as well as energy. With the help of dog slobber, nuclear waste, and several other unmentionable substances, the Archdruid explains.
-Environmentalists question coal’s place in Obama policy
-The Dirty Truth Behind Clean Coal
-Parsing fact from fiction with the Bloom Energy box
Fuel cell company Bloom Energy made quite a stir over the weekend, with a spot on the CBS “Sixty Minutes” TV program in the United States (The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough? – see the link for the video and transcript).
Millions of job losses are pushing the U.S. Senate to consider a Jobs and Energy bill, even though Cap and Trade appears to be on life support. What are Five Key Measures that must be in a new Bill to avoid being a “half-ass..d” effort? (term from Sen. Lindsey Graham descrbing limited climate bill)
“as mankind proceeded to get bigger and bigger we silently crossed a threshold”
We cannot be lulled into a false sense of security: though oil prices have declined from their historic highs, there is little doubt that peak oil is real. A 2008 research project completed at Washington University in St. Louis found strong evidence in support of the theory. Please feel free to circulate this academic document as a primer on peak oil.
Evolution demands short-term thinking focused on individual survival. Most attempts to overcome our evolutionarily hardwired absorption with self are selected against. The Overman is dead, killed by a high-fat diet and unwillingness to exercise. Reflexively, we follow him into the grave.
This week saw further oil discoveries in the Santos Basin and off the coast of Ghana, extending a run of sizeable finds in recent weeks. Following much breathless reporting of such discoveries, it was good to them put into context by solid analysis from Morgan Stanley and Bank Macquarie…
Recently a friend gave me a copy of a January 22, 1973 issue of Newsweek. The cover title was “The Energy Crisis”. It’s interesting to look back and see how things have changed; or, to be more accurate, not changed.
Bioelectricity better than biofuels for transport
U.S. Drops Research Into Fuel Cells for Cars
Flush with Camaro orders, GM workers on OT
This content is no longer available. It was a pre-publication draft of a section of “Energy Limits to Growth,” a report that will be published in expanded form by Post Carbon Institute and International Forum on globalization in May.
