Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Alberta’s energy regulating agency yesterday held a technical briefing for media on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing. The picture that emerged was of a province playing catch-up with continental events that have other governments’ regulators and researchers on high alert.
-Tighten fracking regulations, scientists urge US officials [report]
-Gas-Fracking Ban in Upstate New York Upheld by State Court Judge
-Exxon tempers European shale gas enthusiasm
When I first approached the topic of societal energy in 2004, I became aware for the first time that our energy future was not in the bag, and proceeded to explore alternative after alternative to judge the viability and potential pitfalls of various options. I have retraced my steps in Do the Math posts, exposing the scales at which different energy sources might contribute, and the practical complexities involved. My spooky campfire version of the story, a la Tolkien: The Way is Shut.
El informe explora alguno de los escenarios de transición de energía propuestos actualmente, mostrando por qué, hasta el momento, la mayoría son demasiado optimistas, ya que no tienen en cuenta todos los factores relevantes que limitan la expansión de fuentes energéticas alternativas.This is a Spanish translation of the Post Carbon Institute and International Forum on Globalization and report ‘Searching for a Miracle’.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-The Greek bailout
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
-Humanity’s Growing Impact on the World’s Freshwater
-Uncharted waters: Probing aquifers to head off war
-Drought summit: Why not pipe the water from north to south?
-Jordan’s Green Fairytale- ‘Once Upon a Water’ Campaign
-Thailand’s economy shrinks 9% after flood disruptions
-Food security v energy security: land use conflict and the law
Today’s post goes into the global consumption of energy and provides a dataset in Excel for researchers on global primary energy consumption from 1830 to 2010. We are now burning 10 times as much energy as a century ago to provide the goods and services we consume. Energy consumption is still increasing rapidly
Having looked at the major alternatives to fossil fuel energy production (summarized here), we come away with the general sentiment that the easy days of cheap energy are not evidently carried forward into a future without fossil fuels. That’s right, fossil fuels will be dead and gone. Is it time to pile them on the cart to be hauled away?
The shale gas phenomenon is so new, and the data so thin, that one wonders at the wisdom of making long-term export decisions with perhaps irreversible consequences. The last two energy manias lived and died without a wisp of a memory. This one, if it goes wrong, may not be so benign.
-Air sampling reveals high emissions from gas field [Nature]
-U.S. Shale Gas Exports Face Hurdles, Former Exxon CEO Says
-Poland Hopes Shale Gas Will Free It from Gazprom
-Fracking’s Toll on Pets, Livestock Chills Farmers: Commentary
Outrageous, snarky, “madly engaging,” bileful—these are a few of the terms that have been used to describe author and social critic James Howard Kunstler. But he’s actually a great deal more than these things, as anyone who’s really come to know him, even if only through his books and Internet postings, can tell you. His most personal writings reveal a human, vulnerable, wonderfully versatile, cheerful side that few people know exists.
‘Peak Oil Scare Fades as Shale, Deepwater Wells Gush Crude’ was the title of one of the lead articles in Bloomberg’s newly launched ‘Sustainability’ section this week. The report echoes a growing number of press reports announcing the end of the “myth” of peak oil. So what gives?
That conventional oil has peaked and will be in decline over the next decades is no longer controversial – so in that sense peak oil has been and gone, and the economic consequences are evident.
