Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
While riveted to Fukushima, we should remember that good old fashioned coal kills 4,000 times more people per kWh than nuclear power. As George Monbiot puts it, “While nuclear causes calamities when it goes wrong, coal causes calamities when it goes right, and coal goes right a lot more often than nuclear goes wrong. The only safe coal-fired plant is one which has broken down past the point of repair.”
– Science magazine: Peak Oil Production May Already Be Here
– Japan’s nuclear crisis has silver lining (NEW)
– Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: In this nuclear world, what is the meaning of ‘safe’?
– A global energy war looms
– International Crises Boost Russia’s Energy Posture
On the surface, the nuclear crisis in Japan and the political crisis in Libya (along with at least five other countries in the region) might seem unrelated. But when it comes to our self interest here in the United States, there’s one thing that binds them together: our unquenchable need for energy and the price we pay for that addiction. And there are a few lessons I think would behoove us to learn from this month in hell…
While efficiency, substitution are key to our efforts to adapt to resource limits, they are incapable of removing those limits, and are themselves subject to the law of diminishing returns>
– Bill McKibben: Japan’s Horror Reveals How Thin is the Edge We Live On
– Nicholas Stern: Climate inaction risks a new world war
– Monbiot: We won’t trouble Saudi’s tyrants with calls to reform while we crave their oil
– Learning from Japan about Resilience
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Conflict in the Middle East
-The global oil balance
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
One of the things I’ve been arguing for years is that most people in the developed world, given a perceived lack of alternatives and no narrative to explain change and sacrifice, will do almost anything to keep their present way of life. I point out that if they become cold enough most people would shovel live baby harp seals into their furnace to keep warm, while carefully justifying why this is reasonable and necessary and probably convincing themselves that baby harp seals like to be burned alive.
– Thomas Homer-Dixon: Our Fukushima moment
– Amory Lovins: With Nuclear Power, “No Acts of God Can Be Permitted”
– Roger Smith: Paul Goodman on nuclear power
– Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: World energy crunch as nuclear and oil both go wrong
The earthquake and tsunami which ripped apart the northern half of Honshu in Japan on Friday has caused a massive humanitarian disaster and a nuclear emergency which may still develop into a major catastrophe. The wider knock on effects could be a backlash against nuclear power, and further global economic instability as a result of damage to what is the world’s 3rd largest economy. Meanwhile in Libya the civil war raged on, and in Bahrain protests became bloody as the government turned to military force and outside help to retain power.
It’s not that you are discounting yourself – it’s that the personal you with all its small indulgences, its interiorities and subjective biographical events is turned inside out suddenly and asked to be someone else. Someone who acts within the bigger picture. Your own Spring uprising.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
The facts are these, in case Mr. Will is interested: we have a serious energy crisis and an even graver potential crisis. Petroleum resources are depleting worldwide, and new reserves aren’t coming into production fast enough to offset the rate of depletion. Fuel prices are once again on the rise. Many people can’t afford to operate their automobiles now, and it’s likely to get worse. The civil unrest in the Middle East threatens to disrupt the flow of petroleum and, thus, torpedo our global economy…In this age of energy instability, do we really want to say no to rebuilding our passenger rail capabilities?
