Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I don’t expect any government agency to issue a regulation requiring a warning label on oil and natural gas discoveries. But the next best thing would be for journalists reporting such finds to put them into perspective using a days of world consumption figure, or if the find is natural gas that will only be marketed domestically, days of domestic consumption.
Oil prices dropped this week on rising US inventories, a strengthening dollar, and news of a further crackdown on credit in China. Speaking from the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi this week, Richard Jones, Deputy Executive Director of the IEA predicted that there would be little price volatility in 2010 as existing supplies and stock build ups would balance demand.
The January edition of Oilwatch Monthly is now available: 1) Conventional crude production – Latest figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that crude oil production including lease condensates increased by 592,000 b/d from September to October 2009, resulting in total production of crude oil including lease condensates of 73.12 million b/d…
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China clamps down
Interested in Energy? Like to rock out? Well, three rockin’ peak-oil/energy related songs are included here with lyrics: Peak Oil Blues, Americium, and Energy Matters. A brief commentary on each song is also provided to improve your listening experience. Rock on.
Faith Carr, after working hunched over a desk for 35 years, ended up disabled. Exhausted after even more years of progressive political activism with no success, she turned her hand to her own backyard. The 25 square-foot herb garden turned into a homestead. Come the revolution, she’ll bring the eats.
This essay brings a different perspective to the question of whether oil caused the financial crash of 2008.
-Conoco, Total to expand oil sands project
-Shell faces shareholder revolt over Canadian tar sands project
-Alberta to study pace of oil sands growth
For Queen Elizabeth, 1992, the year Windsor Palace caught on fire and several of her kids separated, was an annus horribilis, for the rest of us the coming year may well turn out to be horrible too. While our leaders and the media continue to tell us that we have turned an economic corner and that all will be well soon, the underlying data, for those willing to look, tell a far different story.
The “Don’t Fear the 2010s” article written by Nick Gillespie of the Wall Street Journal featured a section on Peak Oil and, after reading it, I found myself uttering the famous words of Homer Simpson: “Doh.” The article claims that “something always gets in the way” of peak oil, and since no clear peak has occured globally, Peak Oil is and will remain unimportant.
Hot from combined gatherings of Peak Oil, Climate, and new planning experts in Vancouver, October, this episode of Radio Eco-shock features California green guru Warren Karlenzig on post carbon cities and former Shell Exec now anti-corporate activist Anita Burke. This is the first of a series of speakers from “Gaining Ground/Resilient Cities, Urban Strategies for Transition Times” conference in Vancouver October 20-22nd, 2009.
Nobody wants to be the last person into a community in disarray. Nobody wants to come skating in, unknown by the neighbors, when the food and water are running low. Nobody wants to be known at the new kid in town, regardless of her age. So there’s the central issue of building community in the community. As if that’s not difficult enough, in a culture anathema to community, there’s more.
