Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
At the same time, it’s important to have a realistic understanding of efficiency’s limits. Boosting energy efficiency requires investment, and investments in energy efficiency eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. Just as there are limits to resources, there are also limits to efficiency. Efficiency can save money and lead to the development of new businesses and industries. But the potential for both savings and economic development is finite.
I think it’s this sudden growth of biofuels that is the main shock to the global food system that has led to a reversal of the decades long fall in prices, and in fact price spikes in the last five years.
“ There are no real solutions, there are only responses.” So say the expert contributors in The Post Carbon Reader, pointing to society’s complex, interdependent systems squeezed by growing demand and declining resources. Co-editor Daniel Lerch tells us renewable energy will never be able to replace fossil fuels. Thus resilience — the capacity of a system to withstand disturbance while retaining its fundamental integrity — needs to replace sustainability as a guide to action.
Bombing raids began on Libya this week as western powers combined to enforce the UN mandated no fly zone. The offensive has succeeded in its initial aim of slowing down Gaddafi’s forces, but the precise remit is unclear and a protracted conflict in the country is still highly likely.
As the nuclear reactor accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant continues to dominate the world’s attention, Germany has quietly broken more renewable energy records. . . The conservative government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, struggling to stay ahead of public attitudes toward nuclear power in the run-up to regional elections, issued its annual report on the contribution of renewable energy to the German energy market in 2010. . .
All caveats aside, you can see the main point here: biofuels are much much larger than Russian weather fluctuations as a total factor affecting cereal supply for food. This is not to deny any role for the Russian harvest change in the current food price spike. It was an unexpected negative shock, and I’m sure it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But should we blame the straw, or instead focus on the fact that the camel was already loaded to the breaking point?
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…
The final outcome and cost of the nuclear accident at Fukushima are yet to be determined but the obituary of the nuclear industry has already been written, and one competing source of power has already been declared the absolute winner by the Serious People: natural gas. Renewables are nice, but unSerious (not “reliable,” too expensive) so we need to rely on the big boys. Coal is a bit too dirty to be pushed openly, so gas is it. Cheap, abundant, clean and quick to be ramped up. Case closed.
Or is it? Let’s take all of these arguments in turn.
I wanted to know whether the growth in US wind installations had continued in 2010, so I went to the American Wind Energy Association website, and ended up at their Q4 2010 market report. I was horrified to see a graph showing that new installations collapsed in 2010 (though with some recovery in Q4).
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>
In the wake of the Japanese nuclear debacle, we need a practical and affordable clean electricity plan that does not rely on new nuclear power. This article presents just such a Plan. New nuclear is absent from the Plan not because of any safety concern, but simply because it fails the “practical and affordable” test. President Obama called for “80% Clean Energy” by 2035. This Plan presents how we can do it right.
– Lights go out in Seoul amid energy crunch
– Monbiot: UK must follow Spain down the road to lower speed limits
– Scrapping the fuel duty rise will hurt Britain economically
– “Repair-Ware” Household Gadgets Designed To Last Forever With Easy Fixability
– Maine Report Finds Solar Hot Water Would Save Mainers $, Oil
