Renewable Energy

Deepshit Horizon: Earth Day began with a blow-out, will it end with one?

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On January 28th, 1969 the Union Oil Company’s Platform A, located six miles from Santa Barbara, CA experienced a “blow-out.” Highly pressurized deposits of natural gas pushed upward against the newly bored well causing oil to leak from the pipe and casings…The blow-out was devastating. Ironically, and tragically, this year’s Earth Day celebrations coincided with another oil rig blow-out, this time offshore of Louisiana. Like other recent mining disasters, the explosion and sinking of the rig caused by a well blow-out has claimed the lives of at least eleven workers.

Renewables out of the bottle

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Renewables have been growing as inside a bottle so far; a bottle made of disbelief, red tape and not enough financing. It is time for a little satori in renewable energy. Renewables can hold on their own with new and more efficient technologies, in particular the CdTe thin film version which may have an EROEI of 40. With such EROEIs, we can start thinking of renewable energy as abundant and cheap.

Food & agriculture – April 18

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– Inside Cuba’s urban agriculture revolution (video)
– Flight ban could leave UK short of fruit and veg
– Beating obesity
– The trouble with Brazil’s much-celebrated ethanol ‘miracle’
– ‘Biggest problem you’ve never heard of’: Peak phosphorus
– Phosphorus famine: The threat to our food supply (Scientific American)

Thinking the unthinkable about wood heating

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When homeowners fear high energy prices, winter power outages or loss of income they turn in big numbers to wood heating. It is a recognized pattern that’s been apparent each time people lose confidence in conventional energy price and supply…The thinking is that if everything goes to hell in a hand basket a wood stove can help get you through. That makes firewood a strategic fuel resource for families.

Wind industry growing in blue and red states alike

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As Paul Krugman’s New York Times Magazine cover story on environmental economics, “Building the Green Economy,” was ricocheting around the enviro blogosphere last week, the American Wind Energy Association released its annual report on the state of the wind industry.

The peak oil crisis: countdown at the Guri

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Now, if you are wondering why a falling water level in the Venezuelan highlands should be if interest to Americans, the answer is easy. Despite years of political tensions between the Chavez government and Washington, the U.S. is still importing some 800,000 barrels a day of crude from Venezuela.

The Meaning of Wood Heating: In their own words

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Most of the participants in this case study reported that wood energy provides a “deeper experience” that enhances quality of life and possibilities for learning. Using wood energy results in a number of personal benefits that offer some insight into requirements for generating wider citizen interest in energy sustainability.

ODAC Newsletter – Apr 2

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World Energy ministers met this week in Cancun for the latest session of the International Energy Forum. The meeting resulted in a declaration committing its 66 signatories to an “enhanced global producer-consumer energy dialogue”. As if on cue, the oil price reached its highest point in 2010 on Wednesday at over $83/barrel…