Water Supplies

Have frackers pushed their luck too far?

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Over the past week, I’ve heard from serious observers of the U.S. shale gas industry — from investment analysts, think-tank scholars and others — that we seem near a tipping point in the heated debate over the companies’ drilling methods: If there is another serious accident or two in which shale gas drillers appear to have polluted a water aquifer, look for significant regulatory curtailment of the industry, as one investment analyst put it.

Review: Life Without Oil by Steve Hallett With John Wright

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“Imagining a world without oil” describes in stark detail what might happen if one day the world decided to decommission all its oil tankers, rigs, pipelines and strategic reserves. The authors, environmental scientist Steve Hallett and journalist John Wright, expect that we’d initially see sky-high prices and long lines at pumps. After a few weeks, fuel wouldn’t be had at any price and even first-world citizens would struggle to stay fed and out of the elements. This is no Hollywood doomsday scenario—it’s a levelheaded extrapolation from current trends in the fast deteriorating world energy situation. [An essay prefiguring the book originally appeared in The Washington Post.]

McPherson’s film series: introduction, water security and food

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In an earlier series of posts, I identified the four primary attributes necessary to thriving during the post-carbon era (or, for that matter, today): water security, food security, body temperature, and human community. … I’m adding to the previous essays with a series of video clips. The usual caveats apply, primarily including the one about relevance to a specific region. The first two video clips, posted below, provide (1) a brief introduction and (2) an overview of how we secure water at the mud hut.

Hydromimicry: Water as a model for technology and management

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Natural systems, including those that use or are sculpted by water, typically are energy-efficient, produce minimal wastes, and achieve multiple goals simultaneously. As both a tool and creator of nature’s designs, water’s use as a model has applicability to topics as diverse as climate change, energy selection, food production, human health, ecosystem restoration, network design, chemical synthesis, resource management, infrastructure planning, and the fine arts.

Growing water deficit threatening grain harvests

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Many countries are facing dangerous water shortages. As world demand for food has soared, millions of farmers have drilled too many irrigation wells in efforts to expand their harvests. As a result, water tables are falling and wells are going dry in some 20 countries containing half the world’s people. The overpumping of aquifers for irrigation temporarily inflates food production, creating a food production bubble that bursts when the aquifer is depleted.

Review: The End of Growth by Richard Heinberg

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In the several years or so since peak oil began generating significant literature and debate, it has attracted a diverse array of thinkers. To name a few, there are insiders like Colin Campbell and Ken Deffeyes who sounded the first warnings; a clinical psychologist in the field of “peak oil blues,” Kathy McMahon; an archdruid practiced in nature’s less readily perceptible energies, John Michael Greer; and a couple of highly engaging social critics, Jim Kunstler and Dmitry Orlov. Richard Heinberg’s distinction is that he’s hands-down the most prolific peak oil author, now having written half a dozen books on the subject and a few others touching on it tangentially. His latest, The End of Growth, is yet another grand performance.

Energy and peace: the dangers of our slow energy transition

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Resource scarcity and climate change should be driving forward our transition to the energy systems of the future. Though this transition has started in important ways in several locations, change is not being undertaken at either the scale or speed required.

What a waste! The scoop on poop and ecological wastewater management

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Have you ever wondered why we poop in fresh water? In this interview author Carol Steinfeld, of Ecowater Projects, talks about human waste as a resource. Carol, co-author of The Composting Toilet System Book and Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling, shares her extensive knowledge about human waste management practices around the globe, innovative ways of re-using this neglected and often taboo material, and discusses why peeing outside might be a good idea.

ODAC Newsletter – May 27

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There was a step forward this week for recognition of peak oil in the UK political agenda. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has agreed that the Department for Energy and Climate Change and ITPOES (UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security) should work more closely together on peak-oil threat assessment and contingency planning.