Peak gas

European Union to Ban Gas Fueled Vehicles by 2050

If you´ve ever wondered what a continent would look like without vehicles burning fossil fuels, it may only be four more decades before you see it firsthand. The European Commission, an executive branch of the EU, put forth an ambitious proposal to eliminate gasoline and diesel fueled automobiles by the year 2050 in a bid to reduce traffic congestion and drastically reduce the continent's carbon footprint. While the plan is certainly not without its detractors, what may be more pertinent to ponder is what the world would look like if fossil fuels usage continues to rise for the decades to come, unabated.

Let the critics scream at this proposal. Very soon the proposal; may be worthless. We may not have to eliminate the vehicles when the gas and diesel is not available.

We're leading the way

EIA projects climate catastrophe

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has projected that the United States will lead the world into catastrophic global warming over the next twenty five years. In its 2011 Annual Energy Outlook, the EIA predicts that energy-related CO2 emissions will "grow by 16 percent [PDF] from 2009 to 2035," reaching 6.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (or 1.7 GtC)...


Suffice it to say our prospects for avoiding catastrophic loss caused by our damaged atmosphere are not improved by a political system in thrall to fossil fuel polluters. Hope for a sustainable future lies in our nation's ability to overcome the fear of changing our disastrous status quo and conquer the great challenges ahead.

We're leading the way - oops, in this case this is not a good thing.

Peak Oil now Peak Coal

Image via WikipediaDoes China Face a ‘Peak Coal’ Threat?

China’s ravenous appetite for energy puts the country at risk of reaching a point of “peak coal,” when demand for coal will outstrip domestic production capacity, a growing number of experts believe.


China now consumes approximately 47 percent of coal produced globally but by most estimates has just 14 percent of global coal reserves. Meanwhile, demand has risen by about 10 percent per year for the last decade, putting the country on an “unsustainable” path, according to a recent report by C.L.S.A. Asia-Pacific Markets, a Hong Kong-based brokerage firm.


Coal might be abundant globally, but if China cannot substantially raise its domestic production, increasing imports enough to meet demand may be hard to accomplish in the short-term, putting the country in a potential supply bind.

They like us must face the reality of peak energy supplies. Times will change for all.

Wyoming? Who da thunk it

If Wyoming Can, Then So Can Everywhere Else

To review: Wyoming is as politically red and pro-fossil fuel a place as exists in America. Nicknamed the "Cowboy State" for its hostility to authority, the square swath of rangeland most recently made headlines when its tax department temporarily suspended levies at gun shows for fear of inciting an armed insurrection. The derrick-scarred home of oilman Dick Cheney, the state emits more carbon emissions per capita than any other, and is as close as our country gets to an industry-owned energy colony.
So, to put it mildly, Wyoming is not known for its activist government or its embrace of green policies.
But that changed last month when Wyoming officials enacted first-in-the-nation regulations forcing energy companies to disclose the compounds they use in a drilling technique called "fracking."
If Wyoming can turn that knowledge into action, then so can — and must — every other state.

Wonder if Cheney is moving out of the state - it's becoming rational.

After Peak Oil...

...Are We Heading Toward Social Collapse?

Recently, Glen Sweetnam, director of the International, Economic and Greenhouse Gas division of the Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy (DOE), announced that worldwide oil availability had reached a "plateau." However, his statement was not made known through a major US mainstream media outlet. Instead, it was covered in France's Le Monde.

In a similar vein, no reporter discussing the deluge dared to raise the point that worsening extreme weather is on the way with climate change consequences in the mix, along with oil's relationship to these outcomes. Moreover, imagine the effect on the Dow or NASDAQ if Sweetnam's estimation and a discussion of connected economic ramifications got splashed all across the USA.

What exactly are the implications? In "Life After Growth," Richard Heinberg, senior fellow in residence at Post Carbon Institute, stated, "In effect, we have to create a desirable 'new normal' that fits the constraints imposed by depleting natural resources. Maintaining the 'old normal' is not an option; if we do not find new goals for ourselves and plan our transition from a growth-based economy to a healthy equilibrium economy, we will by default create a much less desirable 'new normal' whose emergence we are already beginning to see in the forms of persistent high unemployment, a widening gap between rich and poor, and ever more frequent and worsening financial and environmental crises - all of which translate to profound distress for individuals, families, and communities."

In other words, we collectively have to stop our delusions about perpetual economic growth and find another way to live from this point forward. We need to stop pretending that all is well because our myopic view of life shows no oil or other major shortfalls in the very near future. If we do not face up to the truth, the repercussions are clear....

In addition, the pending oil shortfall will cause products, services and food that rely on oil to skyrocket in cost. Moreover, petroleum derivatives serve as the foundation for fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, transportation of goods to markets, the majority of the grocery packaging operations (i.e., the manufacture of containers in addition to the bottling and canning processes, etc.) and, of course, operational farm machinery.

All considered, imagine just farms alone being run without sufficient oil. Would they be capable to supply enough food for close to seven billion people without it? How will they provide for the nine billion to ten billion expected to be on the Earth in approximately 40 years?

Henry Kissinger stated, "Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world." However, he perhaps neglected to consider that our food and practically all industry and finance are deeply tied to energy and that, in turn, is tied to fossil fuels.

Read the entire article. Not a rosy future but it is a must read if you want to be aware and prepared.

Anthropocene man

Image via Wikipedia

Earth 'Entering New Age of Geological Time'

Humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes on the planet that we may be ushering in a new period of geological history.

Through pollution, population growth, urbanisation, travel, mining and use of fossil fuels we have altered the planet in ways which will be felt for millions of years, experts believe.
It is feared that the damage mankind has inflicted will lead to the sixth largest mass extinction in Earth's history with thousands of plants and animals being wiped out.


The new epoch, called the Anthropocene - meaning new man - would be the first period of geological time shaped by the action of a single species.


Although the term has been in informal use among scientists for more than a decade, it is now under consideration as an official term.

The big question is - Will Man survive in the New Man Epoch?

Survival

Image via Wikipedia

Richard Heinberg on Life After Growth : TreeHugger

Richard Heinberg invented the term "Peak Everything," a term we have used a lot on TreeHugger. He has written nine books on the subject of how "resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared."


He concluded his recent talk in Toronto with the statement "Every crisis is an opportunity, and we are about to enter the biggest opportunity of our lives."
He is grimly optimistic, and as the slide shows, believes "life can be better." but before he gets to that upper of an ending, we have a downer of an introduction- a litany of what we are running out of (oil, soil, phosphates, natural gas and even coal).


We have reached the end of economic growth as we have known it. The "growth" we are talking about consists of the expansion of the overall size of the economy (with more people being served and more money changing hands) and of the quantities of energy and material goods flowing through it. The economic crisis that began in 2008 was both foreseeable and inevitable, and that it marks a permanent, fundamental break from past decades--a period in which economists adopted the unrealistic view that perpetual economic growth is necessary and also possible to achieve.
But he does believe that we can transition to a new economy that isn't based on growth.


The only reasonable response, it seems to me, is to act as if survival is possible, and to build resilience throughout society as quickly as can be, acting locally wherever there are individuals or groups with the understanding and wherewithal. We must assume that a satisfactory, sustainable way of life is achievable in the absence of fossil fuels and conventional economic growth, and go about building it.
Talk about "Opportunity"! Heinberg sees the Transition movement as a beacon in this calamity, and concludes an essay on his site that pretty much says what his talk did:


Call it Transition, call it cultural survival and renewal, call it what you will, it is the only game in town for the foreseeable future.

CO2 is back on the rise

Concentration in Atmosphere Reaches New Highs in 2010

Well, that didn't take long. After global emissions stalled following the worldwide recession around 2008--even falling in some otherwise heavily polluting nations like the US of A--it looks like everyone can rest assured: we're back on track with CO2 concentrations steadily a-risin' in the atmosphere.

According to a report from Reuters,

Levels of the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere have risen to new highs in 2010 despite an economic slowdown in many nations that braked industrial output, data showed on Monday. Carbon dioxide, measured at Norway's Zeppelin station on the Arctic Svalbard archipelago, rose to a median 393.71 parts per million of the atmosphere in the first two weeks of March from 393.17 in the same period of 2009, extending years of gains.
Which means that despite the recession throwing a wrench in the worldwide greenhouse gas-spewing machinery, carbon emissions burning industry is back online. It's still below the pre-recession levels of rise, which had been 2 parts per million a year, but it nonetheless signals that economies reliant on fossil fuel burning have resumed expansion.

So where are the deniers?

Peak Oil in the Headlines

Image via Wikipedia

Peak Oil in 5 Years: Virgin Boss Branson's Warning

It's always hard to know what to make of Richard Branson. From his reported $3bn investments to fight climate change to his offer of cash prizes for removing atmospheric carbon, the man certainly talks a good talk when it comes to green initiatives. And then the waters get muddied by his plans for space tourism and underwater planes for the super rich. So where do all these plans fit with his well-documented belief that peak oil is coming, and it's going to be a major challenge to the world economy?

Branson's Virgin group has already voiced its concerns over peak oil as part of the UK-based Peak Oil Task Force. Now the group, which also includes Arup, Foster + Partners, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solarcentury and the Stagecoach Group, is getting ready to launch its second report. looking at peak oil within the context of the recent recession, and making the case for why acting now to help the UK kick its fossil fuel habit is vital for long term economic prosperity.

According to The Guardian, Branson's foreword to the report (due out tomorrow) includes an urgent message to Government:

"The next five years will see us face another crunch - the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well. [...] Our message to government and businesses is clear: act," he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. Don't let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the credit crunch did."

Of course it should be taken into account that Branson runs a major UK rail operator when he talks of the urgency of government action on peak oil. Similarly, Solarcentury founder Jeremy Leggett is hardly an impartial bystander. But then, neither party claims to be. Leggett, whose awesome vision for a solarized world I reviewed a few weeks ago, had this to say in support of the group's activities:

""[We are] in regular contact with government; we have reason to believe their risk thinking on peak oil may be evolving away from BP et al's and we await the results of further consultations with keen interest."

Only a few short years ago, Peak Oil seemed to be the topic of choice for paranoid bloggers, the more radical environmentalists and fringe survivalist groups. Now the conversation is getting decidedly mainstream. Heck, even some folks at the IEA say peak oil could come sooner than we think. Given the context of our recent financial upheavals, Branson and Leggett's warnings to play it safe rather than sorry seem timely indeed. How else are we supposed to vacation in space when the oil runs out?

The real question, 5 years or is it here already? Reached the top already?