Energy analyst Michael T. Klare has been busy lately. There was his great piece on natural gas in The Nation, an op-ed in the L.A. Times this weekend about how it's not just us but the whole world that's addicted to oil, and -- most deserving of your attention -- a new piece on Tom's Dispatch arguing that the world is on the brink of a more-or-less permanent energy crisis:
Although we cannot hope to foresee all the ways such forces will affect the global human community, the primary vectors of the permanent energy crisis can be identified and charted. Three such vectors, in particular, demand attention: a slowing in the growth of energy supplies at a time of accelerating worldwide demand; rising political instability provoked by geopolitical competition for those supplies; and mounting environmental woes produced by our continuing addiction to oil, natural gas, and coal. Each of these would be cause enough for worry, but it is their intersection that we need to fear above all.
Yup.
Read the whole thing.
Comments
View as Flat
odograph Posted 9:58 am
12 Feb 2006
http://books.mcgraw-hill.com/getbook.php?isbn=0071468749
Maybe I shouldn't buy books that just confirm my views, but I really didn't hit this part until after I had it home:
We're not running out of oil. There is plenty of oil left in the ground to last us many decades, if not longer. We are, however, running short of cheap oil, especially the desirable grade of oil that flows easily and is devoid of sulfur, otherwise known as "light sweet Crude." Our reliance on that cheap oil runs deeper and is more entrenched than most of us are aware, and because its supply is getting tight at a time when global demand is accelerating, a great change is underway that will put pressure on our lifestyles and our world.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:49 pm
12 Feb 2006
"Bad Mileage: 98 tons of plants per gallon"
"Dukes also calculated that the amount of fossil fuel burned in a single year - 1997 was used in the study - totals 97 million billion pounds of carbon, which is equivalent to more than 400 times "all the plant matter that grows in the world in a year," including vast amounts of microscopic plant life in the oceans."
Just doesn't seem sustainable somehow.
Some intersections can be dangerous!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 4:24 pm
12 Feb 2006
http://www.ocean.udel.edu/windpower/ResourceMap/index-world.html
"Archer and Jacobson use worldwide weather stations (more accurate than the above GEOS-1 data, but not covering the oceans) and estimate the worldwide land and near-shore wind resource. Their calculation of total wind resource is 72 TW. This is seven tiems the world's electricity demand and five times the world eneregy demand (all commercial fuels and carriers)."
This on the other hand would seem sustainable.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sc Posted 2:54 am
13 Feb 2006
It seems to me that we need to face our own addictions, rather than telling other countries that they need to curb theirs.
Not to mention the fact that China appears to be a step ahead of us; just last month China announced it was in the process of drafting an "energy law to regulate the country's voracious appetite for power."
http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/feeds/ap/2006/01/26/ap2477916.html
All I've heard from Bush are promises of more research while he cuts the budget for energy conservation. Maybe, instead of asking Bush to lobby China, we should be asking Bush to follow China's lead.
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Energyconservation Posted 10:33 am
11 Jun 2006
Energy conservation
1.Some easy ways to save
2.Energy Saving Tips
*2.1 Water Heater
*2.2 Clothes Dryer
*2.3 Cooking
*2.4 Heating
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