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Sunday, December 31, 2006

China chokes on a coal-fired boom

This is what our future will become if we don't somehow find a way to curtail our dependence on goods and services that owe their existence to high inputs of hydrocarbon energy.



A GREAT coal rush is under way across China on a scale not seen anywhere since the 19th century.

Its consequences have been detected half a world away in toxic clouds so big that they can seen from space, drifting across the Pacific to California laden with microscopic particles of chemicals that cause cancer and diseases of the heart and lung.

Nonetheless, the Chinese plan to build no fewer than 500 new coal-fired power stations, adding to some 2,000, most of them unmodernised, that spew smoke, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.

It is the political fallout of that decision that is likely to challenge the foundations on which Britain and other developed nations have built their climate change policy — even as there are signs that ordinary Chinese citizens are at last rebelling against lives spent in poisonous conditions.

Cloaked in swirling mists of soot particles and smoke, cities such as China’s “coal capital” of Datong are entering the coldest period of winter in which demand for power and heating produces the worst pollution.

It is often darkness at noon in Datong, just 160 miles west of Beijing, where vehicles drive in daytime with their headlights on to grope through the miasma.

One of the four filthiest towns in China, it stands at the heart of the nation’s coal belt in Shanxi province, a region that mines more coal every year than Britain, Russia and Germany combined.

Cancer rates are soaring, child health is a time bomb and the population, many of whom are heavy cigarette smokers, are paying the price for China’s breakneck rush to riches and industrialisation — an estimated 400,000 premature deaths nationwide because of pollution every year.


Oil is prohibitively expensive for China now, so they are using coal. Eventually oil will become prohibitively expensive in the United States as well. When, not if, that happens we will burn everything we can find to keep warm and to provide energy to produce what we want. The only way it could not happen is if we reduced our energy consumption at the same rate that our "clean" hydrocarbon energy depletes (including the increased contribution from renewable energy sources of course). Even that won't help the financially challenged who will not be able to ratchet up their energy expenditures at the drop of a hat. The costs are going to go up. That by itself will reduce consumption. But without an understood agreement by the consumer that there is going to be less for everyone, there will be no way to stop the burning of all of the wood and coal that can be had. As you can see in this article the situation is going to be grim long before the resultant pollutants from this wholesale burning factor into global warming.


[Link: China chokes on a coal-fired boom]

Friday, December 22, 2006

10 Principles of Post Peak Oil Planning

This is a really good presentation. Mr. Moerman is definitely talking about the real future here. His discussions about wasting food producing land on bio-diesel and transportation planning are splendid. In his introduction he talks about our faulty planning which is based on our false belief in the existence of ever increasing supplies of cheap oil. That is the false present that I have talked about here before.

We need to listen to these thinkers. The real future will belong to those who accept the real present. We are desperately in need of understanding and even more urgently in need of top level planners who will act on that knowledge.
[Primary Link: 10 Principles of Post Peak Oil Planning, pointer from Energy Bulletin]

Monday, December 18, 2006

100 Things You Can Do to Get Ready for Peak Oil

Most people haven't started thinking about the real future. That's mostly because they are still living in today's unreal present. You can't easily think about later unless you have a good grasp on now. The author of this article, however, may be planning for the real future.

If you are like me and you have been raised in a suburban, shopping mall, freeway to anywhere kind of world, your first read through this list will bring yesterday to your mind rather than tomorrow. It is true, much of the knowledge she is suggesting you acquire consists of skills that your grandfather and grandmother had to learn. But if you read carefully, and even between the lines, you will start to understand that these are not so much skills that she is asking us to learn but rather a new attitude. She is laying out a new way to view your world. And if we can accept that, we might be able to accept our new future as well.

I must be honest. I have not acquired that new attitude yet. I have not been able to modify my world nor the views of those I share it with. Intellectually, I believe I can understand the need but emotionally I have not accepted it yet. Maybe it is because I am as old as I am. Maybe it is because I am as comfortable as I am. Either way it is hard to blend my mind with my heart in this matter. I believe that I will know when I have achieved that goal however. It will be when this list seems essential and reasonable.

[Link: 100 Things You Can Do to Get Ready for Peak Oil]

Thursday, December 07, 2006

The post-abundance era

I like that term. I think the author of this article has hit upon the right name for what we are running in to. Post-abundance pretty much says it all. Abundance is a relative term. Post-abundance won't mean that anybody can't get what they want, just that maybe there won't be quite enough for everybody.
In an earlier post I wrote about the Olduvai Theory which is the idea that the world is facing a point of reduced per capita energy availablity. My point then was that this reduction does not mean we are going to be producing less energy only that we are going to be growing our energy supply more slowly than the population increases. I am almost certain that this is already beginning to happen since we have barely been keeping even for the last two or three decades. This subtle phenomenon will have the perverse effect of reduced abundance even though we are still producing at record rates. Post-abundance economics will of course result in a global zero-sum game since, by definition when anything is in limited supply, those who continue to increase their consumption will be withholding consumption from somebody else. Again, when the population is growing faster than the availability of goods, increased production does not mean increased abundance.
As the author of the article warns, there will be many pipers to pay as this plays out in the coming decades. Wars. International and intranational strife will be the order of the day. But eventually there will be a point of convergence when everyone will realize, that's all there is, there ain't no more. Then we will be in a new state of grace. All of us. We won't have any choice. I don't know how long it will take for us to work through to this new reality. I am an old man and may only see the opening moves. But some of you out there will see it through to the end game. This isn't something that we can pass off to "future generations." The new reality will then bare its other fang. Not only do we not have enough to keep our grand, technological miracle of a world going, there will be no more easily extracted resources to rebuild a new industrial age either. That really is all there is, there really ain't no more.
[Link: The post-abundance era]

Friday, December 01, 2006

Reid to change U.S. energy plan

One does hope, doesn't one? I bet that everyone that has come to believe in the reality of limited oil production saw the Democrats embrace energy independence in the run up to the elections last month and harbored a little bit of wishful thinking. I did. But I must admit I tempered it with a pretty fair amount of skepticism. Now the elections have passed, however, and here is a Democratic leader proclaiming an intent to pursue energy independence in January when the Democrats take control of the Congress. I even saw mention of the dreaded conservation gambit. I am, of course, still hesitant to believe. There are still a pair of scissors available to this sitting President and his nerves are hardwired into the inner workings of the oil industry. After all of this time of being convinced the U.S. would never face up to its irrational dependence on oil in the face of diminishing ability to produce it, though, I am finally daring to hope.
[UPI Link: Reid to change U.S. energy plan]

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Do Politicians Manipulate Gasoline Prices?

This Wall Street Journal article points to a study by the IMF that seems to show that there are political implications to some of the price changes in fuel. I tend to think that it is more likely a collusion between politicians and oil producers, or even the producers alone, that are manipulating prices to effect the voting outcome rather than the politicians manipulating the oil giants. But then, as a Peak Oil believer, I am a bonafide conspiracy nut anyway. It shouldn't be a surprise. Anytime you have such vast sources of money concentrated in so few, and relatively anonymous, hands you are going to see power exercised.
[WSJ Link: Do Politicians Manipulate Gasoline Prices?]

Monday, November 27, 2006

PetroWorld

Let's take a look at the big picture. In the past there were no usable hydrocarbons because uses for them had not been found. In the future there will not be any usable hydrocarbons because many uses for them will have been found and all of it that could be extracted will have been consumed. In between was/is PetroWorld.


PetroWorld is an artificial state of existence caused by having access to so many hydrocarbon resources that you begin to believe that there will always be hydrocarbons. Once you have taken residence in PetroWorld you are able to imagine a future that has unlimited hydrocarbons and you can even begin to plan for your future with that assumption in mind. Residents of PetroWorld begin to envision bizarre things like unlimited population expansion, unending economic growth, unbridled consumption, limitless travel (eventually to the stars), continual technological expansion and even virtual immortality. Anything is possible. In the real world, however, we all know that those things are not really attainable. All of those things depend on unlimited energy. Energy is not unlimited. In the past those things did not exist. In a very short while (our lifetimes) we will have to face up to the finite nature of hydrocarbon energy and those things will again have no meaning.


Inevitably, we will have to leave PetroWorld and return to the real world. I believe that will happen, not when we have used up all the hydrocarbons but rather, when our culture truly accepts the fact that we will not always have hydrocarbons. When we admit that the real state of existence is hydrocarbon free. At that point our future will become real and we can begin to plan accordingly. We can begin to build a world that is founded on rational limits and realistic expectations. We can begin to build a real world.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Revisiting the Olduvai Theory

Most of us who are familiar with the Peak Oil theory have read the Olduvai Theory presented in Dieoff.org . In this theory Richard Duncan proposes that we are about to encounter a severe reduction in our global energy availability which will result in a major population decrease (the dieoff). In his presentation he shows one plot of oil production per capita and another of total energy use per capita vs. time. Both of those curves rise steeply to about 1980 then more or less flatten out. I have looked at those curves several times. But it is only recently that I began to appreciate what those curves are telling us.
Consider for a moment the steeply rising portion of the curve representing the middle part of the last century. This is not a curve of energy production it is a plot of energy production per capita. With the population increasing at the high rate that it was (and still is) during that time this shape represents a massive increase in energy production such that the per capita energy production was increasing exponentially. I have to believe that the population was chasing the oil production up that curve. Then, about 1980, the curve flattened out.
Let's make it very clear, it does not imply that energy production in any way flattened out, it only indicates that the rate of growth of energy production has slowed so that it is only keeping pace with the increase in population. Think about that in Peak Oil terms for a moment. When energy/oil production does actually flatten out (the famous undulating plateau), or if it already has, that means that per capita energy consumption is going to drop accordingly. We don't have to produce less oil to begin to move into the downslope of the Olduvai curve, we only have to produce at a lower rate than the population increase in order for our per capita energy use to plummet. That is probably already happening because a flat production rate is very much less than the population increase. And if it is, we are probably already headed into the fall. As soon as our energy production begins to flatten out, the energy available for each of us in the world will begin to fall. The backside of the production curve is almost meaningless. By that time the population will probably be chasing production down the curve.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Stanford Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability

This is a link to an ambitious project from Stanford University seeking to understand the environmental ramifications of sustainability. The site is divided into four sections dealing with energy and the climate, land use, oceans and fresh water. I dont' know whether they will produce any useful answers to those powerful questions but if the following excerpt from the site is any indication, they are certainly heading in the right direction.
Researchers and scholars at Stanford are asking the key question: Can we adequately meet current human needs while protecting and restoring planetary life support systems for the welfare of people today and generations yet to come?

[Link: Stanford Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability ]

Saturday, November 18, 2006

U.N. climate pact unlikely until after Bush

The world is trying to solve a very pressing climate problem. As a major user of fossil fuels the United States should be in the forefront of this process. Here is what one of the experts at a recent climate conference had to say.
"Everyone is waiting for the United States. I think the whole process will be on ice until 2009," when Bush's second term expires, said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

Is anyone embarrassed for the United States. I am. We cannot be part of a solution to global warming if we don't participate. But as the major contributor to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming we sure are a real part of the problem. If we don't participate not only does nothing get done but we will be blamed for all of the perceived problems that global warming might bring. We have to get this thing off dead center somehow.
[Link: U.N. climate pact unlikely until after Bush - Yahoo News]

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Peddling PetroProzac: CERA ignores 10 warning signposts of peak oil

A recent comment by Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA)to the effect that there really isn't an oil problem and we will have plenty for many years to come encouraged this response by ASPO-USA. I like their lead paragraphs.
As Yergin well knows, peak oil does not mean we are “running out.” This is a red herring. To be fair, some peak oil commentators have been equally obtuse and shrill. It sometimes seems to us that both sides in the debate are shouting down a well. The public interest would be better served by a more intelligent discussion.
Peak oil is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end of the Oil Age. Indeed, at peak the world will have more oil available than it ever had before; to the casual observer all will appear well. No one can predict how rapidly oil production will fall once it peaks, plateaus, and begins to decline. Because heroic, expensive efforts will be made to reduce demand and expand supply, the plateau could last for some years, and the backside of the global production curve is likely to be shallower that the ascent. On this we agree with CERA. Eventually, however, production will fall, even as human numbers continue to climb. On a Btu basis, even a 2% annual reduction in global oil supply is equivalent to losing the energy provided by 80 nuclear power plants. The prospect of such reductions recurring year after year is most sobering.

Trying to keep the discussion civil the authors clearly lay out the problems with Yergin's argument. The the heart of the article includes ten warning signposts that herald the arrival of Peak Oil.
[Link: Peddling PetroProzac: CERA ignores 10 warning signposts of peak oil]



Update (11/18/06): This link is to a an article [Countdown to $100 oil (35) - peak oil: the last skeptics capitulate (CERA)] by Daily Kos contributor Jerome a Paris. He reaches the conclusion, and I must agree, that Yergin is really just predicting a different Peak Oil rather than no Peak Oil. I see Yergin's argument being entirely dependent on the feasibility of exploiting hard to reach deposits (very deep sea) and difficult to produce sources (tar sands). Extraction of these resources will cost a lot money and energy. EROEI and $$$ profits will be difficult. I vote for something in between the two definitions of Peak Oil. Nobody is really voting for no Peak Oil.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Some more thoughts on the Future

Some more thoughts about the past, present and the future. A couple of posts ago I wrote about my recent realization that we are living in a present that is totally unique relative to our past and our future. The reason that I believe that, is because the reality that defines a culture's existence is completely tied to its vision of the future. Since we started using hydrocarbons we have built a reality that depends not only on those hydrocarbons but on all of the things that are made possible by having hydrocarbons as well as the continued availability of hydrocarbons... forever. We cannot conceive of a world without them.
Our perception of the future, therefore, is not valid and any long term decisions our society makes are, by definition, wrong. That is why I think we will not be able to move into the "real" future until we finally understand and accept that we will have to live without hydrocarbons.
Before hydrocarbons people did not think of unending progress, unlimited technical innovation and, indeed, continuous economic growth. There was no way to get to that frame of mind without an unending supply of cheap and easily transported energy. Now, although there actually isn't an unending supply of hydrocarbons, there is so much of it that we have totally built our world view on its availability. We have essentially accepted that it is in infinite supply. In the future people will not expect hydrocarbons to be available forever. That will profoundly change the way we live our life. In this Blog I am going to try and get my mind around our future. It won't be easy because I was born, and have lived a full life, on the leading edge of the hydrocarbon age. I really only have that reality to work with.

Democrats and 'Energy Independence'

James Kunstler is sometimes a rough read but his writing style is not nearly as rough as his ideas. In this piece he is lamenting that the powers that be are promoting the idea that energy dependence is merely a matter of switching from one technology to another. In fact, he says, there is another aspect to energy independence. We will have to give up a lot of our mobility and change not just the mode but the quantity of transportation we use. I see many instances of this energy ignorance in the press today. Over time we will begin to understand that the "independence" in energy independence really means living without it. But that surely hasn't happened yet.
[Link: Democrats and 'Energy Independence']

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Past, Present and Future

Everything has a past, a present and a future. Humankind is no exception. Lately, I have been thinking about our (for argument's sake I have included myself in humankind) past, present and future. I have come to the conclusion that our past existed from the time we separated from the evolutionary chimpanzee line (or more accurately from an extinct line that became both humans and the modern chimpanzee) to become distinctly human, until the time that we first extracted hydrocarbons from the earth to produce energy. Our present, then, spans the time between our first use of hydrocarbons and now. That is pretty long time to be calling the present you might say. It isn't really, it is just a tiny bit of time in our life as a unique species (see below). I think of the present in this way because it has resulted in a way of life for us that is unsustainable and will soon disappear in favor of what I now think of as our future.
So lets say that the age of hydrocarbons is our present. What does that portend for the future. Hydrocarbons are in finite supply. They aren't always easy to find, and we certainly haven't found them all yet, but there will come a time when we can't find enough to satisfy our desires. We don't know that yet. The idea that we may have to live without hydrocarbons hasn't sunk in to our collective psyches. At that point in time when we "suddenly" realize that we are going to run out of hydrocarbons someday, and can't possibly replace them with sustainable energy, we will have entered into our future.
What will this future be like. Who knows? Unfortunately we have, with the help of all that cheap energy, multiplied our numbers beyond any hope of maintaining our present level of consumption once hydrocarbons are constrained. Undoubtedly, in the future we will be required to reduce our use of the planets resources in every way . We have not begun to address those questions however. We haven't, because we haven't admitted to ourselves that we need to. The future is not yet here. Oil wars and climate change are trying to tell us. Eventually we will understand.

Just for fun. A while ago I put a little timeline together as a way to help me visualize the unfolding of humankind's story. My device was to fold all of the history of humankind into a 24 hour period. The life of humanity in one day. I was very surprised by the perspective that it gave. I am placing it here to reinforce my claim that modern history is just a moment in time.

A Day in the Life of Humanity
12AM Midnight (24 hrs ago) - the genealogical line of Great Apes that will become Homo Sapiens splits from the line that will become Chimpanzees.
4PM (8 hrs ago) - 16 hrs later humankind has made much progress. They have mostly developed the upright stance, large brain and tool using specialties that will eventually be their trademark as true humans.
8PM (4 hrs ago) - In another 4 hrs they will have mostly achieved their final status in preparation for life as Homo Sapiens. Their physical stature, brain capacity, tool making skills and probably the use of language and culture have been established. They are master of their domain which is most of the temperate eastern hemisphere. They are accomplished hunter-gatherers. There are still other hominid lines around at this time. They will not survive.
11:57PM (3 mins. ago) - It is finally time for a major change in their lifestyle. For the last 23 hours and 57 minutes they have been living under nature's rules, moving from place to place and obtaining everything they need from their local environment or by trading with fellow travelers whose path they might cross. But now, a few humans decide that they are going to control the life cycles of some of the plant's and animals they need to sustain themselves. They are going to become farmers. This decision results in several compromises and leads to many complications. They will need to stay in one place to tend their domesticated plants and animals. They will have to cooperate with each other. They will have to bring the resources they need to their new fixed living place if they are not available locally. Hierarchal social organization, economic relationships, division of labor, technical innovation - many new concepts emerge from this new way of life. There are probably several million humans now.
11:59PM (1 min. ago) - By now this new human lifestyle has become the norm. Great cities, sprawling nation-states and grand cultures and religions have grown around the fixed locations suited for growing plants and animals for food. Humans have spread to nearly all of the land masses of the earth. Resources are sometimes exhausted. Civilizations come and go and wars are fought to secure and obtain resources from neighboring human populations. Humans begin to use writing to record their activities. Great constructions begin to occur and monuments to rise. The human population could be as many as 25 million.
11:59:25PM (35 secs. ago) To honor a central figure in one of the major religions of the world, many humans decide to begin counting time now, celebrating his birth.
11:59:55PM (5 secs. ago) It is time for another major change in their lifestyle. Until this point in time humans have been limited in their use of energy to that provided by the sun and the biological, wind and water cycles that it drives. But clever humans have found a new way to produce energy, by burning underground combustible wastes left over from ancient biological processes. This activity bypasses some very serious constraints on human activity while postponing the negative feedback of its own use into the future. Increased use of these resources allow significant improvements in the quality of life for many more humans. Human labor can now be reduced or amplified at will. Tools can be manufactured that will allow more tools to be built that will, in turn, exponentially raise the ability of humans to consume resources. Population may now be as high as 800 million humans.
11:59:58PM (2 secs. ago) A new form of the stored energy is found. It is in a powerful, portable liquid form that can be moved easily to where it is needed. All humans covet this new energy source. The new energy source enables great increases in resource conversion and food production. Many more humans arise to consume these newly produced goods. The world soon devotes itself, full time, to procuring, producing, consuming and protecting this new energy source. There are 1500 million humans on the earth now.
11:59:59.95PM (.05 secs. ago) At this time a few humans realize that, in the last two seconds, half of all this wondrous new energy source known to exist has already been used up. Oh, and by the way, in that same two seconds 5000 million additional humans became poised to use up the rest.
12AM Midnight: You are here.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Peak Oil is not the problem



Let's face it. "Peak Oil" is just a math problem. In the real world it doesn't mean a thing. In the real world there used to be a lot of oil. In the real world there eventually won't be much oil left at all. That is because in between those two real world end points we will be producing and using as much of it as we can. We can't help ourselves. Peak Oil is just as much oil as we ever can produce. The usage over time might look like that curve, it might not. My first inclination is not to worry about how much oil I use. I won't effect the final outcome. As much of it as can be used will all eventually be used no matter what I do.
That isn't the whole story though. Even though I believe we are bound to quickly use it all up, I do feel there are good reasons not to. From a standpoint of the climate, for instance, we shouldn't use oil at all. We should leave it in the ground and find another way to power our lives that doesn't carry the cost to our atmosphere of carbon based fuels. There is another compelling reason for not using oil as well. When it is gone it is gone. Anything that oil might have provided to future generations will be foreclosed. Leaving aside the fact that they would never be able to fashion an industrial civilization like our own without oil, our descendants will not have the benefits of this resource no matter what grand magic could potentially be derived from its use (think medicines, plastics, industrial chemicals).
We were given a great gift. By using it up as quickly as we can, and in many cases for completely non-essential purposes, we are taking a huge pile of chips off the table for future generations. Can you imagine explaining someday to your great-granddaughter that she can't have her petrochemical based artificial kidney because you used the oil to pave your driveway. I don't think it is too radical to claim that our most important task as a species right now might be to find a way to live with out oil. No matter how little we use we will eventually run out. If we are lucky we will learn how to live without it before that happens. If we are really lucky we will be able to save a little for posterity.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Grain Drain: Get Ready for Peak Grain

This is not a surprising development. As we continue to expand our population, the resources that we depend on just don't seem to keep pace. We have not found a way to create resources yet. All we have mastered is the consumption of them. They are finite and it seems there is no way we can avoid using them up. Indubitably, when one is gone we will start using up the next one. The trouble with growing food for fuel is that it depends, to a huge degree, on the fuel that we are trying to replace with bio-fuels. That is a double whammy. As the fuel runs out it will also become harder to produce bio-products to replace them because there isn't enough fuel....ad infinitum. Someday we will have to face the facts. There isn't going to be enough to go around. We will have to adjust our numbers or adjust our consumption or have it done to us. There are no other "long term" options. [Link: Grain Drain: Get Ready for Peak Grain]

Monday, October 30, 2006

Climate costs: The global picture

Now this complicates the picture somewhat. When President Bush pulled the United States out of the Koyoto protocol he gave as his reason that the solutions would be destructive of the U. S. economy. Now these British officials have concluded that not dealing with the climate changes will devastate the economy. Now we have a dilemma here. Now, it is possible that if we spend money to fight global warming we may be avoiding huge costs that would accompany its effects. Things rarely get simpler when you ignore them. [Link: Climate costs: The global picture]

Saturday, October 28, 2006

The End of Suburbia - 52 minute documentary on oil depletion

You can watch a slightly reduced version of this classic Peak Oil video on YouTube. Give it a look. It is a good introduction to the subject.

Friday, October 27, 2006

The Encyclopedia of Earth

I would like to direct you to this new site that promises to be a significant resource for all things environmental. I haven't spent much time in its dark corners yet but what I have seen looks very promising. If anyone has a more studied opinion, good or bad, please consider sharing a comment.[Link: The Encyclopedia of Earth]

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Koppelaar: Peak Oil, Separating Facts from Fiction


Here is a very long and technical article about the global oil supply and depletion. If you read this and, more importantly, understand it, you will be well on your way towards having a rational backing for your ideas about resource depletion. It isn't an easy subject and, as always, the devil is in the details. You may not even reach the same conclusions the author has. But if we are going to find a way out of this looming resource dilemma we are going to have to start with knowledge not belief. We can change to meet the challenges resource depletion presents. No matter how much we want this problem to go away, however, it won't change for us. [Link: via The Oil Drum]

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

OPEC's Cuts Signal Pricing Worries

What is one to believe? The Saudis announce (see Link below)they will cut the production of oil in order to shore up the falling crude prices. How do we know that they aren't having trouble producing as much oil as we think they can. They wouldn't want to say that now would they? It seems to me that, either way , we are going to see the price start back up soon. The winter demand is heating up (no pun) and it has been almost a year now since we have seen any increase in global oil production. I guess we will not know 'til we know but I sure wish somebody would put their oil well where their mouth is. [LINK: Business Week]

The name of the Blog

How do you like the name I chose for this Blog? It isn't a real word but it evokes a sense of the wasting away of the essence of the petrochemical world which is kind of what I am trying to grapple with. I like it. If you don't, of course, you can start a Blog with a better name.

First post, new blog

Just created this new blog to try out the new blogger system (one of the least pressing issues facing us today) and to create a space for me to talk about what, I believe, is the most pressing issue that humanity faces today. That issue being the potential rapid depletion of our finite supply of hydrocarbon resources. I will be talking about that subject, pointing out some valuable resources and directing you to important discussions by others as well. I derive my authority for the content herein, not by being an expert on the subject, but as a fully invested beneficiary of its effects, as we all will be.
My comments on this subject had previously been mixed with the comments in my other Blog, CybeRedoubt.