Peak Oil will be one of the defining events of this century. Forecasts by professionals in energy-related fields fall in a large range between 2006 and 2025+, with most forecasts by institutions in the later half of this range. Estimates vary widely due to two very different kinds of factors.
Category: Energy
Jolly green heretic
Stewart Brand, a pioneer of both environmentalism and online communities, has not lost his willingness to rock the boat.
IN SOME respects Stewart Brand’s green credentials are impeccable. His mentor was Paul Ehrlich, an environmental thinker at Stanford university and author of “The Population Bomb”, published in 1968. That book, and the related Club of Rome movement of the 1970s, famously predicted that overpopulation would soon result in the world running out of food, oil and other resources. Though it proved spectacularly wrong, its warning served as a clarion call for the modern environmental movement.
Mr Brand made his name with a publication of his own, which also appeared in 1968, called “The Whole Earth Catalogue”. It was a path-breaking manual crammed with examples of small-scale technologies to enable individuals to reduce their environmental impact, and is best known for its cover, which featured a picture of the Earth from space (which Mr Brand helped to persuade America’s space agency, NASA, to release). The book became a bestseller in anti-corporate and environmental circles. In 1985 Mr Brand co-founded the WELL, a pioneering online community that was a precursor of today’s social-networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook.
Mr Brand still has a following among the Birkenstock set, and even lives on a tugboat near San Francisco. But meet him in person and it becomes clear he is not exactly your typical crunchy-granola green. Sitting down to lunch at a posh beach resort on Coronado Island, off San Diego, he does not order a vegan special but a hearty Angus burger with bacon, cheese and French fries, and a side-order of lobster bisque. “I’m genetically a contrarian,” he says with a broad smile.
A Federal Energy Policy: Can It Happen Here?
Petroleum and Natural Gas Watch
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
July 27, 2007, Vol. 6, Number 9
Of all the issue areas that Congress dives into from time to time, none reveals the inability of our legislative branch to fashion an internally consistent national policy quite like energy. The usual items in an energy bill–tax credit extensions, fuel subsidies, fresh regulatory requirements (and loopholes), new rules on offshore drilling, etc.—are designed to reward specific industries and influential constituencies. This year’s energy bill promises to follow that timeworn path left by Congresses of yesteryear.
But an energy bill has to be more than the sum of its subsidies to constitute effective policy. This is especially true as we enter a time of growing resource and environmental limits that threaten to bite us in the collective behind if we don’t curb our profligate consumption of energy.
Now is not the time to continue subsidizing every form of energy that can be produced in the United States, as the current Congress seems intent on doing. In previous bills, Congress has taken great pains to make sure that every energy constituency—coal, oil, nuclear or renewables–gets its fair share of the federal pie, regardless of need or environmental impact. This is the cheap energy paradigm at work—promoting economic growth by artificially lowering energy prices.
Home features 8.4 kW solar electric system
From a story by Alec Luhn in the Wisconsin State Journal:
When he got to what he calls “the mid-life crisis age,” Madison resident Jim Taylor, 45, said he figured “Well, I’m going to have to either buy a sports car or do something.'”
For Taylor, that something was installing an 8.4-kilowatt solar panel array on his roof in April — the largest solar-energy system on a Madison residence.
Although he originally intended to supply only his family’s energy needs, he has been selling his excess energy to Madison Gas & Electric the last two months and now could increase his earnings under a new buyback rate proposed by the utility.
Under the proposal, Taylor would sell all of his energy to MGE at a rate of 25 cents per kilowatt-hour and buy back the portion he needs from the utility’s overall pool of renewable energy at about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Facts About Danish Energy Independence
- The U.S. uses a bit more than 300 barrels of oil to produce one million Euros of gdp, Denmark uses just a bit over 100 barrels.
- Pig blubber is an important medium for heating.
- Energy consumption has held roughly steady for 30 years, even though gdp has doubled.
Recent Rental Cars: 2007 Mazda Miata
The rental car counter presented a simple choice for my “compact” reservation: Mazda Miata or Minivan. I put the top down and began my journey with an ’07 Miata. Quick summary: better than I expected, particularly in the acceleration department, but….. uncertain handling at upper end highway speeds.
Decent seats, useful controls, easy to use convertible top and…. 27mpg after a mix of highway and suburban driving. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see a rental car without an automatic transmission. A six speed manual Miata would have been much more interesting.
Much more on the Mazda Miata here.
$4.00 Per Gallon Gas?
Author of nation’s toughest global warming law to speak April 25
The author of the nation’s strongest global warming law tells us how California is responding to climate change and how she gained the political support to get it done …
“Leading the Way on Climate Change”
a free public lecture by Fran Pavley
3:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 25
Memorial Union (see “Today in the Union” for room)
800 Langdon Street
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fran Pavley has served three terms in the California State Assembly, where she is known as one of the most effective legislators in Sacramento. The former Mayor of Agoura Hills and long-time public school teacher is the author of landmark legislation (the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) on global warming that has become a model for other states and countries. She is also author of the first regulations on vehicle carbon dioxide emissions. Eleven other states and Canada have modeled their laws after Pavley’s Clean Car Regulations. She has been selected as one of Scientific American’s Top Technology Leaders in Transportation and received the 2006 California League of Conservation Voters’ Global Warming Leadership Award along with former Vice President Al Gore.
This event is co-sponsored by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UW-Madison. For more information, please contact Steve Pomplun at the Nelson Institute or call Steve at 263-3063.
Doyle announces initiatives on energy independence and global warming
From the press statement posted on Governor Jim Doyle’s Web site:
Office of Energy Independence
Governor Doyle today signed an Executive Order creating the new Office of Energy Independence to advance the Governor’s vision on energy policy and promote the state’s bioindustry. The office will serve as a single-point of contact for citizens, businesses, local units of government and non-governmental organizations pursuing bio development, energy efficiency and energy independence. The office will also identify federal funding opportunities and serve as the State Energy Office, working to maintain federal designation and funding.
One initial project for the office will be to work with the Public Service Commission (PSC) on a potential multi-utility effort to build a “clean coal” electric generation facility.
Judy Ziewacz will serve as Executive Director of the office, which will be located in the Risser Justice Building.
Task Force on Global Warming
Governor Doyle signed an Executive Order creating a Task Force on Global Warming that will bring together a prominent and diverse group of key Wisconsin business, industry, government, energy and environment leaders to examine the effects of, and solutions to, global warming in Wisconsin. Using current national and local research, the task force will discuss and analyze possible solutions to global warming challenges that pose a threat to Wisconsin’s economic and environmental health. The task force will create a state plan of action to deliver to the Governor to reduce our state’s contribution to global warming.
In conjunction with the new task force, the Governor directed the Department of Natural Resources, with the assistance of the PSC, to lead an effort to obtain a current estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions in Wisconsin.
The task force will be chaired by Roy Thilly of the Wisconsin Public Power and Tia Nelson of the Board of Public Land Commissioners.
State ready for energy research lab
This column by Tom Stills, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, ran in the Stevens Point Journal:
A joint proposal was filed Feb. 1 by the UW System, UW-Madison and Michigan State University to open a federal energy research lab in Madison. Molly Jahn, dean of the UW-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has described the proposal as a strong fit with faculty, staff and student projects related to bio-energy. Those projects are taking place in disciplines that encompass biology, agriculture, engineering, natural resources and the social sciences. . . .
It will be months before the next phase of the federal selection process begins, but the collaborative effort should merit a hard look in Washington. If Wisconsin is successful, it could mean several hundred jobs and tens of millions of dollars within five years.