Energy Wars

For a while, it was a standard-issue Al Gore jeremiad, with calls for everything from installing solar panels in Darfur (seriously) to legal action against "the carbon lobby" for denying global warming (ditto). But then Mr. Gore really got going and told his disciples to head -- literally -- to the barricades to "stop" coal.

Since 1929 is a frequent topic these days, I checked out world oil consumption from 1929 to 1939, and I found that world consumption in 1939 was up from 1929. In fact, it looks like 1930 was the only down year in this time period. One of the factors contributing to the increase in consumption was that millions of people wanted to drive cars for the first time. For example, there were three million more cars on the road in the US in 1937 than in 1929, according to Frederick Allen. Today, hundreds of millions of people worldwide want to drive cars for the first time, while oil consumption worldwide is up about tenfold from the Thirties.

Google has released an iGoogle gadget that tracks petrol prices - iGoogle: Petrol Price Tracker. I'm not sure if it works outside Australia, but it seems to work fine for Sydney. As they say in the video, you are better off cycling, walking or taking public transport - but if you have to drive, this will help make it less expensive.

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger have an oped in today's LA Times that posits the theory that environmentalists got complacent and read too many "of their own press clippings," allowing conservatives/Republicans to coopt the entire energy agenda. By focusing like a laser beam on price and supply issues, the right made energy a pocketbook, rather than an environmental issue, and-- so say Nordhaus and Shellenberger-- that has dealt the green energy agenda a serious body blow.

I think that this concept of "Energy Geopolitics" is extremely broad and complex. As a result, it's necessary to take a systems-thinking approach, addressing the issues of complexity and feedback loops head-on. My goal here is, in only 10 slides, to start with the sources of geopolitical conflict and tie them up into a coherent model of a system of geopolitical disruption to energy and resource supplies. ...

Barack Obama and John McCain are promising voters a Tomorrowland of electric cars and high-speed trains and solar panels, a vision of American life without a drop of imported oil. But their plans to get there look more like Fantasyland. A host of energy policy experts agree that true "energy independence"-a key catch phrase of this presidential campaign-would be far more expensive and disruptive than either candidate is telling you.

Craters so huge they can be seen from space. Thousands of miles of rivers and streams polluted by acidic runoff. Miners can pay the government no more than $5 an acre for the chance to make a fortune or go bust -- and stick taxpayers with millions of dollars in cleanup costs. It is the legacy of an 1872 federal law that still allows miners to take precious metals from public land for next to nothing.

Rising Tide is an international network born out of the conviction that corporate-friendly and state-sponsored "solutions" to climate change will not save us. As a matter of survival, we must decrease our dependence on the industries and institutions that are destroying the planet and work toward community autonomy and sustainable living.

The rise in global carbon dioxide emissions last year outpaced international researchers' most dire projections, according to figures being released today, as human-generated greenhouse gases continued to build up in the atmosphere despite international agreements and national policies aimed at curbing climate change.

If Matt Simmons is right, the recent drop in crude prices is an illusion - and oil could be headed for the stratosphere. He's just hoping we can prevent civilization from imploding. Matt Simmons argues that Saudi Arabia's oil supplies are much more limited than everyone thinks. (Fortune Magazine) -- Matt Simmons is as perplexed as anyone that it has fallen to him to take on OPEC, Exxon, the Saudis, and all the other misguided defenders of conventional wisdom in the oil patch. Why should one investment banker with a penchant for research be required to point out what he regards as the obvious - that from here on out, oil supplies can't meet demand, and if we don't act soon to solve this crisis, World War III could be looming?

Glenda Hoffman has an answer for the thieves, should they choose to return to her home in Desert Hot Springs, California. "I have a shotgun right next to the bed and a .22 under my pillow." Hoffman was the victim of a theft that one industry professional has dubbed "the crime of the future". Another observer has come up with the term "grand theft solar" to describe the spate of recent burglaries in sunny California.

It will come as a shock to most Americans and the media, but as the election reaches a crescendo on the issue of preparedness and energy, neither presidential candidate - nor anyone in local, state or federal government - has developed a contingency plan in the event of a protracted oil cut-off. It is not even being discussed. Government has prepared for hurricanes, anthrax, terrorism and every other disaster, but not the one threatened daily - a protracted oil stoppage, whether caused by terrorism, intervention in the Persian Gulf or a natural disaster. It is like seeing a hurricane developing without a disaster plan or evacuation route. Our allies have oil shortage interruption contingency plans, but America does not.

Of course Katharine Gun was free to have a conscience, as long as it didn't interfere with her work at a British intelligence agency. To the authorities, practically speaking, a conscience was apt to be less tangible than a pixel on a computer screen. But suddenly - one routine morning, while she was scrolling through e-mail at her desk - conscience struck. It changed Katharine Gun's life, and it changed history. Despite the nationality of this young Englishwoman, her story is profoundly American - all the more so because it has remained largely hidden from the public in the United States. When Katharine Gun chose, at great personal risk, to reveal an illicit spying operation at the United Nations in which the U.S. government was the senior partner, she brought out of the transatlantic shadows a special relationship that could not stand the light of day.

Two congressmen argue in a letter sent Wednesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission lacks power to grant a license for Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions to import 20,000 tons of Italian low-level radioactive waste into the United States. Saying they understand a decision may be granted soon on EnergySolutions' request, Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., ask the NRC to reject the application to bring the waste to American shores because there is no site to store it. "The NRC has no authority to import waste when there is not a facility to ultimately dispose of it," Matheson and Gordon wrote.

A pro-energy development group is calling for Congress to investigate possible illegal coordination between an arm of the Interior Department and lobbyists for environmental groups. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, announced last week that Interior's inspector general is already conducting its own probe into whether environmental lobbyists improperly coordinated with officials at Interior's National Landscape Conservation System. But Americans for American Energy President Greg Schnacke said Wednesday that "the congressional oversight process must be brought into play as well."

The Energy Security Leadership Council (ESLC), a project of Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE), today released A National Strategy for Energy Security, a comprehensive plan that offers the public and policymakers specific solutions to the very real threats posed by our nation's dependence on oil. The National Strategy lays out a pathway toward a long-term goal of an electrified transportation system that is no longer dependent on oil, along with the interim policies needed to reach that goal while keeping our economy and our nation strong and secure.

Third Round of Solicitations Targets Innovative Clean Coal Technologies WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced a solicitation for up to $8.0 billion in federal loan guarantees for projects that employ advanced technologies that avoid, reduce or sequester emissions of air pollutants or greenhouse gases in the area of coal-based power generation, industrial gasification, and advanced coal gasification facilities. This marks the third round of solicitations for DOE's Loan Guarantee Program, which encourages the commercial use of new or significantly improved energy technologies and is an important step in paving the way for clean energy projects.

Every time you buy products such as food or gas, you are impacted by unregulated, secretive and often foreign commodities futures markets. Speculators in these markets are increasingly buying and selling commodities such as oil to sell again, rather than to use. As largely unregulated speculators pocket billions of dollars at your expense, the price of commodities has increased out of proportion to marketplace demands.

Will the November 4, 2008, election doom the future of Nevada? That sounds ominous, I know, but this election could be a make-or-break moment in history for the Yucca Mountain Project. This is the ill-conceived plan to bury nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Everyone in this state knows the problems inherent in this project and should be on alert. But also this should serve as a "heads-up" to everyone in the country.