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  • Delta Air Lines Buys Oil Refinery… Can you Say Peak Oil?

    Delta Air Lines Buys Oil Refinery… Can you Say Peak Oil?
    Triple Pundit
    More importantly, it’s a demonstration of the ever increasing pressures of peak oil. Will other airlines follow suit? What about car companies? Massive fleet owners like Enterprise Holdings? We usually cover examples of companies finding ways to use …
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  • Victory over coal seam gas for frustrated farmers

    Victory over coal seam gas for frustrated farmers

    0
    CSG protest

    Anti Coal Seam Gas rally outside NSW Parliament / Pic: Alan Pryke Source: The Daily Telegraph

    FARMERS who marched on state parliament to protest against miners encroaching on their land were given an immediate reward for their efforts – a frank admission from the state government that it could do better.

    Almost drowned out by the boos of 4000 protesters, Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner yesterday admitted the government’s draft policy on coal seam gas mining could be “improved”.

    It was enough to give the farmers some hope in their bitter fight with a mining industry that currently has near-unfettered access to their agricultural land, if they hold an exploration permit.

    While his delivery left some protesters bewildered, Mr Stoner told the farmers the government was listening and would protect agricultural land from mining, despite telling one farmer to shut up.

    “It’s a draft policy we know can be improved, it will be – if you’ll just shut your mouth for a minute, mate – it will be,” Mr Stoner said.

    Under the draft policy, an independent panel would decide if it is safe for a company to mine on, or within 2km of, prime agricultural land.

    But if the government decides a project is of “exceptional value to the state”, they can approve it without it going through the review process.A potential change of heart was also aired by Planning Minister Brad Hazzard, who said such a clause could be changed if people didn’t have faith in governments to make the right decision.

    “My inclination is that if people don’t have faith in government … well perhaps it’s not worth the agony,” Mr Hazzard said.

    Meanwhile, a parliamentary report into coal seam gas, ordered by the upper house, also gave farmers cause for celebration yesterday.

    As revealed in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, the report called for a ban on the controversial CSG mining method known as fracking and a freeze on new production licences until governments had regulatory measures in place.

    The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said if the recommendations were acted upon, it would ruin the industry and be a huge expense to the community.

     

     

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  • Human overpopulation: The Ocean is our Plan(et) B

    1 May 2012, 7.52pm AEST

    Human overpopulation: The Ocean is our Plan(et) B

    The Royal Society of the UK has released a new report, People and the Planet, addressing the problem of human overpopulation and the depletion of key resources.

    As always, the report is well written, although, in my opinion it lacks novelty, in that the trajectory toward exhaustion of key resources, including water, arable land and essential elements, such as phosphorus or iron, have been well understood and remarkably forecasted since the publication forty years ago of “The Limits to Growth”, by Donella H. Meadows and coworkers (1972).

    In brief, we are aiming at 9.3 billion people on Earth by 2050, reaching the median of 23 independent estimates of the maximum human population on Earth (Cohen 1995), imposed largely by freshwater and arable land available to produce sufficient food to feed them.

    Key recommendations of the report include a request to alleviate poverty and reduce inequality, the need to reduce per capita consumption in the most developed nations, implement voluntary programs for family planning, and integrate economic development and environmental conservation.

    Really no surprises there, as we have known what we should do for over 40 years, yet we seem unable to implement these recommendations and continue to march toward a grim future, among increasing symptoms of overshoot.

    Whereas the plan outlined in the “People and the Planet” report should continue to be our priority, as the most responsible plan, we must move onto considering a Plan B. This, in the opinion of some, such as Stephen Hawking and others (e.g. Bainbridge 2009), must include the search of an Earth-like exoplanet in our galaxy, an argument that is often used as one of the drivers for the search of exoplanets (Bainbridge 2009).

    But rather than looking to space for a Plan(et) B, I suggest we should look from space, and consider our own planet, an unique blue marble, whose blue colour derives from the abundance of water, covering 72% of its surface down to a mean depth of 3800 m. If we were aliens in search for exoplanets to carry on with our lives, we would consider planet Earth to be a perfect candidate, unparallelled among the 500 plus known planets for the abundance of water. Yet, we insist in using water in the dry parts of our planet, the continents, where water is increasingly scarce.

    Indeed, humans are, without fully realizing the significance of these developments, taming the oceans and starting to deliver significant amounts of water, food, energy and other resources from the oceans.

    Estimates of the potential of the oceans to deliver these critical resources indicates that this is well in excess of those required to satisfy the livelihoods of 9.3 billion people (Duarte et al. 2009). The challenge, and not a difficult one, is to do so sustainably.

    So we do already have our Plan(et) B, and this is called the Ocean. The Ocean has the capacity to safely and sustainably deliver resources to face the gran challenges of humanity. Indeed, the the motto of the UWA Oceans Institute, which I lead, is “Ocean Solutions for Humanity’s Grand Challenges”, as we are committed to deliver the knowledge to pursue this Plan(et) B. Sunset over the Equatorial Pacific during the Malaspina 2010 Expedition. Photo Carlos Duarte

    I will devote the next series of blogs to present you with our Plan(et) B: Oceans.

    References

    Bainbridge, W.S. 2009. Motivations for space exploration. Futures 41: 514–522

    Cohen J.E. 1995. How many people can the earth support? WW Norton & Company

    Duarte, C.M., M. Holmer, Y. Olsen, D. Soto, N. Marbà, J. Guiu, K. Black and I. Karakassis. 2009. Will the Oceans Help Feed Humanity? BioScience 59: 967–976.

    Meadows, D.H., D.L. Meadows,J. Randers and W.W. Behrens III. 1972. The limits to growth. Universe Books.

  • High Voltage Politics, Life and Times of the Electric Car

    Oil Price Daily News Update

    Energy Transfer Partners LP buy Sunoco Inc. for $5.3 Billion

    Posted: 01 May 2012 02:50 PM PDT

    Energy Transfer Partners LP, the Dallas based Fortune 500 natural gas company which owns more than 17,500 miles of natural gas pipelines, has agreed to buy Sunoco Inc. for $5.3 billion; a deal that will add oil terminals and transportation assets to its portfolio. Darren Horowitz, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in Houston, said that the takeover “opens the door for greater growth,” allowing Energy Transfer to meet its goal of diversifying both the extent of the company’s pipeline network and the products that…

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    Sky Falls for Wind Energy

    Posted: 30 Apr 2012 03:05 PM PDT

    A study featured in the journal Nature suggests that the latest victim of the green-versus-clean debate is the wind turbine. Researchers looking at wind farms in Texas found that overnight temperatures could increase over time compared with areas that don’t have wind farms. This prompted a flurry of media massaging over the global warming link to wind farms, but there were a few “ifs” in the study that might quiet the alarm bells. The study, published in the journal Nature, found that while wind energy was among the fastest growing renewable…

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    High Voltage Politics, Life and Times of the Electric Car

    Posted: 30 Apr 2012 03:02 PM PDT

    Expensive to buy, cheaper to operate and of course friendlier to the environment, the electric car is traveling a bumpy road globally, with the added barrier of a bit of high-voltage politics Stateside – the toll it must pay for its bailout bounty. EVs (electric vehicles) and PHEVs (plug-in hybrid vehicles) are intended to help reduce fuel usage and CO2 emissions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s energy watchdog, hopes to see widespread adoption of electric vehicles by 2050. The IAEA envisions sales of electric…

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    Mother Nature Mugs California’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant

    Posted: 30 Apr 2012 02:54 PM PDT

    On 11 March 2011 TEPCO’s Fukushima nuclear power plant was rattled by an offshore 9.0 on the Richter scale earthquake. The tremor subsequently generated a tsunami that effectively destroyed the complex, sending shock waves worldwide through the nuclear power industry, hoping that 24 years after Chernobyl, public amnesia and governmental commitments to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power was moving back into the mainstream.Instead of a nuclear renaissance, Fukushima refocused a most unwelcome spotlight on existing nuclear power…

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    The Un-Renewable Nature of Renewable Energy

    Posted: 30 Apr 2012 02:49 PM PDT

    “Renewable energy” has two fundamental conceptual flaws. It’s not really renewable, and it’s not really energy.What is “Renewable”?“Renewable” in most definitions approximates to something like “naturally replenished” and it often contrasted with allegedly inferior, “finite” sources. It brings to mind the image of a pizza where a slice, once eaten, magically reappears. There is no such phenomenon in nature, though. Everything is finite. The sun and the photons and wind currents…

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    Exxon Announce 80,000 gallon Oil Spill in Rural Louisiana

    Posted: 30 Apr 2012 02:47 PM PDT

    When we think of oil spills we tend to think of large slicks in the ocean, killing seabirds and damaging marine ecosystems. Following BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010, and Chevron’s spill off the coast of Brazil in 2011, there has been a lot of focus on oil spills and there prevention. Companies are looking into more efficient and quicker ways of containing oil spills in the ocean, and more effective ways of extracting the oil from the water. New regulations are being introduced to increase safety,…

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    The Art of Recycling: Converting Plastic to Oil

    Posted: 30 Apr 2012 02:46 PM PDT

    The days of dumping trash into overcrowded landfills may be over. Just as you would not dump gold, diamonds, or hundred dollar bills into garbage bins, you soon will hesitate to throw out your plastic water bottle, as the once typical trash is taking on a whole new value. New developments in technology seem to have done the unfathomable—and scientists have now found a means to turn plastic pollution into oil.Scientifically referred to as “Thermal Depolymerization” the depolymerization process reduces complex organic materials—usually…

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  • Coal Trains and Warren Buffet Request ( Dr James Hansen)

    Coal Trains and Warren Buffet Request
    The following Letter to Warren Buffet can be found on my website.

    Sent By Mail:

    Warren Buffett
    Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
    3555 Farnam Street
    Suite 1440
    Omaha, NE USA 68131

    Dear Mr. Buffett:
    We want to inform you that on Saturday, May 5th, from midnight to midnight, we intend to prevent BNSF coal trains from passing through White Rock, British Columbia to deliver their coal to our coastal ports for export to Asia. We have chosen May 5th to take this action because it has been designated an International day of action by 350.org, with the theme “Connecting the Dots.” We can’t think of a more important connection to emphasize than the one between burning coal and putting our collective future at risk.

    Who we are and why we are prepared to engage in civil disobedience to stop your coal trains:
    We are a group of citizens in British Columbia, Canada who are deeply concerned about the risk of runaway climate change. There is a broad scientific consensus that we must begin to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions this decade to avoid climate change becoming irreversible. At the same time, governments and industry are eager to increase the production and export of fossil fuels, the very things that will ensure climate change does get worse.

    These two things are irreconcilable, and since we can’t dispute the scientific findings or change the laws of nature, those of us who care about the future must do what we can to reduce the production, export and burning of fossil fuels – especially coal.

    Since we know what is at stake we feel a moral obligation to do what we can to help prevent this looming disaster.  On Saturday May 5th that means stopping your coal trains from reaching our ports.

    Our actions will be peaceful, non-violent, and respectful of others. There will be no property destruction. We are striving to be the best citizens we can. We will stand up for what we believe is right and conduct ourselves with dignity.

    Why we are involving you:
    We know that you have canceled plans to have your utilities build coal fired power plants. Like us, we are sure you know that coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels; when burned it produces the most global warming pollution per unit of energy. We assume you are familiar with the growing number of scientists – including NASA’s Dr James Hansen, and IPCC member Dr Andrew Weaver – who warn us that if we burn the world’s accessible coal reserves we will destroy the benign and hospitable climate that has allowed human civilization to flourish.

    What we can’t understand is why you allow your railway, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, to continue shipping vast amounts of US coal out of Canadian ports to be burned in Asia. No matter where this coal is burned, it brings us closer to a climatic point of no return.

    Mr Buffett, you have spoken eloquently about the need for shared sacrifice. But with all respect sir, when it comes to climate change it appears that other people are doing all the suffering while you profit from the very causes of the problem. That’s not fair, and we urge you to apply the same moral reasoning to the climate crisis as you have to the problem of economic inequality in your country.

    You are in many ways an important figure of conscience in the world. We appeal to you to seize this opportunity and make a bold decision on coal. With your support we can ensure a healthy future for our children and people around the world.

    We acknowledge that this action is taking place on unceded Coast Salish territory.

    Sincerely,

    British Columbians for Climate Action
    http://stopcoal.ca
    @stopcoalBC

    cc:
    Chief Willard Cook, Semiahmoo First Nation (sent by fax)
    Andrew Weaver, University of Victoria
    James Hansen, Columbia University
    Bill McKibben, 350.org

    Specific details on our intention to stop your coal trains on May 5th:
    For 24 hrs on May 5th we are prepared to stop all loaded coal trains traveling west/north that approach mile 122 (White Rock pier) on the New Westminster Subdivision, Northwest Division, of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.  From dawn to dusk on May 5th we will also stop all unloaded coal trains traveling east/south approaching mile 122.

    We will not interfere with other freight trains using this line on May 5th, nor will we interfere with the movement of Amtrak Trains using the New Westminster Subdivision on that day:

    • Cascades # 513, passing mile 122 at approximately 7:40 a.m. en route to Bellingham;
    • Cascades # 510, passing mile 122 at approximately 10:30 a.m. en route to Vancouver;
    • Cascades # 517, passing mile 122 at approximately 6:45 p.m. en route to Bellingham; and
    • Cascades # 516, passing mile 122 at approximately 9:50 p.m. en route to Vancouver.

    We will step off the tracks well in advance of the arrival of Amtrak service. Our spotters to the south and north will give us notice of the approach of any freight traffic, and we will step away for these trains as well. A 21 MPH speed restriction is in place for some distance both sides of mile 122 of the New Westminster Subdivision, which is the site of a well used foot crossing that is safe and familiar to both pedestrians and train crews.We are confident that we can safely remove ourselves from the tracks to allow the passage of Amtrak service and freight trains.

    Our spotters in the USA and Canada will provide us with notice well in advance if coal trains are moving anywhere on the New Westminster Subdivision on May 5th. We ask you to stand down all coal traffic on this day in order to avoid a confrontation at mile 122 and potential disruption of passenger rail service.

  • Without oil, modern civilisation doesn’t work
    Rethinking peak oil
    Climate Spectator
    In recent years, Chinese scholars have been embracing ‘peak oil‘ theory in increasing numbers. The idea – first put forward by American geophysicist MK Hubbert in 1949 – is that individual oil fields, oil-producing regions and world oil production will …
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    Without oil, modern civilisation doesn’t work
    On Line opinion
    By 2020 Peak Oil is likely to have rendered oil imports precarious and costly. And without oil, modern civilisation doesn’t work. The media ignored this part of the Report, so the ministers of our two major parties and the bureaucrats who advise them, …
    See all stories on this topic »

    On Line opinion
    By 2020 Peak Oil is likely to have rendered oil imports precarious and costly. And without oil, modern civilisation doesn’t work. The media ignored this part of the Report, so the ministers of our two major parties and the bureaucrats who advise them, …
    See all stories on this topic »