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1 year ago
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Saturday, August 9, 2008
The end of globalization?
A series of posts from Worldchanging, Gristmill, and NYT, all theorizing that increases in energy prices could reverse globalization. I'm pretty skeptical, globalization is a powerful trend. Thomas Barnett has another take here.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Gassification idea
I really love this guy. His posts are always long and well thought out. Here he has one on how high oil prices might change international shipping. Interestingly he suggests coal gasification as a replacement if, and only if, the oil price gets high enough to make that worthwhile. I think I really need to find the coal gasification break-even oil price. Is it $5? $10? $20? I'll research.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Recent Energy News
Feh! I keep wanting to blog on environmental matters and summarize the current events and trends but the folks and Breakthrough Generation are on the same page and they have like....a billion writers and are always ahead of me :P. They've kindly provided an excellent summery of some recent energy events with their thoughts.
This makes me think of James Kunstler. I've heard him speak before (I need to read the Long Emergency) and although he really is Mr Doom & Gloom I can't help but recognize that life in the US without cheap gas will probably be very different. I think suburbs and exurbs will take major hits. Take my life; currently I occasionally do something very wasteful. There's an excellent Japanese restaurant that I occasionally get take out from when there's enough money to spring for a treat. That restaurant is 26 miles away, and I can't imagine that kind of drive in a world of $8-$10 gas.
All that being said I think that Mr Kunstler has position I do not agree with (from what I've heard in his lectures and interviews). His position seems to be, at it's base, reactive. He talks about how energy costs will force change. He refers to ways of life that people will have to abandon, without any allowance for human ingenuity. While I do think many have stuck their heads in the sand I also think that trying to predict the future without allowing for humanities capacities for adaptation is fundamentally flawed.
This makes me think of James Kunstler. I've heard him speak before (I need to read the Long Emergency) and although he really is Mr Doom & Gloom I can't help but recognize that life in the US without cheap gas will probably be very different. I think suburbs and exurbs will take major hits. Take my life; currently I occasionally do something very wasteful. There's an excellent Japanese restaurant that I occasionally get take out from when there's enough money to spring for a treat. That restaurant is 26 miles away, and I can't imagine that kind of drive in a world of $8-$10 gas.
All that being said I think that Mr Kunstler has position I do not agree with (from what I've heard in his lectures and interviews). His position seems to be, at it's base, reactive. He talks about how energy costs will force change. He refers to ways of life that people will have to abandon, without any allowance for human ingenuity. While I do think many have stuck their heads in the sand I also think that trying to predict the future without allowing for humanities capacities for adaptation is fundamentally flawed.
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