Posts Tagged by peak oil
National Security, Environmental Damage, Lung Disease, and Peak Oil
| January 26, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Readers may be interested in the conversation Glenn Doty and I are having on electric vehicles, as comments to my piece: Lateral Power, Distributed Generation, and the Third Industrial Revolution. Here’s another question for Glenn (and anyone else who would like to join in) on the subject.
Glenn: You make some terrific points here, and you have my promise that I’ll try to continue to merit your respect.
Going back to this deal about gasoline, aren’t you at all concerned about the fact that we’re apparently running out of it? Everyone I can find (except the spokespeople for the American Petroleum Institute) seem to concur. As Matt Simmons told me shortly before he passed away, “National security, environmental damage, and lung disease are all reasons that we SHOULD do something about our oil addiction. Peak oil, on the other hand, is the reason that we MUST.”
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The U.S. Has a Responsibility At This Point In History
| December 20, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Bill Moore, editor of EVWorld.com has written a splendid article on the failure of certain of the early electric vehicle companies, in which he points out:
Breaking into the automotive business can be relatively easy; making a success of it is pretty damned near impossible, regardless of what type of propulsion system you favor: ICE-age or otherwise; and it’s especially tough if you decide to go electric. Beyond this, the reasons for individual failures are myriad and multiple: right product, wrong time, wrong product; wrong time, etc. Management missteps, unrealistic investor expectations and impatience, government responsiveness, inept marketing, unanticipated technical setbacks, product shortcomings, public resistance to change: the list is long.
I don’t dispute any of this, but let’s look at the subject from a “big picture” perspective. As a country, we’re still married to fossil fuels, and we’re doing essentially nothing about it In particular, we have no energy policy. Hell, we’re about to build an oil pipeline Read More
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The Electric Vehicle Adoption Curve – Two Opposing Views
| November 29, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
In response to my recent piece on electric vehicles, a few readers sent me John Peterson’s position on the subject. Thanks, but I’m already quite familiar with it. John’s a brilliant, honest, and levelheaded guy; in fact, I plan to visit him in Switzerland when I’m in Europe next spring. Having said this, I disagree with him here.
For starters, the concept that EVs are overhyped and destined to failure because “Cheap Beats Cool” does not ring true of the auto market generally. Since the dawn of the automobile, and certainly since World War II, cars may be about sex, or about the wish to appear affluent, but they certainly aren’t about getting around as inexpensively as possible; “cheap” really isn’t the motivating force here. Read More
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Daniel Yergin’s Talk on Energy Policy
| October 14, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
To make good on my promise to write something about Daniel Yergin’s talk the other night at UCSB, he’s obviously a very bright guy whose travels and studies are quite impressive, and the talk was interesting to a point. But what I found shockingly absent was a single word on any of the controversial issues that surround our world energy policy. Can’t we at least mention the idea that Big Money and politics are conspiring to preserve the status quo and make the migration to renewables extremely difficult and slow? How about an update on those 7000 lobbyists who work for the oil industry?
I say I was shocked, but let’s not be too dramatic here. His clients are oil companies. Wouldn’t it have been even more surprising had the reverse been true?
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Peak Oil
| July 28, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
For those trying to make sense of the concept of “peak oil,” i.e., the point at which the world capacity to extract oil from the Earth will have peaked, I’ve linked what I believe to be a good article.
Virtually no one doubts the basic concept. But how soon in our future (or how recently in our past) does that point lie? And what are its consequences?
A few weeks ago, a fine — and well-read friend told me over breakfast in New York, “Did you know that there’s enough oil under South Dakota to last 200 years?”
“That’s amazing,” I replied. “Then what’s all the fuss about?”
“Damn environmentalists.”
I’m not sure it’s that easy. The truth, which he, as an educated man should have known, is that we truly have exhausted the supply of easy-to-find oil, but that there is a huge deposit of shale/tar sands oil, whose economic and environmental costs of extraction are extreme.
Is there more oil? Yes. Does that provide us an easy answer? Not in the least.
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The Hydrogen Economy and the Migration from Fossil Fuels
| April 13, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Here, 2GreenEnergy Video Report host George Alger interviews me on the hydrogen economy: what it means, its validity, and its ramifications.
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2GreenEnergy Report – Peak Oil
| April 11, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Science |
In this episode of the 2GreenEnergy Video Report, host George Alger interviews me on the phenomenon known as “peak oil,” i.e., that the world has peaked in terms of its oil production capacity. I discuss my take on this, as well as its many social, financial, and political ramifications.
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2GreenEnergy Report – Cold Fusion
| March 20, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Nuclear |
Here’s a recent interview in which George Alger asks me about cold fusion. Obviously, this is a controversial topic, viewed by many as a hoax. Yet some credible people believe it’s legitimate science — and, as I point out, I essentially a reporter, whose viewpoints are formed by the people I interview.
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2GreenEnergy Video Report — Peak Oil
| March 19, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Here’s another episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report, in which I’m interviewed on the subject of peak oil. I manage to squeeze in references to related subjects as well: the consequences of our addiction to foreign oil, the externalities associated with fossil fuels, long-term environmental damage, the associated costs of healthcare, ocean acidification, and global climate change.
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Nuclear Energy and Uranium Shortages
| July 26, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
A few people commented on my piece about nuclear energy last week, and scolded me for believing that shortages of uranium may be one of many serious issues confronting this beleaguered industry. I’m not the only one who sees this, however. Editor of Peak Oil Review and former CIA analyst Tom Whipple writes this week:
China’s demand for uranium may rise to 20,000 tons a year by 2020. That translates into more than a third of the 50,500 tons mined globally last year. All of the world’s current uranium output currently has a market, supplying the existing global demand for uranium. Don’t be surprised to see uranium in shortage by the second half of this decade. Looking ahead, there’s just not enough new production in the planning stages. The world needs new mines, but startup costs are much higher than 10 or 20 years ago.
China currently has 12 reactors in operation and another 23 under construction, with others in development, according to the World Nuclear Association.
