Energy policy

-A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables
-Farms going green to save and survive
-Solar power from Sahara a step closer
-Nearly 200 Organizations and Companies Urge Senate to Adopt Key Energy-Efficiency Provision in Climate Bill
-Report Argues for a Decentralized System of Renewable Power Generation

-Coping With Climate Change: Which Societies Will Do Best?
-GM's Money Trees
-The Carnivore’s Dilemma
-USDA Research: Does No-Till Really Capture More Carbon?
-Why growing virgin vegetable oil to burn is crazy
-Pachauri Still Sees a Chance for Success in Copenhagen Talks
-The Inferno

As a high-school teacher, I wanted to give my thoroughly-industrial, suburban-NJ students a more detailed peek at their upcoming post-industrial future. I felt the need to challenge their prevailing mindsets regarding our resource-depletion predicament: the “shorter showers & change the light-bulbs” crowd, the “engineers will surely come to our rescue” folks, and the “problem? -- what problem?” people. This essay and the before/after comparison chart that follows are part of my ongoing (unsanctioned) attempts at doing so.

-U.N. Signals Delay in Climate Change Treaty
-Republicans walk out of Senate hearing on climate-change bill
-African nations make a stand at UN climate talks
-Senators opposed to the Clean Energy Jobs Act are ignoring the bill’s benefits to Americans
-We only have months, not years, to save civilisation from climate change

-The heart of India is under attack
-Shale gas blasts open world energy market
-Shale gas numbers may not add up
-It’s a dirty business — the new gold rush that is blackening Canada’s name

I have been following with interest the discussions surrounding Alex Steffen’s piece at WorldChanging in which he critiques Transition. I am honoured that someone so widely respected as a writer on sustainability issues saw fit to engage in discussions around Transition, but, as a critique of Transition, it leaves a lot to be desired.

There seems to be a consensus that the depletion of fossil fuels will follow a fairly impressive slope. What may need to be looked at more closely, however, is not the "when" but the "what." Looking at the temporary shortages of the 1970s may give us the impression that the most serious consequence will be lineups at the pump. Fossil-fuel decline, however, will also mean the end of electricity, a far more serious matter.

Until 1 January 2010 Sweden holds the presidency of the EU. This means that Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt is head of the EU-delegation that today travels to the USA for a summit on climate between the EU and the USA on Wednesday. Reinfeldt will meet president Obama today and can then present the offer that the EU nations agreed on last week.

We live in some pretty incredible times...At times the implications seem overwhelming. But this Halloween Campfire post is a quick reminder that despite our massive challenges, (and that we are human, imperfect, and mortal) - we can find joy, fun, meaning and satisfaction in many everyday, low throughput ways - we just have to decide to do so. That's both the trick and the treat.

On October 20-21, the 30th Oil & Money Conference, convened in London by Energy Intelligence and the International Herald Tribune, attracted roughly 500 attendees, many from the industry press (most of them working for the conveners). Held under tight security at the opulent Intercontinental Hotel, a half-dozen oil ministers past and present plus two dozen CEOs and VPs of oil producing, service companies and other industry players shared their views.

A weekly review including:
- Production and prices
- West Texas Intermediate
- Run-up to Copenhagen
- Quote of the Week
- Briefs

-Rainforest treaty 'fatally flawed'
-Fewer Americans View Global Warming as a Problem
-Government launches map to highlight global warming threat
-Arctic Sediments Show That 20th Century Warming Is Unlike Natural Variation
-Betting the Farm
-UN chief will pressure senators on climate bill

Oil prices vacillated this week, falling back from their recent high on news of unexpectedly large US inventories, later rallying as the US economy officially emerged from recession...

Critique of October, 2009 issue of Scientific American essay: Squeezing More Oil from the Ground

For more than half a century, neoclassical economics has provided the basis for the vast majority of economic advice offered to governments by their paid advisers. A great deal of that advice has been disastrously misguided, and the problems with the neoclassical synthesis that feed into that torrent of bad advice make the same outcome all but unavoidable in dealing with peak oil.