2030: The End of Easy Oil

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Thursday December 10, 2009 · 3:48 AM PST

2009/12/10 · 03:48

On the occasion of COP15 and the important world focus on climate change and emissions, it may be just as important to reflect on what may be just as serious an issue, the solutions for which will also mitigate emissions. The facts about climate change are not to be downplayed, but given that global warming is relentlessly mired in controversy in spite of its apparent obviousness and seeming incontrovertibility, to achieve the same ends it might be useful to also focus on something that we can all more easily agree on:

The reserves of conventional crude oil are dwindling while demand is increasing.

intrados

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Saturday November 21, 2009 · 8:05 AM PST

2009/11/21 · 08:05

Today in the United States, there is no real incentive for conservation other than our collective moral imperative which undoubtedly falls short. What this exercise is meant to show is that we need to have more creative thinking behind how revenue is generated. Can tax policy be progressive at the same time that it incentivizes energy conservation? What follows is a very simple approach that would be one way of addressing at the same time both income disparity and energy conservation.

intrados

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Friday November 13, 2009 · 1:53 PM PST

2009/11/13 · 13:53

Click here for larger size. Click here to download a full resolution pdf.

What the graphic shows clearly is that planting trees to offset emissions is far from a viable solution. Projects that offset carbon emissions are certainly beneficial and should be applauded. Every step in the right direction is a good one and we should all be supporting these efforts on a personal and corporate level. However, no amount of reforestation or avoided deforestation will have an effect on the overall situation. The numbers that I used are based on United Nations statistics and are located here.

intrados

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Friday August 14, 2009 · 5:34 PM PDT

2009/08/14 · 17:34

click image for large size graphic

According to the US Department of Energy (Energy Information Administration), the world consumption of energy in all of its forms (barrels of petroleum, cubic meters of natural gas, watts of hydro power, etc.) is projected to reach 678 quadrillion Btu (or 7.15 exajoules) by 2030 – a 44% increase over 2008 levels (levels for 1980 were 283 quadrillion Btu and we stand at around 500 quadrillion Btu today).

I wonder what surface area would be required and what type of infrastructural investment would be required to supply that amount of power by using only solar panels.

Details below - (also posted at the Land Art Generator Initiative)

intrados

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Tuesday May 26, 2009 · 11:04 AM PDT

2009/05/26 · 11:04

A story today on CNN explains one common approach to local economic stimulus. The town of Hardin, Montana borrowed $27 million to build a prison. It opened two years ago but they still don't have anybody to lock up there. So now that the prisoners who have been detained at Guantanamo Bay for the past 7 years are potentially going to be moved to prisons within US territory, the town council of Hardin is lobbying strongly to bring them to Montana.

The debate in the article is around whether it is a good idea to bring these "potential terrorists" into the state. The sides are set between "it will bring jobs" versus "don't bring those people here".

No one seems to be asking if building prisons to stimulate job growth is at all a decent idea in the first place.

intrados

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Wednesday June 06, 2007 · 5:46 PM PDT

2007/06/06 · 17:46

A newly released Wellcome Trust study has found the genetic markers for diseases such as "depression, Crohn's disease, coronary heart disease, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, and type 1 and 2 diabetes." With new statistical analysis tools, they compared the DNA of thousands of people with and without the diseases' manifest symptoms and have pinpointed the actual genes that can show at birth how prone a person is or is not to developing these inherited diseases later in life.

This is all fantastic and wonderful and, as the BBC article quotes one doctor, "...should enable scientists to understand better how disease occurs, which people are most at risk and, in time, to produce more effective, more personalised treatments."

However, it will not be long before this information on individuals will start to inform the private health care industry's decision-making process.

intrados

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Thursday May 04, 2006 · 4:01 AM PDT

2006/05/04 · 04:01

By way of introduction, I'd like to guarantee that this diary has very much to do with politics. You just might have to read on a bit until that becomes immediately apparent.

Why do we struggle to do good?
Why do we really care about our personal legacy?
As it relates to the concept of my posterity -- those who live on after my death -- what benefit is it to me if their memory of me is a good one? I'm not around to hear it anyway. Read More

Not Acting on the 8/6 P.D.B. "Responsible for One Death"? And Other Dangerous Roads

intrados

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Thursday April 06, 2006 · 6:20 PM PDT

2006/04/06 · 18:20

We're on our way to putting Moussaoui to death for not saying something. While in fact it's been documented in the course of the trial that he really didn't know much to say. All the while, Bush, Rice and the CIA did know something to say (AUG 6 P.D.B.) and didn't tell the FAA or the FBI -- groups who may have been able to adjust their actions accordingly and potentially save lives.

Are they "responsible for one death" by this insane standard being set by this penalty phase of the Moussaoui trial?

I don't think so myself, but you can't have it both ways as we all know... Read More

BREAKING! (Infrastructure)

intrados

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Tuesday April 04, 2006 · 5:20 PM PDT

2006/04/04 · 17:20

As the military industrial complex of our greatest empire of democratic change marches boldly into the new world order, it has decided that it is perfectly fine to smoke cigars and play a round of golf in between conquests rather than paint the house, repair the roof, or even do the dishes of our dirty, rotting little homeland. In the name of security, it is better that we shed the blood of innocents abroad than invest in our own infrastructure at home. Someday you will understand, but for right now it is just too complicated for the little minds like those working at the Center for Strategic and International Studies to grasp this complexity -- minds like former Senator Warren Rudman, and Ambassador Felix Rohatyn. Like the latter said this evening on the News Hour, "You can explain something to someone, but you can't understand it for them." Read More

FBI pre 9/11: "criminal neglect", and the Haymarket Anarchists

intrados

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Monday March 20, 2006 · 4:57 PM PST

2006/03/20 · 16:57

There were two things that renewed my interest in the Moussaoui case today. One had to do with the testimony given by Harry Samit, the The FBI agent who arrested and interrogated Moussaoui a month before the September 11, 2001, attacks.

[Samit] blamed FBI headquarters for having "obstructed" the Moussaoui probe, which the government now portrays as the lost opportunity to unlock clues to the 9/11 attacks.

The other thing that turned a light on in my head was the comment made during an interview tonight on the News Hour that this would be the first time someone would be sentenced to death for technically "not saying something". It occurred to me that this may be true, but we once sentenced five men to die only for saying something. In fact, the similarities between this prosecution and that of the Haymarket anarchists is one that is worth reflecting on... Read More

Some Research on CFIUS History

intrados

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Friday February 24, 2006 · 8:30 PM PST

2006/02/24 · 20:30

Maybe I'm just a knee-jerk protectionist or something, but the following paragraph in this Forbes article from May 25, 2001 was eye-opening to say the least:

Rudy Baca, global strategies analyst with Washington, D.C.-based Precursor Group, says the CFIUS tends to side with business and trade interests over national security issues. Since its inception, it has blocked only one deal out of more than 1,400 reviewed, one during the first Bush administration that involved a company owned by the Chinese government.

emphasis mine

There are some more interesting links below. Read More

Does MSHA Require Emergency Refuge Rooms?

intrados

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Monday January 30, 2006 · 11:25 AM PST

2006/01/30 · 11:25

The AP Story gives details about how it was these rooms that saved the lives of the 72 miners.

A search for "emergency refuge room" turns up nothing of import on the MSHA website. I hope that it's just my limited time that is keeping me from finding out anything about this. Read More

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2030: The End of Easy Oil

Energy Conservation Income Tax Policy

Surface Area Required to Offset Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emissions by Reforestation Alone

Total Surface Area Required to Fuel the World With Solar

Investing in Our Future?

Genetic Discrimination an Inevitibility in USA?

Deep Tissue Cultural Analysis

Not Acting on the 8/6 P.D.B. "Responsible for One Death"? And Other Dangerous Roads

BREAKING! (Infrastructure)

FBI pre 9/11: "criminal neglect", and the Haymarket Anarchists

Some Research on CFIUS History

Does MSHA Require Emergency Refuge Rooms?