News from August 2010

Chron: EPA regulation of greenhouse gases: Survey says ‘yes’

Most voters want the U.S. to regulate greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. They also say the government needs to do more to crack down on companies that pollute, according to a new survey done for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Action Fund. The poll revealed that 60 percent of voters surveyed over five days last [...]

NYT: Risk-Taking Rises as Oil Rigs in Gulf Drill Deeper

In a remote reach of the Gulf of Mexico, nearly 200 miles from shore, a floating oil platform thrusts its tentacles deep into the ocean like a giant steel octopus. The $3 billion rig, called Perdido, can pump oil from dozens of wells nearly two miles under the sea while simultaneously drilling new ones. It is part [...]

MIT: Sign of the Times

A year before the oil shock, a geologist wrote of the coming energy crises. It was with something like an apology that Earl Cook, a geologist and executive secretary of the division of earth sciences at the National Research Council, began his December 1972 article for Technology Review on the energy issues that he felt [...]

Cobb: Do you “go with the flow” or do you “stock up” just in case?

frequent critique of those who claim we still have enormous stocks of resources left to exploit is that the flow or rate of extraction is far more important to the health of the world economy than the size of the stocks. If we can’t get it out of the ground at the rate we’d like [...]

Transition movement sees opportunity to plan for change

Monday, August 30, 2010 123456 GORDON DANIELS Lundy Bancroft, of Transition Northampton, says the group will hold an event this fall at which people interested in the Transition Initiative will meet and break into smaller groups to discuss concrete plans for dealing with issues such as local food supply. He is shown here on fields [...]

‘Central banks, governments can’t print barrels of oil…’

Recent discoveries of shale gas have given the world much hope. But not everybody is optimistic. “Shale gas is expensive to produce and the current price of gas is not high enough to warrant profitable shale gas production…The hydraulic fracturing process used to extract the gas is extremely polluting and devastating for the environment.Although the [...]

China to Globe: “No More Rare Earth”

China defended its controls on exports of rare earth after Japanese officials raised concerns about supplies of the raw materials used in the manufacture of products from cell phones to radar. Restrictions on the rare earth industry will help protect the environment, the state-run Xinhua News Agency cited Chen Deming, China’s commerce minister, as saying [...]

What Are Billionaires Buying? Oil.

That’s Buffett, Icahn, and Paulson — three of the most legendary investors in the game. But do you know what they all have in common besides being multi-billionaires? They each added to energy positions in the last quarter. What are billionaires buying? At the end of each quarter, fund managers have 45 days to report [...]

The Pitfalls of Feed-In Tariffs

Energy Outlook I recently ran across a story indicating that regulators in Arizona are considering implementing a feed-in tariff (FIT) for solar power in that state. This is somewhat ironic, coming as it does amidst a wave of hotly-debated reductions in European solar FITs, in response to the burden they’ve imposed on electricity customers and [...]

TOD: How limited global oil supply may affect climate change policies

On Wednesday, August 25, I gave a presentation called How limited global oil supply may affect climate change policies at the MIT-NESCAUM Endicott House Symposium on climate change. The audience included leaders from governmental, industrial, academic, and non-governmental (NGO) sectors. They were very concerned about climate change, but not very aware of, or concerned about, [...]