Neo Peak Oil  

Edward Tapamor at Peak Oil Passnotes has some comments on his perception of the need for some of the old school peak oil movement to change tack to remain relevant as the subject becomes more widely understood.

If we think of peak oil as a subject in itself, rather than a subset of general discourse about oil and energy, then we can see it has been around for something approaching 100 years. After World War One there was sustained and popular debate about the prospect of the U.S.’s valuable resource running out. After all there was no more to be found and it was going to be too expensive anyway.

This debate has been repeated a few times since then, most notably in the 1970s, but it has never been stronger than it is now. Nor has it attracted such a wide range of people willing to discuss it.

The basics of peak oil are in fact quite simple. Under the present, failing, economic system scarcity breeds profits. Thus peak oil presents opportunities for those who control resources and powerful people, powerful nations and institutions rarely give away their golden goose. That the consequences may be painful for weaker people like you and me matters not.

Secondly there is the scale of the problem. That is if the world is consuming around 85 million barrels per day of oil - and demand is set at the very least to remain constant - one has to bring on stream around 3.4 million barrels per day of oil, each year and every year, just to stand still. That is a big task in the present day environment and is exacerbated by the first problem, the fact that scarcity breeds profits.

Unfortunately for the world, it appears to be – at least – stepping onto a plateau of global production that will only be altered by economics. In other words it is only recessions that can dampen demand, reduce costs and allow the oil industry to ‘catch up’ by bringing capacity on stream when demand is low. The oil industry is banking on a recession to do just that.

But sadly for the oil industry a few items have changed. Populations in producer countries, such as the poor people who live under the heel of the U.S. client state in Saudi Arabia, are growing in numbers. They will inevitably consume more energy. Then of course there is the wildcards of China and India. Even with a recession demand in those countries will continue to grow.

So following on from the meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) in Eire recently it is time for the peakers to get their act together. ASPO must cement itself as a credible, reasoned organisation. Not one that publishes fascist-eugenicist rants and calls anyone who diverts from the line a “cornucopian”.

It must have a global focus and structure, not one splintered and focussed upon individuals such as Colin Campbell. Nice man though he is – apart from that publication which was very worrying - he cannot hope to cement a global debate on peak oil. His treatment of Fatih Birol at the ASPO Berlin meeting was a disaster and dampened any reasoned debate. Kjell Aleklett, Jean Laherrere, Baquis and many others must also stand down, move aside.

ASPO must also take its place as part of a debate about the energy future. Not the bringer of all truth to the ignorant masses. It must be the OPEC of peak oil, with rotating nations’ organisations heading up debate. It must learn to debate with its enemies, with the industry. It must learn the art of persuasion, not ridicule, not conspiracy and be part of a world that accepts peak oil as part of energy supply issues. Not as a reason to write self promoting, self aggrandising books.

It is time for the new wave of peakers to take the stage. And they are there. Waiting.

After Gutenberg has a report on the Rocky Mountain Institute's efforts to design Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicles from the ground up, in the wake of (somewhat inconsistent) foot dragging from the big manufacturers.

Felix Kramer1 relays word of RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) PHEV Exploratory Project: a multi-year process of designing and producing a new PHEV from the ground up.

Rocky Mountain Institute and its founder / chief scientist, Amory Lovins, have had an incalculable impact on the way we think about technology and society. From "negawatts" to "natural capitalism" and "tunneling through the cost barrier," RMI specializes in changing the way we look at energy, efficiency and our infrastructure.

RMI has put together what Kramer describes as “an exceptional automotive consulting group” led by John Waters. An engineer with experience in business development, Waters long background in the battery world includes stints at EnerDel, Delphi, and Electronic Data Systems (he led the battery design programs for GM’s EV1 and Electric S-10).

Originally part of RMI’s transportation consulting team, the PHEV now is working with Alcoa, Johnson Controls, Google, and the Turner Foundation to explore the possibilities of bringing a lightweight, fully functional PHEV to the US market. As this effort unfolds, various technologies and market strategies will be explored and developed.

The PHEV team will focus research on:
* Battery, motor, engine, and control technologies
* Optimized vehicle platform characteristics (i.e., aerodynamics, lightweighting, rolling resistance)
* Various market penetration scenarios
* Enterprise structures

RMI views the work of the PHEV as complementary and essential to its overall effort in shifting the current energy supply and energy use infrastructures to fully integrated systems. These new energy systems will leverage sustainable energy (e.g., wind, solar, hydro, etc.) and integrate vehicle-to-grid and building-to-grid scenarios. This is part of RMI’s "Smart Garage" methodology whereby whole system energy solutions can be realized through the integration of users to the overall energy system, thereby providing radical breakthroughs in energy savings and emission reduction.

Recently, RMI was one of the six organizations receiving grants from Google.org’s RechargeIT project. Kramer notes that RMI is renown for its technical depth and its initial partnerships. “In addition to the publicly-announced startups (Fisker, Visionary Vehicles, Venture Vehicles),” notes Kramer, “we can expect to hear from a few other such efforts in the near future.”

It is the impression of this blog that such initiative is occurring because of foot-dragging from the car makers. While there has been considerable hyperbole and puffery about reducing vehicle weight, there also has been a general reluctance to shift away from the heavy equates to quality paradigm. The RMI PHEV Exploratory Project is an example of leadership; someone will demonstrate to the car companies how to shift the paradigm. As previously noted, the argument for the use of lightweight advanced-composite structures to lessen oil consumption is basically one of physics; a lighter vehicle means less energy is required, which in turn could allow for the application of smaller power plants that consume less fuel and produce fewer emissions.

While much lighter, the Hypercar is designed for safety. Not only is the composite shell stronger than steel, the concept car includes an inner crashbox modeled after those used by formula race cars. Further safety features are the inclusion of crushable / shock-absorbing material plus front and side airbags.

A light weight, safe vehicle is a major accomplishment, and, yet the initial concept was bothersome since it stuck with propulsion that over time still contributed a significant amount of green house gases. A similar situation is the incongruous efforts by General Motors to use clean, renewable solar energy for an infrastructure that continues to produce gas guzzling, polluting transportation, or efforts by Ford to incorporate cradle to cradle design in its infrastructure and products while funding efforts to resist the reduction of particulate matter in diesel fumes that correlates to asthma and other respiratory illness, particularly in youth and the elderly.

Now that the banana farmers have gone back to the CADM, such development mean more than a theoretical hope that the entire body of an electric powered hypercar could be made of low-cost, environmentally-benign materials and serve as a repository for energy storage from 1) the Grid, 2) local energy production and 3) regenerative processes afforded by the power electronics of the vehicle.

After Gutenberg also has some further comments on solar thermal power, particularly in the MENA area.

From Renewable Energy Access1 we learn that “harnessing the sun’s energy falling on just 6,000 square kilometers of desert in North Africa would supply energy equivalent to the entire oil production of the Middle East of 9 billion barrels a year.” The German Aerospace Center made this estimate based upon the power generated by solar thermal electric power plants “of between 50 and 200 MW in size in different locations across North Africa.”

The study calculated that solar thermal power plants could supply 68 percent of North Africa’s as well as Europe’s electricity by 2050. Cables to transmit electricity from North Africa to Europe have already been built under the sea.

Who knows, staff at the center might even appreciate the United Arab Emirates using the billions acquired for their oil to develop new, renewable energy sources.

In any case, such a report comes at a time when significant development of CSP (Concentrating Solar Power) is underway in Spain. As previously noted, SyV (Sacyr-Vallehermoso), one of the largest Spanish infrastructure corporations, is undertaking three solar power plants in Spain with a total capacity of 150 MW and a total overall investment of $890 million. An estimated $500 million will go to the supplier of the technology. Solel parabolic trough thermal technology has been responsible for continuous production of utility scale power in California’s Mojave Desert over the last twenty years.

The RE article used the German proposal as a way to mention Flabeg, “a German-based manufacturer of parabolic trough mirrors for solar thermal power plants. The company recently developed a mirror that can reflect 93 percent of the sun’s rays.” Flaberg wants to sell high precision mirrors, which can concentrate the solar power onto an absorber tube with a diameter of 70 mm or less, in the solar thermal power plant market arising in Spain and North Africa.

The company is set to deliver 210,000 of the high precision mirrors to the 50 megawatt (MW) solar thermal power plant Andasol II, in Spain—the biggest in Europe—by the end of June 2008… Flabeg has already equipped the 50 MW Andasol I solar thermal plant with 210,000 RP 3 mirrors.

Flaberg is using the precision of their reflectors as a selling point. The author of the article, Jane Burgermeister, states that one of these 50 MW solar power plants can generate an estimated, “5 million kilowatt-hours more of electricity for every extra 1 percent of sunlight that is collected by solar mirrors.” (One would assume that estimate is based upon the expected lifespan of the installation.)

Optical characteristics are critical to design, manufacturing, operation and maintenance of the solar field, particularly with the required to build a utility-scale solar thermal electric power plant. There is a trade-off because of cost. (See 2007 National Renewable Energy Laboratory report on estimations of material costs2. The report compared polished aluminum, thin mirrored glass and silvered polymer film coated aluminum, all of which can make use of recycled materials.) Not only must developers consider reflective ability, but also congruency with design of the support structure and durability over the expected life of the facility. Some prefer metal reflectors because of their lower cost.

Vinod Khosla, an advocate for and investor in solar thermal electric power, has noted that “worldwide, the electric power industry creates 40 percent of total carbon emissions, and electricity use is rapidly growing.” Large-scale, affordable sources of clean power are needed “to meet the dual challenges of economic growth and carbon constraints.” Khosla also has advocated for development of the interconnected electricity system between regions, power brokers, etc. Sophistication in power generation needs to be equaled by elegance in distribution for CSP to be effective.

RE commentator Hussain Alrobaei reminds its readers that MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) is one of the principle regions around the globe that benefits from a higher solar radiance.

There will be a significant market for producing solar electricity under the ideal meteorological conditions in the sunbelt countries of the MENA and transferring part of this electricity to Europe. As proposed recently by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation, concentrating solar thermal power stations in MENA could be used for export electricity to Europe as well as for providing regional freshwater from combined thermal desalination of sea water [1,2]. The electricity produced in CSP plants can be used for domestic needs and export, as well as for additional desalination of sea water through reverse osmosis (RO), if required. The design of such combined solar power and desalination plants can be flexibly adapted to any required size and need. CSP plants can be designed from 5 MW to several 100 MW capacity [3]. Therefore, in the future European mix of energy sources for power generation, CSP can serve to cover base load, intermediate load or peaking load and even to compensate the fluctuations of PV and wind power.

One of the organisations pushing for the development of North African solar energy resources is TREC (the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation initiative), which was initiated by the Club Of Rome, with the motto "Clean Power From Deserts".

The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) is an initiative that campaigns for the transmission of clean power from deserts to Europe. Since it was founded in 2003 by The Club of Rome, the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation and the National Energy Research Center of Jordan (NERC), it has developed the DESERTEC Concept and researched it in cooperation with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Now TREC is making this concept a reality in cooperation with people in politics, industry and the world of finance.



The DESERTEC Concept of TREC is to boost the generation of electricity and desalinated water by solar thermal power plants and wind turbines in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and to transmit the clean electrical power via High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission lines throughout those areas and as from 2020 (with overall just 10-15% transmission losses) to Europe.

The technologies that are needed to realise the DESERTEC concept are already developed and some of them have been in use for decades. Several studies by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) confirm the viability of this concept and the usefulness of realising it very soon.

The SMH reports that the latest US Climate change conference has been branded a failure.

The White House-sponsored climate change conference, which ended today, has been labelled a failure by one of Australia's most powerful commentators on the environment. Don Henry, executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said Australia needed to stop copying the US position on climate change immediately.

"It is disappointing the conference has not delivered,'' Mr Henry said. ''(US) President Bush is still resisting setting binding targets or commitments on greenhouse gas emissions. "He wants the flexibility of voluntary targets. "The US is the world's biggest climate laggard and are holding up global action on climate change.''

Mr Henry said Mr Bush's climate change policies were "disastrous'' and Australia had to "disconnect'' itself from them. "More than any other country on Earth we should tackle this issue seriously with our water supplies at risk and the Great Barrier Reef,'' he said. "At the conference every developed country has taken on board binding targets and every developing country has committed to cleaning up their economy and set long-term aspirational goals. "The only two that have not are Australia and the US who have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol and stand out like sore thumbs.''

Tom Paine has a post predicting that as Bush's reign of terror comes to a close, the atmosphere is in further danger from cloud of toxic lame duck executive decisions.

If this week's revelations by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are any indication, it's going to be an ugly time for breathers during the last 16 months of the Bush administration. And it could be a boom time for special interests seeking to cash in before the President heads off to the ranch.

Possible deals are in store for coal, cars, and a variety of smokestack industries - a veritable "onslaught" as my friend, John Walke of the National Resources Defense Council puts it.

Usually we can only guess how these deals are cut behind the scenes. But Waxman provided a rare glimpse of Bush administration skullduggery as he released the results of an investigation of furtive administration attempts to sandbag a request by California to enforce its landmark greenhouse gas emission standards for motor vehicles.

The California standards are extraordinarily important because more than a dozen other states have adopted or plan to adopt them.

The car companies have launched an all-out war to kill the standards. In one key battleground, a federal judge in Vermont recently upheld that state's version of the standards despite a ferocious attack by the auto industry, which basically claimed the California/Vermont standards would put them out of business. ...

Waxman's investigation makes it appear as if the fix is in to kill California's request simply to satisfy one special-interest polluter. And that doesn't bode well for other key administration decisions to be made in the coming months regarding pollution requirements for coal-burning power plants, mining, fuels and other matters. To cite one shocking example, an EPA official noted last week that the administration is likely to promote the notion of making liquid fuel from coal as part of its answer to the Supreme Court decision on global warming - even though doing this likely would make global warming even worse!

One thing is certain: the polluters have really bulked up to deal with the Bush final days. The two key architects of air pollution policy for the Bush Administration — Jeffrey Holmstead and William Wehrum — have both gone through the proverbial revolving door to law firms that represent electric power companies and other big polluters. (Holmstead to Bracewell Giuliani, Wehrum to Hunton & Williams.)

They are very smart fellows and will probably do a great job representing their clients. But that may not be the best news possible for the rest of us who can't afford to hold our breath for 16 months.

Distibuted manufacturing of uniquely identifiable and locatable objects is one of those emerging fields I think will help us to omplement full cradle to cradle manufacturing techniques and to put problems like peak oil behind us - this is one of Bruce Sterling's favourite topics (usually tagged with words like spime or blobject) these days, and TreeHugger reports he has made a movie on "Downloadable Designs".

Bruce Sterling has not only written the book on downloadable designs (called Shaping Things), He made the movie too!

According to Putting People First", The future will see a new kind of object — we have the primitive forms of them now in our pockets and briefcases: user-alterable, baroquely multi-featured, and programmable — that will be sustainable, enhanceable, and uniquely identifiable. Sterling coins the term “spime” for them, these future manufactured objects with informational support so extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system. Spimes are designed on screens, fabricated by digital means, and precisely tracked through space and time. They are made of substances that can be folded back into the production stream of future spimes, challenging all of us to become involved in their production.

Last night Sterling showed an amazing video in Italy; you can see it :: Here

Bruce himself reports that the "Climate Crisis Is Stirring Brain-Eating Amoeba". Another horror from down under...

(((I don't make the news, I just blog it, folks....)))

Link: Arizona Boy Dies Of Rare Infection - Local News Story - KPHO Phoenix.

"This is definitely something we need to track," said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational water-born illnesses for the CDC. "This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better," Beach said. "In future decades, as temperatures rise, we'd expect to see more cases."

Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria has been found almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even some swimming pools. Still, the CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s. The amoeba typically live in lake bottoms, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment. Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose -- say, by doing a cannonball off a cliff -- the amoeba can latch onto the person's olfactory nerve.

The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up to the brain. People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers, Beach said. In the later stages, they'll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes. Once infected, most people have little chance of survival.....

I included a couple of links about the evolution of social entrepreneurship in a post a week or so ago, including one to grassroots loan broker Kiva, which is the subject of an article in today's SMH - apparently they have been so successful raising money lately that there is a shortage of firms to lend to.

Last month I became a financier, or, to be more specific, a microfinancier. I lent $50 to Saitia Teropika in Samoa. I've never been to Samoa or met Teropika, but I know she's 37 years old and has nine children. I know the money is to help her buy seeds and pesticides to expand her market garden.

I know all this because of an innovative organisation called Kiva, which supports charity in the form of zero-interest business loans. It does this by using a website to link people in the First World to people in the Third. Founded in 2005 by an American couple, Matt and Jessica Flannery, it is a fascinating use of the internet.

Kiva (the word is Swahili for "unity"), in San Francisco, deals with potential borrowers through 68 microfinance companies in the Third World. These "field partners" charge the borrowers interest and take responsibility for identifying responsible entrepreneurs, disbursing the loan, collecting repayments and giving lenders periodic updates on how the business is going.

The concept has been a modest hit in America. So far $US11 million ($12.5 million) has been lent by 119,000 people. When I visited the website this week to look for a second business to fund, I found a message possibly unique in the history of charity: "Due to a recent surge in support ignited by viewers of the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, and readers of President [Bill] Clinton's newly released book Giving, there is currently a shortage of businesses in need of loans. The www.kiva.org staff and our field partners are working overtime to get more businesses on the website."

But it's not just Americans who are involved. Contributors to Saitia Teropika's $750 loan also come from Germany, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Italy and Taiwan, and there are several Australians. Lenders can create a profile on the site and put up their photo and some personal details: this is charity for the MySpace generation.

Common Dreams has an article from Ray McGovern on Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy.

It is an exceedingly dangerous time. Vice President Dick Cheney and his hard-core “neo-conservative” protégés in the administration and Congress are pushing harder and harder for President George W. Bush, isolated from reality, to honor the promise he made to Israel to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.On Sept. 23, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned pointedly:

“If we escalate tensions, if we succumb to hysteria, if we start making threats, we are likely to stampede ourselves into a war [with Iran], which most reasonable people agree would be a disaster for us…I think the administration, the president and the vice president particularly, are trying to hype the atmosphere, and that is reminiscent of what preceded the war in Iraq.”

So why the pressure for a wider war in which any victory will be Pyrrhic-for Israel and for the U.S.? The short answer is arrogant stupidity; the longer answer-what the Chinese used to call “great power chauvinism”-and oil.

The truth can slip out when erstwhile functionaries write their memoirs (the dense pages of George Tenet’s tome being the exception). Kudos to the still functioning reportorial side of the Washington Post, which on Sept. 15, was the first to ferret out the gem in former Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan’s book that the Iraq war was “largely about oil.”

But that’s okay, said the Post’s editorial side (which has done yeoman service as the White House’s Pravda) the very next day. Dominating the op-ed page was a turgid piece by Henry Kissinger, serving chiefly as a reminder that there is an excellent case to be made for retiring when one reaches the age of statutory senility.

Dr. Kissinger described as a “truism” the notion that “the industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend.” (Curious. That same truism was considered a bad thing, when an integral part of the “Brezhnev Doctrine” applied to Eastern Europe.) What is important here is that Kissinger was speaking of Iran, which-in a classic example of pot calling kettle black-he accuses of “seeking regional hegemony.” What’s going on here seems to be a concerted effort to get us accustomed to the prospect of a long, and possibly expanded war.

Don’t you remember? Those terrorists, or Iraqis, or Iranians, or jihadists…whoever…are trying to destroy our way of life.

The White House spin machine is determined to justify the war in ways they think will draw popular support from folks like the well-heeled man who asked me querulously before a large audience, “Don’t you agree that several GIs killed each week is a small price to pay for the oil we need?”

The Bush policy toward the Middle East is at the same time consistent with, and a marked departure from, the U.S. approach since the end of World War II. Given ever-growing U.S. dependence on imported oil, priority has always been given to ensuring the uninterrupted supply of oil, as well as securing the state of Israel. The U.S. was, by and large, successful in achieving these goals through traditional diplomacy and commerce. Granted, it would overthrow duly elected governments, when it felt it necessary-as in Iran in 1953, after its president nationalized the oil. But the George W. Bush administration is the first to start a major war to implement U.S. policy in the region.

Just before the March 2003 attack, Chas Freeman, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia for President George H.W. Bush, explained that the new policy was to maintain a lock on the world’s energy lifeline and be able to deny access to global competitors. Freeman said the new Bush administration “believes you have to control resources in order to have access to them” and that, with the end of the Cold War, the U.S. is uniquely able to shape global events-and would be remiss if it did not do so. This could not be attempted in a world of two superpowers, but has been a longstanding goal of the people closest to George W. Bush.

In 1975 in Harpers, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger authored under a pseudonym an article, “Seizing Arab Oil.”

Blissfully unaware that the author was his boss, the highly respected career ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins, committed the mother of all faux pas when he told a TV audience that whoever wrote that article had to be a “madman.” Akins was right; he was also fired.

The Huffington Post has an article on John Dean and his alienation from the Republican tribe - "From Nixon to Bush to Giuliani--"Much, Much Worse"".

John Dean knows something about White House abuse of power. He wrote a bestseller in 2004 on the Bush White House called Worse Than Watergate. In a recent interview I asked him what he thinks of that title now. Now, he replied, a book comparing Bush and Nixon would have to be called Much, Much Worse.

"Look at the so-called Watergate abuses of power," he said. "Nobody died. Nobody was tortured. Millions of Americans were not subject to electronic surveillance of their communications. We're playing now in a whole different league."

And how does Bush compare with the Republicans seeking to succeed him? "If a Rudy Giuliani were to be elected," Dean said, "he would go even farther than Cheney and Bush in their worst moments."

What about the rest of the pack? "I'm very concerned about the current attitude in the Republican party," he said. "However there are candidates on the Republican side who are not quite as frightening as Giuliani." When I asked who he had in mind, he laughed and said "Ron Paul." He conceded that "there's no chance he's going to be president."

Dean's new book is Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches. It's a massively documented and thorough indictment, arguing that, over the last 30 years, Republicans have broken or ignored laws, rules, and the Constitution. He's especially critical of the growth of presidential power under Bush II, and what he calls the "corruption" of the courts by "radical conservatives."

I asked Dean to imagine the moment when Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, 2009, presumably to be replaced by a Democrat, presumably Hillary -- will it then be possible to say "our long national nightmare is over"? Dean replied with one word: "Yes." He quickly added, "I do feel strongly that the Republicans have so abused the law and embedded so many people within the system, within the executive branch, that's it's going to take a couple of terms of Democratic presidents before you have people there who are representing the American people." Does that mean he is supporting Hillary? "She's obviously the one the other Democrats have to beat," he said, "but I don't take any position."

How then would he describe his political position? He says in his new book that he's left his "former tribe" - does that make him a Democrat today? "It doesn't," he replied. "I carry water for nobody. My only interest is being an honest information broker about what's happening. I have no agenda other than explaining - and being shocked at my former tribe."

"I've had invitations to become involved with Democrats," he added, "and have turned them all down. I'm an independent. That happens to be the largest group of voters in the country today - we're about 40 per cent strong."

Links:

* Scientific American - Sunny Outlook: Can Sunshine Provide All U.S. Electricity?
* CSP Today - First Forum On Concentrating Solar Thermal Power To Take Place In Seville
* Europa Rapid - Energising Europe: A real market with secure supply
* WorldChanging - Taking Public Transit: The Most Effective Route to Cutting Carbon. Or even better, walk or ride a bike...
* Alt Energy Stocks - Visual Comparison of Alternative Transportation Fuels
* Alt Energy Stocks - Visual Comparison of Electricity Generation Technologies
* Brisbane Courier Mail - Global food shock real, says former Nats leader
* TreeHugger - The 100 Mile Café: More for the Locavore
* TreeHugger - The Exxon FIles: The Denial Continues
* Andrew Leonard - Don't cry for Saudi Arabia
* Huffington Post - New Rule: Stop Saying Iraq is Another Vietnam, it's Another Enron. I wonder how Ken Lay is doing these days.
* New York Times - Pressure to deal with Blackwater mounting
* The Nation - Congress Quietly Approves Billions More for Iraq War. Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Russ Feingold (+ 12 other Democrats in the House) vote against.
* NY Post - Bloomberg: Insurgents In Iraq Like Americans Who Fought British. How indiscreet - I thought we were liberating them from tyranny.
* Lancaster Intelligencer Journal - Ellsberg Calls for Actions to Prevent War with Iran
* Democracy Now - Bolivian President Evo Morales on Indigenous Rights, Climate Change, Iraq, Establishing Diplomatic Relations with Iran, Che Guevara's Legacy and More
* Beyond The Beyond - Germans Take to the Streets. "Liberty instead of fear !".
* Common Dreams - The Internet: Our Last Hope for a Free Press
* LRC Blog - What Really Happened on the Ferry From Mackinac Island?