The Shape Of Oil To Come  

From Rembrandt at TOD Europe:

Our future is highly dependent on the way in which worldwide crude oil production is going to decline. If it goes rapidly, declining with a few percent each year or more, than it will be very difficult to complete the energy transition without severe economical consequences. If production stabilizes and plateaus for a decade or longer, after which the period of long decline begins, it would provide much greater means to sustain the present economy. Stability is needed to scale up alternative sources of energy sufficiently to replace crude oil during a transition period of decades.

Links:

* Space.com - Report Urges U.S. to Pursue Space-Based Solar Power. I'm never quite sure if these things are serious (if so, why not consider terrestrial solar power which would be easy enough to put in place right now) or if they are just promoting a boondoggle similar to the moon based helium 3 stories that appear from time to time. Or perhaps its just a way of keeping the US military supplied with "fuel" no matter where it goes.
* Gizmag - New manufacturing process captures more light in solar cells
* Wired - Trams Dominate the Streets in Amsterdam
* The Energy Blog - Anerobic Microoganisms Produce Methane. Word of the day - geobioreactors.
* WSJ Energy Roundup - Shark? No, Wind Farm.. "If you say you don’t want a dime-size windmill in the distance, we’ll have to abandon all the hotels and all the houses and all the restaurants because the ocean’s coming to swallow them."
* TreeHugger - Ifo President: EU Energy Policy is Useless
* Grist - Table Talk: A conversation with Michael Pollan
* Jeff Vail - The Iranian Gambit Opening
* Stuff.co.nz - Fuel from water becoming reality says Kiwi firm Bio Fuels. One of the 2 most persistent free energy memes, still trucking along.
* LA Times - Al Gore: the anti-Bush
* Free Liberal - Ron Paul on PBS NewsHour
* FireDogLake - Won’t Back Down