Traditional Energy’s Modern Boom
High Prices Are Driving Increased Extraction of Oil and Other Fossil Fuels
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 15, 2008; A01
Original article

AMWELL, Pa. — The guys on the derrick, filthy with mud and grease, have the best view in the county. Their drilling rig rises from a bulldozed, flattened patch of meadow near the top of a hill. To the south is an old farmhouse and a white barn. Hay bales dry in the sun.

It’s classically pastoral as far as the eye can see, which makes all the more dramatic the presence of this derrick, 160 feet high, and the construction trailers, and the mud gushing into a holding pond, and all the roaring machinery.

Heavy industry has invaded the countryside because of something called the Marcellus Shale. It’s a layer of hard, black rock, more than a mile down. Trapped in tiny pores of that rock is a huge quantity of natural gas. The Marcellus Shale could become what people in the natural gas business call a big play.

“It’s a gold rush, really. It’s a boom,” said Steve Rupert, an executive with Range Resources, which is drilling aggressively in the rolling farmland southwest of Pittsburgh.

This is the world of 21st-century energy, which around here looks surprisingly like 19th-century energy. There is little evidence that the old, conventional sources of energy are about to disappear, or that the free market by itself is going to drive a transition to clean, renewable power. Read the complete Post.

Five years after the blackout, experts warn it could happen again
MARK WILLIAMS
Associated Press
August 14, 2008
Original article

The ABC News take on the anniversary was a little more dire.

COLUMBUS, OHIO — Five years after the worst blackout in North American history, the largest power providers in the United States say the problems that turned out the lights on 50 million people have largely been resolved, but they fear that larger, systemic issues could soon lead to even bigger and more damaging outages.

Excess capacity in the system is shrinking and construction, as well as plans for new plants, has slowed as costs to build and operate them have soared.

At the same time, it is estimated that electricity use will increase 29 per cent between 2006 to 2030 - much of it driven by residential growth, according to a U.S. government report issued in June.

“I’m really not a Chicken Little player, but I worry that no one seems to be focusing in on this,” said Michael Morris, chairman, president and chief executive officer of American Electric Power (AEP), which runs the nation’s largest electricity transmission system. Read the complete Post.

VPO note - While Vancouver twiddles its fingers and proceeds with Gateway - streetcars (electric rail is more efficient than buses, and MUCH cheaper than Skytrain) are making a comeback in the US.

By BOB DRIEHAUS

Published: August 13, 2008

Original Article in the NY Times

CINCINNATI — From his months-old French bistro, Jean-Robert de Cavel sees restored Italianate row houses against a backdrop of rundown tenements in this city’s long-struggling Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.

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He also sees a turnaround for the district, thanks to plans to revive a transit system that was dismantled in the 1950s: the humble streetcar line.

“Human beings can be silly because we move away from things too quickly in this country,” Mr. de Cavel said. “Streetcar is definitely going to create a reason for young people to come downtown.”

Cincinnati officials are assembling financing for a $132 million system that would connect the city’s riverfront stadiums, downtown business district and Uptown neighborhoods, which include six hospitals and the University of Cincinnati in a six- to eight-mile loop. Depending on the final financing package, fares may be free, 50 cents or $1.The city plans to pay for the system with existing tax revenue and $30 million in private investment. The plan requires the approval of Mayor Mark Mallory, a proponent, and the City Council.

At least 40 other cities are exploring streetcar plans to spur economic development, ease traffic congestion and draw young professionals and empty-nest baby boomers back from the suburbs, according to the Community Streetcar Coalition, which includes city officials, transit authorities and engineers who advocate streetcar construction. Read the complete Post.

August 14, 2008
By JAD MOUAWAD
Original article in NY Times

VPO note - The Bush administration, still exploring just how far they’re willing to go to secure energy supplies, has sent troops into Georgia.

Meanwhile, Russia is using the cover of war to try to knock out oil pipelines to the West.

When the main pipeline that carries oil through Georgia was completed in 2005, it was hailed as a major success in the United States policy to diversify its energy supply. Not only did the pipeline transport oil produced in Central Asia, helping move the West away from its dependence on the Middle East, but it also accomplished another American goal: it bypassed Russia.

American policy makers hoped that diverting oil around Russia would keep the country from reasserting control over Central Asia and its enormous oil and gas wealth and would provide a safer alternative to Moscow’s control over export routes that it had inherited from Soviet days. The tug-of-war with Moscow was the latest version of the Great Game, the 19th-century contest for dominance in the region.

A bumper sticker that American diplomats distributed around Central Asia in the 1990s as the United States was working hard to make friends there summed up Washington’s strategic thinking: “Happiness is multiple pipelines.” Read the complete Post.

Wednesday 13 August 2008
by: Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation
Original article

VPO note - Matt Simmons predicted a heating oil shortage in 2007/2008 at the ASPO conference in Oct 2007. You didn’t hear about it, but he was right.

As John McCain and the Republicans trumpet their election year boldfaced lie - drill now so we can lower prices at the pump today - they continue to ignore a looming energy disaster with lives hanging in the balance. Read the complete Post.

Monthly meeting of the VPO Community citizen’s group has been scheduled: Tues, Aug. 26th, starts at 7:30 p.m., ends at 9:30 p.m.

Catch up on the latest peak oil news, find out who’s doing what to prepare. All welcome. If too many people show up for the room, we’ll split into 2 groups.

NEW VENUE! (Thanks to Brennan & Beth)
SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings St. (downtown)
We’re in room 7000 - the Earl & Jennie Lohn Policy Room
This is convenient to bus, seabus & skytrain to take public transit! (Good practice.) But if you MUST drive…

PARKING
SFU Harbour Centre is on Hastings, but the entrance to the Delta parking lot is accessible only via Seymour or Richards.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: anyone parking in the Delta Hotel parking lot must depart by 10PM because they’ll close the gate and it will be a hassle to get out any cars from that particular parking lot after 10PM. Also, there are plenty of car break-ins in that neighbourhood, so please, if you drive, leave nothing of value in your car, even if you park in the Delta Hotel parking lot.

The Era of Catastrophe? Geologists Name New Era After Human Influence on the Planet
By Mike Davis, Tomdispatch.com. Posted August 11, 2008.

A striking report from the front lines of science suggests we’re officially entering a period in which humanity may simply outrun history itself.

Editor’s note: This TomDispatch article has been edited for length. You can read the original here.

1. Farewell to the Holocene

Our world, our old world that we have inhabited for the last 12,000 years, has ended, even if no newspaper in North America or Europe has yet printed its scientific obituary.

This February, while cranes were hoisting cladding to the 141st floor of the Burj Dubai tower (which will soon be twice the height of the Empire State Building), the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London was adding the newest and highest story to the geological column. Although the idea of the “Anthropocene” — an Earth epoch defined by the emergence of urban-industrial society as a geological force — has been long debated, stratigraphers have refused to acknowledge compelling evidence for its advent.

At least for the London Society, that position has now been revised. This new age, they explain, is defined both by the heating trend … and by the radical instability expected of future environments. In somber prose, they warn that “the combination of extinctions, global species migrations and the widespread replacement of natural vegetation with agricultural monocultures is producing a distinctive contemporary biostratigraphic signal. These effects are permanent, as future evolution will take place from surviving (and frequently anthropogenically relocated) stocks.” Evolution itself, in other words, has been forced into a new trajectory. Read the complete Post.

Shoulder Season
From the Clusterfuck Nation blog

America is on vacation from its financial, fiscal, and economic problems, having left the centers of power in Wall Street and Washington for a Nantucket-of-the-mind, where, in a haze of artisanal vodka and bong smoke, it’s out in the cool dune grass watching imaginary whalefishes blow, leaving only the TV Bubbleheads behind back home. Larry Kudlow of CNBC was practically drooling into his cufflinks on screen last week when the dollar popped against the Euro, and crude oil slumped, and the equity markets climbed up a flagpole.

This sort of euphoria is actually an alarming pre-crash symptom, in this case of a patient (the US) entering the terminal phase of sclerosis. Our society and all its playerz — especially the appointed communicators — just can’t fathom the reality of the threats we face, which are 1.) the loss of primary energy resources, 2.) the loss of technological potency, and 3.) the loss of a comfortable standard of living. Read the complete Post.

A nuanced response to the PickensPlan website, by Chris Tidman.

The Pickens Plan

Plan A Big sales – Big profits

The Pickens team sells Big oil, Big gas, Big windmills in army-sized packages. They sell to Big buyers like Government, so their pitch is to Government. They are not offering oil, gas or windmills in little boxes to individuals or small groups because they do not want individuals to buy anything. - They just need individuals to help them sell the Big plan to Government. Will 1 million players in a population of 300 million be enough?

They will have to move quickly before Government learns that they can generate more energy at less cost with either solar/thermal or bio-gas, and there are better wind generators coming on stream that are cheaper, quieter and don’t kill birds - The high cost and the small amount of energy produced from solar PV has never threatened Government nor any of the organizations like Boone’s, but the push is on for Big boys and Governments to get off oil and keep their power positions.

Plan B

Join the Pickensplan as an individual- create a personal “my page” - become a “group organizer” - and get a free custom “my page”- post your pitch on the free “blog” provided,- participate in forums which advertises your name and encourages people to look you up and read your bio – and make lots of friends.

An organization, (within an organization,) attempting to get energy owned/managed by communities instead of nations — i.e. Big boys - would sure change the way things get done.

BTW when you join and they ask where you learned of the PP – don’t put my name down - anyone else will do - no need for them to know we’re on the same team.