Standard News Roundup for Dec 2008
Your daily dose of standard bad news.
- Fatih Birol (IEA): If Global economy rebounds, we may see a very tight oil market and priced higher than $147 last July. I don't think we are far from a worst-case scenario. We need to invest now.
- MasterCard SpendPulse study: US gasoline demand has risen back to the earlier 2008 levels due to cheaper gasoline. All this in a recession that has been going on for months now.
- Nobua Tanaka (IEA): The Era of Cheap Oil is Over. Volatility is here to stay.
- Heritage Foundation: In a recent simulation run by US top energy scholars and policy experts, the price of oil was modeled in a global energy crisis, which IEA is now predicting. The price of petroleum spiked quickly from $127 to $244 in just a few days. Rise caused a rapid slowdown in economy. If that sounds familiar from this year, get ready for more of it in the years to come.
- ASPO Australia: Sydney and other big cities must start preparing for peak oil now. They call for a moratorium on new motorway construction.
- Tyndall Centre for Climate Change: CO2 emisions are soaring, we have exceeded even the worst of IPCC predictions in the past years. The previous stable level of 380ppm has been breached. We can't stabilize emissions to 450ppm. Be prepared to cut emissions by 80% by 2030.
- Industry Task Force on Peak Oil (UK): Virgin, Yahoo, Fosters, Scottish Energy, Statecoach, and several other UK companies as part of the Industry Task Force on Peak Oil warn about the importance of oil and end of 'easy oil'. Modern cities will be hard places to live in, without oil infra delivered supplies and plentiful cheap oil.
- Arnaud Chaperon (Total Oil): In the Future, energy demand will be constrained by tight supply. Oil will peak in the next decade.
- James Hansen (NASA): In the case of Arctic Sea ice, we have already reached the point of no return.In the case of the Arctic, that could mean a complete disappearance of ice in the region during the summer months. Such eventuality would then further magnify global warming. Positive feedbacks are starting to kick in.
- Nature Magazine via Science News: Wetland soil permafrost is releasing methane in way not previously anticipated. This throws another spanner in the works of previous stabilization scenarios for climate change. Methane is about 20 times as powerful as a greenhouse gas as CO2. 20% of land surface area is permafrost. There is a lot of methane down there.
We need to spend, spend, spend! That's the salvation, right? Right?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
-Philip K. Dick"
-Philip K. Dick"
