You see that oil futures got to almost $140 a barrel today, on fear of peak oil? Dallas oilman T. Boone Pickens is not surprised:
Veteran traders said they had never seen such a jump and said investors were increasingly betting that oil production would soon peak because of geopolitical and geological constraints.Neil McMahon, of Sanford Bernstein, said: “Peak oil views – regardless of whether right or wrong – are seeping into the market and supporting high prices.”
Anne-Louise Hittle, of Wood Mackenzie, added that investors were shifting their focus from the short-term to the medium-term, where supply fears played a bigger role. Since January, long-term futures oil contracts, such as those for delivery in 2016, have jumped almost 60 per cent, while near-term prices have gone up 35 per cent.
That trend was exacerbated by T. Boone Pickens, the influential investor who believes world oil production is about to peak as aging fields run dry. He warned that oil prices would hit $150 a barrel by the end of the year.
“Eighty-five million barrels of oil a day is all the world can produce, and the demand is 87m,” Mr Pickens told CNBC. “It’s just that simple.”
The Oil Drum -- which ought to be checked daily, by the way -- is wondering if the peak oil meme has gone from being outsider speculation to mainstream now.
I'm sitting here in steamy, unseasonably hot Dallas, with the a/c cranked up, thinking about how hard peak oil is going to hit my city. It'll be like telling New Orleans that from now on, Mardi Gras will be teetotal. Reader Stefanie sends along news of "transition towns" -- towns that are already starting to do things to prepare for life after peak oil. Excerpt:
What is a Transition Town (or village / city / forest / island)?A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:
"for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?"
The resulting coordinated range of projects across all these areas of life leads to a collectively designed energy descent pathway.The community also recognises two crucial points:
that we used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there's no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope
if we collectively plan and act early enough there's every likelihood that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.
Go to the site and check out what each town is doing. Most are in Britain. There's on in the US: Boulder, Colo. (sorry cb!)
Any Crunchy Con readers live in a transition town? Would you like to?
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Rod:
I'm in a small city, Santa Fe, that is following a similar path to that of Boulder. I know both cities pretty well, as Boulder is where my best friend and business partner lives. Boulder has some options that Santa Fe doesn't because of the strength of it's economy. One small example: bike paths and rail trails are paved in Boulder; they're dirt in Santa Fe. We're also working in a xeriscape environment. Here's a link to a fascinating urban renewal project that is going to have a very big impact on Santa Fe, and it's reputation as an innovator in sustainability and low-impact community building:
http://www.sfrailyardcc.org/
Bless,
Doug
Air conditioning actually emits less C02 than heating.
Yeah, right. "Crank the A/C!" I see someone else has OD'd on Wired magazine kool-aid. There are so many variables in heating and cooling in any given living or working space, that to compare "green" living in remote desert areas to green living in downtown Montreal is much more complicated than merely raising and lowering the temperature by x degrees.
Perhaps not germane to the thread but Rod you could uplift us all from posting some material at random from this webpage
www.naturalhomemagazine.com/2008-05-01/trythis.aspx
to remind us a CrunchyCon home doesn't have to be slap bang in the middle of pastures or farmland - even cities as screwed up as Philadelphia have initiatives for reclaiming abandoned lots to create city small holdings (tho' livestock is limited I believe)
And take succour with this cartoon strip for the young at heart - the creators even look like they could be related to you:
www.rustletheleaf.com/images/rustle_index.jpg
H/T www.worstedwitch.com/pix/2006/02/13/rustle.jpg
Cities and towns need to completely re-think big-box retail, for entirely practical reasons that we all can relate to.
Big box retail's low prices work because of purchasing leverage, but also because they've really wrung every last ounce of efficiency they can out of the transport of basic goods. That's a good thing, but there's a catch that no one seems to talk about. They've only transported them to the big-box retail warehouses, and we still have to do all this incredibly inefficient extra driving to get them to our homes! We've rolled over and been obedient suckers in all of this.
Forget CO2 and enviro-dogoodism for a minute - we're shouldering the costs for big box retail's unwillingness to deliver goods to smaller, more accessible neighborhood stores. And those costs are climbing every day. I've always hated sprawl for the usual reasons, but now it's starting to cost us dearly. Low, low prices aren't really that cheap when you tally all the costs. Many, but not all of us could do with one less vehicle if we didn't have to drive so much just to get by.
This information needs to be disseminated and understood, so that we begin to understand the true costs (to us, not to society) of big-box retail. If that happens, local planning and zoning decisions for less auto-centric development will begin to occur without all the acrimony, and without the need for all the top-down initiatives.
Those kind of shifts will take years, decades. In the mean time, we've got to slow down some, move to smaller cars, and figure out how to drive a lot less to get things done, that's all. We will, and it won't be that bad.
Location, Location, Location:
I lived next door to Boulder Co. for several years. Some backyards in Boulder back up against the mountains; other backyards face out onto the rich farming lands of Colorado, I use to jog in thoes lands. One of the largest US feed lots and abattiors is in the next county over along with one the US's largest turkey farms. They also have Coors around the corner. So what's not to like. I and my children have watched, as Mountain Lions walk along the neighborhood streets in the outlieing sections of the town. The hunting is great, 60,000 hunters out shooting what ever moves on the opening deer season one year.
So yes, Boulder should be able to do it; government money pours in to the University and other scientific infastructure. Boulder is rich!
Sincerely, J R Dittbrenner
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