Monday, February 15, 2010

Mining industry warns of another energy price spike

From Jenna Orkin

Headlines
Welcome to the new era of sovereign risk.Read
Sovereign Default: Stuck Between Dire and Disastrous
Nuclear Proliferation Is This Year's Inconvenient Truth
As for next year's inconvenient truth:
Mining industry warns of another energy price spike
Shell could sell over $10 billion in assets
A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything

Europe
Global shift sees Europe oil refineries on the block
Wall Street Helped Cover Up Greek Debts, Fueling Crisis
Tactics like the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro, reports the New York Times.
Spain Begs Markets To Stop Comparing It To Greece
Spanish intelligence probing debt "attacks"-report
Wanna Bottom Feed Euro Distress? Buy Portugal
PIGS Will Feast At Bailout Trough How Governments Hide Their Liabilities
What Exactly Is the Real Level of Government Debt in Europe?
Europe's Four Little PIGS: A Greek Tragedy
Weber Clear Frontrunner to Succeed Trichet as ECB President, Survey Shows
Goldman Is About To Be Blacklisted And Possibly Banned In Europe
Germans say euro zone may have to expel Greece: poll

US
Wall Street Is A High-On-Crack Driver That Just Smashed Into Your House
Cities Freaking Out Over The Fact That Government Housing Intervention Might End One Day President Obama Says US Must Tighten Economic Belt
Goldman: Here's Five Trends That Guarantee A Weak Recovery
Stick a Fork In It, the Dollar Is Done - Vantage Point
Volcker Says Must Let Big Financial Firms Fail
Citi: Markets Panicking Again
U.S. schools face severe budget holes
Gov. Paterson: Somebody is after me

World/Military
`Something's Brewing' on China Yuan Increase, Goldman Sachs's O'Neill Says
If We're Japan, Then The Selloff Starts NOW
Investor Stephen Jarislowsky `Convinced' That Canada Has a Housing Bubble
Why Israel gets a hard time in Brussels
Shipping Costs Rise 32% in Survey as 55 Boats Wait for Coal From Newcastle
India's Bharti Confirms $10.7 Billion Bid for Africa Assets
Civilians killed as Operation Moshtarak tightens screw
Fierce battles mark third day of Nato assault on Marjah / Rocket system suspended as inquiry launched into accident
Joya condemns 'ridiculous' military strategy

Intelligence/Technology
Former US Officials in Cyberattack Simulation
"Three years ago, the BPC and Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE) staged another simulation, "Oil ShockWave," which examined US dependence on foreign oil as a national security threat.
WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw

Public Interest Environmental Law Conference
Friday February 26, 9 am

Beyond Growth: Peaked oil, climate chaos, steady state economics (Law 281)Peak oil and climate chaos must be addressed together to mitigate either. Reducing carbon emissions by 2050 is a subtle way to acknowledge peak oil. Depletion will force this reduction because we cannot burn fuel that does not exist. So far, economic contraction has done more to reduce greenhouse gases emissions than political promises. We are past the limits of exponential growth on a finite planet. Steady state economics holds the promise of a truly sustainable society after fossil fuels.

Mark Robinowitz, author, Peak Oil Wars and Global Permaculture Solutions
Rob Dietz, Executive Director, Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
Clay Callaghan, Ph.D. candidate, Sociology, University of Oregon; sustainable living scholar
Erik Silverberg, writer and videographer

7 comments:

Unknown said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/13/algae-solve-pentagon-fuel-problem

Algae to solve the Pentagon's jet fuel problem? has anyone been on top of this research as i'm just learning about it.

OregonSurvivor said...

I have been watching the algae to fuel technology. Green Cell Technologies in Australia has developed a system using a GNUL, (lung backwards), that takes in CO2 and gives off oxygen and various types of oils. Here is a link to their site: GreenCell Limited
Disclosure: I am an investor in this company.

Unknown said...

just got done checking into the web site and everything is checking out to be good news so now lets see if someone can come up with a way to fix GREED!!

gamedog said...

OregonSurvivor: When I first read about this technology there were question marks over the amount of water used in the process, have you any figures on EROEI and water use?

OregonSurvivor said...

Gamedog, I share your questions and am asking them; will post answers if I find them.

Unknown said...

I was also looking for info on the amount of water needed to make this operation work so please post any info you can. thank you.

NeilCraig said...

Hello all, this is my first posting to this blog although I've been following Mike's work for years now, have read Rubicon, Twilight in the Desert, watched Collapse, etc etc.

I'm very cynical by nature. It bothered me for a long time - even before the exposure of the corruption within the IPCC - that the rallying against Climate Change was actually the only way to get the populus to do anything to mitigate Peak Oil. Here we have an article telling us that the twin spectres of Peak Oil and Climate Change must now be fought together.

If our leaders stood up and actually said, "your way of life is coming to an end because we're running out of hydrocarbon resources," there would be mass panic, not to mention furious backlash against the feckless idiots who should have seen this coming decades ago and done something while we still had the resources to make it happen. Or they'd be laughed at like Carter was decades ago.

To make things worse, data on Climate Change - assuming here that it's not falsified - is a lot more readily available than accurate data on recoverable oil reserves. We know from Matt Simmons and many others that a lot of publicly-available figures on reserves are wildly inaccurate.

Stating "YOUR lifestyle is harming the planet, so you have to 'do your bit' to fight climate change" is a lot less threatening and puts the blame squarely on the consumer. It gives people hope that as long as we all do something, our way of life can continue more or less unabated. It's kind of like TARP for Peak Oil.

Best to all
Neil