Coal

Fossil fuels are currently an essential component in the global economy and the growth of the human population. The fossil fuel production projections from this study suggest that many of the IPCC fossil fuel projections appear overly optimistic. Based on the assumed URR values, it is predicted that global fossil fuel production will peak before 2030. For this reason, it is imperative that appropriate action be taken as early as possible to mitigate the effects of fossil fuel decline, to avoid energy shortages in the near future.

Models of transition in eastern Kentucky must simultaneously address a host of interrelated regional challenges in order to bring sustainable success. The region's economy is under-developed, with extremely high poverty and unemployment rates; housing stock is inadequate and energy-inefficient; and rural electric cooperatives are more than 90 percent dependent on coal, increasing the vulnerability of their customers in the face of rising prices.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Deepwater Horizon
-Demand projections
-Briefs
-Quote of the week

When most people think of fossil fuel supplies, they think in terms of barrels of oil, cubic feet of natural gas and tons of coal. But in evaluating how much energy in the form of finite fossil fuels the world has left, these are no longer adequate measurements.

Europe is finally starting to think about its longer-term energy issues, and how they affect transportation plans. To try to deal with these issues, a new European Energy Consultation was set up, specifically to look into these issues. The European Energy Consultation asked for interested individuals to provide their input.

Like everything else in China, coal production statistics are simply immense. China now consumes and produces close to 50% of all the coal in the world. Thus, changes in Chinese consumption and / or production may have a dramatic impact upon the global coal market.

Ten years ago, energy analyst Steve Andrews challenged widely respected energy guru Amory Lovins via email for what Andrews thought was an overly optimistic vision—about coal consumption trends, evolution in the auto industry, future world oil production, etc.—articulated in the Rocky Mountain Institute‘s Spring 2000 newsletter. ...Ten years later, read it for the blind spots everyone had.

- Lloyd's adds its voice to dire 'peak oil' warnings
- Emirates banker: Will oil be coal?
- India cuts gas subsidy in favor of greener investments?
- Peak oil postponed again

-Science and The Gulf Spill – Scientists Gauge The Impact of Oil
-Saudi Arabia’s real energy problem(s)
-What happens when coal is gone?
-Saudi's Announcement

- NYT: As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies
- Aleklett: Oil in the veins of sub-Saharan Africa
- SciAm: What happens when coal is gone?
- WaPo: Pigs in Takoma Park highlight rise in suburban livestock
- Titanic Syndrome

The Chief Executive Officer of insurance giants Lloyds is warning that the world is facing a “period of deep uncertainty” over the decline of fossil fuels – and may soon be coping with $200-a-barrel oil.

Following the failure of the latest efforts to plug the gushing leak from BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, and amid warnings that oil could continue to flow for another two months or more, perhaps it's a good time to step back a moment mentally and look at the bigger picture—the context of our human history of resource extraction—to see how current events reveal deeper trends that will have even greater and longer-lasting significance.

So the Queen's Speech has set out the policy priorities for the new government, but were the policies announced a cop-out or do they set out a wartime mobilisation scale of response to climate change and peak oil? These reflections are based on the article about the speech that appeared in yesterday's Guardian.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Deepwater horizon
-Repercussions
-Sanctions on Iran
-Quote of the Week
-Briefs