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236 comments on DrumBeat: February 9, 2008

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reno on February 9, 2008 - 10:24am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

I would like to throw this question out to everyone today.. I am visiting various websites concerned with energy efficiences, building sustainable communities, alternative energy sources ect, ect in the state of Iowa.. Not one of the serveral I have visited mentions peak oil or the notion that our future may depend on using less oil..

My question is simply, can they talk and want a sustainable, energy efficient, renewable fuel run communites without talking about peak oil or at least have an little understanding of this phenomena??

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mcgowanmc on February 9, 2008 - 10:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Iowa has a first rate education department.

Iowa State should already have the facts at hand.

""The biofuels route is a dead end," Dr. Andrew Boswell, a Green Party councillor in England and author of a recent study on the harmful effects of biofuels, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "They are going to create great damage to the environment and will also produce dramatic social problems in (tropical countries where many crops for biofuels are grown). There basically isn't any way to make them viable."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,530550,00.html

Just in the US, marginal land is being plowed under.

Added fertilizer automatically increase nitric oxides.

"Both maize and rapeseed are voracious consumers of nitrogen, leading farmers to use large quantities of nitrous oxide fertilizers. But when nitrous oxide is released into the atmosphere, it reflects 300 times as much heat as carbon dioxide does. Paul J. Crutzen, who won the 1995 Nobel prize for chemistry, estimates that biodiesel produced from rapeseed can result in up to 70 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels. Corn, the preferred biofuels crop in the US, results in 50 percent more emissions, Crutzen estimates."

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unrepentantcowboy on February 9, 2008 - 10:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Of course they can talk about and want...

Want in one hand...

You answered your own question. I've been visiting sites...

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reno on February 9, 2008 - 11:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have visited their website with the intention of finding out whether or not peak oil is being mentioned. SO far not one has mentioned it although I don't believe you can talk about without the other or am I wrong..

I have also email the Director of the Office of Energy Independence for the state of Iowa, Roya Stanley, to ask her if peak oil should be part of the discussion about the future of energy in Iowa.. TO which she reply While we have not addressed peak oil directly, the issue is an underpinning of our efforts to chart our own course... I will hopefully corresponding with her further about this subject..

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jokuhl on February 9, 2008 - 1:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Reno;
I attended a Peak Oil Meetup last night (4 in attendance), and in thinking about what kinds of messages might catch the ear of diff't parts of the public, I came up with the thought that Pushing 'Peak OIL' as a concept, might be a lot like 'Pushing a Rope'. The rope may very well need to be moved, but if pushing at one end isn't having the desired effect, how can we pull at another end instead? This is to say that those groups who are working to teach Farming and Gardening and Permaculture are pulling, and they are working on the same rope, but that end of it is not called 'Peak Oil'.

In case this concept is still vague, I guess my own challenge right now is to identify the preparations , skills and assets that I can possibly envision as critical elements of an 'oil-restricted' situation, and look at how to get them going, without necessarily focusing on 'Peak Oil' as the Standard to march under, even if it's part of my thinking while doing so.. In a way, it's like telling people that if they don't eat, they'll starve.. so would you name a restaurant 'Starvation'?

What are the tools that a household will want first thing tomorrow morning to get by if your town is suddenly 'Capetowned'? What does a city NEED to function, and which parts of that (which Silver BB's, that is..) do we already know will help replace the systems now made possible by these gushing rivers of Gas, Diesel and #2 Heating Oil, etc.?

Hope that makes some sense.. I've got a 4yr old vying for attention. Her turn now. Good Hunting!

Bob

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Dryki on February 9, 2008 - 11:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

those groups who are working to teach Farming and Gardening and Permaculture are pulling, and they are working on the same rope, but that end of it is not called 'Peak Oil'.

Peak Oilers are well represented in the current Cumberland County Master Gardener program. Getting in is reasonably competitive; we were selected.

How we feed ourselves without fossil fuels, fertilizers and inputs is explicitly part of the program - clearly front and center in the lead instructor's mind. I'll have to ask him how far that understanding has penetrated into the Ag/Ext services at UMaine.

I do think there is a groundswell - not so much about peak oil as about resource depletion and who profits/who pays more generally - that pits the local activists against the corporate piranhas. If the usual 98% remains uninvolved it will go badly. But the current Maine budget crunch, where every week seems to see revenue projections fall another $100 million, is going to open new possibilities. Not necessarily good ones - think Shock Doctrine.

cfm in Gray, ME

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Todd on February 9, 2008 - 12:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Reno,

You're obviously not an old fart like me who experinced the environmental movement in the 70s. People wanted to do "the right thing" and peak oil/energy wasn't part of the discussion. Look at the Mother Earth archives from that period or find some old copies of Clear Creek magazine. The ideas that are "new today" often originated from that period.

Heck, I bought my first PV panels over 25 years ago; 10 watt amorphous at $7 a watt, wow what a deal! I had a total of 77 watts after I added a 37 watt cyrtaline panel, a 500 watt square wave inverter and a truck battery.

My area also had a little food co-op and locally grown food for sale. The truck came once a month and people had to preorder.

This was also the period of communes. All the ones in my area failed because of personal issues but the people wanted to live low on energy hog.

So, all in all, I believe people can do the right thing and not talk about peak energy.

Todd

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razrmon on February 9, 2008 - 1:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Currently there is a big, green bandwagon effect that is making itself felt across the political spectrum.

For some it is driven by GHG and GW, for others its an intuitive sense that our relationship with the earth threatens the entire community of life (of which we are an a member), others are peak oil aware but are too accustomed to the eyes glazing over phenomena, others realize green is "in" and may be profitably politically, socially or economically.

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