This is a presentation by Dr. David Korowicz from Feasta, given at the Oil Drum/ASPO Conference at Alcatraz, Italy in June 2009. It can be downloaded here: Things fall apart: Some thoughts on complexity, supply chains, infrastructure & collapse dynamics, PDF 23 slides, 1.3 MB, text of spoken presentation. It was previously posted on The Oil Drum in August 2009.

This is a presentation by Dr. David Korowicz from Feasta, given at the Oil Drum/ASPO Conference at Alcatraz, Italy in June 2009. It can be downloaded here: Things fall apart: Some thoughts on complexity, supply chains, infrastructure & collapse dynamics, PDF 23 slides, 1.3 MB, text of spoken presentation.

This is a guest post by Cameron Leckie of ASPO Australia. The post is a copy of a letter which has been sent to the Australian Investments and Security Commission. The media discussion on the BrisConnections fiasco has not as yet covered the traffic forecast for the project. This will no doubt change as events unfold.

The current situation that has arisen with BrisConnections and the Airport Link project should never have occurred. If the projects proponents and BrisConnection’s had conducted an Oil Vulnerability Assessment, this project, at least in its current form, would never have been commenced. That in turn would have meant that investors did not lose significant amounts of money, or be in the situation where they could lose their homes and/or become bankrupt. There also would have been no requirement for the current round of legal cases.

This letter will explain why Oil Vulnerability Assessments should be mandatory for all transportation and related investments.

This article is one of a series of articles, offering energy advice to President Obama and his administration.

The incoming Obama administration has promised a much-needed change in the direction of US energy policy (or non-policy, as some see the current situation).  However, some of those changes appear to be campaign gimmicks or aimed at satisfying special interests rather than solving our various problems.  (The heavy-for-light crude swap in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve proposed in the Obama-Biden energy proposal appears to be one such gimmick.)

For much too long, US energy legislation (I hesitate to call it policy, because it lacks the coherence to justify the label) has been aimed at short-term patches on problems which have only gotten worse.  CAFE regulations have barely held fuel economy steady, while low fuel prices caused consumption to skyrocket.  "Free trade" allowed cheap oil imports to kill movement toward efficiency and substitutes.  The auto industry lobbied against fuel taxes to promote its short-term interest in selling profitable trucks, with the long-term result that all 3 US automakers will go bankrupt in the next year if nothing is done.

We've had change before, but the results put us where we are now.  It's time for the right change.