So, for about the next three weeks I'll be very busy finishing up a compressed Biology class, so the posts are going to be few and far between. But I do intend to add some more functionality to the site (which requires much less time than fact checking my posts). So for the most part I'm just going to post some links to news I'm following.

For instance...

China could be facing their own economic beast from the post peak oil world, but their government price controls hide but do not solve the higher energy prices. This is similar to what I explained earlier how the “Gas Tax Holiday” is form of corporate welfare that hides actual market prices. In China this is a similar reaction that keeps pump prices low with money taken from the governments tax budget. This leads to monetary devaluation and market inflation.

also...

    Popular culture appears to be slowly jumping on the green bandwagon, even as the necessity of personal sacrifice becomes unavoidably apparent. And I find myself in constant position of explaining the deeper implications to simple things. Such as, Just the other day I was talking with my youngest brother, who is seventeen years my junior.

    The topic was biodiesel, and he was quick to explain to me that I shouldn't be considering biodiesel because using it is causing starvation in other countries. But, it's not really US citizens using biodiesel that is causing food shortages in particular. It's market pressure from many different angles that is making food increasingly expensive that is causing food shortages in other countries.

    Buying a gallon of gasoline for $4.00 is doing just as much as buying a gallon of biodiesel made from corn in pushing up the cost of food in Egypt(for example). A willingness, or the force of social addiction, to pay such high prices for portable energy, has a ripple effect on the very foundations of the food market. Four dollar a gallon gas means the petroleum used for fertilizers that are the true power behind modern agriculture gets more expensive, so farmers have to raise the prices to cover their overhead. And what is worse is that there is a market ripple delay...

    So it seems that I've had more and more conversations with people while biking around northern VA that start out like this, “So your biking around to save gas money?”

    To which I usually answer something pretty consistent with, “No, not really. While it does save money by not using gas to get around, I haven't ditched my car, which is necessary to save a lot of money by bicycling. I bike mainly because it seems to be a better use of my body, has less of an impact on the environment than driving. And in the back of my mind I'm really very worried that a worst case 'peak oil' scenario would leave me unprepared to support my family if I didn't do this regularly.”

    Found this mention of a high speed train being proposed on DIGG of all places. Which is great, as trains have a fuel efficiency that is more than 3 times that trucks. It's interesting to note that train services are seeing a record breaking boom with the rise of petroleum based fuels. Their higher fuel efficiency should help them to be able to compete quite well, finally, against the more dominant forms of transportation. California is the perfect state to state this kind of project, as they are otherwise so heavily effected by rising consumer fuel costs.

    It would be an interesting future if the age of trains saw a rebirth. The state ownership of Amtrak might finally be seen as a golden investment, which is good because our government is rather broke.

    So while reading the comments on one of the more creative online videos that talks about peak oil, I was struck by the preponderance of replies that seem to state absolutely magical beliefs in what science can do. Such as...

“There's enough oil under the north slope of alaska to supply the US for the next 200 years. Not only that, but old wells can be re-explored and often are found to have re-filled.” -deaglek

    Ok, so deaglek may not have even a simple grasp of mathematics but most people should be able to follow this simple number crunch. Here's the facts, the total proven crude oil reserves, in the ground, in the lower 48 states and Alaska are about 20 billion barrels of crude. The US consumes about 20 million barrels a day, multiply that by 365 days in a year, and you find that we consume about 7.3 billion barrels of crude a year. So, in less than 3 years we would consume all of the available oil in the US, that includes the Alaskan north slope.

More doom and gloom(Russia Today), but look at the bright side, if your reading this chances are you are rich enough not to be starved to death by imminent market pressure!

A turn key solution for home ethanol production(product site) is soon to be available.

A very impressive story(active.com) of what something as simple as getting on a bike can do.

Keeping things aesthetically pleasing doesn't have to be unproductive.

    One of the most common arguments against investing in renewable energy is the high initial cost involved in building the infrastructure. Many economists and investors, big and small, say this alone is a valid argument for not investing in a renewable energy infrastructure. This kind of reasoning is built on the basis of the history of dirt cheap cost of fossil fuel energy, which is quickly becoming a point of past history. Simply put, no other energy source can come close to the EROEI(energy returned on energy invested) of fossil fuel energy sources of the past, this is undeniable. And while the costs of petroleum, natural gas, and coal are on the rise even the current market increases still make them the cheapest forms of energy around. But their comes both tremendous hidden costs and very delayed costs to using fossil fuel energy sources that effect everything from our national economy to our very own personal health.

    It seems that when there is talk of doing something in an efficient and ecologically friendly manner the primary argument behind it is usually to reduce carbon emissions. And while that in itself is not a bad reasoning, it has tends to lead to a great deal of confusion about why we should do things in efficient and ecological ways.

    Reducing overall carbon emissions is certainly important, in a educated guess sort of way. I mean the basic laboratory science of carbon emission induced climate change is well understood. And we have some very indicative real world observations about correlations between atmospheric carbon concentrations and global warming. So it is a pretty good bet that reducing our carbon emissions, even in small and personal ways, might help prevent some long term global warming, outside of the normal long term climate fluctuations that is. But is this really a good immediate impact sort of reasoning?

No.

    And there are much better reasons to live efficiently and in an ecologically sound manner. Take for instance the enormous trade deficit in the United States of America, every time you eat locally produced food you are not reducing your personal carbon emissions, you are increasing the value of your money by working against the trade deficit.

    Or what about riding a bicycle 7 miles to work instead of driving? Sure you are reducing your carbon emissions, but you are also fighting the trade deficit, and your improving your overall health which also helps to fights overall long term health care costs. Not to mention the mental benefits of prolonged exercise which will help to fight the stress of the modern professional life. Nothing like coming home to your family after a long day at work without bringing all the teeth chiseling stress of modern cubicle life.

     So, at least that is what I read so often, as one of the many excuses to do nothing about future energy concerns.  And to some degree it is a true statement that, "using corn for ethanol will raise the cost of food for the poor."  Yep, that's right, corn is a horrible biofuel base crop.  Besides the fact that it's efficieny is pathetic, less than a 50% net return on energy invested and it raises the competition for a human food source.  Only the corn lobby in the states is trying to promote the use of corn as a biofuel base, no other industry is saying that it's the perfect crop.  But is that a reason to turn away from biofuels?

No!

wait that wasn't loud enough...

NO!!!