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Ed note:  Sorry I didn’t get this up earlier, I was away this past weekend.  Thanks to Prof. Hall who filled in a few blank spots in my memory, and gave his thoughts at the end of this review.

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ASPO-USA Day 3:  Now Where?  Choices for the Long Haul

Tuesday 8:15 – 9:45 a.m.

David Hughes, from the Canadian Geological Survey, started off the final day of the conference by speaking about coal.  He called coal “a dirty four letter word”, and noted how the 19^th century view of coal was “a wonderful resource…” and skipping ahead to the 21^st century, “Coal is the enemy of the human race.”  David noted that China has built 500 coal plants in 6 years, India 200, while 59 of 151 plants scheduled to be built in the U.S. were cancelled.   U.S. continues to be a slight net exporter.  However, the graph of exports showed a steady decline.  Coal is the #2 energy source in the world – and is not going away any time soon.  The average world citizen consumes the same amount per capita renewable resources today as they did in 1850 (11% renewable).  The average world citizen uses the same amount of coal per capita as they did in the beginning of 20^th century.  Coal makes up 2/3’s of the world’s remaining hydrocarbon resource.  Since 2002 coal use has grown 33% since 2002.  Fastest growing hydrocarbon.  50% of coal used by human race consumed since 1972.  

The energy content of coal peaked in 2006.  David states that a study shows a world coal production peak in 2030, with a peak in China in 2025.  Another study performed a Hubbert linearization for coal.   There are 1.6 Tboe of coal remaining.  90% will be gone in 2076 if we burn hydrocarbons if we burn them as fast as we can produce them.  EIA – coal will grow to 46% of world energy production in 2030 and will grow to 57% in U.S.

David spoke next about “clean coal” and ways that the efficiency of coal use are improving.  He notes that “clean coal” technologies can clean up particulates 99%, NOx, Hg 90%, SOx 99% and get a 25% reduction in CO2.  Denmark is a world leader in ultrasupercritical plants and utilizes them in district heating.  Use of waste heat from coal plants dramatically increases their efficiency.  IGCC plants have a 27 to 35% efficiency, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) plants are 31.2% efficient and require increased coal consumption to 124% of prior levels.  David feels that the best way to get the most energy out of coal, and thus burn the least amount of it, is by using ultrasupercritical plants with their 43.3% efficiency and add waste heat use (district heating) to get an approximate 70% efficiency rating.  Even old coal technology combined with heat capture improves efficiency to 51%.  He notes that proponents of CCS often assume there is NO ENERGY PROBLEM.

Bottom line, the simplest and lowest tech method to reduce carbon emissions from coal is not to burn it.  We have to use the highest efficiency we can when using hydrocarbons. Read more »

I came across this video today of a group of like-minded people working together to improve their lives. They call themselves the Grow Food Party Crew, a part of the Ojai Valley Green Coalition, their goal is to work together to build their local food shed and strengthen their community. They employ permaculture principles as their design approach to food production and land use. Projects include vegetable gardens, rainwater harvesting, as well as natural earthen structures. All the while having a great time doing it!

Why not start a Grow Food Party Crew in your neighborhood!

Inspired by the people at Urban Edibles, and Fallen Fruit we headed out to find some fruit. An open space park near our home was originally a homestead that was settled in the early 1900’s, and within the park there is a legacy of fruit trees. However  these trees have not been pruned in years and the fruit is growing well above the easy reach zone.  Instead of hauling a ladder all over the park we employed the Fruit Harvester from Lehman’s. It is a padded basket with integrated hooks that once mounted to a pole will allow you to harvest all that out of reach fruit. 

The Fruit Harvester is sold with a two piece handle that extends from 4′10″ to 8′10″ long. I purchased the fruit harvester head  separately, choosing to devise my own pole mounting for the harvester. As an arborist I have a couple of pruning poles that interlock to add reach to the saw, I just needed to devise a way to mount the harvester to a pole. Searching the garage I found an old seat post from a bicycle and figured that would do the job.  I drilled a hole in the seat post to allow for the interlocking hardware of the pole and mounted the harvester to the post.  The harvester worked wonderfully and we are now enjoying the ‘fruits’ of our labor; applesauce!

Like bicycles and bamboo? Well Civia Bicycles has a model for you, the Civia Loring.

Whether tooling around town, cruising campus or pedaling to the grocer, the Civia Loring offers supreme comfort, safety and utility. From its gently sloping top tube to its bamboo fenders and matching trim, the Loring is a study in elegance, simplicity and fun. Designed for short runs of five miles or less, the Loring carries up to 50 pounds of cargo while delivering an exceptionally balanced ride. The Loring features disc brakes and a three or nine-speed internally geared hub.

The Civia Loring looks like a great all around errand runner. I really dig the green apple finish, however it is also available in black pearl. The bamboo fenders and racks are a cool addition to this cruiser.

A new ship from Celebrity Cruises, currently about 80% complete, is being built with eco-friendly technology and design in ever phase of construction. Personally, I find cruises to be one of the most wasteful and benign ways to travel — but they’re not going away, and this development is welcome.

The company actually designed the hull of the ship first — a radical departure from conventional cruise ship construction where things are generally created “top down,” with passenger space configured first, then the hull constructed to fit that space. As a result, the hull is one of the most fuel-efficient possible and the rest of the ship was configured to work around it.

There will also be 80 solar panels on board to power small things such as elevators. The company aknowledges that solar is not currently a cost-effective addition, but add that as prices decrease, the infrastructure will be in place on board to carry more photovoltaics. The hope is that over time, the ship will utilize more clean energy in its consumption.

Besides efficient LED lights throughout, the company also partnered with 3M to create a window coating that will deflect the heat that comes in, reducing the amount of air conditioning needed to cool the ship. In another very interesting green strategy, the buffets will use chilled river rocks — which maintain low temperatures well — in place of ice. This will decrease the amount of water needed for each cruise — as well as the energy required to turn it into ice. Cool, right?

It’s a step in the right direction and something I’m glad to see the cruise industry embracing.

via CruiseCritic

Bad news: You know all the talking we’ve been doing about whether or not humans are to blame for global warming? Well, in the meantime, the worldwide man-made emissions of carbon dioxide jumped 3% last year. And don’t go blaming it all on China. The United States increased CO2 output by 2% — with 1.75 billion tons. From the article,

The pollution leader was China, followed by the United States, which past data show is the leader in emissions per capita in carbon dioxide output. And while several developed countries slightly cut their CO2 output in 2007, the United States churned out more.

Still, it was large increases in China, India and other developing countries that spurred the growth of carbon dioxide pollution to a record high of 9.34 billion tons of carbon (8.47 billion metric tons). Figures released by science agencies in the United States, Great Britain and Australia show that China’s added emissions accounted for more than half of the worldwide increase.

At this rate, scientists predict that this puts the world potentially on track for the highest predicted rises in temperature and sea level. Awesome. Even worse, the 3% jump is higher than the worst case scenario predicted by the IPCC two years ago.

Frustrating, isn’t it?

ASPO Day 2:  “Demand Meet Supply”

The second day of the conference started with the official welcome from Steve Andrews and others, followed by a panel entitled “Oil” Once Cheap, Never Easy” moderated by ASPO Board Member, Sally Odland.  The first presentation that I attended had Sally filling in for Gil Mull, from the Alaska Geological Survey (ret.)  Sally noted the increased impact of the rising factor costs in ocean research.  In the past 3 years, with rising fuel costs, cost overruns have been 40% above budget.  Interestingly she noted that the cost of a gallon of oil delivered to the Antarctic was $100.  Her presentation described the history of Prudhoe Bay, its discovery and initial drilling, and where it was located geographically in relation to ANWR and another restricted area called NPRA.  Expected recoverable oil in currently undeveloped areas of Alaska include 10 Billion barrels from ANWR, 15.4 Billion from off-shore areas, and 10.6 Billion from NPRA.  Most importantly she noted that production from these sources combined will not stop depletion from Prudhoe Bay, but will at best cause a temporarily plateau.

Jeremy Gilbert, the former BP Chief Petroleum Engineer gave the next presentation entitled “Time For America to Wake Up”.  It’s always nice to infuse a little levity into heavy discussions, and Mr. Gilbert tried to do just that (although the end result was a bit dire).  He noted little had changed since the first ASPO meeting that had 55 attendees.  He noted no improvement in resource discovery, some more accurate calculations (but still a lack of industry data), and the political will to increase supply in oil producing nations was clearly absent.  Despite rising costs to others, Saudi Arabia has reduced the cost of gasoline by 25% over last year.  More optimistically, the IEA has had a recent change of opinion, no longer believes that demand = supply.  More soberingly, Mr. Gilbert noted that Russian oil production had increased from 9.2 to 9.9 Mb/d in 2007, but that 2008 projected production was expected to fall to 9.7 Mb/d in 2008.  He voiced his concerns about a Russian peak.  Some improvements in the OECD situation were the decreased amount of energy needed per unit of GDP growth, and decreased energy use due to higher prices – however he felt these trends were insufficient in solving the looming energy crisis.

I’ll briefly touch on the Q&A session, which included some interesting discussions.  When asked about suggestions for the next presidential administration, Jeremy Gilbert suggested a “10% in income tax for attending a 10 hour session on energy supply.”  Ken Verosub suggested that the enormous changes coming demanded drastic action, pulling resources from NASA’s Mars manned space program, earmarks, and stripping the budget to dedicate resources towards this problem at a national and global level.  He thought that we needed a interdisciplinary approach to finding solutions with natural, physical and social scientists all working together. Read more »

[ed note:  I am putting this up without the bells and whistles (links, etc.), and with perhaps a few typos.  I'd rather get it up in a timely fashion and return to it to correct any mistakes.  Comments are welcome and appreciated by those that can clarify or rebut my recollection of the events.]

ASPO Day 1:

Our first day of ASPO started out with a tour of Old Sacramento, followed by a chance meeting with a board member of an upstart Extended Oil Recovery (EOR) firm called Titan Oil Recovery.  He described their revolutionary technique to bring life to mature oil fields, involving the Titan process which causes microbes found in the well to multiply and break down the size of oil particles trapped in rock to a small enough size to allow them to flow, increasing total recoverable crude from the well, and causing a rapid increase in production.  My opinion, keep an eye on this company.  If they can really do what their data showed, it my be a game changer for production in mature fields.

The conference itself began with two sets of three breakout sessions.  I attended the “Reporting the Oil Story” session, while Dr. Hall attended the first of two presentations by the writers of the The Oil Drum, and David attended the “Investing in the New Energy Economy” session.

My session consisted of individual presentations by a media panel that included Neil King from the Wall St. Journal, Erica Anderson from the San Francisco Chronicle, and Bart Anderson from the Energy Bulletin.  John Theobald, From UC-Davis, moderated the session.  I enjoyed the history of the progression of the peak oil movement from its meager beginnings on the web toward articles in major newspapers and mentions on the nightly news.  The major discussion within the group was how to help shape the message on peak oil, and to increase coverage of “the most important issue facing our nation and the world.” 

Some interesting quotes and ideas from the speakers:

Read more »

This is a guest post by Wendy from Home Is… From reading her blog I knew she had chickens, and since she lives in Maine her knowledge of building a coop that will hold up to cold weather could be quite useful. She has written a series of articles on our site before related to her personal decision to stay in her home in the suburbs during the coming descent down Hubbert’s Peak.

Before I ever made my foray into chicken-ownership, I spent some time researching what I was getting into. Barbara Kilarski’s book, Keep Chickens, was a wonderful resource for everything from choosing a breed to providing information about how big their enclosure needed to be. While my hope was that they would be able to also spend some time free-ranging around the yard, my plan was to build the coop big enough that they could spend all of their time in there, if they had to.

We only have a quarter acre of land, and while my neighbors on either side, who have a half acre and an acre respectively, like my chickens, I didn’t wish to push my luck by letting my chickens loose to roam in their yards. They probably wouldn’t care … much, but as Frost’s neighbor observed in the Mending Wall, “good fences make good neighbors”, and as there is a fence there, it’s probably best that I keep “mine” on this side of it.

In addition, with only a quarter acre, space is a premium, and none can be wasted or under-utilized. Every side of my house has some edible plant or planting bed, especially the south-facing backyard. Chickens can really wreak havoc in a newly planted garden bed. They like to scratch things, and soft, newly planted soil with tasty little seedlings is too much to pass up. Don’t ask me how I know.

Read more »

This is a guest post by Samantha Catalano and The Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center. It suggest another problem associated with the petroleum industry.

While much has been made in recent years about the effects of fossil fuel processing on our physical environment, that is not the extent of the price we are paying. Indeed, fossil fuels have been linked to the depletion of the ozone layer and environmental variances in spite of this, perhaps it is the cost to human health that is so alarming.

Externally, the health effects of fossil fuel burning are becoming more evident by the day. Depleted ozone levels in Australia and South Africa for instance, have endangered the citizens of these countries with alarmingly high levels of ultraviolet sunlight. Perhaps it is no surprise then that skin cancer rates in these countries are among the highest in the world. In areas of high air pollution indexes, there are higher rates of asthma than in clean-air environments.

What is perhaps more devastating than any of these human health costs however, is the danger that workers in the fossil fuel industry encounter. Indeed, the processing of fossil fuels requires some of the most toxic substances in the world, including asbestos. Even as asbestos was banned in the late 1970’s, it still exists within the fossil fuel industries older plants and refineries. As these older materials break down, asbestos fibers become more and more unstable and hazardous.

Inhaled asbestos fibers are the only known cause for the development of the asbestos cancer, mesothelioma. In recent years, studies have shown that oil refinery workers are among the most at risk for the development of mesothelioma. We changed our energy policies in such a way that energy workers no longer have to be at risk of hazards such as asbestos. We can implore our lawmakers to invest significant funding into alternative, cleaners, and more sustainable energy solutions. By doing this, we can save not only the earth for our posterity, but lives as well.