How Will Small Businesses Survive Peak Oil?

From Yahoo to Virgin, big business is waking up to the threat of peak oil.  

So much so, that Virgin bross Richard Branson believes we should bemobilizing for peak oil as if for war. But what about the little guy? It's often assumed that because peak oil will make global shipping a challenge, that we'll just transition back to smaller, more local economies. I suspect the truth will be a little more complicated than that.

As much as we TreeHuggers like to espouse the virtues of local business and human scale economies, there can be few businesses out there—big or small—that find themselves immune to the threat of rising energy prices or economic volatility. And as recent events have shown, while corporations may find themselves on shaky ground, there is often a helping hand out there to stop the giants from failing. Will that be the same for the small operators? A small social enterprise in the UK is aiming to ensure that we head the problem off before it becomes a crisis . More >>>

China threatens U.S. energy security

PARIS, July 20 (UPI) -- A rising energy appetite from the booming Chinese economy creates concerns for energy security in the United States, political analysts said. 

The International Energy Agency said in Paris that the surging Beijing economy has redefined the global energy sector as China passes the United States as the world's largest energy consumer.

The IEA in its latest report said China outpaced U.S. energy consumption by 4 percent in 2009. The United States, the report said, has been the largest energy consumer in the world since the dawn of the 20th century.

David Pumphrey, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said China's economic growth could affect U.S. energy security. More >>>

Solar Impulse Lands After Successful Night Flight

After flying for more than 26 hours, pilot André Borschberg has completed the first ever night flight by a solar-powered airplane. The Solar Impulse aircraft touched down at 9 a.m. local time at its home airfield in Payerne, Switzerland, after breaking records for the highest and longest solar flight in history.

“I’ve been a pilot for 40 years now, but this flight has been the most incredible one of my flying career,” Borschberg said in a statement. “Just sitting there and watching the battery-charge level rise and rise thanks to the sun. And then that suspense, not knowing whether we were going to manage to stay up in the air the whole night.”

After taking off early Wednesday morning, Borschberg spent the day climbing to higher altitudes and charging the polymer lithium batteries using the nearly 12,000 solar cells. As the sun was setting, the airplane known by its Swiss identifier HB-SIA was near its maximum altitude of 28,097 feet (8,564 meters). At this point the team had fully charged batteries and maximum potential energy to descend slowly through the night.

Read More http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/07/solar-impulse-lands-after-successful-night-flight/#ixzz0tDE7PApo

Switching Off Your Lights Has A Bigger Impact Than You Might Think, Says New Study

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2010) — Switching off lights, turning the television off at the mains and using cooler washing cycles could have a much bigger impact on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power stations than previously thought, according to a new study published this month in the journal Energy Policy. 

The study shows that the figure used by government advisors to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide saved by reducing people's electricity consumption is up to 60 percent too low.

The power stations that supply electricity vary in their carbon dioxide emission rates, depending on the fuel they use: those that burn fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) have higher emissions than those driven by nuclear power and wind. In general only the fossil fuel power stations are able to respond instantly to changes in electricity demand.

Dr Adam Hawkes, the author of the new study from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, says the government should keep track of changing carbon emission rates from power stations to ensure that policy decisions for reducing emissions are based on robust scientific evidence. The new study suggests that excluding power stations with low carbon emission rates, such as wind and nuclear power stations, and focussing on those that deal with fluctuating demand would give a more accurate emission figure. More >>>

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Real Gulf Crisis

At last report BP was making progress on the relief wells that are being drilled to plug the runaway well in the Gulf. 

The London Times reports that BP hopes to penetrate the casing of the leaking well and start pumping in well-sealing mud in about two weeks. Let's hope something works.

In the next few weeks, or if things do not go well, perhaps months, the leaking well will be plugged, fishing hopefully will resume, the tourists will return, and the whole matter will be left to lawyers who will spend decades arguing how much New Orleans strip clubs that lost business during the oil spill should be remunerated by BP. More >>>

The Peak Oil Crisis: A Speech to the Nation

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16 2010 : This was not the speech we were waiting for. The one in which the President goes on national television and says "My fellow citizens - Our nation and indeed the  whole industrialized world is about to face one of the greatest challenges to befall mankind for many centuries - the rapid depletion of our supplies of oil and other fossil fuels has begun... very soon you will no longer be able to afford to drive your cars."

Of course, the President can't say that. The reaction would be totally unpredictable. Equity markets could collapse, there could be a run on gas stations, banks, food stores, or who knows what else. There would be calls for impeachment. It is far safer to break the bad news to us gradually and let people figure out what is about to happen themselves.

The President's speech on Tuesday night had two objectives - quell the firestorm of criticism over what the federal government should or should not be doing to stop and mitigate the effects of the great Gulf oil spill and, the long term issues, of U.S. energy policy. More >>>

Gulf spill may lead to higher oil prices

The BP oil spill in the Gulf is all over the news these days. It is tough to not turn on the television and flick through stations that depict the ecological devastation and destruction. 
Sadly it is likely to take years for this unmitigated disaster to be cleaned up. The long term social, ecological and economic effects will be horrendous.

Behind the surface of this fiasco lurk other issues and opportunities.

The US moratorium on offshore drilling may set the stage for a much higher oil prices in a few years time. The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) makes up approximately 25 percent of the world's deep/ultra deep offshore oil. In fact, more new oil was produced last year from fields in the US GOM than any other region in the world.

By placing a moratorium on deepwater drilling the naturally steep decline rates of deepwater oil wells will result in much lower production by 2011. Morgan Stanley estimates that if GOM drilling is permanently banned, production from the GOM would be virtually zero in a four- to five-year period. More >>>