Energy Infrastructure

In The World After Abundance

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Most discussions of the future of electric power start from the assumption that maintaining a grid of the modern kind, designed from top to bottom around ample supplies of cheap fossil fuels, is the only option there is. It’s long past time to revisit that notion. Are our current ways of electricity production, distribution, and use merely the extravagant habits of a temporary age of excess, and what might an appropriate system for producing and using electricity look like in an age of scarcity?

The case for a disorderly energy descent

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The energy descent from peak oil production imposes decades of contraction in the global economy. An orderly contraction, particularly in the US, is not likely for a number of reasons. The decline of the oil civilization is a phenomenon and spectacle of such complexity that understanding it requires a systems perspective. This summary of the case for a disorderly contraction and its core drivers demonstrates the capacity of systems tools to show the interlocking feedback structure that shapes how this momentous change plays out over time.

Review: A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

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User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization shows how our major crises share the same root causes and thus can be solved only by taking into account their complex interactions. Ahmed acknowledges that in this age of specialization it’s understandable for issues like climate change and oil depletion to be studied and discussed separately—indeed, he observes that this mode of inquiry into the causes of specific phenomena has enabled many of our greatest scientific advances. But it’s also, he argues, beginning to seem like an increasingly antiquated method, preventing experts from seeing the whole picture and the public from receiving consistent information.

ODAC Newsletter – May 13

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Oil demand appears to finally be responding to high oil prices, most significantly in the US where petrol prices have hit $4/gallon. The IEA cut its 2011 demand forecast by 190,000 barrels/day on news of increased US stockpiles and reduced consumption, and prices dropped back from recent highs to around $110/barrel for Brent…

Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century? – Foreword to new report

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A detailed new energy report argues that the natural gas industry has propagated dangerously false claims about natural gas production supply, cost and environmental impact. The report, "Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century" is authored by leading geoscientist and Post Carbon Institute Fellow J. David Hughes.

Critical comments on “The Energy Report” by WWF and Ecofys

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The Energy Report aligns with several others in recent years in confidently claiming that we could transition to full reliance on renewable energy, without any disruption of high material living standards or the pursuit of economic growth. These reports are typically quite impressive involving glossy formats with lots of coloured graphs and pictures, a large cast of heavy-weight authors, and a long list of high-powered endorsements.

ODAC Newsletter – Apr 15

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The IEA reported this week that there are preliminary signs of oil demand destruction due to soaring prices. Goldman Sachs underlined this viewpoint on Tuesday by advising its clients to sell oil, copper, platinum and cotton. Prices fell in response, although concern over conflict in the Middle East and Saudi production saw prices nudging up again by the end of the week.

Dr. Helen Caldicott on the nuclear disaster in Japan

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Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and speaker known throughout the world for her clear warnings about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and nuclear power. (transcript and audio)

“It’s the end of the nuclear industry. As soon as I heard about this accident, that’s what I thought … I’ve been doing this crazy work for 40 years, and I said all that time: it will take a major melt-down to end the industry. And here we have not one, but six possible melt-downs, and cooling pools as well.”

The problems with Smart Grids

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On the surface, Smart Grids sound ‘green’ – with promises of saving energy, creating new power-line corridors run on wind and solar, way-stations to power-up electric vehicles, energy-efficient upgrades to an aging power infrastructure, and real-time customer knowledge of electricity use.

But few who actually study how these new systems functionwant anything to do with them. Other than those who stand to make enormous profits and the physicists or engineers who dream up such stuff, Smart Grids are giving knowledgeable people the willies.