The following chart shows world oil production as well as production of other oil liquids. All appear to have peaked.

Chart is reproduced from The Oil Drum.

Andrew Leonard writes in Salon that global stockpiles of grain are plunging. A fascinating article that dovetails quite nicely with the documentary “The End of Suburbia.” Here’s a link to an article about sugar cane-derived biofuel.

In an age of global warming and increasing energy prices, living in a neighborhood where you can walk to stores or services in an important consideration.

Now there is a website that will calculate how walkable your neighborhood is.  Just type in your address and it will calculate a walk score from zero to a hundred, with a hundred being the best.

Kensington, an older neighborhood that was originally built around a rail line scores a 69 out of 100.  See how your neighborhood compares.

House Democrats have dropped two proposals that would have required higher mileage standards for new automobiles. The proposals would have raised mileage standards for cars by 27 to 40%.

Nancy Pelosi released a statement that she supported requiring automakers to make more fuel efficient vehicles but that the issue was deferred “in the interest of promoting passage of a consensus energy bill.”

The issue will now be decided in a House-Senate conference committee.

Data from the Energy Information Agency seems to indicate that we may have hit peak oil. Graphs from a Live Journal blog show oil production hitting a plateau in the last two years and starting to decline.

Extrapolating the trend out for the next two years shows oil production falling 8 mbd short of expected demand.

This summer’s gas prices may only be a prelude of things to come.

Our Coast to Fix — or Lose

There has been much debate in the past 20 months over protecting Louisiana from another lethal hurricane, but nearly all of it has been conducted without any real understanding of the geological context. Congress and the Bush administration need to recognize six facts that define the national interest.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051101985.html?nav=most_emailed

When it opened here in 2004 on a reclaimed mining dump, the Geosol solar plant was the biggest of its kind in the world. It is so clean and green that it produces zero emissions and so easy to operate that it has only three regular workers: plant manager Hans-Joerg Koch and his two security guards, sheepdogs Pushkin and Adi.

The plant is part of a building boom that has made gloomy-skied Germany the unlikely global leader in solar-generated electricity. Last year, about half of the world’s solar electricity was produced in the country. Of the 20 biggest photovoltaic plants, 15 are in Germany, even though it has only half as many sunny days as countries such as Portugal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050402466.html?nav=most_emailed

Mexico and Saudi Arabia’s oil production appear to have gone into decline; world stockpiles of oil are declining. In the U.S., refinery closures have kept gasoline stockpiles tight and prices are soaring.

Peak oil is making it into the mainstream news–four experts in the field have recently spoken about it;

Matt Simmons.

Boone Pickens.

Paul Barclay, and

James Kunsler.

“The best new oil basin we will ever find is the one called ‘conservation.’” –Simmons

It should come as no surprise to informed people that corn is a losing proposition when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases.  However, I was surprised to read about the effects of sugar cane.

Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem

Biofuels, if used properly, can help us balance our need for food, energy and a habitable and sustainable environment. To help this happen, though, we need a national biofuels policy that favors our best options. We must determine the carbon impacts of each method of making these fuels, then mandate fuel blending that achieves a prescribed greenhouse gas reduction. We have the knowledge and technology to start solving these problems.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301625.html?nav=most_emailed

Biofuels are all the rage lately–our ticket to oil independence. But in a world that is struggling to provide enough food for its population and, lately, losing the struggle, any significant biofuel prorgram will have to compete for resources with other agricultural pursuits. Already some of the more fragile ecosystems are being destroyed by the rush into biofuels.

In West Africa the biggest new cause of deforestation in many regions is the conversion of land into biofuel crop production. The land rush to establish biofuel plantations in developing nations is one of the most intense the world has ever seen. Millions of square miles could be turned into biofuel plantations in the tropics, and the impact this will have on global rainfall and global temperatures is incalculable.

Deforestation and drought are causing a steady advance of deserts in northern Africa. There is a clear link between deforestation and drought, particularly in West Africa, as cited in the MIT study “Desertification, Deforestation and Drought,” where they demonstrate that deforestation along the southern coast of West Africa (e.g., in Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast) may result in complete collapse of monsoon circulation, and a significant reduction of regional rainfall. Connections between deforestation and drought are well established throughout the tropics.

Moreover, the rush to deforest the tropics to grow biofuel - cassava in Nigeria, sugar cane in Brazil, oil palms in Indonesia - is a form of neocolonialism that Greens should find horrifying. Tariff barriers are being streamlined to allow tropical developing nations to export biofuel to the industrial north, food crops are being crowded out, small farmers are unable to participate, and in 100 square mile increments, land ownership passes into the hands of energy multinationals. And weather patterns take a turn for the worse.

The limits of growth are real and unavoidable; and now it would seem that the international economic market–that has no way to quantify things like the environment or, more importantly, the future, is pursuing renewable energy in possibly the most self destructive manner possible.

Ultimately we must reconcile ourselves to the reality of a low energy future.