The Australian documentary “Crude” was an impressive effort. I wanted to verify the claims presented in the documentary. For that reason I visited the Science Library at the U. of of O., found the QH 344 shelf (Library of Congress system, common to university libraries) which contains material relating to the ‘Carbon Cycle’. There are, [...]

You may recall that in late May the Australian documentary “Crude,” coupled with the first annual report of the Global Carbon Project, really hit me. There’s absolutely no way I can evaluate the work of GCP, which is simply an extension of the efforts of several nations to keep track of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. [...]

My wife and I were married 26 and a half years ago. It’s been a good marriage. As in any good marriage, full of surprises. One such surprise happened this week. She was working in her files, and offered a look at one item she thought might interest me. It did, and I’d not seen [...]

Good News first? Okay
Battery Power
USA Today reports on a new, room sized battery using NaS, technology is capable of storing very large amounts of electrical energy. Utilities which installed them could store a tremendous amount of electricity for use in high demand periods. Way it works now, power plants have to be constructed for any [...]

I’m supposed to do energy reporting here. I do the best I can but I find myself frequently in an odd position. I find myself issuing warnings that exceed the published concerns of both government and science. Who am I to be doing such things?
Last December I published here the piece on a “Worst Case [...]

A couple of things this time. The first is an idea that is causing a stir, the second a continuation of the discussion of “Crude,” including the introduction of new information.
Political Reality
The “idea” is contained in a new book by psychology researcher Drew Westen of Emory University, called “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion [...]

From Business Week
“The U.S. is completely unprepared for peak oil, as it’s called, and the wrenching adjustments it would entail could easily accelerate global warming as nations turn to coal (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/19/07, “Rx for Earth: Sooner Not Later”). Moreover, regardless of the implications for climate change, peak oil represents a mortal threat to the [...]

There’s good news and bad news. Good news first?
For Owners or Prospective Electric Car Owners
“AeroVironment announced that it performed a fast charge demonstration of a lithium chemistry electric vehicle battery pack. The 35kWh (kilowatt-hour) battery pack, designed to allow the truck to travel more than 100 miles on a single charge, showed the capability of [...]

It is good sometimes to think things through. There are people who do that. Scientists and scholars spend a lot of time at it. The rest of us may do so only occasionally. Some rarely. Some don’t.
Thinking things through successfully requires reliable data to work from. We have a problem in that regard. In some [...]

There is 90 minute television program, shown by ABC only in Australia, that could give you a remarkably complete education on peak oil and climate change. I’ve seen it. I thought I knew quite a bit about those things but I’ve been humbled. Paleontologists and biologists and oceanographers did it. But my geologist heroes [...]