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 U.S. economy….the world could plunge into a new Dark Age. Even as faltering economies burned less oil, carbon loading of the atmosphere might accelerate as countries turn to vastly dirtier coal.”

Press Release from Global Carbon Project
“A new analysis shows that carbon intensity in the world economy is increasing. While emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are accelerating worldwide, we are gaining fewer economic benefits from each tonne of fossil fuel burned. A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows that CO2 emissions increased by 1.1 % per year through the 1990s but the rate of increase jumped to 3 % per year in the 2000s.”

From O-STAR to Committees of the U.S. Senate, now considering an energy bill

“June 9, 2007
Senator Jeff Bingaman,
Chairman Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation

We are an organization recently formed to support a regional rail transportation system as suggested by the Portland, Oregon, Peak Oil Task Force, adopted by the Portland City Council.

Whether peak oil is here or near is a discussion in which we do not wish to be involved. We are concerned with the state of preparedness of our city, state and nation. There can be little doubt that substantial oil shortages will occur and perhaps very soon. Oil has integrated into nearly all facets of our existence; we chose to focus on transpiration. Portland proposes a regional effort to provide integrated rail service. O-STAR supports that and advocates a complete overhaul of the transportation system, featuring separate trackage for passengers and freight, driven by electricity, with separate trackage in both directions.

As a nation we can try to supplement or supplant petroleum with bio-fuels or by synthesizing kerogen or coal, kerogen being the substance found in oil sands and oil shales. We think bio-fuels cannot approach the necessary output, and we have cause to believe synthesis would be both expensive and disastrous.

Within the past few days new information has come our way. ABC televised the documentary “Crude,” in Australia only, on May 25th, available to interested Americans on www.abc.net.au/science/crude/. We were well enough versed on the history of petroleum deposits, how they were formed and so on, and we were reasonably well informed on the discovery and production of petroleum with subsequent refining and distribution. We knew how much petroleum is consumed in the U.S. and in the world through the excellent offices of EIA. But the graphic in the documentary of annual consumption levels told the story more impressively than anything we’d previously discovered.

We knew that in certain periods of geologic history a warm earth coupled with shallow stagnant seas over extensive areas of the globe were particularly productive of the organic life that ultimately produced petroleum. We knew there was an association between carbon dioxide levels and temperatures but we didn’t know that scientists have found a way to measure carbon dioxide levels during those particularly productive geological eras. And we certainly hadn’t heard of the recent definition of an ‘anoxic event’. It has been determined that four to five times our pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels might trigger an anoxic event. Anoxic events tens of millions of years ago bear responsibility for the widespread extinction of species.

With this information we recalled the press release we learned of on May 22, 2007, when the Global Carbon Project announced their first annual report (www.essp.org). We are increasing carbon dioxide levels at just over three percent per year. That sounded dangerous. We did the arithmetic.

An annually compounded three percent a year doubles carbon dioxide levels in 24 years. Reaching the trigger point of an anoxic event would require something less than a second redoubling From the description of an anoxic event there seems little reason to suppose the survival of our species. That soon!!!

We maintain that it is possible to sufficiently reduce carbon dioxide emissions but to do so we must immediately initiate radical departures from business as usual. Peak oil says we’ll have less oil in the future but that’s not enough. We must begin the immediate abandonment of all consumption of fossil fuel, with possible exceptions only for agricultural purposes (petrochemicals). There is talk of capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground. On the necessary scale we don’t believe that an achievable goal. The stuff is already underground, has been there for millions of years and we’d best leave the rest of it right where it is.

What can replace the energy? We can’t live without it and we know that. But we consume less than one percent of the energy falling daily upon the earth. Sunlight can be and is being converted to electricity. According to Lord Ronald Oxburgh, former Chairman of Shell U.K, the imminent arrival of thin film photovoltaics will provide cheap and abundant supplies of electricity everywhere on earth for any purpose.

O-STAR believes in and fervently advocates an immediate transition to electrically powered rail systems for the movement of goods and passengers and the abandonment of all forms of internal combustion engines. TGV trains in France travel 250 mph, are powered by electricity, are reliable, comfortable, and provide low cost passenger miles. That should be good enough for our longer distance travel. Light rail is known in many metropolitan areas of the world. Why not all? Streetcars predated the internal combustion engine; they worked perfectly well and can readily return to our neighborhoods. If we use existing road and highway systems, which are going to become obsolete anyway, we begin with a graded roadbed already in public ownership.

How long would it take to institute an emission free system? Would within a single carbon dioxide doubling period be possible? Can we have it in place and operating within 24 years? We better be able to. We may have little additional time. It can only happen by initiating the planning process immediately. Information from authoritative sources created our consternation. If there is contrary hard science we’re not aware of it.

For that reason O-STAR is troubling the United States Senate. There must be national and international efforts if we are to survive.

Thank you for your attention.”

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