"Many awareness-raising events concerned with peak oil and petrocollapse are taking place lately. The news media, mainly concerned with price sensation, are helping somewhat to awaken the oil-addicted population, albeit with narrower concerns than the End of the Oil Age. Recent headlines include 'Beijing’s Pursuit of Oil' and 'Consumers Face a New Reality.' The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a peak oil resolution on April 11, 2006. It acknowledges the threats posed by peak oil and calls for the establishment of a city-wide study to assess San Francisco's vulnerability to peak oil."

The bulk of the article is Jan Lundberg reporting on the Pentagon-sponsored presentation, "Energy: a Conversation about Our National Addiction" on April 24th.

"Mr. Bush is right about this much: China's growth has as much to do with rising oil prices as hurricanes, floods or rumors of war with Iran. As long as demand is high for a limited resource, prices will remain high. But even Mr. Bush ought to be ashamed to suggest the Chinese should go back to riding bicycles so we can keep driving Hummers - cheaply.

The president should have told Americans years ago that the days of cheap gas were over. It's too bad he didn't remind us of that when he had our attention - in the days and weeks after the terrorist strikes of 9/11. Even a nation of oiloholics was prepared to make sacrifices. If the president had imposed a stiff tax on gasoline at the pump, American motorists would have grumbled, but we would have gotten over it."

Author James Howard Kunstler was in town Wednesday to give a talk promoting his new book, The Long Emergency. For those of you who have never read him, Kunstler believes we are now at the peak of the oil supply curve and that the subsequent and imminent drop in oil production will force us to change how we live. Soon, he predicts, automobile-dependent, suburban big-box culture will be economically unfeasible for most, forcing a return to cities and towns built upon traditional, pre-modernist planning principles. When you look, he says, at the history of human civilization as a whole, the era of freeways and strip malls, giant parking lots and tract housing subdivisions will be seen as a 60-year anomaly.

"More often than not these days, if you go to hear someone speak you go to be entertained. But for once, feature speaker James Howard Kunstler, the author of "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century" brought in by the University of Winnipeg's Institute of Urban Studies, did not entertain. He didn't make you feel comfortable and satisfied when you went home. Instead, he left you with your head full of questions, ideas and debates about the future of our world. Unfortunately, because of poor promotion, the audience was comprised mostly of students and academics - when it was the general public who really needed to hear what he had to say!

[t]he seeds of an ultra-efficient green-powered post-pollution economy have been planted and proven, ecologically and economically. Our presence on this Earth cannot be sustained without it. A Solartopian transformation must happen to end the wars for oil and global-warmed storms, the nuke melt-downs and petro-dictatorships, while initiating an age of full employment, material prosperity and natural harmony.

Along with distributed generation and revived mass transit, these are the key components of the necessary and inevitable transformation to Solartopia. Some will translate into electricity, others into hydrogen, still more into straight heating, cooling and people moving.

For more, check out an excerpt here.

The steadily skyrocketing cost of fueling your car or truck should come as no great surprise to anyone, says acclaimed author and anti-sprawl guru James Howard Kunstler.

"There are very serious problems looming."

"Analysts said oil prices were likely to climb further as long as geopolitical risks in Iran and Nigeria posed threats to supply at a time when global demand remains strong and supplies remain tight. Crude oil production is only barely keeping up with rising global demand, leaving a slim margin for error if there is a prolonged supply interruption, experts say."

The "When Energy Demand Exceeds Supply" event is taking place at a particularly crucial historical moment: should the United States attack Iran, there is widespread speculation that oil could hit $100.00 a barrel. One website is even conducting a countdown.

"Most immediately we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era. It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life -- not to mention all of its comforts and luxuries: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense -- you name it."

"I've worked in the energy sector for almost 30 years, still not nearly as
long as Lewis, and I believe he has most of it right in his comments.

I would like to make a few points, however..."

"To H-energy:

Barbara Currier Bell has asked me to comment on the prospects for crude oil. Since I have two papers in submission, I cant quote them. However, I can make a few points which I and/or others in the "peak oil" community have made on various occasions:

"Canada has less than 10 years of proven conventional oil reserves left, Statistics Canada reports. In 2004, our oil production averaged 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd). We exported 1.6 million bpd to the U.S., requiring us to import some 963,000 bpd to meet our domestic demand of 1.75 million bpd. Canada has only 8.7 years of domestic natural gas supply remaining, also according to StatsCan. We produce 17 billion cubic feet per day (bcf) and export 9.7 bcf to the U.S., leaving us with less than half, 7.3 bcf. Even the ever-optimistic and industry-serving National Energy Board now admits Canada's natural gas situation is 'unsettling.'

Abstract:
The transport sector will be very hard hit by the “big rollover” in world oil production due to occur within the next 10 years. Urban transport in particular is almost entirely dependent upon oil, and will take many years to shift to other energy sources. Most cities will be particularly vulnerable during the transition to a post-petroleum world. Likewise, the growing focus on global warming and greenhouse issues places additional pressure on urban transport to reduce its CO2 output. This paper provides a review of transport, urban form, energy use and CO2 emissions patterns in an international sample of 84 cities in the USA, Australia, Canada, Western Europe, high income Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, low income Asia, Latin America and China. This overview concentrates on factors such as urban density, transport infrastructure and car, public transport and non-motorised mode use, which help us to better understand the different levels of per capita passenger transport energy use and CO2 emissions in different cities. Patterns of energy consumption, modal energy efficiency and CO2 emissions in private and public transport in the different groups of cities are examined. Automobile cities such as those in the USA use extraordinary quantities of energy in urban transport. An average US urban dweller uses about 24 times more energy annually in private transport as a Chinese urban resident. Public transport energy use per capita represents a fraction of that used in private transport in all cities, with rail being the most energy-efficient mode. CO2 emissions from passenger transport follow a similar pattern. For example, Atlanta produces 105 times more CO2 per capita than Ho Chi Minh City. Some policy recommendations are outlined to reduce urban passenger transport energy use and greenhouse gases and provide other positive outcomes in terms of sustainability and livability in cities.

(Presented to the international Third Conference of the Regional Government Network for Sustainable Development, Notre Dame University, Fremantle, Western Australia, September 17-19, 2003).

Thanks to Dr. Kenworthy for offering his paper for advance reading!

Check out the most recent issue of Habitat Debate, a special issue on "towards sustainable energy in cities." Topics include energy planning, getting energy to the poor (including to informal settlements) and "preparing cities for a world of expensive oil."