Fungal diesel could revolutionise fuel production

These are the days of miracle and wonder: well maybe ... Fungal diesel could revolutionise fuel production - earth - 04 November 2008 - New Scientist Environment: "A fungus that can convert plant waste directly into diesel could allow us to generate biofuel without sacrificing food production."
The big issue will be about how easy it could turn out to be to scale it up and whether it would really be true that it needn't cost food production to do it. Signs are positive on the latter and the jury's out on the former.
Also read Wired's article on it. Original paper (pdf) here.

Peak oil: the geologists speak.

Check it out: WorldChanging: The End Is Nigh (Now With Charts!): "Three out of five petroleum geologists surveyed believed that global oil production would 'peak' within 10 years."

Furthermore: "The geologists may be wrong, of course. But trying to outguess the considered opinion of well-informed scientists is a sucker's game. So no matter what oil prices do in the short term, we'd be wise to prepare ourselves for tightening oil supplies, and higher oil prices, in the not-too-distant future."

WWF-UK: small victory over greenwash

This is important in a small way. "Today, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld WWF's complaint against an advert placed by Shell in the Financial Times earlier this year, which suggested that oil sands were a sustainable energy source. The ASA - the independent body responsible for regulating UK advertising - branded the advert 'misleading', due to its ambiguous use of the word 'sustainable'."
And there is a WWF advert to go with it which you can find here.
WWF-UK: Shell's oil sands greenwash won't wash with the ASA:

Water Shortages Cause Saudis to Cease Grain Production

This is disturbing news, pretty much as the heading states. It's the implications that are worrying.

"growing national interdependencies will increase international tensions. Some might assume that as the need for a reprioritisation of basic food needs become more pronounced, the world will adjust its production systems to suit (think ‘the invisible hand of the market’) — i.e. that people will begin to reduce the strain by moving away from meat based diets, for example. But, I would venture to say that the more likely scenario is that those who can afford to continue with the lifestyle they now have, will do so, and those that cannot afford to outbid wealthy nations like Saudi Arabia, the U.S., China, etc., will simply go without. We’re seeing this already with food, oil, and climate change issues. People on the bottom rungs of the ladder are falling off while the wealthy continue lifestyles of excess."

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but responsible Christian global citizenship in a world such as the one outlined in the article that the quote is taken from,
Water Shortages Cause Saudis to Cease Grain Production, Celsias, must mean we change our diets to eat much less meat. Ronald Sider said it in the 70's and it's still true. Meat is a justice issue, and now it's also an environmental one too.

Peak Oil is here, I think

From the Guardian report:

Global oil production today stands at around 85m barrels a day. The CEO of Total has said that we won't get close to 100m barrels a day, much less the 115m programmed into assumptions about a growing global economy. The former head of exploration and production at Saudi Aramco, which until recently controlled the largest reserves in the world, thinks we are already on a plateau at 85m barrels a day, and can lift production no further. ... If the "peakists" are correct, and the oil establishment suddenly awakens to its dysfunctional culture of overoptimism, here is what is likely to happen. The oil and gas producers are going to start keeping what remains for themselves, in an effort to feed their own economies. Many countries would then face the threat of not having enough oil and gas to run the production processes needed to manufacture the low-carbon technologies that could replace oil and gas. Or, indeed, to feed themselves.

Let the reader understand ...

Beyond the Age of Petroleum

Just fyi -from the USA: "the Energy Department signaled a fundamental, near epochal shift in US and indeed world history: we are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age and have entered the Age of Insufficiency. The department stopped talking about 'oil' in its projections of future petroleum availability and began speaking of 'liquids.' The global output of 'liquids,' the department indicated, would rise from 84 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe) per day in 2005 to a projected 117.7 mboe in 2030--barely enough to satisfy anticipated world demand of 117.6 mboe. Aside from suggesting the degree to which oil companies have ceased being mere suppliers of petroleum and are now purveyors of a wide variety of liquid products--including synthetic fuels derived from natural gas, corn, coal and other substances--this change hints at something more fundamental: we have entered a new era of intensified energy competition and growing reliance on the use of force to protect overseas sources of petroleum. "
Beyond the Age of Petroleum:

Kremlin lays claim to chunk of North Pole

Yesterday "Russia signalled its intention ... to annex a vast 460,000 square mile chunk of the frozen and ice-encrusted Arctic."
Now why would they want to do that? In pursuit of their aim to become a hydrocarbons superpower. As the article says; "geologists returned with the "sensational news" that the Lomonosov ridge was linked to Russian Federation territory, boosting Russia's claim over the oil-and-gas rich triangle. The territory contained 10bn tonnes of gas and oil deposits.... The shelf was 200 metres deep and oil and gas would be easy to extract, especially with ice melting because of global warming."
However there is a fly in this ointment, as another Russian scientist pointed out, "Canada could make exactly the same claim. The Canadians could say that the Lomonosov ridge is part of the Canadian shelf, which means Russia should in fact belong to Canada, together with the whole of Eurasia."
It then devolves into a matter of UN administered maritime law and the USA's animosity to the UN may result in Russia getting its way.
Kremlin lays claim to huge chunk of oil-rich North Pole | Russia | Guardian Unlimited:

vegetarians save theworld!

America's Debate > Peak Oil: Just for your consideration ...
"* Length of time world's petroleum reserves would last (with current technologies) if all human beings ate meat-centered diet: 13 years
* Length of time world's petroleum reserves would last (with current technologies) if all human beings ate vegetarian diet: 260 years"

come on: you know it makes sense.