Saturday, September 18, 2010

Have you heard?

Concerning the Hirsch report

[oil man] - What happened after you published your 2005 report on ‘peak oil’ for the US Department of Energy (DoE) ?
The people that I was dealing with said : « No more work on peak oil, no more talk about it. »


People that were high in the administration hierarchy ?
The people that I was dealing with were high in the laboratory level. They were getting their instructions from people on the political side of the DoE, at high levels.
After the work we did on the 2005 study and the follow-up of 2006, the Department of Energy headquarters completely cut off all support for oil peaking and decline analysis. The people that I was working with at the National Energy Technology Laboratory were good people, they saw the problem, they saw how difficult the consequences would be – you know, the potential for huge damage – yet they were told : « No more work, no more discussion. »


That was in 2006, under Bush administration. Has anything changed with the Obama administration ?
It has not changed. I have friends who simply won’t talk about it now. So I have to assume that they are receiving the same kind of instructions.
Peak oil : “A conspiracy to keep it quiet” in Washington, says Robert Hirsch
Interview with Robert L. Hirsch (2/2)


 
HT The Oil Drum

I'm not big on conspiracies... but this has me going a bit.





Google it yourself. It's scary

40 years of clean air progress

To this I can attest personally. In the 60s and 70s a trip to LA meant an asthma attack. The air was brown, and you couldn't see the mountains just a few miles away.
Now I live here (behind the Orange Curtain) and I can see the mountains clearly almost every day, and if there is a mist, it's white, not brown. No more asthma either.


Dealing With the Issues of Nuclear Energy by Steven Chu


The old time environmentalists will have to make peace with nuclear power.

2 comments:

  1. When what happened in Moscow happens here will we then change our ways -we'll see. Another good TED TALK.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It has happened here already...but to a smaller scale.
    Head in sand is epidemic.

    ReplyDelete