Articles by JMG

And that’s not cool, man

This is a very, very big deal. If nukes have to go offline just when you need them most, that's a huge monkey wrench in plans for a nuclear resurgence.

Given that this much-discussed (if less observed) resurgence centers on precisely those states most likely to suffer crippling heat waves, this is a huge problem for investors. The last thing anyone wants after dropping two big ones ($2B) on a nuke plant is to have to buy juice at more than $100/mWh on the spot market during a heat wave.

Given the likely temperature trends that we've already unleashed, this is bad news; without air conditioning, most of the South is already damn near uninhabitable; if we use more coal to make the A/C work, then we're not just shooting ourselves in both feet -- we're heading north at that point, blasting away.

Substitution isn’t the solution to peak oil

The growing recognition that the world is at or nearly at the all-time peak of conventional oil production (meaning from that point on, oil flows will inexorably decline at some unknown rate) has prompted a furious search for replacements, all intended to keep the high-carbon, high-flying, automobile lifestyle going.

Like crack addicts warned of a future shortage, we are literally searching the corners of the Earth to figure out how we're going to get our fix when times is tight.

But given our climate crisis, peak oil could be appreciated as a push in the direction we already have to go (a decarbonized society). If we adopt the oil depletion protocol suggested by Colin Campbell, and made more widely known by Richard Heinberg, we can improve our resiliency, our health, and our social well-being -- and avoid the chaos that comes when a junkie loses his supplier while still stuck in full-blown addiction.

New Scientist offers yet another argument for this approach:

Luckily

A must-read interview on global climate change with William H. Calvin.

Hope they don’t want any corn

What? A sharply hotter climate and abundant CO2 aren't good for field crops? But, but ... the coal lobby Greening Earth Society said they would be!

Fitting: the photo accompanying this story in The Detroit News shows a huge trailer of corn being deposited at an ethanol plant.