Thursday, November 11, 2010

Well Peak Oil is officially here

In fact peak oil has been with us since 2006 according to the 2010 World Energy Outlook released on November 9th by the International Energy Agency.

To be specific this is a peak in conventional crude oil. Essentially conventional crude oil is the oil that we get from places like Saudi Arabia and that we see gushing out of the ground in movies.

Other forms of liquid fuels are liquid natural gas and unconventional crude oil (tar sands, shale oil, ect...). These have not peaked yet according to the IEA but it should be noted that conventional crude oil makes up the vast majority of our liquid fuels. So what does this mean for us?

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Remember remember the 5th of November


I see no reason why the 5th of November should ever be forgot... If you have ever seen V for Vendetta then that line should be familiar to you. In reality though that line is reference to Guy Fawkes Night also known as Bonfire Night.

Monday, November 8, 2010

My Awesome Commuters Bike

I have decided that I never want to have my own car. For me its just not worth it and with Peak Oil around the corner (or already here) its not the sort of investment that I really want to make. So where does that leave me for getting around?

Well of course there is mass transit such as buses, trains, ect... But I still like having my own personal transportation device. So for that I have a bike. But not your traditional bike. My bike is designed to make commuting easy and comfortable.

What makes my new bike so awesome for commuting is that it has small design tweaks and extras that really help out.

Great Britain's electrical sockets are just awesome!

One of the awesome things about living in the UK is how easy it is to make simple changes to ones life in order to live in a more sustainable manner.

This ranges from more walkable communities to the fact that hang drying clothes is the norm here. But one area that I was not expecting was with their electrical sockets.

One of the big energy drains is the fact that all of our appliances tend to stay on standby mode when we are not using them. Essentially just draining power 24/7 and raising our energy rates. In the States people are encouraged to buy serge protectors so its easy to just hit a switch and stop the energy drain.

Great Britain has taken it a step further. All and I do mean all of their electrical sockets have switches built into them. This means that when your done with something you just hit the switch and no energy drain! No needing to buy serge protectors or trying to unplug your appliances when they are not in use.

Its a great simple way to save power and I really wish the States would adopt this system.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Moving forward on Climate Legislation after the Mid-Terms

So today is election day. Overall the day is over in terms of the election results. Sure we still have races that are being counted but we know that the House of Representatives will be controlled by the Republican Party. We know that the Senate will "technically" be controlled by the Democrats. We know that the Republicans will control the majority of the governorships and finally the best news of the night is California voted to stop Texas Oil and keep alive AB32, California's landmark climate bill.

Moving forward we have some tough choices ahead of us. Tuesdays will be a day for me to write about Climate Change and Peak Oil. I did not plan to start this series on election day but it worked out that way.

Unfortunately this means that my first post on Climate Change will be in a negative atmosphere nationwide and really we have a very tough future ahead of us.

The American people voted tonight on economic concerns. In the long run I fear this may cause major problems not just for our country but also for the world.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Welcome to Lewes

Looking down a side road from High Street
I discovered while working on this blog post that I need more pictures of Lewes. Lewes is an fantastic town that really feel like a small old European town.

As you walk down the main street of town called High Street you see small shop after small shop with restaurants and flats mixed in.

High Street is the main road for traffic through Lewes and yet for the part through the middle its only has one lane and uses traffic lights to keep everything moving smoothly.

One day while walking down High Street I noticed something that surprised me a little. There was a little plaque on the wall of one of the buildings called the "Bull House" and it stated that this was the home of Thomas Paine.