Forum Post: OWS Install Solar Panels America's Homes: We Need Sustainable Energy Now: Oil Crisis Iminent

To get our message out to the people, we should initiate a project to install Solar Panels on the homes of progressives, who are sympathetic to OWS issues.

To pay for this, the initial savings of energy would go into a fund, until the solar panels were paid off. (If this was a non-profit enterprise, could this work practically and economically, if OWS sympathizers volunteered their _ hours a week working on this effort, and show the world OWS has solutions to complex real world problems)

We need leadership and a national energy policy. The pols will do what the energy industry tells them, which will not be enough to meet the challenges of energy, and we must start thinking of ways to get alternative energy directly to consumers, bypassing traditional corporations.

OWS should help lead an effort to install solar panels on the roofs of their members homes, to shed light on this problem, that the current political and economic system is not capable of working to solve real world problems in a long term approach.

Is the era of oil nearing its end? By GREG GORDON

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/12/2947905_p2/is-the-era-of-oil-nearing-its.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

The world must accept "the outlook for flattened oil supplies" and "the reality that the era of abundant cheap oil is over," said Sadad Al Husseini, a former No. 2 executive for Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Aramco. In emails to McClatchy, he called for worldwide energy conservation measures.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's deputy chief, Henry Gruenspecht, defended his agency's main global oil supply forecast as stemming from "careful consideration of a wide range of factors." He noted, however, that there's "significant uncertainty" about future supply and demand of liquid fuels and a lack of transparency regarding some nations' reserves.

An international group of scientists and energy experts argue that global oil production has peaked or soon will as the second half of the oil age begins. The experts, known as peak oil advocates, say that the output of 500 existing giant oilfields that provide most of the world's liquid fuels has begun a gradual decline that will create a 17 million-barrel daily deficit by 2035.

If they're right, and if the Energy Information Administration has accurately projected future demand, liquid fuels production must fill a daunting, 38.6 million-barrel daily void to keep pace - an amount equal to more than 40 percent of the current global output.

"We're facing a situation that is real hard for anyone to grasp," said Kjell Aleklett, the Swedish president of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/12/2947905_p2/is-the-era-of-oil-nearing-its.html#storylink=cpy

Professor sees energy 'trap' ahead By GREG GORDON McClatchy Newspapers

Related Content

* <http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/>)
* <http://bit.ly/PEdrgn>)

By GREG GORDON

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/12/2947907/professor-sees-energy-trap-ahead.html#storylink=cpy http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/12/2947905_p2/is-the-era-of-oil-nearing-its.html

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/12/2947907/professor-sees-energy-trap-ahead.html

Tom Murphy, an associate physics professor at the University of California, San Diego, likes to compute big and daunting numbers.

So when he grew concerned about how the nation could sustain its spiraling energy consumption, he decided to chart the use of fuel alongside the estimated U.S. gross domestic product since the year 1650 (http://bit.ly/PEdrgn).

That led him to the alarming realization that exponential economic growth cannot continue into the decades and centuries ahead because of constraints on energy supplies, said Murphy, whose website is named Do the Math: Using physics and estimation to assess energy, growth, options (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/).

One way to understand the crucial role of energy in today's world is to see what happens if it's unavailable.

People might think that, because energy costs comprise a little over 10 percent of the economy, a 10 percent cut in energy availability would be relatively harmless, amounting to a 1 percent impact.

However, that energy enables so many things that in a severe energy crunch, "you're going to see something larger" - a sort of multiplier effect on the economy, Murphy said.

Murphy said he believes that the world is "approaching a trap," with energy supplies unable to keep up with demand and creating a need to divert some precious energy for use in developing alternatives, such as tens of millions of fuel-efficient cars and new forms of renewable energy sources, he said.

That, in turn, could create a new problem.

"If things happen the way they typically have, where high oil prices trigger recession, who's going to buy these expensive electric cars?" he asked.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/12/2947907/professor-sees-energy-trap-ahead.html#storylink=cpy