He's only talking about tweaking it around the edges a little. He's still pushing for "sustainable growth."

From the link:

While we believe that capitalism is fundamentally superior to any other system for organising economic activity, it is also clear that some of the ways in which it is now practised do not incorporate sufficient regard for its impact on people, society and the planet," Gore said.

At a briefing ahead of Thursday's launch, David Blood said capitalism has been blighted with short-termism and an obsession with instant investment results, which had ramped up market volatility, widened the gap between rich and poor and deflected attention from the deepening climate crisis.

The former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management put forward five key actions which he hoped would revive the discussion on how to clean up capitalism and put companies, investors and stakeholders on the path towards long-term, sustainable profit.

One wonders if all of our doomer talk about peak everything and catastrophic climate change isn't acting as a driver for short-term thinking and volatility in the capitalist system, fueling desperation to extract as much from the system as quickly as possible; "make hay before the sun sets", so to speak. We expect these folks to make long-term investments on one hand, while insisting that massive change is occurring, short-term, on the other. Unintended consequences?

A Table of New Tram Projects in France

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQQ/is_6_49/ai_n31979228/

Best Hopes for Oil Free Transportation (in France),

Alan

Thank you for posting that - wonderful pictures of what we could have, but for the automobile. Surprisingly, not everything must be ugly, although you'd never know that from what we build here.

Great info Alan! And thank you for posting this, the compilation is useful in my own research. There are also nice videos of a lot if not all of these systems on YouTube (Search "(pick a city name)tram". Have to love the French flair for style on some of these!

I have grown fond of the Mulhouse system myself (have not been there in person, only vicariously via YouTube and Google Earth). From zero lines in 2006 to 3 tram lines + 1 tram-train line in 5 years. I know Alan knows what a tram-train is, but for the rest: tram-train takes the trams running on tram tracks in city centers then sends them via mainline railway tracks to quickly reach outer areas and nearby towns and villages.

I would also note that in that list of French cities Caen and Nancy chose guided bus "rubber tired trams" based on the Bombardier GLT system.

The GLT guidance system consists of a single central guide rail embedded in the street, which is contacted by a double-flanged wheel under the center of the bus, er, tram vehicle. The wheel is only meant for guidance, the weight of the vehicle remains on the rubber tires. Caen also used the guide rail for traction current return, thus the vehicles have pantographs, and cannot operate in electric mode away from the guideway.

At first both systems experienced frequent "derailments" from the guide rail, in consequence of which Bombardier redesigned the guidance system so more vehicle weight was placed on the guide wheel. This in turn has led to excessive noise and vibration and the "trams" have been limited to very slow speeds when in guided mode because of this. Also, because the guidance rail causes the tires to always follow the *exact* same path they have been having problems with ruts forming along the guideway as well. As usual, claims of a "new technology" that would cost less than proven existing technology have proven false, and these systems cost AT LEAST AS MUCH as a "real" tram would have.

There is also the matter of these being a propietary technology. If you want more, of either guideway or vehicles, you must go back to the original manufacturer. If you have a steel-wheeled tram system, you can hire most any construction company to lay track and install wires, and have a good choice of rail vehicle manufacturers to choose from.

Caen has had so many problems they are going to tear theirs out and start over with a real steel-wheeled tram. In addition to the technical problems noted above, Caen had an incident shortly after opening, involving a fatality of a small child. Critics have pointed out that this incident highlighted the folly of a hybrid system that can neither swerve like a bus nor stop as quickly as a tram (which can drop magnetic track brakes on the rails in an emergency).

The Nancy system was construced slighly differently from the Caen system and the vehicles can leave the guideway and run as a regular trolley bus in city streets (that have dual trolley wires), which has at least given a little more flexibility in its use. The guideway is used as a precision steering system to "thread" the buses, er, trams, through tighter areas of the city, using a lane only about as wide as the vehicle itself, as well as precision dock to floor height platforms (although this can be done by regular unguided buses using "Kassel Kerbs").

Both systems also include diesel generator sets on the buses, er, trams. These are only used for going to and from the bus garage (i.e. off wire). Theoretically they could be used to get around a blockage of the line as well.

So I guess the lesson is: "Best hopes for the speed and efficiency of most, but not all, French bureacrats!" C'est la vie.

A 12 km tramway line opened in summer 2011. Two sections in the centres of Angers and Avrillé are equipped with ground-level power supply (Alimentation par Sol) like in Bordeaux.

Presumably those two sections are sealed from pedestrian and vehicular traffic - powering trams safely from underneath is a hard trick to pull off.

The trams in Melbourne are an integral component of the city (not necessarily hugely efficient vis-à-vis cars, but nice anyway), however the overhead power lines are everywhere and often not very tidy or attractive - unlike the nice new wires in the Angers tram picture.

"Free Market" transportation solutions in Indonesia:

Take a Train in Jakarta, by ANDRE VLTCHEK:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/17/take-a-train-in-jakarta/

Sounds like the Heritage/AEI vision for transportation in the US!

“The belief that global oil production has peaked, or is on the cusp of doing so, has helped to fuel oil’s more than decade-long rally,” Citigroup said in a note to clients. “This is now all changing because of what is happening in North Dakota,” where new technology has led to a large and unexpected surge in oil production from shale rock.

Net oil exports continue to fall and the price of a barrel of oil continues to rise and the "Peak Oil Is Dead" crowd keeps getting louder and louder and it is all because North Dakota is now producing about half a million barrels per day.

The article says shale oil imports have already slashed 1 million barrels per day off imports. But North Dakota production is only half that amount. Yet US Net Oil Imports are down 4 million barrels per day since their peak in 2005 and 2006. That means we are consuming about 3.5 million barrels per day less because of high prices and the recession those high prices brought about.

If peak oil was truly dead net oil exports would be rising instead of falling and oil prices would be falling instead of rising.

Ron P.

"Peter is the prototypical industry-government-think tank insider who has no expertise in the field of energy ..."

He knows enough to see that resource depletion (and climate change) are going to cost his capitalist economy trillions, and ultimately bring an end his way of life. These folks' desperation to keep milking the global cash cows would be funny if the stakes weren't so high. The party may not be quite over, Peter, but reality is certainly handing you and your like your hats.

BTW: How's that Euro debt thang goin'?

A metaphor I have frequently used is the old joke about a woman who walks in and find her husband in bed with another woman. He denies that he is in bed with another woman, and asks, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

Many analysts point toward slowly rising US crude oil production (up from 5.4 mbpd in 2004 to about 5.65 mbpd in 2011) and a slow increase in global total liquids production (inclusive of low net energy biofuels) as evidence that we don’t have any supply problems, but they are asking consumers, in effect, not to believe their lying eyes in regard to a doubling of annual global crude oil prices in six years–which is fundamentally a result of the ongoing decline in Global Net Exports of oil (GNE), with the Chindia region consuming an increasing share of a declining volume of GNE*.

At the Chindia region’s 2005 to 2010 rate of increase in their combined net oil imports, as a percentage of GNE, the Chindia region alone would consume 100% of GNE in about 19 years.

If, for the sake of argument, the Chindia region's combined net oil imports were to approach 100% of GNE around 2029, I estimate that the total post-2005 supply of Cumulative Available Net Exports (CANE), i.e. the total cumulative post-2005 supply of (net) exported oil available to about 157 (net) oil importing countries, would be about 50% depleted by the end of next year.

The dominant trend we have seen since 2005 is that the US, and other oil importing OECD countries, are being forced to consume a declining share of a declining volume of GNE. The bottom line is that the volumetric decline in ANE (Available Net Exports, or GNE less Chindia’s net imports) was about one mbpd per year from 2005 to 2010, from 40 mbpd in 2005 to 35 mbpd in 2010. I estimate that this volumetric decline rate will accelerate to between 1.4 and 2.0 mbpd per year between 2010 and 2020, with ANE being between 15 and 21 mbpd in 2020, versus 40 mbpd in 2005.

The fact that the US became a small net exporter of refined petroleum products last year is simply evidence that the US is being forced to reduce our oil consumption, via price rationing.

Incidentally, the seven major net oil exporters in the Americas and the Caribbean are: Venezuela, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Trinidad & Tobago. Their combined net oil exports fell from 6.0 mbpd in 2005 to 4.8 mbpd in 2010 (BP)–a one-fifth decline in only five years.

Slowly increasing net oil exports from Canada could not come close to even offsetting the ongoing regional net export decline.

By the way, there is a competing report out by Mark Lewis, with Deutsche Bank, which focuses on constrained global oil exports.

*Top 33 net oil exporters in 2005, Primarily BP data base, total petroleum liquids, minor EIA data input

How about reversing the headline.

Peak Oil say Citigroup is Dead!

Wait, you mean Citigroup isn't a collection of knowledgeable, professional geologists and other scientists with years of experience in the oil field?!?

Colour me shocked... stoney grey.

Citigroup is a part of Citibank, who is owned by Saudibank, who is owned by the country of Saudi Arabia, who is a major oil producer. Therefore Citigroups statement Peak Oil is Dead, is a business spin of BAU, not a statement of facts.

Peak Oil says Citigroup is Dead

Peak Oil announced to the world Friday that Citigroup is dead. The controversial idea that Citigroup has any credibility in this area much less is a likely long term viable financial institution has been laid to rest as it relies on the flawed expertise of Peter Orzag, Peak Oil said.

It is indeed strange that Citigroup, a company that thoroughly disgraced itself during the 2008 financial crisis and has been kept alive since only by govt bailouts, should suddenly proclaim itself the oracle on Peak Oil issues.

CitiGroup . . . we couldn't get the housing market correct and that is something we specialize in. Now check out our great off-the-cuff oil analysis from a bunch of white collar guys that think stripper oil is just part of their after work entertainment.

Great timing too, guys!
Oil Set for Biggest 2012 Weekly Gain on U.S. Economy, Greek Aid Plans

Where do you find the Peter Orszag connection in the European/United Kingdom Commodities Strategy note?

How about this:

Drive your car a mile, push it back home and compare how much effort it was to drive it a mile and how quickly you got there to when you got home as you pushed it.

Maine's resurging Train Service just went into the Federal Budget crosshairs.. Pay careful attention at all Finger-crossings!

http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/20304/Def...
Maine Lawmakers Seek to Preserve Downeaster Funding

"It's ludicrous to think that we would shut down the operation of passenger rail when it's become so popular, and in Maine we've just been given a tremendous amount of money to expand our line and expand our service."

Maine's two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have submitted a similar amendment for a Senate bill covering funding for two years.

The Obama administration last year allocated about $38 million in funds for a track expansion north to include stops in Freeport and Brunswick. Of course, this major federal investment won't necessarily stop Congress from considering cutting off the CMAC funds. But officials overseeing the Downeaster service say that it warrants all the federal funding it's been getting.

(1) by any standards but absurdly dumbed-down American ones, 110mph is NOT high speed. Not even close. Yawn.

(2) OK, so they shaved some time off the trip, but you've still got to wait five hours for the train. You can drive most of the trip before the train even arrives. Or all of it and then some, if you're not going all the way to Detroit. Yawn again.

The great thing about the trains in Japan was that they actually had high speed trains, and they ran often enough to be useful. Oh, and they ran on time, something that still needs to be drummed with a big hammer into the thick skull of nearly every transit manager in the USA.

OTOH the flip side, a big enabler in Japan was the massive overcrowding, wall-to-wall people. (Also high fares, often 40 to 80 US cents per passenger per mile.) But in the absence of overcrowding, can one ever really make a go of this? Or will trips inevitably cost so horrendously much time (no matter the speed of the train once, at long last, after the interminable wait, it finally arrives) that people will simply have to travel less if they can't drive as much?

In addition, a monetary expense from delays and interminable waiting is that what used to be a simple day trip may become an overnighter, possibly incurring a costly hotel bill. This, too, may deter travel if incomes go on shrinking.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. Maybe a century from now, if, over the years, people have mostly drifted into jammed megacities.

Interesting. Noodling around on that site, I see that those lines crossed for Egypt back in '08.

http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=EG

It took a while, there, for that loss of revenue to lead to open revolt. Presumably, NG exports helped stem the tide for a while. I wonder what the new government, however it ends up getting constituted, will fund the ambitious projects it hopes to set in motion: reclaiming the desert, high speed rail, rapid build up of nuclear power... (according to a presentation I just saw by some Egyptian revolutionaries).

Yemem is such a sad case. Between water and oil depletion, I think that place is going to become a failed state within 20 years or so. :-(

+10

Just because it's reality doesn't mean it's no longer theory, since theory is based on facts and those facts are found in realityland, which is to say that Peak Oil has always been reality.

This can be explained by, I would guess, the majority of homes in France relying on electrical heating. This makes sense for a country with an abundance of electricity as it would be cheaper than gas or heating oil. Also it removes the reliance on Russia. In contrast I'd imagine Germany has quite a lot more gas heating.

Nothing more than wishful thinking from the media most likely. Most likely a slow news day.

Thanks for that new word of the day!

Citigroup is less than credible. They got it wrong on the Housing Bubble Crash and about everything else. I once had a Citi credit card and every monthly statement was rife with errors. Especially on balance transfers which they totally bungled. I just can't believe the crap spewing from their mouths (or is it the other end? Its hard to tell....), given their stunning track record.

Supply and Demand simply insists that if oil is abundant the price should be going down at the pump, generally speaking. Instead, gas and about everything else is going up and up and up and up.....

My opinions and hunches, for what they are worth:

Declaring that Peak Oil is dead has little to do with the factual basis of such a statement, and everything to do with waving a red flag that says "we are open for business and ready to lend!"

We are in a little boomlet that goes along with the four year convergence of the Summer Olympics and what appears to be a controversial, competitive, and spendy U.S. general election. The banks are trying to figure out who is voting with their dollars in this polarized election environment, and trying to corral those dollars while the boomlet lasts.

I look for the EU to band-aid Greece and other Eurozone basket cases as needed so they can focus on London 2012. As I noted above, the U.S. will be distracted by the election campaigns which will build in interest and $$$ as the Congressional races get underway. My guess is Dow in the high 13s through mid-year, global oil testing its all-time highs.

The music stops in late August, and a race that looked pretty comfortable for Pres. Obama will suddenly tighten as the U.S. economy contracts, China wobbles, and the EU gets a serious hangover. It won't be as bad as 2008, especially in the U.S., but it will be a noticeable leg down.

Agnotology

Another new word courtesy of Dredd!

Thanks! Can't wait to drop this on someone!

Not to mention the commonly 30% to 50% pure CO2 that comes out of the well alongside the natural gas and is simply separated and vented. Claims do differ, IF provided, but the Japanese working offshore Indonesia are bragging about the efficiency of their separation equipment on the 50% CO2 coming up there, meaning they're hoping to sell it to other operators.

Unfortunately, being correct about the timing of Peak Oil is not really a "win".

Oil refineries: Sustainable communities for the post-oil world?

A '100% self-supporting housing solution for the post-oil world,' the Oil Silo Home concept makes use of the thousands of oil storage units that will inevitably be abandoned in the peak oil era.

Okay, I hate to interrupt everybody while they're holding hands and singing "Kumbaya", but I feel I have a moral responsibility to bring some inside oil industry knowledge to this fascinating, forward-thinking adaptive reuse housing concept.

Oil refineries frequently spill toxic chemicals on the ground. In fact companies have spilled so many toxic chemicals around their refineries over the past 100 years that they will probably never again willingly sell an old refinery site for reuse as a housing development. It would be just asking for lawsuits from parents of mutant tumor-covered three-headed children. (Just based on past experience.)

So forget this concept of reusing old refinery sites for low-cost, low-maintenance domiciles. If you want a low-cost, low-maintenance domicile, get yourself a piece of land in the woods, buy some 2x4s and plywood, and build it yourself.

Noise noise noise from the heart of corrupt American financial imperium.

When will these jokers just go away and choke on their own losses rather than trying to extract more fiat money away from everybody else.

Lehman, JP Morgan, Geithner, MF Global, who cares, they're all the same cast.

Got metal?

criminals running the financial system and embedded in high places of the government.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

"Oil" shales, "modern enhanced recovery techniques", re-opening old fields, ultra-deep water drilling, $100+/barrel prices seemingly the norm; all point to one thing... That's what I tell folks, and let them fill in the blank.

Scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel we are.

"Well, if Peak Oil is dead, why are we paying so much for gasoline?"

There is no mystery to many. I repeat a posting from a week or so ago.

1. Obama is restricting drilling in the US which is causing US prices to rise.
2. Speculators are driving up the price of oil.
3. Big oil companies are driving up the price of oil.
4. Saudi Arabia is driving up the price of oil.
(and new for this week! ...)
5. Environmentalists prevent the building of required refineries leading to a US shortage in gasoline.
6. Gasoline would be cheaper if we repealed all those taxes.

Pick as many as necessary to convince yourself that there are no fundmental (geologic) issues in oil/gasoline supply.

MSM meet reality

I can remember when Saudi Arabia could get 100,000 bpd out of a single oil well. Now they are spending $1.2 billion to get that much production out of an entire oil field. They planned to restart it back in 2008, and pulled the plug on it because it would be too expensive. Now, they are going back to the plan to restart it.

It suggests that they are running out of good alternatives for maintaining production, and are having to fall back on some rather bad ones. By the way, at that production rate, Dammam will last about 13 years before it's completely dry.

What happened to leaving some of it in the ground for the kids?

Thanks Rocky, I missed that one: I try to check out all of Leanan's links up top every day but today has been busy and I just missed: Saudi Aramco to Re-Open Oldest Field to Tap Heavy Oil, EIU

The state-owned producer, known as Saudi Aramco, may revive a plan from 2008 to restore production at the mothballed Dammam, the EIU said in a report. Dammam contains some 500 million barrels of oil and may yield as much as 100,000 barrels a day of Arabian Heavy crude, according to the report.

Saudi, According to OPEC has 264.52 billion barrels of reserves. So they are going to re-open the Old Dammma field, Aramco's first and oldest site, to get an extra half billion of very heavy oil?

And they are speeding up the Manifa project, for more very heavy oil. Well with their old fields declining at a rate of 700,000 barrels per year they need every barrel they can produce, just to stay even, even if it is stuff so heavy and sour that they must sell it at a discount.

Ron P.

...and are having to fall back on some rather bad ones.

$12,000 per bopd ?
Payback in a few months ?
$ 2.40/barrel (re)-development costs ?

That's easy oil.

A Question Rocky, doesn't the oil from that field have a high Vanadium content or am I thinking of another one?

Americans don't particularly care for your news. At least this American doesn't.

He seems to know which side his car is buttered on.

The question is, when it falls to the floor, which side does it land on? Stay tuned.

Feeling bit grumpy today, bm? Didn't see your bio posted either. Just sayin'...

You deserve a good flaming, but that would just waste bandwidth. Ta!

My in-laws are in East Anglia and I drove across UK west to east last summer. I was stuck how yellow and dry everything east of Birmingham was. Water sure was more short in the East (for Britain: we are not talking Australian Outback levels of dryness!). I still think the UK can work through the water supply problem. The aquifers in the east are being mined out, but upland Wales and Cumbria get plenty of rain. We just need to invest in engineering to capture and transport the water, or limit population growth to the West side of the UK which need the economic boost far more than the affluent South-east.

I hope they succeed. In Australia, I doubt our rivers will ever recover, and we have had hosepipe bans for years - almost a generation - but the upside is, at least we're used to brown lawns and withered gardens in summer.

Indeed there is a real chill that has set in upon the Public Service.

I like that the knowledgeable trader isn't a bit surprised, sorta like "well yeah, so what's new?"

This is not the 1st fake bond thing. 4-5 years ago there was a whole shipping container worth that made the news in the pacific islands. Got stopped over 20Kish of fees not paid as I remember.

If consumption (demand) drops, then so will production. If production drops, that is evidence of peak oil. I'm not sure what your point is.

Once you become a Peak Oiler, can there be apostasy?

Not if one understands mathematics and thermodynamics. IMO, Peak Oil is self-evident.

In the bigger picture, PO is just one symptom of the problem, not the cause. Ten new Ghawars, or fusion (hot or cold) will only alter the timeline, not the outcome.

4 dollars per gallon for a gallon of gas will alter consumption.

Sure, particularly the discretionary consumption, which is large and very elastic in the USA, but keep in mind that there are a lot of countries that would be happy to have $4 gasoline right now.

If there is any apostasy on my part, it is my failure to comprehend just how far TPTB will go to extend and pretend; such as suspending the rule of law and eviscerating various constitutions. This is just to protect an illusory fiat system, for now. When hard physical limits become more apparent, things will get more interesting.

I think we have a number of years yet for this to play out, and I wouldn't have said that five years ago. I'm definitely in the catabolic collapse camp now. As generations turn over, the slide will only be dramatic to students of history.

Just a month ago, a young fellow (~25) asked me what Kodachrome was. :-)

personally i don't think the **** will hit the fan in the foreseeable future, just a long grind downward. but that's just my opinion, and i'm no authority.

or to put it a different way, i think the **** has already hit the fan. rome wasn't built in a day, and it didn't fall apart in a day either. frederick was crowned holy roman emperor in 1155.

Aww, man! You totally missed it. It was awesome!

Now we're back to the same-old same-old again.

WHY did you blink?! .. Never blink! constant vigilance.. oops, my show is on, excuse me.

Meanwhile, it's 50 fahrenheit in Portland, Maine in Feb, and WTI is back up to $104.. maybe they'll do a couple encores...

I think TS is H(ing)TF as we speak. But for now, in most of the developed world, it is just a little mist of TS spraying out at this time.

It really, really "stinks" already, but sensory fatigue has set in so most don't seem to notice ;)

My "bet" is we go over the Seneca Cliff this decade.

Bush/Cheney predicted "20-30 years" of terror back in 2002 or so. I think they were being as honest as possible about the time-table.

While I have my differences with Chris Martenson, his "Crash Course" series (20 chapters on youtube) has been very effective at getting some of my mainstream friends' attention. While it doesn't cover all of the bases you mention, it's a format many folks are used to and lays some pretty good groundwork. "Covering all the bases" can be a bit overwhelming to the uninitiated. Break 'em in gently at first ;-)

I recommend "The Last Oil Shock" by David Strahan (2007).
I think it's the best look at where we are, the problems with all the non-oil alternatives etc. Much better than "The Long Emergency".

Problem:

Dad in the family is actually earning 50,000 but refuses to pay into the budget.
We are trying to balance the budget while the wage earners are gambling in Vegas!

Craig

Ben Bernanke last week

Even the prospect of unsustainable deficits has costs, including an increased possibility of a sudden fiscal crisis. As we have seen in a number of countries recently, interest rates can soar quickly if investors lose confidence in the ability of a government to manage its fiscal policy.... public debt would increase markedly, we can be sure that, without corrective action, our fiscal trajectory will move the nation ever closer to that point.

To this warning he added our deficits were 'structural'. I take this to mean that without them the stool does not stand.

It is not news to anyone here that in Greece.

Tax evasion is rampant while
GDP is shrinking
Creditors who are being asked to take a 50+% haircut are making heavy austerity conditions contingent on settlement.
National assets are being liquidated.
Pensions are evaporating while user fees skyrocket
Folks with a strong sense of entitlement are burning shops and public buildings.

Yep, share your concerns.

It is not the same as a household budget.

To continue with your analogy;

Those who deal with flooded houses know one thing: it's over. No one is moving right back in when the water recedes. And seldom do houses flood in the singular to the ceiling.

So, you generate and sell more of your debt, which is a commodity at this scale. You use the money to put the neighborhood back to work building second stories. Everyone gets a boat, too. Life is strange for a while. When the flood recedes, the workforce has survived, further work makes things less strange.

If you don't need a workforce, you seed the waters with cholera, turn off health care and unemployment, steal the pension money, drive the survivors off with foreclosures and sheriffs, and lay claim to the land. It takes a while, but all the value of the land when the waters recede concentrates to just you... and you win!

That's how the smart lads play.

Thank you for not giggling at analogy and commodity.

Great post Paulo. Reducing numbers to household realm really helps get the picture across. Also, shows how minor the budget cuts were.

How about this one: If we balanced the budget every year and paid down the debt $100 billion, it would take over 142 years to pay the debt down to zero. And that's just the principal.

Send it back to your buddy.
As Paul Krugman will point out again and again, the U.S. gov't is not a household and should not be run as one. This is total right wing bs. The reason that Standard and Poors downgraded the U.S. was because of the threats by some of our legislators to to default on our debt. S & P explicitly said this. And what happened after the downgrade? the cost of issuing treasuries decrease even further.

What's BC hydro doing subsidizing bulb purchase on the other side of the country?
250 cases. Sounds like a lot of bulbs! My biggest LED order was 10bulbs.

For once BC Hydro has an overly generous incentive - but not one that I can take advantage of!

I would send this off to a couple of hotels I know, but if the new one coming out is that much better/more efficient, then i think they are better off to wait.

Which seems to be what quite a few people are doing, but you are not - does that mean you have concluded the payback on that existing lamp is "good enough"?

And, the technology must come up against some theoretical limits to the lumens/watt at some point, are we anywhere near that?

Might they have had heat related issues so cut back?

NAOM

Yes, they are using "all liquids" for the US, not oil, and I doubt that graph, as shown came from the EIA.

Per the EIA for Nov 2011, crude oil was 5.842 mbd, NGL's were 2.842, and ethanol was 0.945. Add them all up and you get 9.6mbd, which seems to be about what that graph is showing for the US.

But "all liquids" is certainly not "oil", most of those NGL's are propane, propylene, ethylene etc - not anything you can run your car on.

The hoax continues...

What's wrong with the chart? I don't see anything obviously off...

Are you a "Trini" by any chance? The bacchanal part of your handle has me wondering. If so, how's carnival shaping up this year?

Alan from the islands

Lumens are defined in terms of a "standard [human] eyeball", see Luminous Efficacy, already cited elsewhere. Since green plants notoriously lack such eyeballs, lumens are very problematical units in that application. After all, a typical human eye is most sensitive to green, but that is reflected, rather than utilized, by most plants. And indeed, spectrally-matched grow lights tend to have a strong magenta (blue+red) cast.

Interesting. Pull up the groundwater recharge map, Australia and the middle east disappear, Africa shrinks, and South America gets huge.

Ha! Greenhouse gas

Hi Paulo,

I recently replaced our T4 fluorescent under-cabinet lighting with 3 and 5-watt RAB LED strips. They're amazingly thin, as evidenced below:

They're also amazingly bright !

I bought three 5-watt and two 3-watt strips, plus two 6-watt and one 12-watt power supplies (they ship with mounting hardware and connecting cables as well).

My cost was $276.55 before tax. You can view the breakout at: http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo69/HereinHalifax/UnderCabinetPricin...

The combined load in this case falls from 62-watts to 21. Now, 41-watts may not seem like a lot but these fixtures get a fair amount of usage and the one above the kitchen sink operates an average of eight hours a day so the savings add up (the original T4 lamps have a 10,000 hour rated life and they're expensive to replace and difficult to source, so the biggest savings will come from not having to replace the lamps as opposed to the energy saved). Nonetheless, those 41-watts are enough to power the twelve 3-watt BA11 LEDs in our dinning room chandelier plus the two 2-watt BA11s in our buffet lamps (I always think in terms of budgets...if I do this, then I can in turn do that).

Oh, one thing I should note... the light is directional with a very sharp cut-off, so there's not a whole lot of light cast between the front edge of the counter and the valance... best to check this out in advance.

Cheers,
Paul

A - Where at? My ex used to work for them in Texas