Energy Bulletin has an interesting interview with Michael C. Ruppert, author of “A Presidential Energy Policy: Twenty-five Points Addressing the Siamese Twins of Energy and Money”, about peak oil and the end of cheap oil.

“Peak Oil is not just the end of globalization. I was saying clearly that globalization was dead five years ago. It was obvious. But Peak Oil is potentially the end of the human race and that outcome is perhaps just a few years away unless the human race essentially throws every ideological sacred cow out the window and starts with a fresh piece of paper.

[…]The collapse of industrial civilization within the next five to ten years (perhaps sooner) is inevitable. It is the degree of collapse, what is destroyed in the collapse, how many people will have to die in the collapse, and what will survive the collapse that I and many others are fighting for now. That is what every human being should be concerned about and nothing less. Pursuing options while not rapidly disengaging from the current economic paradigm of infinite growth is the only real issue confronting the entire species. To not do that will be literally to consign unborn generations and those under 40 to death or a living hell.”

Read the whole interview over at Energy Bulletin.

Also watch George Monbiot interviewing Fatih Birol, International Energy Authority’s chief economist, about the new startling and worrying prediction for the date of peak oil.

Photo credit: Bitpicture

Norway Sets 2015 Target
Norway’s Finance Minster, Kristin Halvorsen, has proposed to ban petrol cars by 2015 in order to lower CO2 emissions and encourage car manufacturers to begin making more environmentally friendly models. That would mean only electric, biofuel, hydrogen or hybrid cars could be bought in the Scandinavian country by that date. Speaking about the proposal, Ms. Halvorsen said, “This is much more realistic than people think when they first hear about [it]. The financial crisis means a lot of those car producers that now have big problems know they have to develop their technology, because we also have to solve the climate crisis when this financial crisis is over.” However, the ban would not apply to used cars – petrol or diesel – bought before 2015.

This proposal is both interesting and surprising, as Norway is the world’s sixth-largest oil exporter. Indeed, Ms. Halvorsen ’s proposition is likely to be subjected to heated debate, as the idea has some opponents, even within the government itself.

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Photo credit: blmurch

Kristin Halvorsen, Finance Minister in Norway, has together with her Socialist Left Party proposed a plan that would forbid the sale of new cars that run solely on gasoline after 2015 in the country.

According to her proposal new cars, bought after 2015, which only uses gas as their power source would be illegal. New hybrids, cars that run partially on gas, on the other hand would still be allowed to be sold in Norway. And cars already on the road would be unaffected by the new proposed law.

“The financial crisis also means that a lot of those car producers that now have big problems … know that they have to develop their technology because we also have to solve the climate crisis when this financial crisis is over,” Halvorsen was quoted as telling Reuters.

The proposal has already met some resistance in Norway where the skeptics say the proposed ban would undermine the country’s economy (Norway is the world’s number six oil exporter). But Halvorsen says that won’t be the case:

“Not at all … we know that the world will be dependent on oil and gas for many decades ahead but we have to introduce new technologies and this is a proposal to support that,” she said.

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Photo credit: World Resources Institute Staff

Al Gore talked about the failing auto industry in USA, “clean coal” and the environmental work being done in China in a recent interview with Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria.

In the interview Gore said that he thinks that the whole auto industry needs to be “transformed”, and that the auto makers in USA “should make a transition as quickly as possible toward plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”

ZAKARIA: Would you bail out the carmakers?
GORE: Whatever assistance might be forthcoming should be focused on speeding the changes that are absolutely essential to ensure that our companies are competitive in the global marketplace. When I was vice president, I initiated a program called the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. The federal government invested over a billion dollars in partnership with the Big Three to focus on the accelerated development of advanced high-efficiency vehicles. But as soon as they felt they were off the hook at the end of 2000, they pulled the plug and walked away.

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Imagine for a second that oil prices in the USA today were at the same levels as those in Europe, and have been from the start. And yes. That means gasoline for $8 per gallon.

How would the world look like? Would we have a war in Iraq? Would we have a better climate? Would we have less terrorism? Would the US economy be in a better shape?

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These days it seems the price of gas and oil will keep rising and never become stable again. And why should it? We have reached peak oil and the demand for the black and deadly gold keeps soaring.

People’s love with huge and gas-guzzling SUVs and cars seems to be loosing its former glory. Cause who would want to pay a fortune for a gas-thirsty climate change monster? Not even Americans seem to do these days.

Small and fuel-efficient vehicles are the future. The Asian automakers understood this several years ago, and now the western automakers are trying to catch up. Well, at least some of them.

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The major gas companies in Sweden have raised the price for gasoline to new record heights. One gallon of gasoline (4 litres) will now cost you $8,48 (around 52 Swedish Kronor).

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