Stories tagged with "hirsch report"

Electrical Supply: Time, Scale, and the Need for Decision in Planning Future Power Plants

Posted by Heading Out on November 17, 2008 - 8:45am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: coal, columbus, electricity, hirsch report, kingsnorth, ohio, original, solar power, united kingdom, wind [list all tags]

As the first gentle snowflakes of winter settled on the windscreen of my car I was reminded, yet again, of the turning of the seasons and our need for power to keep us warm through the coming months. Last week I commented on how jobs might be created as the pattern of power supply begins to change, particularly with the incentives that might be a part of a new initiative. Two factors often get understated, however, in the current anticipation of the changes that a new Administration may bring. The first of these is the time that it will take to get any decision implemented at a scale that can be meaningful, and the second is the scale itself of the problem that now faces us.

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Hirsch on CNBC: Peak oil problem "as massive as one can possibly imagine"

Posted by Super G on May 20, 2008 - 11:21am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: hirsch report, peak oil media, robert hirsch [list all tags]

Robert Hirsch, author of Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management (a.k.a. the Hirsch Report), appeared on CNBC this morning. He said flat out that new technologies and new drilling won't solve the peak oil problem, and that we should expect $12-15/gallon gasoline followed by rationing.

You can also watch the video at CNBC or read the transcript below the fold.

[Update 1:30p EDT] And here's a follow-up with T. Boone Pickens.

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Electrified Rail: An Overlooked Mitigation Strategy for Peak Oil?

Posted by Robert Rapier on October 20, 2006 - 8:19am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: electric rail, electric transport, hirsch report, light rail, peak oil, public transportation [list all tags]

This a guest post by Alan Drake.

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Roger Bezdek is one of the co-authors of the "Hirsch" reports, AFAIK the only official US Government analysis of what to do about Peak Oil. Below is a link to an interview with Dr. Bezdek with links to his two reports.

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/713

I have reservations about the proposed mitigation strategies (~$5 trillion for coal-to-liquids, oil shale, enhanced oil recovery and better vehicle efficiency) and believe that he has overlooked mitigation via electrified rail.

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The Forum is where you debate (or Peak Oil and the Environment Conference Day 1)

Posted by Heading Out on May 7, 2006 - 9:40pm
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: climate change, hirsch report, peak oil and the environment, sustainable energy, sustainable energy forum [list all tags]

Returning home from one meeting, it was quickly time to move on to another, and so I spent Saturday lunch happily listening to 29 High School kids from overseas telling a Rotary District Meeting the answers to 3 questions; what they most missed from home; what they would most miss going home from the US; and what they said "back home" when somebody sneezed.

To remark on only the first (though I liked the Belgian third answer) it was remarkable the consistency with which, from Japan to Latvia, the answer to the first question was "public transport."

I was reminded of that tonight, at the first evening of the Peak Oil and the Environment meeting, when Alan got up in the question period to ask Roger Bezdek (second author of the Hirsch Report), who had just ably summarized the contents thereof, as to whether he could hold out much hope that the re-introduction of trains and trolleys might help reduce the wedge time for the vehicle efficiency sector in the future.

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San Francisco Passes Peak Oil Resolution

Posted by Glenn on April 14, 2006 - 12:34pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: hirsch report, oil, peak oil, san francisco [list all tags]

This is a milestone in local peak oil activists having an impact in getting this on the agenda of their city government:

San Francisco on Tuesday became the first major U.S. city to pass a resolution acknowledging the threats posed by peak oil, urging the city to develop a comprehensive plan to respond to the emerging global energy crunch.

Wow, I'm impressed. So how'd they do it?

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Pregnancy revisited or some thoughts on coal

Posted by Heading Out on March 28, 2006 - 11:48pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: coal, crooked timber, ezra klein, hirsch report, peabody, sme [list all tags]

Wandering, not quite by chance, into a luncheon meeting today, I listened while a VP of Peabody (the largest coal mining company) casually mentioned, in passing, the arrival of Peak Oil.  His talk dealt largely with the need that this will generate for coal, and the market, and the need for engineers that this engenders.  It was, you might say, a pleasant talk, given to an audience "in the trade" and his aim was to talk about the growing opportunities in the business and to re-assure those with long memories, that this time the market would be sustained for a long time.

What I thought notable was that the audience did not seem to grasp the impact that peak oil is going to have on the industries that, while related, do not themselves mine coal.  For them the market price and lesser availability of liquid fuels to give the power to their operations, will mean a significant increase in operational cost, and more pressure to be competitive, at a time when the market might otherwise appear glowing.

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