Chevron Plans to Build Wave Power Farm Off California Coast
July 22nd, 2007“When you’re one step ahead of the crowd you’re a genius. When you’re two steps ahead, you’re a crackpot.”
— Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Then what am I? HAHA!
Yep, it’s all tinfoil, crackpot, lunatic fringe antics here on Cryptogon; until it actually happens weeks, months or years later. But that’s ok. If most media/bloggers were any good at making these calls, I’d be stocking shelves at Pak-N-Save.
If you still don’t understand what’s happening, you’re not thinking weird enough.
Let’s move on. My head will explode if I have to—again—rehash the previous posts that nailed this issue to the wall.
What’s going to be the consolation prize for the energy scarcity crowd?
Peak water?
Top soil depletion?
Economic collapse?
Kill off?
Nuclear war?
Other?
Via: Green Wombat:
There’s gold in them there waves. Five months after California utility giant PG&E filed plans to develop two 40-megawatt wave farms off the Northern California coast, oil behemoth Chevron is hitting the water with its own wave energy project in the same patch of ocean, according to an application filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (Thanks to environmental reporter Frank Hartzell of the Mendocino Beacon for the tip.) Chevron (CVX) intends to initially deploy Scottish firm Ocean Power Delivery’s Pelamis wave generators off the small Mendocino County town of Fort Bragg. The wave farm will produce between two and 60 megawatts of green energy that Chevron plans to sell to PG&E (PCG) or other electricity providers. “The proposed project will be a new source of clean, renewable ocean energy to generate power for commercial and industrial purposes that currently consume natural gas or other combustible fuels,” states the application filed by Chevron Renewable Energy, which is based in Houston of all places. “The proposed project is designed to displace electricity generated from a typical coal-fired generation resource, thereby avoiding the [greenhouse gas] emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.”
More: San Francisco Moves to Block Wave Energy
Related: Taiwan Plans to Build Ocean Power System with Output that Far Exceeds Current Demand
Related: The International Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project
Related: Remote New Zealand Tidal Power Project
Related: Linear Induction Wave Buoys
Related: Canary Island to be Powered Solely by Renewables
Topsoil depletion. That’s the thing that always destroys civilization in the end, after all. And speaking of that, alternative energy still doesn’t answer the question of what we’re going to do for growing food on the downslope of Hubbert’s Peak. Green Revolution agriculture depends on fossil fuels for fertilizers and machines to do the planting, harvesting, and processing.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915
And given civilization’s rapacious nature, alternative energy could turn out to be as big as a disaster as the Green Revolution has.
http://anthropik.com/2006/11/sermon-to-the-sun-worshippers
If oil gets expensive the world economy suffers. Peak oil – it’s the point of maximum production, it’s not the end of oil, there is still a lot in the ground.
But look around : the world depends on consumption , we are the “consumer society”. We buy a lot of non essential stuff and we change it when new stuff appears.
A lot of this stuff cannot be made without oil, here is a list with things made from oil :
http://www.beloit.edu/~SEPM/Geology_and_the_enviro/Petroleum_need.html
The economy needs to grow – just to avoid unemployment, stuff needs to be bought, so the demand for oil only goes up, stuff gets too expensive, first to buy , then to make, then the economy suffers
This is the problem with peak oil – we are a consumer society and we depend on oil for this, it’s not only about other sources of energy and other ways for transportation
more grist for your mill…
from the guardian…
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The new head of the Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. ‘I am not advocating genocide,’ said Rapley. ‘What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate – by improving contraception, education and healthcare – we will stop the world’s population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion.
—–
cheers…!
Topsoil depletion is energy depletion and vice versa for solar based economies.
it`s true–after peak oil and peak water and peak zirconium, there will be alien wars and all manner of schemes to maintain a pyramidal power structure. however, credible sources show that when you educate women the birthrate does go down.
so where do we draw the line? on the one hand we have an ideal of women learning something other than Neo-Liberalism and seeing enough in life not to be rabid breeders, on the other hand we have a localist, nationalist ideology which will eventually be unsustainable in terms of the actually unavoidable competition for resources.
we know that said competition is being over-hyped for the sinister aim of further entrenching the pyramidal poewer structure, but we also know that eventually, something resembling “education” will be necessary for improving the habits of man & woman. what are the ways forward, i ask?
obviously, neither nationalism or globalism will suffice, but neither will a libertarianism that is devoid of principles recognizing the social need to collectively overcome corporatism. what say you?
pai is right. Peak oil signals the end of the fractional reserve banking system which is based upon the premise of an infinitely growing economy.
It’s this simple: if the supply of energy does not grow, the economy does not grow. If the economy does not grow, our fractional reserve banking system collapses. Thus, Peak oil could also be called the Economic Peak or Peak Banking.
In any case, Peak Oil signifies a major change in the way everyone does business – in whatever business that is.