Friday, February 29, 2008

What a week!!

My week has been consumed with energy-related issues. Oil and gas, coal, and renewable energy such as biofuels/biodiesel (from corn ethanol and soy beans), solar power (nuclear energy), and wind energy. Very fascinating and topical issues.

With the ''doomsday'' multiple predictions of oil production ''peaking'' (i.e. the Peak Oil theory) in the very near future leading to economic disaster worldwide. Even more alarming, the imminence of ''oil wars'' with countries attacking each other in their bid to gain control of oil reserves.

A very bleak future indeed. The good news is that inspite of all these projections (2004 was the ''Peak Oil'' year) oil production has continued to increase in billions of barrels per day from OPEC countries and other non-OPEC states. New reserves have been discovered- North Sea (Europe) and in Alaska (the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)).

The Bush-Cheney National Energy Policy makes for very interesting reading. The American quest for oil is the sole motivating factor for its troops being in the Middle East. The greatest fear of the U.S. government is being cut off from its sources of oil. Oil security is a complex and real problem. I would be very interested in seeing how Bush's predecessor deals with this issue. What happens to U.S. investments in oil reserves when the troops are withdrawn from the Middle East (Iraq in particular)?

2 comments:

Susan Arthur said...

Hey Ije! How are you?
Am glad you are doing such interesting work. I'm working on a project for Brunswick on climate change, which is really exciting. Any interesting info you can share with me, it'd be great to read - just pass on to my e mail address!

So you must let us all know when you get back, it will be great to see you again!

Sues

Ijeoma Uche-Okeke said...

Hi Suse!!
What kind of materials do you need? I can send you some of the readings we've done. By the way, thank you for your post. It's been a while since I visited anyone's blog. I did go to all of them about two weeks ago. I have been so busy. I will be hanging out here for another year to work. Then I'll see how it goes after that.