Welcome!

Here’s a snapshot of oil prices on the global market. Brent crude is the oil market that Australia is tied to, so from this you can see trends in prices that are affecting us over time.

The chart speaks for itself. Note that by clicking on the four options below the chart you can see how oil prices are changing over different periods time frames. The spike in 2008 coincides with the global financial meltdown and this is followed by an inexorable growth in price.

An impending global crisis?
What are the issues and opportunities for Tasmania?

How can we prepare and respond to ensure we ‘keep the lights on’ both metaphorically and physically?

An explanation of why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it.

An impending global crisis?
What are the issues and opportunities for Tasmania?

How can we prepare and respond to ensure we ‘keep the lights on’ both metaphorically and physically?

An explanation of why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it.

Our Peak Oil forum in July attracted much interest, especially from people interested how peak oil relates to local government and local communities.

This video clip gives an excellent overview of Peak Oil, it’s consequences and government and community responses – with a particular focus on Tasmania.

(Delivered by Todd Houstein at the forum.)

How can your local council respond to peak oil in the best possible way?

Some councils are large and well resourced. Others less so. Some may have already taken steps to address the issue. Most have not done so yet. Some will be much more impacted by peak oil than will others.

In short, no one-way-fits-all.

The decline of global oil production will radically change the way our societies are run: our transport systems, how we produce food, where we work and live.

Here’s a basic checklist for anybody who wishes to influence local government as to the multiple ways that councils are able to respond to the Peak Oil issue.

This forum was a follow-up to a successful public forum held in 2010. Since then it has become evident that the most responsive arm of government to pressing oil depletion issues has been local government, which has close links with affected communities and businesses.

To receive a summary of proceedings, please email info@peakoiltas.org.

Announcing this $250,000 study in 2010, Minister McKim said that it is vital Tasmania prepares for when the supply and price of oil are less certain than they are today. However, the study, now well underway, has been renamed the “Tasmanian Oil Price Vulnerability Study”. It seems very likely that the study will consider only the price of oil, not its availability.

Trying to maintain a society that is dependent on huge and growing volumes of cheap energy is an utterly futile challenge. Our society’s energy thirst can’t be satiated, not from any combination of known energy sources.

Seen from this perspective, our national obsession with energy supply choices (wind, versus nuclear, versus geothermal, etc) can be seen to be unhealthy, divisive and misdirected.

Our responses to both climate change and peak oil need to 1) be multi-facetted and 2) started right now whilst there is time to make an orderly transition. Here is a summary of the 10 steps that are considered to be vital. The main thing to remember is that adjusting and adapting can be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling journeys you could undertake. Enjoy the adventure!

Any strident advocacy of electric vehicles feeds our society’s lust to maintain at all costs our patterns of unsustainable living. Every step along the way, the electrification debate needs to be placed into the much more important context of making our cities and communities less car dependent. Lose sight of the larger context, then we lose the sustainability argument and unintentionally end up feeding the other side of the debate instead.

The table below illustrates a very important principle – there is no free lunch in energy supply. Whereas each of us has our own preferences about different energy sources, each energy source has its peculiar set of problems. Some may cause less environmental harm or harm to humans, but even these ‘softer’ technologies can cause [...]