Environmental fiction list

I found a link, and then lost it.  I hate when that happens.

Some time ago, I found a list of environmental fiction (running to 2007) that had some different titles than the usual.  Not a list of apocalyptic fiction exactly, but a close cousin.

Environmental Novels: An Annotated Bibliography
Lauren Bordson, WMRC Library Intern and Laura L. Barnes, WMRC Librarian

The Christmas ghost of fracking past, present, and future

Peak Oil was generally supposed to mean ever escalating prices as the demand for oil pushed oil/gas/energy exploration further into the sphere of the remote and exotic: aka nuclear power plants to steam the water to melt the tar sands sufficiently to get them to poor.

The current Chinese bubble popping asset collapse has made for an interesting example of reality conflicting with expectations.  Trying to hold both ideas at the same time gets you into cognitive dissonance territory. Holding onto two incompatible beliefs at one time.

So why the fracking boom, and the cheap gas if we are going into peak oil.

Junk-Rated Oil & Gas Companies in a “Liquidity Death Spiral”

Wolf Richter, Wolf Street, 15 March 2015

The boom in US oil production will continue “to defy expectations” and wreak havoc on the price of oil until the power behind the boom dries up: money borrowed from yield-chasing investors driven to near insanity by the Fed’s interest rate repression. But that money isn’t drying up yet – except at the margins.

Companies have raked in 14% more money from high-grade bond sales so far this year than over the same period in 2014, according to LCD. And in 2014 at this time, they were 27% ahead of the same period in 2013. You get the idea. 

So the lesson would be: "In the short run financial bubbles trump the normative pricing mechanisms of supply and demand."  And holding interest rates at zero percent will go a long way toward inducing a leveraged buying boom: the leverage (borrowing) is needed to make up for the insanely low rates of return. A $1 return on a $100 investment might be worth it if you only have to put $1 of your own money down and borrow the rest.  Of course if your $100 investment's value collapses to $50 before you can get sell out, Whoops! You now just lost 50x (rather than 1/2) your capital investment. So when leveraged investments get ugly, they get real ugly.  And they are getting ugly:

Oil Re-Bloodies the “Smart Money”

Wolf Richter, Wolf Street, 4 August 2015 (hat tip: NC)

Oil plunged again on Monday, with West Texas Intermediate down over 4%. At $45.17 a barrel, it’s just a hair away from this year’s oil-bust low. During 8 weeks in a row of relentless declines, WTI had plunged 26%. July’s 21% drop was the largest monthly decline since the Financial Crisis collapse in 2008.

The idea that Iran's oil production will be legit on the global market, isn't helping.  But Mr. Richter goes on to tell a story of various investment folks throwing good money after bad.  Not really seeing the scale of the Chinese collapse for what it is, they were banking on a return to the previous pricing levels. There doubling-down on their bets kept the money flooding into the supply side of the market. So far that plan hasn't looked so good.

So what does this really mean visa vi "Peak Oil."  It means that a bunch of people have blown a lot of money, and that in the process they have developed a bunch of techniques that should not have been economically feasible at current "normative" demands for oil.  For folks sitting on the sidelines, this is not always a bad deal. It's how fiber optic networks, the airlines, and railroads all were able to expand as rapidly as they did.  The problem is that catastrophic investment collapses (bubbles popping) tend to be highly deflationary.  Market transactions become unprofitable to those holding the assets, so they tend to hold onto them as long as possible.  If it all gets cleared out, eventually normal economic activity starts at a lower, more realistic level.  It's why holding cash during a collapse has often worked very well.  Your cash is now worth more.

So the real question is: If we are going to have to pay a more realistic proportion of our wealth toward energy consumption, what level does all of this "reset" at?

Greece - Coal - Global Warming

Greece, is going apparently going ahead with building a new coal-fueled power plant.  This post is somewhat dubious of the idea:

Will Greece ignore the economic omens and go for new coal?

Crises-Watch, 2 August 2015 (hat tip: NC)

In the current dismal economic setting, the construction of the new lignite power plant by Greece's Public Power Corporation constitutes a completely irrational move: the public energy utility will need to disburse 400 million euros for a project that has been proven to be economically non-viable. By insisting stubbornly on the construction of Ptolemaida V, the PPC threatens to entrap Greece in an outdated energy model, at a time when technological progress renders clean energy a cost-competitive basis for the reconstruction of the country’s production model.

The link about Greek Coal burning power plant does ignore one very important point.  Greece has indigenous sources of goal, but has to import oil, gas, and presumably the "alternative" sources the post champions. 

Eurocoal - Greece

Accounting in 2012 for over 30 % of the country’s total primary energy supply of 37.1 Mtce, lignite is Greece’s most important indigenous energy resource, although the country does have modest oil and gas reserves. Oil accounted for approximately 45 % of the country’s primary energy supply and Greece has a large refining industry which exports oil products. Consumption of imported natural gas increased significantly until the global economic crisis hit in 2008; gas had a 15 % share in 2012. At 0.4 Mtce, hard coal imports accounted for 1.2 % of total primary energy supply in 2012. Security of supply, low extraction costs and stable prices are important reasons why lignite will maintain a strong position in the energy market. 

Not saying that makes it smart, but it presumably goes a long way toward improving their balance of payments.  If they go the route of the economic pariah, they could go all-in like the Germans did prior to WW2 and liquefy coal to make  "synthetic" fuel.

This situation exemplifies one key problem with the idea that we are going to curtail our use of carbon-based fuels.  Curtailment is for the wealthy, or possibly, if we want to pat ourselves on the back, the prepared.  But having closely read international news (mostly through the pink sheet hard copy, Financial Times) for a number of years, I can assure you, if you think the politicians of the United States are stupendously inept, you can make yourself feel a little bit better about it by a close reading of the local politics of the rest of the world.  Every last bit of economically viable carbon-based fuel is going to get burned eventually.

Shooting down drones

A Kentucky man shot down a drone with a video camera that was hovering in his back yard.  He was arrested.  There is an interesting discussion into the legalities of the issue here:  Shooting Down Drones. It is well worth the read.

I might add that in a lot of areas it would matter a lot where you are at.  In almost every municipality in North Carolina, it is illegal to discharge firearms within town limits.  The argument would have to be that the drone "threatened" the home owner, but that is a little hard to argue if it is just hovering.  Yves at Naked Capitalism I think was onto one method: "they need a magnetic pulse to fry these buggers."