BBC News: Cement makers come clean 

Cement is one of our oldest building materials - it was already known and used by the Romans. By cement releases a lot of heat and CO2 while hardening. Cement makers hope to reduce the emissions and create a greener cement.

Excellent!

The idea of ‘Peak Oil‘ is pretty simple: there is a limited amount of oil in the ground and there will be the day when we will see a decline in production (sucking it out). Have we already reached that point? The Guardian thinks so.

Almost all big countries have been lying about their reserves - and we can’t be sure how many big fields are still undiscovered (but it can’t be that many and none as big as those in Saudi Arabia).

But there is also another factor: once an oilfield is seriously depleted it will yield less and less black gold. The pressure drops and therefore production. Pumping salt water down helps a bit.

So we already reached a point where production is less than demand. So no surprise prices are up and up and up. At the moment we are at $80 a barrel - but a $100 or more is pretty realistic in the near future. Especially if President Shrub bombs Iran.

Who killed the electric car? Please go and visit the website of this upcoming documentation. What an amazing site and what a chilling insight into the workings of car manufacturers and oil magnates. The go and buy a big gun and shot the bastards!

Make also sure to watch the trailer first to get into the story.

Although we have used wind for a long time, I don’t think it will play a huge role in our future. Windfarms are hard to build and work only in certain areas. Solar collectors are much easier to install and work even in less sunny areas.

Energy efficient light bulbs have been around for many years now. Have you replaced all of the old energy wasting bulbs in your home?

It hardly will get any cheaper and our reserves will become less and less …  so let’s use oil for heating and driving sports cars, fight more wars for it …  makes perfect sense …

I love geeky products, especially when they are somewhat green.

From Thinkgeek.com:

Captured inside the Sun Jar are a highly efficient solar cell, a rechargeable battery and low energy LED lamps. When the jar is placed in direct sunlight the solar cell creates an electrical current that charges the battery over a few hours. This energy is then used at night to power the three LED lamps inside the jar.

The light is diffused by the frosted jar and give the appearance of sunlight emitting from the (warm colored LED lights are used to give a more natural and warm light).  You may have noticed that there is no switch on the Sun Jar - in fact there are no visible controls at all - but there is a clever light sensor inside that automatically activates the LEDs when it gets dark or the lights are turned out! (There is an override switch inside the lid to turn off the light at night and conserve battery life.)

More products should be like that: self sustaining and energy efficient.

BBC Video about rising food prices in China.

The production of bio fuels is driving up prices for food - as well as the growing demand of the awakening giants India and China. There are two billion stomachs to fill and they no longer just eat a bowl of rice.

One aspect of global climate change and peak oil has been hardly discussed in public: food supply.

We highly depend on oil for food production, fertilizer and obviously distribution. We continuously kill huge amounts of livestock, because of diseases like the birdflu, but also more and more farmland is unusable, because of climate change or environmental problems (I am looking at you China).

Africa, who could produce loads of food, is shut out of most markets, because of protectionism in the US and EU.

So expect ever higher prices for food for the coming winter.

Although I am not a huge fan of atomic power I think it is a midterm alternative for us.

Uranium like oil is a natural and limited resource. According to Wikipedia the supply should last about 85 years. That is not very long.

Thanks for the image RichM.

Another sad testimony for the military industrial complex: wasting oil to conquer another country for oil. Unsustainable imperialistic fantasies.