As part of a joint event between Multnomah County's Green Team and Portland Peak Oil, the showing of End of Suburbia went particularly well. McMenamins estimated that we had 250+ people and the Q & A session afterward went well, though it is kinda hard to tell when you are half blind because the lights.

 I had to run out and take a photo of the Bagdad's promenade.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aYjwn7IqTlHQ&refer=exclusive

The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said would prevail by 2009 may be only a few months away.

Jeffrey Currie, a London-based commodity analyst at the world's biggest securities firm, says $95 crude is likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increases production, and declining inventories are raising the chances for $100 oil. Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets predicts $100 a barrel as soon as next year.

``We're only a headline of significance away from $100 oil,'' said John Kilduff, an analyst in the New York office of futures broker Man Financial Inc. ``The unrelenting pressure of increased demand has left the market a coiled spring.'' New disruptions of Nigerian or Iraqi supplies, or any military strike against Iran, might trigger the rise, Kilduff said in a July 20 interview.

I had planned on doing a detailed write up of my take on Shell's event but I decided to just cross-post Rowan's write up.  I would add that at the very end of the event I had a couple minute conversation with Mr. Hofmeister that started with wondering if he had heard of the Hirsch report. He had not and gave me his business card wanted for him to send him a copy.  

http://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2006/10/29/shells_portland.php 

I attended one of Shell's "National Dialogue on Energy Security" town halls on October 27th. This is part of a 91 city tour by Shell President John Hofmeister and a few staff to have "discussions" across the nation. Portland, Oregon is one of Shell's "markets" and was stop 14. It was interesting and informative, though not necessarily in the way Mr. Hofmeister intended.

There are currently three views of the resources links.

• A tabular view of Books and Videos
• A tabular view of Websites, reference pages & e-mail lists 
  
• A tabular view of Magazines & News Letters 
• A tabular view of Audio Files and Podcasts
  
• A tabular view of Slideshows & Presentations
  

Something I have been grappling with is about if I should sell my house or not.  Getting a bunch of cash out of the house would be nice, but given housing prices are so freaking insane I would be blowing all of the cash I would get out of my house and end up with either higher or much higher monthly mortgage payments.

Currently all signs point to me staying put for a while but I'm trying to proceed with options that I would need to do anyway.  Replace the front room window, fix the gutters, fix or rebuild the back porch and maybe replace the furnace.  I'm also having Mr. Sun Solar come out my house tomorrow to look at options for putting in photo-voltaic, solar hotwater and maybe a radiant floor heat system (see furnace).   Some of the changes I would fully expect to break even if I sold the house in the not too distant future, but I likely wouldn't break even with the photo-voltaic and possibly break even with the radiant floor heating system.

http://www.cwo.com/~bart/essays/z_s_urban.htm

When permaculture was developed in the early 1970s, it emphasized agriculture ("permanent agriculture") and the design of homesteads and small farms.

Thirty years later, conditions have changed. The most urgent environmental issues are what permaculturalist Tim Winton calls the "hydrocarbon twins": global warming and the end of cheap energy (Peak Oil) (1) . Since both conditions are caused by fossil fuels, the pressing problem is how to minimize their use. Re-examining transportation is key, since that sector is the biggest consumer of petroleum. According to the New York Times, the transportation sector "represents two-thirds of all oil demand in the United States and is solely accountable for the growth of the nation's oil thirst over the last three decades" (2).

This is the first draft of the outline for my part of wednesday night. It is likely to change based on comments from the community and the prep group.

Intro and context

• why is a peak oil group talking about gardening
  
  
• modern ag is about using soil to convert fossil fuels into food
• strip mining the soils
• brutal effects on ....
• extremely inefficient use of energy
  
  
• 
  

Getting Started

• banishing grass and weeds
  • smother them
    • lay down newspaper, cardboard or black plastic
    • wait at least one month
    • remove the covering or cover it with more soil
    • watch out for
      • thistle
      • morning glory
      • quack grass
  • dig them out
    • remove the grass, shaking the dirt off
    • bury the grass as you are digging up the beds
• creating the beds
  • beds should be no bigger than 4' across
  • raised beds drain better and beat up more quickly in the spring
  • methods of creating raised beds
    • double dig
    • sheet mulch
    • add soil from the pathways
    • purcase compose or planting mix
• preparing the soil
  • healthy soil
    • grows bigger, sturdier plants
    • protects plants from disease and pests
    • manages moisture better
  • to create healthy soil
    • add compost every year (2-6")
    • soil micro-organisms
      

Of course that isn't exactly what they said, but hang on to your hat because things just got a whole lot more interesting as China just announced that they were moving away from using US dollars and buying US government debt. As China and Japan own most of the US debt this could easily cause some massive economic problems.

China indicated on Thursday it could begin to diversify its rapidly growing foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar and government bonds – a potential shift with significant implications for global financial and commodity markets.

While the US does have a massive debt, the fact it is mostly stored in US dollars it makes much of the problem a lot more manageable. If the US debt is no longer going to be stored in dollars then the US government has much less control over the situation and more importantly at the whim of the

Here is a collection of pages for information on the Portland Neighborhood Associations.

World energy production from oil, 2003    148 quadrillion Btu*

Energy production from "new" renewable sources (excludes large hydro)    6 quadrillion Btu

Energy production from all renewables (includes large hydro)    33 quadrillion Btu

World annual average growth in wind generating capacity, 2000–2004    +28 percent

Annual average growth in solar photovoltaic generating capacity    +32 percent

Annual average growth in biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel) production    +18 percent

Annual average growth in oil production    +1.6 percent