Jan Lundberg, former oil industry analyst, predicts that a total collapse of industrial society will follow the current meltdown of the U.S. financial markets.

Original article published as Collapse of Wall Street precedes complete disintegration of system. About those "green jobs"... on 16 Sep 08 on Culture Change.

In spite of the fact that only on 11 July Mike Kelly Federal Labor Member for Eden-Monaro seemingly quashed speculation that the Government was preparing to privatise the Snowy Hydro scheme, two pages of the Snowy corporation's July newsletter was devoted to pushing the case for privatisation.

Labour MP Paul Flynn told the House of Commons the “immense” cost of cleaning up nuclear waste – which he said was £73 billion – was probably an underestimate. The bill would amount to £3,000 for every family in the country.

Society opened up a Pandora's box when it embraced using the fossil fuels to power industrialization. Now the bloated civilization has to live with a changing climate, a decimated environment and declining fuel.

Greek mythology has given us Pandora's box. Economics has released more tangible evils from the ecological box. That is the modern day reality equivalent of the ancient, but perceptive, myth.

Have a look as well at a submission to the so-called, "Senate Economics Committee Inquiry into the National Market Driven Energy Efficiency Target Bill 2007"
which actually addresses the real issues #6 at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/Committee/economics_ctte/energy_efficiency2007/submissions/sublist.htm

Many people look forward uncritically to a future not too different from the cartoon-world of the Jetsons, where people have mechanical maids, whiz around in airborne cars, and take space-cruises to asteroids and far off planets. Politics continue benignly and poverty has no place. Political rank is preserved in the form of cheerful paternal talking heads, but the slave and servile ranks have been transformed into machines which cannot feel pain or humiliation. A wealthy, not too intelligent middle-class has inherited this astro-playground and keeps order among itself by switching from child to parent in an artificial recreation of the family and original clan system.

Energy is often defined as ‘the ability to do work’ or ‘the ability to do something useful’. They are very misleading definitions that have contributed substantially to the dire situation that civilization is in today.

This book, by by Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon and John Mathews, the authors of "How to Kill A Country", is a damning expose of how the same Howard Government which cites 'Australia's national Interest" as an excuse to sabotage international efforts to act against the threat of global warming, has, in fact, betrayed those very same interests. Subjects covered include Energy, Rural Industries, Culture, Defence and Blood.

On top of the hazards of nuclear fission electricity generation, even more environmental threats are posed by mining of uranium, enrichment, reprocessing and disposal of nuclear wastes. A likely consequence of the expansion of uranium mining in Central Australia is that the Eastern seaboard stands to be exposed to clouds bearing poisonous radioactive uranium and other toxic metals blown from the mine tailings dumps (see David Bradbury's film "Blowin' in the wind" for a graphic illustration of this threat).

All too many 'discussions' on India and China have in the past have been dominated by innumerate economists with a Cargo Cult mind-set. All we had to do, they would have had us believe, was allow all of our manufacturing industry to be exported to China, export our non-renewable mineral resources and (unsustainably grown) rural produce as well and boundless wealth and prosperity was sure to flow back to us.

"Humans employ a huge range of transient operations they have installed that invariably involve using and abusing natural resources. Each of these operations provides something deemed of value to society during its lifetime. Each of these operations incurs an irrevocable, un-repayable ecological cost. We are irreversibly drawing down on the irreplaceable natural bounty."

I think, whilst Roger Bezdek's message, that we need to prepare well in advance for Peak Oil is a good one, I think we need to do so with a much greater sense of urgency. I am surprised that he dismissed the suggestion you put to him that we should cease forthwith the expansion of our road, bridge and airport infrastructure.

Toxic cloud of progress can be seen from space
A GREAT coal rush is under way across China on a scale not seen anywhere since the 19th century.

Its consequences have been detected half a world away in toxic clouds so big that they can seen from space, drifting across the Pacific to California laden with microscopic particles of chemicals that cause cancer and diseases of the heart and lung.

Please Critique:
(Headings have been put at top of the two columns now).
Here is the location of an Excel file which contains a rough calculation of the energy input for enriching uranium in a conventional power plant, using two different enrichment technologies, gas diffusion and gas centrifuge.
Data source was from Wikipedia, see Ref in the Excel fil.
Please feed back.

“At one time, the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) for oil was at least 100 to 1. We are reaching the point where the EROI of oil will be 1 and no more drilling will take place. It was while the EROI of oil was high that most of our current infrastructure was built.

“Evidence suggests that the EROI of corn ethanol is less than one, which means it takes more energy to make than you get out of it – an energy sink.”

I think even the most ardent advocates of Thorium would have to grant that Thorium is neither clean or safe. It is only comparatively so when talking of other nuclear fuels. I bet that these groupies of the nuclear industry would not let their kids near Thorium waste for 500 years.

I understand that its reputation as 'clean' derives partly from the fact that a Thorium reactor can use waste from conventional reactors and its advocates say that it can thus be used to convert waste which will be lethal for thousands of years into stuff that is only deadly for 500 years. It is seen as a 'cleaner' technology rather than a 'clean' one. And it is seen as a clean-up technology rather than a 'clean' one. It probably will be a serious consideration for the nuclear club when that party sees an end to cheap Uranium and the increasing cost of Uranium wastes. Could we call that Peak Uranium? At that time look for full development of this partly developed Thorium technology.