on Discovery Channel

aired this weekend: Addicted To Oil: Thomas L. Friedman Reporting
Mr. Friedman points out that cars use up most of the oil we import. He emphasizes foreign oil dependency as the immediate problem, as it fosters tyrannies, especially those who would do us harm.

He interviews Amory Lovins, who argues that further efficiencies can help us wean ourselves from dependency, while ethanol from switchgrass can do the rest. Another person argues that wind energy can provide us with one-half of the electricity we use. These arguments are highly questionable.

See also Thomas Friedman on Charlie Rose and the Year earlier discussion with Thomas Friedman on subject


coming up July 16 on the Discovery Channel:
Global Warming: What You Need to Know, with Tom Brokaw

More doomsaying

Under the title, Fly Now - Stay Later, the quarterly glossy magazine 111, printed in Palm Springs, California, includes this reprinted interview with 'doomsaying' author James Howard Kunstler. See an excerpt from his book, The Long Emergency.
Also from that Environment Advocacy Ezine, Grist, is an article on biofuels, The Scheme of the Crop.

Running Out, a Myth?

from John Stossel's web page:

MYTH: We are running out of oil
TRUTH: Not so fast!
"It's going to be a catastrophe!"
When they're not complaining about the price of gas, doomsayers would have us believe that we are burning oil at an "unsustainable" rate.

How can anyone honestly argue otherwise? In this video interview with Peter Huber, co-author of The Bottomless Well, Mr. Stossel asks the right questions such as: Isn't oil finite? Somehow, the answers are unconvincing.

Mr. Stossel goes on to argue:

If the price of a barrel of oil stays high, lots of entrepreneurs will scramble for ways to supply cheaper energy. They'll come up with alternative energy sources or better ways to suck oil out of the ground. At fifty dollars a barrel, it's even profitable to recover oil that's stuck in the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Peter Huber and Mark Mills point out in their book The Bottomless Well that those tar sands alone contain enough oil to meet our needs for a hundred years.

But the media don't pay much attention to that. Not running out of oil is not a very interesting story.

As usual, everyone gets sidetracked by the present (cheap fuel) dollar cost to extract oil, but doesn't figure the actual energy cost to capture further energy, whether tar sands, ethanol or solar.

In another 20/20 piece, Mr. Stossel counts down to two more of his myths related to oil:
MYTH #2-- Urban Sprawl Is Ruining America and
MYTH #1-- Sharing Would Make the World a Better Place.
In that last, he alludes to The Tragedy of the Commons. See my blog entry on this.

Here's how one reviewer characterizes Mr. Stossel's Myths book:

From Publishers Weekly
ABC News correspondent Stossel mines his 20/20 segments for often engaging, frequently tendentious challenges to conventional wisdom, presenting a series of "myths" and then deploying an investigative journalism shovel to unearth "truth." This results in snappy debunkings of alarmism, ...The author's complacent glosses on overpopulation and global warming ("we can build dykes and move back from the coasts") are especially glib and one-sided.

ethanol, the panacea?

on a TV near you
NBC: Dateline NBC but see this MSNBC piece .
CBS 60 minutes but see other CBS piece
ABC: World News Tonight and this
CNN: Presents segment on ethanol in We Were Warned (for more info)

But see the Wikipedia piece on fuel ethanol, and its external links, such as the 2004 scholarly article by Tad Patzek and Pimentel's research. Patzek writes:

In this paper, I will describe in some detail the unfavorable thermodynamics of the industrial production of ethanol from one particular food crop, corn. I will use the Second Law of thermodynamics to track what is happening to us as mere years pass, and the precious resources the sun and the earth have been making and storing for millions of years are being squandered in front of our eyes.

The focus of Patzek's article is corn, but he does briefly compare the net energy of corn to switchgrasses and sugarcane. For more on sugarcane, see this other Wikipedia article.

As heard on NPR

Today, Morning Edition presented a piece with Matthew Simmons* and Daniel Yergin, pessimist vs. optimist. On listening to it, who do you think is the realist? This piece is part of NPR's series, The Future of Fuel.

See the earlier series on Boston NPR, pre State of the Union 2006, Addicted to Oil. Thomas L. Friedman is featured in the first of the 4 shows. He mentions a project with Discovery Channel. [His film premiered at Silverdocs Film Festival and broadcast on Discovery Channel on June 24, 2006.]

*Simmons who was featured on CNN Presents, We Were Warned, suggests here that global oil consumption is analogous to a car running out of gas.

drip drip drip

by Christo Komarnitski, Sofia, Bulgaria
Cartoons from the Bulgarian newspaper "Sega" -- Visit Christo's site
as seen on Cagle's Cartoons

Mainlining

In her Newsweek column this week, The Price of Our Addiction, Jane Bryant Quinn speaks bluntly about the downslope (of peak oil). The column begins:

For years to come, we'll be paying for our oil in both treasure and blood, as we fight and parley to keep ever-tighter supplies flowing our way.
The U.S. lives in an energy trap. We fell into it gladly, dug it deeper and sit fat and happy, with blinders on. We're fed daily meals of imported oil, from countries we pay in IOUs and think we can push around.

and concludes:

Unfortunately, we're investing in war, not in crash projects to develop new energy sources. Maybe there's time to spare. But some events, like true civil war and collapse in Iraq, could change everything in a day. We're running a faith-based energy policy—still addicted to oil. If something goes wrong, it will go wrong big.

This comes from a writer known for her careful and sober counsel. See also her later piece, What We Need Is Policy.

CBS News continues to ask the hard questions about ethanol . CNN reprises its Frank Sesno report, We Were Warned.

Brazil and ethanol

N.Y. Times article (reg. req'd) With Big Boost From Sugar Cane, Brazil Is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs includes the perhaps self-serving:

For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created, compared with a maximum of 1.3 times for corn, according to scientists at the Center for Sugarcane Technology here and other Brazilian research institutes.

As I stated before regarding another article, the N.Y. Times claims that Brazil is oil-independent because of its development of ethanol; that begs the question of how much energy was needed to produce the ethanol and other concerns. Further as another article points out:

Gasoline with or without MTBE can be shipped in large quantities through an extensive network of pipelines. But ethanol, which tends to corrode pipelines, must be transported on trucks, trains and barges in relatively small batches to storage terminals where it is then blended with gasoline.

The oil is going, the oil is going!

That's the apropos title for this Salon article on peak oil.

The author, Katharine Mieszkowski, is thorough in her assessment with dozens of links to the Peak Oil canon. She tries to end the piece optimistically, but it sounds like delusion in place of denial.

I have two pet peeves with politicians (or even pundits) mouthing off about energy, as in this article. One is the use of the word 'spike', suggesting a temporary rise in real energy prices. The other is the reference to a dependence on 'foreign' oil; it's oil, period.

Another question that warrants investigation is: how do Peak Oil alarmists (of whom admittedly I'm one) view the Global Warming alarmists? I would say scoffingly. Though related as I've pointed out before, the one threat is much greater than the other.

On the subject of global warming, C-span's BookTV presented a panel of authors on the subject from the March 25-26 Virginia Festival of the Book, including:

Tim Flannery, "The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth"

Elizabeth Kolbert, "Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change"

William Ruddiman, "Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate"

At the end of the Q&A, a lady asked how would peak oil (and depletion) affect global warming. The answer was to the point, but cut short. Hello? Can't you see that Sword of Damocles?

CNN wonders

The preview asks: What if our addiction to oil becomes a world wide crisis? It could happen. A chilling all new CNN Presents: We Were Warned: Tommorrow's Oil Crisis. The program looks at:
Interviews with James Wolsey and Matthew Simmons
World oil consumption, including that of China
Gulf of Mexico production
Alberta tar sands
Ethanol, especially that made in Brazil
Interview with GM VP on American car production

In his interview. Matthew Simmons is asked 'what is the worst case scenario?' His answer: 'You don't want to go there', but when pressed, goes on to suggest a series of energy wars between neighbors, cities, states, etc.

On the web page, one video link titled 'Long War of the 24th century' contains a (not so slight) misprint; that should read '21st century'.
Note: archived videos on CNN require subscription. The whole hour-long program does not appear to be available yet from CNN.

G.W. take 6

From his 2006 State of the Union address

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly 10 billion dollars to develop cleaner, cheaper, more reliable alternative energy sources – and we are on the threshold of incredible advances. So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative – a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy.

We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years. Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment … move beyond a petroleum-based economy … and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.

and

America needs more than a temporary expansion

and

I propose to double the Federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next ten years. This funding will support the work of America’s most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as ..., ... and alternative energy sources.

Be assured (the cornucopia) or beware the precipice (Cassandra)? President Bush, in a followup, takes to the road.

John Dickerson of Slate writes:

Bush put his case in a very Bushian way, presenting it as a pain-free alternative to the awful status quo. Only the corn stalk will suffer as we remake a huge sector of the economy and convert to clean, politically innocent fuel sources. None of us have to trade in our SUV's, drive less, or turn down the thermostat. The president says that in six years cars using the new ethanol will be competitive with gas-burning ones. By 2025, he pledges, America can reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil by 75 percent. His aides argue that technology makes this all possible. It sounds too good to be true, and almost certainly is.

The New York Times editorializes:

Last night's remarks were woefully insufficient. The country's future economic and national security will depend on whether Americans can control their enormous appetite for fossil fuels. This is not a matter to be lumped in a laundry list of other initiatives during a once-a-year speech to Congress. It is the key to everything else.

The Times claims that Brazil is oil-independent because of its development of ethanol; that claim begs the question of how much energy was needed to produce that ethanol and other concerns. Further, the Times worries about global warming. This is a distraction from the main point. What happens when our economic security is compromised? Will people die? How and how many?

The New Republic looks at (subscription req'd) the administration's position on Peak Oil:

In its analysis of Bush's State of the Union adress, Deutsche Bank's North American branch reaches a similar conclusion. Bush, the analysis says, "should talk about making a dependence on oil, as opposed to Middle Eastern oil, a thing of the past. ... We should lessen our demand and conserve what is left. By inference that will reduce dependence on the Middle East. There is one simple way of doing this, and that is to raise gasoline taxes in the U.S."

But it is very doubtful that the Bush administration will do what the energy experts and bankers advise. The political costs are too great.

Charlie Rose on PBS interviewed the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. (transcript). The first 20 minutes of the one hour program has to do with oil addiction. Prince Turki Al-Faisal believes that the market will 'of course' take care of things once the oil starts running out. For more from the camel's mouth (no offense intended), here's an interview with 'the Greenspan of energy', Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi.

Since cartoons are on everyone's mind these days and for a lighter side to crude, see this.

Oil sands salvation

There's a lot of oil in that there taiga. But it's hard to get out.

Regarding yesterday's CBS 60 minutes piece on the The Oil Sands Of Alberta see the following analysis: Tar baby: Oil sands and peak oil.

connecting the dots

In an editorial, the NY Times looked at our vulnerability to natural gas embargos and nuclear proliferation, concluding:

Clearly, becoming less dependent on foreign sources should be among the West's - and most especially America's - most urgent priorities. But not in the way that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney seem to prefer, which is to try to drill our way out of dependency - an utterly impossible task for a country that uses one-fourth of the world's oil while possessing only 3 percent of its reserves, and whose once-abundant supplies of natural gas are now severely stressed. A much better answer would be a national commitment to more efficient vehicles and to the rapid deployment of new energy sources like biofuels.

So the solution somehow lies in efficiency and in biofuels. Why doesn't the paper of record further investigate that supposed solution? The questions are very simple.

1. With finite supplies of fossil fuels (the earth is round, Mr. Friedman), how much time does efficiency buy us before we seriously feel the inevitable oil shortages?
2. Can we produce enough biofuel to replace oil? As we've seen before, there are major problems with biofuels as a solution. It took hundreds of thousands of years to transform solar energy into fossil fuels through geologic processes. Do we really expect to compress that into a real time replacement of our fossil fuel consumption? As John Mac used to say, Get Serious.

This week there was an explosion in a coal mine in West Virginia costing the lives of 12 hard-working men. Did anyone tie that to our dependence on fossil fuels?

to a watchdog

The PBS series, NOW with David Brancaccio, aired a piece on global warming this week; in it, one climatologist, Dr. Alley, says:

It’s not the end of humanity; it's not the end of civilization.

My feedback to NOW:

There are some of us who believe that oil depletion could quickly lead to the end of humanity and the end of civilization. Please go beyond your look at influence-peddling by the oil industry to the subject of Peak Oil. One person who has been trying to get the public's attention on this is Congressman Barlett (R-Maryland): http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/531 .

One compelling analysis is the too-real Olduvai Theory by Richard Duncan.

For a view from abroad, see this BBC piece, a Crisis for Humanity?

poor oil companies

One Vijay Vaitheeswaran speaks to public radio's Marketplace about ExxonMobil. He asserts that ExxonMobil has 3 problems:

1. resource replacement
2. unfriendly governments
3. climate warming

Regarding the first, there's a lack of recognition that it's a global problem affecting producer and consumer (i.e. everyone) alike. Vijay is the author of:Power to the People : How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet. If the book is serious, the title obviously is not.

Here's an in-depth Bloomberg piece about the current state of the oil industry. It begins with an example of how difficult oil production has become and includes:

ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva says his company is spending as much as it can on searching for oil and developing new wells. Mulva, 58, says investment is being constrained after 147 years of exploration as companies struggle to find deposits large enough to produce sufficient profits. In the past four years, the average discovery outside of North America was the equivalent of 38.6 million barrels. That's less than half the amount of oil burned every day around the world and the lowest average for a four-year period since 1901, Chew says.

All the signs point to a depleted finite resource, yet again and again the analysts presume that if only the oil companies would invest more in exploration and production, there would be enough supply to meet demand.

There are two ways to get new reserves,'' says Robert Kaufmann, director of graduate studies at Boston University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. ``Go out and drill for them or buy someone else's. They are increasingly doing the latter, and the problem with that approach is it doesn't add any new barrels of oil. It's just a reshuffling of the cards in the deck.

What do they say about shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic?

I see the scenario playing out over and over:

1. oil gets scarcer
2. market prices rise to reduce demand (government controls are anathema)
   
3. oil companies and traders make tons of money
4. consumers fume
5. Congress hems and haws (raising taxes is anathema)
   

But somehow I doubt that we'll call a spade a spade. Introspection is not our strong suit.

The people who explore for and produce the oil we consume deserve our appreciation for their talent and effort; they have been doing our bidding after all.

a tale of two Drakes

Great as Sir Francis was to have circumnavigated the earth and defended England against the Spanish Armada, he is not one of the Drakes of whom I speak.

First is Edwin Drake, the "crazy man" whose determination founded the oil industry.

Then there's Frank Drake who devised the Drake equation 'in the 1960s in an attempt to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy with which we might come in contact.' The conditions for a temperate world conducive to life are rare. One recently recognized condition that has come to light of late is the fortuitous presence of our moon. But of greatest concern to us is the last factor in his equation, L, which is the expected lifetime of intelligent communicative civilization. Drake himself conservatively estimated L as 10 years, a minimum. We can today safely raise that value to around 50 years. Carl Sagan in the 12th episode of his TV series Cosmos, Encyclopedia Gallactica, speculates that we have only a 1 in 100 chance of surviving past 100 years. Sagan's main fear was of nuclear war, but he lists the other dangers, such as resource depletion.

Human-like life is very rare in the Universe; let us not waste it.  I think a fitting analogy for our place in the Universe, taken from Buddhist scripture, is that of a blind turtle surfacing on the ocean once every one hundred years and poking its head through a floating ring!

Here's a site that predicts the worst and soon, even as evidenced in its name, Dieoff.

Syriana

Syriana opened December 9, after private screenings with the director in Washington D.C. Some in the audience walked out during those early screenings; one wonders why. And one wonders: is this how the oil business and government intrigue work? For example, here's part of a quote that might have struck close to home:

Corruption. Corruption is our protection, corruption keeps us safe and warm, corruption is why we win.

Another quote has an energy analyst in the film preaching to the Emir's son:

You want to know what the business world thinks of you? We think a hundred years ago you were living out here in tents in the desert chopping each others head's off, and that's exactly where you're gonna be in another hundred. So yes, on behalf of my firm, I accept your money.

This is a perversion of an extant Arab saying about camels before and camels after (the age of oil). But furthermore, this condescending statement reflects a lack of understanding on the part of the writers about our own fate as separate from that of the oil producers. Even the enlightened Oxford-educated son can only look at the short term future.

For an example of them is us, look at this project in one the more progressive Gulf Emirates.

Syriana is rightfully being talked about in various circles, including critics and politicos. Here are two conservative views. One says:

Syriana makes no attempt to grapple with the distressing fact that every time we fill our cars we fund those plotting to murder us.

He somewhat misses the point. It's not that others are trying to kill us; it's more like we're killing ouselves through our indulgence and dependence. Another critic says about the film:

[There's] no hint that petroleum fuels civilization.

I dispute that; there is a very small hint. The critic also writes:

And who are the really greedy? Do the simple arithmetic of pumping petroleum in the desert: After expenses of typically under $5 a barrel, rigged cartels in the Middle East -- run by Iranian mullahs, Persian Gulf royals or Libyan autocrats -- sell it on the world market for between $50 to $60.

First, it's their oil, unfortunately. Second, is it really that cheap to produce? What happens when it starts to run out? Third, should they (whomever) keep the price low, so that we use it up all the faster?

See also James Howard Kunstler's crtiique.

Does this sound credible?

MSNBC reports on a preliminary EIA report.

The analysis reflected a sharp change from the department's projections a year ago when it predicted oil prices in constant dollars _ not counting normal inflation _ would decline to $31 a barrel by 2025.

The report, issued Monday by the department's Energy Information Administration, now projects oil will cost an average $54 a barrel in 2025 and $57 a barrel in 2030 before inflation. Currently, crude oil prices have been hovering around $60 a barrel, briefly soaring as high as $70 earlier this year.

and

In the reference case—one of several cases included in AEO2006—the average world crude oil price continues to rise through 2006 and then declines to $46.90 per barrel in 2014 (2004 dollars) as new supplies enter the market. It then rises slowly to $54.08 per barrel in 2025.

and

In the AEO2006 reference case, world petroleum demand is projected to increase from about 82 million barrels per day in 2004 to 111 million barrels per day in 2025. The additional demand is expected to be met by increased oil production from both OPEC and non-OPEC nations.

What's changed in one year? Does EIA think its reference case is the most likely? Where will the additional supply come from exactly to satisfy continued current levels of use nevermind the projected future ones? What alternate cases will be discussed later, presumably in February? What kind of worst case scenario and what assumptions? See also Where on the Risk Continuum?

Republican Representative Roscoe Bartlett gave a one-hour special order speech on the floor of the House in which at one point he rejected the EIA numbers. Truly, it's laughable if it weren't so sad.

clear as bull pucky

Here's a transcript of a recent BP tv commercial.

bp: What would you ask an oil company?
2w (2 women in front of a flower shop): Do you think that oil will never run out, or is it a resource that will be depleted? What's next? What will our kids be driving then?
bp: BP is the biggest investor in new U.S. energy development. We're investing $15 billion over a decade to find and produce new energy supplies in the Gulf of Mexico. It's a start.

At least the 2 women got the question right. Further questions: how much is there left to be found in the Gulf? Would it make a dent in our consumption, even if instantly available? If it's just a start, what then? Why the ads, to soften current and future windfall profits?


On BP's web site and another more recent tv ad, BP focuses on reducing carbon dioxide emissions through alternative energy. Like the recent Montreal climate conference, this is a distraction to the much more pressing problem of oil depletion.

This is how bp defines sustainability:

Sustainability for BP means the capacity to endure as a group, by renewing assets, creating and delivering better products and services that meet the evolving needs of society, delivering returns to our shareholders, attracting successive generations of employees, contributing to a flourishing environment and retaining the trust and support of our customers and the communities in which we operate. Sustainability, therefore, is a journey. We are committed to being open and transparent in our dealings with the outside world as we move in this direction.

But oil is finite and non-renewable, keenly so given our rate of extraction. What then is 'beyond petroleum'?

Here is Caltech physicist David Goodstein's concise analysis of the problem. At a 2004 conference, here's what Prof. Goodstein had to say:

We have created a trap for ourselves.
The United States has so far avoided serious consequences from the trap by relying on imports. The country uses about 7 billion of the 30 billion barrels of oil produced annually around the globe. And it makes us rich. Oil consumption equals standard of living,

A fellow physicist and former Caltech provost Steve Koonin, took a leave of absence from Caltech to become chief scientist at BP, for what that's worth.

local efforts

where I live

First, a hydrogen bus

It [the plant] produces hydrogen by reforming natural gas and converting solar and wind energy through electrolysis.

Then, an agreement between a California desert city and California utilities doing their part by sending their esteemed officials to the Baltic in August, when back home the temperatures got to 120 DegF.

August 2005: Palm Desert Mayor Buford Crites and City Councilman Jim Ferguson meet with representatives from Southern California Edison and the Southern California Gas Co. in Tallinin, Estonia. Along with John Phillips of the Energy Coalition and Mike Peavy, chairman of the California Public Utilities Commission, they write and sign an agreement - called the Estonia Protocol - to cut the city's energy use by 30 percent.

Of course, it takes time to come up with measures such as this, perhaps a decade, and the authors went to places like Sweden, Aspen, San Francisco, Italy and Estonia. The city plan refers to the 30% thusly:

While considered by many to be "stretch goals', we are firm in our commitment to demonstrate something really meaningful.

The big boys have their Uppsala , Rimini and other Oil Depletion Protocols. We have our own.

As a followup on this plan, here's one development that's supposed to come under its rubrick. The building industry balks at any extra expense:

But Ed Kibbey, executive director of the Building Industry Association's Desert Chapter, said the city has no proof that the extra costs of its new standards will be balanced by long-term savings.

Developers comply, he said, because "their concern is with time, 'cause time costs money. They've got a market that is good, and they want to get their sticks in the air to sell them."

Conlon [director of the city's new Office of Energy Management] replied that the new standards are only interim proposals and will not be written into an ordinance until the city completes a cost-effectiveness study, which will have to pass muster with the California Public Utilities Commission.

A followup piece describes a retrofitted energy-efficient house with an air conditioning system that is supposed to cut

energy use from the 7,000 watts most air conditioners run on to about 300 watts, about the same as three light bulbs, said Virginia Nicols, communications manager for the Energy Coalition.

The quote is mostly likely incomplete, since the calculation leaves out the energy used to create ice (energy storage) at night. For California homes, energy rates are not cheaper at night. Such an incentive could help, but energy demand would still be great.

8/25/06 Update: per Desert Sun followup , Buford Crites states it's:

stuck in the deep sand of the California regulatory labyrinth.

and regarding the 'thermal-storage air conditioning system, which makes ice at night to cool their house by day':

The couple's electric bills zoomed. May's bill was $205, compared to $66.73 last year, said Dennis Hanks. And the couple's June and July bills showed similar increases. The problem, Hanks said, is that the system, made by Ice Energy of Colorado, runs all night, outweighing any daytime savings. "We don't know what to expect; it's a prototype," Hanks said of the system.'

Update (06-12-01): Palm Desert set to approve plan.

And a bit farther afield, here's a piece about electricity demand in the American West. Note the reference to the Tragedy of the Commons.

An update: California Connected on PBS tv presents one energy researcher, Peter Lehman.