The recent ASPO/SEAI event, which was headlined by a presentation from the IMF on Chapter 3 of their April 2011 WEO, has prompted some further thinking on the issue of Ireland’s strategy for risk management and resilience building. Probably the most important statement by Dr. Kumhof was If there is a non-negligible risk of future [...]
Archive for the ‘Comment’ Category
Reducing Ireland’s Oil Dependence: some initial thoughts
Posted in ASPO, Comment, Energy Demand, Future Scenarios, Oil, Transport on October 16, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Surfing the waves of change – How green is Ireland?
Posted in Advocacy, ASPO, Comment, Ireland, tagged Climate Change, Cultivate, Davie Philip, Eamon Ryan, Electric Picnic, Gavin Harte, Global Green, Green, peak oil on September 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle – Orwell ASPO Ireland was invited to return this year (last year) to Cultivate‘s Rethink Tank at Global Green, a part of the Electric Picnic festival, to participate in a panel discussion on How green is Ireland? The panel was chaired by Davie [...]
Mind the gap!
Posted in Advocacy, ASPO, Comment, Electricity, Energy Demand, Energy Supply, Fossil Fuels, Future Scenarios, Ireland, News, Renewables on May 23, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Watching Barack Obama walk off Airforce One this morning in Dublin airport into a very blustery day, it inspired me to take a look at the Eirgrid website to see what kind of power our wind turbine fleet is generating.
IMF WEO 2011: Oil Scarcity, Growth, and Global Imbalances
Posted in ASPO, Comment, Energy Demand, Energy Supply, Future Scenarios, Oil, Reports on May 15, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook (WEO) published last month (April 2011) makes for very interesting reading, Chapter 3 specifically: “Oil Scarcity, Growth, and Global Imbalances”. Considering the findings of the report, it’s remarkable the relatively little press the report has received, and I can find none in the Irish media. All [...]
Ireland has a secret energy plan? Apparently
Posted in ASPO, Comment, Future Scenarios, Ireland on January 7, 2011 | 1 Comment »
ASPO Ireland Director, Richard O’Rourke, remarked during his introduction of Vinay Gupta’s Collapsonomics talk in Dublin last September, that he hoped the government is secretly working on an energy security plan to deal with a crisis situation, should one arise. The speech below was given by Energy Minister, Eamon Ryan, at the IIEA yesterday, to [...]
Dr. Lovestrange or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peak Oil
Posted in ASPO, Comment on November 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Over a month has passed since Vinay Gupta and Dougald Hine‘s visit to our shores to take a look at the state of the country and offer us a view of their work through the eyes of that experience. Probably Vinay’s most telling comment on the value of the trip was: It’s the one place [...]
Electric Picnic – Recession or Revolution?
Posted in Comment, Ireland, News on September 6, 2010 | 4 Comments »
I was invited to participate in a panel discussion at the Electric Picnic this weekend courtesy of the Global Green Re-Think Tank on the topic of ‘Recession or Revolution?‘ The discussion was chaired by Gavin Harte, and the other members of the panel were Albert Bates, Peadar Kirby, and David McWilliams.
BP CEO admits need for entirely new ways of handling “low-probability, high-impact” risks
Posted in Advocacy, Comment, Guest Post, International, Oil on June 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
BP “did not have the tools” to contain a deep-water oil leak, as they now admit. Their failure with that risk must now raise profound questions about how they handle other risks, in particular the threat that global oil production will fall prematurely, ambushing an oil-addicted world economy. That risk, “peak oil” as it is known, worries growing numbers of people, not least in and around the oil industry. But BP’s approach to it, until now, has been to pour scorn on the worriers. The company is a cheerleader in the global oil industry’s effort to persuade society not to be concerned about peak oil.
MegaTrends & MegaShocks
Posted in Comment, Future Scenarios, Reports, tagged Australia, CSIRO, Energy Security, Risks, WEF, World Economic Forum on May 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO published the report:
Our Future World: An analysis of global trends, shocks and scenarios
The report includes an interesting chart of risks identified by WEF with Likelihood plotted against Severity (in US$)…

Reducing Ireland’s Oil Dependence: additional thoughts
Posted in Advocacy, ASPO, Comment, Energy Demand, Energy Supply, Oil on October 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Following hard on the heels of our event last Monday, today I read two recently published articles which prompted further thinking on how to/impact of reducing our oil demand: A brief economic explanation of Peak Oil by Chris Skrebowski Graph 3 Shows the development of oil prices and illustrates the $10/year trend (red line) The [...]
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