John Michael Greer  wonders whether the Transition Town Movement is engaging in "premature triumphalism." As a part of the initiating group in Transition Town Montpelier, which on Tuesday received official recognition from the international transition folks, I doubt it.

We're happy if people even notice what we're up to.

Luckily, there's a chance Monday for everyone in the central Vermont area to find out more about Transition Towns and judge for themselves. Naresh Giangrande, co-founder of the first Transition Town, Totnes in the UK, will speak on “Transition Towns: From Oil Dependency to Resilient Communities.” The talk is Monday, November 24, 7 pm. Unitarian Church, Main Street, Montpelier. We're being contacted by people as far away as Maine and Massachusetts who want to hear the talk, so come early!

Greer provides a nice summary of the Transition Town movement:

There's a thought-provoking article in Sunday's Boston Globe (via Matt Yglesias) on how a 21st century US depression would look different from the 1930s depression. The author, Drake Bennett, makes the case that the US is so different now that the depression would look different in fundamental ways. Healthcare costs more than it did in the 1930s, relative to food, for example, so there'd be lines outside of emergency rooms rather than at soup kitchens (though he acknowledges that soup kitchens are already being visited by more people).

Drake is open to the view that people will raise more of their own food, growing gardens on lawns and keeping chickens in the backyard. I don't agree with his argument that farmers in New England will do poorly, though:

At the high end of the market, specialty and organic foods - which drove the success of chains like Whole Foods - would seem pointlessly expensive; the booming organic food movement could suffer as people start to see specially grown produce as more of a luxury than a moral choice. New England's surviving farmers would be particularly hard-hit, as demand for their seasonal, relatively high-cost products dried up.

To the extent that there is a price premium on New England agricultural products, I think it's due to high costs of labor compared to energy, subsidies to industrial-scale agriculture, and niche marketing. A depression, together with peak oil, would change the ratio of labor to energy costs. Subsidies to industrial-scale agriculture can be changed. And niche marketing of premium products--well, that might not become more widespread, at least. Hard to say whether the market for premium New England food will wither or whether the wealthy will switch from caviar to camembert produced in Vermont.

In Vermont we're seeing a stronger and more sophisticated push for policies that support local businesses, including farmers. Michael Shuman's talk yesterday in the Statehouse was a good example.

Those of us who follow the details of monthly or weekly oil data reports have long been awaiting the International Energy Agency's 2008 edition of their annual World Energy Outlook. The IEA has long been a cockeyed optimist about future oil availability, along with the US Energy Information Administration. But the IEA has been indicating since this summer that they were revising their future projections of oil availability downward. Would the new report constitute a recognition of imminent peak oil from a Very Official Institution?

The new report came out today.

You can read the slides (PDF) for the presentation to the press or the executive summary (PDF) for free. The full report costs €120 in PDF format. 

Fortunately, the good analysts over at TheOilDrum.com are on the case, with a series of articles over the next couple weeks. Nate Hagens kicked off the series today, with an overview.

The nickel version: The report has a Jekyll-and-Hyde feel of being written by competing camps of urgency and complacency. On the one hand, the IEA warns that global trends in energy supply and consumption are unsustainable, and that an energy revolution is needed. On the other hand, they say that oil is available for world needs for  the next several decades, with sufficient investment. On the third hand, they say that the world needs to bring on line the equivalent of six new Saudi Arabias in the next 22 years--an almost magical feat.

More under the fold.

There's a fight brewing in the U.S. House over who will chair the Energy and Commerce Committee in the next session. Michigan Representative John Dingell now holds the chair. California Representative Henry Waxman wants it.

According to Frank O'Donnell at Gristmill, the battle is decades old between Waxman, who wants more regulation for clean air, and "Tailpipe Johnny" Dingell, who apparently thinks clean air regulations would hurt the auto industry in his home state.

Peter Welch told me Friday he supports Waxman. If Congress and the Obama administration are to move quickly on meaningful climate change legislation, it sounds to me like Waxman is the far better choice.

Waxman now chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Welch serves on.

I got a call early this morning saying that there will be a "spontaneous" action against Vermont Yankee at the Statehouse this morning. I guess if it's still being organized the morning of the event, that's pretty close to spontaneous. Anyway, folks are gathering on the Statehouse lawn at 11 am.

Vermonters are eager to switch to locally generated, locally owned, renewable energy. As governor, Jim Douglas has repeatedly retarded the state's move in that direction. I've recently both documented some of the effects of his veto of last year's energy bill, and I've looked more broadly at his obstructionism on energy.

I've now learned that the legislature is getting ready to push back against an energy program that the administration has changed so much as to make it unrecognizable, maybe even non-compliant with the law. We'll see if they move fast enough to effect change: The administration's version is already on the street in the form of a Request for Proposals (RFP), and multiple organizations in the state have begun working on their proposals, which are due in three weeks.

What's in dispute is the watered-down version of an all-fuels efficiency utility, as passed in this year's omnibus energy bill, Act 92.

The following interview considers the feasibility of wood being a
primary heating-fuel source for Vermont. New wood stove technology,
combined with sustainable forestry, offers a real opportunity for
Vermont to become more energy independent. According to the Vermont
Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, Vermont’s landmass is 78
percent forest with 4.5 million acres of woodland and an average of 26
cord of standing wood per acre, for 117 million cord of total standing
wood.

He writes this in the midst of the so-called debate over the so-called plan to bailout the Wall Street financial institutions mired in a demise of their own making. By now, the bailout will have long passed, and the heavy, sinking truth of its failure might well be rearing its tragic head. Recession. Depression. Whatever it is, it’s going to hurt, and he’ll feel it, too.   

Wind is growing as a key element of Vermont's independence. There are fewer regulatory hurdles and more grant money available than in the past. The new "group net-metering" regulations passed by the state will enable a group of people to invest in a large wind-project and have the power generated offset their utility-bills, without everyone having to live next to the wind-turbine.

Attached is a basic view of the return-on-investment for a 100 KW wind-project that would supply between 25 and 100 homes depending on the average wind-speed.

(I first examined the falling price of oil in August. The price of oil has dropped further, so it's time for another look.)

Someone told me with relief recently that gasoline is $2.99 a gallon. I was reminded of an editorial cartoon in late 2005 or early 2006, showing someone filling up before and after hurricane Katrina. In both pictures, a guy holding a gas nozzle is looking at the pump and exclaiming, "Gas is $2.50 a gallon!" Before Katrina, he has a look of outrage on his face. After Katrina, he wears a broad grin.

Lower gas prices aren't enough to produce many broad grins these days, against the current economic turmoil and the widespread predictions that the economic downturn is likely to get worse and last years. Still, the drop in oil prices is reinforcing some people's beliefs that oil price rises were a speculative bubble.

As with bubbles, the price of oil has gone up and then back down, though only back down a bit. It looks to me like supply and demand are sufficient to explain the price fluctuations.

First, let's look at the big picture: The price of oil is still high.