As Triangle gasoline prices again top $2.50/gallon, NC Powerdown and the Duke Greening Initiative will sponsor the Triangle Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions on Saturday, March 25th, from 1 to 6 PM at Duke University's Love Auditorium.
Peak Oil is the time period in which the maximum production of oil (in millions of barrels per day) ever extracted from the earth occurs. Peak Oil may last for weeks, months, or even a few years. We are unlikely to know we have experienced Peak Oil until we are passed the peak. After the earth passes peak production, the gap between demand and supply will inexorably drive the price of petroleum-based products higher and higher. With 95% of America's transportation energy coming from oil products and much of our food being grown with petroleum-based fertilizers, the peaking of world oil supply has dramatic implications for the nation and the sprawling, mostly auto-dependent Triangle region.
U.S. Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland) and Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) have recently formed a Peak Oil Caucus. They are concerned about increasing evidence for a near term peak and permanent decline of world conventional oil production. After peak oil, there will be less energy from oil available for transportation, food production and other critical economic activities.
Chevron Corporation has even been running ads claiming that more oil has been produced than discovered for the last 20 years (see the will you join us? campaign).
Topics to be explored at the conference include Energy, Transportation, Food Production, and Intentional Communities. At the Triangle Conference on Peak Oil, participants will be discussing:
What are our likely sources of transportation and eletrical energy in the future?
What does Peak Oil mean for our economy? For transportation? For growing food?
How much time do we have to begin working on mitigating the impacts of Peak Oil?
How can we take proactive steps to prepare the Triangle, and North Carolina- for this future?
Come to the conference, share your thoughts here, or both!