I just spoke with Dan and it looks like he will have an interview with Richard Heinberg, one of the foremost authorities on Peak Oil. You can check him out here:

as well as Jim Kunstler, here:

Peace,

Grant

Well, a few weeks ago Anna and I arrived back in sunny Spain. And, sunny it is! I knew it was going to be a little challenge getting used to the temperature change over St. John's (Fog City), Newfoundland, but I didn't think it would be this bad. Here in Catalonia we have had record temperatures again. Not so much record highs, but records for continuous days of blistering heat. We spent the first few days going to the beach, but I quickly found out that that was even worse. There is no shade and, well it's just too hot for my fair Canadian skin. So, we decided to head to the mountains instead for our last days of vacation before getting back to work on Monday. We went to the little Pyreneean town of Puigcerdà, just on the French border, where the daytime highs were more like 25-27 degrees, and in the nights it dipped to a comfortable sleeping temperature of 13 degrees.

I called this blog "Le Soleil" because of our daily excursions into France, where we visited two solar power plants. But, let me explain a little about the region first, it's quite interesting. Puigcerdà was founded by King Alfonso I of Aragon, Count of Barcelona in 1177, although it was inhabited in pre-Romanic times. It is part of the region known as "La Cerdanya", in Catalan, or "La Cerdagne" in French. In the middle ages, the region belonged to the country of Catalonia and was constantly in the middle of fighting between France and Spain. During the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, to end the 30 Years War, between France and Spain, the Cerdanya region was divided up almost equally, with a part remaining in Spain, and a part in France. Interestingly, due to the wording of the treaty, only villages were divided up, not cities. As such, the city of Lliva (which is not a city in a modern sense - population: 1388) became an "exclave" of Spain and an "enclave" of France. It is an island territory of Spain surrounded by France, about 2 km from the border. You would scarcely notice this distinction today, however, since the European Union borders are so open - there is no stopping at borders as there is between, say Canada and the United States. In any case, cultural boundaries are not as evident anyway. The Catalan language doesn't stop at the border of Catalonia and France, nor does any language, really, follow any given political border. Many people in this part of the south of France, in fact speak Catalan as a mother tongue and identify strongly with Catalan culture and history. You can get by equally with French or Catalan, here. Having said that, the two languages resemble one another greatly, as would be expected, anyway. The example I like to give when I speak about Catalan is the verb form, "I speak" (though there are many other examples). French: "Je parle"; Catlan: "Jo parlo". In contrast, Spanish speakers say: "Yo hablo". In any case, the Catalan language is alive and well in Catalonia, some of the bordering regions in France (Roussilion) as well as being the official langauge of Andorra, the nearby principality. Curiously, Catalan is also spoken south of Catalonia in the Spanish region of Valencia, on the Balearic Islands and in a little town of Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia.

So, for a couple of days we explored the history of La Cerdanya, meanwhile stumbling upon some modernity, which got me thinking more about the Sun and our visceral attachment to it. Because of the high number of days of sunlight in the Cerdanya valley, there is the world's largest solar furnace. in Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via and, in nearby Targassonne, the Themis solar power tower.

The Odeillo solar furnace, is more of an experimental contraption used to bring metals to high temperatures and to forge different alloys. It is experimental in nature, but does demonstrate the potential of harnessing the sun in another way than solar panels to generate electricity. Like the Themis solar power tower, water can be boiled and driven into a turbine to generate electicity. The water is not destroyed in the process and it doesn't require any fancy, fragile technology, as solar panels do. But, of course you need a good source of water nearby. It does show the power of the sun and for anyone who ever burned things with a magnifying glass as a kid, this process is similar, except it uses a parabolic mirror (or set of adjustable mirrors) to accomplish the task. Themis works in a similar fashion, with a series of mirrors on the ground focusing the light and heat up to the top of the tower to create steam, thus turning a turbine in a magnetic field, thereby forcing electrons down a wire... et voilà... electricity!

In the south of Spain there is a similar project, called "La Platforma Solar de Almeria", which illustrates the need for sustainable renewable energy sources.

According to investigative reporter and blogger George Monbiot, in his book, Heat, if we could cover half of the world's deserts with solar panels, or other solar generators of electricity, we could supply 18 times as much energy (216 times as much electricity) as the world now uses. Aside from the political and corporate constraints to starting a renewable energy future (and they are significant), there are a couple of problems with wind, solar, wave and tidal power - they are not constant. When the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, there is no electricity produced. Unfortunately, electricity cannot be easily stored. You can't just save up a big vat of electrons, so you need other ways. So, for example, when there is an excess of power generated, you could use that to create hydrogen gas from sea water, to be stored and used later in hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity again. Or, you could simply use the energy to pump water up a mountain to a reservoir, where, in times of low production, the flood gates could be opened, turbines spun and more energy produced. Monbiot explains lightheartedly how

But, this example underscores the problem of electricity demand. While renewable generation is not constant, neither is demand. These are serious challenges, but they are not insurmountable.

Peace,
Grant

So, I sat down again the other day and did a "back of the envelope calculation". Ok, well, I actually used a spreadsheet, which is a way more efficient and organized way to manipulate that much data. But, the results of the simple arithmetic were eye opening.

Since 1996, so far I have taken 153 flights, which translates into: