• AtticusInk Newsvine Column

  • My Interview With Norman Finkelstein March 6, 2009
    This is a transcript of an interview with Norman Finkelstein last November, which was conducted by Atticus Mullikin and arranged and filmed by Bernd Kapeller, Associate Producer at the European Journalism Centre. The video was recorded following Mr. […]
    Atticus Mullikin
  • Comment Deletion Policy March 6, 2009
    In order to more effectively and consistently moderate my own discussion forums, this Comment Deletion Policy will apply to all visitors to my column. Visitors will see a disclaimer among the first comments on my posts that includes a link to this page. […]
    Atticus Mullikin
  • How home became homeland September 8, 2008
    Roger Cohen laments what the American nation is quickly becoming, and what it could have been. Whatever happened to Lincoln's "last, best hope?" […]
    Atticus Mullikin
  • Bush wants to redeclare war in time for the election. August 30, 2008
    Tucked deep into a recent proposal from the Bush administration is a provision that has received almost no public attention, yet in many ways captures one of President Bush's defining legacies: an affirmation that the United States is still at war with Al Qaeda. […]
    JoulesBeef
  • Conservative Andrew Bacevich on the End of American Exceptionalism August 29, 2008
    Conservative professor of history and international relations at Boston University and twenty-three year veteran of the US Army, Andrew Bacevich, speaks with Amy Goodman about his new book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. A quote from the interview: […]
    Atticus Mullikin
  • Jon Stewart rips media's false sense of urgency August 27, 2008
    Case in point: the recent sniping between the presidential campaigns after presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain couldn't remember how many houses he owned. As Stewart watched the campaigns trade attack ads over the comment, he said he thought of President Franklin D. […]
    TheJonesGirl
  • "Contemporary Energy and Military Policies Virtually Indistinguishable" August 26, 2008
    A new documentary based on the work of Professor Michael Klare reveals the inextricable link between American foreign policy and energy supply over recent decades. The following is a synopsis of the film from the website. […]
    Atticus Mullikin
  • Taking Issue With "Why We Fight": A Reaction From the Author August 25, 2008
    WARNING. This is as long as the original article, as I wanted to be as thorough as possible. However, everything is organized under convenient subtitles, so you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't want to. -------------------- […]
    Atticus Mullikin
  • Ron Suskind says Iraq Intel Forged August 24, 2008
    Terry Gross interview's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind on his allegations that the head of Iraqi intelligence told the British there were no weapons of mass destruction prior to the invasion of Iraq. […]
    Atticus Mullikin
  • Why We Fight...Conservatism: A META, Meta-article August 15, 2008
    *SEPTEMBER 8TH UPDATED DISCLAIMER & WARNING* "Why We Fight" in the title of this article refers to a series of propaganda films made by Frank Capra during the Second World War, which you can link to via my Recommendations. […]
    Atticus Mullikin

This article was written by Atticus Mullikin as an epilogue for the dossier, Future Energy, on the website EU4Journalists.eu. It was republished on the Atticus Mullikin Newsvine column with permission.

“The ‘disaster’ scenario in the Arctic is no longer science fiction. What was initially only a question of modeling has since been widely confirmed by field observation.” Says glaciologist Philippe Huybrechts of the Free University of Brussels “Each year, Greenland is losing about 80 cubic kilometres of ice. If the ice sheet loses 20 percent of its volume, the process will become irreversible.” To illustrate the importance of even limited ice melt, it’s relevant to point out that if Greenland alone were to lose all of its ice it would raise ocean levels 7.5 meters worldwide. Even incremental melting of the arctic region is important, as many cities and settlements are within a few feet of sea level.

Read more…

Michael Klare is a five-colleges professor of Peace and World Security studies, defense correspondent of The Nation magazine and contributor to Tom’s Dispatch, Mother Jones and Foreign Policy in Focus. He’s published many books, but most recently he’s concentrated on global energy supply and conflict, including Resource Wars and his most recent, Blood and Oil.

Part I of the interview includes the implications of the U.S military’s dependence on oil, a discussion of rising oil prices, questions about the European Union’s energy strategy and the implications of biofuel development.

Read the transcript on my Newsvine column

Part II includes a discussion of various parts of the world from which the EU imports oil and natural gas, including Russia, the Caspian Sea Basin, and North Africa, the implications of a potential U.S. invasion of Iran, and Prof. Klare’s term “Energo-fascism.”

Read the transcript on my Newsvine column

In Part III we continue the discussion of Energo-fascism, the concept of a “peak in oil production,” Russia’s Arktika expedition to the North Pole, and M.K. Hubbert’s theory of Peak Oil.

Read the transcript on my Newsvine column

The fourth and final part of the interview continues Prof. Klare’s discussion of Peak Oil Theory, a recent IEA World Energy Outlook report and Mr. Klare’s lack of optimism for the future.

Read the transcript on my Newsvine column

NPR did a story on Europe’s first solar thermal power plant, the PS-10, outside Seville, Spain. Over 600 mirrors concentrate sunlight onto a tower in the center of the plant. Heat from the sunlight turns water into steam that turns a turbine, creating enough power for roughly 6,000 houses. The project is expanding, and by 2013 is expected to power up to 180,000 households

The company is already setting up new plants in Morocco and Algeria, with plans to expand its operations across North Africa and the American West.

Imagine the benefits to Europe and the Mediterranean rim if more such power facilities were to be constructed, funded as part of both the European Union’s energy framework and in accordance with it’s environmental policy. As the facilities proliferate in sunny regions, the 1.5 billion price tag would steadily decrease while the energy generation would increase, all with no greenhouse gases. Regional conflicts that may have arisen over dwindling energy resources could be prevented and Europe’s neighbors made more stable, all the while generating power for rainy, gray northern Europe.

NPR, this week, released a story about a project in Southern France that is attempting to create a working fusion reactor. The Project, ITER or International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is a joint project of EURATOM, Japan, China, India, Korea, Russia and the USA.

Fusion reactions have the potential to provide limitless, green power with almost no resources, by the “fusing” of atoms and the release of high-energy neutrons. Said NPR reporter David Kestenbaum,”

“Take the lithium from a laptop battery and a bathtub full of water, and you’ve potentially got enough fuel to cover your energy needs for life”

Proponents of the Fusion experiment have stated that the ITER is not dangerous, that a breach of the containment walls of the reactor would actually stop the entire process by cooling the plasma used to generate energy. Essentially, the runaway reactor theory associated with fission works in reverse; its actually very hard to get a fusion reaction going at all. Too, the amount of nuclear waste, if any, would be significantly less than with conventional nuclear reactors.

Objections to the ITER have been raised by environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, which called the ITER a “dangerous toy“that will not affect energy production for decades, and that will only exacerbate the problems that already exist with nuclear fission. Critics charge that the 10 billion Euro price tag – roughly half of which is covered by the European Union – would be better allocated to create enormous offshore wind farms.

The Greens have a point. Current energy needs do need to be met by renewable energy as soon as possible, and misallocated tax revenue might certainly be used to pay a percentage of it. But it should not come at the expense of fusion research, which has the potential to not only provide for our energy needs, but also for out technological discretion in the future.

• AtticusInk