SBS - Peak Metals - Are we running out of the metals we need?

We can't live without metals. They seem to be in almost everything we use, and we've been digging them up for thousands of years.

Radio NZ - Forestry companies appeal for ETS certainty

Forestry companies say they fear any further changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme will ruin the fledgling market in carbon credits.

Industry pressure to get rid of the scheme has been increasing since the Australian government announced it was dropping its plans until at least 2013.

Radio Australia - Australian infrastructure expert warns of fresh oil crunch

One of the Australian Government's top infrastructure advisers is warning of an oil crunch, which could send the global economy spiralling back toward recession. Curtin University's Professor Peter Newman is on the Government's Infrastructure Australia council. He says peak oil when demand outstrips dwindling supply - has already hit, but the global downturn has kept prices low . Professor Newman even blames oil for causing the global recession in the first place, and he's not alone.

Presenter: Jeff Waters
Speakers: Professor Peter Newman, Infrastructure Australia Council member; Professor Kjell Aleklett, Swedish-based President of the Association for the study of Peak Oil and Gas

NZ Herald - Oil demand to halve as we switch to electric cars

Demand for oil in New Zealand could almost halve in the next 20 years because of more efficient cars, electric vehicles and the use of biofuels, an energy report says.

Courier Mail - A bike-riding oil chief is not an encouraging sign

I mean, he rides his pushbike to work one day, for crying out loud, not exactly an encouraging sign from the boss of a multi-billion-dollar oil giant before a global conference on climate change.

The themes in Burn Up are fresh and compelling, but the tone throughout tends to be somewhat hectoring.

Even if you agree with it, and believe peak oil was, like, last week, you might still feel as if you're being bludgeoned about the head with a very big message.

SMH - Let's have a plane-free day every week

The US military has warned that demand will exceed world oil supply by 2012 and there could be extreme shortages by 2015, The Guardian reported recently.

Cynics have suggested that the US Joint Forces – believed to be the largest single user of petrol in the world – would like everyone to believe peak oil is around the corner because it would dearly love an excuse to invade Iran, Venezuela, East Timor or, for that matter, the BP servo on Victoria Road: anywhere that still has oil.

Preferably, it would like to do so sooner rather than later, so that it can use its existing machinery rather than riding BMX bikes and attacking the enemy with slingshots.

The US military isn't the only voice raising concern that the world is facing an oil crisis very soon. In February a British industry task force warned that the oil crunch was five years away. In March Britain's former chief scientist Sir David King and researchers from Oxford University said oil reserves had been exaggerated by one-third and the crisis was as little as four years away.

Green Blorge - Green Mountain College opens its biomass plant

The biomass idea was generated from a 2005 freshman seminar that addressed peak oil. The students wrote a proposal for the plant and the resultant study showed that it would provide significant reductions in CO2 emissions and impressive savings on energy. Amazingly, the biomass plant was implemented in only five years.

ABC - Professor checks out the world's droughts

From Syria, where one million people have lost their livelihood because of drought, to Yemen, a country fast running out of water, Professor Robert Wilby is a climate change globe trotter.

The scientist from Loughborough University, in the UK, travels to countries which are at breaking point.

He says drought's an experience not just familiar to Australia, but also to China, the eastern Mediterranean, Syria and India.

"Just like people talk about the coming age of peak oil, others are talking about the coming age of peak water," he says.

ABC - Tasmanian Country Hour Mon 19/4/10

preparing Tasmania for a food future post-peak oil.

Typeboard - Free Green event @ CIT: The Viability of Electric Cars

Mark believes electric cars are the right direction for the future, and that Canberrans particularly have the opportunity to lead the way.

Mark is an avid supporter of electric vehicles, both for environmental reasons, and because of reports that “peak oil” is approaching and we need to find other propulsion systems for everyday life.

ABC - ETS delay 'could cripple energy industry'

Energy suppliers say the Federal Government's delay on its Emissions Trading Scheme could cripple the industry's growth and threaten supply.

The Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) says new power projects worth $2 billion are ready to build now, but investors are waiting for a decision on the ETS.

ABC - Preferred developers named for new coal terminals

The North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation says capacity at the Abbot Point coal terminal in north Queensland could exceed 230 million tonnes in coming years.