Asia South and East

Why would a fisher care about the forest? The person to ask is Shigeatsu Hatakeyama, an oyster farmer from Kesennuma in Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture. We can learn a great deal from Hatakeyama. He is one of those rare types of people who can see beyond the day-to-day preoccupation of how to make a living — in his case, with an oyster farm — and instead embrace the world around them.

- Solar Panels in China: An Emerging U.S.-China Trade Dispute?
- 'Bicycle pump' to turn wave power into clean energy
- El panorama energético actual (Argentina)

Last March, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami left nearly 20,000 dead or missing and destroyed 125,000 buildings in the Tohoku region of Japan. The two disasters also caused three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to melt down, which released dangerous levels of radiation into surrounding areas and led to national power shortages. Tokyo’s iconic neon signs were switched off as rolling blackouts spread across the country. Faced with the greatest reconstruction task since World War II, Japan is asking difficult questions about the future of its energy supply and just what sort of society should emerge from the ruins.

A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-The Euro crisis
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

As the struggle for dominance in the 21st century global marketplace intensifies the battle over which currency that economy will be denominated in is becoming more explicit. Can we see Osborne's appeals to China to use London as its banker to Europe and the world as the final betrayal of the dollar empire?

- Nigeria fuel protests: two killed and dozens wounded as police open fire
- With Work Scarce in Athens, Greeks Go Back to the Land
- Korea: Fur shoes, fleece sweaters replace heaters in offices
- China's city dwellers to breathe unhealthy air 'for another 20-30 years'

The Japanese government is launching a large-scale cleanup of the fields, forests, and villages contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. But some experts caution that an overly aggressive remediation program could create a host of other environmental problems.

- Nigeria union chiefs urge general strike amid fuel protests
- Global unrest: how the revolution went viral
- Hungary set for protests over constitution
- Stephen Cohen: Russian Protests and the Soviet Union's Afterlife

For being such a seemingly ordinary vehicle, the wheelbarrow has a surprisingly exciting history. This is especially true in the East, where it became a universal means of transportation for both passengers and goods, even over long distances.

Last year ASPO-USA brought together a host of leading thinkers and their predictions for what to expect in 2011. While not all the predictions were on target, last year’s thinkers and leaders on energy issues were remarkably prescient, accurately anticipating among other things Arab Spring, the flow of energy prices, the re-emergent world food crisis, and the next step in the Transition movement. While foreseeing the future is a delicate exercise, there are real trends that are evident to eyes prepared to see. Here are their thoughts about the coming year. A Hopeful New Year to all from ASPO-USA!

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-Trouble in Baghdad
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

- A Village in Revolt Could Be a Harbinger for China
- Todd Gitlin on Occupy
- Eric Hobsbawm on 2011: ‘It reminds me of 1848...’

- Former oil expert from the IEA: decline of 'all liquids' soon after 2015 (in French)
- Nigeria on alert as Shell announces worst oil spill in a decade
- Shelling out the Oil in Waters off Nigeria: Radar Satellite Image December 21, 2011
- Oil Workers Rise Up in Kazakhstan, Face Brutal Crackdown
- MIT: The Chinese Solar Machine

Kazakhstan is moving fast to pacify its restive west as a new video circulates in which police shoot and beat retreating oil workers protesting labor conditions. Two reasons: With parliamentary elections three weeks away, President Nursultan Nazarbayev (pictured above) wants to stamp out any political narrative conflicting with his long-time assertion of keeping Kazakhstan stable. Abroad, the jittery global oil market is already starting to factor in a possible disruption of Kazakhstan's 1.5 million barrels a day of oil exports