The price of oil has dropped rapidly in recent weeks. What's going on? And what do falling oil prices tell us about whether the world has passed its peak in oil production?

The short answer to what's going on is that it could well be random variation in a long-term trend of rising prices. And yes, volatile oil markets are exactly what we'd expect when global oil production has passed its peak.

Let's begin by looking at the fundamentals of supply and demand.

Sometimes things happen quickly in Vermont! Yesterday I reported on the Health Department apparently violating its own rules when they adjusted the measurement of radiation at the perimeter of Vermont Yankee. Today, the Administrative Rules Committee (see section 817 in the link) met and took up the question on their agenda.

The Rules Committee is made up of four House members and four Senate members, and they have the authority to hold hearings on existing or proposed rules, on their own initiative. I'm told that they decided this morning to schedule a public hearing on the Health Department's rule on radiation from Yankee and how it has evolved. No date for the hearing has been set yet.

It's been reported that the Vermont Health Department just released a consultant's report on 2007 radiation emissions from Vermont Yankee and that they have adopted a new way of counting the dose of radiation. What I don't think has been reported, before today, is that the Health Department is violating its own rules in doing so.

The Vermont Health Department rules say that annual gamma radiation doses at the plant boundary may not exceed 20 millirem per year. A millirem is 0.001 rem, a measure of ionizing radiation's effect on human health.

The Health Department's consultants, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, reported that 8 radiation dosimeters at the edge of Vermont Yankee's boundary measured radiation last year in excess of the 20-millirem limit. However, the consultants also recommended reducing the amount of radiation measured by what critics have called a fudge factor. The new way of measuring radiation reduces the measurements by 40%, and suddenly Vermont Yankee is in compliance with the radiation rules.

The catch is, the Health Department's own rules don't seem to allow the fudge factor. The Health Department has taken the stance that 1 Röntgen now equals 0.6 rem. The Röntgen is the unit measured by the dosimeters. The Health Department's rules say, however, that 1 rem is defined as 1 Röntgen.

One equals one. Simple enough. But the Health Department now says that 1 equals 0.6.

Thomas Weiss broke the news that the Health Department's own regulations rule out changing the dose calculation on WGDR, Plainfield this morning, and I've followed up on it by calling the Health Department for comments.

Bill Irwin, responsible for radiological health at the Vermont Department of Health, disagrees that definition in the rules means what it says it means. He cites another section of the rules, which allows the Department to use "applicable recommendations
contained in the reports of the National Council on Radiation Protection and
Measurements and the National Bureau of Standards handbooks as standards and bases
for calculations."

In other words, when the rules define a rem, it's not a legally binding definition, but rather guidance to the reader. According to Irwin, it just "provides something approximate for the purpose of reading this regulation."

That's not the way I've seen definitions used in law before.

It's possible that the rules are internally inconsistent, but it looks to me as though Vermont Yankee is subject to the definition that 1 rem is 1 Röntgen. If you want to get down in the weeds and judge for yourself, click "Read more."

Part of my recent silence here is from being on vacation last week, an enjoyable bike vacation that took me from SolarFest to a cabin near Manchester and thence to a permaculture design course in Burlington.

Here are a couple tidbits from that vacation, preceded by some news gleaned at Renewable Energy Vermont's annual meeting yesterday and what I learned yesterday about how the food, fuel, and transportation crises are affecting demand for home share services.

In his famous essay and book, "On Bowling Alone," Robert Putnam explains how social capital improves public life. Social capital includes social trust. Unfortunately, Vermont's Governor Jim Douglas consistently undermines social trust, and by doing so, he makes it more difficult for Vermonters to work together to improve our state.

Douglas undermines trust by making misleading statements rather than forthrightly discussing disagreements, by keeping public documents secret, and by taking credit for things others have done. Fortunately, Douglas' tendency to claim credit for others' work, even work he initially opposed, has been in the spotlight lately.

The story of the Douglas Administration's delay in the purchase of new passenger rail cars that I broke last week and updated last Saturday continues to spread through the Vermont media.

The Brattleboro Reformer covered the story on Wednesday, and they talked to the director of the Vermont Rail Advocacy Network, who points out the importance of moving expeditiously on the rail cars:

But rail advocates say Gov. James Douglas has simply prioritized roads over trains.

"Perhaps the real issue is that Gov. Douglas has proposed (and the Legislature approved) issuing $10 million in bonds for road construction projects," said Christopher Parker, executive director of a new nonprofit group called the Vermont Rail Advocacy Network, in an e-mail. "The problem with the delay is that it risks losing a $2 million grant from Amtrak."

He said the plan, if ever implemented, would be to add runs in the morning and at night, when traffic is heaviest on Interstate 91.

Bruce Johnson has also written a story on the passenger rail cars; look for it in this Sunday's Times Argus / Rutland Herald. (UPDATE: The story is here.)

The Reformer also published an editorial on Thursday, comparing the train service in Brattleboro in 1938 with 2008. The nickel version: There were six departures from Brattleboro to New York City in 1938, vs. one today. And there's only a 25% chance that you'll get to New York within 30 minutes of the scheduled arrival time today. Going east and west from Brattleboro by train is difficult or impossible now, too.

I haven't found answers to the questions outstanding at the end of my previous post. Maybe next week...

UPDATE: Nancy Schulz, Executive Director of the Vermont Bicycle and Pedestrian Coalition, sent out the following email today:

VBPC member and volunteer David Cain is taking the initiative to gather information and supporters to address the issue of bicycles on Amtrak trains. A major obstacle is Amtrak's refusal to allow bikes on their trains to and from New Haven, CT that make connections with the Vermonter. If this specific issue is one that energizes you, then please consider contacting Dave directly to find out how you can help. You can reach Dave by sending an email message and please "cc" me. Thanks.

My Thursday's post on the Douglas Administration's decision to delay purchases of new Amtrak cars has stirred things up some. I started getting some calls returned Friday, and John Dillon of Vermont Public Radio began digging into the story. Dillon's story aired Friday afternoon.

Over the course of the day, my understanding of the story changed quite a bit. And there were quite a few calls among the highest levels of Vermont state government, as the various actors scrambled to get on the same page.

As I explained Thursday, VTrans Operations Director Sam Lewis told the Vermont Rail Advisory Council earlier in the week that the Douglas administration was waiting to move forward on purchasing new Amtrak trains until the Debt Affordability Committee reviewed the purchase in October. The cars will save the state money, burn less fuel, and allow two departures a day for the Vermonter run from White River Junction and southward.

When asked at the meeting who flagged the Amtrak car purchase for review by the Debt Affordability Committee, VTrans Operations Director Sam Lewis said it was the Secretary of Administration (Mike Smith) and the Secretary of Transportation (Neale Lunderville).

John Zicconi, spokesperson for the Agency of Transportation, called me Friday morning, returning a call I'd made before posting Thursday to Mike Smith. Zicconi's explanation was consistent with Lewis' comments. He explained that the Amtrak car purchase would require the $1.8 million in bonding that was in the 2010 budget. If the state decided after its 3-year trial period that it wanted to keep the cars, it would require additional bonding to pay for the $18+ million purchase. The Debt Affordability Committee reviews bonding decisions, he explained, and if there are more projects that require bonding than the state can afford to take on in debt, the Debt Affordability Committee makes an advisory statement about how to spend the money.

I asked him whether it would have been an option for the administration to just buy the new trains and present the Debt Affordability Committee with a fait accompli. He replied, "We think it's wise to let the Debt Affordability Committee weigh in."

Meanwhile, Zicconi explained, VTrans can proceed with preparations for the Amtrak train purchase. For example, they needed to perform a new cost-benefit analysis on the Amtrak purchase to present to the Debt Affordability Committee, so they could have the information in their deliberations. "We need to get our ducks in a row so we can answer their questions," he said.

Friday afternoon, quite a different story emerged.

At Tuesday's meeting of the Vermont Rail Advisory Council (VRAC), VTrans revealed that the Douglas administration had put up a new hurdle in the state's race to purchase new Amtrak cars. The state-of-the art train sets -- lighter cars with smaller engines -- will save fuel and double the departures each day on the Vermonter route, which runs from St. Albans to Brattleboro and on to New York and Washington.

Last year, the legislature authorized the purchase of the new trains, which have not been used in the US yet. Amtrak was so eager to see these new trains in service that it was prepared to contribute money toward their purchase and postpone future increased charges to Vermont for running the train.

Unfortunately, the Attorney General and Treasurer nixed the deal. The legislation contained a "highly unusual" clause, directing that the Treasurer and the Attorney General must be satisfied that the manufacturer could sufficiently guarantee that it could buy back the cars at 90 percent of cost after three years. The AG and Treasurer weren't sure that the young company, Colorado Railcar, would be financially capable of the repurchase in three years, so the deal fell through.

The legislature took a crack at it again this year, with only the Treasurer in the review loop and less strict language about his assignment. Sam Lewis, Director of Operations at the Agency of Transportation, reported to the Vermont Rail Advisory Council on Tuesday that the project's fate is once again uncertain. Because the legislature also passed other bills requiring bonding, the state's Debt Affordability Committee is now scheduled to review the Amtrak purchase before the state moves ahead with it. The committee doesn't meet until the fall.

Members of VRAC were outraged that this long-delayed project would be delayed yet again.

Rob Hopkins' The Transition Handbook is a new, tremendously useful, and inspiring book on how to move, as the subtitle says, "From oil dependency to local resilience."

Richard Heinberg has spent a lot of time visiting Transition Towns in the UK, and he describes the movement as looking "more like a party than a protest march."

And it is a party, not a protest. The Transition Town philosophy is about making change where you are, with the people around you, not pressuring someone else to make the change for you.

Here's one small way this book has helped me:
I give a lot of peak oil slide shows, and I was intrigued by his suggestion for a "do-it-yourself" peak oil slideshow. You create the slideshow by printing up each slide on a piece of 8.5x11 paper, with circles and arrows (or, in any case, a paragraph) explaining the slide on the back of each one, and then hand the cards out to the audience. Each person's job is to meet every other person in the room and explain the slide he or she has. By the time everyone has met everyone else, they have had quite an introduction to peak oil. It really gets people invested in the ideas and helps them get to know each other!

I haven't tried the full DIY slideshow yet, but the idea has inspired me to cut off the final part of my standard slideshow and replace it with a visioning exercise about the future of Vermont. I then ask the audience to break up into small groups and share their visions. The room comes to life when they do it!

Though the book came out in March or so in the UK, it's not scheduled to be distributed in the US until September.* Normally, I try to buy books at local bookstores. This one is too good to wait that long for. You can order it online, with quick and surprisingly inexpensive shipping from the UK.

While Congress passes legislation raising the vain hope of bringing down oil prices by suing OPEC, OPEC dwindles in numbers. Indonesia has been the only Asian member of OPEC, and the country has increased its own use of oil at the same time that its oil production has dwindled. Since 2005, Indonesia has been an oil importing country, and its projected 2008 production is well under its quota allocated by OPEC of 1.3 million barrels per day. Recognizing that it makes no sense to belong to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as an importer, Indonesia has officially quit OPEC. It's possible that they're just trying to evade the long arm of US law, which our representatives in Washington seem to think can force Indonesia to squeeze more oil from its rocks and then sell it to us. But I doubt it.

Meanwhile, back in Montpelier, many in the city are serious about the only real leverage we have over how much we pay for energy: Not trying to force rocks or their owners to yield more oil, but reducing our demand for energy.

Last night, the Montpelier Energy Team hosted an energy town meeting at the high school, and over a hundred people showed up to learn what's being done and how they can help. And there are lots of ways to plug in, because so much is happening.