I've been reading about Peak Oil for two hours.

I need more than holding, I need serious narcotics by the boatload.

:scared:

Why do I do that to myself at NIGHT? Can't sleep for sure, now. We're all gonna die.


(This is the biggest downer of a lounge post I have ever posted. Hands down.)

It is largely bullshit, supported by speculation. No, oil reserves aren't infinite, but human imagination to solve problems may be -- and most of the problems that make up the doomsday predictions are already solveable. I wouldn't lose a moment's sleep over that pile of alarmist nonsense.

But I honestly don't know WHAT to believe anymore.

I almost wonder if "peak oil" isn't a ruse bushco will use when all their other ruses fall away to justify what they've done.

(But, shhhhh! What I just said could be considered blasphemy in some circles.)

I hope to God YOU are right.

you must not understand what it all means. Do you see our current adminstration even BEGINNING to work on "solving the problem"???

Nor should they, since it isn't a real problem. :)

nt

lol A fact might help your cause. lol

You simply made the unsupported assertion that it isn't a problem.

However, the undisputed (even by you) fact, that we are running out of the most important resource that our civilization depends on to keep going, and doing little or nothing to plan for the time it does run out, does look like a problem to most rational people.

You've got this wrong way around. For one thing, nowhere have I said that we are running out of oil. I have said (and won't bother to document) that oil is not an infinite resource. It doesn't logically follow that that means we are running out...unless you want to contend that we all begin to die the moment we are born...and that renders discussion futile.

If anyone wants to claim that Peak Oil they must provide the evidence.

especially the chapter: How can things look okay yet be so bad?


Where our energy came from, how we're "living beyond our means," and what will happen to our children when we run out.


Extremely important and cogent, and needs to be read and absorbed by many to ensure the possibility of a future for the human race and all other life on Earth. Divided into three main parts, this book explains in detail where we are, how and why we got here, and what we can do for a brighter future. Very practical, well-researched, comprehensive. I am not aware of a better book on the issues, especially since it not only sets out the realities of our situation (dependence on dwindling oil and clean-water supplies, destruction of forests and plant/animal species, unsustainable population growth, frequent wars, third-world and first-world impoverishment, etc.), but also explains why, fundamentally, human civilization has gotten us into this mess (tracing the causes back thousands of years to the basis of civilization and comparing the recent city-state or nation-state lifestyle to that of the much older tribe), and what we can possibly do to change our course and save our children and their children and the planet they will inherit.
I would give a more detailed or articulate description, but I lent my copy out the day I finished reading it, and several people are already waiting in line to borrow it. If there is a book to buy multiple copies of and give away, this is the best one I have found. Do not let it sit on the bookshelf indefinitely - after you read it, pass it around, from one person to another, making sure it never stays the same place, unread, for long. If you must keep a copy for your own reference, at least buy a second one to pass around to your friends

I'll have a look. Sounds like it deals with a lot more than just Peak Oil.

Oil wars, offshoring, selfish greed instead of repairing the economic damage done by Reagan and a couple of Bushes?

What we call Suburbia is doomed, Suburbia can not survive the upcoming Oil Shortage. On the other hand the doomsday pitches you read are just to extreme. Now I do NOT believe we will invent out way out of the fall of Suburbia, but we will re-invent this country to reflect a low oil usage. The transition will be tough but it is doable. You may end up riding a bike to your local Streetcar stop and you will see more and more horses and bikes sued to transport goods as while as people, and you will see most parking spaces disappear but you will survive as will most people.

I always did like the way they did things in the past. The part that I didn't like so much about the past was the lack of medical technology but oh well!

Thanks!

In part Three I go into details on how the suburbs will disappear given the upcoming oil shortage, but to understand HOW the suburbs will disappear you have to understand how the Suburbs were formed, thus the topic of the Paper is "Suburbs and Transporation".


A Short history of Suburbs and Transportation.

Part One
Background on the growth of Suburbs.

To understand today’s Suburbs you have to understand how Suburbs came about. Suburbs did not appear full form like the Goddess Athena, but started out small and expanded to the point where 1/3 of Americans now live in “Suburbs” (1/3 of Americans also live in Urban and the final third live in Rural areas. Please note some writers use One Half in Suburbs, 1/4 in Inner Cities and 1/4 in Rural America. The term “Suburb” is a relative term as you can see in part two of this paper. Some people consider some of the earliest suburbs Inner City, and some of more distant suburbs rural America. This paper is NOT to define what is Suburbia BUT to set forth a short history of HOW Suburbia came to be).

Each expansion of Suburbia lead to a new situation that produced more Suburbs, but also different Suburbs. Some of these Suburbs are as different from each other as they are from the Inner City they sprang from. Three factors influenced the growth of Suburbs, first was the raise and decline of the Electric Railway systems (“Electric Railway” is a more accurate term than “Streetcar” “Trolley” or “Light Rail Vehicle”, but all four terms are often used interchangeably). Second was the Automobile. And Third was the 1964 Supreme Court Rule adopting the “one man, one vote rule”.

I. The Raise of the Electric Railway Systems.
For more details see: http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/railway/trolley.htm

Suburbs are a product of increase mobility of people. Cities in the 1800s were very compact for Steam Locomotives (or ships) could only make stops once every couple of miles. Cities grew to exploit these stops by providing the maximum concentration of population, services and Products for such stops. Now the first suburbs (as we would use that term today) were also the product of Steam Locomotive, but given the distance a Steam Locomotive had to stop, these early suburbs tend to be VERY far apart and generally independent towns who were just 1-2 stops from the nearest big city. It was the City that made trains very profitable, and in turn the Trains made the Cities very Profitable.

With the increase profits of the Cities, the Cities started to expand. First the Cities tried horse draw wagons but found that if you put the wagon on steel tracks and give the wagon steel wheels, one horse could pull the weight of what four horses could pull with wooden wheels on dirt or pavement. Thus the first horse draw “Streetcars” where installed into the cities. These were replaced by Electric Streetcars and with the Electric Streetcar we have the start of today’s suburbs.

On the other end of the Urban/Rural Divide, the US Post Office in the said it would provide Rural Free Delivery (RFD) to any areas with “improved” Roads (Urban Areas had such deliveries starting in the Civil War). This was do to lobbying by Bicyclist who wanted paved roads to ride on (Prior to 1920 most Americans lived in Rural areas not Urban/Suburban Areas). Prior to that date Rural roads were all dirt (with some exceptions, not many but some, for example US 30 was only paved coast to coast in 1925, being the first paved coast to coast).

I a. The raise of Competitors to Electric Railway Systems:

Bicyclists were the major push for improved roads till 1900, when Automobiles owners joined in (and replaced the Bicyclists) to push for improved roads. About 1905 several States imposed the Gasoline Tax to pay for such improved roads (this type of “user” tax was popular around 1900, for example Hunters had agreed to a 15% tax on Guns and Ammunition so that the Federal Government could have some money to pay for conservation. Both taxes were pushed by the people who were paying the tax, thus Congressmen agreed to pass them).

With the Gasoline Tax, the States had money to pave roads. The States started to pave, but only rural roads, with most “State” highways ending at the edge of any major city. Each city had to pave its own streets. Most cities had started to pave their own streets after the Civil War, but with the advent of the Electric Railway, most cities had the Electric Railway Companies pave the streets the Electric Railway ran on. This requirement that the Electric Railway Companies maintain the paved road the Electric Railway ran on, was one of the reasons Electric Railways were later replaced by Buses.

I b - Decline of Rural Electric Railways:

In 1890, when most urban areas (and many rural areas) first started to have Electric Railways, such Electric Railway service was very profitable, but by the 1920s profit margins had dropped so much that the Electric Railway companies in rural areas could NOT replace their tracks AND still stay in business. Thus from the 1920s till the 1960s whenever a major rebuild of tracks were needed, the rural Electric Railway lines were abandoned. Some of the old Electric Railway Companies converted themselves to buses, other went bankrupt and replaced by a new company running buses. Most of these bus companies survived only 10-20 more years and than closed down. Replaced by nothing (If you did not have a car you were out of luck for transportation).

Please note I am discussing Rural Electric Railways NOT Inner City Electric Railways. . Rural Electric Railways peaked in 1918 and than declined rapidly in the 1920s. Urban Electric Railways peaked in 1927 and declined slowly in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s with some surviving till today (The drop after 1927 is tied in with the coming great depression more than the raise of the Automobile. The Automobile’s full effect would not hit the urban Electric Railways till after WWII). Rural Electric lines went out of business decades before their urban cousins but the cycle of decline was the same for both urban and rural lines except that urban lines lasted a good bit longer than the rural lines.

II. The Automobile and the Decline of Urban Electric Streetcar Systems:

While the above was going on as to Electric Railways, the Automobile was moving on. While 1920 was the first Census of the US where more people lived in Urban Areas than Rural Areas, the effect of the Automobile on Rural Transportation seem to be quicker and greater. While paved roads would come late to such Rural Areas (Most would not have paved roads till the 1930s) the Automobile driven on Dirt Roads during dry weather could move faster than a horse draw wagon. The Automobile’s biggest competitor, the rural Electric Inter-urban Electric Railway, had to maintain its own right of way and collect its fees. With the competition of the Automobile and the movement of people from the Country to the City such Rural Electric Railways quickly went into a death spiral. What happen is as less people used the Electric Railway, to maintain profitability the Street-cars ran less often, with the Rural Electric Railway running less often people said “Why should I wait for the Rural Electric Railways? I just take my Automobile”. People thought this way, people went out and bought an automobile, and the Rural Electric Railways had less and less customers. Most rural Electric Railway lines failed in the 1920s, with a few lasting till the 1950s (I am speaking of Electric “Electric Railways” in “rural” areas NOT in urban or suburban sittings).

Now as the Country side lost population, the City gained populations. Just like the rural area, urbanites wanted to be able to use Automobiles. Most cities had paved roads so the Automobiles operated on these roads, and starting in the 1920s you had city planners starting to retrofit roads for the Automobile. These retrofits tended to put more Automobiles on the same streets the Electric Railways were on, slowing the Electric railway in addition to other automobiles (and you had a situation similar as what was happening in the Rural areas 10-15 years earlier). Urban Planners than decided to make expressways for Automobiles and these worked for a time, until the growing number of automobiles exceeded the capacities of these expressways (For more details see Part III Below)

III. The US Supreme Court’s 1964 “One Man, One Vote” rule:

In 1964 the US Supreme Court ruled that every American had the right to vote AND that every person’s vote had to be viewed as Equal. This outlawed the practice in most states of providing more representation in their Legislature for Rural Areas than Urban Areas. Prior to 1964 (Which is the era we are discussing in this paper) Rural areas had more representation and thus more power in most state’s legislature than Urban Areas, even as more people lived in urban areas. This had several affect, first rural roads were given priority over urban Roads, second such Rural legislators could be easily convinced that certain rural areas near urban areas should have priority over other rural areas (Thus provided more funds for the development of Suburbia). A third side affect is a total opposition to mass transit (Since you could not have mass transit in rural areas, the rural legislators saw no reason to vote for mass transit in urban areas).

Now, the Supreme Court Decision reduced the power of the Rural areas of this country, but did it at a very bad point in the history of what is now called the “Inner City” i.e. Non-suburbia. Do to the expansion of Suburbia prior to 1964, the power switch caused by the 1964 Supreme Court Decision was NOT from Rural to Urban, but Rural to Suburban. By 1964 approximately 1/3 of the US population lived in Rural Areas, with 2/3 in Urban Areas, the problem was the inner city was losing its population and suburbia was increasing, thus by about 1980 it was Rural 1/3, inner-city 1/3 and Suburbia 1/3. With most rural areas voting Republican after 1964, and most inner City voting Democratic after 1964, the fight for control of both the state and Federal Government was fought by the two political parties in Suburbia. Thus neither party has a very good reason to fight the growth of Suburbia, for it would be cutting itself off from the votes it needs to win.


Part Two
History of Suburbia.1890-2000
(All dates used herein are to establish a guideline to go with this paper. None of these dates are fixed in stone. The dates are being used to set forth HOW suburbia developed NOT the exact dates of any one development in that history.)

A. The Trolley Suburbs 1890-1920.

With the perfection of the Electric Railway, people could have a quick clean and reliable way to get from Home to Work WITHOUT having to live near a Stream Locomotive line. This helped developed the first true Suburbs (Suburbs had existed before but on the Stream Locomotive right of way and as such restricted in area). These areas are now mostly in inner-cities but people who moved into these areas intended to take the Electric Railway to and from work instead of the earlier means of walking (Contrary to the Movies NO one took a horse to work, if you did you had to keep it in a stable and had to feed it. If you went by Carriage, the preferred way, you had to keep the carriage stored away from the horse, horse manure is hard on wood and metal. Horse manure is also hard on Saddles, thus no one rode a horse to work). Once these tracks were in the people would move out into these Trolley Suburbs as they were called. Stores would move out to be along the track for that was were the people who had money were.

In my home town of Pittsburgh, the Oakland area of Pittsburgh was a “Trolley Suburb”, The University of Pittsburgh moved out from Downtown Pittsburgh to the Oakland section of Pittsburgh during this time period for it could build a bigger building (the Cathedral of Learning) on a bigger plot of land than you could in Downtown Pittsburgh. Other Business followed.

B. First Automobile Suburbs, 1920-1945.

These differ from the earlier Trolley Suburbs is that people who moved into these suburbs expected to used their Automobile either to commute to the old inner city or to the Electric Railway line and take the Electric Railway line to work. People still tended to view the Electric Railway as backup if something should go wrong with their car. The homes were still within a distant, but reasonable walk from the Electric Railway line. One of the Characteristics of this time period is the movement of Branch Stores of the Major Downtown Department Stores to the end of the Electric Railway lines. These branch stores were on the Electric Railway lines so their workers could get to them without the need for a car, but people in the new Automotive suburbs could drive they car to these same stores.

C. Post-WWII Suburban Boom 1945-1964.

This is an expansion of the First Automotive Suburbs to areas to far to walk to the Electric Railway (or bus lines as the Electric Railways are replaced by Buses), but people can still be dropped off at the Electric Railway stop if their spouse needed the car for the day. This period saw the expansion of strip malls and discount stores in such strip malls. K-Mart type stores come into domination, stores not only relying on customers driving to work, BUT ALSO THEIR EMPLOYEES Driving to work

D. The Mall Age 1964-1990.

This is an expansion of the Post-WWII suburbs to even further from the inner-city AND a switch to employment in SUBURBIA and that only the poor would be using public transportation. Four things distinguish this period from the prior period, First is the Switch to the Mall being the main shopping Mecca, Second (and related), the death of most inner-city department stores (Only the biggest ones tend to survive), Third, most Public Transportation switch to both buses AND Government ownership of Public Transportation (With Public Transportation being seen only as a means to provide transportation for the poor as opposed to a serious transit alternative for the automobile) and Fourth, the first branch stores of the old inner-city department stores slowly close down and are moved to the Mall. Many Survive the conversion from Electric Railways to Buses, but some do not, for the call of the Mall is to great. Unlike earlier eras, if you do not have a car your employment opportunities are VERY limited.

Now the First oil Crisis occurred in this ear, but looks like it was more of a minor hindrance to the furthering of Mall America (a mere hiccup for America was still producing 90% of the oil it was using, not till the 1980s did that number start to drop till today’s 50% production).

E. The Modern Era, 1990-2004.

This area saw two conflicting movements, first the re-turn of Public Transportation as a serious means of transport for the non-poor, Second the growth of the Super K-mart (i.e. Wal-mart) in areas even further out from the inner-city. While the Mall age saw Public Transportation almost die, the further growth of Suburbia show increase traffic tie-ups between suburban areas. The earlier solution of building bigger and bigger highways was increasingly showing to be a dead-end, but the attempts at improving mass transit feeble do to the feeling that it is only for the poor. People were looking at Mass Transit but since most states restricted Gasoline Tax money to highway use, mass transit had NO stable funding source. With Gasoline the Cheapest (in real terms) it has ever been, no push to increase funding for mass transit is made. Furthermore with more jobs in the Suburbs than in the inner city the old method of all transit going to the urban core is not time efficient for most workers. Why go to the Urban Core by one bus to catch another bus to where you work, when you can drive directly to the suburban work location?

We are in some sort of transition, people have been talking of the need for Public Transportation for 30 years (since the advent of Mall America) but these have all failed for failing to come up with a funding source for such mass transit. Buses have failed for the same reason the earlier Electric Railway failed in the cities, as the roads have more and more cars, the bus service that uses the same roads goes down hill. The only solution has been known for over 50 years (as shown by many of the surviving Street car lines), mass transit to work has to come frequently, reliably and as fast as using a car. The only way to do that is to have the transit on its own right of way, but that is expensive, buses running on the same roads as Automobiles are cheaper to buy.
Part Three
The Future of Suburbs and Public Transportation.

I go through the above to show you how we became what we are. To eliminate the Automobile would mean to reverse most of the above. Public Transportation has not been viewed as a serious transportation option for most commuters since about 1964 (and I am being generous, I believe we have to go back to the 1920s to see HOW our society has to be structured when we abandoned the automobile). 1964 is the start of the Mall Age of America AND the rule by Suburbia. While the Inner-city would adjust to an oil-less age rapidly (everything tends to be in walking distance and with oil scare most stores will return to the urban core) how can Suburbia switch? I have less concern about Rural America than Suburbia for Rural America can always go back to horses and a life style of going to “Town” once a month (more often when the crop is in). Even Rural industry can adjust by just having the workers move back to the Company towns that still surround most such existing rural industry (Or moving the industry to the inner-city). Most “Rural Industry” tend to be on rail lines anyway so not much a problem for them. Rail tend to be more fuel efficient than Tractor-Trailer AND can more easily convert to electricity as a source of power)

Thus Suburbia is the problem. Bicycle are NOT much help (Please Note I am referring to bicycles in SUBURBIA, I see them as very valuable help in the urban cores AND even rural America). Now Bicycle are quicker than walking, most suburbs have separated work areas from where people live by distances that are to far to bike EVERY DAY. Furthermore most of these work sites are NOT on a rail line so truck transportation is their lifeline (i.e. if oil becomes so scarce that Tractor-Trailer owners can no afford to buy oil, these suburban work shops will die, even if the workers can bike to work).

One last note, when I mention Trains using electricity as a power source, I know you still need some sort of energy to produce the electricity, but that can be Natural Gas(which like oil is in decline), coal, Solar, wind, Hydro and even Nuclear. Thus you have more option than just oil.

In the final review the best solution will be an adjustment to a clearer Urban-Rural divide with what we call Suburbia slowly dying. People will have to move closer to their jobs and those jobs will move closer to the cheapest transportation that will exist at that time (probably rail, but can be barge or ship and even bicycle or horse).

Suburbia will retreat to the old inner cities. Some Suburbs retreating to the new urban cores that exist around some of the malls that exists today. These will survive only if connected to the inner city by a LRV system (Or other rail connection), but once that is up and running you will see people moving closer and closer to these urban cores. For example I see the malls all building apartment complexes for their workers over the existing parking lots. This will permit people who can no longer afford to operate a car to move closer to their work. As more and more people abandoned the Automobile, do to the increase in oil prices, these people will fill in the areas around the old malls developing what the old downtown of 1900 had, shops and workers. After a while the mall will cover all of their parking lots with such apartments as people other than workers decide to live next to the mall. Just like today’s growth of Suburbia is lubricated by cheap oil, the existence of expensive oil will lubricate a retreat from Suburbia.

In Rural Areas I see the return of the horse and increase rural population. Modern Farming techniques require huge tractors. With fuel expensive, the horse can be competitive but only if the present large farms are broken up into the smaller farms such farms were only a couple of generations ago. Today, a Horse can compete with tractors on farms of less than 50 acres (but you can not survive as a farmer on such a small farms, most farmers who are full time farmers are farming 500+ acres, and to do that you need a huge tractor AND oil to run that tractor). Once oil is to expensive, the economics of farming will change and that will lead to a slow return to smaller farms.

One area where overlap will occur is some of the Mall Age and post Mall age Suburbs. I see the Post-Mall Age Suburbs (and the Mall Age Suburbs not close to a LRV Line) being abandoned and return to farm land. With decrease yields do to reduce use of Natural Gas derived fertilizers we will have to do so to just to feed our present population. Thus as you travel from the rural farm land to the urban core. you will see acres and acres of small farms than move right into urban areas with small yards. Than as you near the urban core you will enter an area of Apartment buildings (no more than six stories high) around a central shopping district (a old mall or an old inner city center). The Cities will be dispersed but compacted, connected by electric rail service (on both LRV system and the old locomotive systems that will convert to Electricity).

In review you see we have only been living in a Automotive dominated society since about 1925, which means it has taken us 75 years to get to where we are. Once we start to convert to non-automotive society it will take us just as long and will require a slow increase in the price of oil (which is expected). Thus whenever oil production peak occurs, that is when we will start the long and “interesting” switch to a post-automotive society.

You missed something - All the oil energy that goes into growing and processing our food. Without that energy there will be mass starvation when the coming lack of oil, prices itself out of the range of the food growers to stay in business.

Most of the land Suburbia is on was farmland before it was Suburbs, it will return to farmlands. This will be done at first as people grow crops for themselves (Given the increase in food prices do to the reduction in the use of oil and natural gas) and than by farmers as the suburbia households are abandoned.

Those "Inner City" homes with small back yard will revert to gardens to help people eat. This happened in the 1970s, you had a huge growth in Gardening, than it all died in the 1980s with the return of cheap food. You will also see more grains being gown and less meat to reflect people opting for a more grain based diet (Again do to the increase costs of food do to the loss of access to oil and natural gas).

In modern Suburbia you have a lot of farm-able land that can be made farm able again with minimal costs, and I see that happening so the price of food goes up.

Good post. One thing that occurred to my mind, when you said that people will need to move back closer to their jobs. In the olden days you could get a job and reasonably expect to keep it until you retired. These days, in order to keep the working class weak and easily manipulated, the moneyed class like to keep us having to change jobs every few years. This would also need to change.

that could be the model for how to come through the coming crisis.

Do you know about co-housing. Try that term and Silver Spring to see a cool housing alternative to urban dwellers. New project resident owned in Silver Spring MD. People there love it!

It's all a matter of how and when. But the peak oil is certainly going to make it that much more, um, interesting. Gaia will get rid of us eventually, we are her cancer. She needs to.

LATE at night.....:scared:

I'm still think of it daily. As a matter of fact, I was just reading some of Michael Ruppert's website From the Wilderness.

I also subscribe to the RunningOnEmpty2@yahoogroups and RunningOnEmpty3 (for newbies) and get the posts daily. It's a huge group with about 2500 people on it. Lots of good articles.

Have you read lifeaftertheoilcrash.net or dieoff.org yet? Those can keep you busy for days--and in shock, too. I've done what I can to prepare little by little--it's a neverending process. We'll never be ready totally.

I was depressed for weeks. It's normal to feel that way. The only way I got myself out of that phase was to start trying to do what I can to prepare. I spent from February on trying to get Kerry elected to at least buy us a little more time. Now that I know what speed we're going, I'm a little more nervous. Ruppert says the oil supply is going to be alright up through the next 2 years. It will allow more time to try and change things. We need to push our congressmen to try alternatives to slow up the process to prepare.

Go sign up on ROE2 and ROE3 and you will not feel so bad.

It will change your life and how you look at things forever, though.

(and yes I've been reading those very sites tonight).

I prepared like crazy for Y2K, convinced it was going to be anything from major inconvenience to all out hell and preparing for the all out hell part. I mean SERIOUSLY prepared. Water storage, seeds for sprouting, learned how to make soap, candles (and did it), learned basic medical care (quite a bit of it), put in tons of shelf-stable foods, even MREs that the military uses, etc. There's more, but you can imagine. HARD core preparation.

And I really really burned myself out on that. I lived, ate and breated survival stuff for three years (97, 98, 99). I ended up having several pretty major panic attacks (to the point of passing out).

So the idea of having to start this all over again is wildly exhausting. I know what to do. Once you've been through it, you can get back into it pretty easily. I'm just still so burned out on it. I even ordered stuff from Lehmans.com--they sell to the Amish and we learned how to live off the grid and everything. Still have all the books and most of the water storage stuff, etc. We didn't have to buy toilet paper from 2000 until 2002, if you can believe that. We had an entire spare bedroom we turned into a food storage room. Cashed out our 401Ks (CRINGE!!!!! The tax penalties were horrid...) We didn't go so far as to buy physical gold as some did. I never saw the point--you can't eat it.

Our friends and family thought we were nutty and I guess we were but I learned so much during that and I think just the things we learned were valuable.

But.....sigh......not again.......

I never thought anything was going to happen and didn't care. But the science that backs up the idea that oil is finite and will be more expensive the more difficult it is to get out of the earth, and the fact that the U.S. has already peaked and nobody is finding more oil at the rate the world is consuming it ---all of that makes complete logical sense to me. It may not happen immediately, it may not happen in 50-100 years for all I know, but someday it will. This is a physical world with real physical limitations. I can't see how it cannot make sense to someone or that they would think it's a hoax.

It's really good that you are as far as you are in preparations! A lot farther along than me! I don't think your preparations have been in vain.

I'm no longer in the panic stages. Since the elections, I fear more that we will all die in a war or nuclear attack BECAUSE of depleting energy resources rather than the oil/energy depletion itself. Our economy is living on the edge and any major oil shock could send the markets plummeting. There are many different possibilities but they point to a "perfect storm". I am just doing what I can do and am enjoying and appreciating life as it is now a WHOLE lot more than I used to, so that's a positive. I am glad I know what can happen now. I won't be so surprised like the rest of the population. Mentally, that's a godsend for me. Not that I'll be any less affected by "TEOTWAWKI" (the-end-of-life-as-we-know-it) but at least my mind is prepared enough for it mentally if it happens. I'd like to be mentally prepared more than anything!

I think that peak-oil as a concept/set of factual statements is important and well worth discussing. However, I refuse to accept their flat out denial that there is any solution other than never ending resource wars and the end of civilization. That takes them in to a secular version of the Rapture (same scenario but earth science replaces God as the avenger).

Think about this. Under our glorious former leader, Big Dog, we had a project that unraveled DNA, yes that's right the basis for ALL organic life. Great project. Why the heck can't we or probably someone else do a resource, cash intensive crash project to find a real substitute for gas in our current cars, a clean one. We built the bomb, we went to the Moon, we unraveled DNA and more with projects like this.

There is no way I'll accept the specific Peak-Oil claim that there is no hope. The no-hope message is an embedded punishment condition that is a moralistic rather than a rational conclusion.

Relax, go to bed, remember that necessity is the mother of invention and that we're not the only place in the world where inventions occur.

But it will take huge amounts of money and not a small amount of time. The problem is not that we will have to find a solution, the problem is that we are burying our collective heads in the no longer oil rich sand and by the time we (America, mostly) figure out there is a problem we will not have much time and given how we are spending our grandkids money right now, we may not have the finances to avert the disaster. Maybe we'll be the "last minute kids", goodness knows we've done it before. What is it that will wake us from our slumber, though?

I'm quite sure neither you nor I are waiting for Chimpy and his oil barons to help out on this one. They know their plan and failure, while inevitable, is not in the plan book. There doesn't seem to much of a plan book other than PNAC which was more of a wish list than a good plan.

Pathetic! And we will pay, we will all pay dearly. I wish it were fair and they would pay more than you and I, but, while I'm a very optimistic person, these last couple of decades have made me more realistic too which can sometimes border on pessimistic because this situation among many, sucks big time!

and the inevitability of that. When I heard we're spending $5 billion a month in Iraq I thought, WTF, just one months expenditure could probably fund the type of project I'm talking about. The pay off is so tantalizing -- a clean form of energy. That would solve multiple problems not the least of which is cleaning up the filthy air that gives our kids asthma at an alarming rate. I agree with everything you said.

Your post did help. Here I am 45 minutes later, trying to play a computer game to unwind from reading all that stuff and peeking in the lounge. The lounge ONLY for me for the next two weeks!

Thanks again.

Many, many breakthroughs exist, but have been, for many reasons, kept secret. IMHO when it is most needed, but hopefully before it is needed, they will be brought into view.

There are cars that run on compressed air in France, made by an American, engines that run on vegetable oil. At some point we will have a more sustainable world, and because we are between the old, and the new, which we are creating, it will take some time.

Know that there is so much good, extraordinary things that will be created, if not already, and please take extra good care of yourself.

Love is the greatest force.
:hug:

No Peak Oil Needed!!!


The MDI Air Car - the world´s cleanest car.
The car with a compressed air engine, MDI. ... It´s already looking like the MDI Air Car will be one of the major technological discoveries of the new century. ...
www.theaircar.com

:pals:

But this car still runs on fossil fuels:

This mechanism allows the engine to run exclusively on fossil fuel which permits compatible autonomy on the road.

as it says on this page:

http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html

It recompresses the air in it, hell it may even be more fuel efficient, but it still requires either fuel cells, in other words hydrogen derived from NG or some other source for electricity at an energy loss. Or fossil fuel, which will become a dwindling resource. Good idea for 30 years ago for the transition phase and delaying the peak, but maybe too little, too late for todays problems. I also don't see how much energy will need to be used to compress the air into its tank, but it will lead to a total energy loss, simple physics, can't break the 2nd law in a closed system like that.

clever persons sense of humor. If these are real, wow! Do you have a link. Thanks.

...there will be a mad rush to develop them to completion.

But we still need a way to directly (and efficiently) harness the sun's energy without using fossil fuels, otherwise it's all just masturbation.

For example, hydrogen fuel cells are great, but what's the point if we're just charging them with energy form fossil fuels?

so that you will support the regime's quest for worldwide geopolitical domination.

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr55.html

Then why has the US oil production peaked already in 1970s? Also explain why Russia's "new" oil is slowing down in production, and projected to peak within the next decade?

OK, if it's a myth, please explain where this unlimited supply of oil will come from?

unlimited quantities under the surface, and is formed, not by dead biomatter of the ancient past, but by chemical processes of magma itself. Even if possible, there is little evidence to support that it is easily attainable, I mean, yeah sure, it could be 10 miles down beneath our feet, but can we actually afford to dig that deep? It also fails to explain how some fields already peaked and are on steady decline, such as in the lower 48 states in the past 30 years. Also, even if it replenished our oil fields, it may take millenia or millions of years to do so, in other words, its practically useless to rely on this theory to "save" us from Peak Oil.

This is simply going to mean change, humans, even our civilization, will survive, just in a different form than before. The greatest danger is food production, and the end of consumerist lifestyles, ie, suburbia. Worst case scenarios include mass starvation and other things of that nature, and while terrible, it may be unavoidable. Its not like I advocate for it, unlike some crazies, but it is a possibility. Simply put, prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and do everything possible in your community that will help alleviate the suffering that will come. We will survive, and maybe thrive in this scenario. There are solutions, but humans are a conservative lot and resist change of the sort that we will need to make. Educate, learn, and above all don't panic. To give the example of myself, I teaching myself skills that would be useful in the coming crisis. For the short term, we will need to gear down, and go old school for some things, while in other areas, develop new methods, or use ones that were disused in the past 50 years, to help ourselves develop a new economy that is sustainable.

When you realize that we all should have been dead 20 years ago, you will feel a lot better.

To contemplate that our means of food production, transportation, virtually production of everything to some (or all) extent is based on a need for oil. The whole culture of production/distribution/sustaining will have to change. For me, this is most scary because I am a diabetic. Without the means to produce, distribute, or inject insulin, no amount of knowing how to live off the land and sustain myself will be enough. My IL's live on 40+ acres, know how to farm, have usable streams, etc. But even that wouldn't do it for me :scared: