While we are talking about great hand tools...

This spring I have been using my new broadfork:

http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=1824&itemT...

It's a fabulous tool, and built to last a century. Surprisingly easy on the body (burns a lot of calories, though).

In Tennessee archiologists have excavated a Native American "industrial" site specializing in the manufacture of chert digging hoe blades. The site has chert nodules of just the right size and having a near-ideal combination of toughness and workability. The workshop arrangements imply worker specialization, and were used over a long period of time. Their hoes have been found hundreds of miles away, re-sharpened down to a nub.

Maybe in a couple of hundred years that site will be back in production.

Errol in Miami

If you haven't dicovered him yet, Eric Sloan's books are loaded with facinating info about old tools and ways of using them.

Hello Greg in MO & Jokuhl,

Thxs for responding. Yep, we need lots of simple tools improved for the postPeak era.

I think spiderwebriding is best, but I was thinking about ways to improve the uphill & downhill use of rubber-tired wheelbarrows & bicycles for ice & snow because safe footing will be next to impossible.

Perhaps the rope-tow used on beginning skier bunny slopes. The safest way I have seen is where the novice sits inside a inflated tube to be dragged up the slope-- no way for them to fall. It also greatly reduces weight/sq. foot; it takes tremendous advantage of sliding across the top of the snow [no snow removal required].

Therefore if a wheelbarrow or bicycle needs to go up a snow-covered hill--just have them flop down onto the tube or some kind of sled--simple and safe. Since the rope or cable is circular-looping, the other side of the mechanism can be used for those wishing to get a load down the slope.

Same principle could be used on frozen canals or across lakes.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

While I'm certainly no expert on the situation, my observation and understanding is that most Saskatchewan properties are shallow wells, medium to heavy oil, not much gas, slow production from small dome structures. A typical well puts out maybe 150 a day. I don't think that the government has been at all restrictive, but that the production potential has been of the low cost, low output type.

A look at production profiles from North Dakota might point out whether the exploitation has been similar on both sides of the border. My hunch is that Saskatchewan may have been more active. The US has seemed to be slow to develop the Montana area as well. There are all sorts of these small production areas about the world, but cumulatively they won't result in much export possibility - and export is where the problem is.

Got any oil for sale?

The upper limit is almost certainly because of economics, not available technology.

Land is the limiting factor.

Most (at least many) refineries contain duplicate units of different processing/refining units.

But space is critical around many refineries.

A local refinery in Chalmette (downriver of New Orleans) had a crude storage tank that collapsed and spilled during Katrina. They offered generous buyouts (perhaps 130% of pre-Katrina values) for homes with a dozen feet of water and smeared in goo.

Saves legal fees, promotes good will but also clears the way for expansion.

Best Hopes,

Alan

Robert, from an engineering perspective, what is the reasonable upper bound on the size of a refinery today, given our current technology?

I was about to write the same thing that Alan wrote. The land - specifically the tank farm since it takes up so much space - is going to be the limiting factor. It isn't going to be the technology. You can always add another cracker, another crude tower, another hydrotreater, another coker. But you can only do this as long as you have the land (and customers close enough to justify processing the crude) to do so.

Mortgage interest rates are not high by historic standards. What is different from historic standards are the number of people that have financed their home purchase with adjustable rate mortgages.

Eric, I doubt you have the slightest idea of what I speak of.

Changes in gun laws? Yeah...like we can carry concealed here.
Like we do NOT have to retreat from those who threaten us either in our home or elsewhere. That was a recent change in MANY states.

Harvest of game? If the deer come in my garden or any other and consume it then I have the LEGAL right to shoot them.

I do NOT need a hunting license nor deer tags on my own land in Kentucky. I do not need a fishing license either to do the same. In fact I believe that I now get them free. I do abide by the game rules but ................insert obligatory..*IN THE FUTURE WHEN THERE IS NO RULING AUTHORITY******REPEAT REPEAT OVER AND OVER FOR THE READING IMPAIRED***************

then no one will need SQUAT!!!!!!!

That will be your REAL WORLD son. Your future and continual world of reality IF you survive the dieoff and I'm thinking you Eric Blair will NOT survive it.

Airdale--as I see it, as I live it and now back to the auction...

Eric,
I agree on the property taxes but the rest of it sort of reflects a city view. Few in the country are going to worry about gun laws. The serious country people have enough ammo to last a lifetime. And, fewer are going to worry about game laws if TSHTF; people will take what is necessary to survive. The deer in my area were wiped out within six months after the Depression took hold. I wouldn't think twice about taking game regardless of the laws. If I can't shoot it, I'll trap it or snare it. And, yes, I have traps and snares. In fact, I have a number of snares set up now to get any wild pigs who try to get into my garden and orchard. I may even set up a live trap this summer when they are more likely to be around.

Country people who don't know how to trap or clean game might find some of the DVDs from Buckshot of interest. http://www.buckshotscamp.com and people who don't know how to tan hides will be interested in the book,Deerskins into Buckskins or go to http://www.braintan.com It's good for the puke factor since the animal's brain is used for tanning. BTW, Duke Traps make some really neat head-hold traps (along with leg-hold traps) http://www.duketraps.com/4body/bodytrap.html

Country people will also forage but a city or suburban person who thinks they can just forage beause the land looks "rural" is going to find out that someone owns that land who will not take their trespassing lightly.

Todd; a Realist

Post WW II Western Germany (from memory) financed essential gov't services primarily from property taxes on farmland. A number of German farmers lost their land to the tax man.

The Depression and WW II profitering by the farmers made them unpopular and as the best off sector of society post WW II, with real assets of value, they were a logical target for punishing tax rates.

In Eastern Germany, they just confiscated the farm land.

Alan

Actually no, I did not know where you lived. I live on a 75 hectare (187 acre) farm in southern Minnesota and the levels of government meddling in everything got so bad we just put all the tillable acres in CRP & let it go back to nature.
I'd love to put up fences (good = expensive) and raise Loline Angus cattle based on a grass fed plan.
But if I put up fences I am afraid they will raise my taxes (improvements don't ya know) and then there is the problem of if and where they might give me legal permission to build a barn to keep the cattle in over the Winter. It's just easier to say to heck with it at my age (67) than to try to fight (county) "city hall".
My property taxes have more than doubled over the last couple of years and are set to go way up again next year.
I have serious worries on a fixed retirement income of being taxed off the farm before I can grow old and die of old age. Property taxes here are based upon the assessors guess what your property might sell for if it was sold based upon the selling prices of "nearby" property that has sold recently. It takes no account of the condition of your property or its ag production capacity (quality) except that if you make an improvement to the property it increases your taxes. Ie if you put up a new barn that is an improvement that will raise your taxes, but when the barn grows old and falls down they never decrease your taxes as a result, but if you build a new barn to replace the falled down one that is another "improvement" and will raise your taxes some more.
I am now beginning to really understand why old people let their places fall apart. They can't survive the tax increases on a fixed income that would accrue from fixing them up.
Hint, don't consider southern Minnesota as a good place to move for retirement or post peak survival.

My relatives are in County Gov

I think that's one of the more important things to have post-SHTF. City people live such isolated lives (no really). They can't just chat with the mayor about fixing those potholes in the street if there's 500,000 other citizens that also want the mayor's time. We're overpopulated, QED.

But when you're related to, or friends with, everyone in the county, you have an external resource of inestimable value. Of course when crunch time comes, the State Gov may start sniffing around for stuff to confiscate... they'll be worrying about a lot of hungry cityfolk.

Though I do envy your situation, Airdale -- you're probably in one of the best spots on the planet right now. Rural state, about as far from the coastal population centers as possible, as WNC Observer said, "surrounded by fifty million bubbas with guns". That's a d@mn3d good buffer against anything but nuclear fallout.

| _{The problem will solve itself.}
|  _{But not in a nice way.}

Airdale,
I've enjoyed your posts, but usually too busy to join in. Your setup is pretty ideal. I grew up in small town in Illinois and learned how to hunt, butcher, garden, and fix stuff. Now, I'm in a small city but think I'll do well also, even id "within a gas tank" distance from a lot of people. The bigger cities will simply be a mess when TSHTF and Katrina was only a preview. No matter your income level, you could still starve in the city due to lack of basic survival skills and ability to think clearly and learn new important skills.

Dandelions in my lawn are a potential source of food, and even in many urban areas there are numerous wild foods available but hell, most people don't even know how to cook anymore! No joke! Everyone seems to eat out or use prepared meals most of the time. And it's not just food, I bet most people don't know how to get clean water if their municipal source failed, and how to secure protein if it didn't present itself shrink wrapped on a styrofoam tray. The basics: water, food, shelter, family, and community are how humans have survived for thousands of years. A shock to the system will require us to revisit many of those Firefox books, and take care of basics.

In a sick way, I would prefer a simpler existence concerned about basic survival because I am confident I can handle it and would be highly motivated to protect and provide for my family. Until TSHTF though, I'm praying (meditating) that I'm just being paranoid, and that all the engineering analysis and data on PO is incorrect or wrong. (I'm an engineer and I know estimates can be wildly wrong). I would love for my children to not have to deal with the mess I fear they are inheriting. But my experience is telling me that like Airdale's estimate, we're about 2 years from American life being seriously disrupted.

The picture links to a story. Somebody pried the keys off an old Smith-Corona and glued 'em on an early IBM keyboard. Dolled up the board with some brass doohickeys and wrote the article for Make.

You plug it into your telecalculograph:

There is one small ray of hope and it's not entirely futile. Good advances are being made in Nuclear fusion and we may only be 40years away from a viable power station!!
This essentially unlimited source of energy could be the future. OTOH It might be easier just to locate 100,000's of giant steam turbines at subterranian levels where temperatures can sustain good steam pressures. Then pump all that electric goodness out of the ground. Not beyond current day technology.

Marco.

Well, as much as I hate to defend someone like Peter Huber, his argument is a touch different - he isn't comparing apples to apples so to speak, as in your case of wells, he is comparing apples to as yet unknown and ungrown beans.

Though this may seem a bit silly, a beanstalk could provide a lot of electricity - assuming you call it a space elevator, and can master a lot of not exactly trivial materials engineering problems.

As for the amount of energy available - Dyson already has that covered, literally. A Dyson sphere is intended to capture the entire energy output of a star, and makes the engineering problems of a space elevator equal to 2 year olds making mud pies.

The truly interesting thing about a Dyson sphere is the accompanying idea that any civilization advanced enough to construct one would 'disappear' to outside observation - and thus, it may be that there a number of advanced civilizations in the universe, simply that we can't detect the residual energy leaking from such spheres over the immense distances involved.

In other words, Huber is as silly as Glassman and his Dow 36,000, but the broader discussion is quite different.

As one of the authors who wrote about a space elevator put it, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic' - whether we ever reach that point is another discussion entirely. But a giant extension cord from solar satellites to the earth is quite imaginable - and quite honestly, likely cheaper than most of the alternatives we will try first, to keep suburbia humming (suburbia doesn't work much better with fairly plentiful electricity but reduced oil - too many people living in the suburbs have no capital - apart from their homes, ironically - and a city with functioning electrified transport - like NYC or Moscow or Toyko or Paris - is the sort of place to benefit from cheaper electricity).

And let's be realistic - today's U.S. is very unlikely to devote any major effort to such a project, since it will have more important things to handle, like keeping the Walmarts open.

Medicine is still in the dark ages compared to Engineering! Apples and oranges. Medical researchers are still pulling apart the video recorder too see how it works.

For a good reason.

Cancer Treatment and Research is financially self-fulfilling, as long as you Don't find a cure.

We know about dozens of sources of cancer cells, from Microwave radiation to Processed Sugars and Vegetable Oils, Petrochemical Offgassing and other VOC's.. they are mostly extremely profitable products, either cheap to produce or pricy to buy, or both.. OR they are waste products that would be 'too expensive' to clean up properly.

The Market, left to its own devices, would never recommend curing cancer. It's a healthy economic indicator.

--Outrageous Claims Links..
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/essentialfattyaciddef.html

"The foods that allow people of every race and every climate to be healthy are whole natural foods - meat with its fat, organ meats, whole milk products, fish, insects, whole grains, tubers, vegetables, and fruit - not newfangled concoctions made with white sugar, refined flour, and rancid and chemically altered vegetable oils."
http://www.nourishingwisdom.com/articles/whole-natural-food-diet.html

(The above is also a good counter-vision to this 'Nightmare of Stone-Age Living' that we get threatened with in nearly every drumbeat comment section..)

Bob Fiske

>Since an algae pond only needs to be 4-6 inches deep it is a pool for very short swimmers.

And not for very long: Evaporation. Setting up large scale algae farms would consume far more water than traditional crop.

Hi Alan,

I think your focus on *what* is excellent. Have you considered focusing on small stable regions first, then expand those out in links?

What I am saying is that a large complex system is going to be prone to never getting constructed because of regional upheaval.

When early economic growth happened it was because the power, ore, and manufacturing were co-located. What if your plan focuses on getting some small stable regions up and running. Those will suffer the least in economic terms, and can eventually regrow out to form your larger system.

That larger system might be less efficient than if designed top down from scratch, but it would have a much better chance of growing up organically.

How would this change your design? I have no idea, and maybe it would not change at all. But I am tossing the idea of bottom up design.

An example region would be Portland/Seattle. They have a skilled manufacturing base, power, and food in a high density area. Such a place will be more resistant to fail than others, and if they start building wind power, they could grow the energy capacity of regions that fall into deep depression and cannot afford the investment to change.

Another such region would be Duluth/Minneapolis. Another area with a good manufacturing base, local power production, and food production. Not as well prepared for transport losses, but they do form a sea port.

I expect there are other regions in the country that are going to be more stable than most. Can we triage those to become lifeboats that "regrow" the others should the oil decline rate be fast?

To my way of thinking, since solar has a known daily pattern, it would make a lot of sense to match peak loads to peak solar as much as possible first, then fill in the rest.

Since you are focused on electric rail, for example, why not schedule as much of the rail traffic as possible to run during daylight hours? This would match demand with supply. (I realize this cannot be done 100%, but we could to take it as far as we could in that direction.) A lot of energy-intensive industrial and commercial processes could be scheduled around solar peaks as well. Differential pricing between solar peak and off-peak time periods should go far toward driving end users to schedule their demand for daylight hours.

Creating a renewable back-up for unusual circumstances is simply uneconomic, so I have allocated that to existing, mothballed fossil fuel plants in the long term plan.

Most plants operating today will be scrapped by the time we can even get to a 90% non-GHG grid; and that last 10% will be tough !

Every few years (prolonged calm during a heat wave for example) the coal fired plants may be fired up. Hopefully, they can burn stockpiled charcoal. But when that runs out, coal can be used. And biogas can be injected into depleted NG reservoirs and retrieved during that same heat wave.

Dramatically reducing a/c demand by all possible means (even a little sweating) is part of the conservation plan.

IMHO, 25 to 30 years is roughly the time required with "urgent commercial efforts" (see Canadian tar sands today as an example) to get close to a 90% non-GHG grid. Perhaps another decade to get to 98% or 99% and years more to get to the first year w/o GHG generated electricity on the main grid.

Best Hopes for minimal GHG emissions,

alan

They do wear out, you know.

I think that a lot of the world is running out of easily mineable coal. If the seems of too thin, too deep and/or too far apart, it is not cost competitive to extract the coal.

Just as with oil, we have extracted the easy to get at coal first.

I believe that solar will develop better economics over time, so I included a small % for them (4% solar PV spread over half the nation, but concentrated mainly south of 33 degrees latitude) and 3% solar thermal, exclusively in the desert SW.

Best Hopes,

Alan

Too much. And the subsidy goes to the oil companies because they are usually the blenders. See the subsidy is a trick to get the blenders to take the ethanol.

Which must explain why the oil companies lobby so hard to keep the subsidy. But wait. It's actually the corn farmers and ethanol producers who lobby to keep the subsidy. So I don't think you understand who the subsidy actually benefits here.

Remember when you came on telling us all that Pacific Ethanol - then trading around $30 a share - was such a good deal? It was part of what prompted me to write this essay:

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/rapier/2006/0623.html

Guess who was right then? Guess who is right about who the subsidies benefit?

Actually, I said 'subsidies.' While fully acknowledging that the oil industry receives massive subsidies, both direct and indirect ( http://www.fasab.gov/pdffiles/natresources052006.pdf for some excellent background relating to offshore oil - yes, for example, MMS can 'reduce or eliminate any royalty or a net profit share specified for an OCS lease to promote increased production' - that's right, an oil company offshore can pay less to the federal government by producing more for the taxpayers' to buy), agriculture has a long list of subsidies.

The link at http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html is from 1995 -

'Nothing symbolizes ADM's political exploitation of Americans better than ethanol. Ethanol has become a magic obeisance button for politicians. Simply mention the word and politicians grovel like trained dogs, competing to heap the most praise on ethanol and its well-connected producers. Regardless of how uncompetitive the product may be, politicians have for years talked about ethanol as if it were the agricultural equivalent of holy water. Ethanol producers have received a de facto subsidy of nearly $10 billion since 1980--yet they continue demanding more, more, more.

Andreas has long sought to frame the ethanol issue in histrionic terms. Burning tax dollars to artificially jam ears of corn into gas tanks seems to have near-cosmic significance. In 1988 Andreas hailed ADM's ethanol operations as "a service to corn growers" and "a service to humanity."(27) Andreas declared in 1992, "This is the Midwest vs. the Middle East. It's corn farmers vs. the oil companies."(28) Ethanol producers view themselves, not as self- serving corporations at the federal trough, but as veritable Mother Theresas striving to save the world with clean air and renewable resources.'

Remember, all this is from a half generation or more in the past. Really, very little has changed in America in decades, which is something incomprehensible to me.

On the other hand, Germany is continuing to expand its solar and wind generation capacity - a slightly older article at http://www.wind-works.org/FeedLaws/ARTsNorthAmericanWindpower.html provides some interesting information about how to make a 'subsidy' work -
'Germany recently revised their ground-breaking Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz, or EEG) which not only explicitly states that renewable power generators have a right to connect to the grid, but also spells out exactly how much they will be paid and for how long. The EEG sets out specific prices for a host of technologies, from wind energy to biomass plants. It's this level of detail that separates what French researcher Bernard Chabot calls Advanced Renewable Tariffs from the one-time Danish system and the earlier German feed law (Stromeinspeisungsgesetz).'

And you know who pays this 'subsidy'? Anybody who uses electricity, of course, and no one else - the electric companies are forced to buy power at a fixed rate, and then they turn around and pass the cost along to their customers. Though the power companies do their absolute best, with ADM style methods, to hide the fact that the EEG means that they actually are in an essentially cost neutral position - what the power companies lose is their monopoly position in power generation.

I expect such practical and decentralized solutions to be opposed at every turn in the U.S. by all companies which rely on massive centralization of capital and power to ensure a steady stream of revenue. As noted by the repeal of the 1930s era laws regarding public utilities -

'The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA) was a law that was passed by the United States Congress to facilitate regulation of electric utilities, by either limiting their operations to a single state, and thus subjecting them to effective state regulation, or forcing divestitures so that each became a single integrated system serving a limited geographic area. Another purpose of PUHCA was to keep utility holding companies engaged in regulated businesses from engaging in unregulated businesses. PUHCA required that Securities and Exchange Commission approval be obtained by a holding company prior to engaging in a non-utility business and that such businesses be kept separate from the regulated business(es).

PUHCA was one of a number of trust-busting and securities regulation initiatives that were enacted in response to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression, including the collapse of Samuel Insull's public utility holding companies.

The utility industry and would-be owners of utilities lobbied Congress heavily to repeal PUHCA, claiming that it was outdated. On August 8, 2005, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law, repealing PUHCA, despite consumer, environmental, union and credit rating agency objections. The repeal became effective on February 8, 2006.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Holding_Company_Act_of_1935

Most people try to avoid repeating their worst errors - America currently seems unable to even grasp when the most basic elements of a disaster are recurring.

Robert, I expected better from you.

I gave it the level of response it warranted. If I wasn't laid up on the couch bleeding internally from my kidney stone surgery, it might have warranted more attention. But I doubt it.

Most of these arguments have been refuted already.
It requires a lot of energy but it gives back more.
I hate subsidies too but you need them because oil and gas get more. Plus the subsidy goes to the blenders not the producers.
Yes get rid of the tariff but jeesh Brazil had and still has tariffs on their ethanol. Why is ours so beyond the pale?
At least the article acknowledges that corn-ethanol isn't the endpoint.
I give this 2.5 corn cobs out of 5 I guess.

Hmm.

0 out of 5 corn cobs

Of course you don't. You pumped them and dumped them after you'd suckered someone else into pushing the price higher. People don't forget just because time has passed, Keithster.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett

Also, for political reasons, the oil exploration and production rates for the "Lower 47", Texas, Mexico, Alaska and Canada all "marched to different drummers".

Political reality, so each has their own Hubbert Curve, because of differing influences.

Best Hopes for High Oil Prices,

Alan

Not a convincing reply, westexas! North America is a geographically limited region, while jumping from the North Sea to Canterelli to the Lower 48 is more cherry-picking.... the fact remains that North America production is basically a flatline for 30 years....part of the answer is heavy oil (tar) which the world has in larger supply than light oil....
Moreover, you did not address the fact that world oil demand falls in the face of higher prices.....look at the numbers after 1979.......
I hold out hope we will skirt major disasters, while transitioning to more-expensive fossil crude...probably north of $60 a barrel long-term...we can look forward to both flatling production, and slightly declining demand....
that is not all ice-cream and cakes, by the way. That is a tripling of price, and real hardship for many.....but it is survivable....

You misunderstand! The wet mash is the leftover corn, after ethanol has been made. Wet corn mash. Here is how it is working: You put a cattle herd of about 60,000 around an ethanol plant. Hopefully a large cornfield is nearby. You collect the dung, create methane, and help fire the plant. You make ethanol from corn. The left over wet mash (corn) is fed to the cows.
Many advantages here. Usually, the wet mash is baked into pellets, then trucked to market, then re-trucked back to the cattle – in this scheme you just push it out the door, and the cattle lap it up. They are not exactly gourmets.
Obviously, you are using the dung, instead of it going into the atmosphere, or polluting fields and streams.
Proponents claim huge net energy returns, on the order of 40 to one. Sounds high. One can bet it is very energy positive. Iowa will probably bring back one million cattle to exploit this new arrangement.
As a pig poop expert, I am hopeful to see pig-potato-ethanol plants, as potatoes produce more calories per acre than corn, and pigs grow more meat per calorie than cattle. In theory, pigs should rule.

If I knew I wouldn't be reading this stuff. I hope to eventually have enough bits of information to make a more educated decision as to which way to go.

Hi Aniya!

Good, challenging question.. I had to take a stab.

To me, the model has been the World Social Forum, which is to say, if you don't like the conversation and can't get a word in, then create another one. Don't put yours in competition with the 'THE' Conversation.. just establish the one you need, and keep your focus on enhancing and reinforcing it. As with any revolution, it will take seed if you've correctly judged the moment in history, and have been able to germinate an idea that others will get with and spread.. or in other words, it will happen if it can.

In either case, it is taking control and responsibility, first of your own mind, and then of your surroundings, and is the kind of transcendence one should be striving for, no matter the period in history.

My favorite symbol for this is from a sight on the streets of NY, where a dog-owner had obeyed the leash law, but the dog trotted along beside him, both wearing and carrying the handle of the leash in his own mouth. Negative connotations can be made, of course, but I saw an image of 'creative self-discipline'.. not unlike Krishna's chariot in the Upanishads. The Horses are the wild energy, and the driver reins in and manages that energy.

Bob

Aniya,

What one can do and what I am doing (and have been learning to do for a long while) is simply understood as Westexas' ELP.

Catherine Austin Fitts and her Solari web site has a number of good financial ELP ideas toward our Tapeworm Economy run by TPTB. Ultimately if we want to change things we are going to have to implement these things on our own; I.e., be the solution (or at least as much a part of one) you want to see!

The problem(s) isn't for lack of good ideas, either on the individual or collective level, but that *the system, TPTB, our culture* or what ever we call it, is no longer responsive to what needs doing to save anything other than itself. Despite the interconnection between all the parts of *the system* each part is purely out to maximize its own part and limitless growth of profit or power, etc.

Once you face this fact you'll stop waiting for some salvation to be handed to you and get on with making it happen. The plain fact is that no one or group is in control anymore. It's a crackpot contraption we are in and it's soon to crack-up irrevocably.

At that point you'll understand it, which is as Gary Snyder said: "Find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there."

In this regard, musahi's suggestion about, "The only way to beat them to some extent is to fall through the cracks and disappear in the static" is completely relevant and appropriate.

A free blog at Blogger would be a quick and easy way to do this. It would also get you into the search engines a lot faster than setting up your own site.

TOD started out on Blogger.

Actually what I proposed to WestTexas privately was a 2 to 10 unit building. A common wall (duplexes are common in New Orleans) saves energy, land and cost of construction. If one has a corner lot, a triplex with the 3rd unit having an entrance on the other street works well, and increases the number of common walls.

A 2+2 two story quadplex is a rough cube is even more energy efficient (especially if you have one of the bottom units).

A three story rough cube would be even more efficient, but the living arrangements & land lord issues mount considerably.

Best Hopes for Energy and space efficient housing,

Alan

By Gum, it never came to my mind that the north shore of the lake where I spent a dozen years of my youth (Covington) was thought by some to be a sort of escape from N'Yawlins. Ykes! I thought sleeping in a puddle of sweat was the universally ordaned human condition until I got in the Navy and went north, where it was actually cold some summer days, and people painted their barns.

On the other hand, my Cajun buddies seemed never to complain no matter how hot, humid or buggy. But then they played football barefooted, too. Maybe a couple of hundred years of conditioning has something to do with it.