Losing our Balance? Some Predictions...
Posted by jeffvail on August 10, 2007 - 10:00am
Interesting times, indeed. Oil (NYMEX WTI front month future) closed at record intraday trading high of $78.77 per barrel on August 1st, but has since fallen back to near $70. The markets are clearly shaken, and suddenly people are realizing that the recent explosion of derivatives has created as much hidden rigidity as resiliency in our financial markets (as I wrote about here). Is this the beginning of economic collapse, or just another minor perturbation?
There are several stories worth following at the moment:
Mexico continues to reveal how deep its problems run. After my article on the looming collapse of Mexico sparked a lively conversation, the meme of Mexico collapse spread quickly (though I don't take credit for that--the situation speaks for itself). One little gem was PEMEX's announcement late last Friday that they will probably be out of oil in seven years--out of oil, not just beginning to decline. Notice how this came out on Friday afternoon. That's when you issue a press release when you want to bury a story. In theory, an oil producing field or region is never actually "out of oil." Instead, production continues nearly indefinitely at increasingly low levels. However, when geopolitical disruptions and positive feedback loops are accounted for, such as are increasingly impacting Mexico, the absolute cessation of oil production is a very real possibility. At the very least, it looks likely that Mexico will soon cease to export oil in any significant quantity.
And electricity seems to be a growing problem, at least in the third world (and those areas that the US military has transformed into the same). It is interesting to note that Jay Hanson (of dieoff.org notoriety) popularized Richard Duncan's Olduvai Theory along just these lines--that it would be electricity, not oil, that would be the actual cause of collapse. This seems quite plausible to me, though I still think that it will be fundamentally driven by declining oil production, with the resulting electricity-grid problems being best understood as an above ground factor stemming from oil. Oil is driving metal theft to new highs, which impacts the viability of electrical grids everywhere. Oil and natural gas prices makes it more difficult to maintain fuels for peak-generating capacity. Oil prices breathe life into infrastructure insurgencies everywhere, which repeatedly target electrical grids for their high return on investment.
Take a look, for example, at what has happened to the electrical supply situation in Baghdad, despite the impending success (sarcasm) of the current "surge" by US military forces there:
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that Baghdad residents could count on only "an hour or two a day" of electricity.
Interestingly, John Robb has picked up on this crisis in electrical grids around the world (especially in Iraq) as a possible point of development for Africa--their grids are becoming so unreliable that African communities have the opportunity to lead the world in innovating a mode of modern civilization without grid electricity, and possibly export any success that they may have to the rest of the world. While I don't see Africa finding a profitable export market for their brand of grid-free living (admittedly, that isn't actually what Robb was suggesting), I do agree with Robb's assessment that we need to learn to build resilient communities--I've written about that, as well.
Meanwhile, despite Jim Cramer's meltdown to the contrary, the Main Stream Media is doing an admirable job of proselytizing the approved message that everything will be OK. It's not quite time for bargain hunting among the financial stocks, but everything else is still a good long-term investment. CNN has been leading the pack, explaining that we shouldn't freak out about recent drops in the Dow, and that oil won't hit $100. CNN cites Paul Beutel, an oil analyst for Cameron Hanover. Beutel explains that we are about to see significantly increased spare capacity in the oil markets because Saudi Arabia will increase capacity by 2 million barrels per day by 2010, and we'll see an additional 3 million barrels per day of ethanol and oil shale by 2010. Meanwhile, CNN explains that the EIA sees demand growth over to 2010 at only 1.3% per year because of economic slowdown. Even at 1.3% growth, the world will need an increase of 3.4 million barrels per day within 3 years. While, admittedly, peak production can only be identified with regards to a historical period, the latest EIA data (.xls file) shows continued decline, rather than increase. There are several serious flaws with CNN and Beutel's rosy prediction. First, they fail to account for the export land effect, where oil revenues to exporting nations drive domestic consumption, and decrease exports. Second, their assumption that Saudi production will increase significantly over the next three years is contradicted by the evidence. And third, while subsidy-driven ethanol production may well increase by a few million barrels per day by 2010, this increase may represent a much smaller net gain after accounting for the net energy of ethanol. If anything, the media's performance over the past week has validated Jeffrey Brown's Iron Triangle model. So, while fund managers are currently pulling money out of speculation in oil, resulting in the recent retreat in prices, the fundamentals are bullish. $100 oil by 2010 seems like one of the best bets available (though I'm slightly less confident if you account for inflation and the falling dollar).
So that's a brief, annotated wrap-up of a few key stories . . . but what does it all mean? Are we about to permanently plunge into the civilizational abyss and return to a hunter-gatherer existence? While civilization seems to be stumbling on its balance beam at the moment, predictions of total doom may be premature--and this comes from someone who continues to predict general economic collapse. I tend to think that Bernanke's resistance to giving in to public calls for the Fed to lower rates and "fix" this problem stand a decent chance of inflicting more short-term pain but buying a temporary reprieve from outright collapse. If, however, the Fed decides to "refinance" this bubble with rate cuts, they may achieve temporary victory, but will worsen and quicken much greater problems down the road.
I called 2006 the year of the balance beam--meaning that everything would be fine as long as nothing "significant" happened. I called 2007 the year ofTrends, as I predicted that it would be the period where trends like Peak Oil become clear--and, keeping with the metaphor, where the balance beam grows steadily narrower. We are drawing precariously close to losing our balance--arms are flailing and we're collectively making those funny gyrations as we try to stay up. That said, we will likely find a way to regain our balance in '08, and in '09, and '10. Robert Anton Wilson's concept of "Maybe Logic" seems well suited: anyone who says that they KNOW that (or when) the economy will collapse, or that they KNOW that human ingenuity will provide a solution is speaking from faith, not reason. That said, it certainly seems to me, at the moment that we're getting steadily closer to the edge. At the new year, I predicted that we wouldn't "fall off" our balance beam until 2008. Maybe that's too early. But, if current trends continue, I have a hard time seeing how we haven't hit the mat by 2012. What does "hitting the mat" look like for our global economy? I don't pretend to know, but I'm guessing it will make the troubles of the past few weeks look like a walk in the park. I don't put much stake in Mayan prophecies, but in my grand notebook of semi-accurate predictions 2012 is shaping up to be a very interesting year...
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It seems we need to learn the same lessons over and over with regard to credit risk. A review of the mortgage lending practices of late along with the leverage of these intsruments looks like a recipe for trouble, the hidden (unreported) weakness in the economy is helping the slide.
I wrote this here on June 28:
Yesterday the media was buzzing about Goldman's mounting Global Alpha fund losses.
It's feeling more and more like an ablation cascade - that theoretical catastrophic chain reaction of colliding satellite debris that could make launching anything into orbit impossible.
The important thing to understand is that a significant global financial turndown will mask peak oil for years, but it won't necessarily ease the problems of ailing electricity infrastructure and failing supply.
Kenny,
I am willing to bet the farm that you hit the nail on the head. This bull market is scheduled to end everyone agrees. Furthermore a downturn will prolong the current standard of living for those who are prepared as well as mask peak oil.
If the powers that be are charged with the task of keeping order then the solution is in place and the wheels are turning.
i-like-dirt
To a certain point I agree. I think a few people now are capable of bringing down the house if you will, if they choose to do so.
China
Russia
The US
OPEC
Europe
Japan
Notice in the list the US stands out with the least amount to lose if they decide to stop the bailouts. Also the bailouts and games are temporary and will at best keep us going into 2008. Notice I did not say through 2008.
No way the use can prevent subprime from collapsing and taking out the housing industry its toast and this will eventually take out the economy. We have not even hit the first major wave of ARM resets and already things are falling apart. I'd say we are best about 10% into the backside of the housing bubble that left alone bottoms in 2011 and stays there for a while. We are in for either a long Japanese style deflation event or hyper inflation nothing can be done to stave this off long term.
So I think at some point the US will pull the plug so to speak on the world economy and default. Assuming that another party does not act first.
Throw peak oil and especially export land into the mix and its pretty enticing for the US to attempt to derail China while it can regardless of side effects. We are rapidly approaching the point we have nothing left to loose.
I think the game is to bait the Chinese into starting the fiasco so they get blamed while we ensure that the pain is widespread. The Chinese on the other had are going to face a tough choice either they continue to take tons of worthless dollars and unpeg or we shut off trade. the threat of devaluing the dollar is without merit since we plan to do that anyway. Right now I think the only thing holding up the collapse is trying to get China to throw the first stone.
off by 26%
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVLdUVbqjHOI&refer=home
JeffVail, I havent thoroughly followed your links yet, but just one little fly in the ointment. Oil shale is not commercial, and may never be commercial, so the addition of 3,000,000 barrels per day of syncrude in the next three years is going to have to come from the Alberta Tar Sands .
According to the current producer's figures, the cost of putting in the mines and processing plants just to turn it into crude is $100,000.00 per barrel per day of production. My back of the envelope calculations add up to 3 Trillion US 2007 dollars in the next three years-3 1/2 if the addition is by December 2010. This is about twice the market value of all the big oil companies in the world for doubling the Canadian production, and doesn't count the infrastucture to produce and deliver 18 mmcf of gas and god knows how much fresh water to the north side of the Canadian boondocks. Or getting a figure equal to 1/3rd of the US national debt together and spent in less time than it takes to get an offshore field on line. And all this in the middle of a credit meltdown.
This is such a preposterous lie it needs to be trumpeted to the skies. Our only hope is massive energy conservation immediately. Alan's Electrification of Rail at breakneck speed, while we prohibit a family from driving more than one automobile.
Bob Ebersole
Bob--
Wouldn't that additional cost be $300 billion, not $3 trillion? Would that change you analysis?
The problem here is FUD fear uncertainty and doubt not just the money. We are seeing oil prices all over the place because of economic issues and will continue to see major swings even though the long term trend is upwards. Given this the chance to raise 300 billion or more important the 1 trillion needed over the next few years to bring online the hard to reach oil is questionable. My position is that even the aggressive infield drilling and water management projects needed to maintain production in our old fields will begin to be canceled much less projects like the tar sands.
Since maintenance programs are not generally announced you have to look at other measures to see this.
What I see happening is the following.
1.) Tanker rate drop and continue dropping as less oil is produced.
2.) Refinery profits narrow and refining becomes marginally profitable eventually even heavy sour becomes almost too expensive vs its refining cost.
3.) The boom in drilling equipment and suppliers ends and costs begin to drop but the key thing is this does not cause projects to restart because of market conditions.
So if I'm right we will have a overcapacity of rigs very soon and it will only get worse as the oil industry retracts waiting for the economy to recover. In the meantime the price of oil although volatile will continue to increase as the economy waits for more oil before it can recover.
OPEC probably will never pump more oil then it does today if it has spare capacity now it will be eroded over time by depletion.
What we need to watch for is a fairly sudden drop in rig rates.
Totally agree. Although I don't know if it will be sudden.
And some factors will continue whether the economy collapses or not...such as, food and water price increase and shortages.
And even worse, population continues to increase.
vtfarmer,
Thanks for catching my mistake before I really embarrased myself! I wasn't an English major by mistake. But it only changes the anaysis a little.
The market cap of Exxon just passed $500 billion, and we are in a huge credit crunch. What was the spending in Iraq in the first 5 years? About this much?
It takes 5 to 7 years to get a deepwater field online, and this is 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years and literally 100 times the size. Bush has promised to veto the Energy Bill and the Energy Tax Bill. Next, the House and Senate have to get the bills to a conference committee and pass them, and get it vetoed. There is a chance of getting an energy bill through this logjam in less that about 20 months approximately equal to the chance of glaciers starting south this month.
My point remains the same. Its a total lie, and we have to start as quickly as possible as the export land hypothesis is kicking in. This is too important to the national security and the economic security of the world to let it pass.
I agree with your point: I don't think they will ever be anywhere near getting meaningful production out of the oil sands. They $100K per barrel is probably a pretty low figure considering how the costs are escalating.
Sadly, since the powers that be are still resisting making any significant preparation for peak, I think the pessimism of the doomers among us (myself included) is being shown to be pretty well-founded.
vtfarmer,
I'm using the cornucopians cost figures for tar sands, I think its going to be twice that for shale The energy density is just way too low, you will have to dispose of twice as much junk rock, heat up twice as big a volume of raw material-its just not going to work.
The United States uses around 21 million bbls of oil a day. We import 14 million barrels a day. If you'll take a look, the US produced at the peak in the early 1970's 11 million barrels per day. We were last energy independent in about 1950, when almost all families had only 1 car, many had no cars and the population was about 1/2 the size of today.
Private cars are going to be just about impossible in five years, because the military and national security are going to take what's left. Face it, the internal combustion engine is finished. Its going to take a minimum of 20 months to get an energy bill through the congress and white house. There is no time for electric car fantasies, for putting shale oil on the market, even for building coal to liquids.
THE ONLY POSSIBILITY FOR MITIGATION IS ALAN DRAKE'S ELECTRIFICATION OF RAIL PLAN.
Whether its Robert Rapier's peak lite, or Jeffery Brown is right that the peak happened two years ago doesn't matter anymore. OPEC has made it clear they won't raise their production Quota in September, if they can raise their production at all. We are out of time.
And just think, I'm a pollyanna, not a doomer.
Bob Ebersole
"There is no time for electric car fantasies"
EV/PHEVs are just as easy to build as ICE cars, and they can be done a lot faster than a rail buildout.
I'll repeat what I said before:
The most obvious strategy is carpooling: with current telecom, it would be much, much easier to implement than it was 30 years ago. Then, it pretty much had to be on an internal company basis, because communications were so hard. Now? Easy, and it could cut overall commuter fuel consumption by 50% in a few months. 2nd, telecommuting is badly underused. What % of office workers in large city downtowns really, really have to physically be there? 5%?
GM will have a battery pack ready for their Volt PHEV in 2 months, but getting mass manufacturing going will take another 2.5 years. This could be shortened a great deal with the same kind of crash basis as tanks in WWII (also made by GM...). That wouldn't be hard, it would just make the rollout a little more expensive to parallel track many things.
The decline rate is critical. IF the decline can be held to 5% then even CAFE improvements and smaller cars will be able to match depletion rates for the next 30 years.
However, if the decline rates move up to 8% or higher, then even 40+ mpg cars will not prevent the commute distances being cut in half.
Longer term, rail is vital to stay ahead of depletion. I posted up some graphs showing required vehicle MPG a few days back. I will link in some new ones later tonight.
I think EVs are essential long term, but I also think NG in North America has peaked, and coal as well. It is going to be difficult to increase electrical production. I don't think wind and PV will grow faster that the 7% that oil did, once they get large enough to start impacting the overall economy. They are artificially high right now, via subsidies. But again, long term, they are all we have.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
"However, if the decline rates move up to 8% or higher, then even 40+ mpg cars will not prevent the commute distances being cut in half. "
But, a PHEV with a 40 mile range eliminates fuel for commutes of that length, though 1 way trips of that length would require finding a plug at work. Need to commute further? Buy an add-on battery pack. A PHEV would have an infinite MPG, for trips up to the all-electric limit.
" I also think NG in North America has peaked, and coal as well"
I'm sure gas has, but I've seen no indication at all that coal has. Coal may well peak in 30 years, but we won't need it much by then, I hope.
" I don't think wind and PV will grow faster that the 7% that oil did, once they get large enough to start impacting the overall economy."
I'm not sure what you mean by the 7%. Wind was 20% of new generation in 2006, and is doubling every 2 years. Wind can grow to 10-20% of KWH market share without significant changes to grid management. The intermittency of wind is a perfect match for schedulable charging of PHEV's, and the two can grow together very, very nicely, well beyond that limit.
"They are artificially high right now, via subsidies"
Wind is cheaper than natural gas right now, without subsidies. It's cheaper than coal, if you figure in all the external costs of coal: health, pollution, climate change, etc. And, it's getting cheaper, if you disregard the temporary cost increase due to demand rising faster than supply.
Again...what about carpooling, and telecommuting??
To the extent that any EV has to be used for commutes, the answer is metered recharging stations at the employer's parking lot. An even better answer is to erect a PV panel over the metered parking spot to power the recharging meter, and to also shade the vehicle.
For a "standard" space 2.6m x 5.4m, adding 50% more area as a credit for extending halfway over the adjoining aisle, at 52 degrees latitude, and 4 peak sun hours per day, average expected energy is 187 MJ of sunlight, perhaps 37 MJ electrical. At 1.4 mm/J, this is 52 km!
Actually, since that's an annual average, the limit on practicality would probably be set by the winter minimum, but I don't know how to find that.
52 km is still considerably farther than I had expected.
The following chart shows how commute distance declines as oil supply declines. There are two curves for each decline rate. The bold one shows what would happen if we adopt an aggressive CAFE standard. The unconnected dots show what happens if we don't improve MPG ratings.
For the faster decline rates, the distance starts at 16 miles radius (12,000 miles per year / 365*2) and falls to 8 miles radius. Each time distance is cut in half, urban housing density must double (area is radius square).
Here is a map of Minneapolis with the two commute circles put on it. You can see the outer suburbs get cut out quickly. Those people will need to move inward, change jobs, or have jobs move outward. Again, if commute distances are cut in half, then number of jobs disrupted is going to be 4 times larger because of area reduction.
As far as car pooling, has anyone seen any data on how effective it was during the 70's? I could add a corrective factor if car pooling can be quantified.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
Urban housing can easily cost $100K or 200k more than suburban housing. It would be infinitely easier and cheaper to buy a more efficient vehicle.
Gas prices double? Buy a Prius. Double again? Buy a PHEV with 40 mile range: that will give infinite MPG for commutes less than 20 miles each way, and 100MPG for 40 mile commutes. Have a 40 mile commute, and gas doubles again? Buy an extra battery pack (for roughly $3k), or get your parking garage to install outlets.
On carpooling: historical data won't help. Telecom has made such group scheduling much, much easier. Further, carpooling wasn't all that necessary then: we only lost 4M bpd worldwide. I can envision carpooling made a patriotic duty, and then made mandatory, with tickets for single occupancy vehicles. Carpooling could easily reduce commuter fuel consumption by 50%, in months.
If gas prices double, people will think that it will only last a few weeks. So they will temporarily spend more on gas from their credit or their savings, until it ends. If it doesn't end, of course,.. .
Right. If every person purchases a hybrid, there won't be a problem for years. But the opposite is also true. If only 2% purchase hybrids, and oil has declined 50% then gasoline prices still rise until gasoline usage is cut in half. The collective response is critical.
I don't credit PHEV with free MPG values. I don't believe that electrical generation will continue to increase in North America. As NG declines people will be forced to use electrical power for heating and industrial purposes. It would not surprise me if oil is shifted to home heating from driving.
Commuting requires two people have the same start point and end point. Thus the percent chance of overlap drops with the square of the commute distance. I would say that overlap is at least 1/4 what it was in 1970. But your right about improved coordination. (I have even thought of working on a kind of suburban taxi dispatch system. SUV drivers can charge for a drop off or pick up on the way to/from work. Those who want a ride call or internet to the dispatch. Not anytime taxi, just commuting).
I am not anti-solution. I have worked enough years in product development to shy away from optimistic estimates (especially when peoples lives are involved). Best to take a conservative view, knowing that something will not work as expected. If we need to plan for the worst, then we should.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
"If only 2% purchase hybrids, and oil has declined 50% then gasoline prices still rise until gasoline usage is cut in half. "
Hybrids are already at 2.2% of new sales, and growing 55% per year.
"I don't believe that electrical generation will continue to increase in North America. "
Wind was 20% of new generation in 2006, and could easily provide all new generation in 5 years.
"It would not surprise me if oil is shifted to home heating from driving.
No, home heating will be electrified with heat pumps, which even now are the cheapest way to heat & cool. No one will go from natural gas to fuel oil. Heck, even resistance electrical heat is barely more expensive than fuel oil.
"the percent chance of overlap drops with the square of the commute distance. I would say that overlap is at least 1/4 what it was in 1970"
What are the chances that 3-4 people within a mile of you, work within a mile of your work? Extremely high. My point is that it's doable, if absolutely needed.
Take a look at Zipcar.com for an example of how telecom changes things. Zipcar is car rental, but without the rental agents, with decentralized locations, and very short rental periods. None of this was possible 30 years ago.
"Best to take a conservative view, knowing that something will not work as expected. If we need to plan for the worst, then we should."
We should plan for the risk of the worst, in order to avoid it - I believe that's what you really mean. Planning for the worst is a very bad way to live. Further, we need to look at the most likely eventualities (as well as the consequences of the worst cases), in order to choose between alternatives.
For some reason, some people believe people like Kunstler when he makes nightmare predictions, despite a lack of a shred of evidence for his dismissal of wind and solar. Believing people like him isn't conservatism, it's just a mistake.
Heading for the hills before Y2K would have been a mistake. People (including Kunstler) made nightmare predictions, but others simply worked very hard to prevent problems, and succeeded.
It would not surprise me if oil is shifted to home heating from driving
I think Suburbanites would rather drive & shiver at home (or let their poorer neighbors shiver). I question if the market would allow such a diversion, and I also question gov'ts willingness as well.
In Washington DC, an interesting (and unplanned) phenomena has developed. Single occupancy vehicles wanting to use HOV lane pull into shopping centers with excess parking. There lines of people wait for certain destinations. "Pentagon" "Capital Hill" etc. The driver going to the Pentagon stops at the Pentagon line and takes on 3 pax, who board silently. The rule is that unless the driver speaks, no one says anything.
All four speed past congestion in the HOV lane. In the afternoon, there is one corner of the Pentagon where HOV pax gather and are randomly picked up to go back to where their car is parked.
AFAIK, this is limited to a few locations in the DC area and it "just happened".
Best Hopes for Solutions,
Alan
That's marvelous!
I don't see why that couldn't be organized & expanded...
A number of years ago, I was musing on the same idea (less well articulated or developed), when I realized that Urban Rail created "worm holes" (Yes, I watch Star Trek).
Get to the station (walk, bicycle, take a bus, drive a NEV or SUV) and it is low energy (not zero, but zero oil) to get to any other station. A time cost of course.
This utterly changes the "energy topology" of a city & metropolitan area (for people, not freight and not service).
One could live in a walkable suburb of Boston for example and as long as one could get to one of the 132 (my count, likely off) commuter rail stations without oil (or work locally w/o oil), buy groceries, etc w/o oil, and the same rail line could deliver freight to your suburb (large enough for self sustaining services close by), it was sustainable post-Peak Oil.
http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/rail/
Just add a North Station-South Station link !
The Green, Red, Orange and Blue subway lines are also on the map, but in "faded" colors. A clearer map at
http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/subway/
Best Hopes,
Alan
I was just thinking the same thing about light rail last night. That it creates 600 MPG links between areas. Wormholes is a good name. I was trying to think of how I would credit the light rail properly.
For the sake of discussion, suppose a light rail line ran from Minneapolis (in the center) to Plymouth (on the left edge). Then I could draw a new 8 mile red circle around Plymouth, representing a "park and ride".
Except that would be optimistic, because it assumes all the people in the red "park and ride" circle can get to work via the train, and they cannot.
So what do you think about this idea: We credit to the train with the area within walking distance of a station. And then put a circle around Plymouth of the same area. As the total rail connectivity grows, the end point circles grow. The larger the rail coverage, the more worthwhile it is to park and ride.
I can think of a few factors that would bump up the park and ride area:
1. Factor for job density. If the trains run through high job density areas, they get a higher factor.
2. Factor for bus connections. Because people can hop from train to bus, the train does service a wider area, but at some reluctance from the riders and at much lower MPG.
Are those assumptions realistic? They have a big impact. It does mean that you want the trains to run through the business district, rather than run through old empty industrial parks, if the goal is to maximize commute efficiency.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
Just some thoughts.
Park & Ride lots (IMHO) sterilize the immediate area around stations, preventing TOD (although they are also used as a means of land banking. For example, a former P&R parking lot in Miami was replaced by a 12 story residential tower (1st floor planned to be retail). This consumed half the P&R for that station. A net gain IMO.
The cost of parking garages ($10,000 to $20,000/car) would be better spent (IMHO) on more track.
An unlimited amount of bicycle parking should be available at almost every station. And small NEVs should get most of the rest (park 3 or 4 in the space of two SUVs).
The "walkshed" is 1/4th to 1/2 mile in radius if no major auto sewers interfere (assuming decent sidewalks).
In theory (mine), Light Rail & Rapid Rail (subway or elevated) should have stops about every mile once out of the downtown area/Medical Center/high rise condo areas. Minimal Park & Ride at most stops with an occasional larger P&R. People should walk, bicycle or take the bus in most cases (streetcar feeders are best).
But the terminus should be more than 2 miles past the next to last station, and have a very large Park & Ride lot (with a few acres set aside for medium to high rise with ground floor retail).
Devote most of the inner stations to TOD development (a few to Park & Ride deserts). The terminus is designed to lure suburban auto commuters out of their cars and into a mixed ride (car & train).
I believe in the Origin & Destination view of transit. People come from an origin (home, airport, hotel) and go to a destination (work, school, shopping, park, convention center, etc.). Transit has to serve both.
Hope this Helps :-)
Alan
"Light Rail & Rapid Rail (subway or elevated) should have stops about every mile once out of the downtown area/Medical Center/high rise condo areas"
I don't know. I'd go for every 1/2 mile. That really connects everything in that corridor to the train.
I don't like buses & feel bicycles should be left to recreation(unsafe). I'd go for more light rail in more or less parallel corridors, or many originating from a center.
" I don't think wind and PV will grow faster that the 7% that oil did, once they get large enough to start impacting the overall economy."
Sorry, I should have done more work on this idea before I wrote it up here. I wanted a way to "guess" how fast wind would grow. All industries start with a high rate of growth because they are small. But what is the long term growth? It is important to know how much decline we can hand in other fuels.
Industries grow (capitalize) via two possible energy influxes. The first way is that profits (energy surplus) from some other energy industry are invested in the new energy source. This is how any industry starts. But it cannot continue to grow this way for long, because it is acting as an energy sink.
The second is that they generate energy, they keep some profits, and reinvest those profits. Self capitalization. This method is the main way of growing, but it is limited by how much profit it is allowed to keep for reinvestment (PEMEX oil is an example of a company that cannot reinvest) . Wind is going to have some trouble here because until coal gets slapped with external costs, coal is going to keep wind profits small.
Ok, so it is complex and I wanted a back of the envelope method of generating a number. So I asked "what is the best case?" What energy industry has great EROI, huge reserves, no resource limitations (no rare elements needed) and makes good profits? What could I use as the best case model? And that would be Oil of course. I remembered from a post by Stuart that oil growth was about 7% before OPEC. That kind of gives us a best case scenario.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
[EV/PHEVs are just as easy to build as ICE cars, and they can be done a lot faster than a rail buildout.]
They might be just as easy to build, but the makers have to be tooled up to produce that many and most U.S. auto makers don't have the capital to invest in that kind of re-tooling and, as the last week has shown, aren't going to be able to borrow the money to do it. And the bottom line is that with a 230 million light vehicle fleet, it would take about $10 trillion of capital just to replace the fleet and get to EVs. People who can't make the payment on their house or are having a tough time putting food on the table aren't going to be running out to spend $40k on a new car (or even $20k if you think $40 is too high once economies of scale kicked in), especially when the gas hog in the driveway isn't paid far. And if you think the feds can pay for everything, remember we are already $9 trillion in the hole and getting deeper each year. The fed spends over $400 billion on interest alone each year (up from #300b 3 years ago due to increased interest rates and increased debt). And Americans no longer have to savings and/or free cash to buy bonds to support this new 'war effort'. The reality is, at this point, that we can't afford to do anything and we can't afford not to do anything.
Your not including the cost of roads plus and extensive electric rail system. We have to have electric rail.
I'll never vote for anyone that wants to subsidize roads in the future and I'm sure most people will move quickly away from cars once rail is significantly cheaper and they are broke.
Long distance EV's like Ethanol are a boondoggle.
I think you will have electric taxis and some electric for in town use but thats it.
If you think we are going to rebuild our highway system post peak oil for the few wealthy to drive electric cars your nuts. And yes you will need to be wealthy to even own a car soon.
"I'm sure most people will move quickly away from cars once rail is significantly cheaper and they are broke."
Most people have to drive to work - rail just won't work them: population densities are too low.
"Long distance EV's like Ethanol are a boondoggle."
Why? Specifically? With numbers....
You can't really mean a statement like "Most people have to drive to work", at least not without clarifying what you mean by "most", and "have to". That more than 50% of population won't realistically be able to find a combination of a place to live and a place to work that permits travel options other than personal motor vehicles? I would take issue with even this, although I'd accept it may well be a good two decades before less than 50% of all workers are driving themselves to work. Worst case scenario is that "all workers" represents a significantly smaller fraction of the total population than it does today.
Consider the situation of a two-earner household with two kids almost anywhere in the US west of about the Mississippi. For at least a portion of the year, some amount of driving is almost certainly required: the amount of housing that is within manageable distance of day care (or school) and work, or day care and mass transit, in all weather conditions, is quite limited. I suspect that your estimate of two decades is optimistic, given the amount of reconstruction that would be required to be done in all of housing/school/work locations.
OTOH, this same region is rich in coal, rich in wind power, rich in solar, and rich in climate-appropriate sources of biomass. It is not clear that, absent export of a large fraction of the energy, and with appropriate electric rail and electric personal transport, the reconstruction would actually be necessary. If TSHTF, will the western US continue to care about the welfare of NY or FL? I'm old enough to remember the Texas Governor threatening to send out the National Guard to blow up the pipelines at the border of the State and "let the yankees freeze in the dark." Would the eastern half of the US have the means or the will to enforce an export requirement on the west?
Well I'm not implying that two decades of reconstruction would allow 50% of the population to choose a combination of house and work location to allow them to live comfortably without a motor vehicle at all.
Getting to ~50% of workers commuting via personal automobiles will come from a combination of (here we go again):
1) telecommuting
2) bicycling
3) mass transit
4) carpooling
5) workers relocating closer to job opportunities
6) businesses relocating closer to workers
Of course, what's really important is reducing oil usage, and once you throw in much higher fuel economy, EVs, and the likelihood of lower levels of full-time employment, then you could easily be looking at 30% of today's oil consumption for commuting purposes.
IIRC, well less than 10% of commuters now use mass transit. 75% of commuters live in areas that don't have the population density to support mass transit. Stuart Sanifold did a TOD article on this.
Changing that would require an enormous, lengthy, expensive investment in transit infrastructure and housing patterns. It will be much, much faster and less expensive to convert to PHEV's.
Now, don't get me wrong: I think we should do both, as rail is a much nicer way to get to work, and between city centers. We just shouldn't catastrophize with the idea that if we don't do transit all is lost, nor should we think that the suburbs are doomed. Heck, it's much, much cheaper to buy a PV array and a PHEV than to move into the city, and when cheap PV arrives (which is inevitable) suburbs may actually have an advantage, energywise.
You neglect to consider the indirect energy costs of suburbia. (and you suppose some EV not yet available).
What of asphalt for road repairs (concrete is rarely used) ?
Asphalt = Very Heavy Oil
Snow removal in low density areas.
Street lights in low density areas.
Grass cutting and landscaping (public as well as private lands)
Cost of retrofitting efficient windows & doors plus insulation could exceed (or be high % of) a much reduced market price. Lots of windows in a McMansion. Lots of surface area as well.
Long haul trucks to bring supplies to suburban stores ? And workers as well ? Suburbia needs low paid as well as high paid workers.
Plumbers, Postal delivery, police protection (not going EV I promise you !), cable TV and pizza delivery ?
Running to the store for EVERYTHING !
More costs for water & sewage renewal/person. everything has to be pumped further (I heard that 20% of Phoenix's electricity goes not to a/c, but to pump water & sewage).
BTW, I think it is a myth that EVs go with wind turbines. The vast majority will plug in as soon as they get home (in case they need the car for an errand, they do NOT want to be "out-of-juice") And they will *NOT* accept shortening the life of a very expensive battery for the "general good" by drawing down on it over night.
Best Hopes for a dead Exurbia and shrunken Suburbia,
Alan
"You neglect to consider the indirect energy costs of suburbia."
Yes, but what's the differential between city & suburbs, per capita? Do you have #'s for asphalt, Snow removal, Street lights? I suspect they're not that large.
"you suppose some EV not yet available"
Alan, we've agreed that PHEV's are practical and will happen. For better or worse, they can grow much more quickly than rail.
"What of asphalt for road repairs (concrete is rarely used) ?"
Because asphalt is historically very cheap? Concrete can't make a comeback?
Cost of retrofitting efficient windows & doors plus insulation could exceed (or be high % of) a much reduced market price. Lots of windows in a McMansion. Lots of surface area as well.
This assumes a large price drop, an assumption not proven. Further, such a price drop would further add to the 100K's of thousands of dollar difference between urban & suburban real estate.
"Long haul trucks to bring supplies to suburban stores ? "
city stores get their stuff directly by rail??
"And workers as well ? Suburbia needs low paid as well as high paid workers."
How is this related to energy? low paid workers will be able to afford $1,000 per square foot manhattan type housing?
"Plumbers, Postal delivery, police protection, cable TV and pizza delivery (not going EV I promise you !)"
How can you promise that? These kind of fleet operations will be the first to go to PHEV's.
"More costs for water & sewage renewal/person. everything has to be pumped further (I heard that 20% of Phoenix's electricity goes not to a/c, but to pump water & sewage)."
That's electricity. We have no shortage of electricity.
BTW, I think it is a myth that EVs go with wind turbines. The vast majority will plug in as soon as they get home (in case they need the car for an errand, they do NOT want to be "out-of-juice")"
We've had this argument before. People are going to spend several hundred thousand dollars to avoid using a timer to charge at night??? That's the whole point of a PHEV: you can use the gasoline backup for occasional use.
:they will *NOT* accept shortening the life of a very expensive battery for the "general good" by drawing down on it over night."
That's Vehicle to Grid. I'm not talking about that. It will happen eventually, as very long-life batteries like the A123sytems and Firefly take over, but here we're talking about scheduled charging, something that doesn't affect battery life at all.
"Best Hopes for a dead Exurbia and shrunken Suburbia,"
I don't get it. The only city in the country that allows people to get along without a car, Manhattan, has real estate that costs 3 to ten times as much as in the suburbs. No one will ever move to Manhattan to reduce their living costs!!
Again, it would be infinitely easier and cheaper to buy a more efficient vehicle, insulate your house & go to a heat pump, and get your local village to go to PHEV's for their fleet vehicles.
Re your claim that fleet operators will be the first to go to hybrids - not true currently, because they're only economical if you plan to pay for the fuel costs yourself, over a longer period than most fleets keep their vehicles.
I was speaking to someone in the rental car business yesterday, and they have no interest in them at this point.
"Re your claim that fleet operators will be the first to go to hybrids - not true currently, because they're only economical if you plan to pay for the fuel costs yourself, over a longer period than most fleets keep their vehicles."
I wasn't talking about car rental fleets, I was talking about government and corporate vehicle fleets, like the Post Office. They are going now to hybrids, and will be the first to use PHEV's.
OTOH, I think the car rental fleets will change to serve their customers. Actually, I'm thinking of car-sharing services like zipcar.com, and I-go.com, which will likely be ways of people sharing PHEVs.
I would think NEVs would make more sense for most Postal work, although here it's almost entirely scooters and small motorcycles for residental street delivery.
I understand that not all fleet owners are equivalent to car rental fleets, but I still suspect many don't see hybrids as an attractive option given the typical vehicle replacement rate, the difficulties in servicing, lack of discounts for fleet purchases, etc. etc.
When depreciation and fuel costs are tax-deductible business expenses, the economic attractiveness of buying hybrids that you are likely to keep for no more than 5 or 6 years must be somewhat limited at this point. Once the PHEVs are actually sold at prices in keeping with equivalent ICE vehicles, and once fuel prices really start to hurt that will change of course.
"I would think NEVs would make more sense for most Postal work, although here it's almost entirely scooters and small motorcycles for residental street delivery."
The USPS is very sensitive to the disruption caused by limited range in EV's. They rejected the 1st generation (NIMH) Segway for that reason. PHEV's would solve that.
"I understand that not all fleet owners are equivalent to car rental fleets, but I still suspect many don't see hybrids as an attractive option given the typical vehicle replacement rate...When depreciation and fuel costs are tax-deductible business expenses, the economic attractiveness of buying hybrids that you are likely to keep for no more than 5 or 6 years must be somewhat limited at this point. "
Alan & I were talking about government, institutional & commercial fleets, like USPS, utilities, etc (Here's Alan's list: "Plumbers, Postal delivery, police protection, cable TV and pizza delivery". They tend to keep vehicles for the length of their usable life, and put high mileage on them. PHEV's would be perfect for them, and in fact governments & other fleet buyers such as these are right now in the forefront of buying hybrids.
PHEV's would be perfect for them
I do not think so. The "plug in" part will last just a few minutes of a long shift. Some fleets are suitable for current tech hybrids, some are not.
Police cars are unlikely to be hybrids and even less likely to be plug-in. Some units are on the street 24 hours/day, others 16 hours/day, few only 8 hours/day and performance is an issue with them.
And PHEVs (unlike EVs) still use plenty of oil, especially in long hard duty cycles in Suburbia.
Alan
PS: Forgot to mention that essential for civilization, Garbage trucks ! A candidate for hydraulic hybrids some day. But picking up garbage will take more oil or other FF in Suburbia than denser urban areas.
Plug-in hybridization does not makes sense for cars who are used for long shifts. But hybrids are good for taxis, police cars etc used in towns with a lot of stop and go and slow running.
One good thing with hybridizing a garbage truck is to run the hydraulics pump on the battery while collecting and compressing the garbage. Saves inefficient diesel engine running and can make the garbage truck quieter.
Hydraulic Hybridization is a good match with garbage trucks (no batteries except for starting) as I pointed out earlier..
An all electric garbage truck would be simply impossible for typical Suburban service (and near impossible for Urban service). Too much weight for structure (loader/crusher & walls) and "payload" with long hauls to landfill once full.
The numbers simply do not work out for 100% battery service !
Nick is hypothesizing fictional vehicles that simply do not exist to justify Suburbia. And he is taking a quite optimistic view without true understanding of the engineering limitations IMO.
PHEVs still use a fair amount of oil, so they are an interim solution for a post-Peak Oil world, especially for the distances & low density in Suburbia.
Best Hoeps for Realistic Planning,
Alan
"An all electric garbage truck would be simply impossible "
I didn't suggest all-electric. PHEV woul do quite nicely.
"Nick is hypothesizing fictional vehicles that simply do not exist to justify Suburbia."
No, they're just not built yet:your hypothesizing a mass transit system that isn't either. Sure, trains were the main way of getting around 100 years ago. But, a similar thing can be said for EV's: they were dominant before ICE's surpassed them.
You've acknowledged before that EV's are perfectly well proven. PHEV's are a trivial extension, from an engineering & manufacturing point of view.
"And he is taking a quite optimistic view without true understanding of the engineering limitations IMO."
No, and I would say the same thing for you, except that you haven't proposed a comprehensive solution using mass transit, just something that would reduce oil useage by, what, 10-15%, unless we indulge in a massive, and massively expensive move of the population to be near transit.
"PHEVs still use a fair amount of oil"
They'll use what you want to use. If you stay within 40 miles per trip, they use no oil. That will give you a heck of a lot more mobility than a train-only solution.
"they are an interim solution for a post-Peak Oil world, especially for the distances & low density in Suburbia."
Sure. That's all we need, for the moment. Peak Oil is an interim problem. In 10 years batteries will be half the cost, and PHEV's can double their range, and so on.
EV/PHEV's are an obvious, proven technology, and much, much cheaper than a massive buildout of transit, and a move of 75% of the population.
I agree that an transit oriented world would be nicer to live in. But, cheaper? Really not. I urge you to be more realistic.
"The "plug in" part will last just a few minutes of a long shift.
No. A 40 mile range would go for a large % of a shift, and they could be plugged in at breaks, meals & shift changes. These kinds of service vehicles drive at slow speeds and make many long stops, which is ideal for PHEV's.
"Police cars are unlikely to be hybrids and even less likely to be plug-in. and performance is an issue with them."
See my comment above. Suburban village police don't spend a lot of time on the highway.
"Some units are on the street 24 hours/day, others 16 hours/day, few only 8 hours/day"
You're thinking about large, urban cities. Even there, PHEV's would work just fine, but suburban villages don't have a lot of cops working from midnight to 8am.
"performance is an issue with them"
PHEV/EV's have much, much better performance than ICE's, with no efficiency penalty. Electric motors have high torque at low RPM, so they get very high, instant acceleration. They maintain that torque at high RPM. They also have to shift much less than ICE's, which must maintain a narrow range of RPM for performance. Performance drivers love them.
" long hard duty cycles in Suburbia."
What makes you think Suburbia has harder duty cycles?? They really, really don't. Things shut down much, much earlier than in the big cities which "don't sleep".
Garbage trucks?? A perfect application for electrification: many stops, long times idling...
An important point that hasn't gotten enough emphasis: city buildings use fossil fuels for heating too. It's not clear to me that they use significantly less per square foot. If that's true, than you're not advocating efficiency, just down-sizing. Heck, people can downsize in the suburbs, too, and a lot more cheaply.
Perhaps more importantly, it will be much easier to electrify suburban heating with geoexchange heat pumps, where the land is easily available. Cities may suffer from peak oil much, much more than suburbs.
Suburban village police don't spend a lot of time on the highway
At Dunkin Donut instead ?
If they cruise neighborhoods, the charge from plugging in will last only a few minutes before the gasoline engine kicks in.
I wonder how many Prius's, Hybrid Civics or other hybrids are cruising the USA today on typical patrol duty ? I suspect zero.
If that's true, than you're not advocating efficiency, just down-sizing
Downsizing is the easiest path to efficiency, directly and indirectly (higher density > high efficiency till very high levels are reached). No new tech required !
People do not need an average 2,496 sq ft single family residence, just a waste of resources. Of course, eight or nine workers with paperwork issues can fit comfortably into one.
The debate has declined to the point where we are arguing what future and unannounced technology applications will look like.
We will be deep into post-Peak Oil before these are widespread, so the "new tech will save Suburbia" argument (even if true) will simply be too late.
I think you fail to understand the slowness with which these new technologies will arrive at affordable prices in the marketplace, and the slowness with which the various fleets will be changed over.
And most Americans (and especially Suburban Americans) are "herd" and fashion creatures when it comes to housing. They will stampede out as their parents once stampeded in.
Best Hopes,
Alan
"Suburban village police don't spend a lot of time on the highway - At Dunkin Donut instead ?"
The point is, these aren't state highway patrol. They're cruising local surface streets are fairly low speeds, 99% of the time.
"If they cruise neighborhoods, the charge from plugging in will last only a few minutes before the gasoline engine kicks in."
Alan, you haven't done any calculations. You need to get an intuitive sense of what we're talking about. We're talking about a 40 mile range. If you drive at 20MPH, that will take 2 hours, which is probably 1/2 of the driving time per shift, or more (police spend an astonishing amount of time on paperwork). Further, they could be plugged in at breaks, meals & shift changes, allowing close to 100% electric coverage. Finally, that range will increase fairly quickly, and extra range will be buyable for not that much $, for very high mileage vehicles.
"I wonder how many Prius's, Hybrid Civics or other hybrids are cruising the USA today on typical patrol duty ? I suspect zero."
Of course. PD's love the old Crown Victoria standard. The cities they work for are buying hybrids for everything else, though, and hybridization will come to the Crown Vic form factor.
Finally, as I noted elsewhere, the ratio of police officers, pizza delivery people, sanitation workers etc (and their vehicles) per capita in any large city is as high (or,typically, higher) as in suburbia.
"People do not need an average 2,496 sq ft single family residence, just a waste of resources."
I tend to agree, but reducing space isn't efficiency, and it can be done just as easily in the suburbs, and much, much more cheaply.
"The debate has declined to the point where we are arguing what future and unannounced technology applications will look like."
The Chevy Volt is very real, and so is the Prius. The Prius can be upgraded to plug-in with a very quick installation. You can choose to believe that EV/PHEV's aren't real, but that's indulging in denial as deep as any cornucopian's. Have you looked at www.gm-volt.com ?
"We will be deep into post-Peak Oil before these are widespread, so the "new tech will save Suburbia" argument (even if true) will simply be too late. "
Totota plans to be 100% hybrid by 2020.
"I think you fail to understand the slowness with which these new technologies will arrive at affordable prices in the marketplace"
2010, for the Volt, priced well below $30k.
"and the slowness with which the various fleets will be changed over."
50% of miles driven by vehicles less than 6 years old.
"And most Americans (and especially Suburban Americans) are "herd" and fashion creatures when it comes to housing. They will stampede out as their parents once stampeded in."
Probably not to pay twice as much, for half the space. I wouldn't mind it if they did, but I doubt they will.
Too little time to respond in detail tonight.
You seem to think the ONLY choices are a) Manhattan and b) Suburbia. There are several more including c)New Orleans (urban forms like New Orleans).
The only city in the country that allows people to get along without a car, Manhattan ...
Also New Orleans. Pre-Katrina, 28% of households did not have cars. With the breakdown of public transportation, many have moved to bicycles.
The Big Easy was tied with the Big Apple for fewest miles driven by residents. Two very different models, equivalent results. In the 1890 house that I live in, there were 5 apartments (now 6). I was the only one of the 5 to have a car pre-Katrina.
Average & median sales prices for Orleans Parish homes moved above Suburbia (Jefferson-West Bank) just a few years ago (although our sq ft are smaller on average), but not a massive delta pre-K. Quite beautiful, very human scale, walkable :-)
And Zara's gets deliveries 3 times/week direct from a local farmer who starts harvesting at dawn. They beat WalMart on milk due to their long standing relationship with Brown's Dairy, 7 blocks away (short hop vs. long supply chain for perishable product). The local cuisine is centered around the "100 mile diet" plus foodstuffs brought in by sailing ships & steamboats (wheat, coffee, bananas). All in all, quiote energy efficient :-)
Best Hopes for Energy Efficient Living,
Alan
"There are several more including c)New Orleans (urban forms like New Orleans)....Pre-Katrina, 28% of households did not have cars....The Big Easy was tied with the Big Apple for fewest miles driven by residents.... In the 1890 house that I live in, there were 5 apartments (now 6)...Average & median sales prices for Orleans Parish homes moved above Suburbia (Jefferson-West Bank) just a few years ago (although our sq ft are smaller on average), but not a massive delta pre-K. Quite beautiful, very human scale, walkable"
Well, I have to admit I'm not very familiar with NO. I have the sense that it was/is very poor. 6 apts in a single family house doesn't sound middle class. In fact, I have the impression that the whole Metropolitan area is relatively poor, more comparable to Detroit than Chicago. That doesn't sound like a model that's meaningful for other major cities.
"Zara's gets deliveries 3 times/week direct from a local farmer who starts harvesting at dawn. They beat WalMart on milk due to their long standing relationship with Brown's Dairy, 7 blocks away (short hop vs. long supply chain for perishable product)."
Low land values would explain how Zara's keeps its prices low. If NO became a desirable, affluent, dense urban area, it's rent would skyrocket, and the dairy would no longer be able to afford to operate nearby, with such increased land costs.
6 apts in a single family house doesn't sound middle class
Pre-Katrina, the five apartments were occupied by
1) A retired investment banker from NYC
2) A computer operator for Entergy (local electric utility)
3) Outservice Massage Therapist (no professional training) (with some sexual service on the side I suspect)
4) An artist with her boyfriend (construction)
5) Alan Drake
It is a large three story house. A storage room was converted into a small sixth apartment post-Katrina.
A Marine Corps officer with his wife across the street, with two lesbian electricians, gay banker, gay & straight musicians and artists, Specialty coffee blender (for restaurants, etc,), nurses (two married to each other), MD, and much more.
I find the neighborhood extremely desirable as do the other residents.
Zara's does not rent. Joe Zara bought the store from his father a couple of decades ago. And he rents out apartments over the store.
Best Hopes for Diversity and Efficient Urban living,
Alan
Sounds a lot like the West Village several decades ago. There may be some high income people mixed in, but it definitely doesn't sound middle class.
"It is a large three story house."
But perhaps 5-700 sq ft per unit? Certainly less than 1/3 the size of the average suburban house, and half the size of the average US condo.
"I find the neighborhood extremely desirable as do the other residents."
Sure - you live there. But the point is, is there competition to buy land & real estate, to the point where prices rise? How many vacant buildings and rental units are there in the general area?
"Zara's does not rent."
Sigh. That's not the point. If land values rise, his tax assesments will also. He will find it ever more irresistable to sell out, and retire on the capital gains. In general, operating costs will rise for businesses, and land use will move to the "highest and best use", a real estate term which in this case means expensive condo's and retail boutiques. Cheap shop owners, and artists will be gradually pushed out.
A few years ago Utne Reader called the Lower Garden District of New Orleans the “hippest neighborhood in America”, a claim that the Faubourg Marigny, (I have also lived there) vehemently disputed (with which I agree, the Marigny is "hippier").
How many vacant buildings and rental units are there in the general area ?
One vacant building (Katrina damage) and about 20% SFR (home owner) & duplex (one side owned. other side rented), 30% condo (2 to 12 units) and 50% rental.
but it definitely doesn't sound middle class
It definitely does not sound SUBURBAN middle class, but "Lower Garden" is seen as a middle class neighborhood in New Orleans. The Garden District is Upper Class, Irish Channel lower middle/working class.
All this means is that Urban America can be extremely livable, beautiful and enjoyable as well as low cost with high density and low energy use. Not one of those claims can be made about typical American Suburbia post-Peak Oil (or even today).
Best Hopes for more New Orleans type build-out (complete with 28' wide streets/parking both sides),
Alan
"How many vacant buildings and rental units are there in the general area ? One vacant building (Katrina damage) and about 20% SFR (home owner) & duplex (one side owned. other side rented), 30% condo (2 to 12 units) and 50% rental."
What I meant was, what's the vacancy rate, for both owner-occupied & rental housing, in the city of NO? That will begin to give us some background information about demand for housing in NO.
"All this means is that Urban America can be extremely livable, beautiful and enjoyable as well as low cost with high density and low energy use. "
No, low cost & high density are simply contradictions. If housing is high density, in the normal course of things land has to be much, much more expensive. NO is an exception, probably because it was abandoned by the original builders (perhaps because of white flight) and not enough reasonably affluent people have wanted to take their place, or because the general area is poor.
As for energy efficiency, your big house takes as much fossil fuel to heat as it did when it was occupied by a single family. That's not efficiency, it's down-sizing. Similarly, the ratio of police officers, pizza delivery people, sanitation workers etc (and their vehicles) per capita in any large city is as high (or,typically, higher) as in suburbia.
I know that Manhattan is, overall, somewhat more energy efficient, but again, that's essentially the only city in the US (excepting the outlier of NO) that allows non-ownership of vehicles. You need to provide some evidence that city living is generally much more energy efficient overall (not just for transportation), and compare that to the generally higher cost of urban living (which you can verify, if you like, via cost of living stats). Finally, consider how urbanites (a little further north than NO) will get along without cheap natural gas for heating while suburbanites are quietly electrifying with geoexchange heating in their big backyards and installing cheap PV (which, yes, I know, isn't here yet, but is essentially certain to be available) on their roofs.
I like city living much, much more than suburban living. But, I pay a substantial premium to live in a dense city (as opposed to places like Houston, or LA), and so does almost everyone who does, excepting centers of poverty such Detroit (and, I suspect, NO), from which the middle class has fled. That premium won't be changed much, if at all, by peak oil.
I have the impression that the whole Metropolitan area is relatively poor...
A fate likely to be shared by all US cities post-Peak Oil.
And self centered snobbery (I do not like to ride the bus or a bicycle, I want 2,100 sq ft/person, I want "safe" conformity, I want my "stuff" ...) will likely fall by the wayside.
And Brown's Dairy may be reluctant to relocate to a higher transportation cost location.
Best Hopes for Positive Change (and shrinking Suburbia would be a positive change),
Alan
"A fate likely to be shared by all US cities post-Peak Oil."
Yikes. You're starting to go to extreme hand-waving. Or did you take that as an insult? It wasn't, my point was simply that NO is different, with different dynamics.
"self centered snobbery "
Are those personal insults? I expected better from you. If they aren't directed at me, I suggest that you give people who choose to live differently than you more respect. Remember, this started out as a discussion about economics. If city living really isn't cheaper, or more efficient than suburban living, how are the suburbs morally bad?
"I do not like to ride the bus "
Buses are slow, and use lots of fuel. I thought you didn't like them either.
"or a bicycle"
You didn't respond to my point. Bikes are much less safe than cars. You know that.
"I want "safe" conformity, I want my "stuff" "
Are those more personal insults? I don't live in the suburbs - I live in a dense city, and take the train. You're the one who wants to force other people to live the way you do.
" Brown's Dairy may be reluctant to relocate to a higher transportation cost location."
A dairy in a dense, high land cost city????? That's just unrealistic. Less importantly, you can't be suggesting that NO is closer to sources of hay and other food for cows than other locations further inland. If they want to be on the river, there are plenty of locations higher up.
I'm not arguing for high fossil fuel use, I'm arguing that the suburbs won't be the evil FF users that you seem to think.
Again, An important point that hasn't gotten enough emphasis: city buildings use fossil fuels for heating too. It's not clear to me that they use significantly less per square foot. If that's true, than you're not advocating efficiency, just down-sizing. Heck, people can downsize in the suburbs, too, and a lot more cheaply.
Perhaps more importantly, it will be much easier to electrify suburban heating with geoexchange heat pumps, where the land is easily available. Cities may suffer from peak oil much, much more than suburbs.
Post-Peak Oil reality will reduce average incomes in the USA. Most cities will be significantly poorer (see Don's comparison to the Great Depression).
No personal insult meant at all. I am insulting the "white flight" bigotry that was a primary motive force in establishing and growing Suburbia. Too many Suburbanites, even today, cannot stand to be "too close" to someone different from themselves.
I foresee a fair amount of self-destruction trying to avoid that contact till they are financially broken. And no tears if that is motivated by bigotry. And minimal tears if the motivation is grasping onto consumerism till the bitter end.
Bicycling can be made quite safe (safer than driving in health benefits are included), it just requires a minimal investment and taking ROW away from cars & SUVs.
Brown's Dairy trucks in raw milk from several directions (as do all milk processors), pasteurizes it, processes it (skim to whole, etc.) bottles it and sends it on to retailers. They occupy slightly less than one city block. No cows on-site :-)
Best Hopes,
Alan
"No personal insult meant at all"
Thanks. I appreciate the explanation.
"Bicycling can be made quite safe (safer than driving in health benefits are included), it just requires a minimal investment and taking ROW away from cars & SUVs."
Investment by the biker, or the city? I've done 1,000's of miles of urban, suburban and rural biking...and to me that sounds like quite a project.
"They occupy slightly less than one city block."
In a really dense city, that block would be worth ten's of millions of dollars, and not something that would be a milk processor.
In a really dense city...
New Orleans, pre-K, was dense enough to live w/o a car and be tied with New York City for fewest miles driven by residents.
We can, and should, become slightly more dense (next door to Zara's a duplex condo (2 story, each 940 sq ft) is going up on a former parking lot :-) but not so dense as to destroy our efficiency.
A point I have made in the past is that one of New Orlean's values is to provide an alternative model for Urban form, a model that is much more human scale but equally efficient.
BTW, vacancies only last for a few weeks, even before Katrina.
Best Hopes for New Orleans,
Alan
"New Orleans, pre-K, was dense enough to live w/o a car and be tied with New York City for fewest miles driven by residents."
New Orleans is not dense. Per the Census:
New Orleans city, LA *... pop: 496,938 sq mi: 180.6 pop/sqmi: 2,752
That's really not dense. NYC at 23.7, and Chicago at 12, are dense....
We have a National Wildlife Refuge inside the city limits, limits, which lowers the density a bit.
But the key words were "dense enough" to have
high efficiency, not uber dense per se (a la Manhattan
As I stated earlier, you were focused on two alternatives a)Suburbia and b)Manhattan as the two choices and I offered c)New Orleans (as well as small towns clustered around a commuter rail station).
Best Hopes for Pleasant, Energy Efficient Living,
Alan
"We have a National Wildlife Refuge inside the city limits, limits, which lowers the density a bit."
Bayou Sauvage is about 20% of NO. That's more than the average city has in parkland, but not enough to change the comparisons signficantly.
"As I stated earlier, you were focused on two alternatives a)Suburbia and b)Manhattan as the two choices and I offered c)New Orleans (as well as small towns clustered around a commuter rail station)."
But my point is that NO isn't representative of other major cities, that in fact it isn't a large, dense city.
What you have in NO would be considered suburban elsewhere.
For example, a close suburb of Chicago, Evanston: population: 74,239, area 7.8 sq mi, pop density: 9,518/sq mi.
An exurb, Naperville: population: 128,358, area 35.5 sq mi, pop density: 3,616/sq mi.
Both of these are much denser than NO.
Or, you could compare NO in density to cities like Phoenix, and Houston, poster children for urban, low-rise, low density car-dependent sprawl, the kind of cities that you would seemingly want to eliminate.
If there was a population movement from suburbs and exurbs, major cities would increase further in density, and would, and could, look nothing like NO. If you want to make major cities denser you're talking about a vast quantity of highrise condo's, or razing major urban areas and replacing 1-3 story development with NYC style 4-10 story mid-rise building. Or, subdividing current housing, and forcing urban residents to share their homes with multiple families.
Does this sound easy, cheap or fun? Something that people wouldn't spend 5-20K per household (which is all it would cost) to avoid??
If you're arguing that mass transit is compatible with low-density living, why then is there talk about the death of the suburbs???
I will recopy a post from a dead thread (my post was the last one) where I also responded to Nick.
....
You are apparently not familiar with the Urban History of the destruction of our central cities and downtown commerce.
It was not a typo. I can see a late term McMansion in a dying suburb going for $40,000 (2007 $) near the end. Over half the suburb empty, poor schools, poor public services, squatters beginning to show up, and "poor people" of the wrong color in most of the others. See once middle class & working class urban neighborhoods circa 1966.
There is a "herd" mentality is real estate. Just listen to any Realtor talking about the "hot" areas. Or contemplate why anyone (more that 1.1% of the population at least) would, of their own free and INDEPENDENT choice, chose avocado colored appliances. Yet a majority of new homes came with either avocado or harvest gold appliances and some simply TERRIBLE looking shag carpets.
Most Americans make herd decisions regarding housing.
About 30% of Americans today want to move to TOD. Fulfill that need and vacancies appear all over suburbia. Even 15% vacancy drives down home values, and realtors will steer you away from them. Americans used to move, on average, once every six years (I do not have current data), so it will be fairly easy for a "bad area" to empty out. Panic is also a good driver for change.
Remember Cramer's 7 million foreclosures ?
And as Americans once went for ranch homes with avocado appliances and orange shag rugs, they will (post-Peak Oil) brag about their walk score #s and non-oil commutes (with far greater underlying logic). Lower property values translate into lower tax revenues and poorer schools (the demographics will change as well).
Lead-acid batteries will easily support EVs for 4 mile commutes, but not 40 miles.
Most of the items I listed were historic examples that built Suburbia and Exurbia while destroyed fine neighborhoods and downtowns. They will work in reverse as well, with the added burden of the reality of excessive energy use.
Best Hopes for the Decline of Suburbia coupled with Greater Energy Efficiency,
Alan
BTW, the decline in density in New Orleans has resulted in higher prices. But our grocery and other prices are still in-line with close in suburbs and lower than further out Exurbs. Every other day I can buy sweet corn that was on the stalk that morning at my corner grocery store (2nd generation) for 45 cents/ear (on sale a couple of weeks ago for a quarter). The fresher sweet corn is, the better :-)
"the Urban History of the destruction of our central cities and downtown commerce"
Sure, but white flight was driven by fear. With energy, we're talking about an economic pressure, and a very weak one.
"About 30% of Americans today want to move to TOD. Fulfill that need and vacancies appear all over suburbia. "
Sure, if you suddenly build 30M homes, vacancies will appear. That's not going to happen.
" as Americans once went for ranch homes with avocado appliances and orange shag rugs, they will (post-Peak Oil) brag about their walk score #s and non-oil commutes (with far greater underlying logic).'
Far more likely that they'll brag about their PHEV's and zero-energy suburban homes.
"Lead-acid batteries will easily support EVs for 4 mile commutes, but not 40 miles."
No. A 40 mile drive requires a 15 KWH battery pack (10 for distance a .25 kwh per mile, and 5 for reserve). The EV1 had, IIRC, a 25 KWH battery pack, and a 60-100 mile range. Deep cycle lead acid batteries go for $65/KWH, or $1,000 for the battery pack. The battery pack would need to be changed roughly every 20,000 miles, for a battery cost of $.05 per mile and an electricity cost of $.025 per mile (at the national average of $.10/KWH), for a total cost of $.075, half the current cost of ICE vehicles.
"New Orleans... grocery and other prices are still in-line with close in suburbs and lower than further out Exurbs. "
NO isn't comparable to any other major dense city, with it's artificially low population. IOW, it's no longer a dense urban area.
This cost is higher than simply making more fuel efficient cars and your refusing to look at the whole system. No one has proved that our suburban road network is viable post peak.
Trying to maintain it simply makes no sense. The only reason people want this is so their little house maintains its value.
This has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with keeping the value of suburbia up. I can understand homeowners wanting to protect their investment but the can't afford to pay for their roads so suburbia will fail.
If the EV crowd will simply bring in the costs of maintaining the road infrastructure and consider how they have and will continue to climb as oil production slows you will see that EV is just more stupidity.
We are going to be lucky if we can afford to put electric trains in forget about the EV dream.
And finally the assumption that people will have all these high paying jobs to fund their expensive EVs suburban homes and roads is pretty foolish. You have to consider how this works in a economy that is continuously shrinking with a lot of unemployment and dislocation.
Electric trains work even under those circumstances but EV's
don't.
"No one has proved that our suburban road network is viable post peak."
No one has proved that it isn't. Could you provide at least a little information supporting this?
"the can't afford to pay for their roads so suburbia will fail."
Why can't they? Asphalt is only a small % of road maintenance costs. Concrete is useable.
"bring in the costs of maintaining the road infrastructure and consider how they have and will continue to climb"
Do you have any data?
"We are going to be lucky if we can afford to put electric trains in forget about the EV dream."
EV's are cheaper than trains.
"a economy that is continuously shrinking with a lot of unemployment and dislocation. Electric trains work even under those circumstances but EV's
don't."
No, they don't. They still have to be built and maintained, just like EV's. Further, there's no reason to believe that the economy will shrink like that. Peak oil isn't peak energy.
Your the one advocating it in general the two biggest expenses for a government are roads and schools in that order.
Not to mention federal funds matching. Roads are a huge expense. And rail is not cheap either. When push comes to shove your going to spend tax money that ensures people can get to their jobs. EV's+Roads are not a solution for everyone electric rail is. I don't think you fully comprehend how much roads cost. Next in general our current road infrastructure is in sad shape so you better include the large amount of rework needed to just keep what we have.
Your comment about concrete shows you really don't understand concrete is not cheap and takes a lot of fossil fuel to create.
The only reason they made since is you always had a new suburb growing up past the old one this sprawl generated a lot of wealth. Your not even considering the impact of the slowing and reversal of suburban growth. Even with EV's people would want to live closer in you don't want to be the guy at the edge of EV range. So given your argument the direction of flow is back towards the city center.
I don't have anything against EV's and plan to live near a critical route in the country probably using a EV in fact I refuse to buy a car till I can get a decent plugin hybrid.
I'll strive to get close to a rail station. The EV is to get to a rail head and a hospital not for commuting.
But I recognize that they are a luxury for those that can afford them in the future I don't see them as critical for the average worker. Your making huge assumptions about whats viable EV's are just a small part of the Iron Triangle and switching to EV's is not enough to ensure survival of the economic system. They will exist and people will use them but they are not a solution.
http://sabinenews.com/litesasphalt/asphalt.html
I've seen up to 1 million a mile for certain types of roads.
Feel free to figure out who is going to pay.
Not me.
"switching to EV's is not enough to ensure survival of the economic system. "
OK, your basic thesis is that the economy is going to completely collapse, and we won't be able to afford anything. That seems unlikely to me, but I understand where you're coming from.
Any data on the % of pavement construction cost from asphalt, and in turn how quickly asphalt costs rise relative to the cost of oil?
EV's are cheaper than trains
Perhaps as first cost (debatable and indeterminable till EVs that Suburbanites can use for commuting are on sale) but very unlikely for total life cycle costs.
EVs are likely to use significantly more electricity than Urban Rail (again comparing a known to an unknown). A large part of this delta is power losses battery out/battery in. Another large part is that rubber tires have dramatically higher rolling resistance, and most battery types cannot accept regenerated power from braking as quickly as it is produced.
Standard life for rolling stock is 40 years, although they can be pushed past that (New Orleans is operating streetcars built in 1923 & 1924 this morning).
Accidents alone will limit average EV life, and then battery life, salt damage, etc.
In freight service with heavy loads, the latest concrete ties are expected to last a half century (no real world experience). Use the same ties in lighter duty service and life expectancy is not a concern unless there are site specific issues (under a road bridge with salt dripping down for example).
Steel rails almost always last 40 years in public transit service, and often longer.
Trolley wire lasts 30 to 50 years typically (new, thicker wire should last longer). Silver alloys should also last longer as well (add 1 troy ounce of silver/ton and wear is reduced by 1/3rd with no change in electrical properties, add more silver and/or cadmium for even better wear properties).
The oldest subway in the USA opened in 1897 and I took it to get to the ASPO-Boston conference. The life of subway bores is also indeterminable.
OTOH, roads are falling apart today and their repair costs can be expected to escalate as oil and other energy costs increase. Railroads use sand and not salt to deal with ice.
New taxes will be required to get EVs to pay for the costs of maintaining roads. I think that you are deceived by the cost of road maintenance (including stop lights, policing, etc.) that is borne by property taxes, gas taxes and general revenue. Today, EVs get a pass on all of that.
Will the MASSIVE social cost of 45,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of life altering injuries continue with Suburban EVs ? I suspect a drop, but still 10,000s killed every year.
Best Hopes for Long Lived and Safe Infrastructure,
Alan
"EV's are cheaper than trains...Perhaps as first cost"
Well, capital cost seems to be the argument people are advancing against EV/PHEV's.
"debatable and indeterminable"
Well, anything is debatable, but all of the relevant costs are well known. This is a straightforward engineering exercise. It's certainly as well known as any large new rail project.
"very unlikely for total life cycle costs."
IIRC, avg cost/mile for rail is about $.50. That's higher than for a PHEV. More importantly, that doesn't matter. PHEV's will have lower Total Cost of Owneship (TCO) than ICE's at current gasoline costs, and that's what matters.
"EVs are likely to use significantly more electricity than Urban Rail (again comparing a known to an unknown). "
Again, that's not my memory, but who cares? We'll have plenty of wind (and other forms of electricity) for charging.
"A large part of this delta is power losses battery out/battery in."
No, Li-ion has losses of less than 10%. That's why NIMH is on the way out (though slowly)."
"most battery types cannot accept regenerated power from braking as quickly as it is produced."
No, the problem has been the size of the battery packs, though it's true that the newest li-ion batteries can handle much more power input than the older ones (or NIMH), more than enough to handle all regenerated power.
More later on individual points...
All of the relevant costs [of EVs] are well known... It's certainly as well known as any large new rail project
Badly overstated.
You are saying that a product not yet on the market (and no firm announcements AFAIK except Telsa) has greater certainty in estimating costs (initial and operating) than a technology that has over 1.7 centuries of experience and several hundred thousand miles in operation ?
Best Hopes for Reality Based Planning,
Alan
"You are saying that a product not yet on the market"
EV's have been on the market for 120 years. They're as old as electric trains. PHEV's are a trivial extension, just adding an onboard generator. They've also been around for 120 years, just not on the market because they haven't been needed until now: if you wanted range, you just got an ICE.
"(and no firm announcements AFAIK except Telsa)"
The Tesla is an EV. GM had the EV-1 10 years ago. It was successful, but GM pulled it because they didn't really want to be selling EV's at that point. They've since acknowledged it was a mistake. Small EV manufacturing is a very large business. Electric motors are very well known, and so are their controls.
For PHEV's: GM has announced the Volt for late 2010. It's extremely firm.
"has greater certainty in estimating costs (initial and operating) than a technology that has over 1.7 centuries of experience and several hundred thousand miles in operation ?"
Absolutely. Manufacturing cost estimation is a very precise science, and the only new parts here are the batteries & power electronics: the batteries are in 10M/year production, in a very slightly different form. Power electronics like this are very familiar to manufacturers, and not hard to cost estimate.
Manufacturing costs are much, much easier to control than the costs of very large construction projects like mass transit. You should know that, from the history of cost & schedule slippage in transit construction.
There is no mystery to PHEV/EV's. None at all. This nothing like, say, nuclear, with it's very, very low production volumes, very slow product cycles, very large product size, and specialized materials. Nothing.
To my way of thinking the only private passenger vehicle that makes sense to purchase from this point forward is a NEV. Those you can get today for under $10K (or maybe $12K loaded). Not everyone can rush out and get one today, of course. But because they are so small and lightweight, it should not be an insurmountable problem to ramp up production substantially.
"most U.S. auto makers don't have the capital to invest in that kind of re-tooling"
Sure, they do. They can fund that from internal cash flow: that's just part of the business. They'd have to do it no matter what kind of vehicle they built. What you're saying amounts to claiming that they're bankrupt. Maybe they will be, but they aren't yet.
"with a 230 million light vehicle fleet, it would take about $10 trillion of capital just to replace the fleet and get to EVs"
No, EV's aren't going to cost any more than the current average $28K cost. What you're saying amounts to claiming that no one is going to replace their cars, ever again.
" The fed spends over $400 billion on interest alone each year (up from #300b 3 years ago due to increased interest rates and increased debt). "
This doesn't have much to do with PHEV/EV's, but it's not really accurate. The current national debt may require $400B, but roughly $300B of that is simply providing more pieces of paper to replace the effects of inflation. The current federal deficit, IIRC, is about $250B, which means the feds are really running a surplus.
"we can't afford to do anything and we can't afford not to do anything"
Most people are employed, and will replace their vehicle when they need to.
[The current national debt may require $400B, but roughly $300B of that is simply providing more pieces of paper to replace the effects of inflation.]
Where does that statement come from? A large part of the $9 trillion (okay, $8.9 trillion so I can't be accused of over-stating) national debt is held by federal agencies (and mostly comes from the social security surplus) but about $5 trillion is publicly held (about $2.2 trillion of which is held by foreign nationals). The interest paid on the publicly held debt cannot constitute anything except an expense for the government and appears as an expense in the budget. The debt paid on intergovernmental loans might be argued either way, but in reality it is an expense and comes out of the budget of those agencies.
And you are correct: it doesn't have much to do with EVs except that it reflects on the fed's ability to contribute to the shift to EVs or a world war II tank production effort.
[What you're saying amounts to claiming that no one is going to replace their cars, ever again.]
Not in the least. Obviously everyone will replace their cars at some point, but a slow rollover of the light vehicle fleet is not going to help us out of the peak oil problem. And I do think that as money gets tighter (i.e. all costs increase due to increased transportation and manufacturing costs as well as increasing costs of debt service), people will make do with the car they have, not go buy even a $28K new car (and I did move the number down to $20k if you didn't like the $40k, but $5 trillion is still a lot).
[They can fund that from internal cash flow: that's just part of the business. They'd have to do it no matter what kind of vehicle they built. What you're saying amounts to claiming that they're bankrupt.]
Ford posted a $12 billion loss last year, fired half its workforce, and borrowed $20 billion (putting up the entire company as collateral) in order to keep its doors open. I doubt they have a lot of cash to invest in retooling their entire product line (even though that's really the only way they will ultimately remain in business). (And see someone's comment below where they posted July car sales.)
"The interest paid on the publicly held debt cannot constitute anything except an expense for the government and appears as an expense in the budget. "
The nominal interest on the debt might be $400B, but what counts is the real interest: nominal minus inflation. The headline interest rate might be 3%, so inflation is $270B, and the real interest is $130B. The federal deficit is about $250B right now, so we're actually running a surplus. That has something to do with the economy slowing down...
"a slow rollover of the light vehicle fleet is not going to help us out of the peak oil problem"
Vehicles less than 6 years old account for 50% of miles driven. It's not slow.
"even though that's really the only way they will ultimately remain in business"
That's what I'm saying. They'll have to do it, whether they do PHEV's or not.
more tomorrow...
It would be a slow rollover. I think it takes about 15 years to replace the car fleet. Assuming that not all cars for sale from tomorrow are electric, it would take many cycles to get to significant numbers of electric cars, never mind replacements. As soon as people don't want to buy new ICE cars, then trade-ins will become impossible and the replacement rate will slow further.
Slow seems much more likely than quick.
"I think it takes about 15 years to replace the car fleet."
Actually, old cars stick around a long time. But, they don't get used much.
Cars less than 1 year old represent more than 10% of all vehicle miles. Cars less than 6 years old represent 50% of all vehicle miles.
Partial electric cars that can be easily upgraded to plugins(hybrids) are now 2.2% of new car sales, and growing 55% per year.
"As soon as people don't want to buy new ICE cars, then trade-ins will become impossible and the replacement rate will slow further."
Again, not if it means losing their job, or spending $100k+ to move close to their job.
Continued...
"$5 trillion is still a lot"
Not really. It just shows how large the car business is, at $500B per year.
"people will make do with the car they have"
Not if it means losing their job, or spending $100k+ to move close to their job.
"Ford posted a $12 billion loss last year"
I'm not so hopeful about Ford. Still, if they go bankrupt, someone will buy their assets, the workers will lose their pensions, premium pay & healthcare, and the business will continue with lower costs. A disaster for the employees, but the cars will continue to be manufactured.
Let's do an experiment, shall we? Go down to the crappiest part of town in your town, and start making a list of the makes/models of the cars you see. Count how many Lexus, Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercedes, BMW, and other luxury vehicles you see there. If you've driven through the "ghetto" before, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I don't know how many times some underpaid, uneducated person who happens to work in the same building as me will complain about not being able to pay their cell phone bill on time, then 3 weeks later has purchased a BRAND NEW Chevy Taho at a price of $30k or more. Then they're complaining about the insurance and gas on the thing.
*I* won't drop $20k+ for a brand new electric car. I'm converting mine for $8k. :) Where will my money for this come? By cutting out all that extra crap that everybody spends their money on. (Cable, movies, CDs, eating out, etc.) Off to eat some beans and rice.....
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com/)
Great. Just great. Blame the victims of poor education who are dupes of the mega-marketing machine that convinces them they ought to have the biggest, shiniest, newest whatever gizmo they can be convinced to "buy."
But what is the reality? Probably these purchases are really LOANS, courtesy of the credit cards they have been convinced to own and use, use, use. Chances are the car is a LEASE, not a purchase. (Lower monthly outlay, but endless payments.)
Yes, the poor will get their comeuppance soon enough, but they are not the problem. They are exploited and bled dry by the system. It's a shame. And it's a shame you think it's okay to lay the blame on them.
You kidding?
Can you see a car dealer refusing a sale because it's crack or meth money? LOL.
Musashi, pardon me?
Are you equating poor people with drug dealers?
Not necessarily, but someone with no provable legit income flow, assets or job driving a 50 or 100K car is a suspect. The money has to come from somewhere.
Your assertion that someone would give them such a vehicle on a credit card or without a credit check is very naive.
It isn't the same as real estate that was thought to appreciate, a car depreciates significantly the minute you drive it over the curb, they will make sure that there is a capacity for repayment at the time of the sale.
Some specific domestic models no one wants? maybe? but still not as easy as you mentioned.
Musashi - I think you are reading more into my statement than what I said...or certainly what I meant, so let me clarify:
Your assumption was:
I did NOT say anything about the specific purchase process, credit or income checks, or income source, or depreciation of property. I was commenting on the TYPES of cars Durandal cited that could be seen in "ghetto" neighborhoods and I challenged the bias in his/her statement. (I also disagree with the price points you cited for these vehicles - "a 50 or 100K car" - With the exception of the occasional Hummer, I think the range is more 30K-50K.)
Because I've lived in very "transitional" neighborhoods for most of my life I have a different perspective. Yes, I would agree one can see all manner of luxury car brands in poorer communities, but why? I don't jump to the assumption that the purchases were made with illegal income. Sure, there are some pimp mobiles rolling around, but that's not the majority.
I think that when 1-5% interest rate come-on offers for car loans are heavily promoted, and car dealers ask for very little money down for long leases (low monthly payments), some of these people jump to be able to own what they believe is an accessible part of the "American Dream." A car is much easier to acquire than buying a house. Having a fancy car makes some lower income people feel like they've "made it." But my view is they are being USED by the system and ripped off.
The car dealers don't have an individual's best interest in mind. They could care less about how that person is going to afford their other bills, all they care about is qualifying them for the loan (not unlike sub-prime mortgage lenders). The dealerships just push to get the papers signed, hand over the car keys, and collect a commission. I know that's how it works because a few decades ago when I was, admittedly, more naive about how the car business is run I was suckered into signing up for an exceedingly high car loan interest rate by one of these shysters.
My beef was that while Durandal acknowledged the straw person s/he is criticizing is "uneducated" - and that's the core problem. I think many low income people have been brainwashed into believing that they need to be "consumers" rather that pragmatic savers. I objected to Durandal's blaming the victims.
The auto companies do not need the capital for re-tooling for PHEVs. Their supplies can build the factories for batteries, electric motors, and electronic components.
As for how poor we supposedly are: The United States has a $13 trillion a year economy.
As for replacement of all existing cars: Not necessary for a few reasons:
A) Retrofits. Replace just the engine and gas tank with batteries and an electric motor. Or replace with a hybrid pluggable drive train or with a diesel.
B) Shifting cars around between high and low mileage drivers. Make gasoline expensive enough and the higher mileage drivers can buy the smaller used cars from people who drive less.
C) People can buy motorcycles and very small cars which are a lot cheaper to make.
D) People can move and switch jobs to reduce commuting distances.
We can adapt to Peak Oil. We have the intellectual and capital resources needed to do it. We have the capital markets and entrepreneurs we need to do it.
Well said.
I'm amazed how quickly people can extrapolate from "less fuel available" to inevitable economic collapse.
Having drastically reduced my fuel consumption without impacting my lifestyle in any negative way I've got to say its not that hard.
Step 1 - move somewhere close to your job or within easy public transport range of it. Thats a pretty large part of your petrol bill gone right away...
Anything is easy if one or two people do it. Like using french fry grease for fuel, works for one, not for 300 million.
It would be good to quantify how easy it would be to move half the population closer to half their current commute distance. How about moving half the population withing 3/4s of the distance.
Quantifying these kinds of things gives us a way to judge what is and is not possible. I am posting up thread about depletion curves and commute distance reductions.
Jon Freise
Analyze Not Fantasize -D. Meadows
If you've given up buying stuff (anything), as a result, then it impacts others. Individuals can get away with doing this for a while (until reduced fuel consumption is forced) but that doesn't mean it's a win-win situation for everyone.
My total expenditure hasn't gone down - I just spend less money (and time) on transport and various other oil dependent things (buying more organic food as one example).
Now I get to spend that money on other things.
Why does that impact the economy as a whole ?
Sure - if everyone did it there would be changes - but changes happen all the time. The oil sector becomes less important and other sectors become more important - what is the problem ?
What you will actually see is a mix.
There are a few NEVs out there now, there will continue to be more added to the mix.
Quite a few people will take small lightweight cars like the Honda Civic and tinker with it and convert it to electric, or to CNG (and eventually compressed biogas from anaerobic biomass digesters).
Others will tinker with diesels and convert them to biodiesel.
Others will even dust off old plans for homebrew "producer gas" outfits to fuel their cars.
And of course, people will carpool & rideshare, they will take public transit if available, they will ride bicycles if they can find one, or they will walk.
So you feel that new car sales are just going to collapse?
GM July sales down 19%
Ford down 18%
Chrysler down 9%
US auto makers in recession.
Home builders in recession.
Financial panic amongst investors and institutions holding subprime mortgage backed securities, some prime loans rated better than A failed. Not sure how was grading the papers.
Almost as many homes being sold at courthouse step auctions in some areas than through realtors.
SEC checking bank balance sheets.
Memories of 1989 and the Resolution Trust Corp. set up by the Feds to auction off properties owned by bankrupt Savings and Loan Associations.
Unemployment up.
The party is over.
That is really going to disappoint Partyguy.
"GM July sales down 19%, Ford down 18%, Chrysler down 9%"
Overall vehicle sales down only 7%, hybrids up, IIRC, 12%. Sadly, the Big 3 are only 49% of sales now.
IIRC, car sales were flat, and truck sales crashed...
I lived through the 70s in a Rust Belt state. That decline in car production is mild stuff in comparison.
Okay, we are going to have a recession. Does that mean the economy collapses? No. Is this the first recession we've ever had? No.
$300 billion is the correct figure but that figure is way too high to attract any investors. If they expected half that 3 million barrels to come from shale oil, and the other half from ethanol, it would still take 10 years to recoup their investment if they made $55 a barrel from the shale oil. Fat chance! It will cost almost as much a barrel to produce as they get for a barrel. $10 a barrel profit would be more like it, if that.
However there is another fly in the ointment here. You say:
Not a chance! There are currently NO efforts underway to bring ANY shale oil online. Shell has put their program of "freezing the parameter while cooking interior" on hold while further studying the feasibility of such a scheme. No one has any other plans even on the books for recovering any shale oil from the Green River Formation. It just ain't gonna happen. If they started today it would take at least 10 years to build the infrastructure and pipe in the needed water from the already overstressed Colorado River.
Ron Patterson
I agree, shale oil will be probably exploited some day but only out of desperation by nuking the shale rocks. In any case, we can't expect significant flow rates from this kind of source (same from tar sands).
Sounds like an Edward Teller scheme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
I'm dubious that shale will ever be exploited but I don't understand why you think there won't be "significant" flows from tar sands.
How much is significant and what do you think the real limiting factor will be ? (I'm assuming gas would be a factor but that they'll go ahead and build nuclear power plants in Alberta to run the tar sand operations at some point).
Personally I'd rather than didn't happen but I'm one of those people who thinks you can easily power the whole planet with renewables only...
" Our only hope is massive energy conservation immediately. Alan's Electrification of Rail at breakneck speed,"
The most obvious strategy is carpooling: with current telecom, it would be much, much easier to implement than it was 30 years ago. Then, it pretty much had to be on an internal company basis, because communications were so hard. Now? Easy, and it could cut overall commuter fuel consumption by 50% in a few months. 2nd, telecommuting is badly underused. What % of office workers in large city downtowns really, really have to physically be there? 5%?
GM will have a battery pack ready for their Volt PHEV in 2 months, but getting mass manufacturing going will take another 2.5 years. This should be put on the same kind of crash basis as tanks in WWII (also made by GM...).
I have seen 50K$/bpd figures for CTL
but i also note that China is scaling back on CTL projects due to water problems...
I see the future as moving in stair steps some small, some large. The United States theoretically has more resources (oil, natural gas, coal, farmland) per capita than a lot of other countries, so could fare better than many others.
A big question is how inflation/deflation/ monetary supply work out. We could lose a lot of globalization, if countries lose faith in each other's money, or if they decide to make economic war on a country. There is always barter-based trade, but it is likely to be much smaller in quantity.
Electricity and the continuation of the grid are clearly big factors in continuing business as usual. Another is maintenance of the road system. A third is upkeep of the water/ sewer system. Elimination of any of these would cause huge problems.
This has always been the problem with western powers over the last couple of centuries. The money situation, the overreach, and the reliance on FIRE as the basis of the "healthy economy" rather than the production of useful "stuff."
With the continuing shift of the US away from actual production of hard, tangible "stuff" to the "service economy" (a little service goes a long way), the globalization trend would ultimately bite us. The rest of the world, with things worth trading, would ultimately confront whether they wanted to trade for real, tangible items (like oil), or pieces of paper that were mostly "green" with artifully drawn portraits of dead people on the face of those pieces of paper.
As for the electrical grid, we face the specter of having to either eliminating demand growth (recession/depression would likely do that) or having to replicate the current in-place capacity within the next 30 years and then to double that total 30 years hence.
Since so much of modern US civilization relies upon electricity as well as well as liquid fuels, we've obviously got a problem. A bushel of corn just does not go as far in trade for a barrel of oil as it did in the post WWII period up to the mid-late 1970's. During that period, ~2.5 bushels would get you a barrel of oil. Now it's more like 17-25 (even with yield at more than 150 bushels per acre with the use of pertochemicals).
It is an interesting web we weave.
Starship Trooper,
Pertochemicals! That sounds more like meth or crack than everclear!
(sarcanol alert) Bob Ebersole
LOL! Knew I should have run spell check ;->
I guess I don't agree that the US doesn't manufacture enough. I would phrase it that people consume too much.
I'm pretty sure that when this is all over, US manufacturing capacity will far exceed what we the consumer will be able to afford to afford to buy.
The only service jobs will be walking behind plow oxen. Maybe some soup kitchen help. I'm banking on bicycle repair myself.
I think you meant that they will be the plow oxen
Shouldn't "even with" be "because of"? Is the massive decline in the value of corn with respect to oil at least partially because it is produced much more efficiently? Setting aside nutrition, sustainability, energy expended, self-replication, etc.
The big problem with roads and probably the electric grid is if you defer maintenance you end up with much higher costs to repair broken infrastructure. For example its much cheaper to resurface a road then to rip up the asphalt and replace it. But once a road degrades past a certain point you have no choice.
Most road maintenance is under the control of state and local governments and these entities will face a unprecedented cash squeeze as the housing market tanks and the economy slows. This will force them to defer maintenance but peak oil will ensure that prices will remain high especially for asphalt.
Federal bailouts using taxpayer money to support roads will not help in the long run just drag the economy down. The end result is we probably will see roads especially rural county roads revert back to gravel at a fairly rapid pace as governments focus on critical roads. Next of course is the problem of bridges the recent tragedy highlights the problem but I think you will find that thousands of our smaller rural bridges are in poor condition and in need of replacement. These bridges have been abused by the growth in agribusiness and movement of large equipment and heavy equipment needed for construction of mini-farms.
As and example in Northwest Arkansas where I lived for a long time Semi-Trailers carrying feed and chickens routinely cross bridges never designed for the repeated heavy loads not to mention concrete trucks.
So peak oil or not we are facing a crisis for a lot of our road infrastructure that is well past its expected lifetime and has not had the required maintenance. This of course means a fairly large tax hike right when most of the key sources of tax revenues are drying up.
Check this site out. http://www.walkscore.com/get-score.shtml?street=500+7th+street%2C+arcata...
On this site, you plug in an address and it shows you the walkability of the surrounding area. The higher the walkability, the less likely you need a car. I see this tool being incorporated in city and regional planning. In addition, incentives should be given for living in neighborhoods that have a walkability index or where plans are being put in place for walkability. Expect this tool to eventually being used on real estate web site. I can see it now. Come live here, the most walkable neighborhood in America.
My score was 0 out of 100. I do walk to many of the places on the list nonetheless.
Cool stuff, but the algorithm needs work.
Gail,
The roads, bridges, and (soon) large portions of THE GRID* etc. are being sold off to foreign based corporations including Chinese corporations.
"Theoretically" we could be investing the $300 million a day we're wasting on Iraq on securing the border, teaching people to grow victory gardens everywhere, etc. But we're not and we're unlikely to all of a sudden start acting rational once gas hits $5 or $7 or $10 or whatever.
(*Google "repeal PUCHA grid" for more inforamtion on that)
There is something supremely poetically elegant about those oil depletion curves being shaped like a shark-fin.
[in the third world (and those areas that the US military has transformed into the same)]
Grads have such a way with words.
Yes, my cynicism, and failures as a poet, are largely a product of your tax dollars :)
I think the zoo breeds cynicism.
Derivatives or leverage and excessive/under-priced credit?
There's nothing bad about options, futures, interest rate swaps, default swaps, etc. OVderall, they are VERy useful tools. The current market volatility is not a result of derivatives. Derivatives are NOT the enemy.
The current mess IMO comes from excessive leverage throughout the US economy.
The Stat-arb books that have been losing BIG money as of late lever up 4-to-1 (a result of current margin rules). People were allowed to buy houses with little or no money down. People took large cash-out-refis on suspect appraisals and at high LTV ratios. Total joke companies were allowed to borrow large sums at incredibily low credit spreads. Consumers bought cars, furniture, and other *stuff* by borrowing money at 0%. The list goes on and on.
Now, we're paying the price for the sins of the recent past -- credit rationing & volatile financial markets.
It seems to me that TPTB have recognized for many years that the financial system could not be maintained. Further, I also believe that they recognized the impact that peak energy would have. From my reading of the tea leaves, I believe that they came to the conclusion that some sort of collapse was ineveitable, that is, no action could stop it short of new societal (both economic and social) paradigms. However, new paradigms would mean a relingquishing of power and, therefore, was unacceptable.
Consider the construction of interment camps to hold hundreds of thousands of people, the number of executive orders stripping away Constitutional rights at the whim of the President, the number of laws passed that also strip away rights, changes in the bankrupcy laws that (in essence) make people slaves to their debts, the so-called North American Union, and on and on.
When I was in high school some 50+ years ago, I read a massive tome of Hitler's speeches in chronological order. I couldn't believe that people didn't see what was coming since it was so obvious. I see the same pattern today abd people remain oblivious.
Todd
It's not the same. It's the mirror image.
Good article Jeff. What I'd like to see is the Oil Drum investigate positive feed back in large "slow" systems. Your trends if you look closely probably tend to have positive feedback thus as a trend develops this year by 2008 it will have already grown to become a important factor. I think as the year progress we will see a lot of trends develop this year and strengthen significantly in 2008. In general the effect on oil production will be to ensure it is less than predicted by the simple models we have used to date.
In my opinion the fact that peak global oil causes numerous detrimental positive feed back conditions to begin and grow is probably the number one issue we face. Next a associated condition of correlation where events that normally do not effect each other begin to have direct effects is also important.
And example of a correlated event is take a refinery that goes down for repairs if we have significant storage of refined products then it will have little effect on its customers but if they are running with minimal supplies it could lead to shortages. Thus the status of the refinery which becomes correlated with the end users supply of gasoline where in normal times they are only loosely correlated.
Thus the combination of positive feedback and correlation results in shortages happening far sooner then predicted and
shortages are rocket fuel driving more positive feedback and correlation.
One more thing :)
This is why Germany failed to save itself with technology during WWII. Even today people marvel at the technology Germany had invented especially towards the end of the war.
But it never made a real difference. The reason is the collapse of the economy made it impossible for them to take these technologies to mass production. This is why technology will not save the day it can't be deployed.
This means for oil for example we will not see any innovative new technology widely deployed. Nor will we see significant new alternative energy approaches make it out of the lab until after our oil economy has bottomed out.
This means we are probably not going to get electric cars in large numbers even once they are technically feasible.
The only way around this is to recognize why your collapsing and refuse to prop up the dead industries and pour your money into the post oil economy. Its painful but otherwise you never have the money to change.
Do we refer to it as "positive feedback" or "cascading failures"?
Good point on why tech won't save us. In addition to a lack of energy, there will be a lack of capital necessary to deploy tech in the numbers needed to offset the energy issues.
Cascading failures are a result of all the conditions. Positive feedback and correlation are one of the causes of cascading failures.
The end result is of course cascading failures but of course we live with a global economy and local news. And a energy failure in Nepal may cause a nail file factory to not produce or ship leading to a shortage of nail files for a salon in Los Angles. In general considering the complexity we probably won't see the cascading failures until its to late. Eventually it won't just be nail files but ball bearings, valves, motors etc.
I'd watch for a shortage of Mardi Gras beads next year for example. In sounds inane but...
"refuse to prop up the dead industries..."
I couldn't agree more. Did you hear the phone interview with the Donald this morning on CNBC? He echoed the call of many others that Bernanke must drop rates. However, in his defense, he tacitly acknowledged that this is all one big Ponzi scheme by explaining that the Fed must drop rates in order to keep from "killing the golden goose" (that was the phrasing that he used, I think), by which he meant real estate.
In my opinion, our best bet to stave off collapse long enough to at least give mitigation a chance is to bite the bullet now on the entire real estate bubble and associated derivative bubble (I agree with the comment above that derivatives themselves are a valuable tool, but in this case their effect is to spread our over-leveraged risk more thinly and allow us to leverage even more). That would certainly bring on economic recession. Of course, while this approach may theoretically buy us time for wise mitigation investments (such as Alan's electrified rail scheme), the reality of human nature is such that we would probably become even more unwilling to focus on long-term mitigation until we "fixed" the economy. Alas...
In other words, slowing down the collapse would only allow more time for people to continue to use resources close to the rate at which they shouldn't be using them to start with....?
Big cleanup jobs require a big trash can. Do you think Hefty has a trash bag big enough for the New World Order 'Free' Market Economy? Is there a landfill big enough to put it all in so we can clean up the foolish Wet Cardboard Housing Bubble, the Nintendo War for Raising the Price of Oil, and the Hummer Hordes and get on with our lives? Personally, I think there is little of it that should be sorted into the Recycle bin except maybe the internet and The Daily Show.
What this means is we now have to face our biggest addiction greed. Especially collective greed. Humanity can no longer follow the pattern it has for hundreds of thousands of years of stripping the resources for short term gains. Evolution will again be called on to weed out a dead end approach and create a new species. I know this sounds far out but Homo Greedus is now on the road to extinction. Eventually a new species will evolve from the pressure cooker we have created that does not even think like we do. Call it Homo Harmony.
I think Japan was on the path to this when it closed itself off from the world and I suspect we will globally move back to a style of living and thinking similar to Japans period of finite resources. Eventually this will result in selection for people that put harmony above greed and in time they won't be people like us.
A broad theme here: one of the things I am most confident in is that there are technological, political, and social solutions that can fix all of our problems--I am a big believer in the power of human ingenuity. Possibly the only thing that I am more confident in is that human group dynamics will prevent us from effectively implementing these solutions.
I couldn't agree more that we need to face our own greed, consumption, consumerism, etc. And I think that these things can be addressed. But I don't give us a snowball's chance in hell of actually making the short-term sacrifices necessary to address them as a group.
The mess today is the peak of literally hundreds of thousands of years in which we always had more resources to exploit and greed won. I suspect we will change much faster than this but its still at least thousands of years before we eliminate greed from ourselves. Our way of thought and probably how our brains are wired faces extinction but for the first time I think a species is aware of its own demise so evolution has moved up a level. But I'm pretty certain we won't be the species that leaves earth for the stars if things go well it will be a species evolved from us.
I know this is way out there but future humans and beyond won't have the resources we have. Hopefully they will keep a high level of technology but it will move in radically new directions from what we have done to date. I suspect that we will get serious about genetic modifications and master the art for example. And if we keep technology I think that we will modify our own genomes and actually create the post humans through "intelligent design". I think refilling the niches emptied by global warming and our rape of the planet will force us to create new species if we keep the ability. For the collective I hope we can use computer technology to express far more complex concepts then is possible with our current communication methods. I'm hoping this ability to transfer a more complete "thought" will be a key factor in us becoming smarter in the collective. Also I hope that our greed can be redirected from the physical world to a virtual world allowing us to be kings for a day without using resources by turning greed into a type of game it will eventually become just that a stupid kids game that you drop as you get older.
I know this is far out but the point is I believe even as the old way of life ends we are actually at the base of a new way and if things go well we will evolve past our current problems.
Short term of course we seem to be toast :(
Could you explain a little more this "hundreds of thousands of years" claim of yours?
Seems to me that for most of human history (homo sapiens sapiens is generally thought to be only 100,000 - 200,000 years old)we didn't extract any more from our environment than it could sustain. Oh sure, we certainly impacted the environment, all animals do. We may have even despoiled a few places and had to move on. But I'm having a hard time seeing how that equates to greed.
I've always thought that greed starts after you have excess production leading to accumulation of wealth.
Shaman, you are correct about when modern Homo sapiens appeared, somewhere between 130,000 and 160,000 years ago. But you are dead wrong about greed. Hominoids however appeared about 5 million years ago. Greed appeared long before the evolution of Homo sapiens.
If you put one pig in a pen, it will gain very little weight. It will not "eat like a pig" so to speak. It will eat only when hungry. But put two pigs in a pen and each will eat everything it can as soon as they are fed. Each pig eats all he can just to prevent the other pig from eating it. And most other mammals behave exactly the same, especially Homo sapiens. Greed is innate, it is not a learned behavior.
And the destruction of the natural world began with the spreading of Homo sapiens throughout the world. The large animals have always disappeared with the advance of man. There now exist two large flightless birds, the emu and the ostrich. There was once more than a dozen, they are all gone. The large mammoths of Eurasia and America were all killed off by man. I could go on for an hour naming large animals that have been wiped out by man. Now we are killing off much smaller species because we are taking over their habitat.
Ron Patterson
Ron,
I'm wondering how you can speak with such certainty.
Your pig example strikes me as nothing more than a story. You clearly don't know the same pigs I do. The ones I know are intelligent, urbane, mannered and would never steal from another pig.
No, it seems you have already made up your mind about greed based on some preconceived notion you have that it (and, I suspect, all human behavior) is innate. It's a fine theory, but that's all it is, a theory.
Your "destruction of the natural world" argument is even harder to fathom. One wonders how the disappearance of a dozen or so flightless birds gets equated with world destruction. But just as a measure, how many different species do you suppose went extinct prior to the rise of your "rapacious ape?"
It seems to me that on the one hand you want to separate humans from nature (destruction of the other) while at the same time arguing that we are only nature (behavior as being innate). You'll excuse me if I just pass this off as mere socio-biology determinism psychobabble and go back to asking Memmel to explain what he was trying to say.
the pigs I've known were also intelligent, urbane, and well-mannered. Also a hell of a lot of fun to drink with(they LOVE beer and just get...silly). But I gotta side with Ron and the conventional wisdom here, conventional in the sense that rural folks just KNOW certain things about animal behavior and constantly repeat them to each other. "You never wanna just get one pig. Get two and they eat a LOT more." To disbelieve my own lyin' eyes, I'd have to see some empirical evidence.
Shaman, I grew up on a farm and I know pigs.
In all honesty Shaman, I don't think you know squat about the subject of human behavior. Have you ever read "The Blank Slate"? How about "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley, or all the other books Ridley has written on the subject? I have read them all. And no all human behavior is not innate. Any damn fool who knows anything knows that. Ridley put it far better than I ever could:
You wrote:
And I would say that is a damn good idea Shaman. One should not comment on something that they don't know diddley-squat about. As Ridley put it, "anyone with an ounce of common sense...." And it is quite obvious that you .....
Ron Patterson
I agree with you thats why I'm suggesting it won't go away without genetic changes. Greed is effectively hardwired at the moment into our genes individual intelligence came much later. We have yet to create group or networked intelligence.
I'd say that in general birds/reptiles seem to be less greedy in the way they live compared to mammals. You in general don't seem to get population explosions and crashes for birds reptiles I'm less sure of. I could well be wrong but it just seems like birds are more adapted long term to the niches they inhabit. I think the dinosaurs died too early and mammals greedy gene's where beneficial in this vacuum in a sense we grew up to fast.
The periodic ice ages kept it alive. Greed is just now becoming major baggage for survival. In general mammals have relatively large brains in comparatively with most other species and greedy behavior seems very common across species. Thats why I think it has a deep genetic basis and is hardwired deep into our brains. Its probably the core reason we are unable to exhibit deep collective intelligence which one would think is natural considering the cognitive power of a group of humans. It seems in general we only work together when it benefits our individual greed.
Considering that humans are the most capable of destroying the environment our greed is the most important and damaging.
The reason I say we are going to evolve away from being greedy is that we have mined and used up most of the resources required for civilization not to mention destroying our ecosystems. So later generations must work together to restore the ecosystem and scavenge our discarded resources. You simply won't have the vast wealth to build another civilization based on waste/greed. This is just the short term but you can see how over the long term species that work to maintain and improve the ecosystem intelligent or not will have a natural advantage over "greedy" ice age era species. I hope humans evolve to exhibit collective intelligence that is really smarter than the individual rather than the primitive collective we have today.
Absolute level of resources bears little: greed is relative (as in keeping up with the Jonses).
To realize this advantage, group selection and coevolution would be required for the nongreedy species. The lack of greed would have to be only with reference to other nongreedy species: otherwise, greedy species would take over the favorable environment. Even then cheating individuals would still have to be watched for. Active management appears to be necessarry - since greed is favored in existing environments, even when resource limits are pinching (i.e., usually), the future probably holds more of the same.
There is a chance in hell ....but it's admittedly a long shot.
There is a "religious ecstatic" that can be introduced on a societal level, it would have to involve transcendence, connection and a trade off of individuality. Key In a compelling vision for the future and a touch of unified principle and it can move dis unified people to act.
But it can also tip very easily to fascist control very quickly.
...a long shot.
This sounds a lot like another transcendent state, fear. Which can also be used to unify. And which is also unstable to manage.
Key in a compelling vision for the future and a touch of unified principle and it can move dis-unified people to act
If things slide towards the worse, that is my hope is that my Urban Rail and electrified inter-city rail plans will present, a ray of hope. Something to rally behind !
If we start early in the post-Peak Oil era (i.e. now ?) early versions will be up and operating and making a difference. Something tangible to generate hope with !
Hope is a precious commodity !
Best Hopes for Hope,
Alan
Hi Jeff,
re: "And I think that these things can be addressed. But I don't give us a snowball's chance in hell of actually making the short-term sacrifices necessary to address them as a group."
Well, just to possibly cheer some of us up:
On today's "Democracy Now", there was an interview with Avi Lewis, about Argentinian workers who "recovered their bankrupt companies".
Now, this might make an interesting subject of analysis on the energy side of things. (I wonder if the FF energy inputs are covered, and, if not, if they could be.) They were able to make it work by re-organization alone?
I haven't read the book itself, but just wanted to bring it to your/(our) attention.
Excerpt:
AVI LEWIS: So delighted to talk about this book. I did not -- we didn't really organize a product shot, but it's called Sin Patron, and this is a book that -- I just wrote the forward with my partner Naomi Klein. It's a book written by the Lavaca collective about Argentina's extraordinary movement of recovered companies.
In the economic crisis that melted down Argentina in 2001, which many of your viewers and listeners will remember, out of that uprising, as Argentina threw out presidents and had a massive upheaval of hundreds and thousands of people in the street, new social movements were born. And one of them were these workers who recovered their bankrupt companies, companies that were pushed out of business by their versions of Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch and other corporate fraudsters -- actually, Murdoch hasn't been convicted of anything; I should really take that back -- who heavily indebted companies drove them out of business, took the money and ran, when the crisis hit. And these workers were left, literally in the most industrialized country in Latin America, in the strongest middle class in Latin America, all of a sudden they were left in a wasteland of abandoned factories.
And so, what workers started to do was simply get together, form cooperatives and put their factories back into operation. It’s an extraordinary movement. And six years later -- seven years later for some of these companies -- they're still flourishing. They have, in some cases, complete workplace democracy.
Wow, do you think Trump's planning to use his bad comb over technique on his real estate loans? Will next seasons "Apprentice" be from the bankruptcy courts?
His next task refinancing Casinos?
Holy Jumping Jim Cramer! People are losing their jobs!
(sarcanol alert)
Bob Ebersole
Agree 100%, it needs to be collapsed.
When you have a cancer you remove it, if instead of removing it you drink enough vodka so as not to feel the pain, at some point you run out of vodka.
This is why I place very little hope in the nuclear energy option. No matter how improved is the technology, the technical logistics along with the financial situation are enough to prevent it from meaningful deployment. Nuclear power is very high up on the ladder of technical complexity and the higher up you go, the more these feedback loops will kill the technology.
I might get flamed for this but I think we need techo reserves just as bad as we need organic farming. I agree that we won't be able to build nukes under these conditions but I don't want to lose the ability to build a nuke. Its a option we should keep. I think little attention has been paid to the need to preserve and enhance our knowledge base as the world economy crumbles. The modern equivalent of the Monastery is a must except this time around I sure hope sex is allowed. I'd join one if I'm grandfathered in and allowed to keep my old ways :)
Seriously though I hope at some point its realized we need to focus on preservation of knowledge for the sake of future generations and this includes maintaining skills not just written information.
I sort of addressed that in my post on post-peak education in June. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2598#comment-198259
where I talked about Civilization in a Closet. It is less than you might like but it is a start at preserving knowledge.
Todd
Good idea. I'm also betting that cheap aka 100 dollar computers with wireless networking will be viable in the future. Assuming we don't collapse that badly. Even though the American middle class is toast along with the poor I don't see yet that we will lose civilization. Brazil style civilization with squalid slums yes but this is not the end of the world.
Communication is also critical I think and your approach should be part of a overall attempt to maintain information and communication. Next although individual store houses are good getting secure storage in public libraries is important. And these can also act as communication centers in the future.
So I think the public library will take on renewed importance in the future. If bandits come to town you may well find the citizens standing up to protect the library to hell with the bank.
This should really be a key post IMHO its a important concept and a good idea. Plus its cheap to do.
I don't think there ever existed a personal computer that survived daily use for even ten years. If every American family needs to buy one of these $100 laptops every ten years, gotta landfill about... five million computers a year, every year, forever?
It takes a lot of fossil fuel and fresh water to produce the extremely high-purity materials required to make any computer.
"America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting." William S. Burroughs
Preservation of knowledge is the right direction to go, but it has to be done the old way - oral tradition and apprenticeship. And for goodness sakes, don't try preserving anything on digital media. Books have better staying power, but nothing beats real experience and practice, practice, practice.
I agree thats why I think networking is in a sense more important that static storage. Esp since a lot of our current technologies are ill suited fro a renewable world. So static knowledge storage is not all that great what needs to happen is people who understand what we know today figure out how to make it work in a different world.
The plus side of course is we have a much large knowledge base to build from now if we keep it then anyone ever had in the past.
Once you forget about trying to maintain suburbia we actually have a lot of opportunity in the future.
Maybe we'll just assign a person and their heirs to memorize a book.
I share your concern about preserving our knowledge base. We have ample evidence of technology lost in the past, and we have vastly more knowledge to lose this time. I suspect that a modest dieoff could easily destroy the universities, which are a better bet than the monasteries.
I am a retired physicist turned organic farmer. I was a guest at an environmental studies senior study seminar at the local college. The instructor was asking the class if a liberal education needed to include a basic understanding of agriculture. I asked if such an education would include a knowledge of, say, electricity and magnetism. I don't think anybody else in the room had such a knowledge. The answer was, "Well, at the level coal goes in [to the power plant] and electricity comes out." For agriculture, I guess the corresponding level would be "sun, water, soil go in and food comes out at the super market."
God! Maxwell's equations! Beautiful and powerful, the basis of radio, TV, electronics (well quantum mechanics, too), X-rays, electric motors and circuits, light, ...
I hate to see the human science knowledge base disappear, but it's only held in a tenuous diaspora of a small minority whose relevance to the species future may be important, but is seldom recognized as urgent.
cheers,
The "Mexico may run out of oil in 7 years" thing was reported by "Presta Latina," which is the Cuban state news service, hardly the most unbiased source. As the Daily Reckoning reported, they could NOT find this news release in any mainstream ("real") news outlet. Finding a second news release somewhere else would be a good idea.
Scott
I agree, that source is suspect. I would argue that it isn't any more suspect than FOX news, but that's my personal bias. However, all politically biased sources tend to be the most unreliable when reporting on things that they need to make appear one way to justify themselves. For example, I'm guessing that Presta Latina is quite accurate when it comes to reporting Cuban-league baseball scores, because they have no motivation to fudge whether Santiago or Havana won, or what the score was. Similarly, I don't see an obvious motivation for Cuba to overstate or understate the problems in Mexican oil production, but maybe that's just failure of my imagination.
"I would argue that it isn't any more suspect than FOX news"
uhmmmm, that's not a strong recommmendation.
Jeff Vail wrote:
So, the complete imminent collapse of the Mexican oil industry is to be equated with baseball scores? With the political fallout likely to be equal?
Jeff, how are those legal studies of yours coming?
Pretty good, I'd judge. You and lawyering will get along just fine. :-)
And maybe it's just cherrypicking whatever dubious data seems to work for the case you are arguing.
There is no such thing as an unbiased source. Do you uphold the same standards for other sources?
Hi jivefive99,
I see you became a member just to make this comment. Welcome to theoildrum!
I question this 7 year thing, too. I question an assertion that Mexico is going to produce zero oil in seven years. And although Cuban news sources have been supportive of worldwide revolutionary movements for over 40 years, the Republic of Mexico has been a very good friend to Cuba through the embargo.
Its been apparent for many years that the Republic is severely underinvesting in exploration and production. They've got huge deepwater offshore potential on both the Gulf and Pacific coasts, and even onshore in the deserts of Chihuahua and Tamaulipas looks like great wildcatting territory. But Mexico is so desperate for capital at this point that it may be explored only if they start allowing Pemex to make joint ventures with American E&P firms.
Bob Ebersole
Here's the original Prensa Latina article:
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BF1F8B8FE-DA99-4717-8FBD-2B3C4...
Have a look and see whether you can spot the fallacies. Mexico will not "run out" of oil in seven years.
Well that should be a clasical case of "ad hominem" or should we say "ad medium" argument. You did not even bother to argue article's points but attack it regardless.
BTW if you read the article it contains quite plain and easily verifiable facts. It is quoting PEMEX reports and does not even try to meddle in the political reprecursions of what it says.
FWIW I'd prefer "Presta Latina" over the conspiracy-theory lunatics or the politically motivated articles appearing every now and then on the Drumbeats. No offense Leanan, but it sometimes gets frustrating to get around low-quality writings - even though they certainly represent a valid part of the public opinion.
Hi Jeff, I have been watching the market meltdown in the past few days carefully, and have been hoping you would make a comment. I always learn a lot from your posts.
The clearest analyses (globally contained liquidity crunch) I have found so far come from Michael Shedlock (mish) at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com. He details the drying up of liquidity. Borrowers are defaulting on more and more loans, and its spreading. Debt markets have dried up so tight that banks have no way to value their funds.
We're seeing a liquidity crunch, which means the days of easy money are over. Mish has been saying for quite sometime (interview with paul kasriel) that we could be heading a deflationary recession and depression for these exact reasons. Now he seems sure of it.
If he's right, then we're in for some very interesting times in the very short term.
Best regards,
Natural
I hope everyone understands though that if we have a worldwide recession caused by a "global liquidity crunch" it may render peak oil irrelevant for years to come. A serious deflationary recession will bring down oil prices without inducing anyone to consume more oil - an ideal situation for energy conservation in the short term.
Economic collapse or even a significant downturn is a servicable solution to the problem of how to conserve oil resources. Peak oil won't become an issue until the next cycle of economic recovery when economic expansion bumps up against fundamental supply limits.
Hi Kenny, Can't agree with you more. We'll have to see have far down consumption goes in this downturn. Cheers, Natural
Has anyone thought that maybe a decision was made to accept the lesser of two evils...economic collapse vs. mainstream awareness of Peak Oil? Perhaps, we got too close to knowing the "truth" and the players have orchestrated this "economic downturn" to do just what you are discussing...in lieu of outright, obvious evidence of Peak Oil.
Which is worse on a global scale...everyone bummed because there is less credit and retirement money OR the panic that would ensue from the realization that our petroleum supply is in terminal decline?
Well, I certainly indicated that up-thread.
Todd
Who here is stocking up on stuff?
And if you're not stocking up on stuff, what has to happen to get you to stock up?
All the places I'm ordering from are backed up with 2-4 week backlogs as is. If "something significant" happens it will be 2-4 months and that'll be if you're lucky.
Who here is stocking up on stuff?
I am. Just bought a pair of sturdy, water proof Gore-Tex boots and several pairs of socks yesterday. Also recently bought a case of ammo, several cases of canning jars and lids, several cords of fire wood, several jerry cans of gasoline with stabilizer, dried beans, rice, and olive oil.
Your post should be a reminder to people that they should stock up on more than food. Living in the boondocks, we have always carried a large stock of food - especially since we can get snowed in for weeks at a time - but I also stock stuff like plumbing fittings, electric wire, nails, engine oil and filters, dimensional lumber, OTC medicines and vitamins, soap and razor blades, gloves and so forth.
We also buy things in bulk. Why have a couple of 5# bags of flour when you can store 100+# of wheat berries and make your own flour?
There were some excellent Y2K lists available. I think I do a search after I post this to see if they are still up.
Todd
Well, the old Y2K stuff seems to have died. Too bad. BTW, a good book regarding food is Making the Best of Basics by James Stevens, ISBN 1-882723-25-2. It has lots of lists including things other than food such as first aid supplies, how to and recipes. I highly recommend it.
Any advice on the boots? I don't know anything but that sounds like a good thing to procure while I still can.
Chimp, I'll offer some advice (as someone who has been through a few pair):
Just check out your nearest outdoor outfitter and go to the hiking boot section. Mine are Merrill medium top Gore-Tex water-proof with a heavy sole. I figure I'm going to be spending a lot of time outdoors in all kinds of weather.
Ever since the Great Northeast Blackout.
Redoubled my efforts after finding LATOC. (Thanks Matt)
The biggest problem up to now has been reinventory to keep it fresh.
All the places I'm ordering from are backed up with 2-4 week backlogs as is...
That's cause you're looking for dehydrated Salmon-in-Cream-sauce and Beef-with-Shitake-Mushrooms.
You've got your solar cooker... get a 25 pound bag of oat groats.
Get 5 or 6 dozen cans of sardines from the grocery. They are cheap as dirt and taste better than canned tuna (or hamburger for that matter). Eat two cans a week. Get the oil packed ones and use the oil to flavor the red sauce you'll make from your cache of canned tomatoes. Get dried pasta. Get dried beans. Pretend you're Italian.
You need greens. So find some spinach and arugula seed. Grows good in cool weather. Put it in a nearby ditch. You don't have to hide it. Nobody knows what it looks like. And nobody looks in ditches.
All kidding aside... if you're really bugging out, you can get well stocked for no $$$. (And fix great survival meals for the ladies.) You do need one of those nifty pocket sized water filtration systems though and a slingshot to keep the critters away... ;-)
Will,
I'm also stocking up on canned goods, greens, dehydrated beans and eggs, pretty much evertyhing.
I also bought a slingshot from Major Surplus and a variety of walter filtration/purification stuff.
I'm also researching what tent to buy. That why even after everything is in ruins I'll have the biggest house in the tent city to show off to all the ladies. =)
I have stocked up with a 1 year railway ticket. ;-)
Its some financial turmoil, not a world war.
Let's play a game of "who hasn't been paying attention to current events?"
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2007/Nuclear.html
Alice's Restaurant?
I bought a new diesel powered motorhome and a coffee pot. I also bought a new driver because I kept slicing my old one.
I seriously doubt the world is going to end anytime soon. However, if for some reason it does, I don't see much chance of BankAmerica getting that last payment!
Might as well ride the oil train to the last station. I heading that way anyways.
Tents:
Good ones for long-term use are heavy and typically come with stove jacks. Here are some nice canvas ones.
www.cylinderstoves.com
I got a cheap outfitters tent on sale at Cabela's.
Today, I'd recommend the 16x16 vinyl tents at www.armytents.com.
12oz vinyl is suuuper heavy and just the thing for long-term use.
How does one stock up on 'greens'?
A slingshot? When I read that I had a quick mental image of that swashbuckler who flexed his muscles and did a fancy juggling of his mean looking saber. Indiana Jones summarily shot him dead with a pistol.
A tent? If you're right about nuclear war, you'd be better off in your parents house.
How much of your stocking up is self-deception about convincing yourself that collapse is imminent - kind of a self -confidence booster? In other words, if you WEREN'T stocking up would that create cognitive dissonance (realized or not) with your POV on your website?
If credit collapses before oil, you will be able to buy all that stuff cheaper in 2 years, except for the goods from the companies that go out of business.
Your shoe idea is spot on though - I think 99.5% of shoes in United States are made overseas. Still, if you're sneaky you could probably hold someone up (about your size) and force him to give you his shoes, under threat of slingshot and a marble from your sack.
Seriously, I hope we don't see nukes in my lifetime or anyones lifetime - if you can enjoy your life while planning for that, be my guest. Peak Oil also means there is more oil being pumped than any time in history. Same for eggs and slingshots.
@Chimp
..I'm also stocking up on canned goods, greens, dehydrated beans
Saurkraut [German cabbage puke] is one of the few things to keep VitC when canned/sealed. Thats really why they came close to beating the rest of Europe.
Plus, as a bonus, after a mouthful you will look forward to the sardines..
First rule of "stocking up":
Don't buy anything you don't normally use/eat!!!!
If you don't normally eat spam, then don't buy 50 lbs of it.
Stock what you eat and eat what you stock.
There is nothing wrong with a well stocked pantry, but only crazy people fill their bedrooms with spam and bottled water
Second rule:
Never underestimate the value of toilet paper :-}
Third rule:
Don't Panic! You will just look foolish after the fact.
The Hardware Stockpile (in part)
Glass - For Solar Heating, Greenhousing/Growboxes, Solar Ovens, etc, etc..
Mirrors - Largely for same as above, both plexi and glass.. as well as for solar lighting projects mentioned recently.
Foil-lined foam insulation- good reflector and lightweight constr material for ovens, solar water heating projects, overinsulation of fridges, freezers, etc. Generally Water and weatherproof..
250w of PV panels.. partly for experimentation, from 1w to 130w collectors, as well as various circuits to charge individual batteries, tool (Makita) batteries, up to deepcycle and car batts..
Nicad and Sealed Lead Acid Batt packs..
1500w Generator (Gas) - bought used $200 in case of grid outages and using tools up in the woods.
Always have piles of wood and bldg materials, fasteners, adhesives, waterproof roofing underlayment, etc
Exercise bike and Treadle Sewing machine bases for converting typically electric tools (incl modern sewing machine, grinders, drills, scrollsaws, sanders, circular saws, grainmills, meatgrinder, blender, elec generators, waterpumps, compressors) to pedal power.
Glass storage containers, 16oz to 5 gallon.
Books/ Saved Websites on How to Do things. (The more vital websites get printed out).. Including Eliot Coleman's '4-season Harvest', how he grows fresh vegetables year-round in Maine, WITHOUT heating his greenhouses. This could improve the food supply for much of the lower-48, as well as the acres/person ratio.
3 or 4 legacy computers kept operational.. you never know which models/components will turn out to be surprisingly long-lived. My brother still has one of my IBM 8088's running from 1988-ish, the weak link seems to be the harddrive. (don't underestimate the power of a textfile.. that's the majority of what's at work at TOD..HTML is a small jump from that.)
Mulching soil
Community Garden, plus growing at Home
Some Bulk Foods
Local, Grassfed cow in the freezer downstairs..
Strong Neighborhood Ties
etc, etc..
"If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind, and you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined; don't be nervous, don't be flustered don't be scared, Be Prepared!" -Tom Lehrer
Folks,
Consider the source.A couple of years ago in his book, Jeff Vail offered the following as a solution to our problems:
Most definitely they have. And further....
(hattip to a TOD lurker)
Jeff's anarchist politics aside, is this the language of an analyst? No, this is how radical social critics talk.
To quote Tainter:
When an anarchist tells you civilization is 'falling off the balance beam', take it with more than a grain of salt.
never mind
THis "liquidity" problem started a while ago. Remember at the beginning of the year when china stated that it didn't need any more dollars? Well they were serious. They stopped buying all subprime and other suspect debt and started investing in REAL things. (Africa?). So now there is no more money for this junk debt, that's the real problem.
Now China says that it will nuke the dollar if it feels like it. BELIEVE THEM. They would like nothing more then a crippled USA next year while they bask in the glory of the Olympics.
Asebius: Why do I think maybe Jeff Vail did the nasty with your girlfriend? (and rocked her world).
Are you saying one cannot be both? 'Twould be a sad world if once we took a stand, we were forever banned from providing impartial analysis or information.
Certainly, take everything everyone says with a grain of salt, but if it appears to be analysis, treat it as such and if it appears to be criticism, treat it as such.
Take the information given, verify or refute it with other information, synthesize it, and think for yourself.
Yes, I agree with Tainter on that point. It is extremely unlikely that a radical social critic can provide impartial analysis and predictions for the future that are not self-serving or ideologically driven.
I would argue that Jeff's work at TOD is ideologically driven. For instance, we still don't have a decent analysis of Mexico's energy situation. ie. What portion of Mexico's GDP is oil production? How has it changed over the last several decades? What percentage of its export revenues are oil derived? How has that changed? Instead we have its doom trumpeted (and that of civilization in toto).
jivefive99 pointed out upthread that:
Impartial analysts don't miss an important datum like the above!! They check sources! It's the most elementary of research tasks.
Are my posts simply ad hominem nonsense? Hardly. Obviously this stuff matters.
Jeff really is anti property? My hat is of to him. I will listen more closely to all that he says from now on. I hadn't realized he was so enlightened.
Asebius,
I've watched you come in and trash Jeff on another occasion, and come in and accuse Leanan of blasphemy even though she's an atheist and can't blaspheme. Accusing him of being an anarchist is an ad hominem attack. I think you are a troll, and I hope that you are banned from The Oil Drum. He makes no attempt to disguise his personal political beliefs, and you have not answered any of his points with anything but ad hominem.
I don't plan to answer you at all, but will complain to the editors.
Bob Ebersole
??????
Dude, you most certainly have me mistaken for somebody else.
I've never been discourteous to Leanan. Not ever.
bob, I was going to tell Asebius the same thing then I realized it was pointless to even converse with jackasses like him.
chimp,
I believe in hearing any point of view that is not hateful. Jeff's stuff is thoughtful, and well written, and as you can tell from the thread today, stimulating.
Ad hominem attacks are totally against the principles of the Oil Drum, as I recall, they are even part of the site guidelines. If he wants to refute anything Jeff says and add that he is an anarchist and he thinks it colors his material, fair enough. But to say we shouldn't consider what he says because he is an anarchist is no different than discounting someone because they are gay, a jew, a marxist, or even a Jewish Closet Log Cabin Republican Neocon, like a couple of them. It just stirs up B.S. and reveals prejudice that shouldn't be in a free and open discussion.
And, Apulius, if you weren't the catholic who attacked Leanan, I appologise for that. But you did disturb the last thread of Jeff's that was published with the same ad hominem attacks. And I don't appreciate it.
Bob Ebersole
Bob and Chimp--
But don't answer one ad hominem attack with another. As you recognize, it never benefits the discussion.
Sounds like he was paying him a compliment to me :)
Now, if he'd called him an economist or something like that, that would have been really horrible.
Triumvirate of collapse - Economy, Ecosystem, Energy
I would like to know the inherent biases of the main authors of this site. Are they in the employ of Exxon? Or are they committed anarchists? There are so many conflicting views on the subject of peak oil, it is hard for all of us to know what is the truth.
I do think that Asebius could have couched his remarks more carefully, they did sound like an attack against a political belief, and it is not clear that Jeff's earlier writings should bear upon this post.
But ban him from TheOilDrum?! O, I hope not!
- rick
I am not exactly a "main author" (I've only ever posted maybe 5 comments), but I'll come out and say that I am an anarchist-communist (and an egoist and materialist atheist, besides), albeit of the technophile variety (rather than the anti-civilizational variety), although I AM aware that, if you want to promote the well-being of yourself and humanity in general, you must be aware of how you are a product of the world's ecology and subject to its limitations.
If you are looking for an anarchist author with some relevance to the peak oil discourse, I would recommend Peter Kropotkin. and specifically these works of his:
"Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution"
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html
Investigates how in some circumstances the best way to survive and propagate genes when faced with the ravages of the natural world and the other species therein is to practice mutual aid within one's own species:
"In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense -- not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, is invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution."
Ron Patterson should find this all interesting.
Humans are, of course, the most social and inter-dependent, inter-aiding organisms to ever exist. And also the most rationally and consciously self-interested. There is no contradiction. As an egoist, I do everything out of perceived self-interest...it's just that I often deem that it is in my self-interest to cooperate. Game theory is very persuasive on this matter. A community of agents that always gets involved in inter-necine warfare can be easily outperformed when faced with a small, consolidated community of "TIT-FOR-TAT" behaving agents, who cooperate most of the time and create a much bigger product between themselves proportionally. This has even been computed mathematically. Check out "The Evolution of Cooperation." It's stuff like this that has convinced me that large-scale projects such as wind power and Alan Drake's lightrailnow are not entirely hopeless post-peak.
"The Conquest of Bread"
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/conquest/ch1.html
I think Kropotkin stands out from other anarchist thinkers thanks particularly to his appreciation of how humans stand within ecology and the natural world rather than outside of it, and his appreciation of the necessity of science for understanding nature, for understanding how to behave within it to enrich ourselves, and his appreciation of science and its capability for informing our debate about the possibilities of human society and its optimal arrangements.
"Fields, Factories, and Workshops"
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/fields.html
"It is often positioned as a counter to the thinking of Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin which tended to imply centralised planning and control. To a large degree Kropotkin's emphasis is on local organisation, local production obviating the need for central government...His focus on local production leads to his view that a country should manufacture its own goods and grow its own food, making import and export unnecessary. To these ends he advocated irrigation and growing under glass to boost local food production ability...Critics say he is rather optimistic in the work, however the problems arising from industrialisation and its reliance on fossil fuels has shown his ideas to be far sighted and possibly appropriate for the post-fossil fuel age...There is a remarkable similarity between some of Kropotkin's views and those of the architect Christopher Alexander, for the example the elimination of vast buildings and the introduction of workshops in or attached to the home."
Bottom line: whatever your political proposals, to be considered seriously they must be based on logic, evidence, and the laws of thermodynamics. Many "anarchist" authors do not hold anarchism to this high standard. That is a grave mistake. Anarchism must have a solid scientific foundation demonstrating its scientific possibility, its methods, and its ability to confer greater well-being for us. What I admire about capitalism is its mathematical and scientific foundation (just look at how the market's demand for secularly-educated workers is eroding religion). Whatever kind of society evolves from our current one, it needs to build on the scientific insights that we have already. Hopefully our society in the future will understand resource constraints better than the current one. And I think theoildrum is promoting that paradigm shift very effectively. Thanks y'all!
A conflict of interest indicates a cause for concern, but in and of itself, Jeff's anarchist leanings are insufficient to disregard his warnings.
At this late stage of the game, should we start taking with a grain of salt those who suggest salting opinions based on ad hominem considerations? It has a satisfying fractal self-similarity to it.
What kind of production is mobile enough to move from a failing grid to a well run one with plenty of electricity?
Last year PEMEX reported replacing half their production with new reserves. They are not likely to be out of oil in seven years. They are likely to be overpopulated in seven years.
The issue is: is there anything special about the popping of this bubble, or the bubble itself? There is one thing, I think: it's size. The US housing market has got to be the single largest (physical) asset class in the world. It has multiplied in "value" over a period of very few years. The incremental value is huge, and a great deal of it has been extracted and used to sustain the US and the world economy. Previous bubbles deflated, and left some people on the beach, but the band played on. But what other bubble can succeed this one? What other asset class can be securitized to sustain a further expansion?
In this sense I think we may have turned a corner. There is only one way out that is compatible with the current economic and financial order: a vast expansion of military spending. And there is one physical asset class whose value is guaranteed to go up (aside from bumps): hydrocarbons. And the military expansion fits in neatly with the aim of trying to corner this asset class.
The US housing stock, suburbia, etc. is now devaluing swiftly, along with a lot of the infrastructure supporting it. The investment needed to rescue it is beyond anything that can happen. So there is stark alternative shaping up: war and escalating militarization or a drastic downsizing and restructuring of our way of life, and the introduction of some totally un-American concepts, like cooperation and mutual aid, or even worse, the gov't helping its own people in these efforts.
Why would it be inconciveable with a war on stupidity with massive investments in education, infrastructure, energy efficiency and new energy production?
Considering most people no longer have the skill sets to contribute to public works like in the last great depression and we are short resources and have to many people. War seems to be the only viable route to maintaining the economy and giving people are reason why they don't have oil. Nationalism seems to be really common lately. My only hope is the wars remain fairly small and don't use that many nukes. Since the primary goal is resources extensive use of nuclear weapon outside of taking out the major population center seems counter productive. I'm hoping its just a matter of wiping out the big cities destroying the infrastructure waiting a year then going in and suppressing the people that have not starved to death and taking the resources. If Europe Asia and the US decide to take this approach and Russia is comfortable setting back on its massive resources and say get the Arctic we might get away with a minimal war like this. The sticking point is probably China.
China, ah yes. Personally that's why I think we put bases in Afghanistan. Smack dab on China's land route to the ME. Sure, they could walk right over the few troops we have their and we have terrible logistics compared to them. But any move against our bases their and we would surely feel free to initiate tactical nukes, something we happen to have plenty of.
We are well into the late mid game of this chess game now. surely going to get interesting. I am spell bound.
Gunrunners and orphan makers might screw up the whole scene. Previously the U.S.S.R. diverted a huge portion of its GDP into their military and bankrupted their economy. Imaginary shadow WMD programs and spooks in high places, the bane of a nation.
I have no doubt that the Pentagon has gamed this to death for the last decade or two or three. On increasingly more powerful supercomputers with better and better programming. It is their job and boy they love their toys.
Do you doubt it?
That given, what about those shadowy WMDs, hmm? Red Herring for the masses comes to mind, an excuse that can be sold without giving the game away.
Ok, we have the bases if Afghanistan, the flank is protected from the Chinese, now we have to support our allies, the Saudis with the Iraq move. Interesting how they cut shipments to the Far East, eh? Last I heard the cuts were over 11%, But no cuts for the West, yet.
And yes, now the Saudis have instituted price hikes for the Far East. Wow, this thing could work, who are those Pentagon gamers anyway?
But wait, what is this Obama guy saying now? He wants to pull out of Iraq and go into Pakistan? It will be interesting to see how fast he changes his tune. I can see a set of black Chevy Tahoes pulling up to his house in the middle of the night... "Look buddy here's how it is, we have this game all figured out 17 moves in advance (all Bobby Fisher could ever do), don't screw it up, here's what you say from now on."
Beats the heck out of network TV, no commercials.
Hello TODers,
My thxs to Jeff for the keypost and thread.
Recall my earlier posts on mining depletion of essential agri-minerals [plus the % diverted to industrial processes]. It now appears in some locations that the FF-industry and the mining industry are butting heads as they both jockey for the last of their respective depleting resources:
http://www.currentargus.com/ci_6490602
----------------------------
Interior Secretary vows to safeguard potash industry from oil, gas drilling
"The potash industry has had a long issue, and most people in the community are aware of the conflict we have had over oil and gas drilling," Purvis said. "It's a big safety concern for the mining industry. We have oil and gas and the mining industry literally on top of each other."
----------------------------
IMO, this could help setoff cascading blowbacks as both industries are highly interdependent on each other's finished products so that they can both exhaust the last of their resources.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hello TODers,
Since I am not an expert on anything: does anyone know the economic and ERoEI crossover points of extractive high-energy agri-mineral mining and long distance distribution vs building constantly renewing guano shelters vs scorching wood for bio-char Terra Prieta Processess vs burning vacant suburban housing and trash for potash to support relocalized permaculture?
For example: will $15/gal for diesel/gas make it more worthwhile to burn local wood sources and build guano shelters, or will it take $20/gal to finally eco-force the shutdown of heavy mining equipment and the intensive preparation and transport process?
Or, hopefully, will lots of people find employment mining this way so as to protect the housing wood and the growing trees:
http://www.uni-kiel.de/sino/ar/sk/12a_1970s.jpg
How quickly would China collapse if a trade war shutoff the exportation of fertilizers:
http://www.iied.org/mmsd/mmsd_pdfs/065_ifa.pdf
------------------------
Potash Case Study:
Information supplied by the International Fertilizer Industry Association
Four countries currently account for close to 53% of global potash usage. The United States is the largest of these consumers typically accounting for about 20% of global usage.
China, Brazil, and India represent approximately 15%, 10%, and 7%, respectively of world consumption. Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) is
also an important consuming region, amounting to about 17.5% of the world’s total in recent years.
For example, high-yielding, short-season rice varieties in a double cropping system will remove up to 36 times more potassium from soil compared to a single crop of
traditional varieties. Potassium uptake by rice in a triple cropping system will be about 50% more than by two crops annually. Although some soils are rich in potassium, many are poorly endowed and crop production thereon is unsustainable if potassium removed by cropping is not replenished in appropriate amounts.
...An analysis of the nutrient balances for the period 1961 to 1998 for six Asian countries (China,
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) indicated that the overall annual potassium deficit is 250% more than the current potassium fertilizer use.
---------------------------------------
I am still hoping a TopTODer is working on a good statistical keypost. =)
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
"If, however, the Fed decides to "refinance" this bubble with rate cuts, they may achieve temporary victory, but will worsen and quicken much greater problems down the road."
I wrote in yesterday's drumbeat a post that develops that point. It might have a place in this thread, so here it goes.
It's clear that the Fed (and the ECB) has the power to inject whatever amount of liquidity they wish into the market and thus prevent price and even asset deflation and more generally achieve the level of inflation they wish. What's not clear to me is the wisdom of doing that this time.
In 1987 (and still in 2001, though to a much lesser extent) the world economy was far from any physical "limit to growth", so it made sense (at least for the short run, the only timescale that matters for Keynesians, because in the long run...) to assure the markets that financial conditions would not be allowed to put a brake to economic growth.
But now, according to the IEA, the world is definitely about to bump against one such "limit", namely stagnant oil production rate. Specifically, the June report predicted Q4 stocks withdrawals of 2.1 Mbpd and the July report predicts Q4 stocks withdrawals of 2.3 Mbpd. That's unprecedented and would send the oil price skyward. They also stated in the recent Medium Term OMR: "it is abundantly clear that if the path of demand does not change on its own, it may well be driven to change by higher prices." Therefore we are now in a fundamentally different position from that of 1987 or 2001: while letting the credit crunch proceed would reduce oil demand and economic activity in general by way of recession, injecting monetary stimulus would send the oil price higher which in turn would also curb oil demand and economic activity.
But there is a much more powerful reason to allow the credit crunch to proceed: viewed from Hubbert's Peak, a substantial part of American economic activity - and probably the most sensitive to tight financial conditions - is not positive or even neutral: as often stated by Kunstler, by way of suburban construction the US is just digging itself into an ever deepening hole, what with the loss of farmland becoming a critical issue due to biofuels. So if a credit crunch is the only way to stop suburban construction, LET IT BE.
Using the Easter Island case as a model for today's economy, if tight monetary conditions will play the trick of stopping the extremely unwise activity of statue carving, transporting and setting up, just don't loosen them.
So, while a bit of research may show up an old post of mine where I stated my view that "the Fed will follow a path that will ensure that existing debts will be gradually melted away by inflation, so as not to add insult to injury to the majority of the American population who is in debt and will already be feeling the painful effects of the decline in oil and gas production", with a better understanding I now hope that will not be the case, for the same reason you should not give money to an addict.
Thus, while I agree that the Fed (and the ECB) has "the tools" to keep the ship going full steam, I hope it will not have "the will", because such flat-earth-economics-enlightened "leadership" would be ruinous.
Unfortunately, yesterday's and today's "liquidity injections" by the Fed and the ECB are quickly making my hope vanish.
Thanks Jeff for an interesting post.
If we only had one serious problem to deal with, for example economic, then I believe civilisation is resilient enough to deal with it. But we actually have three major problems - economic, environmental and energy - which are more-or-less going to have to be dealt with simultaneously. Each of the major problems brings with it a whole plethora of other ills such as geopolitical conflict, disease, mass migration, etc.
Although people are obviously aware of these problems, yet thinking about solutions still ends up as a linear affair dealing with them individually in isolation. The end result can only make the situation worse IMO, devoting time, energy and resources into schemes and projects that have little longterm chance of success.
Resilience requires ever increasing levels of complexity which requires increasing levels of energy. Presumably, that complexity can only come at the cost of the current civilisation. Resilient communities will have to take a proportionally greater share of available energy to build resiliency?
Triumvirate of collapse - Economy, Ecosystem, Energy
If you read Robb, then it would be obvious that electricity will always collapse before liquid fuels.
A convoy may be defensible but the spiderweb isn't.
The rabble and the mobs are easily defended against, but once middle class professionals with specific skills and training are excluded to the point they can be made to join groups with tactical expertise the end of the controlling oligarchy/political class is near.
Most Americans at this point would laugh at the suggestion that when they watch Iraq on TV they are watching themselves down the road.
There are many similarities between the factions there and here, but who is going to discuss this on a open forum?
Jeff, you had me all the way up until this:
Good thing that was at the very end! As coincidental as the 2012 connection is, I cringe at the Mayan association to the date because of the long history of such prophecies residing in the realm of kooks and looneys where I live. Yes, vindication would be sweet, but damn! Those prophecies might actually come true!
*Shakes head in wonder*
A lot of the prophecies in many religions can be found to fit in our current circumstances I think the religious right is having a field day with Gog. But this is closer to the fact that a broken clock is right twice a day. Or better all this fits because in a sense we are reaching the end of the world.
Humanity from here on out has to live sustainable on a finite planet. For many this will eventually be a living hell. We are probably approaching the peak in human suffering over the next few decades this is probably the biggest reason I hate the way we are addressing the current issues we face. At the end of the day no matter if its this year next year or ten years from now billions will die.
Thats hard to deal with.
Its ugly, yeah.
While new here on the Oil Drum, I've said for years elsewhere that the 21st century started with about 7 billion people on the planet. The question is will we *end* the 21st century with between 6 and 10 billion (somewhere around 10-12 billion we're supposed to reach a roughly self-sustaining population assuming everything else doesn't collapse) ... or 2 billion (about what we started the 20th century with).
Assuming nothing changes (and I think the change will come, just not in time to save everyone, and certainly not in time to save the USA as we know it), we'll have teh 2 billion number, maybe less.
We're facing both Global Warming (already proceeding at a pace far faster than even the most apocalyptic predictions just five years ago) and Peak Oil -- possibly peak oil masked by an economic depression. (though wasn't economic depression one of the predicted outcomes of Post-peak Oil?) Just one of them, technological civilization can overcome. Both combined are what may throw us in the crapper.
But the only thing it will throw in the crapper is the current civilization of the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia, and coastal China. The rest of the owrld isn;t at the technology trouble we are, and will revert to their preindustrial forms -- painfully to be sure.
I doubt either crisis will permanently put paid to Humanity. We've survived far worse with far lower technology (about 74,000 years ago, a mega-volcano reduced the worldwide population to around 10,000, but we recovered with stone age tools). But modern technological civilization, the one that put people on the moon? That may be in trouble.
the current economic mess is inevitable, and is stuff that SHOULD have been wrung out of the economy a decade ago. 'Bubbles' Greenspan prolonged and worsened it by shifting the tech bubble to the housing bubble where it could do more damage. This collapse is probably cause for a recession or depression. But that's not going to lead to survivalists in the hills (or, at least it shouldn't!) It might actually make the replacement for peak oil energy sources have a little more time for some research. A crash in housing prices might make the complaints upthread about moving closer to the city much more viable. Several major cities have viable public transport, if it can be properly funded and supported: New York City has the best one, but Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC and Atlanta all have viable public transport. Shifting current suburbs into cities and exurbs into suburbs will increase the viability of urban rail and public transport within most American cities.
I don't foresee the rapid collapse popular amongst people here. We've seen civilizations collapse before, and I think ours will be more likely to follow the Roman model of collapse. Rome saw two collapses: one, of the Roman Republic from 133BC to 29BC, this recovered to a flourishing civilization again under the Roman Empire (peaking probably around 160-180 AD), before starting a slow decline after Marcus Aurelius. The period from 180 to the final dissolution of the Western Empire in 476 was marked by the entire system collapsing in slow motion, with leaders along the way arresting and even reversing the decline for short periods It took a century for the Roman Republic to collapse, and 4 centuries for the Empire in the west to crumble to dust. The Mayans had a similar collapse due to a shortage of resources in the 900s AD. they took a century to fall. A post-peak collapse will be similar, taking at least a century of chaos and recovery (always to lower peaks). Those who expect Mad Max are either expecting nuclear war, or they expect the collapse to occur in under a decade-- and I don't think that will happen.
(apologies for my rambling first post)
Screwey Squirrel,
welcome to the Oil Drumb!
The Eastern Roman Empire lasted until 1457 when Byzantium fell to the Turks. In the Western European areas, the Englis and germanic languages areas, we are descended from the barbarian conquerors. What you are calling a descent was actuall an assent and elevation. In the Latin Languages areas, it was only a descent for the descendents of the slaveowners. For the barbarians and slaves, it was an assent, IMHO.
People have a wonderful time elevating their ancestry. Particularly in the US.
an ascent? Perhaps over the long haul, it was. The non-nobility was probably in similar shape in 1200 AD as in 100 AD. But In 600 AD? they would have not believed the livelihood of a typical Roman citizen in 100 AD.
The comparison I'm making with post-peak oil isn't with the recovered, highly advanced Medieval civilization. Yes, Byzantium survived, but was profoundly changed. enough that most historians consider it different from the old Roman Empire by the mid 500s AD.
The trip from 180-476 was decline, decline, decline, for rich and poor alike. The rich we read about...the poor simply died.
Rome was a city of 1 million people in 200 AD. By 500 AD, it was 25,000. All those urban poor? They DIED.
You have to keep an open mind, you know ;) . There also circulates a nutty theory on the web that the EU is the revived Roman Empire and Javier Solana actually is the antichrist - very amusing.
Hell, in some circles, even discussing peak oil makes you a conspiracy theory nut of the first order... worse than being an anarchist. Gasp!
:)
I can understand arguments about how we are in deep trouble due to a decline in fuels usable for transportation. I do not share the degree of alarm and I think we can adapt to more expensive liquid fuels many ways (drive smaller cars, switch to jobs closer to home, move closer to jobs, use hybrids, use diesel, etc).
But I can not understand any argument about how electricity shortages are going to do us in. That's just plain nutty. Jeff says:
We can build 1000 nuclear reactors about the cost of a tenth of the US economic output in a single year. How can electricity be a problem? Very little oil gets used for electricity. We have enough coal at least for a couple of decades and can build thousands of nuclear reactors once the coal peak looks likely. We can also build tens or hundreds of thousands of wind turbines.
Going further out we can build solar photovoltaic panels in large quantities once they become cheap.
So I'm asking: Why make arguments about electric grid collapse? If you are going to assert a coming electric grid collapse then at least demonstrate how coal, nuclear, and wind will all fail to supply the needed electricity.
simply put: the distribution system of Electricity is worn out.
That's what will give troubles: worn out infrastructure
Natural Gas will play a important role. And I'm sure we will see a political backlash against C02 as global warming kicks in. This is a bit further out but building out a lot of coal fired plants will be a challenge for a long time in America.
Next we could well see misguided attempts to do CTL which would impact our ability to even get enough coal fired plants built.
But like you said we are facing the need to rebuild a lot of our electrical infrastructure over the next decade at enormous expense the same with our roads. The oil boom years has left some fairly large debts unpaid. I think when push comes to shove and it becomes a choice of electricity or roads electricity will win.
I actually cannot fathom the amount of money that will have to be spent just to tread water because of the lack of spending in the past while oil becomes less and less available. A lot of American are going to be shocked when we finally are forced to pay for our infrastructure.
Yet another reason that I think a fast crash is the most probable outcome by crash I mean a second/third world style nation.
memmel, We have a $13 trillion a year economy. If we need another 1000 GW of nuclear electric power we can just build it. Even if we take a higher figure for new nuclear electric of $3000 per MW that's still only $3 trillion and that 1000 GW (1 terawatt) would about double current US installed electric generating capacity.
We aren't going to run low on electric power. If you want to paint a plausible scenario for economic collapse due to Peak Oil you need to figure out how the whole thing will collapse in spite of an abundant electric power supply.
As for fathomable amounts of money: First learn and appreciate just how much money is available. In World War II the US devoted about half the GDP to fighting the war. If we did the same to fight declining oil production the amount we'd devote to developing alternatives would be excessive and wasteful. We'd end up developing more nuclear generating capacity than we could productively use.
The Oil Drum site conveys a lot of useful information about the oil industry. But the postings about total economic collapse just around the corner really do undermine the credibility of the more scientifically based writings that are found here.
If the distribution infrastructure is worn out then the solution is regulatory changes that will encourage infrastructure investment. This is not a Peak Oil issue.
The irony of your comment is, that just as I was composing a reply yesterday, I lost my grid power. Then a little while later I lost my Internet connection. Then the batteries in my main backup system died. The power stayed off for about 5 hours (in 104 degree weather) and the Internet/cable/phone was off till this morning.
Some things you should consider.....
1) How and where are coal and nuclear fuels mined and transported? Are there any petroleum related weak links in the supply chain? When are coal and nuclear fuel supplies going to peak? Will spare parts be available? Will the skilled workers be able to get to work?
2) Were are solar and wind generators manufactured and what raw materials are used? How will we deal with the intermittent nature of the solar and wind?
3) Will the grid be able to handle the increased demands of population and new technologies? Plasma TV's draw much more power than the old CRT's and most household now have multiple TV's and assorted DVD's and computers.
First off, oil production isn't going to drop so rapidly that the trains and mines will stop operating.
Yes, spare parts will be available. We had spare parts when we used half the energy per capita that we used now. Our ancestors built and operated transcontinental railroads with probably a tenth or less of our daily energy usage.
The grid can get expanded. We can build a thousand nuclear reactors in 10 years time if we really wanted to. It would cost about 1% of GDP per year to do it.
The doomsayers are not presenting a plausible case for how things are supposedly going to fall apart. Even if world oil production starts declining by 5% per year we can rapidly adapt. We've got wind, nuclear, and coal that we can scale up far beyond current levels. We can also build very small hybrid diesel cars and motorcycles. We can use rail more. We have plenty of ways to adapt.