Hi Paul,

What chance do Canadians have of meeting any environmental or emission protocols with the domestic press spouting such sterling facts as 800 years of supply left and boasting our first place in production capability? Alan Caplan's article for the Edmonton Sun falls fast on the heals of Andrew Holloway's article, Oil is not the enemy, in The National Post last week. I don't know where they're coming up with the 800 year figure, but it seems to be taking on a life of its own.

Perhaps it's b/c oil is getting such a bad rap - oil slicks can do that - that this drivel in defense of our domestic industry is reaching feverish pitch. But it does appear the public is being softening up for something.

Granted, The National Post is a Conservative biased newspaper and Edmonton is smack dab in the middle of the oil patch and the Conservative Party's support base, so these musings perhaps should be taken with a bit of a grain of salt.

Sniff, sniff. Election anyone?

Paul, I don't have to point out to you that the last time Harper pulled the plug on his own administration and went to the polls (September-October 2008) the world was hit with a financial tsunami. He might want to avoid a repeat performance lest people start to draw really odd-ball conclusions.

It's not helpful, though, to think how much opportunity is being missed (in terms of architecture, engineering, and good will) by narrowly focusing on the need to maintain our riches rather than preparing for a cleaner and energy-efficient future.

Too bad the beaver is being outshone by the piggy (bank).

Cheers!

Tom

In other words, traffic jams happen routinely, but not the paralyzing gridlock caused by the car-based sprawl that has transformed the landscape around Toronto and most every other city on this continent.

I take his contrast of routine traffic jams and gridlock as a distinction without a difference, propaganda. I don't see a dimes's worth of difference between - say - the weekend beach jamups on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, and on the Autoroute du Soleil in France (except that the latter is a longer road supporting longer jamups); while I haven't personally observed it, I have little reason to think that summer beach traffic on the appropriate Autobahn would be much different. And insane big-city commuter rush hours seem much the same the world over, just more dangerous to life and limb in places with abundant scooters and not-so-abundant regard for reasonable traffic rules.

Nor are Germany and the rest of the EU by any stretch of the imagination free of suburbs. It's just that the EU is so overcrowded that fewer people have the option of living in pleasantly open surroundings affording a decent level of privacy, rather than in cramped apartments that transmit audio every time the neighbor flushes the toilet, and become stifling ovens in even moderate July and August warmth. So despite the occasional LEED-type flagship skyscraper, it seems mainly like just a lower absolute level of consumption consistent with the constrained surroundings. It's also easier to meet absolute treaty targets over periods of decades if, like Germany, you have zero - actually slightly negative - population growth. Apparently the political correctness that demands limitless immigration into North America holds less sway in Germany.

This all tends to remind me, once again, of a Carter-era American Institute of Physics study on the imagined "energy efficiency" of Japanese housing. Turned out the difference was little else but tiny houses, some 40% less floor space - well, duh. The magic insulation, and so on, that they were looking for in an era when Americans were beginning to become scared over both real and imagined Japanese technical prowess, was nowhere to be found. Since few North American members were looking to go backwards to living that way, the study soon sank quietly below the horizon. And therein, I think, lies much of the crux of these matters.

In light of today's unsuccessful bid to stop the leak at Deepwater Horizon, perhaps those 2P reserves should be changed to a 25% probability.

Thanks Andre-
I emailed the link to all the Transition Mill Valley core members.

Perhaps the TOD staff could buy the Hummer brand, and start making Hummers again.

"Professor Goose's Hummer Emporium"

A prayer from an oil patch economist. I wonder why he chose 800? At least he acknowledged that we will run out eventually.

All we need in the UK now is another closure of the airports. Actually, all we need now is a terrorist event. If I was an aspiring terrorist, keen to please Central Command I would set something off in London just after the airports are closed again. No idea who is leading the country and the nominal government with no mandate all would then have to happen would be for Clegg to spurn Cameron's advances, the markets to open on Monday none the wiser and gilts to blow out. The perfect storm. And as a cheeky bonus BP fails to cap the oil slick.

Why do I have the feeling that things are rapidly falling apart? Time for a beer methinks.

Spain closed nine airports and a further six were to be closed later on Saturday afternoon as a cloud of ash from the Icelandic volcano drifts south over western Europe.

I'd just got done reading a sciencedaily article that says no ash deposits have been seen in Spain for the last 40,000 years, i.e. Spain would make a good volcanic-ash free airhub for Europe. Then I see they got ash today.
Of course enough ash to close airspace is much much too little to make a recognizable ash layer in sediment. But the timing sure makes them look foolish.

No one stopped to figure out the cost and timing involved with oil sands extraction. Also, Canada depends on oil imports now--those will likely drop at the same time.

This what you get from the failure of the Canadian (and US) education system. Mathematics is too much of a burden on the minds of the poor little children. We wouldn't want to hurt their all-important self-esteem even if means not teaching them that life is not about handouts but about work. From the sorts of demands/questions that students are making of the profs it is clear that the idiocy has percolated to the university level after decades of "child centered" learning aka dumbed down curriculum.

Peak Oil is not about reserves. It is about flow rates from conventional oil wells only. It is based on how conventional oil wells deplete and that is all it includes. It is not about the end of oil.

It is about the peak of conventional oil production. It does not include tar sands, ethanol or other non conventional liquid fuels.

Mark Fiore's latest: Little Green Man

http://www.markfiore.com/

Yesterday Randy Udall says Canada plans to increase production from oil sands "about 1 million barrels/day and that's it" - that's all they'll increase it. I wanted to ask him how he knew this, and what their thinking was, but had to leave before Q&A.

As someone who grew up in northern lower Michigan I'm hoping this development works out. I pay attention to the news and my folks are still around, and it sounds as though many aspects of the local economy are hurting. If this works out it would be a sorely needed piece of positive news.

California got hit particularly hard by the downturn - where I am in the Mid-Atlantic, the downturn was much less noticeable, and life hasn't changed much at all. Sure some people saw a drop in business, but I know few people who got laid off.

I read stories about what it is like in places like Florida or California, but it is hard to put into any kind of context. I suspect that unless you go there and see it for yourself, it is hard to gain any kind of a real sense of what is really going on.

Perk, interesting observation about downtown Carmel, CA. I grew up in the area and know exactly what it used be like. Nothing but art galleries and shopping for upended noses.

Carmel-by-the-Sea residents would even name themselves Carmelites to set themselves apart from the greater Carmel residents (commoners).

Haven't been there myself in years, but there's zero economy if not for tourism. I'd imagine the Pebble Beach and second home on the water nouveau riche set may be in for some hard times. Difficult to off-load 10 mil. beach homes and Concours d'Elegance type cars when the economy starts it's slide to the abyss.

Used to be a great deli called the Mediterranean Deli, on the corner of ,I believe, Junipero and Ocean. Last time I was there it turned into a furniture shop. I suppose they're selling cheap t-shirt with Carmel logo on it now. "Look of desperation on the shopkeeper's eyes" sounds about right.

I wonder what will be on my "Shoulda, woulda, coulda" list.

Our "oh, craaaaap!" purchase was an All-American brand pressure canner. Pricey, yes, but now we can put up low acid foods safely, and no gasket seal to worry about replacing. But I keep not-getting-around to ordering a few spare parts for it to have handy just in case- a spare pressure gage and so forth.

"The green revolution was built upon a base of petroleum... fossil fuels have enabled the population to explode."

http://www.postpeakliving.com/files/siteimages/PopulationAndFossilFuels.png

Ron, we must have been typing at the same time (see below).

"Organic" farming was my last hope for somehow mitigating the worst effects of peak oil. That hope has been snatched away by rational analysis.

die-hard organic boosters have always insisted that organic farming can produce as much or more than farms that use chemical fertilizers. If we ever run out of chemical fertilizer then food and fiber production would drop by more than half.

I agree. And the sad thing is, it is so easy to check those outrageous claims. The U.S. census has been tracking farm acreage, production, population and so forth every ten years since 1790. It's a simple matter to look up the information and divide out non-animal feed acreage by population. For the years prior to widespread use of chemical fertilizers, you come up with an acres per person figure far higher than todays.

As oldfarmermac has mentioned more than once and I also have been puzzling over for quite awhile, phosphorus and potassium are real problematic nutrients. You always end up having to import them from somewhere, even in their 'organic' forms.

See my post below. Go back to the early history of the "organic" movement, and you'll find it is not about short-term yield, it is about long-term conservation of soil and its fertility. It doesn't particularly surprise or trouble me that "organic" underperforms non-organic methods today. The real question is what kind of yields you'll be getting centuries later. We are effectively "mining" our soils, and thus in danger of permanently and substantially reducing our carrying capacity. We can argue about whether or not we are already at overshoot, but population growth is not the only way to overshoot - carrying capacity degradation will do it too.

Mike - I think you are being a tad unfair. The Soil Association is a very well respected organisation in the UK, formed in 1946. It is true that the original founders where a bit 'eccentric' but over the years the Association has become very mainstream and well trusted.

I need 200kWh next Thursday, can you guarantee delivery?

Any energy system where you can't say "Yes!" is not going to be a primary energy delivery system.

They were kind of expecting that. They're pumping warm water and some kind of chemical along the pipe to keep hydrates from forming. But I guess that doesn't help for the box itself.

I'm am neither a scientist not engineer, but if this containment box idea fails, which seems to be a good possibility now, the public relations outcome will be not be pleasant - to say the least. Not to metion the size of the oil spill now seems large enough that many ships and tankers would now have to move through at least some oil to get to port.

In the public's eye, the situation is not unlike Thursday's cimputer driven Wall Street meltdown. You don't need a Phd to realize something is wrong here, and it is hurting the average person. BTW - even after having worked in a major Wall Street trading room, I am all for reforms that will diminsh the power of computer trading and breaking up large Wall Street firms before they become to big to fail again.

We have pushed complexity too far; more complexity is actually creating problems instead of solving them.

It does make one wonder just a bit: If it is that quick and easy to accumulate methane hydrates, are we maybe underestimating the future potential for these as an energy resource?

That's a very good point. I never really know what exactly is meant by "organic farm," and to what degree they depend on BAU.

Whether or not organic farming will be "enough" to get by on will likely depend on the conditions at each specific locale (population vs avaiable land and farming experience), and the amount of time each locale has available for preparation/transition.

There is a second problem as well, in planning for future food production. Organic farms are still quite dependent on our current oil-based approach to food production and transport, and often use irrigation as well, even if they don't use chemical fertilizers and pest control. If we had to do the same steps without oil, I expect organic production would plunge a lot more. The impact of the use of oil doesn't show up in the organic /non-organic comparison.

Gail, I could write a book about this (not literally, of course). I have five years experience working at an "organic" farm. I happen to love the place and the people I work with and for--plus it's LOCAL, which means a lot to me--but I am APPALLED by how much fuel I use to turn compost, haul compost and soil and sand and gravel, to till and mow and lay plastic, to cut trees and run chippers, etc. etc.

I'm also appalled by the sheer LABOR that goes into the place. Most of the actual man-hours of work is performed by VOLUNTEERS.

If the price of oil gets too high, you can kiss organic farming goodbye.

One thing is for sure. Organic agriculture existed well before the age of oil and chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides use a lot of fossil fuels.

Localization doesn't have to mean organic but tends to be. And many who choose to grow as much as possible in their garden or in community gardens also use organic methods.

The main impact of decreased oil and natural gas will be on industrialized agriculture, whether or not organic. Organic agriculture, at least on the small scale level, tends to be more labor intensive.

I don't know if, in the short run, organic agriculture will suffer from decreased oil, but regardless, conventional agriculture will suffer as well.

In the long run, I suspect agriculture will be a lot more local and a lot more organic. Whether or not, this means we can't feed the world, it is going to happen, albeit with perhaps a much decreased world population.

I lived in South Korea during the late 60s and observed the weekly emptying of the honey pots and the subsequent spreading of same on the fields. Maybe it wasn't as productive as chemical, conventional farming, but at least it was a fairly closed loop and was labor as opposed to machine and fossil fuel intensive.

In planning for future food production, are you planning on an abundance of fossil fuels, including oil. Of course not. So I hardly see how conventional, chemical farming is going to be advantageous over the long haul.

And we haven't even gotten into the negative externalities of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, not to mention the impact on worker safety. There may also be some benefits of organic agriculture with respect to the health of the soil and its ability to sequester carbon.

Different studies seem to get different results, so we shall see.

Phosphorous shortages , of course, could turn out to be the limiting nutrient, and cause a major problem before the major impacts of peak oil take effect. And, of course, they are related because it takes fossil fuels to do mining.

What people really need to look at: what approach will preserve soil fertility the longest? (Or "sustainably", given any reasonable definition of that term.)

Yes, you can "mine" the soil for a short time and with enough inputs probably achieve amazing yields. All the way up until the soil has blown or washed away, or the inputs are exhausted.

On the other hand, traditional Eash Asian agriculture (which is pretty much the same thing as modern "organic" methods) sustained their societies for 4000 years, according to King's Farmers of Forty Centuries, and given a stable, non-overshoot population could probably have continued to do so indefinitely.

When we talk about "organic" there are many definitions to be considered. Each person has their own lexicon. Without NPK in great abundance the question would be; can typical corporate argiculture (or commercial organic) be able to feed the as many people as they do now? Of course not. Now our little organic garden will press on doing quite well without imported NPK because humus and local manuere will do fine though there is a lot of sweat equity involved. There is no way to feed the world this way but we can feed a few on a rather restricted diet of bunnies, chicken, veggies, and some mscl grains. The solar grinder can make flower. We will work on yeast and other necessities. Our efforts will not provide everything we need, we know that, but it will hopefully keep us a bit ahead come dieoff time.

We live in the high desert so not very many will stick around here without a lot of prep and forthought.

Each person here needs to think about what they (and family) may need to live.