True enough. (But the quiche WAS really good!)

We had friends visiting who have been sailing around the world.. and they were showing us 'slides' (Digipix through a laptop and a vid projector..), and telling us about these folks in Papua/New Guinea, some towns pretty much becoming dependent on modern imports, but others that have people SO capable, just running along barefoot across the Mangrove roots all their lives, "They can do ANYTHING they need out there, make fire, get food .."

They were saying to us that when the oil crunch really comes, these guys won't even notice. They'll be fine. .. And in many such places, I predict personally that there usually won't be much risk that anyone is going to waste the fuel to buzz in and bother them.. the fights over the dregs will be in the old civilizational centers, and much of the outback will have the chance to return to a simpler subsistence.. as long as it's land that can support life to start with.

Me.. I'll be taking my chances DownEast.. make me a Baidarka (Aleutian Kayak) and do some fishin'..

cr5 - Government policies take years before they work their way into the general economy. It's like the difference between climate and weather. But you already knew that...Right?

Joe

The labor unions probably remember Rightwinged Regean as the guy who broke the back of the labor unions.

Remember the Air Traffic Controllers strike (PATCO)?

Ever since then, real income for middle class Americans has been on a downward spiral.

Obama didn't start the fire. It's been burning ever since Reagan's "well there ya go again" began a churnin'

The free market is not the answer to everything.
There is no shining city on the hill.

The flash that Reagan saw was from one of his brain cells exploding as the Alzheimer's began to kick in.

(Apologies to Nancy. You should have told him to "just say no" to Alzheimer's)

Nancy and Ron were well meaning but clueless people in a clueless town: Hollywood.

cr5:

Nice comment and puts things into perspective for the I-know-what's-best-for-you lefties here.

The current right wing Republicans may be quite nasty and even insane, but more and more I am developing utter and complete contempt for Obama and, more generally, Democrats. It's quite clear that Obama knows nothing about anything, has no real world experience of any kind, and, yes, is just about the last guy you would want to have a beer with, much less running your country.

Currently I'm debating whether to go libertarian, Republican, anti-incumbent, or just sit out elections from now on.

largest number of home foreclosures in history. Lowest number of new home sales in history. Largest number of bank failures in history. Increased the budget deficit 400%. Increased government debt to over $15 trillion dollars (which is mathematically impossible to repay). 10% unemployment. 17% real unemployment.

I love the way you frame that like his predecessor of 8 years had *nothing* whatsoever to do with any of it! Kind of like accusing FDR of creating the Great Depression (oh, wait, plenty of right-wing revisionist historians have already *done* that --my bad!)

cr5 - Every administration has to live with the results of the policies of the previous one(s). Clinton looked good because the Bush 41 tax increase reduced the deficit allowing more credit to be available to industry. Bush 43 inherited the dot come bust and the housing bubble caused by the financial deregulation that happened while Clinton was in charge.

I really don't understand why people seem to believe that Obama was going to sprinkle magic fairy dust and make all the energy/financial/environmental problems go away when we've been making this mess for the last 40 years.

That he wanted to end the 'Cruisin' part of American Graffiti indicates how out of step he was with the rest of the country and the dominant (commercial) culture which at the time enshrined blasé waste as an American entitlement.

I wonder what year that we had a peak in "miles cruised per day"?

Many Americans felt that Carter should have held a public state funeral for the 66 remaining hostages and bombed Tehran flat with B52 bombers.

Or, at least taken steps in that direction; the Iranian government was in no position to embark on a war at the time.

I hope you weren't one of those "Americans" steve? I'd like to think well of you...

Joe

I remember well when there was a big push to have Carter slam a 10 megaton or better into Tehran. About that time Saint Helens blew, about a 10 megaton equivalent. I saw Carter step off the plane after he did a flyover of the eruption. His face was ashen--I always thought the destruction he saw around that mountain let him really see just what sort of forces he held the button to.

Years later I ran into a guy who said he was run out of his remote Montana or Idaho fishing hole by Carter's Secret Service entourage around that time. He was still burned that Carter had run him off his fishing spot. I never knew if the story was true but if I'd held my finger on the button with people pushing me to press it for three months, I think I might have blown it all off and went fishing after the reality of Mt St. Helens stared me in the face.

And whose doctrine was Bush I following in invading a Persian Gulf state to protect US interests??

The Carter doctrine.

Basevich got it right--Carter was the last point where we had a clear opportunity to turn away from empire. We didn't. Every major foreign policy decision afterward follows logically and brutally from that decision.

If we had chosen the path set by Carter, we would not have needed to worry much about the oil markets. As it was, we essentially had no choice but to protect "our oil under their sand."

Actually, at any point, we can decide to turn in a new direction. It just will be much more jarring, but the jarring is already upon us.

Carter's lower speed limit also saved perhaps thousands of lives on the highway. Why right wingers think that this was not a goal of liberals is beyond me. Nader saved more lives from highway fatalities than probably anyone else alive. Is he a right winger.

"The same people who get thier panties in a bunch over a few thousand dead soldiers very seldom have anything at all to say about ten times as many dead teen agers killed in automobile accidents"

Just another bizarre, insulting, unfounded claim, all too typical of our polarized political times. Sad to hear them from otherwise thoughtful posters here.

our military adventures in search of oil HAVE BEEN successful ,in political and Darwinian tooth and claw terms so far

Perhaps GWI was a success, in simple short term results. Compared to the alternative proposed by Carter (becoming functionally independent of ME oil), our military approach to energy security since WWII has been an expensive, deeply destructive failure.

Volunteered, did they, OFM? We never eliminated the draft, we just turned military service from an obligation of citizenship into a conscription of the "lesser people". A poverty draft. Perhaps the concept of this obligation is incomprehensible to you.

Some "volunteers" no doubt have other choices, but the armed forces today are composed largely of the least advantaged among us, more than ever before. Why are they so disadvantaged? The name Ronald Reagan is sufficient answer, although he had plenty of help.

There was and there is no effective opposition to our criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because there is no draft. Draft dodgers started these wars. If the draft had not been eliminated, these draft dodgers would never have been able to steal their offices.

Yes, we had the draft during the Vietnam war. Were Johnson or Nixon responsible presidents? Let us learn from history, so that we do not repeat the mistakes. Elimination of the draft was one of those mistakes. If we had maintained it, we would be in a far better situation today. The Vietnam war concentrated our minds, but we squandered that opportunity by listening to a parcel of reprobate neocons.

Your use of the term "Darwinian universe" indicates that you consider yourself hard-nosed. I have noticed that the hard-nosed types generally expect others to do the hard work. The hard-noses have other priorities.

A relative's service is no substitute for your own. Perhaps you are a veteran, but see no reason to state it. But then, there is no obligation to serve anymore. We have "volunteers". Most of the rest of us are glad to hold their coats, so long as it doesn't interrupt the shopping.

"America is not at war. The Army is at war. America is at the mall."

USN 1967-71
Vietnam 1969-70
Say no to bullshit.

There's TONS of low-hanging fruit.

New England is still predominantly heating with fuel oil.. and no matter what else someone heats with, they'd be helping the supply, US economic and pollutant situations to change over to Solar.

'Nothing is sustainable' - well, that cop-out line sure isn't. But a Solar heating array that's paid back its financial and energetic inputs, and still can run well for many years.. Actually, that IS sustainable. It's not eternal.. that's not the claim.. but it runs clean, nets WAYYY positive, provides for individual and family and community energy and monetary security.

I loved the President's brother Billy:

In 1977, he endorsed Billy Beer capitalizing upon his colorful image as a beer-drinking Southern good ol' boy that had developed in the press when his brother ran for President. Carter's name was occasionally used as a gag answer for a Washington, D.C. trouble-maker on 1970s episodes of The Match Game. Carter was known for his outlandish public behavior. For example, he once urinated on an airport runway in full view of the press and dignitaries.

You gotta love that!

Joe

Puerto Rico also, though not included in EIA statistics.

The only states getting a noticeable percentage of electricity from petroleum seem to be New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and - irony of ironies considering their attitude about oil drilling - Florida! Among states, Florida, at 10% is apparently second only to Hawaii. [The linked map is from the Edison Institute, but I see no reason to think they're lying. EIA doesn't seem to provide handy percentage tables, one would apparently have to dig the numbers out one state and fuel type at a time.]

One oddity I've seen is an old diesel plant in Grand Haven, Michigan. It was summertime, the windows in the brick factory-like building were wide open, and the racket was quite something...

FMagyar - that made me laugh to beat the band.

I got solutions to all your problems—I got 'em right here in my big, hairy ballsack.

I was referring to substitution alleviating AGW.
Like your brilliant insight you at least understand that Joe will continue to burn as long as possible.

So he will be burning more than he would, if there was less available due to Fred continuing to burn what he can.
EROEI (and subsequently what is affordable) will affect the ability of everyone to keep burning fuel. Substitution may aid the continuance of the BAU charade, it will not do a whit for climate change, AGW or global warming or whatever you prefer to call it.

The goal should be to leave the carbon in the ground.
Manufacturers and corporations claiming clean wind, nuclear and solar electricity are saving the planet is untrue. They have agendas in the furthering of BAU.

You've been had.

WW II was mostly won by the British and Russians.

We did most of the military heavy lifting during the reconquest of Europe (from the west. Russia did much more heavy lifting in grinding down the German army in the east. They paid a huge price, Stalin was not casualty-averse and would gladly sacrifice tens of thousands (or millions) of his countrymen to secure a political goal. Of course if the British and/or Russians had capitulated early in the war, I think the US would have had to accept Axis domination of the old world.

In the Pacific we did most of the heavy lifting. The Chinese did pay the heaviest price however. The Russians sacrificed quite a few lives in the rapid takeover of Manchuria during the final few days of the war. I think the Russian attack was a greater shock to the Japanese then the Nukes. The combo was (barely) enough to get them to throw in the towel. Again Stalin was willing to expend thousands of Russian military lives in order to secure a foothold in China.

The US helped considerably in forcing a successful end to the war.

Successful? The only thing the United States entry into the war guaranteed was the inequitable “peace” brought about by the Versailles Treaty and future havoc on the European continent. Had the US not entered World War I the three main propagandists would probably have sued for a more equitable peace treaty which would not have broken up the German and Austria Hungarian Empires and allowed France and England to put the squeeze on Germany.. Without Versailles, we would probably not have had Hitler. But No! Wilson’s big ego had to be satisfied.

The US helped considerably in forcing a successful end to the war.

Successful? The only thing the United States entry into the war guaranteed was the inequitable “peace” brought about by the Versailles Treaty and future havoc on the European continent. Had the US not entered World War I the three main protagonists would probably have sued for a more equitable peace treaty which would not have broken up the German and Austria Hungarian Empires and allowed France and England to put the squeeze on Germany.. Without Versailles, we would probably not have had Hitler. But No! Wilson’s big ego had to be satisfied.

Agreed. Our short-term problem is a Peak Oil problem, not a Peak Fossil Fuel problem, and this indeed affects in the U.S. the transportation sector more than anything else. In contrast here in Switzerland, most people still heat their houses using central oil heating systems.

On the other hand here in Switzerland, the electric public transportation system (trains, trams, trolley-buses) is the densest in the world, i.e., a breakdown of private transportation would affect us here in Switzerland considerably less than in the U.S. We never got rid of our trams. Other European cities, like Edinburgh and Barcelona for example, are currently putting light rail back in that they had done away with 50 years ago.

The question is what the U.S. will do when they run out of cheap oil. What will be the next cheapest replacement that requires the least adjustment? Will it be liquefied coal? This would be a true disaster as far as greenhouse gas emissions are concerned.

On the other hand, if the electric car should become a major player in the transportation sector, then electricity shortages would become a real problem also in the U.S., and in that case, PV and wind power will be badly needed.

What the Sankey diagram really teaches us is that, any way we look at the problem, we'll need in the longer run everything that we can get, including PV and wind, and we would have been better off, had we started with the conversion to a sustainable future already earlier.

Americans needed to start driving much smaller cars with much smaller engines

They did. The increase in the CAFE did exactly what was needed. It could have been more aggressive, but it was very much in the right direction.

They started to drive bigger pickup trucks and SUV's with bigger engines.

That happened somewhat later, when the car industry succeeded in freezing the CAFE regulations.

The road not taken was a light rail line.

That would have been a good idea, but rail can't provide all of what we need, and it doesn't need to. EREVs will do just fine.

A nice try, but it completely missed the target. The road not taken was a light rail line.

actually it was more the road abandoned. The trolleys were still operating in Chicago when I was a kid. Even when I entered college the major city bus lines were powered by electric over head lines. But during that time the American dream of a home and a yard gained purchase. Lots of things helped it along but cheap petroleum, great overseas profits made by US corps and the GI bill were some of the major contributors. Rapid, reliable mass transit generally was never out built past the big city limits (I lived in one of the few near west Chicago suburbs that actually had CTA service). The freeways were the wave to the future. It was a fun wave to surf for a while, but coming down hard as it runs out of water overtopping the next shallow reef could be very, very painful.

You are absolutely right, when the speed limits were dropped real light rail needed to be reborn, but it was barely even talked about. The cheaper houses with yards were still just a little farther out...only another mile or five drive. Lucky thing Canada is such a big empty place with lots of oil, them lower 48ers can just drive north and settle in with you guys ?- ) Man it would harder to keep Americans south of promised land Canada in an oil deprived US future than it now is to keep cash starved Latins south of Texas.

Every model that I have seen for implementing electric automobiles includes off peak recharging.

That's because they assume grid power.

Solar powered airplanes are a pipe dream except for scientific and some military applications....Solar powered ships would not be able to move fast enough

You're assuming that PV would have to provide 100% of motive power. I'm not assuming that.

PV can certainly provide "hotel" electrical consumption (lighting, instruments, etc) on commercial aircraft. Planes travel above the clouds, and mostly during the day, which raises the "capacity factor". The surface area of a plane could be maximized with trailing surfaces. Taking the surface area of a large existing plane, one might generate 5% of overall energy needs using current PV.

PV efficiency is likely to rise to something close to it's theoretical 66%, quadrupling the % that it can provide, while energy requirements are likely to fall: In the long term, design changes can reduce fuel consumption by 70%: "CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In what could set the stage for a fundamental shift in commercial aviation, an MIT-led team has designed a green airplane that is estimated to use 70 percent less fuel than current planes while also reducing noise and emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx). http://web.mit.edu/press/2010/green-airplanes.html .

The combination of 4x the PV output and 1/3 the energy requirement brings the PV % up to perhaps 60% of energy needs.

Finally, the remainder of the power could come from fuel (SOFC, hydrogen, etc) cells, which make much more sense for aviation than for personal transportation because infrastructure requirements are much easier to deal with (there are a relatively small number of airports). It's perfectly possible aviation will go to fully electric drivetrains.

Lets look at shipping, starting with the Emma Mærsk . With a length of 397 metres, and beam of 56 metres, it has a surface area of 22,400 sq m. At 20% efficiency we get about 4.5MW on the ship's deck at peak power. Now, as best I can tell it probably uses about 10MW at 12 knots (very roughly a minimum speed), 20MW at 15 knots, and 65MW (80% of engine rated power) at 25.5 knots (roughly a maximum). So, at minimum speed it could get about 45% of it's power for something close to 20% of the time, for a net of 9%. Now, if we want to increase that we'll need either higher efficiency PV, or more surface area from outriggers or something towed, perhaps using flexible PV. You could add a roof, or you could incentivize 10% of the containers to be roofed with PV - they could power ships, inter-modal rail, inter-modal trucks...

Transportation is probably the least efficient use of PV power.

The problem is we all tend to have a very distorted view as to what personal transportation is and what it should be. It is really hard to see the forest for the trees. PV can be extremely efficient!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vl0rojzHgs

Transportation is probably the least efficient use of PV power.

Once the price gets low enough, PV roofs, hods and maybe tinted windows will be a nice efficiency boosting addon for plug in hybrid type vehicles. Think of them as range extenders rather than primary power, as they may add perhaps 10miles to the all-electric range (if you stop and park in the Sun for a few hours, as most commuters do).

Solar power for ships would be onboard power rather than propulsion.

and aside from this option.. (linked earlier)

http://www.evnut.com/rav_owner_gallery.htm
Another RAV4 Owner Testimony..

One each White and Silver 2002. As of 11.05, the silver Rav has 33k miles and the white has 35k miles. 4.4kW rooftop solar PV system provides more than enough power for both cars

( I counted 32 owners just on that page that were charging these cars all or in part on their home PV systems, arrays which also provided them house power. Flexible and Clean.)

.. You also skip completely over the most efficient form of Electric Transportation. Trains.. with their long expanses of fixed infrastructure, all available to connect to various wind and hydro sources.. and you could just run hundreds of miles of PV along the Power Poles to get juice with minimal line-loss.

Well, if you're only seeing 10 days of useful heat from a solar installation.. then either you're doing it wrong, or you're not in the right location for it. I don't know Hawaii, but in Maine, these things are working. The homebuilts (like mine), and the professionally installed systems. Through the coldest parts of Jan/Mar this year, my panel was blowing 115F air into the house, when it was in the low teens outside. Solar Heat run by Solar PV. That's oil I didn't burn into your atmosphere, and it runs completely for free.

They work, and they justify themselves economically.. even before you look at the reduced pollution, and guaranteed heating whether there's fuel available or not. Your one little generator might not seem to be a horrible global violation, but there are millions of them, (I have 3, and they sit quietly.. 'better seen and not heard')..

Calling PV a 'fashion statement' is like calling philanthropy the same. Yes, you're doing something positive that others will see.. and in fact you want them to see it because if it catches on, a lot more clean energy can be offsetting what people would have been buying from the grid, or burning with their 2cycle Gas Gennies. To assume that everyone is doing it for prestige and not for actual improvements in the way we use energy is willfully blinding yourself to what you know a lot of people are out there doing. I mean frankly, this particular choice, if you look atthe Carter example again, comes as a serious 'Fashion Risk', since the negative reactions are clearly still so strong in this society.

80% of Maine residents still use heating oil, and much of New England is not far behind that.

They really should stop A.S.A.P. The global supply situation is not that good and heating oil may become unaffordable, if they can obtain it at all.

Options include natural gas (available in large quantities due to the shale gas developments and production offshore Nova Scotia) and wood (available in large quantities in their forests). There's also the nuclear option.

Solar energy in cool and cloudy New England is somewhat farther down the list.

I wouldn't count on the governments to bail them out, if I were them. In the not-too-distant future their government may have bigger problems than a few New Englanders freezing in the dark.

plus, people are making EV conversions for $10-12grand, going to E Scooters and E-motorbikes.. etc..

The whole landscape of these vehicles is set to transform for a while, as better balances between range, price, size, safety are all mushed around with various tests. It's totally happening under our noses now. This isn't like the EV-1 days, OR the late 70's..

That's certainly desirable, from the point of view of livability. But, it's entirely unnecessary to save energy.

Personal EV's like the Leaf are perfectly practical, and will be cheaper than ICE vehicles over their lifecycle. EREVs like the Volt will be no more expensive over their lifecycle than ICE vehicles, have no functional compromises, and get us 90% of the way.

No, You (WE) don't need to start at Zero. There is no such thing.. We start with various aspects of city and town infrastructure changing. It's slow, but some of it is already happening.. and luckily, Mayors and City Councilors do look to other communities to see who's doing what. There are two or three on our council who rely on their bikes and push for progressive transp policies for us.

Bike Trails have been going in all over the country for years now. The loop around much of Manhattan is basically a bike highway in many places. Here in Portland, more trails are going in all the time, and there's no end to the people who advocate for it. The word is out.. and no, it won't be easy or cheap, and it's tragically overdue.. but it's sensible and healthy and increasingly popular. and it happens with steady pressure and individual steps. A sweeping revolution sounds great.. but sometimes you have to just work with installments until the revolutionaries finally show up.

He is no troll. Rulz is the guy you need to test the strength of your argument.

So very few notice what I consider to be so obvious. Like I said earlier, the number of people actually familiar with how science works is way too small.

To bad you aren't a moderator at all the places which believe in banning at the first sign of independent thought though.

We need these people just like you need some where you work, somebody willing to take the alternative side of things..
Doesn't mean you can't hit back hard though.

Assemble your legions...me against a website on this topic hasn't been a fair fight yet. :>)

[That's] a different Social Science.

Language controls how we think.

Economics has its own special-think language.

We are not aware of it because we swim in it.

But take a look at that Hello Kitty picture upthread: I has money, waf do i do wit it?

The cat was never brainwashed like you and me.

That is why it stares in puzzlement.