Peak oil production and the fall...
Susan Gallien
Below is an email with lots of links sent to another group I'm on, I have permission from the author to pass it on since she believes that it is very important for all of us to be as prepared as possible for any future scenario. To me that means having a supply of non-perishable food, solar or wood cookers, alternative heat source for those of us living in the areas where winter without heat could prove fatal, clothing, basic medical supplies, cleaning supplies, seeds to plant for food crops, fruit trees in the yard [or on the balcony for apartment dwellers] etc make sense for lots of reasons, not just the Y2K and such.
Peak oil is a fact, we have used about half of the world's fuel reserves, and it costs more and uses more and more fuel to extract the remainder of the fuel. We are using fuel at a faster rate than any other time in history and we don't look like slowing down any time soon, here in the USA we carry on about gas prices instead of limiting our use of it to ensure that at least essential services will have fuel in 10 to 20 years time.
Life could be about to change quite drasticly, but for some reason the powers that be are ignoring the facts, big oil companies are in denial, auto manafacturers are making bigger gas guzzlers than ever before [Hummers come to mind] and here in the States fuel has been ridiculously inexpensive for too long, almost everywhere else in the world people pay a lot more for fuel than we do.
For once I agree with GWB, dipping into the nations emergency fuel supply is not the thing to do. If the worse case scenarios occur it will make the depression of the 30s look like a picnic.
A couple of things we can all do are: Buy locally produced items, and locally grown food where possible, even if it costs a little more it will keep the local producers in business for when we need them. Cut back as much as possible oy our use of all fossil fuels, it will save some for later as we learn how to get by with less for when there is none.
Some people I have discussed this with are full of optomism and believe that there will be plenty of alternative fuel sources by then, I'm not, I've seen the waste of funds:
We are presently trying to generate power using a large wood gasifier which we are designing with help from "experts"... there are grants and "experts" in abundance, but the "experts" mainly do feasablity studies and little else, we had one graduate student "research" our options and was paid $5000 for doing what we had already done, look on the internet, speak to the self
proclaimed "experts" and at his presentation, say in summing up "It's beyond me."... yet he still got his $5000. What he had been asked to do was get a small prototype up and running, and all he did was give us a presentation that I could have put together in a few days.
Then another expert, says "If you invest $100,000, the power you generate would pay it back in five years, my charge os $200 per hour to design the system, but there are no guarantees.", the next "expert" comes up with a fancy looking design "That will be $12,000 thanks." and after talking to people who have been experimenting with these things we realise that his whole design is worse than useless. There are millions of your tax dollars paying these people to play on the internet and make fancy/useless designs, that even we amateurs can blow away with the logic we have from years of burning wood.
When we talk to these people some immediatley say "I charge $100/$200 per hour, send money and I'll talk." or they seem right friendly and almost neighborly, say that they would like to help with such a worthy venture, talk on the phone for an hour at a time, email back and forth,
then bait the hook with "I think it might just work, I charge $250 an hour." There is too much money spent on thinking, drawing, researching with nothing to show but a presentation, or if we had gone ahead with the last design that had all the bells and whistles and technology that made it look good, but was destined to fail within a few months due to a glass like substance that forms when you burn wood with a lot of dirt in it. The expert would have his money, the small government grant would have paid him and we would have been stuck with a
debt and a destroyed gasifier.... my husband is still obcessed with getting this to work as a way to hanlde large pieces of wood dropped here by the dump truck load. They are too big to grind and too big to break down very rapidly... my suggestion is to stop taking them, but
then he is concerned about the waste of their potential energy output for cheap fuel... anyway, onto the email that I am forwarding:
The author said:
I'd appreciate it if you'd remove my email addy, but otherwise, yes,
please, pass it on. This is important stuff.
The thing is, _it is really important to keep perspective_ - some of those
links are to very scary, semi-apocalyptic scenarios, which I hope are
unlikely. To me, things aren't so bleak - if everyone, and I mean
everyone, gets on the same page and starts working together. I'm pretty
sure we can't all go on living the way we do, but if we start covering
those suburban lawns, central park, industrial parks, the white house
lawn, with small scale grazing animals and victory gardens, we can soften
the blow a lot.
If you are sending this to kids, please add this - _being scared is
appropriate_ - I'm scared. _Feeling that things are futile is another thing
- this should be a call to action,_ and not just personal action, but the
collective. Those of us with land and skills and tools will have the
oppotunity to help others use what they have. I feel like the 13th fairy
in the sleeping beauty legend - after the curse has been laid, you can't
take it away, but you can keep the story going and the wolf (mixing my
fairy tales) from the door with the right action.
out of oil per se, but failing to meet production and using more energy to
extract it than we actually get from the oil.
The textbook my husband teaches from bets around 10 years from now, give
or take 5 years. I've seen estimates that go as far as 2030, but I don't
find them credible - most are based on consumption lowering or staying the
same, whereas it is actually rising quite rapidly. Since nearly everyone
who has oil lies about how much they have to ensure that people will keep
buying from them, its hard to tell. Even the most optimistic outlook
means that we'll run out of oil in about 25 years - but I don't think
there's any reason to be optimistic.
My guess is we'll see oil rationing in the US within the next 10 years.
It is possible we've already passed peak (ie, the point at which oil stops
meeting need) and our rising gas and oil prices are a sign of that. It is
also possible that the Saudis will release more oil and temporarily lower
prices. But it will be a temporary lowering
The big problem is *food* - the average American meal travels more than
1000 miles to get there. We've centralized food production - much of the
produce comes from CA, the wheat and beef from the west, the corn from the
midwest. All commercial agriculture uses between 5 and 40 calories of oil
to produce every calorie of food - in pesticides, in transport, as
fertilizer, to store it, etc... We're seeing inflation in basic
commoditities now - that bag of flour is going to go up a lot in price
when gas hits 5, 6, 7 dollars per gallon. And eventually it may become
unavailable.
The thing is, without oil, there's no evidence that we can feed the 6-9
billion people who will be on the planet when the crash comes. We've
grown above our capacity to sustain ourselves. If everyone went right now
to John Jeavonsesque diets (he suggests that an entire balanced diet for a
human being can be grown on about 1000 square feet, but there's not a lot
of fat in it, and you eat a *lot* of parsnips) maybe. But since food
production is about to become local - very, very, very local, famine
probably will be too - there's no way, for example, to feed most of the
major cities, since there's simply no farmland left nearby. The west,
which depends on energy-intensive irrigation and water diversion from
depleted aquifers and rivers, probably will not be able to sustain the
population it has now.
The thing is, whether it happens in 10 years or 25, our children are
looking at a future that is much darker than our own - at the best
economically depressed, at the worst, starving. I don't want to sound
like the Raven, croaking "Nevermore" but the reason I keep singing this
tune is because I don't want anyone on this list to be unprepared. Most
of us are lucky enough never to have heard a child say, 'Mommy, I'm
hungry." and have to answer, "There's nothing to eat."
I've included some references at the bottom of the page. There are a lot
of them, so I hope it isn't overwhelming, but I want to be totally clear
that I'm not the only one who believe this - in fact, this may be the only
thing on earth on which Michael Moore and Bush's Energy Czar agree on,
believe it or not. My personal suggestions:
Get the heck out of the cities/suburbia before it becomes obvious and the
price of rural land goes up. In the short term, as gas prices rise, I
suspect it will go down, but don't wait to see if I'm right. There are
parts of the country where land is very cheap.
Talk to your family and friends about this - consider land-sharing,
community building, anything. No one can do everything alone.
Invest in tools for off-grid living - woodstoves, water pumps, etc...
Solar/hydro/wind is a good idea, although expensive.
Store food and grow food - the one upside of this is that you can expect
realistically to find homesteading a lot more profitable - maybe even
self-supporting in the long term. But remember, times will probably be
hard for a while, and it takes a good while to learn to grow enough food,
save seed and produce your own grains/animal feeds. You are going to want
a bigger garden, and a lot of reserves - extra food, extra seeds.
Don't expect to rely on hunting - there's going to be a lot of competition
there, and during the depression, large game was hunted almost to
extinction in places. There are a lot more people now and they have
better guns.
Prepare your kids for a different world - teach them practical skills, and
try and have something to pass down to them - the ancestral home may
become a lot more attractive.
Try and be as healthy as possible - medications are going to get more
unaffordable or unavailable. Find natural remedies, learn to reproduce
them, and take good care of yourself now.
Here are some references - you might also look at this month's National
Geographic, where "The End of Cheap Oil" is the cover story, and watch the
recently released on DVD documentary _The End of Suburbia_
www.oilcrash.com
www.oilcrisis.org, www.hubbertpeak.com The Hubbert Peak of Oil Production
- is the place to go for references. It contains articles from Bartlett,
Campbell, Duncan, Hubbert, Ivanhoe, Laherrere, Youngquist, and many
others. This site is updated about once a month with new articles.
hubbert.mines.edu M. King Hubbert Center for Petroleum Supply Studies - is
run by L.F. Ivanhoe and C.W. Van Kirk. It produces a quarterly newsletter
of 2-3 articles in about 8-10 pages by the leading experts in the field.
www.dieoff.org Jay Hanson's famous or notorious Die-Off! website. Jay has
put a lot of work into this and it contains a wealth of articles which are
well worth reading.
www.asponews.orgThe Association for the Study of Peak Oil - The unofficial
archive of the ASPO Newsletter
www.odac-info.org Website of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC).
www.runningonempty.org ROE's website. Originally founded by Bruce Thomson
but now maintained by Robert Waldrop. dead link
www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk The Wolf at the Door - The Beginner's Guide to
Oil Depletion - by Paul Thompson (also available in french)
www.oilcrash.com Robert Atack's site including reference articles on the
coming oil crash.
www.energiekrise.de, www.energyshortage.com Primarily a German site by
L-B-Systemtechnik GmbH which gives a good overview. You can also get the
ASPO newsletter here.
www.eia.doe.gov Energy Information Administration
www.after-oil.co.uk The Busby Report - UK Survival in the 21st Century -
by John Busby
www.simmonsco-intl.com Simmons & Co International. A banking firm
specializing in the energy industry.
greatchange.org Steve Morningthunder's site.
www.mecheng.ohio-state.edu/~korpela/oil.html Seppo Korpela's Oil depletion
page
www.planetforlife.com The Coming World Oil Crisis - is run by Jack
Kisslinger. This well-structured site provides a good starting point with
briefings on oil use, oil depletion, the gas crisis, supply vulnerability,
and the futility of hydrogen.
http://www.physics.emich.edu/ebehringer/FossilFuels/overview_fossilfuels.html
E.R. Behringer's site with a resource/rate-of-use calculator in JAVA.
http://www.oildepletion.org Oildepletion.org is run by Roger Bentley.
http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy.htm The energy section of "Minnesotans
For Sustainability" with several articles on energy and population.
http://www.crisisenergetica.org/ Crisis Energetica - Daniel Gomez (in
Spanish)
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ - by Matt Savinar (description coming
up)
http://tvset.org/peakoil.html (description coming up)
http://peakoil.com/ - by Daniel Colonnese, A portal site with news and
forums
http://www.peakoil.de/ - by Susanne Schaefer, a very complete overview (in
German).
http://PeakOilAction.org/ - People working together to raise awareness
about oil depletion and preparing for a post fossil-fuel age.
Groups
Find like minded individuals and world experts. Many of these groups are
very active and full of great people.
quasar.physik.unibas.ch/~fisker/401/oil/hubbheir.html M. King Hubbert and
his heirs: A Hubbert peak half-bibliography. C. Kuykendall's 30+ page list
of references sorted in time and authors.
quasar.physik.unibas.ch/~fisker/401/oil/hubbweba.html A Hubbert Peak
Web-bibliography - by C. Kuykendall. A shorter annotated list of the most
important references.
geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of00-320 Are We Running Out of Oil? Poster
by Lester B. Magoon of the USGS.
cdegea.free.fr/.pub/er_worksheet.html Attempting to collect some
conclusions.
groups.yahoo.com/group/globaloilwatch
buddycom.com/reviews/campbell/index.html Key individuals who have moved
and shaken the oil industry..
www.gulland.ca/depletion/depletion.htm Gulland - a collection of the best
articles on oil depletion.
www.users.on.net/rmc/01sorry.htm
members.aol.com/vrex/oil/price_forecast.htm
members.aol.com/trajcom/private/trajcom.htm Many pages dedicated to the
tragedy of the commons.
www.islandnet.com/~ncfs/ncfs The Global Problematique headed by Yves
Barjard. dead link
www2.tpgi.com.au/users/resolve/globalcrisis/part1.html GLOBAL CRISIS by
Ted Trainer.
www.justpeace.org/02-16.htm A novel in the form of a letter from 2001, the
future (written in 1998).
www.provide.net/~kssustain "Sustainability, Energy, Resources, and
Housing" by Kermit Schlansker
sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/world-oil.dir/lynch2.html Closed Coffin:
Ending the Debate on "The End of Cheap Oil" A commentary by Michael C.
Lynch.
www.latimes.com/la-000018768mar14.story Oil Doesn't Grow on Trees - by
David Goodstein.
zebu.uoregon.edu/1996/ph162/l1.html Forms of alternative energy.
www.oilcrisis.org/blanchardThe Impact of Declining Major North Sea Oil
Fields upon Future North Sea Production.
www.altenergy.org/core/The_Oil_Problem/the_oil_problem.html When Will The
Joy Ride End?
www.financialsense.com/series3/part1.htm Powershift - Oil, Money, & War -
Part 1: Hubbert's Peak & The Economics of Oil
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/choke.html EIA: World Oil Transit Chokepoints
www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/16/1018333501447.html National oil, gas
reserves dwindle - Australia
www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D50NatCapCannotOvercome.html Ted Trainer: Natural
Capitalism Cannot Overcome Resource Limits.
www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D49DematerialisationMyth.html Ted Trainer: The
"de-materialisation" myth.
www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s156837.htm Ted Trainer: Natural
Capitalism Challenged.
healthandenergy.com/gasoline_prices.htm
www.simmonsco-intl.com/domino/html/research.nsf/0/3AD817AA8379224186256BC2006910C1?open
The Global Energy Scene - Simmons & Co.
www.asme.org/groups/energyresources/energybajura.pdf Our Energy Future,
U.S. and World - by Rita A. Bajura, Director, National Energy Techonology
Laboratory
www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/depletion/index.html EIA: Accelerated
Depletion: Assessing Its Impacts on Domestic Oil and Natural Gas Prices
and Production.
www.simmonsco-intl.com/domino/html/research.nsf/0/e2186545187da48486256bce006dc343/$FILE/Depletion.pdf
Matthew Simmons: Depletion & U.S. Energy Policy (Uppsala paper).
www.hermes-press.com/impintro1.htm The New U.S.-British Oil Imperialism,
Norman D. Livergood
gadfly.igc.org/liberal/oiltrap.htm Ernest Partridge, "THE OIL TRAP", The
Online Gadfly
cryptome.org/spr-eyeball.htm Eyeballing the strategic petroleum reserve,
Cryptome dead link
kondratyev.com/reference/position_papers/position_paper_on_energy.htm
Position Paper on Energy by Eric Von Baranov, The Kondratyev Wave Theory
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2225334.stm UK 'running out of gas', BBC
article
www.sunpath-designs.com/DavidPrice Energy and Human Evolution by David
Price
www.industry.gov.au/resources/netenergy/aen/aen22/17curve.html Oil
production curve causes convern - Australian Energy News
www.mees.com/news/a45n36d01.htmThe New Geopolitics Of Oil: The US, Saudi
Arabia And Russia, by Gawdat Bahgat
Peak Oil: an Outlook on Crude Oil Depletion - Revised February 2002 by
Colin J. Campbell
www.bp.com/centres/energy2002/conversioncalculator/index.asp - an online
Conversion Calculator for crude oil and natural gas
healthandenergy.com/fuel_shortages.htm The Coming Fuel Shortages by Jay
Hanson, April 2, 2000
www.bgr.de/b123/hc_era/e_kw_aera.htm Will the hydrocarbon era finish soon?
by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Germany
www.evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=403 Part I: The
Assessment and Importance of Oil Depletion - by Colin Campbell
evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=409 Part II: Assessment and
Importance of Oil Depletion - by Colin Campbell
evworld.com/databases/printit.cfm?storyid=418 Coming To Grips With Oil
Depletion - by Colin J. Campbell
www.wordwright.com.au/paul/oil_crisis.html Oil Crisis by Paul Maynard
www.obeleoil.com/oilshock2.htm Oil shock, You could profit - by Robert
Meier, Janet Roundtree, and Michael Schaefer
www.ppu.org.uk/war/future_wars.html Future causes of conflict - a paper by
the Peace Pledge Union.
www.dw-1.com Douglas-Westwood
mwhodges.home.att.net/energy/energy-b.htm World Oil & Gas: reserves,
production, consumption - by Michael Hodges and Jean Laherere
www.rice.edu/projects/baker/Pubs/workingpapers/cfrbipp_energy/energytf.htm
Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century - Report of an
independent task force sponsored by the James A. Baker III Institute for
Public Policy of Rice University and the Council on Foreign Relations
www.southwestenergy.org/Oil%20End%20Game.htm The Oil Endgame - by Mark
Sardella
www.anwr.org/features/oiluses.htm A list of products made from oil.
www.taxrefusal.com/oiltable.html
www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/Economics/oswald/interviewonoil.pdf Oil and the
real economy: Interview with Andrew Oswald.
www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=5573 The end of the age of oil(1) -
Michael C. Ruppert
www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=5620 The end of the age of oil(2) -
Colin J. Campbell
www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=5663 The end of the age of oil(3) -
Jeremy Rifkin and Allen Pfeiffer
www.agiweb.org/geotimes/nov02/feature_oil.html Global Petroleum Resources:
A View to the Future by Thomas S. Ahlbrandt and Peter J. McCabe of the
American Gelogical Institute
www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/chapmand111902pv.html War, Money and Oil!
by David Chapman
www.geocities.com/davidmdelaney/oil-depletion/oil-depletion.html Oil
Depletion - by David Delaney
en-env.llnl.gov/flow Energy flow charts for the United States - from the
LLNL.
beheer.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/Nuclear_sustainability_rev.PDF Can nuclear
power provide energy for the future; would it solve the CO2-emission
problem? - by Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith
www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.htm Energy Analysis of Power Systems - by
the World Nuclear Association (a critique of the above article)
beheer.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/Rebuttal.html (a critique of the critique of
the above article)
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/steo.html EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook -
January 2003
www.ems.org/oil_depletion/story.html End of Cheap Oil Poses Serious Threat
to World Economy, Experts Say - by Environmental Media Services
www.ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm Economy and thermodynamic - by Borisas
Cimbleris
www.financialsense.com/Experts/2002/Economides.htm Venezuela's Oil Crisis
- by Michael Economides
www.financialsense.com/transcriptions/Oligney.htm The Color of Oil: The
History, The Money and the Politics of the World's Biggest Business - a
transcription of an interview with Ronald Oligney
www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/texts/energy_and_equity/node1.html The
energy crisis - by Ira Woodhead and Frank Keller
pages.ca.inter.net/~jhwalsh/oiltrdv.pdf Trends in World Oil Production -
by John H. Walsh
www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_print.cfm?a_id=144 Alaska
Natural Gas: How real an alternative is it? - by Joseph Mathew
www.uic.com.au/nip57.htm Energy Analysis of Power Systems, UIC Nuclear
Issues Briefing Paper # 57, November 2002
www.healthandenergy.com/oil_crisis.htm Oil Crisis - by Jon Traudt.
www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm Oil, Currency and the War on Iraq
- by Coilin Nunan.
http://energycrisis.org/de/lecture.html Peak Oil - Clausthal presentation
by C.J. Campbell
www.letterfromearth.org The yawning heights - looking out from the great
oil peak - an internet radio talk by Julian Darley
www.4qf.org/Oil/oil_depletion.htm Oil Depletion and World Peak HydroCarbon
Production.
www.evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=471 The Future of the
Hydrogen Economy: Bright or Bleak? - by Baldur Eliasson and Ulf Bossel
evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=494 Hydrogen-Fueled Car
Wrong Decision - by Gary Gallon
www9.ocn.ne.jp/~aslan/#crisis Webpage with ecology links and Papers
relating to Japan and North Korea - the energy and food situation - by
Tony Boys
www.newcollegenews.net/partysover.html The Party's Over - by Richard
Heinberg
www.prudentbear.com/archive_comm_article.asp?category=International%2BPerspective&content_idx=20368
International+Perspective - by Marshall Auerback
www.durangobill.com/Rollover.html The Great Rollover Juggernaut - World
Oil Depletion and the Inevitable Crisis - by Bill Butler
www.fb.com/utfb/Index/nitrogen.htm High natural gas prices are choking
nitrogen fertilizer production - by Terry Francl, Senior Economist, AFBF
www.wtrg.com/EnergyCrisis/index.html The Coming Energy Crisis? - by James
L. Williams and A. F. Alhajji
www.wri.org/wri/climate/jm_oil_000.html World Resources Institute: Oil as
a finite resource: When is global production likely to peak? - by James J.
MacKenzie
www.bbc.co.uk/business/programmes/moneyprogramme/archive/oil.shtml Colin
Campbell on BBC's Money Programme
www.ceip.org/files/Publications/RussiaDecline.asp?from=pubdate Russia's
decline and uncertain recovery - by Thomas E. Graham, Jr. (free book
available for download)
www.sharelynx.com/A_Strategy_For_Losers/DepletionWars.htm World politics
in the age of oil depletion by Brian Davey
www.globaloilwatch.com
ecen.com/content/eee4/oildelec1.htm Oil depletion - by Carlos Feu Alvim
and Omar Campos Ferreira
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030721-464406,00.html Why
U.S. Is Running Out of Gas - by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
www.geotimes.org/mar01/feature1.html It's Time to Know the Planet's
Mineral Resources - by Joseph A. Briskey, Klaus J. Schulz, John P.
Mosesso, Lief R. Horwitz and Charles G. Cunningham
www.uwsp.edu/geo/courses/geog100/petrol-shrinknete.htm?Shrinking Net
Energy from Fossil Fuels - by Thomas Detwyler
http://www.holon.se/folke/worries/problem_en.shtml Folke Gunther's site.
http://www.gci.org.uk/memos/Growing_Problem.pdf Oil and gas depletion vs
climate change
http://www.petroleumequities.com/OilSupplyReport.htm The Looming Crisis In
Worldwide Oil Supplies - by E. Hunter Herron
lakeweb.org/energy Energy in Today's World.
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2155375 Buried
losses - Economist article.
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=713&journalID=69
The end of the oil age - by Richard Heinberg
http://www.smallcommunity.org/readings/oildepletionlinks.asp A long
annotated list of oil depletion links.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html Nine
Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy - From The Wilderness
Publications
http://www.state.hi.us/dbedt/ert/symposium/zagar/ The End of Cheap
'Conventional' Oil - by Jack Zagar
http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/econ/oil.htm The past, present and future of
cheap petroleum - by J. Calvert
http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200311120174.html Is nuclear power
cheaper? - The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.motherearthnews.com/menarch/archive/issues/027/027-006-01.htm
Energy, Ecology Economics - by H.T. Odum
http://www.theecologist.co.uk/archive_article.html?article=263&category=47
The Reality Principle: The consequences of oil shortages - by David
Fleming
http://pages.ca.inter.net/~jhwalsh/oilcap.html World Oil Production and
Per Capita Oil Consumption - by John H. Walsh
http://www.solaraccess.com/news/story?storyid=5497 The Hydrogen
Hallucination - by Mark Sardella
http://www.bigwig.net/sergey/hubbert.htm Hubbert's Peak Resources - A
brief introduction to world oil depletion - by Sergey Borovik
http://associnst.ox.ac.uk/energy/l3feb01.html Transparency in Oil Markets
and Other Myths - by Robert Mabro
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/archive/2004/0202.html Storm Clouds,
Crises and Opportunities in Energy - by Jim Puplava
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/dancy/0207.html Energy spikes
could surprise investors - by Joseph Dancy
Peak oil is a fact, we have used about half of the world's fuel reserves, and it costs more and uses more and more fuel to extract the remainder of the fuel. We are using fuel at a faster rate than any other time in history and we don't look like slowing down any time soon, here in the USA we carry on about gas prices instead of limiting our use of it to ensure that at least essential services will have fuel in 10 to 20 years time.
Life could be about to change quite drasticly, but for some reason the powers that be are ignoring the facts, big oil companies are in denial, auto manafacturers are making bigger gas guzzlers than ever before [Hummers come to mind] and here in the States fuel has been ridiculously inexpensive for too long, almost everywhere else in the world people pay a lot more for fuel than we do.
For once I agree with GWB, dipping into the nations emergency fuel supply is not the thing to do. If the worse case scenarios occur it will make the depression of the 30s look like a picnic.
A couple of things we can all do are: Buy locally produced items, and locally grown food where possible, even if it costs a little more it will keep the local producers in business for when we need them. Cut back as much as possible oy our use of all fossil fuels, it will save some for later as we learn how to get by with less for when there is none.
Some people I have discussed this with are full of optomism and believe that there will be plenty of alternative fuel sources by then, I'm not, I've seen the waste of funds:
We are presently trying to generate power using a large wood gasifier which we are designing with help from "experts"... there are grants and "experts" in abundance, but the "experts" mainly do feasablity studies and little else, we had one graduate student "research" our options and was paid $5000 for doing what we had already done, look on the internet, speak to the self
proclaimed "experts" and at his presentation, say in summing up "It's beyond me."... yet he still got his $5000. What he had been asked to do was get a small prototype up and running, and all he did was give us a presentation that I could have put together in a few days.
Then another expert, says "If you invest $100,000, the power you generate would pay it back in five years, my charge os $200 per hour to design the system, but there are no guarantees.", the next "expert" comes up with a fancy looking design "That will be $12,000 thanks." and after talking to people who have been experimenting with these things we realise that his whole design is worse than useless. There are millions of your tax dollars paying these people to play on the internet and make fancy/useless designs, that even we amateurs can blow away with the logic we have from years of burning wood.
When we talk to these people some immediatley say "I charge $100/$200 per hour, send money and I'll talk." or they seem right friendly and almost neighborly, say that they would like to help with such a worthy venture, talk on the phone for an hour at a time, email back and forth,
then bait the hook with "I think it might just work, I charge $250 an hour." There is too much money spent on thinking, drawing, researching with nothing to show but a presentation, or if we had gone ahead with the last design that had all the bells and whistles and technology that made it look good, but was destined to fail within a few months due to a glass like substance that forms when you burn wood with a lot of dirt in it. The expert would have his money, the small government grant would have paid him and we would have been stuck with a
debt and a destroyed gasifier.... my husband is still obcessed with getting this to work as a way to hanlde large pieces of wood dropped here by the dump truck load. They are too big to grind and too big to break down very rapidly... my suggestion is to stop taking them, but
then he is concerned about the waste of their potential energy output for cheap fuel... anyway, onto the email that I am forwarding:
The author said:
I'd appreciate it if you'd remove my email addy, but otherwise, yes,
please, pass it on. This is important stuff.
The thing is, _it is really important to keep perspective_ - some of those
links are to very scary, semi-apocalyptic scenarios, which I hope are
unlikely. To me, things aren't so bleak - if everyone, and I mean
everyone, gets on the same page and starts working together. I'm pretty
sure we can't all go on living the way we do, but if we start covering
those suburban lawns, central park, industrial parks, the white house
lawn, with small scale grazing animals and victory gardens, we can soften
the blow a lot.
If you are sending this to kids, please add this - _being scared is
appropriate_ - I'm scared. _Feeling that things are futile is another thing
- this should be a call to action,_ and not just personal action, but the
collective. Those of us with land and skills and tools will have the
oppotunity to help others use what they have. I feel like the 13th fairy
in the sleeping beauty legend - after the curse has been laid, you can't
take it away, but you can keep the story going and the wolf (mixing my
fairy tales) from the door with the right action.
> how soon do the best estimates state that the oil will be gone?That's a harder question than it sounds, since the problem is not running
out of oil per se, but failing to meet production and using more energy to
extract it than we actually get from the oil.
The textbook my husband teaches from bets around 10 years from now, give
or take 5 years. I've seen estimates that go as far as 2030, but I don't
find them credible - most are based on consumption lowering or staying the
same, whereas it is actually rising quite rapidly. Since nearly everyone
who has oil lies about how much they have to ensure that people will keep
buying from them, its hard to tell. Even the most optimistic outlook
means that we'll run out of oil in about 25 years - but I don't think
there's any reason to be optimistic.
My guess is we'll see oil rationing in the US within the next 10 years.
It is possible we've already passed peak (ie, the point at which oil stops
meeting need) and our rising gas and oil prices are a sign of that. It is
also possible that the Saudis will release more oil and temporarily lower
prices. But it will be a temporary lowering
The big problem is *food* - the average American meal travels more than
1000 miles to get there. We've centralized food production - much of the
produce comes from CA, the wheat and beef from the west, the corn from the
midwest. All commercial agriculture uses between 5 and 40 calories of oil
to produce every calorie of food - in pesticides, in transport, as
fertilizer, to store it, etc... We're seeing inflation in basic
commoditities now - that bag of flour is going to go up a lot in price
when gas hits 5, 6, 7 dollars per gallon. And eventually it may become
unavailable.
The thing is, without oil, there's no evidence that we can feed the 6-9
billion people who will be on the planet when the crash comes. We've
grown above our capacity to sustain ourselves. If everyone went right now
to John Jeavonsesque diets (he suggests that an entire balanced diet for a
human being can be grown on about 1000 square feet, but there's not a lot
of fat in it, and you eat a *lot* of parsnips) maybe. But since food
production is about to become local - very, very, very local, famine
probably will be too - there's no way, for example, to feed most of the
major cities, since there's simply no farmland left nearby. The west,
which depends on energy-intensive irrigation and water diversion from
depleted aquifers and rivers, probably will not be able to sustain the
population it has now.
The thing is, whether it happens in 10 years or 25, our children are
looking at a future that is much darker than our own - at the best
economically depressed, at the worst, starving. I don't want to sound
like the Raven, croaking "Nevermore" but the reason I keep singing this
tune is because I don't want anyone on this list to be unprepared. Most
of us are lucky enough never to have heard a child say, 'Mommy, I'm
hungry." and have to answer, "There's nothing to eat."
I've included some references at the bottom of the page. There are a lot
of them, so I hope it isn't overwhelming, but I want to be totally clear
that I'm not the only one who believe this - in fact, this may be the only
thing on earth on which Michael Moore and Bush's Energy Czar agree on,
believe it or not. My personal suggestions:
Get the heck out of the cities/suburbia before it becomes obvious and the
price of rural land goes up. In the short term, as gas prices rise, I
suspect it will go down, but don't wait to see if I'm right. There are
parts of the country where land is very cheap.
Talk to your family and friends about this - consider land-sharing,
community building, anything. No one can do everything alone.
Invest in tools for off-grid living - woodstoves, water pumps, etc...
Solar/hydro/wind is a good idea, although expensive.
Store food and grow food - the one upside of this is that you can expect
realistically to find homesteading a lot more profitable - maybe even
self-supporting in the long term. But remember, times will probably be
hard for a while, and it takes a good while to learn to grow enough food,
save seed and produce your own grains/animal feeds. You are going to want
a bigger garden, and a lot of reserves - extra food, extra seeds.
Don't expect to rely on hunting - there's going to be a lot of competition
there, and during the depression, large game was hunted almost to
extinction in places. There are a lot more people now and they have
better guns.
Prepare your kids for a different world - teach them practical skills, and
try and have something to pass down to them - the ancestral home may
become a lot more attractive.
Try and be as healthy as possible - medications are going to get more
unaffordable or unavailable. Find natural remedies, learn to reproduce
them, and take good care of yourself now.
Here are some references - you might also look at this month's National
Geographic, where "The End of Cheap Oil" is the cover story, and watch the
recently released on DVD documentary _The End of Suburbia_
www.oilcrash.com
www.oilcrisis.org, www.hubbertpeak.com The Hubbert Peak of Oil Production
- is the place to go for references. It contains articles from Bartlett,
Campbell, Duncan, Hubbert, Ivanhoe, Laherrere, Youngquist, and many
others. This site is updated about once a month with new articles.
hubbert.mines.edu M. King Hubbert Center for Petroleum Supply Studies - is
run by L.F. Ivanhoe and C.W. Van Kirk. It produces a quarterly newsletter
of 2-3 articles in about 8-10 pages by the leading experts in the field.
www.dieoff.org Jay Hanson's famous or notorious Die-Off! website. Jay has
put a lot of work into this and it contains a wealth of articles which are
well worth reading.
www.asponews.orgThe Association for the Study of Peak Oil - The unofficial
archive of the ASPO Newsletter
www.odac-info.org Website of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC).
www.runningonempty.org ROE's website. Originally founded by Bruce Thomson
but now maintained by Robert Waldrop. dead link
www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk The Wolf at the Door - The Beginner's Guide to
Oil Depletion - by Paul Thompson (also available in french)
www.oilcrash.com Robert Atack's site including reference articles on the
coming oil crash.
www.energiekrise.de, www.energyshortage.com Primarily a German site by
L-B-Systemtechnik GmbH which gives a good overview. You can also get the
ASPO newsletter here.
www.eia.doe.gov Energy Information Administration
www.after-oil.co.uk The Busby Report - UK Survival in the 21st Century -
by John Busby
www.simmonsco-intl.com Simmons & Co International. A banking firm
specializing in the energy industry.
greatchange.org Steve Morningthunder's site.
www.mecheng.ohio-state.edu/~korpela/oil.html Seppo Korpela's Oil depletion
page
www.planetforlife.com The Coming World Oil Crisis - is run by Jack
Kisslinger. This well-structured site provides a good starting point with
briefings on oil use, oil depletion, the gas crisis, supply vulnerability,
and the futility of hydrogen.
http://www.physics.emich.edu/ebehringer/FossilFuels/overview_fossilfuels.html
E.R. Behringer's site with a resource/rate-of-use calculator in JAVA.
http://www.oildepletion.org Oildepletion.org is run by Roger Bentley.
http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy.htm The energy section of "Minnesotans
For Sustainability" with several articles on energy and population.
http://www.crisisenergetica.org/ Crisis Energetica - Daniel Gomez (in
Spanish)
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ - by Matt Savinar (description coming
up)
http://tvset.org/peakoil.html (description coming up)
http://peakoil.com/ - by Daniel Colonnese, A portal site with news and
forums
http://www.peakoil.de/ - by Susanne Schaefer, a very complete overview (in
German).
http://PeakOilAction.org/ - People working together to raise awareness
about oil depletion and preparing for a post fossil-fuel age.
Groups
Find like minded individuals and world experts. Many of these groups are
very active and full of great people.
quasar.physik.unibas.ch/~fisker/401/oil/hubbheir.html M. King Hubbert and
his heirs: A Hubbert peak half-bibliography. C. Kuykendall's 30+ page list
of references sorted in time and authors.
quasar.physik.unibas.ch/~fisker/401/oil/hubbweba.html A Hubbert Peak
Web-bibliography - by C. Kuykendall. A shorter annotated list of the most
important references.
geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of00-320 Are We Running Out of Oil? Poster
by Lester B. Magoon of the USGS.
cdegea.free.fr/.pub/er_worksheet.html Attempting to collect some
conclusions.
groups.yahoo.com/group/globaloilwatch
buddycom.com/reviews/campbell/index.html Key individuals who have moved
and shaken the oil industry..
www.gulland.ca/depletion/depletion.htm Gulland - a collection of the best
articles on oil depletion.
www.users.on.net/rmc/01sorry.htm
members.aol.com/vrex/oil/price_forecast.htm
members.aol.com/trajcom/private/trajcom.htm Many pages dedicated to the
tragedy of the commons.
www.islandnet.com/~ncfs/ncfs The Global Problematique headed by Yves
Barjard. dead link
www2.tpgi.com.au/users/resolve/globalcrisis/part1.html GLOBAL CRISIS by
Ted Trainer.
www.justpeace.org/02-16.htm A novel in the form of a letter from 2001, the
future (written in 1998).
www.provide.net/~kssustain "Sustainability, Energy, Resources, and
Housing" by Kermit Schlansker
sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/world-oil.dir/lynch2.html Closed Coffin:
Ending the Debate on "The End of Cheap Oil" A commentary by Michael C.
Lynch.
www.latimes.com/la-000018768mar14.story Oil Doesn't Grow on Trees - by
David Goodstein.
zebu.uoregon.edu/1996/ph162/l1.html Forms of alternative energy.
www.oilcrisis.org/blanchardThe Impact of Declining Major North Sea Oil
Fields upon Future North Sea Production.
www.altenergy.org/core/The_Oil_Problem/the_oil_problem.html When Will The
Joy Ride End?
www.financialsense.com/series3/part1.htm Powershift - Oil, Money, & War -
Part 1: Hubbert's Peak & The Economics of Oil
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/choke.html EIA: World Oil Transit Chokepoints
www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/16/1018333501447.html National oil, gas
reserves dwindle - Australia
www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D50NatCapCannotOvercome.html Ted Trainer: Natural
Capitalism Cannot Overcome Resource Limits.
www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D49DematerialisationMyth.html Ted Trainer: The
"de-materialisation" myth.
www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s156837.htm Ted Trainer: Natural
Capitalism Challenged.
healthandenergy.com/gasoline_prices.htm
www.simmonsco-intl.com/domino/html/research.nsf/0/3AD817AA8379224186256BC2006910C1?open
The Global Energy Scene - Simmons & Co.
www.asme.org/groups/energyresources/energybajura.pdf Our Energy Future,
U.S. and World - by Rita A. Bajura, Director, National Energy Techonology
Laboratory
www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/depletion/index.html EIA: Accelerated
Depletion: Assessing Its Impacts on Domestic Oil and Natural Gas Prices
and Production.
www.simmonsco-intl.com/domino/html/research.nsf/0/e2186545187da48486256bce006dc343/$FILE/Depletion.pdf
Matthew Simmons: Depletion & U.S. Energy Policy (Uppsala paper).
www.hermes-press.com/impintro1.htm The New U.S.-British Oil Imperialism,
Norman D. Livergood
gadfly.igc.org/liberal/oiltrap.htm Ernest Partridge, "THE OIL TRAP", The
Online Gadfly
cryptome.org/spr-eyeball.htm Eyeballing the strategic petroleum reserve,
Cryptome dead link
kondratyev.com/reference/position_papers/position_paper_on_energy.htm
Position Paper on Energy by Eric Von Baranov, The Kondratyev Wave Theory
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2225334.stm UK 'running out of gas', BBC
article
www.sunpath-designs.com/DavidPrice Energy and Human Evolution by David
Price
www.industry.gov.au/resources/netenergy/aen/aen22/17curve.html Oil
production curve causes convern - Australian Energy News
www.mees.com/news/a45n36d01.htmThe New Geopolitics Of Oil: The US, Saudi
Arabia And Russia, by Gawdat Bahgat
Peak Oil: an Outlook on Crude Oil Depletion - Revised February 2002 by
Colin J. Campbell
www.bp.com/centres/energy2002/conversioncalculator/index.asp - an online
Conversion Calculator for crude oil and natural gas
healthandenergy.com/fuel_shortages.htm The Coming Fuel Shortages by Jay
Hanson, April 2, 2000
www.bgr.de/b123/hc_era/e_kw_aera.htm Will the hydrocarbon era finish soon?
by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Germany
www.evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=403 Part I: The
Assessment and Importance of Oil Depletion - by Colin Campbell
evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=409 Part II: Assessment and
Importance of Oil Depletion - by Colin Campbell
evworld.com/databases/printit.cfm?storyid=418 Coming To Grips With Oil
Depletion - by Colin J. Campbell
www.wordwright.com.au/paul/oil_crisis.html Oil Crisis by Paul Maynard
www.obeleoil.com/oilshock2.htm Oil shock, You could profit - by Robert
Meier, Janet Roundtree, and Michael Schaefer
www.ppu.org.uk/war/future_wars.html Future causes of conflict - a paper by
the Peace Pledge Union.
www.dw-1.com Douglas-Westwood
mwhodges.home.att.net/energy/energy-b.htm World Oil & Gas: reserves,
production, consumption - by Michael Hodges and Jean Laherere
www.rice.edu/projects/baker/Pubs/workingpapers/cfrbipp_energy/energytf.htm
Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century - Report of an
independent task force sponsored by the James A. Baker III Institute for
Public Policy of Rice University and the Council on Foreign Relations
www.southwestenergy.org/Oil%20End%20Game.htm The Oil Endgame - by Mark
Sardella
www.anwr.org/features/oiluses.htm A list of products made from oil.
www.taxrefusal.com/oiltable.html
www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/Economics/oswald/interviewonoil.pdf Oil and the
real economy: Interview with Andrew Oswald.
www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=5573 The end of the age of oil(1) -
Michael C. Ruppert
www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=5620 The end of the age of oil(2) -
Colin J. Campbell
www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=5663 The end of the age of oil(3) -
Jeremy Rifkin and Allen Pfeiffer
www.agiweb.org/geotimes/nov02/feature_oil.html Global Petroleum Resources:
A View to the Future by Thomas S. Ahlbrandt and Peter J. McCabe of the
American Gelogical Institute
www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/chapmand111902pv.html War, Money and Oil!
by David Chapman
www.geocities.com/davidmdelaney/oil-depletion/oil-depletion.html Oil
Depletion - by David Delaney
en-env.llnl.gov/flow Energy flow charts for the United States - from the
LLNL.
beheer.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/Nuclear_sustainability_rev.PDF Can nuclear
power provide energy for the future; would it solve the CO2-emission
problem? - by Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith
www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.htm Energy Analysis of Power Systems - by
the World Nuclear Association (a critique of the above article)
beheer.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/Rebuttal.html (a critique of the critique of
the above article)
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/steo.html EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook -
January 2003
www.ems.org/oil_depletion/story.html End of Cheap Oil Poses Serious Threat
to World Economy, Experts Say - by Environmental Media Services
www.ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm Economy and thermodynamic - by Borisas
Cimbleris
www.financialsense.com/Experts/2002/Economides.htm Venezuela's Oil Crisis
- by Michael Economides
www.financialsense.com/transcriptions/Oligney.htm The Color of Oil: The
History, The Money and the Politics of the World's Biggest Business - a
transcription of an interview with Ronald Oligney
www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/texts/energy_and_equity/node1.html The
energy crisis - by Ira Woodhead and Frank Keller
pages.ca.inter.net/~jhwalsh/oiltrdv.pdf Trends in World Oil Production -
by John H. Walsh
www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_print.cfm?a_id=144 Alaska
Natural Gas: How real an alternative is it? - by Joseph Mathew
www.uic.com.au/nip57.htm Energy Analysis of Power Systems, UIC Nuclear
Issues Briefing Paper # 57, November 2002
www.healthandenergy.com/oil_crisis.htm Oil Crisis - by Jon Traudt.
www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm Oil, Currency and the War on Iraq
- by Coilin Nunan.
http://energycrisis.org/de/lecture.html Peak Oil - Clausthal presentation
by C.J. Campbell
www.letterfromearth.org The yawning heights - looking out from the great
oil peak - an internet radio talk by Julian Darley
www.4qf.org/Oil/oil_depletion.htm Oil Depletion and World Peak HydroCarbon
Production.
www.evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=471 The Future of the
Hydrogen Economy: Bright or Bleak? - by Baldur Eliasson and Ulf Bossel
evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=494 Hydrogen-Fueled Car
Wrong Decision - by Gary Gallon
www9.ocn.ne.jp/~aslan/#crisis Webpage with ecology links and Papers
relating to Japan and North Korea - the energy and food situation - by
Tony Boys
www.newcollegenews.net/partysover.html The Party's Over - by Richard
Heinberg
www.prudentbear.com/archive_comm_article.asp?category=International%2BPerspective&content_idx=20368
International+Perspective - by Marshall Auerback
www.durangobill.com/Rollover.html The Great Rollover Juggernaut - World
Oil Depletion and the Inevitable Crisis - by Bill Butler
www.fb.com/utfb/Index/nitrogen.htm High natural gas prices are choking
nitrogen fertilizer production - by Terry Francl, Senior Economist, AFBF
www.wtrg.com/EnergyCrisis/index.html The Coming Energy Crisis? - by James
L. Williams and A. F. Alhajji
www.wri.org/wri/climate/jm_oil_000.html World Resources Institute: Oil as
a finite resource: When is global production likely to peak? - by James J.
MacKenzie
www.bbc.co.uk/business/programmes/moneyprogramme/archive/oil.shtml Colin
Campbell on BBC's Money Programme
www.ceip.org/files/Publications/RussiaDecline.asp?from=pubdate Russia's
decline and uncertain recovery - by Thomas E. Graham, Jr. (free book
available for download)
www.sharelynx.com/A_Strategy_For_Losers/DepletionWars.htm World politics
in the age of oil depletion by Brian Davey
www.globaloilwatch.com
ecen.com/content/eee4/oildelec1.htm Oil depletion - by Carlos Feu Alvim
and Omar Campos Ferreira
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030721-464406,00.html Why
U.S. Is Running Out of Gas - by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
www.geotimes.org/mar01/feature1.html It's Time to Know the Planet's
Mineral Resources - by Joseph A. Briskey, Klaus J. Schulz, John P.
Mosesso, Lief R. Horwitz and Charles G. Cunningham
www.uwsp.edu/geo/courses/geog100/petrol-shrinknete.htm?Shrinking Net
Energy from Fossil Fuels - by Thomas Detwyler
http://www.holon.se/folke/worries/problem_en.shtml Folke Gunther's site.
http://www.gci.org.uk/memos/Growing_Problem.pdf Oil and gas depletion vs
climate change
http://www.petroleumequities.com/OilSupplyReport.htm The Looming Crisis In
Worldwide Oil Supplies - by E. Hunter Herron
lakeweb.org/energy Energy in Today's World.
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2155375 Buried
losses - Economist article.
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=713&journalID=69
The end of the oil age - by Richard Heinberg
http://www.smallcommunity.org/readings/oildepletionlinks.asp A long
annotated list of oil depletion links.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html Nine
Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy - From The Wilderness
Publications
http://www.state.hi.us/dbedt/ert/symposium/zagar/ The End of Cheap
'Conventional' Oil - by Jack Zagar
http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/econ/oil.htm The past, present and future of
cheap petroleum - by J. Calvert
http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200311120174.html Is nuclear power
cheaper? - The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.motherearthnews.com/menarch/archive/issues/027/027-006-01.htm
Energy, Ecology Economics - by H.T. Odum
http://www.theecologist.co.uk/archive_article.html?article=263&category=47
The Reality Principle: The consequences of oil shortages - by David
Fleming
http://pages.ca.inter.net/~jhwalsh/oilcap.html World Oil Production and
Per Capita Oil Consumption - by John H. Walsh
http://www.solaraccess.com/news/story?storyid=5497 The Hydrogen
Hallucination - by Mark Sardella
http://www.bigwig.net/sergey/hubbert.htm Hubbert's Peak Resources - A
brief introduction to world oil depletion - by Sergey Borovik
http://associnst.ox.ac.uk/energy/l3feb01.html Transparency in Oil Markets
and Other Myths - by Robert Mabro
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/archive/2004/0202.html Storm Clouds,
Crises and Opportunities in Energy - by Jim Puplava
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/dancy/0207.html Energy spikes
could surprise investors - by Joseph Dancy
the_clevengers
--- In [email protected], Susan Gallien
<susan@t...> wrote:
the remainder of the fuel. We are using fuel at a faster rate than
any other time in history and we don't look like slowing down any
time soon, here in the USA we carry on about gas prices instead of
limiting our use of it to ensure that at least essential services
will have fuel in 10 to 20 years time.>>>>
Susan, you might be interested in biodiesel. http://www.biodiesel.org/
Basically, you can run any diesel engine on most types of oils (corn,
soy, peanut, etc. They've even made a biodiesel oil from squashed
bugs). We've gotten used fryer oil from Taco Bell and processed it
into fuel for our diesel car. Already farmers are using it in their
tractors, some cities are using it in their buses, and hopefully it
will just be a matter of time before it is used in diesel trains,
trucks, motorhomes, etc. You can convert a furnace to run on it too.
As for the rest of your post, I think it's always a good idea to use
less energy, whether we reach the fuel crisis or not - we had a bad
ice storm this year for instance and couldn't drive or ride a bike
off of our hill. We used the wood stove for heat and for cooking, and
had plenty of food supplies already. It was nice to know that we're
relatively self-sufficient, at least in the short-term. We'd like to
be off the grid completely eventually.
Blue Skies,
-Robin-
<susan@t...> wrote:
> Peak oil is a fact, we have used about half of the world's fuelreserves, and it costs more and uses more and more fuel to extract
the remainder of the fuel. We are using fuel at a faster rate than
any other time in history and we don't look like slowing down any
time soon, here in the USA we carry on about gas prices instead of
limiting our use of it to ensure that at least essential services
will have fuel in 10 to 20 years time.>>>>
Susan, you might be interested in biodiesel. http://www.biodiesel.org/
Basically, you can run any diesel engine on most types of oils (corn,
soy, peanut, etc. They've even made a biodiesel oil from squashed
bugs). We've gotten used fryer oil from Taco Bell and processed it
into fuel for our diesel car. Already farmers are using it in their
tractors, some cities are using it in their buses, and hopefully it
will just be a matter of time before it is used in diesel trains,
trucks, motorhomes, etc. You can convert a furnace to run on it too.
As for the rest of your post, I think it's always a good idea to use
less energy, whether we reach the fuel crisis or not - we had a bad
ice storm this year for instance and couldn't drive or ride a bike
off of our hill. We used the wood stove for heat and for cooking, and
had plenty of food supplies already. It was nice to know that we're
relatively self-sufficient, at least in the short-term. We'd like to
be off the grid completely eventually.
Blue Skies,
-Robin-
Susan Gallien
Hi Robin,
We've looked into biodiesel since two of our tactors run on deisel, but
when the crash comes I don't think there will be a whole lot available,
it will be in high demand and grain growing is energy intensive.
I've also seen articles on using the used cooking oil right from the
waste oil tanks you can find out the back of most McDonalds and
restaurants. This seems easier, but you also need diesel or biodiesel
to get started and to run through your fuel system before shutting the
motor off.
Sue
We've looked into biodiesel since two of our tactors run on deisel, but
when the crash comes I don't think there will be a whole lot available,
it will be in high demand and grain growing is energy intensive.
I've also seen articles on using the used cooking oil right from the
waste oil tanks you can find out the back of most McDonalds and
restaurants. This seems easier, but you also need diesel or biodiesel
to get started and to run through your fuel system before shutting the
motor off.
Sue
>
>Susan, you might be interested in biodiesel. http://www.biodiesel.org/
>
>Basically, you can run any diesel engine on most types of oils (corn,
>soy, peanut, etc. They've even made a biodiesel oil from squashed
>bugs). We've gotten used fryer oil from Taco Bell and processed it
>into fuel for our diesel car. Already farmers are using it in their
>tractors, some cities are using it in their buses, and hopefully it
>will just be a matter of time before it is used in diesel trains,
>trucks, motorhomes, etc. You can convert a furnace to run on it too.
>As for the rest of your post, I think it's always a good idea to use
>less energy, whether we reach the fuel crisis or not - we had a bad
>ice storm this year for instance and couldn't drive or ride a bike
>off of our hill. We used the wood stove for heat and for cooking, and
>had plenty of food supplies already. It was nice to know that we're
>relatively self-sufficient, at least in the short-term. We'd like to
>be off the grid completely eventually.
>
>Blue Skies,
>-Robin-
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
SHYRLEY WILLIAMS
:
--- In [email protected], Susan Gallien
<susan@t...> wrote:
the remainder of the fuel. We are using fuel at a faster rate than
any other time in history and we don't look like slowing down any
time soon, here in the USA we carry on about gas prices instead of
limiting our use of it to ensure that at least essential services
will have fuel in 10 to 20 years time.>>>>
That is something I find astonishing. Oil is a precious rescourse. We need it to make plastic. At the moment we need plastic - machines, medical equipment etc etc, yet we treat oil as if there was an infinite supply. People drive 2 miles to the store because they are too lazy to walk. Once in the store they use plastic carrier bags to pack their groceries whihc they then will throw away when they get home.
Which is another thing about plastic. The things we use for the least amount of time get made from a material that takes hundreds of years to break down :-(
We should be legislating for fuel efficency plus have a toll for each mile driven. We would then use less oil plus the money raised could be put into research for green fules.
Shyrley, who really should be running the world :-)
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--- In [email protected], Susan Gallien
<susan@t...> wrote:
> Peak oil is a fact, we have used about half of the world's fuelreserves, and it costs more and uses more and more fuel to extract
the remainder of the fuel. We are using fuel at a faster rate than
any other time in history and we don't look like slowing down any
time soon, here in the USA we carry on about gas prices instead of
limiting our use of it to ensure that at least essential services
will have fuel in 10 to 20 years time.>>>>
That is something I find astonishing. Oil is a precious rescourse. We need it to make plastic. At the moment we need plastic - machines, medical equipment etc etc, yet we treat oil as if there was an infinite supply. People drive 2 miles to the store because they are too lazy to walk. Once in the store they use plastic carrier bags to pack their groceries whihc they then will throw away when they get home.
Which is another thing about plastic. The things we use for the least amount of time get made from a material that takes hundreds of years to break down :-(
We should be legislating for fuel efficency plus have a toll for each mile driven. We would then use less oil plus the money raised could be put into research for green fules.
Shyrley, who really should be running the world :-)
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
the_clevengers
--- In [email protected], Susan Gallien
<susan@t...> wrote:
use some of their crops (like soybeans) to make the oil to run the
diesel tractors. I've read that one of the largest biodiesel
production facilities is a fermer's cooperative in Ralston Iowa. But
it's pretty easy to make your own from waste oil, even if you can't
buy it. The book "From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank" outlines the
process, which can be done in a garage or shed with some fairly
simple stuff.
Eventually (hopefully?) I imagine there will be other fuel sources as
well.
and you have to add a conversion to the regular diesel engine that
warms it up to the appropriate temperature before running it through
the engine. If you don't want to convert the engine, you have to
first convert the waste oil into biodiesel, which is a relatively
simple chemical process. But either way, the small amount of biodisel
or regular diesel needed would be infintisimal compared to the
amounts of gas and regular diesel being used today.
Blue Skies,
-Robin-
<susan@t...> wrote:
> Hi Robin,but
>
> We've looked into biodiesel since two of our tactors run on deisel,
> when the crash comes I don't think there will be a whole lotavailable,
> it will be in high demand and grain growing is energy intensive.I know that farmer's cooperatives are springing up where the farmers
use some of their crops (like soybeans) to make the oil to run the
diesel tractors. I've read that one of the largest biodiesel
production facilities is a fermer's cooperative in Ralston Iowa. But
it's pretty easy to make your own from waste oil, even if you can't
buy it. The book "From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank" outlines the
process, which can be done in a garage or shed with some fairly
simple stuff.
Eventually (hopefully?) I imagine there will be other fuel sources as
well.
> I've also seen articles on using the used cooking oil right fromthe
> waste oil tanks you can find out the back of most McDonalds andbiodiesel
> restaurants. This seems easier, but you also need diesel or
> to get started and to run through your fuel system before shuttingthe
> motor off.I think if you use straight cooking oil, you have to filter it first,
and you have to add a conversion to the regular diesel engine that
warms it up to the appropriate temperature before running it through
the engine. If you don't want to convert the engine, you have to
first convert the waste oil into biodiesel, which is a relatively
simple chemical process. But either way, the small amount of biodisel
or regular diesel needed would be infintisimal compared to the
amounts of gas and regular diesel being used today.
Blue Skies,
-Robin-
[email protected]
Robyn Coburn
www.pathtofreedom.com
This is the website of a family living in urban Pasedena, CA (part of Los
Angeles) who make their own biodiesel after collecting oil from local
restaurants. Their vehicle uses this exclusively with no special
modifications. Also they are working on becoming self sufficient for food
and power needs as is possible in an urban setting.
Robyn L. Coburn
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.692 / Virus Database: 453 - Release Date: 5/28/2004
This is the website of a family living in urban Pasedena, CA (part of Los
Angeles) who make their own biodiesel after collecting oil from local
restaurants. Their vehicle uses this exclusively with no special
modifications. Also they are working on becoming self sufficient for food
and power needs as is possible in an urban setting.
Robyn L. Coburn
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.692 / Virus Database: 453 - Release Date: 5/28/2004