The transition has begun in earnest.

Update: June 12, 2009;

The transition has begun in earnest. Of the big three auto builders in North America, Ford is standing tall with a world class hybrid model line-up. Many towns and cities throughout the world have established sustainability strategies in addition to existing recycling programs. Carbon trading, although controversial, is slowly growing. May you/we live in interesting times!

One brief article on electric cars:

MONTREAL - Hydro-Québec and Ford Motor Co. are collaborating on a program to test plug-in electric cars, the two companies said Tuesday.

The auto company, along with the Electric Power Research Institute, picked Hydro as one of nine utilities to join a North America-wide demonstration and research plan for plug-in electric vehicles.

The three-year test program on the Ford Escape is designed to develop and evaluate technical approaches for integrating plug-ins into the electric grid. Hydro-Québec is the only Canadian company participating in the project.

"We have to accelerate the replacement of oil by electricity for individual transportation and public transit. The transport sector accounts for 42 per cent of Québec’s greenhouse gas emissions. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved through the electrification of transport in Québec, where 98 per cent of the electricity is produced from renewable sources, would be considerable. Hydro-Québec will act as a leader in this area," said Thierry Vandal, Hydro president and CEO.

Refueling costs for an average vehicle driven 18,000 kilometres per year would be $244, compared with $1,383, the Electric Power Research Institute estimates. Based in several U.S. states, the non-profit institute conducts research and development into the use of electric energy.

(The direct link to this article is in the title above.)

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

Fours years since discovering peak oil....

It's now been four years since I've discovered the concept of peak oil. Today a tank of regular gas is $3.99 where I live, Ford has announced that it is cutting production for the the rest of this year, the airlines will be adding surcharges and charging $15 for the first bag taken on a flight, and OPEC won't increase production. That's just what I've heard in the news TODAY.

Four years ago in February 2004, I was gearing up politically and hoping for change. In the midst of my political anticipation and hopes, I stumbled upon the concept of "peak oil" on a democratic discussion board online. Someone posted a link to Matt Savinar's website Life After the Oil Crash (listed on my sidebar under Peak Oil 101) and I decided to click and read. Needless to say, I was devastated and mentally traumatized to immobility for about 6 months when I realized the full implications of what life would be like without cheap oil. I spent that next 6 months reading and reading everything, from every source about oil...the history of oil, the geopolitical implications of peak oil, the stats, the proven oil reserves, what the government reports were saying about it, how to prepare for life without cheap oil, and on and on. Finally, I began to 'find my legs' as soon as the 2004 elections were over. All I could think of was that I needed to find like-minded community and prepare myself and my family for the coming hardships.

Now, there has and will always be a debate in my mind about how this is going to play out. In 2004, some of us thought the actual oil peak would come around 2008 and the real effects would start to rear their ugly head and come to a full throttle crash somewhere around 2012. Others gave it a little longer, maybe 20 years or so. Now looking back, I feel that things are occurring faster than I had expected starting around 2006...at least the signs are looking favorable to it happening sooner rather than later, especially with other factors in the mix.

Immediately after the 2004 elections, I scheduled a library meeting room spot and announced my presentation of "The End of Suburbia" and community discussion of oil depletion, a.k.a. 'peak oil'. Mind you, the price of a barrel of oil was ONLY $30-35 a barrel and gas was close to $2 but still nobody obviously wanted to listen or I would've had at least ONE person attend my event!

In 2004-2005 I was just like Cassandra. I was telling everyone I knew about how oil was going to go up, demand would outstrip supply and to prepare--to get a bicycle, to plant a garden, reduce consumption, save energy, etc. As you can imagine, I don't think many people listened to me or heard what I was saying. I wrote a LTTE that entitled me to become a "guest columnist" because it was so much information that it took half the page--evidently too much information for the average reader's attention span when reading the newspaper! I got no response. Through 2005, I contacted my local Mayor, the local economic development leader, the newspaper editor and told them about the end of cheap oil. When I was getting nowhere with my outward expressions of concern to my community, I turned inward toward preparing for the future myself. The compromise for letting others know about the implications of diminishing cheap oil has been redirected to this blog. It's now out here for anyone who wants to search for it.

Over the past four years, I've been learning how to grow my own food and how to preserve it. I've been working on becoming debt free since 2003, and I can proudly say that this goal has been reached! I have zero debt. Ultimately, nobody can ever be totally be prepared for life without cheap oil but as I can imagine it, I am closer to that goal than I was four year ago. At least I will be more comfortable because I have prepared to the best of my ability. It remains a work in progress.

Since finding out about peak oil I can note some things I've watched over this period of time. The president actually came out and said "We're addicted to oil". CNN, CNBC, Yahoo, The History Channel, and other mainstream media outlets have actually talked about, had specials about, and acknowledged peak oil. I've seen congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) give HOURS of presentations on peak oil in special sessions live on cspan with hardly anybody in the 'House' (makes me feel a little less alone when nobody showed up to my local presentation!).

I must also note that I still haven't heard of any refineries being built. The contemplation has always been around the peak oil crowd that the reason no refineries have been built or rebuilt is because the oil. won't. be. there. Again, if anyone wants to blame the government or the congress, remember, this IS a free market and anyone can start building or investing anytime now! Why hasn't anyone? ....and it really makes me chuckle when supposed unregulated free market advocates start complaining about price gouging, want price gouging controls, and want regulations or price controls on oil. Excuse me, but aren't these interventions against the free market ideology? I'm not arguing for or against--it's just my libertarian side poking out! Oil depletion is oil depletion and it's going to occur whether we have price controls or not. When demand/consumption outstrips supply & production, there 'ain't nothin' going to help us in the long run.

From the long view, prices will go up, then demand destruction will occur or the government will give us a temporary fix. People will think everything is alright, start consuming more again, and then the same cycle will begin again over and over until the price can't come down any longer. Like many of us peaksters have referred, it will feel just like a roller coaster. I'm not even including any other economic factors here, either.

Again, I've spent since 2005 building this blog to inform others about the coming calamity. There is a whole smorgasboard full of links in my sidebar added over 3 years. Please begin with Peak Oil 101 links and then work your way down. It's 3 years worth of work at your fingertips to get started. Climate change has been instrumental to peak oil effects, and is a cousin to the peak oil concept, so there are a lot of links that are intertwined in ideology. They might not all speak of peak oil, per se, but every link I have is helpful concerning the implications of the end of the cheap oil era.

Are we a day late and a dollar short? We are pretty close. Act now. Think globally, act locally.

U.S. House Passes Renewable Energy Tax Credit Extension Bill

Full article here.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 (H.R. 6049), a bill that could extend production and investment tax credits for renewable energy, by a vote of 263-160.

...The bill could still face obstacles when it comes up for consideration in the Senate, largely because there is no consensus on how to pay for the extensions. The Bush administration has also threatened to veto the legislation.

Congress has been trying unsuccessfully for a year to extend tax credits for individuals, businesses and developers who invest in clean power. When the credits expire at the end of this year it’s estimated that more than 100,000 jobs and close to US $20 billion in investment will disappear.

Abandoned Mines = Geothermal Heat (5 min.Video)

www.cbc.ca/mrl3/23745/thenational/archive/geothermal-031008.wmv

Abandoned Mines Provide Geothermal Heat
March 10, 2008 (Runs 4:57)
Innovator Ralph Ross, of Springhill, Nova Scotia has been working in geothermal energy since the 80's and is finally seeing his idea take off.

DC Velocity: The End of Cheap Oil, Are You ready? by Charles Taylor

Full article here.

Good review of the end of cheap oil by Chuck Taylor, a supply chain consultant and speaker.

Peak Oil Passnotes: On the Cusp

For full article, click here.

Brief quote, i.e. a primer on economics:

Whether the peak is at the current figure of 85 million barrels per day or can sneak up to 95 million barrels per day over the next decade is neither here nor there. In historical terms we are on the cusp. What is slightly worrying at the moment is how that cusp is taking shape.

In normal times a recession dampens oil demand. But at the moment we see many people in financial difficulty, we see a credit crisis, and we also see doggedly high inflation. But instead of weakening oil prices those prices have stayed firm. After oil breached $99 per barrel in the last month, it fell back to $86 per barrel, and many like us thought it would drop further due to impending signs of economic weakness. It did not.

In plain speaking, this is getting worrying. A recession is bad enough, but a recession with high inflation starts to create stagflation. If oil stays at, or around, the prices it achieved in 2007 then we could be in for some serious troubles. Remember that oil prices do not knock through into economies straight away, the impact is delayed, maybe as much as 18 months in some cases. For example in the European Union food prices have boosted inflation to 4.1% - those food prices have been boosted by energy, by oil.

As an example, the credit crisis has not suddenly exploded over one night, one speech or one erroneous political statement. There was no single factor that blasted it into the public consciousness. Instead we had the slow drip effect. Some people had been warning for years that printing extra money to stave off recession - by creating false liquidity - was merely postponing the hurt. It may even end up making that hurt worse.."

My Most Recent Local Activism Attempt--Reviving the Interurban

When thinking of ways to improve and sustain my community in the event of higher energy prices (which anyone reading this blog would most likely agree is a given), I wrote the article below in an attempt to create dialogue within the community and to spark ideas. There was a nice response to my article in the Sunday newspaper but it hasn't been published online yet. I will include it in another blog entry when it comes up.

I would've worded some things differently in hindsight but the issue was a burning one in my mind at the time so I just typed it out and hit send after a few revisions only. I guess my writing habits have worsened with the advent of discussion boards where one tends to "freewrite" whatever is in mind at the time of writing! Oh well...I threw it out there anyway!

Read original article here.

— Someone with experience recently told me that it takes about 50 years for an idea to be accepted by a community and become a reality. For example, the Hoosier Heartland idea was birthed in 1960. So I am beginning now. My idea involves transportation of the public kind — local mass transit.
Many years ago, in the early 1900s, I believe, there was local public transit here and elsewhere known as the “interurban.” It was an electrified light passenger rail car that traveled to and from surrounding points such as Kokomo, Peru, and Royal Center, etc. The interurban eventually lost out to the automobile. I would like to see it return and service the people all points along the ways of Winamac, Royal Center, Peru, Monticello, Delphi, Flora, Lafayette, Rochester and Kokomo.
Why? Because energy is not likely to be any cheaper in the future than it is today. The most recent credible reference to evidence my claim would be Nov. 19th’s front page of the Wall Street Journal and the most recent outlook report from the EIA. Some would argue that alternatives such as ethanol and biodiesel will take the place of oil in transportation. However, it’s not generally understood that any alternative will cost as much or more than oil. Even if we quit using foreign oil, we will still pay a price for any alternatives or domestic oil. At some point, it will take more energy to extract any oil, requiring two or more barrels of oil to produce one barrel of oil. This is based on “energy returned on energy invested.” When it costs more to get that oil out of the ground, refine it and transport it, the cost will be so high no matter where it comes from that the average person won’t be able to afford it and demand destruction will develop. Hence, the price will not be able to be logically lowered due to decreased demand because it will cost more to produce that one barrel of oil no matter what. There is also the potential of supply not being able to keep up with demand. Either way, the future price is going nowhere but up.
So, what advantages would an interurban passenger rail have for our area? I have three initial answers: College students, drunk drivers and low wage homeowners who don’t work in their hometowns.
Presently, this region is blessed with many schools of higher education including Ivy Tech, Indiana University and Purdue among others. Speaking from personal experience, many adult learners who attend these schools to improve their future have a difficult time providing their own reliable transportation. An interurban rail line would help them do this without worrying about a reliable vehicle and the cost of gas during their quest for a higher education. An interurban would also accommodate those younger students who live on campus to come and go to this area if they have no transportation of their own.
Also, many people who love the nightlife and like to come into town or drive out of town often need to have a designated driver. Sometimes it doesn’t happen. Those who decide to drive back while drinking pose a great risk to themselves and others as some do.
An interurban would allow enjoyment of food and commerce around the region that might otherwise be passed over and could reduce the risk to our well-being via drunk drivers on the road.
Most importantly, I think of low-income wage earners working outside of their counties. Not only is there a personal cost of transportation but also a cost of the viability of each county. If the cost of transportation doesn’t decrease (which I believe it won’t), these populations of people will end up moving closer to their employers and any home ownership they may now have in said county may bring a decrease in tax revenues from property taxes to local income taxes if they decide it’s not cost effective for them to remain here and travel every day. In simpler terms, our tax base could decrease. An interurban could allow this group to remain in the area, keeping revenues in place.
I’ve no knowledge of what must be done to make this idea a reality. I’ve nothing to help with the cost of the project, although I believe a regional/community investment such as this would pay for itself in time by keeping people here as well as alleviating hardship on the local subcultures mentioned above.
All I have are ideas. This would not only require the efforts of our local leaders, but they would have to work in conjunction with the other leaders in the surrounding communities also potentially serviced. It could be a joint regional effort. Too costly? What about interurban buses?
In 50 years, it might be more costly when people can’t afford to travel to their workplace or attend school for lack of cheap transportation. Hopefully, some of the leaders of the community are reading this and will understand my call for an “interurban revival.” Who will follow my cue?
Gwen Ashby is a resident of Logansport.

Money As Debt

I promise peak oil is included 31 minutes into this animation on money. Please share with all.

Hubbert Peak Oil.

I'm copying an entire essay taken from [http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2007/10/hubbert-peak-oil.html] by Chris Rhodes. If he objects, I will remove it.
Sustain_ability


In 1956 a paper was published which will be of greater significance to the future of humankind than those reporting on the structure of DNA or the Theory of Relativity. Its title was "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels", and it was written and presented by M. King Hubbert at an oil-industry conference in Houston, Texas, while he was in the employ of the Shell Development Company. At first Hubbert was not taken seriously in his conclusions that the peak in oil production would follow the peak in oil discovery by about forty years, and so the best year for US oil output would be around 1965 - 1970, roughly 40 years after the most successful year of oil finds, in 1930. He was right, and thenceforth US home oil production has fallen to the extent that the nation now imports two thirds of all the oil it uses, a colossal 20 million or so barrels a day, or one quarter of the world's requirement of oil.

In days before computers, Hubbert would have drawn the graph by hand (probably with the aid of a flexy-curve, or simply freehand as I used to find best, before PC's were available routinely, and mathematical analysis packages such as the Origin programme, which is installed on this machine). The Hubbert peak is based on a logistic function, which is a restricted exponential, and the first derivative of it corresponds to a peak. The derivative of this (i.e. the second derivative of the logistic function) gives an inflexion, where the point at which the curve crosses the baseline corresponds to the peak maximum. The logistic function includes the familiar S-shaped curves that relate to the growth of bacteria and to enzyme kinetics such as those of Michaelis and Menton.

The Hubbert curve (peak) may be defined as:

Q(t) = Q(max)/(1 + ae^bt),

where Q(max) is the total recoverable amount of crude oil in the ground to start off with, Q(t) is the cumulative production (i.e. how much oil has been pulled out of the ground to date) and a and b are constants. Accordingly, the year of maximum production (peak oil) is given by:

t(max) = (1/b)ln(1/a),

and for the world altogether, with a peak discovery year of 1965, this appears as 2005. There is much speculation and analysis that oil production has already peaked, and it is my suggestion that enhanced recovery methods alone have maintained the present output of oil, much of it from the giant fields in the Middle East. It is obvious that the resource is concentrated in only a few particular regions of the Earth, vide supra, and also Russia, South America and Indonesia. Countries such as Iraq and Iran may become swing-producers, i.e. that produce more oil than they use, and I have read opinions to the effect that the Iraq war if not started in the interests of obtaining oil for the West, might become a worthy swing-producer, thus averting economic starvation at least for a few years. Iraq has about 140 billion barrels of oil, and Iran about the same, and so at a level consumption of 30 billion barrels a year for the world in total, we might get almost 10 years worth of supply from there. It is significant that Western companies such as BP and ExxonMobil have been granted 30 year contracts to exploit the Iraqi oil.

Not everybody agrees with the Hubbert analysis and some argue that we will be able to access around four times as much oil as there is present under the Earth in the form of crude-oil, by which they mean the Canadian tar-sands, oil shale, oil made from coal or from gas, biomass and so on. However, this does Hubbert a considerable disservice because he was talking explicitly about cheap oil, and it is this that will inexorably run out, most likely during the next 5 - 10 years. Hence there is no consolation to be found in any putative 3.7 trillion barrels of oil figure, because bringing that into reality will be extremely expensive both financially (to take an economist's standpoint) and more precisely in terms of the energy and other resources such as water that are mandatory in those actions necessary to do so.

We are not about to run out of oil. We will be able to produce hydrocarbons (oil) for decades to come, but not at the cheap prices we are used to. I am working on a rough figure of assuming that everything (and I mean everything - food, clothes, and all else) will cost about twice what it does now in that 5 - 10 year period. That would correspond to a $200 barrel. This will be uncomfortable especially for those who already bear considerable debts, particularly in the UK, which is the most indebted nation in Europe. We also drink more than anyone else apparently, and have a greater incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, which makes me think that the era of the "stiff upper lip" has rather passed for the English. Many of these problems may well be "cured" by a huge hiking-up of general costs in terms of booze, travel and the overused "plastic friend" - the credit card which often proves less than amicable.

Another feature of Britain is that we have "lost" most of our manufacturing industry, and so we buy cheap imports from e.g. China and therefore fuel the economic enterprise of that nation. Without imports to the West of washing machines, TV's and so on, the Chinese economy will grind onto the hard shoulder, and our own economy, based as it is around the "service sector" will crash too meaning that less service-businesses will survive if people have less cash in their pockets to buy their services, and an according loss of jobs in that industry.

The mathematics of Hubbert's theory is very interesting but as I have pointed out before, there were only so many squares on that sheet of graph paper in reflection that there is only so much cheap oil that can be drawn up from the Earth, [i.e. Q(max) in the above equation], hence no matter what values we chose for the constants (a) and (b) or whether we use a Gaussian or Lorenzian distribution or some other mathematical device, the future of humanity will unfold, in ways that will be only evident to later history, upon a world devoid of cheap oil, and to kid ourselves otherwise is an act of addicted denial. We need to plan a society based on localised communities and less dependent on apparently limitless cheap transport, and cheap products made from oil.


(1) http://www.energybulletin.net/print.php?id=13650
(2) http://www.answers.com/topic/hubbert-curve?linktext+Hubbert%20
(3) "The Hubbert Curve: Its strengths and weaknesses" By, J.H.Laherrere: http://dieoff.org/page191.ht,m
(4) "Hubbert's Peak - the mathematics behind it", By Luis de Sousa: http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/hubbertmaths
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory

Corn ethanol requirements passed by senators??

Someone on one of my lists just posted this link of a chart presented by Matthew Simmons on corn ethanol requirements recently passed by the senate. Oh boy , this puts "eminent domain" in a whole new light....this means I might have to move to Michigan or Ohio!

business.iafrica.com: "Oil at $87 a barrel is cheap"

Click here for full story.

Snippet:
..."According to US government forecasts, world petroleum liquids consumption is expected to increases from 83 million barrels per day in 2004 to 118 million barrels per day in 2030.

That's an increase of almost 30 percent and there are not enough new oil reserves to meet this demand.

"The price of oil has to increase otherwise it would be betraying the laws of economics," said White.

"I bet that in 10 year's time after the Asian population has boomed and gentrified and peak oil has hit home hard, you will have to agree with me that oil at $87 a barrel was cheap, cheap, cheap," he said. ..."

Catching up to party on the edge

Greetings. If anybody is left still checking back on me to see if I've posted anything new, I apologize for the lack of activity. This year has not been good for the family. My father-in-law passed away June 25th after a prolonged illness that began in March which required much attention. My grandfather who will be 99 September 9th has also been ill requiring still more of my attention up to this date. I am now guardian of his person. Also, Wednesday, I assisted my daughter in returning to college.

All of this is in between the full-time job. So, I've virtually attained no goals for myself this summer like I had planned. I have a garden but it is nothing like I had wanted or had planned. I'll be lucky to get much produce at all because I was so late in planting everything out. I've only managed to make it to the Farmer's Market once this summer because of my work hours and then also because of having to take care of or do things for others during the times the market was open. So, in other words, I haven't even been able to practice food preservation methods. But things are winding down a little now, and I am beginning to have time to catch up.

I have been able to track the stock markets these past 2 weeks. Yikes. I managed to switch over some funds and minimize my losses this week by switching 33% to a money market in my 403b. (It's not like I have tons of investments making tons of money, okay? I'm just practicing for when I'm rich! lol) In the 403b, one cannot withdraw what has been put into it unless it's needed for education expenses or extreme hardship circumstances. So, I just put as little in it as possible--despite it's growth in the last 3 years. I studied my prospectus, found the most peak oil-friendly fund offered (utilities & communications) which isn't saying much, and deposited 33% into it the past few years since learning about peak oil. It has rewarded me in small measures. It has been the highest yielding performance fund and only this week did it drop some...but not as badly as the rest. I also had about $700 sitting in some fund I don't contribute to anymore and just moved it over to my fixed, too. I had forgotten about it. No sense in having it sucked up when the markets yo-yo around like this!

Overall, I agree with many of the experts that it's not looking good long term. I'm not putting much "stock" in my funds (pun intended!). The most important advice I can give someone new to peak oil who is reading this post is to invest in the things you would need to live in a lower energy world. Any investments having to do with this fiat money system is probably futile. First think "get out of debt", and then secondly think "barter & trade"!

Although I'm still behind on reading my peak oil discussion board emails, I've had time to read some. Among them, I've found a few good websites that people have referred to on the discussion lists. The first link can be found on live journal by clickinghere. There are many different additional links found there as well. For those of you who like to mix your liberal politics with peak oil, click here.

Finally, I stumbled onto another live journal blogger who has written a little synopsis that I can relate to very much. Here it is, and it's title is called "Partying on the edge of the twilight zone".

Catching up. Partying on the edge. It's so difficult to try to have one foot in one world and the other in another.

Global warming's impact already costs plenty;

CEO Economic Update: Global warming's impact already costs plenty;
from the page: "The mathematical model looked at the future cost of oil, its related chemical and rubber end products, metals, and the cost of electricity. In short, it was a comprehensive look at how the world might change if Kyoto was enacted, and doing so would be expensive. So expensive, API concluded solutions should be left to future and richer generations.

Ten years later, per capita GDP has grown by $6,000, so we are certainly richer. But more importantly, the other side of the argument is becoming clearer: The cost of doing nothing has an attachable dollar cost.

Back when the simulations were being drawn up, the cost of doing nothing was unclear. Today, with hundreds of destroyed building, and tens of thousands dead, it's time to weigh the cost of doing something against the cost of doing nothing.

Chart: No matter the measurement, warming is on the rise."

http://pbp.typepad.com/economy/2007/06/global_warmings.html

The Nation: The Establishment Rethinks Globalization

Important article to spread and give to congress people, click here. After reading this, compare to Wendell Berry's "The Idea of a Local Economy" essay if you can get a hold of it. He has some great and promising ideas.