Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Peak Oil to Prepare (farmers, wheat)

[IndigoLight]

I also wanted to add that there are many components to the topic of peak oil.
First, it is considered a "rear view mirror" concept/phenomenon as it cannot be seen while happening, but can be recognized only after we passed (drove by ) it.
It is not a secret that the oil production world wide has been declining for the last several years.
The US oil production peaked in 70's, Russia's in 80's, and the Saudi Arabia is believed to have passed peak oil some time in 2005.
Nobody knows for sure how much oil is left. Oil producing countries keep their reserves numbers secret. Saudi Arabia will never admit that they passed peak oil, because if they did, and they own the biggest oil field ever discovered, then the rest of the oil producing countries passed it long time ago. And who wants to admit that it's all downhill from here?
Second, not all oil is located at the same spot. Some areas are obviously more accessible and oil is easier to extract.
Third, not all oils are created equal. Some are cleaner and easier (i.e.cheaper) to refine.
And thus, we come to energy economics: energy returned on energy invested (EROEI).
Quiet a few places (Canadian tar sands are a perfect example) are not cost effective if one takes in consideration the amounts of fresh water and already refined oil used to extract and refine oil. And we didn't even touch the environmental impact.
Another thing to keep in mind is just because there is an oil reserve somewhere, doesn't mean the oil can be extracted or extracted completely.

Just my two cents.

[IndigoLight]

stonecypher5413, thank you for the link and for starting this thread.

[Countrysue]

Here in Louisiana, they are starting to exploit oil shale. Oil and lots of gas. I have been told by people in the business that there is oil off our coasts, but the Feds won't let them drill for it. This is not deep water drilling.

My husband was in the business for over 40 years. He always said that the worst thing they did was to appoint Feds to oversee drilling. The BP oil spill proved that. BP actually wrote the inspection reports that the Feds signed off on.

I don't know how much oil we actually have left, but sooner or later we will run out.

I also believe that any new energy source will come from private sources, not the Feds.

[2018]

Here's an article giving the other side of this issue.

The same author wrote another piece debunking popular renewable technologies.

We need to reduce energy use, plain and simple. There is no easy answer (though nuclear may be more necessary in the future).

[MTSilvertip]

There are options available, but the research is being done overseas.
U.S. Researcher Preparing Prototype Cars Powered by Heavy-Metal Thorium

In the US the green lobby has restricted research to basically solar/wind and a little is being done in Hydrogen. The grant monies are all going to those limited areas, and the only way to get the money to look at alternatives to oil and gas are to incorporate a useless solar panel or wind turbine into the design that may or may not add to the efficency of the unit, but that is where the money is.

Current wind and solar generation systems are being built using tax money, and could not survive on their own against coal or nuclear power or hydro power for cost per KWH, but as long as those "green" systems are supplimented with tax dollars, and built by grants from the federal government, they will be built until the money runs out.

Too bad they can't produce the power we need to run this country. Spain learned that the hard way.

[stonecypher5413]

Originally Posted by IndigoLight

stonecypher5413, thank you for the link and for starting this thread.

You're welcome! Like with AGW, I don't argue the point anymore with Peak Oil Deniers since it's a zero-sum game and won't change anybody's mind, including mine! Those who choose to ignore and reject the concept of Peak Oil have made their bed -- we'll see if they get to lie in it.

I posted the two links because of valuable prepping information, especially from the second one (the Wiki).

Here's one excerpt:

Websites:

• PostPeakLiving.com -- excellent website. Has subpages broken down by category
• www.preparingforpeakoil.com Downloadable book: Crash Course: Preparing for Peak Oil, by Zachary Nowack
• Surviving Peak Oil: Planning, Preparation, and Relocation Blog by Clifford Wirth
• Book: Dare to prepare
• Peak Oil Info & Strategies --> with link to book
• BeyondPeak.com website and online book Peak Oil Prep: Prepare for Peak Oil, Climate Change and Economic Collapse by Mick Winter
• 100 Things You Can Do to Get Ready for Peak Oil by Sharon Astyk
• LifeAfterTheOilCrash.net forum thread on preparation links and info
• PeakOil.com threads (http://www.peakoil.com/forum8.html - broken link) on peak oil preparation
• SelfSuffientish.com The urban guide to almost self sufficiency (Urban Homesteading)
• Personal Survival Skills by students at the University of AZ
• Portland Peak Oil
• Meetup.com Find a Peak Oil Meetup Group near you
• Relocalize.net - The Relocalization Network
• www.peakoilstories.com Peak Oil headlines and survival strategies by Neil Nolan.

[Mac_Muz]

Originally Posted by IndigoLight

My friend, it may surprise you, but China does have emission standards.
One of the reasons they don't import as many American cars is because our cars do not live up to their emission standards.

"Due to rapidly expanding wealth and prosperity, the number of coal power plants and cars on China's roads is rapidly growing, creating an ongoing pollution problem. China enacted its first emissions controls on automobiles in 2000, equivalent to Euro I standards. China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) upgraded emission controls again on July 1, 2004 to the Euro II standard.[6] More stringent emission standard, National Standard III, equivalent to Euro III standards, went into effect on July 1, 2007.[7] Plans are for Euro IV standards to take effect in 2010. Beijing introduced the Euro IV standard in advance on January 1, 2008, became the first city in mainland China to adopt this standard."

Emission standard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Odd, in Discovery Magazine i was reading about a month ago, about the chinese and there sence of manufacturing, things with coal. The photos were as dark as dusk at high noon.

As an x foreign car tech, I am not much liking the sight of poor castings and the like on chinese built engines for anything. I just bought a cheap junk chinese cultivator and it isn't 30 days old and it's already munged up.

Evidently they can't make a proper stop/ kill/ ground switch either. I will have to get a new switch, but it won't be made in China.

Another odd thing is my work builds brand new machines to go to china. 3 last month were shipped. I can't figure out why they haven't built there own yet, as cheap junk knock offs.

I suspect they use the crates and shipping plastics for new housing.

If I ever live so long to be impressed by something modern made and from Red Commie China I will be sure to let you know. There were a lot better at 14th century tech than they are now.

[IndigoLight]

Originally Posted by Mac_Muz

As an x foreign car tech, I am not much liking the sight of poor castings and the like on chinese built engines for anything. I just bought a cheap junk chinese cultivator and it isn't 30 days old and it's already munged up.

I've read some hilarious stories about "on the ground industry spying" in China, when employee works on a certain machine for some time and then goes to work for a competitor, gets extra money because he is going to reveal "a secret" about the machine the competitor doesn't have, and draws blueprints from memory of the machine (or from his understanding of how they may look). The machine is built. Needless to say, it doesn't work properly or doesn't work at all as employee lacks education in the blueprint department. There are so many opportunists, so many mom'n'pop shops that open on Monday and close and move on Friday.
I bet your cultivator came from one of these shops

On a serious note though, we get what we pay for.
We settle for inferior product in order to save a few bucks, we don't demand quality, so wherever we go there we are.
Our country is becoming one big Wal-mart

[Nolegator]

Many Americans think that politics is the only reason the US is not energy self-sufficient. They think that "no-good socialists" and "liberal tree huggers" are preventing us from fulfilling our Manifest Destiny to drill, baby, drill in the ANWR regions of Alaska and US territorial waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

The harsh reality is that even if you took politics and environmental protection out of equation completely, US domestic production will never come close to meeting our demand. Depending on whose estimates you believe, Alaska and the Gulf have between 15 and 25 billion barrels in reserves. Even if every drop was economically feasible to remove (which it likely isn't), the entire reserves would last the US two to four years at our current consumption rate of 7 billion barrels a year (which is only going up).

The biggest short-term crisis we face in regards to oil is the risk of a major political upheaval in Venezuela or Saudi Arabia, a scenario that is not so unlikely given recent world events. The standard of living in Saudi Arabia has considerably worsened in the past decade and millions of young men are without work. After the Arab Spring revolutions this year, King Abdullah got scared and earmarked over $130 billion in social welfare to his people. This is essentially a short-term bribe. But how long will this money last? Without lasting reform the house of the al-Sauds could collapse and militant Islamists could take over. The disruption of Saudi oil production would cause enormous economic damage to the world economy.

[Mac_Muz]

IndigoLight, I'ld tell you the name brand, but i can't pronounce it, or attempt to spell it

Man did I have weeds, and i didn't care if it weeded the iles once. I knew I wasn't going to like it before i bought it. The carb has 0 adjustments, which is a key item to know the rest of the engine is junk. 2 strokes change after 'break in' and you need to be able to adjust them for a little more fuel.

I have tricks for that, but they sure do take longer.

China has all sorts of wild regs for us to ship to them.

All wood crates must be made of proven, stamped bug free wood and materials, which increases costs for shipping, by a heck of alot.

Also every thing must be new, no refab items. I do so enjoy sending to China SAE nuts, bolts and allen set screws on machine we build here.

I can't figure out why the chinese haven't built knock offs of what we build either. Maybe they have and they can't get it right.