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Well, hey, Krazee, what's your advice then for people who want to become more self-sufficient by moving to a rural area to be able to grow a garden and raise micro-livestock? Stay in that townhouse tied to the grid and just forget the dream because they weren't born into a farming family or have a thousand acres like you do?
"Wacky survivalists" (which include hobby farmers) will be the ones who "inherit the Earth" no matter what cataclysm or economic collapse occurs.
If there is ever a collapse it will hit everywhere. The rural folks will feel it the hardest. They have grown even far more dependent on transportation fuel than city folk who can still walk to the store when the fuel stops flowing. Nearly all farmers drive to far away towns now days for supplies. They are no longer survivalist.
I have tried some of this off grid crap. My farm is in one of the windiest locations in the state. So I found a guy on craigslist who bought a big wind, solar & battery system but the city ordinance would not allow him to install it. He sold me all the stuff for half of the cheapest price I found on-line. So I figured if it did not work that I could resell it for more, so how could I go wrong? I installed the 10kw wind turbine & 3kw solar panels with 6 large batteries for back-up.
I thought it was great at first. It put out a lot of power when the wind blew for 2 days. Then for 5 days no wind & not much sun. Then a lot more wind. This time the regulator did not hold & overcharged all the batteries. So there went the storage & back-up part of the system. Then a storm came & the electronic brake controller failed. The turbine could only survive a 70+ mph wind if the electric brake locked the rotor.
The turbine spun to fast in the wind & a blade broke & went flying off like shrapnel busting my window. This made the entire turbine shake violently busting the casting of the generator housing, the tail section & the 2 remaining blades went flying off & busted 4 solar panels. The only remaining parts of the system was the grid tied inverter & the pole that the wind turbine sat on. It only lasted 3 weeks & was a huge waste of money, time, energy & natural resources.
That could happen to anyone of us, KrazeeKrewe. Many "home generation units" I have seen on the 'Net are basic and simple units, things 'any child could put together in an hour' - that simply cannot handle various conditions. Their regulators are cheaply made and will blow out, their blades and generators are poorly conceived and badly executed - basically what I'm seeing is a lot of 'manufacturers' both home-based and business-devolved, jumping onto the bandwagon of the "natural energy boom" as just another get-rich-quick scheme.
DH and I are quietly still researching our own path on this matter. We live in a very windy area, too. I have seen solar panels smashed here from hail and high winds (as Ron White says - "It isn't that the wind is blowing - it is what the wind is blowing!"). I have seen water-pumping windmills with their blades ripped from their sockets, and the giant wind turbine that the Rez put up six years ago has been 'down' and inoperable now the last three years, as maintenance on it is so expensive as to be prohibitive.
We have yet to find a reasonable and sustainable alternative that is trustworthy in our high-wind area (last night the Weather channel optimistically claimed we were getting 24 mph gusts; they were actually up to 50 - which is not unusual!) as well as reasonably affordable and easily maintained. It is quite frustrating to carefully examine all of these 'alternatives' that will only end up lining some salespersons' pockets, leaving us literally in the dark were we to depend on them.
Dr. Michael Mills, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, has put together some truly impressive presentations about Peak Oil that are a valuable resource for preppers:
He's so full of crap it isn't even funny. Listening to people like him will get you killed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
I'm not sure I accept the premise of 'peak oil'.
There isn't any.
At least not in your life-time, and not for the next century.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bolillo_loco
If I recall correctly, Hubbert predicted America’s peak and then the world’s peak.
That would be blatantly incorrect.
Hubble predicted the peaks at that time in history.
Hubble was not aware of the fact that Central Asia has 5x to 7x more oil than all of the Middle East and North Africa.
Hubble was also not aware that eastern Russia has twice as much oil as all of Central Asia.
Had Hubble been aware of those facts, he would have revised his statement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bolillo_loco
This is what shocks me about the Average American. The average person is completely oblivious about what's going on when it comes to energy, how we consume it, and how the world uses it as well as emerging energy consuming markets.
You mean like you?
Congratulations. You made a novice, newbie, FNG error conflating energy and oil.
If only the US used oil to produce electricity.....but it doesn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bolillo_loco
We consume a large portion of the world’s oil, yet we’re almost 5% of the world’s population. If 25% of the world’s population consumed oil at our rate, it would dry up very quickly.
No, it wouldn't. The concept is Demand Destruction.
Demand Destruction is why all Peak Oil (snicker) theories fail.
Peak Oilers have this cow-dung induced hallucinogenic fantasy that oil will be $1,000 per barrel and people will continue to pay for it.
It doesn't work that way. As oil prices rise, demand decreases until the price plateaus then starts decreasing.
As production in Central Asia ramps up, and remember Central Asia has 5x to 7x more oil than all of the Middle East and North Africa, it will offset declining production in MENA and then eventually overtake production in MENA.
And then eventually the Russians will start developing their eastern fields, which have twice as much oil as Central Asia (which has 5x to 7x more than the Middle East and North Africa).
And Central Asia and eastern Russia are loaded with coal and natural gas too.
You all can work yourself up into a frenzy if you want, but nothing is going to happen very slowly.
Actually, the worse problem for you is not Peak Oil, rather it is all of that oil and natural gas in Central Asia and eastern Russia being sold in Euros, Rubles and basket currencies, and not in US Dollars.
That will harm your economy worse than Peak Oil ever could.
That's the real reason you invaded Iraq and Afghanistan...to protect your economic future by gaining control of Central Asia (and then later eastern Russia) so that you can guarantee that oil and natural gas is sold in US Dollars (in the same way you control OPEC and the oil is sold in US Dollars).
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTSilvertip
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.
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Originally Posted by 2018
We need to reduce energy use, plain and simple. There is no easy answer (though nuclear may be more necessary in the future).
More new guy errors by people who confuse energy with oil.
Build 900 Quadrillion wind turbines, cover the US in wall-to-wall solar panels, and build a nuclear power plant in every home and business and you will decrease your oil usage exactly...
....(drum-roll please)....ZERO PERCENT.
Congratulations on that stunning achievement.
You should both be president.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
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!
An English translation of that would be you got beat and mauled so badly you took your toys and went home.
Sorry, but Peak Oil does not operate in a vacuum outside the Laws of Economics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac_Muz
What is your opinion on man made shortages? I'ld like to add criteria to that comment, but will refrain.
Who cares?
If you learned anything from the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, you learned that the price of oil is inelastic in the short-term, but elastic in the long-term.
What that means is that people will grudgingly pay the price....for a while...before they start taking other actions, like seeking substitutes. So they'll combine trips, cut trips out, car-pool, use mass transit, or alternative transportation, or purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles.
That's why you won't ever seen another oil embargo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jambo101
A big topic on oil and no one has brought up the Abiotic theory?
Is a joke.
That theory first appeared in the 1930s and in 80 years, how many oil fields have been found?
Wow, a whole three oil fields. Two in Russia and one in Vietnam. And they aren't even worth mentioning. In fact, you can't even prove the oil is abiotic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
"Wacky survivalists" (which include hobby farmers) will be the ones who "inherit the Earth" no matter what cataclysm or economic collapse occurs.
If only the US used oil to produce electricity.....but it doesn't.
True dat.
Where's my buddy coalman? He and I agree that the US primarily uses coal to produce electricity. If you doubt it, c'mon out to my neck of the woods - well, about 100 miles south of me. You can sit for a single day and count literally thousands of coal cars on the railroad tracks, loaded down, heading east.
Between coal, water generators, and nuclear generators, oil is the least cost-efficient for producing electricity.
Oil is necessary for driving the big trucks and powering the diesel train engines, as well as running the smaller trucks, even the little midget UPS and FedEx trucks, to get food and supplies to every part of the country. Oil -or propane, or natural gas - are used to heat homes, and can be used to run small home-based or small-business systems of refrigeration, water heating, cooking, etc - but in the big scheme of things they are not the main source of power.
The things that concern me are not "peak oil" , they are the faulty grid systems that need replacing/updating, the politics of manipulating fuel prices to reduce/control transport of both humans and supplies, and the political manipulation of fuel prices to affect home heating systems. As Mircea alluded, the population can choose to take fewer trips, heat with other resources, and for the most part refuse to be manipulated.
Let's not confuse the whole "peak oil" faith-based healing with the realities of who is actually doing what to whom - and why.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,776,945 times
Reputation: 7185
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCGranny
True dat.
Where's my buddy coalman? He and I agree that the US primarily uses coal to produce electricity. If you doubt it, c'mon out to my neck of the woods - well, about 100 miles south of me. You can sit for a single day and count literally thousands of coal cars on the railroad tracks, loaded down, heading east.
Between coal, water generators, and nuclear generators, oil is the least cost-efficient for producing electricity.
Oil is necessary for driving the big trucks and powering the diesel train engines, as well as running the smaller trucks, even the little midget UPS and FedEx trucks, to get food and supplies to every part of the country. Oil -or propane, or natural gas - are used to heat homes, and can be used to run small home-based or small-business systems of refrigeration, water heating, cooking, etc - but in the big scheme of things they are not the main source of power.
The things that concern me are not "peak oil" , they are the faulty grid systems that need replacing/updating, the politics of manipulating fuel prices to reduce/control transport of both humans and supplies, and the political manipulation of fuel prices to affect home heating systems. As Mircea alluded, the population can choose to take fewer trips, heat with other resources, and for the most part refuse to be manipulated.
Let's not confuse the whole "peak oil" faith-based healing with the realities of who is actually doing what to whom - and why.
Good post. I seriously doubt that there will ever come a day when we all throw our hands up and say "Well, we're out of oil - guess we're screwed" for a number of different reasons, I don't think power generation is going to be an emergent problem for our grandchildren even and I don't really think that transportation fuel is going to be the problem that it's being touted as.
The problem is that we're growing and reproducing too fast and building too many houses and buildings that are demanding too much power from undersized infrastructure and that is going to be ruinously expensive to fix from any angle. That's one department where we ARE on a course for hitting a wall and it will be orders of magnitude more difficult to change course with power delivery than it will be to change course with fuel and transportation.
I happen to be at a Heavy Oil conference this week. I knew a little about it but was amazed to find out how much is actually being developed at the moment. The interesting thing with relation to Peak Oil is the fact that there are known reserves of nine trillion barrels of heavy oil which nicely compares to the one trillion barrels of oil that has been used to date. It's always the case that not all of the nine trillion will be recoverable but recovery in some fields is already quite high and the technology seems to be improving almost daily. Don't think we're going to run out any time soon.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,776,945 times
Reputation: 7185
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer0101
I happen to be at a Heavy Oil conference this week. I knew a little about it but was amazed to find out how much is actually being developed at the moment. The interesting thing with relation to Peak Oil is the fact that there are known reserves of nine trillion barrels of heavy oil which nicely compares to the one trillion barrels of oil that has been used to date. It's always the case that not all of the nine trillion will be recoverable but recovery in some fields is already quite high and the technology seems to be improving almost daily. Don't think we're going to run out any time soon.
Even without heavy oil, Texas' Eagleford Shale play stretches about from Maverick County to Fayette County and conservative reserve estimates equate to 50-100 years worth of light crude at current consumption rates. The Gulf of Mexico has unfathomable reserves. The Dakotas have enormous reserves. Canada and Alaska have enormous reserves. There are several lifetimes worth of oil remaining and those reserves will be extended as alternative fuels progress. Natural gas is even more plentiful; it's almost ridiculous how easy it is to find dry gas - what's hard to find is gas that's sufficiently impregnated with condensate to be economic at current gas prices.
The question is how long fossil fuel prices can stay low enough to keep un-subsidized alternatives totally cost prohibitive.
You just gotta love it when someone signs on for the first time, obviously doesn't bother to read any previous posts on the topic, and immediately goes into self-promotion.
Some things I've been thinking about relative to this thread... just throwing them out there.
If there is a peak oil situation (either political or actual) what a lot of people don't think about is how many other things run on fuel. Tractors that haul hay rakes, plows; harvesters. Trucks and trains that haul produce from seaports and the "Corn Belt", "Potato Belt", "Beef Belt", "Citrus belt", etc. Earth movers. Snow plows. Garbage trucks. Ambulances and Fire trucks. Fishing trawlers. Even FedEx, USPS, and UPS, as well as the mail trucks.
For each and every type of these larger vehicles, there are already higher prices involved for those who use them and those who depend on them. If there is a 'peak oil', millions will starve because there is no food. Millions will freeze because there is no long steady stream of trains to haul the coal that fuels most of the power plants from one side of the country to the other. FedEx, USPS, and UPS won't bring you the replacement parts for your chicken coop or the food storage you order, or even those chickens you ordered from the hatchery, the canning jars and lids you bought in bulk, the heirloom seed you ordered from the catalog. How will farmers plant or harvest their crops or ranchers harvest their hay to feed their cattle in the winter? Who will put out the fires and take the injured to the hospitals - when there is no fuel to run the vehicles or run the hospital generators? No more commercially-run farms, ranches, or production, because even the quonset-hut chicken coops that span acres have to be kept at a certain temperature, or all of the birds die.
If indeed this "peak oil" is true, we won't have to worry about how we will survive - most, probably about 80% - won't be able to. We have our own little networks of supplies, available produce, available fruit and corn and wheat and fish. When those are gone, and we cannot receive any more except by horse and buggy, most will die. THAT is what I see as what most folks don't understand - not just that they won't be able to drive across the country to visit Grandma any more. It's OK to believe that you can suffer a cataclysm of such events if you want to. However, I foresee far more people dying of starvation and cold than most people have the courage to predict during 'peak oil', simply because they do not take the ripple effect far enough, and do not understand its impact on our daily lives. Peak Oil would be a cataclysmic event similar to the Yellowstone caldera blowing - it isn't the loss of cars that would have the most impact, but the total loss of transportable goods and services that most have come to rely on and expect.
I agree with the last paragraph 100%.
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Have been preparing for 5 years..
