Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 1190 Location: Zoorope
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:59 am Post subject: My Europe trip (preparedness)
I was on a 20 days Europe trip for my vacation. I bought newspapers, and got acid in the stomach for what was happening in oil prices while I was away and couldn't read the forum!
Anyway, I took the opportunity to look around. This is what I've seen from a tourist perspective, which is of course not scientific in any way, but is good to get a "taste".
Germany - Gasoline at 1,21 per liter (about $5,58 per gallon). Lot of big cars (Mercedes, Audi, BMW) running at fastest speed on highways (no limits there). Recycling garbage everywhere (in supermarkets too you have to differentiate paper, glass etc.!) Some wind, some solar.
Nederland - Lots of solar roofs and wind on every smallest hill. Every house has a vegetable garden. Most people go around cycling, car use is strongly discouraged (gasoline at $ 5,70 per gallon), speed limits are severe, park tickets are skyrocketed (€ 2 for 1 hour parking!). No more than 1 car per average family, and about 5 bycicles. Some recycling.
London - No preparedness at all, for what I've seen. Too busy with terror alerts.
Italy - Just 20 days of absence, and found 2 astonishing thing: TV commercials about saving energy aired million times during the Olimpycs, and a campaign from the National Energy Company to switch into solar (with money help and low bank interests.) _________________ **no english mothertongue**
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Objects in the rear view mirror
are closer than they appear.
Joined: May 31, 2004 Posts: 920 Location: Brno, Czech rep., EU
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:31 am Post subject:
Czech republic - gasoline at $1 per liter, cities having problems with excess car traffic, but everyone has a bike too. Some recycling, virtually no renewables. Powerplants produce 60% of extra energy that goes for export, not a single gas or oil power plant, ministry of industry announces plan to support new nuclear plants, and achieve 10% renewables. No public announcements about peak oil, most media continue reporting that prices rise because of political instability.
But ... this is what I wrote in different thread, lost after hacking attack:
My mother works as an director of institute for mentally ill people (it's governmentally and city funded institution) and she recently received weird documents from government.
They actually deal with future oil crisis. There are for example listed special gas pumps where utilities and gov. organization will be able to get fuel. Gas station recommended for her institution is currently ordinary commercial station, but in case of crisis it will serve for public institutions.
Documents also contains list of various institutions and utilities that will be able to get fuel there in case of crisis, they are prioritized to different classes, hospitals, police, firemen and other "basic" services were of course in class with highest priority.
Document's required her to report back possible storage facilities, and monthly consumption, plus how "necessary" it is. It also advised to store fuel right now if it's possible and safe within institution.
Further documents contained information about special chip cards that will be given to these institution in case of crisis. It's basically oil rationing for gov. institutions.
So it seems that at least my stupid government is actually aware of possible problems and has some backup plan for critical first months or years. And they have no objective reason to fear right now, oil supply is stable, from multiple sources, refineries have back-ups, strategic reserves full, gas end-prices stable and unaffected by global prices much.
Government never declared anything publicly about possible problems, yet they are obviously silently preparing.
Joined: May 31, 2004 Posts: 920 Location: Brno, Czech rep., EU
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:55 am Post subject:
Oh, I forget about one stupid thing current goverment plans - special bold social benefits for young families with kids, to improve birth rate, because population is declining here..
Better late then never I guess......Except London. But who likes those damnedable snobbish Brits anyways, aside from their tea. They do have good tea.
Damn uppity colonials...
Fuel prices over here vary depending on type, but over a dollar per litre - I don't drive so I'm not sure. Recycling's varies depending on region, it's mandatory in some areas (mine included) but not in others, so it varies a lot. They're cutting grants for installation of solar power, however, which is a little odd as the government's objective is 10% of power from rewnewables by 2010.
Better late then never I guess......Except London. But who likes those damnedable snobbish Brits anyways, aside from their tea. They do have good tea.
Damn uppity colonials...
Fuel prices over here vary depending on type, but over a dollar per litre - I don't drive so I'm not sure. Recycling's varies depending on region, it's mandatory in some areas (mine included) but not in others, so it varies a lot. They're cutting grants for installation of solar power, however, which is a little odd as the government's objective is 10% of power from rewnewables by 2010.
LOL!!
As they say in that weak roll over and give in country of France....
Touche.
Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 56 Location: New-Brunswick, Canada
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:40 pm Post subject:
Germany - Gasoline at 1,21 per liter? Wow.
Europe is very much different from the Americas. The mentality is very different as well I should say... They say Europe is one step ahead when it comes to environment and energy.
Thanks for sharing your observations with us Barbara.
Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1180 Location: England
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:54 pm Post subject:
Barbara's accusation that Britain is doing nothing is a little harsh. How does visiting one city qualify whether a country is doing anything or not?
Still a long way to go but the UK is a zillion light years ahead of the US. The UK consumes 10 barrels of oil per day per person, this is 26 in the US. Petrol is circa $6 per gallon highest in Europe. As for primary energy consumption the US uses 7.9 tonnes per person per year vs the UK at 3.7. The UK already is aiming at 20% renewables by 2020, is investing in 350,000 tonnes of bio diesal production in 2005 with a view to further expansion. Recycling is being spread to all parts of the country with targets of of 25% for all domestic waste to be recycled by 2010.
The UK is at least recognising the problem , and hopefully speed this process if the SHTF earlier than expected.
Welcome back Barbara! I was wondering what happened to you. Especially after you started the Peakoil.community thread. Take a look and tell us your thoughts.
Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 1190 Location: Zoorope
Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 5:03 pm Post subject:
Permanently,
no, I don't qualify: I premised it was just a tourist point of view. But I believe that, if a feeling is enough strong in a country, you can perceive it being a tourist. My main perception in London was the terror alerts attention. In the continent, nobody ever mention terror (but in my country, of course, Berlusconi is doing his job as part of the axis-of-terror-alerts).
tkn,
thank you for the welcome!
Licho,
happy to see you again. I've read your message at an Internet cafe in Holland. It shocked me. I think it deserves a whole thread, please open it. _________________ **no english mothertongue**
--------
Objects in the rear view mirror
are closer than they appear.
Joined: Aug 13, 2004 Posts: 115 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 3:28 am Post subject:
Permanently_Baffled wrote:
Barbara's accusation that Britain is doing nothing is a little harsh. How does visiting one city qualify whether a country is doing anything or not?
Still a long way to go but the UK is a zillion light years ahead of the US.... The UK is at least recognising the problem , and hopefully speed this process if the SHTF earlier than expected.
Apologies if i sound defensive !!
Cheers
PB
Have to agree with you PB. As an American who has lived in Ol' Blighty for 10 years, there is a lot of positive stuff happening here. Even wind power will come along nicely if the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) can be dissuaded from fighting every wind turbine.
Our council is one of the best in the EU as recycling and others are improving. My only concern about riding it out here is: 60 million folks in a not so big island - will there be food enough? The latitude and cloud cover also hurts solar potential. I am starting raised-bed gardening next summer to re-learn food production but will probably return to the US before SHTF if poss.
Still a long way to go but the UK is a zillion light years ahead of the US. The UK consumes 10 barrels of oil per day per person, this is 26 in the US.
Where'd you get that figure from? That would mean the UK's consuming over 600 million barrels a day - our 2001 consumption was 1.7million (Source).
Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1180 Location: England
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 9:53 am Post subject:
[quote="JackBob"]
Permanently_Baffled wrote:
Have to agree with you PB. As an American who has lived in Ol' Blighty for 10 years, there is a lot of positive stuff happening here. Even wind power will come along nicely if the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) can be dissuaded from fighting every wind turbine.
Our council is one of the best in the EU as recycling and others are improving. My only concern about riding it out here is: 60 million folks in a not so big island - will there be food enough? The latitude and cloud cover also hurts solar potential. I am starting raised-bed gardening next summer to re-learn food production but will probably return to the US before SHTF if poss.
Cheers!
JacKBob
If you got to the Defra website and look at land use ( the figures are also available at the office of national statistics) , we only use 4.5m hectares out of 18m hectares for crop production. Sure there will be less to eat , but starve to death? i don't think so. The other positive is that at least the farms are closer to market so to speak.
Also we have at least some of our own oil supply, we still have 938,000 barrels per day(half our current consumption) until 2020 (2.3m bpd at moment then expected 5% reduction per year), so presumably this will be prioritised for food and food transport.
Is it true a lot of fertilizer is made from Natural gas? again we have a good supply of this from Norway and Russian for decades.
Also Eire is has very low population density so they may actually be able to help us out. They have loads of peat as well for fertililzers/composts etc.
As for NIMBY's , screw them i say , hell they can put a couple of wind turbines in my garden if they want , or on my roof ! I'm sure people realise what is at stake they will soon change there minds!
Conclusion: manual labour, lower standard of living, lots of recycling and walking/cycling to work. But not all out anarchy in my humble opinion.
Joined: Aug 13, 2004 Posts: 115 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:19 pm Post subject:
[quote="Permanently_Baffled"]
JackBob wrote:
Permanently_Baffled wrote:
Have to agree with you PB. As an American who has lived in Ol' Blighty for 10 years, there is a lot of positive stuff happening here. Even wind power will come along nicely if the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) can be dissuaded from fighting every wind turbine.
Our council is one of the best in the EU as recycling and others are improving. My only concern about riding it out here is: 60 million folks in a not so big island - will there be food enough? The latitude and cloud cover also hurts solar potential. I am starting raised-bed gardening next summer to re-learn food production but will probably return to the US before SHTF if poss.
Cheers!
JacKBob
If you got to the Defra website and look at land use ( the figures are also available at the office of national statistics) , we only use 4.5m hectares out of 18m hectares for crop production. Sure there will be less to eat , but starve to death? i don't think so. The other positive is that at least the farms are closer to market so to speak....
Conclusion: manual labour, lower standard of living, lots of recycling and walking/cycling to work. But not all out anarchy in my humble opinion.
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Wow.
I'm sure people realise what is at stake they will soon change there minds!
