How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
Joined: May 19, 2004 Posts: 892 Location: San Francisco, California
Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 4:04 pm Post subject: my family's plans
I'm 33, married, and I have a good job at a high tech company in Silicon Valley. We don't have kids yet but we're planning on starting in the immediate future. Although we're not in debt, we don't own our home (half of a duplex) so our options are limited. We live in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. After reading about peak oil on and off since November, 2000, I'm convinced that folks like Matthew Simmons, Colin Campbell, and Kenneth Deffeyes are totally right (my father and wife are pretty convinced too). For one thing, even if it turned out tomorrow that the Peak Oil folks' numbers were too low by half, that would only postpone the peak by a little more than a decade.
Although we own a car, a 2001 Honda Civic sedan, I ride my bicycle and take commuter rail to work every day, a habit I feel adds to my quality of life, peak oil or no. We have reduced our fuel consumption to about 1 tank of gas/month. Living an urban California life, we don't really use a huge amount of energy compared to the average northern suburb-dweller. Our utility bills are often under $30/month and never over $100, even in the winter. We moved to a new, bigger place this summer -- it might cost a little more to heat. On the other hand, the heating system here is more efficient and of course, this is San Francisco! We could do without heating the place entirely.
I love San Francisco and we plan to stay here as long as possible, despite warnings to, "Get out of the city." Maybe this town will be spared the worst. Of all the large cities in the U.S., SF seems to me to have the best chance of coming through OK. Also, I think that urban life is less resource-intensive than suburban life. Nonetheless, we're starting to try to put together a possible plan B. Humboldt County seems like an attractive possibility if we were going to go rural. I grew up in a village in upstate New York and my wife is from rural Michigan so we can probably handle the reduced glamour of the country. :) I think that in the long term, we need to own our home, wherever it is. Also, my family owns property in northern Wisconsin -- however, that seems overly cold to me.
One thing I don't understand about peak oil is why conservation is viewed as unrealistic. It seems to me that there are huge opportunities for greater efficiency in transportation and domestic life -- how many large SUVs are there on the road every day carrying only a driver? Even though we're not big energy hogs, I can see opportunities to cut our energy use by half or more with no pain.
Professionally, I'm a computer programmer and data miner -- I used to work in bioinformatics, now I work in anti-spam. I aspire to call myself a scientist some day: I love computer programming and complex systems. Even after the peak, I hope to follow this career path. I don't think it's incompatible with a low-energy future.
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 3428 Location: California, USA
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 4:54 am Post subject:
John, the arguement some people make about conservation is that reduction in demand causes a temporary drop in prices that is sufficient to cause non-conserving players to increase demand, thereby using up the surplus. In other words, it's self-cancelling at the macro level.
I'm not sure I agree with that analysis, but there it is.
I tend to think that conservation (efficiency) is a good in its own right, because those who conserve are in a more robust position compared to those who don't. Even if it doesn't push back the peak on a macro scale, it would reduce the impact to some degree.
Even with conservation and all the reasonably sustainable energy sources possible (by which I also include nuclear fission, see also Lovelock's recent statements on this), humans tend to reproduce and increase consumption levels at a rate that will still outstrip energy and other resources within our lifetime. We will see what happens when we hit the limits to growth.
Re. land in Humboldt: a few of us in the Bay Area are talking along those lines. We're moderate & level-headed, and have worked out some of the thornier issues that could get in the way (e.g. zoning). If this interests you, get in touch.
Agreed, the Bay Area is a better metropolitan area to be in than most (I'm in Berkeley), but I still think it will be wise to hedge our bets in the direction of rural self-sufficiency.
Joined: Sep 28, 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:20 pm Post subject:
Mad Scientist wrote:
By fall I intend on having 10 years worth of firewood (trucks and chainsaws make this easy).
Most wood seasons in 7 months, but goes punky in about 7 years. Seasoned means that most of the water has evolved out of the wood, which makes the wood burn better. But the wood resin also evaporates, just more slowly. Once the flammable resins are gone, the "punky" firewood doesn't burn very well. I try to keep enough food for the next two winters ahead.
If you put some of that preservative chemical into gasoline, you might have fuel for the chainsaw for ten years or so after it becomes unavailable to anybody else. And, until then, you can "rotate" your fuel stock, replacing the oldest with the newest.
Aaron wrote:
How far do we think that the global economy will shrink before things like property ownership and economic investments will be meaningless? If the current averaged standard of living is what we enjoy today, how far will that standard drop before social unrest isn't on the TV anymore, it's out your window?
If we consider that the vast majority of people will meet post peak days almost wholly unprepared, that's billions of people, does that alter our priorities? Recession is nothing new of course, and even depression isn't unknown, but continued economic downturn in a systemic global way is new territory.
Social unrest just outside your window will be certain if you stay in a city or in any area, regardless of the degree of urbanization, where there are people of a kind that habitually engages in violent behavior. If, instead, you live among people who figure that their best chance for survival is in productive cooperation, rather than in savagery, and where the population density is low enough for such an expectation to be realistic, then you probably won't find civil unrest outside your window.
The die-off phase will come and go, and most of the dying will take place somewhere else.
When you and somebody else are running from a hungry bear, you don't need to outrun the bear. You only need to outrun the other guy. Times will get hard, and harder, and then hard to the point where people are starving and running around killing each other, but this very worst period will last only for a while. After that, the human population will again be in balance with the reduced human means to raise sustenance, and if you are one of the survivors to that time, the worst will be over.
There is a camp of thought that says our planet gets only one shot at developing a global civilization. The idea is that early civilizations require a relatively cheap and abundant source of energy to grow from pre-industrial models into post-industrial, modern civilization. In the absence of an easy to exploit energy source, they speculate that it may be impossible to make this transition. In our history, coal and the crude oil filled this need allowing for a rapid expansion of all aspects of modern civilization. They contend therefore, that if we fail as a species to make the next transition to a post-industrial model, before existing reserves of oil reach depletion levels, it would become impossible to lift ourselves back to current levels of civilization. Even worse, if human society fails this test, and collapses, no other species could hope to duplicate our experience because cheap, easy to exploit oil will be unavailable to them. To achieve the level of technology which could free us from dependence on oil energy, they contend, requires a transitional energy source like oil. Since little oil would be left after depletion world-wide, it becomes impossible to "boot-strap" ourselves past this point making the rise of modern industrial civilization a one shot affair here on earth.
That idea was advanced by Sir Fred Hoyle.
Out there near Saturn, about a billion miles away, is a moon called Titan. It's surface is covered by an ocean of methane. Closer to us is the moon, where infrastructure could have been created from solar energy and available materials, powered by sunlight and, maybe, nuclear. Disposing of nuclear waste on the moon is simple: designate a large crater as "the dump" and never go in there without a radiation suit. In the asteroid belt are large deposits of metals and carbon compounds.
Technical civilization did not have to die. It will die, however, because of the silly idea that if one man has a cake, all other men deserve to get one, too. Most of the human population should have remained, despite famine, epidemic, hardship or war, at the medieval level of civilization. Only the most technically capable of our species should have had the use of fossil fuels, with the primary use being the acquisition of extraplanetary energy resources in anticipation of the day when there would be no more fossil fuels on Earth.
But it didn't happen this way, and now it is too late.
Aaron wrote:
This is by admission a worst case scenario for earth. And of course the universe is apparently filled with countless opportunities for life to develop elsewhere making the "single-shot" theory a sort of "weeding-out" of species on a universal scale. In the grand scheme of things, perhaps earth's failure to produce a species capable of making this transition is no more significant than any individual species failing to develop a sustainable niche for itself and becoming extinct. Just how arrogant are we?
Back to Sir Fred Hoyle. He is probably right. But I wouldn't "shrug" at the tragedy involved.
We all know that though the also-rans clap for the victorious Beauty Queen, their clapping covers the disappointment each of them feels for not having been chosen. It's not really a consolation that the beauty contest did, in fact, have a winner "it just wasn't me." When the girls who did not win return home, some of them will probably cry.
It is likewise with life in the universe. Mankind was given a chance to use the energy of fossil fuels to bootstrap his species to a position from which technological civilization could be carried on at some scale, though not on a planetary scale with billions of high-end energy users. The technological spark could have been kept alive indefinitely, but for the wrongheaded idealism that insisted we be liberals with acess to technology. Mankind's chance was wasted because we got all democratic and egalitarian about material benefits.
But for that mistake, our species could have been the one to ascend in the scale of consciousness toward what might as well be called godhood. Now, some other species will have to do what we failed to do. On some other planet, at some other time, nature's organizing principles will repeat the work it did over the past three billion years on Earth, perhaps with a better result. But it won't be us. Through the mistaken moral idealism of some of us, and by the avarice of others of us, Mankind is nearly finished as a technical species.
Joined: Sep 28, 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:34 pm Post subject:
Atr0p0s wrote:
Most eloquent.
It is nice to see someone looking at the entire thing on a larger scale. Maybe we are just one element of a galactic game that hasn't started yet. Maybe thousands of years from now, extraterrestrials who passed the test of beating peak oil on their planets will come to earth and dig up our ancient civilizations and say "Well. These guys messed up." and put us in history books as failures and export our primitive people for use as slaves.
Am I farfetched and corrupted by sci-fi? Absolutely But I don't rule out the possibility of a grander scope to things than we can possibly conceive from our roost on earth. The only way to find out will be to beat peak oil as a united human race.
That's partly right and partly wrong. Trying to "unite" the human race is a part of the mistake; it is not a part of the repair.
Nature improves species by first causing genetic differentiation and then waiting for the better to supplant the inferior. It happens in all species, and it has been happening for hundreds of millions of years. The winners live, and the losers die. The process begins anew with further differentiation and continues with further natural selection.
Somehow or other, humans came to believe that they were exceptions to nature's usual manner of doing business. In order to buttress this belief, we found, and used, the hundred million years' worth of accumulated solar energy in fossil fuels. Having all that energy let us entertain some notions that would have been regarded as insane or suicidal in a preindustrial world. We pretended that everyone had rights, even equal rights, no matter how fit or unfit he was in his physical being.
To the constitutionally weak, we gave mechanical aid. To those with poor vision, we gave corrective lenses. To the criminal, we offered rehabilitation. To the feeble-minded, we gave financial support.
We did nothing, however, to rid our species of weakness, poor vision, criminality, and feeblemindedness. In effect, rather, we subsidized the propagation of those defects, and many others like them, by circumventing the natural manner by which the defective would have perished without having offspring.
We got away with this foolishness because we had fossil fuels. We were rich and powerful beyond our specific endowments while those fuels lasted. They let us carry along genetic defects by making machines to compensate for them. Now the fuel is about to run out, and nature's methods for eliminating the unfit are every bit as harsh as they ever were. But now more of us are unfit, and we are in general much less able to cope with them than we were.
Such is the price of a stubborn persistence in moral fantasy. We have had our joyride, thumbing our nose at the rigorous demands of natural laws, and we must prepare to pay for them. Say hello to brutality; say goodbye to everything and everyone who can't stand up to it.
I have ideas (resources) for a HUGE and secure area for a gigantic container garden. About 34,000 square feet on the top of a building. With 365 day/year growing capacity and a building to scavange for parts, my idea is good. (Fast crash scenario only, of course, all tenants bk and building abandonded by owners) But water....that's my weakness. I was talking to a salesman yesterday in a camping supply store and he said "put water in containers now!"
Trip -
1) I used to live in SD myself. I remember it used to get foggy periodically, but some areas more than other. We lived on a mesa and saw our share of the fog. Is your building fog-accessible. If so, you can collect yourself a decent amount of moisture with standard 35-40% opacity mesh screens. It's called fog harvesting and supports populations living in deserts receiving less than 1 inch a year rainfall.
2) Brackish, salty or otherwise yucky water can also be utilized. If any can be captured you can fabricate solar stills out of pans and slanted glass chambers. The strong sun beats down on the enclosed pan raising the temp and causing the undrinkable water to evaporate. The evaporated water then condenses on the glass and dribbles down into a rut that channelizes the water to piping, then into a tank for storage.
Both ideas have been shown to be effective, though at differing rates and times. Perhaps they can be of assistance to your situation. _________________ UNplanning the future...
http://unplanning.blogspot.com
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:22 am Post subject: plans
Being single and a tough male i have some options. Right now i am planning on working till the bottom drops out. While this is happening i am going to begin building an earthship. Imediate family is on board. While i work they will be looking for some land around a small city or town that has agriculture. Im just worried the bottom will drop out and getting neccessary supplies for the house will be hard. Because i am the one who has to take care of the old folks when they get old. Only 2 younger males myself and my 11 year old nephew. rest are women.
If any one wants to connect on setting up earth ship communities. More people building the faster they can be done.
Or i can go to any farm community and be a worker.
we need people with skills.
we have maybe 5 years till everything is unafordable.
Joined: Sep 26, 2004 Posts: 40 Location: Australia
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 6:20 pm Post subject:
Pops, I've just read your "sticky" sorry I might be one of the sprukers!!
Below is a Plan I put to a local authority 40 minutes where I live in the northern highlands of NSW. Can we have a seperate place to post documents!!
Getting whole communities involved - albiet slowly - is the only real alternative.
GUYRA
A MODEL FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
A Sustainable Future
There are two main thrusts to this plan.
The first is to address the historical drift of the population and economic activity from rural areas due to: -
1. More rewarding financial opportunities in larger centres, and
2. The increased efficiency of transport, due in no small part to cheap oil prices.
And the second it how the relative increase in energy costs, especially fuel for transport; together with rapid improvements in Information Technology can steady and later reverse this trend.
It is a truism that problems for some hold opportunities for others.
I believe that rural areas that are ready for abrupt change will triumph while others less prepared will languish behind.
The change will be triggered by ever increasing oil prices due to the fact that oil production has reached its peak, exacerbated by ever increasing demand for fuel, especially from the emerging economies of India and China.
Australia is now facing a critical time in its future, as the following quotation from Dr. Williams jarringly predicts.
“Turning now to petroleum, just to add to our submission, the situation with production to reserves ratio, which was around 11 in the submission, has now deteriorated considerably down to five, which means that our indigenous supplies of liquid crude oil resources are certainly deteriorating. That raises questions of petroleum security and the like.
Dr. Neil Williams, Chief Executive Officer – Geoscience Australia – Hansard 3rd March, 2003. http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/commttee/R6228.pdf”
This means that from now on we will be importing ever-increasing amounts of oil to fuel our industry.
Increasing our imports will put extreme pressure on our current chronic balance of payments, which are currently slightly under AUD$12 billion in deficit. In four years time Australia will be using a total of 50,000,000 megalitres of fuel products and if we import crude only – the cheapest option, we will add another AUD$22 Billion to the deficit. In other words almost triple it!
Add this to our huge foreign debt of almost $400 billion ($20,000 for each man, woman and child in the country), and we could face insolvency. Not a happy situation.
However this scenario is set on the world stage where production of conventional oil peaked in the year 2000 and we are now enjoying an undulating plateau of production using difficult to source, and expensive to obtain unconventional oils and using heroic techniques to extract remaining conventional reserves.
Many in the world are despondent faced with the hard facts of oil decline – however for the prepared it is an opportunity!
OPPORTUNITIES
New industries tend to develop around hubs – Silicon Valley in Southern California is a perfect example. The expertise that develops tends to feed off each other making it more efficient for the industry to grow.
The two fastest growing sectors are renewable energy and biotechnology. Both of these will be of supreme importance in the years ahead as oil supplies dwindle forcing us to abandon such things as Artificial fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals; as well as our transport fuels, being based on crude oil and find more natural solutions.
It probably is beyond the means of one LGA to exert enough influence to become a hub for a new technology but it is entirely possible if a joint approach is taken with Glen Innes Seven, Uralla and Armidale, marketing it jointly between them.
Contrary to popular opinion start up businesses do not need cash, or more correctly do not need only cash. To get a great idea off the ground you need to be able to demonstrate financial and engineering feasibility.
Such an alliance gives the opportunity to promote the area as a unique destination and a clean and green source of produce. Whilst in Glen Innes I coined the term “New England Highlands”, with the BEC being so named. The unifying feature of these areas are the topography and hence climate and they are unique in Australia and would attract a different visitor to one interested in Moree!
As more energy is expended in modern food farming than the calorific value of the end product, increased energy prices will force the price of food up.
Areas that have developed a strong culture of low input farming will be well placed to take advantage of the increased prices.
Increasing global oil prices will put upward price pressure on synthetics enlarging the market for wool, cotton and other natural fibres such as hemp.
Forward looking farmers in the USA are endeavoring to find high yielding fruit and nut trees that can take over as a food source when annual cropping becomes prohibitively expensive. Soon there will be a demand here for food products that have low energy requirements, such as fruit and nuts that do not need annual cultivation and planting. Guyra has a European climate and so could benefit to a high degree from such crops as Hazel, Walnut, Chestnut, Pears and Apples. This would be especially so if Guyra took the lead and became a centre for the breeding of higher yielding cultivars of these types of trees.
As our oil imports grow it is unavoidable that our balance of payments increasingly going into deficit due to fuel importation, that the Australian dollar will tumble against a basket of international currencies. In other words – exports will be cheaper and we have a great cost advantage, although our dependence on importing industrial stock will be a hindrance through increased prices for imports.
SOME OPTIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY
Although some of the options listed below have a strong link to increasing fuel prices and eventual scarcity – they are no regret options as well as they do not have a negative economic impact and will enhance the business opportunities in Guyra in any event. It is vitally important to increase the high value human capital of the district if it is to thrive in the difficult times that lay ahead.
Information Technology
Computers and broadband Internet connections allow people to live and work away from the city base, especially for the creative people and professionals.
Glen Innes has two draftsmen whose work comes almost exclusively from Sydney and Newcastle, but with the benefits of the Internet they can enjoy the rural lifestyle yet earn high city incomes.
The Northern Highlands can be promoted as a prestigious place to live – perhaps the Affordable Highlands.
Market Gardening
As transport costs increase opportunities to supply the local communities with fruit and vegetables will present themselves. Market Gardens can start small to supply local markets and increase over time to supply the larger community as food prices escalate.
Highway Coffee Shop / Restaurant
One of the best examples of a Highway Coffee Shop / Restaurant I have seen is the Laurel Tree Coffee House at Childers on the Bruce Highway near Bundaberg.
It is away from the main town area on the periphery of the town and is located in a charming old dwelling. The Highway can be likened to a river of gold that runs past the town, and you just need to stop its flow to siphon some off.
A similar venture should work in Guyra as the traffic volumes are higher and there are some eminently suitable old homes on the edge of town – particularly one almost derelict building on the south eastern edge of South Guyra.
It is important to realize that travelers will not venture off the Highway but will stop on it if something gains there interest – and there is not much better for the traveler than a “Real Coffee” sign.
Oils
Food oils will become more expensive as they have a use for biodiesel and or SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) being used in diesel engines. It will be important for as much to be produced locally as possible. The shire already supports soybean production and some areas would support olives.
Although commercial production of vegetable oil for fuel most probably will not be viable in temperate areas due to: -
· Short growing season, and
· Temperate species are less able to convert sunlight into hydrocarbons being C3 plants while tropicals are more efficient in this regard being C4’s.
Farmers will find it cheaper to grow a canola / mustard crop for fuel – crush it using small scale European equipment and running it in the tractors as Straight Vegetable Oil –SVO. This will be economic as farmers would not factor in their labour, and the oil would not need further processing other than filtration. The tractor would be started on petro or bio diesel and then switched to SVO for the work and then ten minutes before shutdown switch back to bio or petro diesel. Doing this will burn off excess carbon deposited through burning SVO. In fact this will mimic growing oats and other feed crops for working horses in past years. See http://www.bebioenergy.com/ Steven Hobbs is an Victorian farmer advocating biofuels.
Cordwood
Increasing energy costs and absolute scarcity will see a market for clean burning, high calorific value fuel wood.
Timber
High fuel costs will dramatically increase the price of plastics, bricks and cement and so wood for construction will be eagerly sought and be competitively priced.
Transport
Rail transport is much cheaper now than road as highways are more expensive to build and much more expensive to maintain than rail tracks. As fuel prices escalate the cost differential will become even more compelling to confront the powerful trucking industry and switch our long haul transport to rail, as rail uses less than 30% of the fuel required by road trucks per ton / kilometer. http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5330&sequence=0
Having a sole transport hub in Glen Innes is not practical, and with innovative solutions like the Roadrailer system offers no benefit, as they need almost no infrastructure. http://www.wabashnational.com/products/roadrailer
Where Glen Innes is well connected to the coast and west, Guyra is well placed to service its own not inconsiderable region, including the high country extending eastward to Dorrigo.
In any event all transport costs will increase and it will be important for each area to be as sustainable and self sufficient as possible.
A return to rail will see a strengthening of the local economy through rail maintenance gangs being stationed in centres like Guyra.
Human Settlement
There is growing disillusionment with the climate of South East Queensland in the face of escalating humidity and temperatures. Guyra with its European style climate is well placed to attract people seeking more comfortable living conditions.
Over the years the Southern Highlands has become a prestigious location for the rural getaway, and those seeking a Hill change. The Northern Highlands could market themselves as an alternative, although a little further from Sydney they have easy access to some of the best beaches in Australia.
Cities have developed into a high reliance on private transport and so will become very expensive to live in as fuel prices soar. Many people will be seeking an alternative in smaller, more energy efficient centres that enjoy a good quality of life. Guyra can expect a demand from outside, especially for those no longer working, as a place of residence.
This will be especially so if cities experience food shortages.
It is important not to become solely a retirement facility, as new businesses are needed to keep young people in the district. In addition skilled people will be required by these new industries so that they can thrive and prosper.
Dairy
A number of centres now support farmers supplying milk directly to small shops. Guyra being between Armidale and Glen Innes is ideally located with regard to markets. Although the dairy farm must invest in pasteurizing and bottling equipment, the returns are much higher, and provide further food security for the local communities.
In addition boutique cheese and yogurt production from goats, sheep and cattle may be feasible, especially seeing that Armidale is seeing itself promoting the culinary arts, and markets in the larger centres could be developed.
Local Government Oil Depletion Seminars.
No Local Government Areas in Australia are preparing for reduced fuel availability and increased fuel prices.
Guyra can play a lead, gaining a great deal of credibility and visitors in the process through hosting expert seminars on oil depletion.
There is an additional benefit to Guyra in that it will be a centre for information and so be best prepared for the changes that are to come.
Industrial Hemp
The New England was considered to be a prime growing area for hemp in New South Wales earlier days, when huge amounts of hemp were required by the British Navy for sailcloth and ropes.
I have not been able to find out if the industry was actually commenced, but the climate is similar to many areas that have grown hemp for centuries.
Hemp not only is a durable cloth, but it is also a trendsetter – worn by individuals on moderate to high incomes.
There have been many trials of hemp in Australia – but none that had a commercial focus - involved actual production and marketing.
It is in the best interests of rural areas like Guyra to lobby the State Government and have the embargo on Industrial Hemp lifted so that boutique processing and milling plants can be established to supply local clothing manufacturers that niche market to high income clients.
High yielding food trees - Centre of excellence
As trees do not require annual cultivation – less energy is expended in cropping, a real boon when fuel is no longer cheap.
Many trees are multi functional like chestnuts and walnuts providing nuts as well as timber.
Others like the oak and hazel can support a truffle industry as well as being grown for timber or food.
The yield of northern latitude nut trees are variable and so work needs to be done to obtain high yielding cultivars and grafting cuttings onto seedlings material from the high yielding “sport” become multiplied and form the basis of a stable and prosperous industry.
Although some work is being done at Orange – what is really needed is obtaining seeds from high yielding trees, germinate then and plant them out in the district. When literally thousands of trees exist, a highest yielding specimens are cloned via vegetative propagation and are multiplied to form the basis of an industry.
With many trees being grown there is always the opportunity of a sport or super tree to appear which may revolutionize the industry.
Hazels would be ideal as they bear early and there already uses for the nuts, and the shells provide a source of energy.
This is an industry that “MUST” happen in the future if we are to feed ourselves with less energy.
Distillery
Guyra is well situated to trade off its “Highland” location and settlement history. Imagine a distillery located at Ben Lomond drawing its waters from the pristine Moredun, producing a fine whiskey from locally grown malting barleys. It would provide an additional boost to tourism in the district.
OTHERS
Steam
Opportunities will arise to capitalise on the benefits of modern steam engines in road transport. Please see http://www.pritchardpower.com/ Steam has a number of advantages in that a variety of fuels can be used which will become very important as petroleum products become more expensive and eventually scarce.
It is not out of the question that retrofitting existing vehicles could not be done in a centre like Guyra.
Electricity
Electricity generation commenced from within local communities, and over time as energy becomes scarcer and more expensive local communities will see a return to local power generation, especially from methane digesters, crop residues and local biomass crops.
Methane Digesters
The sustainable “Natural Gas” derived from animal and human excrement with a fertilizer by product. Can be installed either “Whole of Town” or in individual homes. Gas can be used for cooking or generate electricity.
ACTIONS
For the past 40 years people have been leaving rural areas in search of more remunerative employment, especially the best and brightest of the districts youth.
This has left rural areas with fewer and fewer human resources – our stock of human capital has declined.
It is difficult enough now to recruit staff to fill current roles – it will be impossible in times of crises if something is not done.
Training is important, as there are people hidden in the population with a capacity do achieve more than they are. With these people training money is well spent, but it must be remembered that this figure is not large so migration to the area is essential.
It is Axiomatic that the best new citizens of a town are the ones that where born there.
Many of these actions depend on the hosting of seminars. These are cost effective as fees or attendance can be charged and they bring great economic benefits to the accommodation and eating-houses of the town and surrounding areas.
Action:
1. Once the community has prioritized the types of industries they wish to attract, and what incentives to be provided a Plan is to be published, and the Economic Development Manager will directly source these industries.
The Plan will play an important role in attracting new industries to the district.
2. Council to host Annual Oil Depletion Seminars for Local Government. It is envisaged that Councils from all around Australia will send participants.
3. Council to equip an older tractor (saving warranty concerns) with apparatus that enables the use of Straight Vegetable Oil and have councils mechanic give talks to landholders about the practicality of using SVO in their machinery.
Council would then progress to facilitate the group purchase of a mobile expeller press for use by local farmers should they wish to grow an oilseed crop for fuel use.
4. Call for expressions of interest to own / operate a coffee shop / restaurant on the Highway.
5. Council should work with the school communities and host a series of re-unions both at a class level and school as a whole.
Once these former students become aware of our national problems and Councils preparedness to confront them; then you may well find that people who have acquired high levels of skill and or capital will return.
6. Council to host Annual Oil Depletion Seminars for Small Business, attracting small business operators from all around the nation. These participants will also be a prime source of candidates for relocation to Guyra.
7. Council to bring interested Landholders together to explore alternative production strategies including the establishment of crop trials – say 1 hectare on each property so that experience can be gained in the agronomics of the crop, and lay the basis of a plant selection programme.
8. Council to work with interested groups to encourage the opening of the Northern Rail Line.
9. Council to work with interested groups to establish an Industrial Hemp growing, manufacture and garment industry.
10. Published information days to be held in conjunction with festivals and events to encourage skilled new residents to the town.
Joined: Sep 28, 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 6:54 pm Post subject:
MattSavinar wrote:
The medicine issue is of particular concern to me as both my parents require daily medication for survival.
They are quite worried too, as I have told them in no uncertain terms that should they become a burden in their later years, it's into the Thermal Depolymerization machine they go.
That brings up a good point. Most people assume that the problem with an overpopulated world is either a birth rate that is too high, or an inadequate agricultural base. But neither of those assumptions is correct.
The real source of the trouble, both the general problem of overpopulation and the particular one of dependency on medical technology, is the lack of natural rigor to life that leads to an early death for the biologically unfit, the poorly adapted, the defective. Fossil fuels have enabled mankind to remove this rigor from his existence for a time, but at the price of accumulating a load of bad genes that increasingly require mechanical or chemical aid to compensate.
The depletion of fossil fuels will bring the bill for these accumulated genetic costs due for payment. No longer will mankind be able to evade natural rigor, which is essentially as rigorous as it ever was, but we are much less adapted than we once were for meeting its challenges.
In fact, the demographic groups that maintain a high birthrate, despite the disaster that will sweep the world, will have an advantage over those that attempt to redress the food shortage by reducing their family size. You can't save every child. Nature didn't mean for you to try. Our job is simply to get them born, and let the normal challenges of a hard life show us which are worthy.
Conflict over resources is inevitable, and in the usual course of things people will tend to sort themselves by biological similiarity first and foremost. Other things being equal, the side with the biggest army wins. It is time for us to consider how we will maintain our existence, and that of those who are important to us, in the tempestuous struggles that lie ahead.
You can find relatively safe areas in the United States, from a demographic point of view, by going to the Census Bureau's "American Factfinder" pages, which begin on
From there, click the link "Data Sets" under the header "Getting Detailed Data." It's in the line: "Expert User? Go directly to Data Sets."
From there, click the link "List all maps" under the header "Select from the following options."
From there, choose from the list a demographic statistic that you want to display on the map. You'll find this statistic especially important:
* Persons per Square Mile: 2000
If you are interested in racial data, the Census Bureau has that as well, and maps to the same scale and with the same center can be overlaid to provide whatever cumulative measure of threat-assessment you consider to be relevant. You might also try convolving the color-coded county-level output with a Gaussian probability distribution to account for some degree of threat from mobile predators.
Joined: Oct 19, 2004 Posts: 108 Location: Carlisle, PA
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:35 am Post subject:
Hello, I'm new here. I am an early 40's woman with a Canadian ubby a few years younger. I've been a biochemist and a programmer in the past. Hubby is a programmer. Our daughter is 21 and lives on her own in a nearby town.
We moved to the country a few years ago, though not far out. We live in central PA in a rental house with an acre of land. The idea was to transition to country living gradually, when learning the necessary skills would not be a matter of life-and-death. We plan to move *really* out in Ontario in a few years.
We did not begin this for the purpose of a EOTWAWKI scenario, but because we were burnt out on corporate America. We considered that shelter was the primary cost people work for and food the secondary one and decided to build a life in which our home was paid for and growing food was most of our work so as to escape the environment of pointy-hairs.
We spent a good two years reading and learning before we moved here. We read out of libraries and then purchased the most useful books for our reference library.
I began gardening in the city as a hobby in pots on a balcony as a hobby. Since being here, I've gotten into square-foot gardening, which is basically an intensive method in raised beds. We have eight 4 by 4 plots made from compost plus a 10 by 40 plot made from cow manure where I garden. This is sufficient for now, but would need to be greatly expanded if we were to grow our own grain and root vegetables for overwintering animals. I've done a lot of new things I'd never done before here, like potatoes and corn. I grow only open pollinated seed and next year will be growing a number of things from saved seed. I've also experimented with cold frames and very simple greenhouses for extending seasons.
We don't grow grain yet. But we did buy piles of storage grain and I've learned to grind the hard stuff to bake bread or make pasta and the soft stuff for cakes and biscuits and pancakes and such. I mostly cook from scratch... even our cat food. I can a lot. This year, I began drying food too... takes up less volume and will work even when there's no source of canning lids available.
Our first year, we built a chicken coop out of scrap and raised a batch of chickens. That fall, we learned to slaughter, only keeping ten over the winter. We chose a hardy breed that goes broody on it's own and they have raised 3 clutches of chicken this year plus more eggs than we could ever eat. We're fairly confident about being able to provide chicken and eggs for ourselves as well as vegetables.
This year, we built a second coop and are now raising rabbits for meat also. We haven't gotten to the first slaughter yet and are not looking forward to it as they are terribly cute. I intend to tan the fur and make things from it as well.
We took a rifle safety course and bought a 22 to learn with. Then we took a hunting course and bought an army surplus rifle. We went hunting last year, but did not get a deer. Hopefully, we will get one this year so we can learn to slaughter and preserve larger animals. I intend to learn to tan deer hide also. If we can handle a deer, we may raise a couple pigs next year.
I'm very gungho about getting a cow, but we really aren't set up for one here. Not enough room to feed it, we'd have to buy in most of it's feed. However, as dairy prices keep increasing, this seems like a good option. Goats are definetly out of the question, we don't have the fencing.
I want cows over goats anyways as I plan to get a triple-purpose breed and use some of the offspring for oxen. I like cows too. The only real downside is that the amount of meat even slaughtering a spring calf in fall is just an insane amount to put up without a freezer.
We are buying up everything we will need when we move out there. We go to a lot of auctions and have bought piles of handtools on the cheap. We buy power tools also, but make sure we have hand tools for every possible use as well. We have collected piles of junk!
Some of the things it has recently occured to me we need to buy are things like several pairs of glasses each (we're blind as hell), a lifetime supply of ammo, generic (not fitted) dentures with home relining kits, lifetime supply of antibiotics and pain meds, PVC, pane glass, etc.
Other stuff, I already knew about... having salt, baking soda, cocoa, spices, fabric, shoes, canning lids, etc. We buy these items in bulk now anyways. I want a more-than-lifetime supply before we move out.
The thing I will miss most is Google. We are trying to build a library that will suffice for both knowledge and entertainment, but nothing will ever replace being able to look up anything in under a minute.
We have no specific plans about water and electricity yet as it will depend on the land we buy. We've learned a lot about both though. Rampumps are a great solution if you can't arrange a water supply with gravity feed. Our plan is to be able to survive without electricity and use it only for entertainment-type things, like watching movies (we have a huge collection bought used for next to nothing - sometimes 15 movies for a buck).
One of the things I've learned is a year's supply of food will not be sufficient. This year, I had insane amounts of cucumbers and learned to make pickles and relish. But my melons and squash didn't do squat. We need to grow two years of food each year in order to get through years with bad harvests. If we don't need two year's worth, we can always sell/barter/trade food or use it as supplemental animal feed.
One of the other things we've learned is to store water as well as food. Where we currently live, we are on a well with an electric pump and we share this well with the cows on our landlord's land. Several times during storms, we've lost water. We store water in 2-liter soda containers now, adding a few drops of bleah to keep it potable for up to six months, then we dump them and refill them. We add extra to the freezers when they're partially empty to keep them cold longer without electricity.
We don't want to be part of a community because we're fairly antisocial folks. Either of us can funciton fine socially, but we both prefer not to - we like being alone. We expect if things get bad, a few close friends and family members may show up and are planning accordingly.
I also just don't think being part of a community will be very safe if the SHTF. If you and 30 of your neighbors form a successful self-reliant community, it'd only take 10 better-armed folks to enslave or kill you. It seems to me one is best off being very far out and very hidden.
While we plan to buy plenty of ammo, our primary survival strategy in the face of two-legged predators is simply to be far away and well-hidden.
As such, we plan to build an underground home along the lines of Mike Oehler's work. We will likely build an underground barn as well, which will make hay storage that much easier too.
Very little money is involved in our plans. We have been looking at buying tax-sale properties, which cost almost nothing. The area we are looking at is cold and remote, no one much wants to live there, so land is pretty cheap. The house, barn and outbuildings will be built for cash with the primary real investment being labor.
In the past couple years, we have pretty much only worked part-time. We are both programmers and work out of our home. The IT business has gotten very, very tight since outsourcing became big. We decided one of us had to get a "real" job, so I went to truck-driving school. Yes, that is a job that will disappear in a few years, but it is a job one can make large chunks of money at without having to go to an office. I have applied for local linehaul jobs so my garden won't die while I'm gone. In another couple months, my husband will be taking the same course. We figure a year of work and we'll have the finances to do the main move.
We have the food producing skills down enough that we won't starve. Hubby has helped a Mennonite neighbor make hay and helped the landlord rebuild a stone fence, so we've got those down. We've both learned a lot about construction and tools. I plan to learn to make both wine/mead and vinegar this next year. Distillation is not on the list, nothing wrong with getting drunk on low-cointent alcoohol.
Next on the list is learning more medicine, we both have first aid and CPR cards, but need to take a good wilderness survival course. We also want to learn blacksmithing and how to train oxen, but we may wait and learn those once we're out there.
I need a Pioneer Maid stove - expensive, but airtight and keeps a fire going overnight as well as being a great cookstove. I've learned, campin, to cook on fire regularly.
We've also learned to dispose of trash properly - some is rabbit food, some is chicken food, some is compost, and most of the rest is burnable.
Note... we began this project because we were sick of the "real" world and found it stressful and unpleasant. We have little tolerance for traffic, for crowds, for malls. We don't watch TV.
But we moved where we currently are because we *knew* that we didn't know what we're doing and also didn't know that we'd really like country life. Thus far, we *love* it. Feeding chickens and baking bread beats the heck out of sitting in meetings all day.
I have had a sneaking suspicion that something was terirbly wrong in society and it might collapse, we've discussed the possibility of an economic collapse many times. I can't say why this was real to us. For instance, neither of us made many plans for Y2K, I basically made sure I had a few cans of food, a full tank of gas, and a few hundred bucks cash... I expected temporary disruption, but nothing more. The vast majority of those preparing for survival strike me as rather silly and the reasons make no sense to me. And yet, I still sensed something was very wrong, I just didn't realize *what* until I began reading about peak oil a few days ago.
I also didn't realize it would be this soon. I feel a tad panicky about whether we will become self-sufficient fast enough.
Thus far, hubby does not wish to discuss it. I gave him a brief summary of the problem and he said it was depressing. No matter. The life we planned to live will be perfectly sufficient for a post-peak world as long as we get there quickly enough.
And if society does not collapse around us, we will have a lifestyle that won't require more than $1K of cash per year, which we can easily raise selling our surplus. Our primayr goal of never working a "job" again will be met.
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But I don't rule out the possibility of a grander scope to things than we can possibly conceive from our roost on earth. The only way to find out will be to beat peak oil as a united human race.
