Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Wall Street Journal Article

I posted Tom Whipple's excellent article for the AEC community because I was thrilled to see the WSJ eating a little crow, and because I think Whipple is an extremely competent analyst.

Analysis is boring. Financial and economic analysis is even more boring than the analysis they do at Whipple's former employer, the CIA. My game is hours of tedious boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror (when your bets in the market are getting creamed) or pleasure (when you get it right, its the best feeling you can have with your clothes on). Last year's financial collapse was an interesting time for us. Anybody thinking that the American Energy Crisis that this blog is named after is always going to be so entertaining is going to be disappointed.

The WSJ article is just another "dot" in a collage of dots that I am trying to connect - that article measures "sentiment", the closing of refiners measures the "commercials" view of the future, the EIA data I report on measures the past.

The empirical facts support peak Oil imports have already happened to the U.S. If "Plateau Oil", as the WSJ refers to Peak Oil, is here for the world, by mathematical necessity peak imports are here for the importing nations - SIMPLE LIKE THAT. I write this blog to contribute to the debate about how to best prepare and adjust to a very different environment - business, economic, political, educational, etc... - here in the U.S. as well as the West's Liberal Democracies. I started writing to alert folks, but I think we are well past needing to be alerted now. I think from this point forward IDEAS are needed far more than alarms. I implore those reading here to contribute micro solutions (spare me the macro sh*t, if The Powers That Be can't make a dent in this... well, let us accept that we are less empowered than they to affect the macro outcome) on how best to organize our lives.

Too much discussion centered on which exact month, rather than discussions on how to begin the adjustment process, just isn't very productive. As a matter of fact, too much discussion - instead of DOING stuff - is a big part of the problem. We learn by doing. You can read a repair manual until h*ll freezes over, but get a tool set and fix something and you are on to something. So many folks in the doomer web site community talk about gardening that I suspect its mostly talk - if you ever raised a serious garden you'd know that gardening happens all by itself... its WEEDING that takes 80% of your efforts, and preserving what you have grown the other 20%. G-d and nature take care of the garden. If you can fix, sharpen, shape, carve, knit, fish, build, cook, soothe, brew, clean, butcher, dig, design, maintain.... stuff, well you have already made the adjustment away from specialization. Because that's what serious energy shortages mean - it means the end of specialization.

(PLEASE - I do not speak in absolutes! There will be a certain percentage of the population that will still be specialists - but this subset will be far fewer in number.)

I try to "practice what I preach", because what we face is a fundamental issue - how we live our lives. On my farm, in addition to growing a great deal of our food, I have outfitted a workshop, and have learned the all important HOW TO, that can accomplish most of the tasks I am likely to face. It took me several years and I would guess $10k (and I bought everything used, table saw, miter saw, drill press, air compressor, solar panel to charge battery set, generator, etc... from sources like craigslist and flea markets...this includes a decent inventory of parts and pieces in addition to tools, otherwise it might have been $20k), and now I can repair the barns, our house, tractors, and vehicles (parts will always be available for the creative home engineer - just look at how they keep cars running in Cuba), I can care for the animals (foot trimming, shoeing, vaccinations, milking, slaughtering and butchering), save seeds, preserve food, etc... Getting there takes TIME - years, not months or weeks. Now for a small business within the community.

Not that my, or your, solution works for everyone. Perhaps my solution won't even work for me. Energy crisis or no, we will still have to engage in commerce for a living. Union gigs and high paying government jobs with oodles of bennies are going to shrivel up like a Boca Raton trophy wife in the Florida sun. Somebody has to fish, somebody else is going to cut bait. If I am right about the Oil import situation, there will be no place to hide out in the Corporate world. This is the time to find another gig. Small business will once again, by absolute necessity, be the way most folks earn a living. It won't pay as much as that big corporate job, but that's the way it is going to be.

So let the debate come to an end, and let the good ideas roll.








14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay,

My idea is changing my own vehicle oil, AND, storing the used oil in 2 1/2 gal. plastic indusrial containers. I do the oil changes at 3000 mile intervals.

The reason; when oil becomes more scare and costly, I can re-use the old oil in th evehicles. Hence the 3000 mile change, oil still has life in it. The plus the 101 uses of oil and an oil can.

peace

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

I like it.

Is there a shelf life to lube oil?

Anonymous said...

Gregg,
First, I always appreciate your thoughts. Tools for the future? I have read a lot about Peak Oil and have plans to suit my own needs (e.g. (1)I'm not a farmer and (2) buying a house is neither a good investment and caring for it is not how I want to spend my time). I'm a bachelor, live overseas (leadership trainer/consultnat), just turned 60 and will exit the rat race next year. Probably have enough $ for a frugal 25 year retirement. Inflation? I'm long gold. No plan is foolproof.

Here's the template I use for my Peak Oil changes--"Building a Personal Lifeboat.
Region/climate?
• Agricultural area
• Plenty of water
• A place less vulnerable to resource issues: gas, water, food shortages, energy brown and blackouts
• Transportation hub—trains, busses, trucks
• Natural beauty—forest, and water
• Moderate weather to reduce utility costs
Town/City
• A “walking town”: walk or bicycle to transport, market, services, library, cafes.
• A town with stimulating people, (college town, Transition Town).
Priorities? Must haves: affordability, safety, food choices, medical fac., shopping (Wal-Mart).

Residence:
• Buy a Mobile home w/ garden (detached house costly to heat) or
• Get an Apartment 2 blocks from Main St.
• A townhouse

Lifestyle; Economize, Localize, Produce
• Brush up existing skills: first aid, fire, training, group facilitation,
• Learn new skills (bread, winemaking, leather crafts, motor, appliance repair)
• Take and Offer adult education classes at night
• Create my own Permaculture garden w/ greenhouse, fruit trees
• Get a small RV (camperized van, truck camper) for outings.
• Survival Prep for grid down situation (lasting 3-6 months)
o Power, heat, light, water, food, weapons, solar oven.
• Find ways to exchange needed services (fruit, vegetables), and goods (firewood, kerosene)
• Join with neighbors/networks for support; don't try to do it alone.

I look forward to others' ideas.

Cheers

Anonymous said...

I think there is a feeling on the blogosphere that the warning phase is over and people need to step up and start taking action. I have been dragging my feet on a blog for some years now had a title for 3 years. Life has gone sideways for those years, this last year most of my paradigms that I based my narrative of life on was turned upside down. Grief takes time.
Stuart Staniford from The Oil Drum is back on line http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/.
A guy I really admire who is doing something is http://www.builditsolar.com/ really like the data he collects on his projects. Real proof.

Geoff

bureaucrat said...

Motor oil (and oil in general) never "wears out." It instead gets contaminated with gunk over time and with use, and that can be removed to get it back to being 100% clean (I work with vehicles, you know. :)) It may need some additives re-added to it in some circumstances.

kathy said...

We are concentrating on builing a resilient community. Right now, I belong to a permaculture group (we do a lot of our work and ordering co-operatively), a peak oil prep group and I am taking a class in using medicinal herbs. My Husband is in his third year of woodworkiing classes and is also taking beekeeping classes. We are very active in our church and volunteer in our community. We have started a community sewing center and a community kitchen is next. I teach classes in food preservation and meal planning. We grow a good deal of what we eat and source the rest locally except for the grains and those we purchas in bulk. One thing we focus on is keeping fit. We work too hard for weight to be a problem but we take good care of ourselves beyond that with no smoking or drugs and only social drinking. We have a large house that is very flexible. We can close off the upstairs and live comfortably or open up rooms upstairs for returning children. We have a good barter network for our honey and try to preserve capital whenever we can. I rarely buy new but I always look for quality. One of the most important things we do is keep the kids involved in the process. They are food snobs and will ask if a food is locally grown when we eat and are not afraid of foraged food or vegetables. They know why we turn off lights and keep the house so cool. This life will be different but different does not mean worse if you plan.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Hi Kathy:

I am going to start bee keeping next year. Perhaps you and your husband could give me some tips.

Another thing that I am trying to do with only moderate success is to get the family used to amusing themselves with chess, wood carving, reading, writing... anything but TV ("ABTV").

Anon @ 7:56pm:

I am not a "farmer" either. I call it "our farm", but I have little intention of farming full time. We produce what we need and sell or give away the excess. More than likely, I will open a small biz in town.

When I was a kid my grandmother lived in South Philly row house, but had a small (and I mean small) cottage out in the country toward the ocean side.

Unknown said...

What type of tractor do you have?

diesel?

tweell said...

Wood gasification for when you need a vehicle. Do you have a stand of wood handy? With oil going away, other carbon sources become valuable.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1981-05-01/Wood-Gas-Truck.aspx
A pound of wood, brush, etc. gave them a mile in a loaded full-size pickup.

bureaucrat said...

Here's a old idea! STOP WASTING so much oil and natural gas! Yesterday I walked by a 7-11 in Chicago that had its front doors wide open -- it was 45 degrees outside. I'm guessing the doors were open cause the heat was on inside, they couldn't shut the heat off, and they had to cool the place inside. If we conserved HALF of the oil/natgas we burn today (walk/bike and coats/blankets), we wouldn't have to regress back to cavemen (and women), which would spare us the grief of radical transition. I hear your stories about how your going to survive on your "Little House on the Prairie," but if the food supply becomes an issue, you can kiss your kumquats goodbye, cause I'm not gonna starve, and neither will millions of others here. Road trip!!!

bureaucrat said...

From another blog posting ...

"Saudi Arabia’s oil production company is Saudi Aramco. Its former Vice President of oil exploration and production, Sadad al Husseini, recently made the following comment on oil prices at the 30th Oil & Money Conference, held in London on October 20-21: "...as you go up to say $90 a barrel, you’re consuming 4.5% of the global economy [for oil]. That in itself is a ceiling - you cannot go indefinitely into more expensive alternatives without destroying [the] economy and therefore destroying demand..."

kathy said...

Re bees: There is a much steeper learning curve than I expected. Bees are livestock and more fragile than most. It would pay to join a good bee club well before you buy a hive. Aslo, don't get roped into used equipment, no matter how good the price. Bee disease can last for years and unless you have it irradiated you can pass on all sorts of things you don't want in an apiary. If you can find a mentor who will guide you, do that. That being said, we got a 110 pounds of honey from our first harvest which gave us all the honey we need, enough for gifts and we have sold enough to pay for a lot of our expenses.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Steven:

I am trying to solicit helpful ideas...

Yes, I know the doomers think diesel won't be available for farm equipment, but I think there will be farm fuel well after the end of this century. And BTW, I guess I am doomer-lite.

Might as well worry about stuff in my lifetime - one foot in front of the other...

Anonymous said...

>> if you ever raised a serious garden you'd know that gardening happens all by itself...

mmm.... if gardens fail do they fail all by themselves? It's also true that you can't hand someone a packet of seeds and say, "Now go feed yourself." There's lots of ways to kill a garden, so I wouldn't take the growth of your veggies for granted. I think there's lots of chatter about gardening for a reason. Practice, practice, practice.