Best place in Europe Post-Peak.

nethawk

Iceland - Huge amounts of energy in the form of hydro and geothermal. A hydrogen economy could be possible there, and the aluminum industry is a form of energy export that is happening right now.

Sweden - Electricity is half-nuclear/half-hydro, natural gas use is minimal, there is a good I.T. infrastructure, extensive district heating systems, and public transport is available in the cities. Sweden has proposed to eliminate most uses of oil by 2015, by expanding biomass and wind energy (and possibly nuclear energy...their nuclear phase-out never really took place)

Norway is attractive as well, but it is pretty much at capacity with hydro (unless they have suitable locations remaining), its oil reserves are in decline, and has no nuclear industry, and there's little potential for solar when the heat is needed the most...in the dead of winter.

Most food in these regions is currently imported, but if you can generate an electricity surplus and produce enough fish, there will be someone in the south willing to trade you food for your electricity and fish!

SoothSayer

>> I also think southern Germany near the Alps would be best.

Hmm - I lived several years in Southern Germany.

It takes a long time to be accepted, so I wouldn't advise outsiders to rush there in a time of panic ... especially if you don't speak German ... or if you speak German with a Northern German accent Smile

Gil-Galad · Tar Sands Joined: Sep 19, 2005 Posts: 48 Location: UK

Germany ? my father lived in the only place in the UK to be occupied by the Germans in the last world war, don't think so, he still does not like them - he saw the slave workers.

Jansa2 · Coal Joined: Apr 29, 2006 Posts: 1

I don't know much about the situation in Europe, but let me tell you why Estonia is a good place to servive Peak Oil. It is not the best place only because of the bad climate. During the winter temperatures can be as low as -20 or more. In the citys people heat houses with central heating run mostly on Russian gas and oil made of Estonian Oil Shale, found, mined and prosseced here in east Estonia. The Oil Shale is expected to last for more than 60 years in current use rate. None of these are sustainable after peak oil. God knows what will happen with Russian gas and oil made of Oil Shale can be sold to the world at the same price as normal oil so the price will sky rocket in paralel with regular oil.
The bad point is our location. If there would be any sort of conflict between a European counrty and Russia, then Estonia would be the first to suffer, because Russia has no ice free ports to use for attacs from the sea(we have) and our airports are closer to Europe. But I tend not to think about that.
What we do have is plenty of arable land and knowladge how to grow potato and store during the winter.
The population density is low, 30 per sq.km. That is lowest in Europe, except for Iceland. It means there is arable land and forests for almost everyone.
Most older houses in country side still use wood for heating. Estonia has plenty of forests, definetly more than any west European country. Wooded area is 53,88%, the procentage of wooded area is currently actually growing!
To conclude, industrialiced economy is not really sustainable here after Peak Oil, but it would be possible to grow our own food and heat our houses with wood. Also we could use biodiesel to operate tractors(we have arable land to grow wood AND fuel).

Lighthouse · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 1458

Licho

Lighthouse: well, try to explain this to my grandfather, who was one of these slave-workers or better to yet to my grandmother, who, as a jewish girl survived only due to extreme luck and help of locals, but lost all her family.
Some of their generation are still a bit reserved towards Germans.

Younger generations don't mind, but there are still people who lived through horrific ww2, and that's why Europe tends to be more peacefull than for example USA who never had war in own land during last hundred years..

Lighthouse · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 1458

davep · Expert Joined: Jun 21, 2006 Posts: 1372 Location: Europe

Hi, I've recently moved to northern Italy (on Lake Como) from the UK. It's lovely, but not great for Peak Oil (it's basically a suburb of Milan).

I think France (somewhere around Toulouse) is probably one of the better places, as would be some areas of Tuscany and Liguria.

The problem with Italy is that it's population is similar to France, but with a much smaller land mass, so I guess overall France is a better bet (I lived there for six years, so can speak the lingo).

Cran

I'm thinking of Northern Spain, but I don't speak Catalan yet.

When I've been there I've managed to get by on French and a few Catalan words. Not sure if that would be enough to live there permanently though.

Other option would be New Zealand, but not sure it's easy to get in permanently, but I do have some possibility of getting a temporary job there in/for a few years if that's not too late.

I do like Spain though...

UK sucks... definately won't be hanging about here much longer... 3-4 years max, hopefully less.