I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
It will suck the most to live with limited or unavailable:
Gasoline
3%
[ 1 ]
Electricty
21%
[ 7 ]
Diverse food selection
6%
[ 2 ]
Voluminous clean water
48%
[ 16 ]
Civil stability
15%
[ 5 ]
Health infrastructure
6%
[ 2 ]
Total Votes : 33
Author
Message
kpeavey Expert
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 1315
Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:16 pm Post subject: The Peak Oil Challenge
Actors rehearse.
Generals plar wargames.
Astronauts get spun around until they barf.
In order to best prepare for an event, putting yourself in the situation beforehand offers the chance to experience what can be expected. Our preparations must not simply be learning to garden, gathering stockpiles and tools, and installing solar panels. We must also experiment with living the post peak lifestyle.
Welcome to The Peak Oil Challenge.
Listed below are "Imaginary Events" which, were they to happen, could impact you at a personal lifestyle level. All of these scenarios begin immediately, with your current levels of preparation. Choose a scenario or develop your own. The idea is to eliminate one key element in your lifestyle to the point that you find your threshhold of discomfort. It is not supposed to be easy. If it is easy, either you are already prepared for that particular scenario or you aren't rising to The Challenge. If you are prepared, try a different scenario. If you are doing it right, this will probably suck.
Much like a diet, it can be expected that a little cheating may occur. This is not a competition with others. It is an experiment to guage your own discomfort level. If you cheat, you need to identidfy that you have reached that point. The true challenge here is to overcome the obstacles you encounter and better learn how to prepare for a future when the scenario may become a reality.
Spin the Wheel...
REFINERY SHUTDOWN
A major oil refinery is the victim of an incredible explosion and fire of suspicious origin. Although the blaze was contained in short order with minimal injury and no loss of life, this particular refinery happened to be the largest volume producer in the nation and is expected to be completely offline and unproductive for at least 18 months during an investigation and subsequent reconstruction. This disaster comes at a time when the nation is experiencing low stockpiles of your grade of gasoline. Without warning, Gasoline prices have increased $2/gallon.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make it through the month artificially paying an extra $2/gallon. This may take a bit of paperwork on your part in order to record what you would have spent on gasoline, and then make sure you do not spend it on anything. Perhaps you can shift the amount to a savings account. You are prohibited from spending the money. You are prohibited from buying fuel in an amount that the imaginary price exceeds the money in your pocket, your credit limit, or your checking account. This scenario has the particular advantage that you get to spend the money on anything you like on March 1st. (No actual animals were harmed in the above imaginary inferno.)
OPEC GETS GREEDY
OPEC countries decided at a recent summit that they really like having all this extra money around to support the social programs of their respective nations. As a result, they have made the decision to cut production by 10% and maintain that level indefinately.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make it through the month paying 50% more for all your petroleum fuels, gasoline, natural gas, diesel, heating oil, and 25% more for everything that has a petoleum product as an ingredient, part or key element, candles or airfare for example. A similar style of attack as the above scenario may be in order.
TRUCKERS STRIKE
A truckers union goes on strike to protest high diesel fuel prices and a lack of proportional compensation. This particular group of truckers delivers fuel used by several electricity generation plants in your region of the country. Although the power plants have some fuel reserves on site, in order to get through the strike-expected to last the month, all customers in their service region must immediately and drastically reduce their electrical consumption or suffer a blackout for the remainder of the month.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to dramtically reduce your electricity consumption for a month. You are restricted to only enough electricity to operate your fridge, an alarm clock, 100 watts of lighting, and 2 hours each day of discretionary use.
BANKRUPTCY
A major company is rocked by scandal. It seems their executives invested the company funds in oil futures trading and lost it all.
For several weeks the company struggled to maintain production as best it could, but supplies dwindled, inventory dropped to zero and the company was forced to shut down operations. This company produces paper and cardboard products. The free market will be able to fill the void, but it will be at least a month before replacement products can reach a store near you.
Your problem is to go without. For the next month, you may purchase no paper or cardboard products or any goods with paper or cardboard as part of the product or its packaging.
DROUGHT
A severe drought, possibly because of global warming resulting from fossil fuel burning, has dropped the water table in your area to below the threshold where local water utilities and personal wells can reach. There is one well still working, controlled by the local government. Every available well digging company is working on the problem and more wells can be online in a month. In the meantime, the single working well is able to provide just enough volume to deliver 5 gallons per day for each person.
YOUR SCENARIO
As petroleum and its products are all pervasive, it is not hard to envision a way in which a small problem can reach your home. Consider an event, a bottleneck, or a policy change which could affect your lifestyle. Jump into the situation with the supplies, tools, and income you have now.
First person to post a reply gets to assign a scenerio to me.
I came up with this idea then realized Lent is coming up. If you are a Closet Peaker you can use Lent as a cover.
It is hard to fall on your own sword.
Good Luck. _________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5651 Location: Body in OK, Heart in TX
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:10 am Post subject:
I once lived in a house with 4 college roommates in NY, and our well crapped out. We had no water in the house for a month or so, until we moved out. Even though we had some money and cars, and relatively stress free lives, it sucked. You can't cook or clean without water. Riverbend's last blog entry (Baghdad Burning) talks about the water shortage in Baghdad and how her family is trying to cope with it:
Quote:
E. and I spent the day carrying up buckets of water. The water flow is so weak, it takes about 17 minutes to fill up a 10 liter plastic pail (I was timing it). We've carried up about 10 buckets until now. The water still doesn't reach the kitchen faucets so we've managed to move the dirty dishes to the bathroom and are washing them there.
I think a lot about how much I would miss cheap, reliable electricity, but I had to vote for water.
This is very good KPeavy.
I´ll sum it up in one word:SPARTAN
We practise this every year but usually in the summer months. _________________ ΜΟΛΩΝ-ΛΑΒΕ
kpeavey,
I read your post last evening, and though I started to reply right away, I wanted to really consider the scenarios and how each would affect us.
I've said it before - I am no where near as prepared as I want to be, and your scenarios very aptly point that out.
Refinery Shutdown Scenario - perhaps I could pull that one off, but money is pretty tight these days. I might try it tough, just to see. Because, when it really does happen, I'll have no choice. Besides, it would be a good way to save money for things I want anyway .
Same with the OPEC gets greedy scenario.
Truckers strike: No way we could do this now at current preparedness levels. If nothing else, because I have two freezers full of meat and veggies. I could last a few days, but after that, would have to can everything I have in the freezer - and right now I don't have the lids and rings I'd need for that (not enough, anyway). Weather in Arkansas, even in winter, has some warm days (60's by the end of the week), and putting my frozen things outside would only keep them frozen for a few days as well. Although the one major downside to this house of ours (on grid) is that it's all electric, we have alternatives for heating (for now, propane heaters), cooking (camp stove), entertainment (I play guitar, we have lots of games and love to play cards - not to mention how entertaining the animals can be ), lighting (candles, lamps, rechargables), etc. We could drastically cut back, but not to the levels that you mentioned. Perhaps on a smaller scale, it might be worth trying this out - of course, then you all would see much less of me . Regardless, I have known for some time that electricity is our Achilles Heel, and this confirms it.
Bankruptcy scenario: Well, I don't think we have enough TP to last a month . Besides that, this scenario got me to really thinking about how many items we DO use with paper as a part of their packaging. I try not to buy many processed foods, but there are a few we buy regularly. Crackers in a box, for example. But those could be done without for a month. Chicken feed? It also comes in 50lb. paper sacks. My critters gotta eat.... one more reason to be investigating what I can grow to feed them myself (see the earlier reference in another thread to growing sorghum.) We simply don't have enough supplies on hand to last for a full month and not buy any products with paper as a part of their packaging.
Drought scenario: Might be doable for us - but I'd have to get hubby on board, and I doubt he'd give up his morning shower willingly - without need. Perhaps I could practice this myself, though. One thought, however. Since I have yet to have my rainwater catchment system set up, part of my 5 gallon allotment would have to go to water animals. Yet more reason for me to get that up and running sooner rather than later. I might try this just to see how little I can use personally. Besides the benefit that I will learn, I'll help our water bill too - and rates are going up next month, we were just told on the latest bill .
I would recommend everyone think through each of these scenarios and see how they would be affected (or dream up others) - and then begin making changes/preparing accordingly. There's no guarantee that exactly these scenarios will take place, but I can see events happening that would/will cause the same sort of problems and disruptions. Thanks for the post kpeavey.
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:52 am Post subject: You spin
OK, I'll spin. Or let YOU spin.
From the first 10 private messages to me, I'll meet the challenge that gets the most votes. I will summarize the votes and the "sent" times to let everyone see the votes without taking too much space in this very good topic.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13064 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:52 am Post subject:
I'm giving myself the challenge of growing my own food this year, the challenge will start when I get my first complete harvest from my early plantings, so I plan to be at least theoretically self-sufficient for food beginning in May or June. I'm planning to buy a kitchen scale so I can weigh the produce, and I'll keep a detailed log of amounts harvested, the calories and nutrients in the produce, and how much of it we actually eat, as well as how much purchased food we consume. I'm afraid I won't be able to convince my husband to eat strictly homegrown food just for an imaginary scenario, though I bet I can sneak a good quantity of it into our diet without him noticing the change. We eat fairly simply as it is.
Since I have yet to have my rainwater catchment system set up, part of my 5 gallon allotment would have to go to water animals. Yet more reason for me to get that up and running sooner rather than later.
In a drought long enough to deplete the water table, a cistern would be stressed if not bone dry. A cistern helps in a short rainless period, but has less total capacity than most aquifers. A cistern WOULD work if you used it ONLY as backup.
Joined: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 2351 Location: perpetual state of exhaustion
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:19 pm Post subject:
I'm with Ludi, Food is a big one for us. We are in the city and we use an awful lot of processed food. Lunch snacks for the kids, prepared meal items to save me time. I hate to say it but now-a-days our diets are mostly processed.
My challenge will be to use up what processed food we have and start doing a lot more the other way. THIS INCLUDES BREAD. hows that for sticking it to myself? I don't own a bread machine either.
As for the lent thing, when is that anyway or are all the challenges for one month from when ever you start?
I have one small caveat though, it will depend on my kids weight. I can't get them to keep any weight on at the best of times and am worried that it will make them drop weight.
Joined: May 17, 2004 Posts: 1969 Location: Democratic People's Republic of Washington
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:34 pm Post subject:
Regarding the drought scenario, that is entirly possible in my area this year. The aquifer that both pullman and moscow pump from is depleting at the rate of one foot per year, and water rationing is a regular summertime event in moscow, (no exterior usage of water 0700-1900). 2 years ago, I had to let my lawn almost die because my water level was very low. It was to the point that even the pastures were not getting watered beyond what was requried for fire control. Last year was a good year, the summer was mild, and it seems that the rain never left. However, this year we are at only 66% of normal precipitation levels on the mountains, so it appears that I will be faced with low water availablity for the pastures and lawn, as well as possilbly an excess fire season. _________________ Here Lies the United States Of America.
Joined: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 1249 Location: Big Rock Candy Mountain
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 2:23 pm Post subject:
Switching from the typical petroindustrial diet to a diet of local and foraged foods will be much more difficult from a gastrointestinal and gustatory standpoint than most people are aware. Prepare now for the diet of local foods you will be forced to adapt to. Learn the native plants that can be used as substitute flavorings.
Joined: Jun 18, 2004 Posts: 1037 Location: 28° N 81° W
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 2:43 pm Post subject:
Quote:
Prepare now for the diet of local foods you will be forced to adapt to.
I semi-do that already. When I'm out working in the garden and I get hungry, I snack on the Spanish moss growing on the oak trees. I've gotten rather fond of the taste. _________________ American by birth, Muslim by choice, Southern by the grace of God!
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. Besides that, this scenario got me to really thinking about how many items we DO use with paper as a part of their packaging. I try not to buy many processed foods, but there are a few we buy regularly. Crackers in a box, for example. But those could be done without for a month. Chicken feed? It also comes in 50lb. paper sacks. My critters gotta eat.... one more reason to be investigating what I can grow to feed them myself (see the earlier reference in another thread to growing sorghum.) We simply don't have enough supplies on hand to last for a full month and not buy 
.
