[criticalmass]

I'm of the perception that powering down is the single best bridge between despair and hope (other than a good night's sleep -old quote.

I think powering down would obviously take well meaning individuals in power (which we are a bit short on)
It would take building homes that utilize thermal mass and heat. (those needing a/c have no business in the hot desert; but these homes stay cool in the summer as well as warm in the winter and without any external inputs)
It would take massive amounts of human labor over the span of perhaps as short as a decade to build new infrastructure based on solar and wind (our best current options.)
Sustainable mass transit (a very viable option when you consider electric light rail )
A new economy, based on anything but consumerism.

Basically, an entirely new way of thinking. It would have to happen by force. The tragedy of the commons is too tantilizing for the "free riders" in our society.

If you take away the resons for looting the environmental treasures the public enjoys, there is less insentive/ need to destroy the environment. The trick educating and creating that economic insentive to pilage.

[ReverseEngineer]

I was reading SpringCreek's thread about Horses, which led me to thinking about what the Future "ideal mix" of Transportation methods might be once the storm is over and we hopefuly haven't blown ourselves up. Ways to conserve what we have left and more efficiently use what technologies we have.

Out in rural areas, without Gas Stations and without Electric lines, I think for the most part there will be a return to Horse & Buggy or Horse and Sled, depending on weather conditions.

Inside cities of course, horses are a major mess, you have that quote from some London Times columnist in the late 1800s that London was going to be knee deep in poop in 20 years. Then of course came the Automobile.

Cities I think will go to electrified public transport and the power grid will be local for that city. It will be rationed power also, only enough to keep a refrigerator and a couple of lights running in any given living quarters.

Intercity transport and transport between Rural areas producing Food and Cities Trading Food and other products will be accomplished by Rail, probably powered by bunker fuel for a while and then by coal for a while after that. Eventually though even these sources of fuel will get scarce, so if we haven't figured out a way by then to keep locomotives running then eventually transportation between the interior of a continent and its coasts will have to go back to Caravans.

It would be along the coasts and on navigable rivers that most travel would happen for long distances. After the Bunker Fuel Era, a return to Sail in some form.

Generally, this is a controlled Power Down scenario that I think could be negotiated over a century or more with a fairly natural die off of population along the way. If we can get thru the wars which will come from this current collapse of this monetary system without nuking ourselves, then its at least possible we could start to rebuild along more sustainable lines after that in this way. Of course the consequences of environmental degradation to date might have already sealed our doom, but this can't be controlled so I don't worry about it too much. I only concern myself with what we can control at this point, and all of what I described above is possible with current technology and current remaining FFs. No postulates of magical new technologies, just better use of current ones and old ones and less wastage.

Reverse Engineer

[kpeavey]

I found it easy to envision a guy on a horse drawn wagon delivering firewood while talking on a cell phone. There are particular aspects of technology which are especially useful and save tremendous amounts of labor and energy that we will hold onto them to the last as we move back to the stone age.

Since petroleum is so deeply embedded in every aspect of civilization and so pervasive around the world, the economic impact of a decline in energy makes it all the more difficult to adapt. How does a metropolis with a shrinking tax base pay for an electric bus line? What county would invest their coffers into their own electric generator plant when the fuel for it is rising in price and becoming less available, at the same time telling its citizens they can hardly get enough power to make toast?

As we continue into this collapse, events and situations are leading me to think the crash will accelerate. We are in the shallow slope right now, the hockey stick is not far away.

Don't let my doom scare you off. It is important that we explore the possibilities. It is from these explorations that we can find some solutions, even if they are only temporary. They may lead to better ways later down the road.

--

I live in town, pop 15k, about a mile from City Hall. I have 1/4 acre, one neighbor has half what I have, one has double the space. We have a common corner. I always thought it would be possible for small groups of neighbors to get together, pool their resources, brains and manpower for the benefit of them all.

I mow the yard, both of my neighbors mow their yards, we all have lawnmowers, we rarely are all out there mowing at the same time. Could we not get together and share a lawn mower?

How about a Solar PV array set up and shared by all the neighbors involved? Broadening the users has the effect of smoothing out demand patterns which would increase the efficient use of the system. You could even schedule when to wash clothes. A shared washing machine also enters the picture.

Get more neighbors involved, get a truck, share the truck. If going back to bicycles is the way of the future, a truck would still be handy now and then. Why have 20 trucks for 20 families and use each one only 5% of the time, when for 5% of the price per family, the truck has optimum use.

Sharing is a great idea on paper, but look to Tragedy of the Commons for reality. Still, with every one understanding the terms of agreement and cooperation, this sharing plan can work. It won't work every time, but it would work enough of the time that people will come together ot of necessity. I'm sure this is going on all the time right now.

[pedalling_faster]

At one time, a local police station in California in the Antelope Valley, went to usng horses for their town patrols. What a mess that was. It was not unusual to see a cop's horse drop a load in front of some local establishment, on the sidewalk right outside their door, and just putter on and leave it fester there.

there's also the soil science reaction to it. that horse manure really is gold. the bacteria that render it into nutrients that can be used for growing food, can not survive on either gasoline or gold. but they go nuts over manure. for the bacteria that break down wood chips, leaves, and other soil components, that manure is one of the highest energy content materials available.

in the city, of course, bicycles, walking, & mass transit usually work better than horses.

another example of powering down is just not using heat, wearing winter clothes indoors. maybe not every day, every other day. learning to live with less, and finding out that it's not that bad, and that there are even advantages to it.

[mos6507]

If we're going to have food shortages due to peak oil and population overshoot, then I think the use of livestock will result in "food vs. fuel" debates like we're seeing with biofuels today. Arabale land will have to increasingly be reserved for human consumption. Meat consumption will become more limited. We may even see people stop keeping pets.

So while I can see some initial experiments with using horses and livestock pulling ploughs, it's just not going to work in a world with 9+ billion people vs. how it was in the 1800s. That's why we've had wonderful threads about eating weeds and bugs. An amish utopia it won't be. Post die-off, dream of whatever utopia you want.

[Quinny]

In Bruges the horses wear nappies.

Inside cities of course, horses are a major mess, you have that quote from some London Times columnist in the late 1800s that London was going to be knee deep in poop in 20 years. Then of course came the Automobile.

I would agree with that. At one time, a local police station in California in the Antelope Valley, went to usng horses for their town patrols. What a mess that was. It was not unusual to see a cop's horse drop a load in front of some local establishment, on the sidewalk right outside their door, and just putter on and leave it fester there. Local business's went crazy over this, and of course it did not last.
But it opens up a new job possibility, does'nt it? A crew of people to go around cleaning up horse poo!

Your whole post is interesting and food for thought. Myself I think bicycles and walking will figure a lot in the near term. Of course this will help improve the fitness of the citizens, eliminate a lot of the obesity that our society currently has due to easy transportation. I have a good bicycle, although I do not use it for transportation at this time, only for exercise. But if need be it is there, hopefully I can find a new job closer to home where that will become possible.

[ReverseEngineer]

If we're going to have food shortages due to peak oil and population overshoot, then I think the use of livestock will result in "food vs. fuel" debates like we're seeing with biofuels today. Arabale land will have to increasingly be reserved for human consumption. Meat consumption will become more limited. We may even see people stop keeping pets.

So while I can see some initial experiments with using horses and livestock pulling ploughs, it's just not going to work in a world with 9+ billion people vs. how it was in the 1800s. That's why we've had wonderful threads about eating weeds and bugs. An amish utopia it won't be. Post die-off, dream of whatever utopia you want.

If you read the OP carefully, this scenario is written for AFTER the nasty period ahead of us engaged in the battle with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War, Pestilence, Famine and Death will not permit a rise in population to 9B, as is being discussed in another thread by Thuja on Die Off.

Rather this post is written with the post-Apocalypse world of around 1-2B in mind. Also its written as a gradual transition to many of these things over a period of time, 50-100 years. If we were so fortunate as to manage a controlled dieoff and not suffer a massive population crash in a year or two, I see no reason most of this could not be managed also. Big *IF* of course.

Reverse Engineer

[PeakOiler]

Yeah, I'm a geeky number cruncher, and I recently updated my Annual Gasoline Cost & Amount spreadsheet:



So I've reached a plateau at ca. 500 gallons of gasoline/yr. I despise my 92 mile per day round trip commute to work five days/wk, but that's why I bought a 2003 hybrid Insight that gets 56 mpg. When the commute ends, (retirement is still over 8 yrs away), the amount of gasoline I purchase will decrease substantially. The amounts shown above include the car, the truck, the boat, and the lawnmower.

How much gasoline, diesel, and fuel oil did you purchase last year? I would be interested in learning if other po.com members are making an attempt to power down. I managed about a 2/3 reduction since 2001. Imagine if all Americans reduced their oil and gas consumption by 65-70%...

[galacticsurfer]

Financial sense Wrap upRob Kirby thinks it is bad news to save energy. Using less as in Copenhagen and Kyoto accords means Great Depression. Powering Down is impossible.

[mos6507]

Financial sense Wrap upRob Kirby thinks it is bad news to save energy.

I'm sure sacrifice is required. The question is whether people would be willing to see it as a net gain in the long-haul. On the radio I was overhearing some campaign ads where they talk about investing in green energy "to create jobs". There always has to be this bait-and-switch game played out where the politicians feel they have to sell green as a job creator rather than as an environmental doom preventer. I don't think the green tech will create the scale of jobs they hype it as, but I don't think it HAS to pass that test considering the long-term threats we face. The American public demands a quick ROI for federal spending just as much as shareholders for a corporation. It's all part of the same mentality.

[mcgowanjm]

Financial sense Wrap upRob Kirby thinks it is bad news to save energy.

I'm sure sacrifice is required. The question is whether people would be willing to see it as a net gain in the long-haul. On the radio I was overhearing some campaign ads where they talk about investing in green energy "to create jobs". There always has to be this bait-and-switch game played out where the politicians feel they have to sell green as a job creator rather than as an environmental doom preventer. I don't think the green tech will create the scale of jobs they hype it as, but I don't think it HAS to pass that test considering the long-term threats we face. The American public demands a quick ROI for federal spending just as much as shareholders for a corporation. It's all part of the same mentality.

Resiliance v Growth

Depressions always contain the payback. The payback
always hurts the most at the beginning. With survivors
getting better with each payback payment. Just like
a mortgage.

[PeakOiler]

In about three weeks, I may post the updated chart of my gasoline use and cost. 2009 ytd amounts are currently $988 and 454 gallons gasoline.

I Powered Down and am alive and well.

[PeakOiler]

I received my last electric utility bill of the year recently and the temperature extremes (i.e, record-setting heat this last Summer and record-setting cold this Fall) were responsible for the increase in electricity use:



The AC compressor is almost 9 years old now and should be replaced soon, and better insulation is needed. The July, August, and December bills were the highest of the year.

Total home utility power cost me $1,093.01 this year.

I bought a $30 stack of split oak firewood for $7 after recycling the household aluminum cans. The split oak firewood is gone now. A friend recently told me I could come pick up about a pickup-truck load of oak from a dead tree they recently brought down. They don't have a fireplace or a woodstove.

The gasoline use graph will be updated soon.

[Ludi]

Around here folks will probably give you free firewood if you offer to cut and haul it, because of all the oaks dead from the Wilt.

[PeakOiler]

I bought my last tank of gasoline for 2009 a couple days ago and updated the spreadsheet:



2009 Totals: 485 gal, $1,062.75.

Very true, Ludi. Recycling aluminum cans, however, in order to get a deep discount on retailed split oak firewood is applying one of those "less-labor" methods. My friend's dead oak wood is already cut to the right length, but it's not split yet. I'll be getting the maul out soon...

[Ludi]

It certainly wouldn't make sense to drive down here to cut and haul firewood back up there. I hope you guys don't have the damn wilt up there. It finally hit our place this past year.

[PeakOiler]

It certainly wouldn't make sense to drive down here to cut and haul firewood back up there. I hope you guys don't have the damn wilt up there. It finally hit our place this past year.

I have to drive the truck every once and awhile, and I'll combine the work commute and drive to retrieve the wood from my friend's house. It will be about 20 more miles than usual but would be more efficient than two trips to Austin.

[PeakOiler]

This morning I updated my gasoline comparison costs spreadsheet between my Insight and F-150. If I had driven the F-150 the same number of miles as I drove the Insight since July, 2003, I would have spent $21,439.12 more on gasoline! That's how much I have saved. That's about what the sticker price of the Insight was.

[DomusAlbion]

We use Quicken to track all our spending. I just took a quick peek at our peak auto expenses for this year.

I've burned through $458 of gasoline for my Ford Ranger for the entire year. I can't tell you the exact mileage but it's probably close to 2400 miles. I don't drive much; I go into town maybe once every two weeks.

My wife's Honda Pilot has burned $1039 but much of that was for some locum tenens work in a city 150 mile from our farm, for which she was reimbursed.

We turned off our gas range for the summer, used a two burner hot plate and the barbecue and saved hundreds of dollars on propane.

We have a very good income but we're trying a program I call "Live as If".

Live as if we are poor.
Live as if gas is very expensive, utilities are available but rationed, as if we're far along on the downward curve of oil production.

This way we ease our minds and our habits into a resource restricted future.

[PeakOiler]

Your fuel use is what I hope mine will be as soon as I can retire in less than five years. Unfortunately, I still have a 96 mile/day round trip commute five days a week. I have nearly 200,000 miles on that Insight now. I need to update my TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for the Insight.

I don't think my 1998 F-150 could have put another 200,000 miles on it without engine or transmission repair/replacement. I only fill the truck with gas twice per year. That truck is still in great shape. It has about 130K miles on it. I only use the truck when I need to use a truck, like for hauling firewood and gardening/landscaping/home improvement supplies.

I hope the Insight lasts till I retire (or die, whichever comes first ). I may have to replace the big battery one more time. Warranty covered the first battery replacement @ about 135k miles.