What’s Next? Locusts?

Think of my new gazebo as "screen house version 2."

I've always thought that we were facing a serious set of 3 problems, a trifecta of "peak oil", debt (national, state, personal), and terrorism. Each of these is bad enough, but they feed on each other and are interrelated. If we can no longer afford to fund police and our national defense, we are more exposed to terrorism (which will likely increase). Peak oil issues cause everything from higher prices and shortages, trauma to our practice of stocking supermarket shelves via a long distance just-in-time inventory practices, which themselves can lead to shortages, anger or panic, and perhaps more extremism. The relationships are many.

Now I have to admit that there is an obvious 4^th problem: global climate change. This winter we had snowfall totals of over 40 inches in DC. There has been intense record-breaking heat this summer in the metro DC area, with alternating wild rainstorms and more tornado watches than I have ever seen. 2010 is likely to be the hottest year on record, world-wide. There is unusual cold in South America, wildfires in Moscow, floods in Pakistan (and Iowa too). My screen house was a haven in 3 seasons protecting us from flying insects, and I lost it this winter when the winter storms came too fast and furiously. To take its place, I had a new, solid, gazebo built that should withstand the snow (screen house version 2.0, above), but now I worry about falling branches from all these storms.

Global climate change has obvious damaging effects, but it also has lots of subtle ones, even in your back yard. If you are a gardener, you are dealing with more than the usual problems: tomatoes cracking due to alternating dry and wet, cold and hot conditions. Power outages are followed by power surges; I've got a damaged DVR and outside security motion-detecting light that doesn't work any longer, both caused by surges when the power came back on.

Gardens are also yielding less, in part because there are fewer bees (bees are stressed by the weather too). New invasive species of weeds are growing like crazy. Some, like purslane, are rich sources of Omega 3 oils (so all is not bad.) And now there are the damned chiggers. I finally figured out that raised bumps at my beltline and below are not caused by fleas, ticks, or bedbugs, but chiggers. These nearly invisible beasts cause button-size welts and intense itching. Almost nothing gives relief.

In a recent editorial for the Wall Street Journal, "America is at Risk of Boiling Over," Peggy Noonan said she's worried that our nation is becoming simultaneously pessimistic and feeling helpless. She suggests this will lead to deep societal unrest. I agree with her. And wait until the four big problems become more active and begin feeding on each other. So what are the mitigation strategies? You can build a 10 double fence to keep out the deer and deer ticks (I did), but that won't protect against the chiggers.

Public Transportation in DC and Larger Symbols

Today was the first time in a long time that I rode the DC metro during the workweek, since I had jury duty. I am an enthusiastic advocate for public transportation, especially in DC where

1. parking is non-existent
2. ozone triggers my astham

Today's subway ride was very disappointing and, I believe emblematic of two things: Society as a whole, and government in the US. What did I find and what do I mean?

First, you never expect all the escalators to work, and indeed you wouldn't have been surprised to find broken ones at almost every stop. There were also ever-present postings of elevator outages. AC was almost non-existent, and that was especially troublesome because on the ride back, one 8 car train had only 6 cars available (the dark cars were locked as they should be). So everybody piled into the remaining cars, cheek by jowl, and -once again, there was no AC. I felt like I was riding in a third-world country.

When I got off at Tenleytown, I hurried to the waiting bus only to have to navigate a maze of bent and falling over  chain link fencing. All this in the US capitol.

What did I mean about this being emblematic of our society and government? First, nobody gets an award for maintenance; we get bonuses for cost-cutting. And that's what happened for 30-40 years in the metro system, which is now literally falling apart. They've recently raised the fares (and another fare increase is coming soon), but this nickle-dime stuff will take a long time to pay for new cars, fix the escalators, etc.  We love low costs, but we get what we pay for. It costs much more to fix a car engine than it does to perform routine oil changes and maintenance, but we are often short-sighted and just keep our fingers crossed that big bad things won't happen.

Some problems also have been reported about operators texting while driving, and there have been fears of drugs (which seem to be everywhere). Yet the terrible crash that killed the driver and several others last year was not due to any of those things. It was due to bad brake warning systems on the tracks. 

And where is governmnet in all this?  There was of course the after-crash NTSB investigation, but that saved nobody's lives and surprised nobody with the result. Nobody in government wants to be proactive to fix the metro infrastructure before parts of it break or kill people. It doesn't help that the Metro DC system is paid by three jurisdictions --DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and even then there is no ongoing source of funding. It's "pass the cup" among these three groups each year to run the system for another year. Everybody knows this is no way to run a railroad or a metro system, but nobody stands up to say so.

If you think we can somehow fix the metro system, going green with propane-powered buses etc., any time soon, then you're crazy. We all know this will take a very long time, if it ever gets fixed correctly.

In the meantime, as peak oil and climate change problems loom larger and we depend even more on public transportation, the system will become even more stressed.

"Thank you for riding Metro."

JOE and Peak Oil Concerns (who’s JOE? See below.)

The US Department of Defense recently published a 2010 study by the US Joint Forces (Joint Operating Environment or "JOE"). The point of this study was to answer three main questions:

• What future trends and disruptions are likely to affect the Joint Force over the next quarter century?
  
• How are these trends and disruptions likely to define the future contexts for joint operations?
  
• What are the implications of these trends and contexts for the Joint Force?

The 76 page free study makes interesting reading (as in the mythical Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times) -- cover to cover. However, my interest focuses on the impact of diminishing fossil fuel productions, or what is commonly called "Peak Oil." The authors are no sandwich-board "the end is near" loonies; they are the United States Joint Forces Command. 


It is no secret that the Armed Forces run on petroleum products, and therefore are vulnerable to any production shortfalls (as indeed are we all). Here are a couple of selective quotes from the study.

"To meet even the conservative growth rates posited in the economics section, global energy

production would need to rise by 1.3% per year. By the 2030s, demand is estimated to be nearly 50% greater than today. To meet that demand, even assuming more effective conservation measures, the world would need to add roughly the equivalent of Saudi Arabia's current energy production every seven years.

And here is the International Energy Agency's (optimistic) projection about future production (click on the photo to see a larger version):

Notice the red section starting at 2010. Do you think we'll discover a new Saudi Arabia-class discovery every 7 years? I don't, but even if we do, you can be certain that it won't be cheap – Brazil may have come close to being one such "7 year" discovery, but that is prior to 2010. The Brazilian oil find is miles beneath the ocean, and beneath salt basins at the bottom of the ocean. To get it out (none, I believe, has been pumped yet) will require floating oil platforms costing well over $1 billion each to get the stuff to the surface.

One last quote:

"By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.

Scary? The whole report is scary. But we shouldn't bury our heads in the sand on this, especially the sands of Saudi Arabia.


 

Peak Oil, e-Readers, and Electronic Documents

This is a cross-post of a similar posting in my Content Curmudgeon blog, since the post fits equally well in both blogs.

Peak Oil and e-Readers or Electronic Documents… Huh? Isn't this kind of like mixing oil and water? Not really.

For related reasons, having to do in part with resource constraints, the cost of print subscriptions continue to rise, even sometimes becoming prohibitive. After 40 years as a continuous Wall Street Journal print subscriber, I canceled my print subscription. It cost nearly $400/year, and I already have an online subscription that costs around $100. The WSJ is great, but not $400/year great, especially in this economy, when I also have the online edition. So I cut the cord and went completely on-line. With online access I can of course search, save articles, print them to Acrobat PDF, the way I used to clip print articles. My paper press archive goes back 30 years, but PDF lasts forever, right? Another advantage of online news: the news is always fresh. Besides I'm helping save the environment, or at least I hope so. I reduce the number of plastic bags (that you can't recycle); I eliminate the need to recycle the paper itself. There is even a potential business advantage to the right e-Reader: It can preserve into the indefinite future the opportunity to view important documents. What could be nicer?

Well, there are advantages to print. Print never crashes. You can read print even when broadband is down or out of reach. You can fall asleep in a chair, drop the newspaper, and not have to buy a new one. Can't do that with a laptop. Print is very easy to read, indoors or out in bright sunlight. And print graphically rich, uses color, and is still more familiar and comfortable. Spouse says "I miss the WSJ print edition." Oh Oh.

I tell her to wait, I'll find an e-Reader that is nearly as good or even better than print. It will meet my kind of Turing test for print: doesn't crash, very portable etc. but also preserves the benefits of online: Searching, always current. iPad is here; Plastic Logic's Que reader is coming. We'll find something (but haven't bought anything yet). Now the limitations begin to appear, both from others' reviews and my own discussions with vendors.

iPad is ever so cool, has Apple's trademark usability, color… what could be better? For one thing, it tries to be everything a netbook can be, way more than just an e-Reader. I don't care if it can run my iPhone apps because I don't have an iPhone. In fact, I don't want to be nickled and dimed (more like dollared) to buy lots of little apps to fill in iPad's gaps (like being able to print or use a USB). And iPad doesn't run Flash, which is commonly used on many web sites, including the online WSJ. This feels a little like the "microsofting" of Apple. You can run anything, but not without add-ons that may not play well together. So I can buy another iPad-custom WSJ subscription, right? And do I do that for every subscription? Oh well, at least iPad has a (downsized) browser, so I can get to the WSJ in some fashion if I decide to spring for an iPad. But what about the other constraints? Early reviews say that that beautiful 1 and one half pound product begins to feel very heavy after a while, even can make your wrists hurt. And what kind of netbook wannabe is only single-threaded?

So I've now talked with a marketing rep from Plastic Logic about Que, and expect to get an evaluation device as soon as they become available. Yes, I know it will not display color (hey, the WSJ didn't start using color until it became common in other print editions). And it is very light and also cool in its own way – even has a screen that is more book-like, roughly 8 ½ y 11 inches. It reads virtually every document format known to humankind, and has huge amounts of space for all my books. But wait: It doesn't do flash either, and apparently has no browser, not even a limited one.

Maybe I misunderstood. And maybe when I finally get my hands on Que, I'll discover other advantages that cancel out the negatives.

Or quite possibly there is no perfect e-Reader. I'm guessing that's the case, since this is the real world. And if that's the case, I have to figure out exactly what a document is, and what attributes are optional (like Flash). That is no easy decision, since it requires peering into the future and guessing exactly what I'll be willing to do without.

And that's where the similarity with Peak Oil comes in. Liquid fossil fuels provide 95% or so of the world's transportation fuel needs. Yet liquid fuels will eventually run out, and before they do, they will become erratically less available and more expensive. So we'll also have to figure out which transportation options are critical, which optional. I'm guessing SUVs are optional, and public transit is critical.

And this may even have some bearing on e-Readers: they depend on electricity and broadband. Those are critical resources too, right?

What's your guess, about which transportation choices are critical and which are optional?

What's your guess about what constitutes the essence of a document, so it can be preserved and read generations hence?


 

Energy "Thought of the Moment"

Brief thought about energy, expressed from time to time.

Historic Blizzards in DC 2010-Peak Oil Thought Experiment

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard about the series of 4 winter storms that have hit the metropolitan DC area, starting with 19 Dec 2009 and continuing to this evening, 10 February 2010. DC's Reagan National's total snowfall to date exceeds historic records: 54.9" total compared with 54.4" set in 1898-1899. Not only that, in Northwest DC where I live, we always get 4-6" more than does National, which is right off the Potomac waters. Since there was no Reagan National in 1898, that total was probably more realistic than the 54.9" recorded at National – add 5" at least, or "normalizing" today's totals—making them apples to apples with 1898—the total is probably more like 60" compared with 54.4". Our electric utility, Pepco, shows huge numbers of power outages.See the little "hat" icons?

Those show where workers –already stressed to the bone—are trying to restore power.

We've had 4 snowstorms-cum-blizzards since the 19^th of December. Here are some photos during the 3^rd storm, after the neighborhood was somewhat cleared, and some from today, the February 10. Here's a second-story street view including my Corolla, during the 3^rd storm.

And here's my (beloved) screen house after the third storm – no time to take it down in November since it was always too cold, and the vinyl roof would crack.

And here's that same Corolla 6^th of February, before the fourth storm. I bravedthe roads to get the local Giant grocery store to buy some milk and a few other necessities (champagne off the list; liquor store was still closed). There were lots of empty shelves. I managed to buy milk, eggs, and some other things. The store was packed.

And the screen house after the 4^th storm – leaning precariously towards the gas grill. See how much snow there is on the grill, which I cleared between storms.

Last night there was a natural gas explosion (maybe not the right word) when the consistently 20 degree F or lower temperature caused a breakdown at a gas meter near Lafayette School, about a mile from my house. There was a loud thunderclap (no actual explosion), a strong rotten egg gas smell, and authorities considered evacuating houses in the area (to where?), until the gas company could get through the snow and shut off gas to the school.

Interesting times.

But what the heck does this have to do with a Peak Oil thought experiment?

The thought experiment is that we might see similarities in life after 4 blizzards-in-a-row and life after peak oil.

And what on earth does "Peak Oil" even mean? Well, for starters it doesn't mean that on a year certain the invisible oil spigot is shut off, and suddenly there is no oil. The definition is more subtle. And as you may know, oil not only provides gasoline, but plastics, diesel, many pharmaceuticals, electricity (for those power plants that burn diesel), and may other things that we take for granted. Shut off the oil and you shut off the other products. No, what global peak oil means is simply that world-wide, we've extracted the most petroleum that the world has ever seen, and year-by-year we will produce less.

Now we all know that everything runs out eventually. When will "Peak Oil" happen? 50 years hence? 2007? Opinions differ. "Peak oil" is usually considered along with the economics of extracting it. So the bubbly that flowed effortlessly from the ground in the "Beverly Hillbillies" comedy shows –not unlike the Quaker State oil in Pennsylvania— becomes very expensive to extract from $1 billion plus deep water rigs like Chevron's in the Gulf of Mexico. Clearly the easy bubbly stuff , which was so inexpensive to collect and refine, becomes much more expensive when Chevron has to drill 4 miles below the ocean and another 2 miles in the surface below that.

Add to the increasing extraction cost the fact that demand for fossil fuels is also increasing, everywhere from Saudi Arabia (yes) to India and China, and you can visualize a picture of gasoline and other fossil fuel-based products becoming increasingly expensive and scarce, as the US (and other countries) compete for the diminishing, ever more costly products. Think of a 7th grade graph with two lines, one sloping down (oil production) as another slopes up (demand).

So what will that world be like, whenever it begins? Perhaps it won't be a "tipping point" where suddenly everybody realizes it has occurred. Maybe it will be a series of unpleasant events where everything from gasoline to plastics and other petroleum-based products become intermittently available and more costly, on an upward trend of cost and a downward trend of availability.

A glimpse of that world might be like life during the blizzards. Store shelves –depending on just-in-time deliveries by semi's from distant locations, don't show up in time. Perhaps the rig owner-operators can't afford the expensive fill-ups, keep driving for cheaper diesel, and don't deliver on time. Perhaps utility deliveries of electricity to my house become intermittent – maybe they've installed wind or solar power which eventually became competitive with fossil-based fuels, but the wind died down and the sun didn't shine today.

What does that do to us in our homes? During these blizzards, I've grown accustomed to carrying around an LED flashlight in case the power goes out. I had a natural-gas fireplace installed several years ago as a heat backup. (Yes, natural gas is also fossil fuel, but it –like coal-- may run out after oil). I have thankfully been able to telecommute since I kept my power, heat, cell and land line phones, and broadband. I didn't miss the daily drive to Herndon, but I did miss the person-to-person interaction. Still, we collaborated successfully and got our work done. My son-in-law turned down my offer to drive to their house before the storm and deliver my WII console for the grand kids – he said they were learning to play games together and enjoying reading. "Good choice," I thought.

Still, after nearly a week housebound and even without postal mail, I've felt like I was more than housebound, almost under house arrest. But we coped and are getting to enjoy it after a fashion. I can't do anything about it, but I also wonder how the street people are faring. In this world of confinement to my close neighbors, the best I can do is check on Mary, the nearly 90 year old, feisty lady who insists she doesn't need anything, but accepted my freshly baked bread.

So is the fourth DC blizzard a metaphor for peak oil? Do you think the whole idea is hooey? Love to hear your comments (spammers need not apply).