Feeding the World

As I wait for IRENE to come, with sump pump and tarp at the ready, I’m reviewing some old-but-not-yet-read digests from Peak Oil News. Here are some disturbing thought from the May 31 2001 issue, from Farmer’s Weekly, written by Tyson Cattle (no kidding).  In essence, the writer is reporting on a visit by Tyson Cribb, noted science journalist, who was in Washington, Australia giving a presentation on Peak Oil and Agriculture: “Where is Agriculture Heading in the next 20 years?"

Cribb is peak-oil savvy, and is wondering how farmers will feed the world, given that our whole agriculture system (like every other modern system) presumes endless supplies of cheap fossil-based energy. 

Some excerpts from Cribb’s talk follow.

"Today the world faces looming scarcities of just about everything required to produce high yields of food, that is, water, land, nutrients, oil, technology, skills, fish and stable climates.

"This isn't a simple problem which can be treated with techno fixes or national policy changes."

"To put it another way, between 1990 and 2005, world demand for food has grown 15 times faster than the area of land being farmed."

"If, due to an oil crisis or local war, the endless river of trucks carrying food failed to arrive even for a week or two, what would their citizens eat?

• "In developed countries we trash from a third to half of all food produced," he said.
• "In developing countries we lose similar amounts post-harvest.
• "Half the achievements of the world's farmers are going to landfill.
• "While a billion starve, we waste food enough for three billion.

"Our grandparents would say we are idiots and they would be right."

Cribb suggested that Australia begin devoting a larger percentage of its funds for agricultural research.  He notes that the world spends $1.5 trillion each year on weapons, but only $40 billion on agriculture research.

Rather than wait for the research, I suggest this is a good time to start planting annual gardens – if you have sunlight, you can supply the rest—to see just how difficult but satisfying gardening can be.

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.

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?


 

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).

Taleb, Noonan, and a Supermarket Conversation

In her WSJ editorial dated March 13, 2009, There's no Pill For This Kind of Depression, Peggy Noonan described a phenomenon that I noticed recently in a supermarket checkout line. We all seem, pretty much simultaneously, to have come to believe that the world is not only worse off than anybody would have said a year ago, but that it will be bad for a long time.

Noonan credits this to the idea that

“The writer and philosopher Laurens van der Post, in his memoir of his friendship with Carl Jung, said, 'We live not only our own lives but, whether we know it or not, also the life of our time.'"

“Of our time,” meaning that we have come to a concurrent conclusion that we are all witnessing a Black Swan event. The concept of such a thing was popularized by Nassim Taleb in his book of that name: Once in a while something totally unforeseen happens. Taleb elaborates on that idea on his website, Fooled by Randomness. Taleb asserts that there are some kinds of events (Black Swan events) that you essentially cannot foresee, even when the warnings are there.

Noonan says that we have a collective unintended common belief shaped by our time (that Black Swan event). Today, the event is the serious near-Depression and the common belief is that it won’t get better very soon at all. Noonan describes a “wall street titan” she interviewed five weeks ago, asking him what people should do next. He said: “Everyone should try to own a house, he said, no matter how big or small, but it has to have some land, on which you should learn how to grow things.”

Now to my supermarket checkout line conversation. A middle-aged woman ahead of me was buying a bunch of pussy willows, and we got to talking. She said that once she’d stuck a branch in the grown and it rooted, almost damaging her plumbing with its growth. I mentioned I’d done something similar by cutting some tomato branches last October before the first frost – I’d put them in water, they’d rooted, and I expect to plant these now 2’ tall tomato plants in a few weeks.

She responded that she didn’t have much land in the back of her house, but was seriously thinking of digging up the front lawn to grow some vegetables. In Northwest D.C. you just don’t do that. It hurts property values, and neighbors complain. (Unless you are a wealthy heir of a food company, then you dig up all you want and plant sunflowers and potatoes out front… I’ve
seen that too.)

Taleb and Noonan are both right. The Black Swan event happened, and we were all caught by surprise. Noonan was right that we are all gripped with the same kind of pandemic fear, sharing the life of our time.

Maybe good will come of this. We’ll all get down to our roots, back to basics, and that will be part of our shared recovery. And we’ll collectively stop our blind consumption of resources of all kinds, including fossil fuels, buying some time to figure out sustainable alternatives.

I hope so.

Peak Lithium? Why Should You Care?

What the heck is lithium and why should you care? First things first; what is lithium?
My first encounter with lithium was as a surreptitious high school participant in a science experiment. My teen buddies and I got a small piece of lithium and dropped it into a toilet to let it fizz.

That was exciting. But beyond the plop-fizz thing, what else should you know about lithium?

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
“According to theory, lithium was one of the very few elements synthesized in the Big Bang, although its quantity has vastly decreased since that time. The reasons for its disappearance, and the processes by which new lithium is created, continue to be active matters of study in astronomy. Though very light, lithium is nevertheless less common in the universe than any of the first 20 elements.”
To learn more, go to Wikipedia.

All this is mildly interesting, but it doesn’t answer the question “why should I care?”

Here’s why.

President Obama’s and others’ hoped for transformation of our transportation systems –including your car—from petroleum based to electric, depends on rechargeable batteries. The best chemical bet at this time seems to be lithium batteries. Lithium ion batteries are the majority choice, although lithium phosphate batteries are less apt to catch on fire – but they too depend on stable and abundant supplies of lithium. Click here for more on lithium phosphate alternative rechargeable batteries.

The common thread is easy to see: Lithium. Note this phrase in the above Wikipedia quote: …less common in the universe than any of the first 20 elements. And that leads to the next point.

Where in the world do you find lithium? Not at Home Depot. Here is a quote from Peak Oil Review from its February 9 2009 newsletter (ask me how to receive this if you’re interested).
In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world’s lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found in Bolivia — a country that may not be willing to allow much access to the mineral. (Peak Oil Review, 09 Feb 2009).
Recently Simon Romero wrote about this in the NY Times. Here is a quote:

“We know that Bolivia can become the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” said Francisco Quisbert, 64, the leader of Frutcas, a group of salt gatherers and quinoa farmers on the edge of Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat. “We are poor, but we are not stupid peasants. The lithium may be Bolivia’s, but it is also our property.”

How much lithium is in Bolivia and elsewhere? The article goes on to say that “The United States Geological Survey says 5.4 million tons of lithium could potentially be extracted in Bolivia, compared with 3 million in Chile, 1.1 million in China and just 410,000 in the United States. And beyond the current use of lithium in cell phones and laptops, what will be the impact of plug-in hybrid automobiles on the supply of lithium? Here’s what Mitsubishi spokesman said on the BBC News, November 9, 2008: “Mitsubishi, which plans to release its own electric car soon, estimates that the demand for lithium will outstrip supply in less than 10 years unless new sources are found.”

Now technology optimists will always say, and sometimes be right in saying, that we can always find alternatives. Still, the time is short for alternatives; GM is pinning its hopes for survival on the Volt, to be available in 2010. Not sure
Google “peak lithium” and you’ll find this WSJ blog. http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/02/03/peak-lithium-will-supply-fears-drive-alternative-batteries/
This blog describes alternatives such as zinc-air batteries. However, one very large obstacle: they aren’t rechargable and have a short lifespan. That’s akin to saying “except for that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

So are plug-in hybrid automobiles truly a climate-friendly, peak-oil mitigating alternative to the internal combustion engine?

What the heck is "Peak Oil"?

The term "Peak Oil" hasn't yet gone mainstream, but you are hearing that catch-phrase occasionally on mainstream financial sources and even in USA Today. Do you wonder what that term means? Click here for a very simple explanation, developed by "Gail the Actuary," one of the contributors to The Oil Drum -- a great site for information on this topic and for discussions about energy and our future.

Peak Oil Hits the Amish (Continued)

Amish Country, May 2012

Jacob had promised Josiah that he would do his best, but nobody realized either how difficult it would be to get power from the sun or --having set up a magnificent solar array-- what the consequences would be. They would be good and bad.

To understand part of the problem, you must understand the Amish approach to technology in general. They evaluate every technology choice based on its affect on the community – the Amish community. They deliberately pick and choose technologies to maintain the special nature of their community. And that approach is inward-looking.

They struggled with choices when it came to a public health requirement regarding milk storage – it had to be kept chilled (refrigerated), and had to be stirred automatically. Chilling (and automatic periodic stirring) requires electricity, and they had been averse to running electricity to their barns. Instead, they used diesel generators to create the electricity needed to chill and stir the milk.

Yet even that seemingly odd solution left open the possibility of allowing more technology into their communities. In fact, an Amish bishop –long before the energy emergency—said that “ To make a living, we need to have some things we didn’t have 50 years ago.” So what where the non-cultural barriers to the use of solar power?

For starters, the sheer cost of setting up the vast solar arrays surprised the community. They also had to decide whether to store the energy for a rainy day (or for night use), or to save money by not storing the power at all. Not storing the power meant using the English grid as a battery -- essentially sending excess electricity back to the utility grid. This “ran the meters backwards,” saving money on the electric bill, and was what the community decided to do

The cost itself, to generate power for woodworking and for use in the dairy, was far more than they'd expected, well over $50,000. This had required long hard lobbying --if that is the word-- in the Ordnung by Josiah. By working together --in typical Amish fashion-- the labor costs to set up the arrays were minimal. And before they started, they all realized that the whole community would have to share the cost but would share the power. Neighbors came to use the woodworking equipment, and milk storage tanks had to be tripled in size to accommodate neighboring dairy milk. Still, the system worked, and absent physical damage to the arrays, they should run quietly and as long as the community kept them clean and performed minimal maintenance.

Still, it was an odd looking construction -- black and shiny, definitely high-tech, and didn't exactly blend in with the typical Amish décor.

And then there was the heat. Nobody in the community remembered it ever being this hot, for generations, in the middle of May. Families could tolerate heat inside the barns and homes -- hand fans will always work-- but they were beginning to worry about possible damage to the solar panels themselves. And not only that, but the English were acting strange. The cost of gasoline had risen so high, up to $10/gallon at times, that the Amish didn't get very many gawking tourists anymore, and they didn't worry about vandalism from the English teenagers as much. But there was a certain tension when the English tankers came to pick up the Amish milk, always chilled as it should be, since power outages that the English farmers experienced hadn't ruined any of the Amish milk. Power outages usually occurred during the day when the sun was shining.

Yet the tension was clear. English farms were built on a scale that couldn’t apply solar refrigeration without massive changes to the buildings and land use, the cost would be way beyond English farmer means –especially in the newly depressed economic environment—and the demand for solar equipment in general was so high that just getting the supplies was nearly impossible.

There is generally a natural fellowship between farmers, in good times and in bad, but that friendship was strained as the “oddball Amish” –as some English referred to them—were clearly better positioned for the gathering energy storm. And most farmers have guns. What’s to prevent a stray bullet from hitting some solar panels by mistake? The Amish were no strangers to such outsider violence, and by nature would neither defend against it or repay in kind. But the threat of such violence seemed to be growing, and it was anybody’s guess where it would end up since the economic depression seemed to be worsening with no end in sight.

Oil Addiction consequences in northern NH, today and 2027

Who Pays for Oil Addiction? View from Grand Bois du Nord - GBN, USA

Ezekiel 18:1 “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

In other words, our kids, grand kids, and those after them pay for our addiction.

“Grand Bois du Nord” –abbreviated GBN in this story-- is a mythical rural town in northern NH. (In fact, there are signs in northern NH with the sign, “Entering the Grand Bois du Nord” – entering the Great North Woods.)

GBN Today

Actually GBN today isn’t a whole lot different from GBN yesterday, a year ago, or several decades ago. The pace is slow; people generally are at the bottom of the economic ladder yet manage to scratch out a living. GBN residents’ houses are modest, and built on lots of land, and have shallow or artesian wells for water. Distance between houses makes good neighbors. Distance also provides a place to hunt (in season and out of season), and large lots mean a good supply of trees for cutting and heating your homes. Everyone has a garden. Nobody has cable, broadband or even cell phone signals in much of GBN. Many residents do have satellite television, but that is often their only concession to modern-day luxuries. Everyone has to leave GBN to go shopping, even for basic foodstuffs. Living sustainably? These folks hang onto life from day to day, week to week, and that is the way they sustain their lives. Here is Dan, describing how $6 oil affects him.

“Prices like this hurt, but we manage. Isn’t like we’ll go out to the movie theatre less. They shut that down year’s ago anyway. We’ll just have to drive to Walmart once a month instead of every week, and buy our groceries there and in Shaw’s next door. I’m guessing that I’d better stock up on some things though like shotgun shells in case there’s a run on them. You never know.”

GBN, 2027

I decided to make one last trip from DC to GBN, for one last visit the place of my childhood and see Dan and his family again. Getting to GBN from Washington was not easy. The trains still run from Union Station to Boston, provided you can afford the $1000 round-trip ticket. Getting from Boston to GBN was the hard part. I couldn’t reserve a ticket on the new hybrid bus in North Station – it’s first come first serve—so I stood in line and waited my turn. Luckily I caught the evening bus, along with about 20 other people. Buses are smaller these days and more efficient, , but because they’re smaller and are really the main intercity transportation, they are always jam packed. And nobody has to enforce a 55 mile per hour speed limit. They drive at 40 mph max to save fuel.

I made it to GBN late in the evening, and made it to Dan’s about 4 hours later after walking from the drop-off down a very dark country road for several miles. It was peacefully dark and quiet. Although it was mid-May, it was much warmer than I remembered GBN even in the summer nights of my youth. My main worry, besides whether I could walk the whole way with my suitcase, was whether I’d run into a bear. The Milky Way shone brightly just as I remembered it, but I didn’t remember the haze. Yes, it was probably caused by global warming, with invasive trees and plant growing fast and what I was seeing was pollen.

When I got to Dan’s house it was probably 2 in the morning. I was tired and thirsty, and the house was dark, but then it seemed like all GBN was dark and Dan’s house never had street lights even before the oil shock. After a few knocks on the front door, I heard Dan call from inside. I told him “Yes, it’s Bob.” Dan opened the door and let me in.

First thing I wanted was a glass of water and Dan and his wife Mary gave me one and turned on the LCD lantern so we could see each other and talk. “Don’t know what we’d do without these things,” Dan said. “At least we have plenty of sunshine in GBN, and that means we can recharge the lantern and run the artesian well pump every day, except when it is really overcast. And with global warming, we don’t need to chop as much wood to heat the house in winter. You’d never believe how late in the season I was picking tomatoes last year: It must been October, and we watched the last green tomato turn green just before Thanksgiving.“

Dan and the folks of GBN were managing surprisingly well, living off the land more than they used to, but there was plenty of land, they never had much anyway, and their sustainable ways sustained them. Dan joked about how much work it was to do the little things. “You know, we’re all getting older, but you wouldn’t believe how much work it is to work the compost tumbler and keep up with the worm bed. We don’t have many table scraps for the tumbler anymore, but the garden weeds grow like crazy since the weather warmed up. And the worms grow like crazy. You can’t buy fertilizer anymore, but the worm castings make up for that just fine.”

I must have fallen asleep as I heard Dan and Mary chatter just like old times, and next thing I knew it was noon. They nudged me and offered me a bowl of strawberries with milk fresh from their cow. It was really nice to be back in GBN. I wonder if I’ll ever go back to Washington.

Initial Shock, page1

Well, I’ve been expecting this shock for sometime. In fact, after losing some bets with my friends about when gas would go over $5/gallon, this year I could get no takers. Nobody wants to think about –nobody I believe can even wrap their head around the idea that—oil is running out and even $7/gallon is a deal.

Living in DC, a block captain for Neighborhood Watch, I am doing my small bit to keep up a neighborhood infrastructure to protect from the waves of robberies, car jackings, and violence that are now increasing. Having a Prius makes it a little easier to keep my car safe from theft – can’t rob it without the Bluetooth starter—but of course that only goes so far. And I get uneasy when I fill up once/month for only $75 when others, with their big honken pickups can only get about 100 miles for the same price at 10mpg. If they’re commuting outside the metro bus and rail system, they’re in trouble and are coming to see those monster trucks as a cruel joke, a betrayal.

Food has of course become far more expensive and scarce. Deliveries are intermittent due to spot fuel shortages, and the added cost to transport goods makes corn –if you can find it at all, since more and more is going to make ethanol—only $5/ear. And to think that Virgin Atlantic is working with its supplier to develop an ethanol-based jet. How many people will go hungry --and get angry-- due to the corn diverted to supply one transatlantic flight?

Believe it or not, having lived through the oil shocks of the 70s and read the “back to basics” books like “One Acre and Security,” I started preparing long ago with my backyard garden, dwarf fruit trees, etc. These won’t keep me or my family fed, but they will provide a nice supplement to whatever we can find at the local markets. On a quarter acre lot, half of which is house and front yard, you can’t plant much, but I’ve made recycling a priority (even with a small worm farm in my basement), so this normally ivy-covered clay is really beginning to bear fruit, literally.

One nice side effect of the growing hunt for food: the deer who normally roam through yards eating everything from tomato plants to hosta, have suddenly disappeared. I’m betting some of them have ended up on dinner plates.