Peak Oil is You
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Page added on March 3, 2014
The energy transition tipping point is here
The economic foundations supporting fossil fuels investments are collapsing quickly, as the business case for renewables such as solar and wind finds a new center of balance.
I have waited a long time—decades, really—for a tipping point in the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables beyond which there can be no turning back. Fresh evidence pertaining to many themes I have explored in this column over the past three years suggests that tipping point is finally here.
Oil and gas
Underlying the abundance hype over tight oil, tar sands and other “unconventional” sources of liquid fuel has been a dirty little secret: They’re expensive.
The soaring cost of producing oil has far outpaced the rise in oil prices as the world has relied on these marginal sources to keep production growing since conventional oil production peaked in 2005. Those who ignored the hype and paid attention to the data have known this for years. I have detailed this evidence repeatedly (for example, in “The cost of new oil supply,” “Oil majors are whistling past the graveyard,” and “Trouble in fracking paradise”), but now the facts are earning mainstream recognition.
The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out that oil and gas production by Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell has declined during the past five years even as the companies spent more than a half-trillion dollars on new projects. Chevron’s costs alone have jumped 56 percent since 2010.
A marvelous new presentation by Steven Kopits, Managing Director of the Douglas-Westwood consultancy, details oil supply, demand, cost and price trends with merciless precision. If you can take an hour to watch Kopits’ presentation I highly recommend it, as it’s the most comprehensive perspective you’ll find on the global dynamics of oil.
The graphic above shows how capital spending (capex) by the world’s publicly listed oil majors has increased by more than a factor of five since 2000, while their production of oil has fallen back to the 2000 level after a few years of very modest increases. In Kopits’ earthy metaphor, the companies kept watering the plant but it just wouldn’t grow anymore—precisely as the peak oil model predicted.
In late February, Bloomberg finally addressed the most problematic issue in shale gas and tight oil wells: their incredible decline rates and diminishing prospects for drilling in the most-profitable “sweet spots” of the shale plays. I have documented that issue at length (for example, “Oil and gas price forecast for 2014,” “Energy independence, or impending oil shocks?,” “The murky future of U.S. shale gas,” and my Financial Times critique of Leonardo Maugeri’s widely heralded 2012 report).
The sources for the Bloomberg article are shockingly candid about the difficulties facing the shale sector, considering that their firms have been at the forefront of shale hype.
The vice president of integration at oil services giant Schlumberger notes that four out of every 10 frack clusters are duds. Geologist Pete Stark, a vice president of industry relations at IHS—yes, that IHS, where famous peak oil pooh-pooher Daniel Yergin is the spokesman for its CERA unit—actually said what we in the peak oil camp have been saying for years: “The decline rate is a potential show stopper after a while…You just can’t keep up with it.”
The CEO of Superior Energy Services was particularly pithy: “We’ve drilled all the good stuff…These are very poor quality formations that I don’t believe God intended for us to produce from the source rock.” Source rocks, as I wrote last month, are an oil and gas “retirement party,” not a revolution.
The toxic combination of rising production costs, the rapid decline rates of the wells, diminishing prospects for drilling new wells, and a drilling program so out of control that it caused a glut and destroyed profitability, have finally taken their toll.
Numerous operators are taking major write-downs against reserves. WPX Energy, an operator in the Marcellus shale gas play, and Pioneer Natural Resources, an operator in the Barnett shale gas play, each have announced balance sheet “impairments” of more than $1 billion due to low gas prices. Chesapeake Energy, Encana, Apache, Anadarko Petroleum, BP, and BHP Billiton have disclosed similar substantial reserves reductions. Occidental Petroleum, which has made the most significant attempts to frack California’s Monterey Shale, announced that it will spin off that unit to focus on its core operations—something it would not do if the Monterey prospects were good. EOG Resources, one of the top tight oil operators in the United States, recently said that it no longer expects U.S. production to rise by 1 million barrels per day (mb/d) each year, in accordance with my 2014 oil and gas price forecast.
Coal and nuclear
When I wrote “Why baseload power is doomed” and “Regulation and the decline of coal power” in 2012, the suggestion that renewables might displace baseload power sources like coal and nuclear plants was generally received with ridicule. How could “intermittent” power sources with just a few percentage points of market share possibly hurt the deeply entrenched, reliable, fully amortized infrastructure of power generation?
But look where we are today. Coal plants are being retired much faster than most observers expected. The latest projection from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is for 60 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity to be taken offline by 2016, more than double the retirements the agency predicted in 2012. The vast majority of the coal plants that were planned for the United States in 2007 have since been cancelled, abandoned, or put on hold, according to SourceWatch.
Nuclear power plants were also given the kibosh at an unprecedented rate last year. More nuclear plant retirements appear to be on the way. Earlier this month, utility giant Exelon, the nation’s largest owner of nuclear plants, warned that it will shut down nuclear plants if the prospects for their profitable operation don’t improve this year.
Japan has just announced a draft plan that would restart its nuclear reactors, but the plan is “vague” and, to my expert nose, stinks of political machinations. What we do know is that the country has abandoned its plans to build a next-generation “fast breeder” reactor due to mounting technical challenges and skyrocketing costs.
Grid competition
Nuclear and coal plant retirements are being driven primarily by competition from lower-cost wind, solar, and natural gas generators, and by rising operational and maintenance costs. As more renewable power is added to the grid, the economics continue to worsen for utilities clinging to old fossil-fuel generating assets (a topic I have covered at length; for example, “Designing the grid for renewables,” “The next big utility transformation,” “Can the utility industry survive the energy transition?” “Adapt or die – private utilities and the distributed energy juggernaut” and “The unstoppable renewable grid“).
Nowhere is this more evident than in Germany, which now obtains about 25 percent of its grid power from renewables and which has the most solar power per capita in the world. I have long viewed Germany’s transition to renewables (see “Myth-busting Germany’s energy transition“) as a harbinger of what is to come for the rest of the developed world as we progress down the path of energy transition.
And what’s to come for the utilities isn’t good. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Germany’s three largest utilities, E.ON, RWE, and EnBW are struggling with what the CEO of RWE called “the worst structural crisis in the history of energy supply.” Falling consumption and growing renewable power have cut the wholesale price of electricity by 60 percent since 2008, making it unprofitable to continue operating coal, gas and oil-fired plants. E.ON and RWE have announced intentions to close or mothball 15 GW of gas and coal-fired plants. Additionally, the three major utilities still have a combined 12 GW of nuclear plants scheduled to retire by 2020 under Germany’s nuclear phase-out program.
RWE said it will write down nearly $4 billion on those assets, but the pain doesn’t end there. Returns on invested capital at the three utilities are expected to fall from an average of 7.7 percent in 2013 to 6.5 percent in 2015, which will only increase the likelihood that pension funds and other fixed-income investors will look to exchange traditional utility company holdings for “green bonds” invested in renewable energy. The green bond sector is growing rapidly, and there’s no reason to think it will slow down. Bond issuance jumped from $2 billion in 2012 to $11 billion in 2013, and the now-$15 billion market is expected to nearly double again this year.
A new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute and CohnReznick about consumers “defecting” from the grid using solar and storage systems concludes that the combination is a “real, near and present” threat to utilities. By 2025, according to the authors, millions of residential users could find it economically advantageous to give up the grid. In his excellent article on the report, Stephen Lacey notes that lithium-ion battery costs have fallen by half since 2008. With technology wunderkind Elon Musk’s new announcement that his car company Tesla will raise up to $5 billion to build the world’s biggest “Gigafactory” for the batteries, their costs fall even farther. At the same time, the average price of an installed solar system has fallen by 61 percent since the first quarter of 2010.
At least some people in the utility sector agree that the threat is real. Speaking in late February at the ARPA-E Energy Summit, CEO David Crane of NRG Energy suggested that the grid will be obsolete and used only for backup within a generation, calling the current system “shockingly stupid.”
Non-hydro renewables are outpacing nuclear and fossil fuel capacity additions in much of the world, wreaking havoc with the incumbent utilities’ business models. The value of Europe’s top 20 utilities has been halved since 2008, and their credit ratings have been downgraded. According to The Economist, utilities have been the worst-performing sector in the Morgan Stanley index of global share prices. Only utilities nimble enough to adopt new revenue models providing a range of services and service levels, including efficiency and self-generation, will survive.
In addition to distributed solar systems, utility-scale renewable power plants are popping up around the world like spring daisies. Ivanpah, the world’s largest solar “power tower” at 392 megawatts (MW), just went online in Nevada. Aura Solar I, the largest solar farm in Latin America at 30 MW, is under construction in Mexico and will replace an old oil-fired power plant. India just opened its largest solar power plant to date, the 130 MW Welspun Solar MP project. Solar is increasingly seen as the best way to provide electricity to power-impoverished parts of the world, and growth is expected to be stunning in Latin America, India and Africa.
Renewable energy now supplies 23 percent of global electricity generation, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with capacity having doubled from 2000 to 2012. If that growth rate continues, it could become the dominant source of electricity by the next decade.
Environmental disasters
Faltering productivity, falling profits, poor economics and increasing competition from power plants running on free fuel aren’t the only problems facing the fossil-fuels complex. It has also been the locus of increasingly frequent environmental disasters.
On Feb. 22, a barge hauling oil collided with a towboat and spilled an estimated 31,500 gallons of light crude into the Mississippi River, closing 65 miles of the waterway for two days.
More waterborne spills are to be expected along with more exploding trains as crude oil from sources like the Bakken shale seeks alternative routes to market while the Keystone XL pipeline continues to fight an uphill political battle. According to the Association of American Railroads, the number of tank cars shipping oil jumped from about 10,000 in 2009 to more than 230,000 in 2012, and more oil spilled from trains in 2013 than in the previous four decades combined.
Federal regulators issued emergency rules on Feb. 25 requiring Bakken crude to undergo testing to see if it is too flammable to be moved safely by rail, but I am not confident this measure will eliminate the risk. Light, tight oil from U.S. shales tends to contain more light molecules such as natural gas liquids than conventional U.S. crude grades, and is more volatile.
Feb. 11 will go down in history as a marquee bad day for fossil fuels, on which 100,000 gallons of coal slurry spilled into a creek in West Virginia; a natural gas well in Dilliner, Pa., exploded (and burned for two weeks before it was put out); and a natural gas pipeline ruptured and exploded in Tioga, ND. Two days later, another natural gas line exploded in the town of Knifely, Ky., igniting multiple fires and destroying several homes, barns, and cars. The same day, another train carrying crude oil derailed near Pittsburgh, spilling between 3,000 and 7,500 gallons of crude oil.
And don’t forget the spill of 10,000 gallons of toxic chemicals used in coal processing from a leaking tank in West Virginia in early January, which sickened residents of Charleston and rendered its water supply unusable.
No return
At this point you may think, “Well, this is all very interesting, Chris, but why should we believe we’ve reached some sort of tipping point in energy transition?”
To which I would say, ask yourself: Is any of this reversible?
Is there any reason to think the world will turn its back on plummeting costs for solar systems, batteries, and wind turbines, and revert back to nuclear and coal?
Is there any reason to think we won’t see more ruptures and spills from oil and gas pipelines?
What about the more than 1,300 coal-ash waste sites scattered across the United States, of which about half are no longer used and some are lacking adequate liners? How confident are we that authorities will suddenly find the will, after decades of neglect, to ensure that they’ll not cause further contamination after damaging drinking water supplies in at least 67 instances so far, such that we feel confident about continuing to rely on coal power?
Like the disastrous natural gas pipeline that exploded in 2010 and turned an entire neighborhood in San Bruno, Calif., into a raging inferno, coal-ash waste sites are but one part of a deep and growing problem shot through the entire fabric of America: aging infrastructure and deferred maintenance. President Obama just outlined his vision for a $302 billion, four-year program of investment in transportation, but that’s just a drop in the bucket, and it’s only for transportation.
Is there any reason to think citizens will brush off the death, destruction, environmental contamination of these disasters—many of them happening in the backyards of rural, red-state voters—and not take a second look at clean power?
Is there any reason to believe utilities will swallow several trillion dollars worth of stranded assets and embrace new business models en masse? Or is it more likely that those that can will simply adopt solar, storage systems, and other measures that ultimately give them cheaper and more reliable power, particularly in the face of increasingly frequent climate-related disasters that take out their grid power for days or weeks?
Is there any reason to think the billions of people in the world who still lack reliable electric power will continue to rely on filthy diesel generators and kerosene lanterns as the price of oil continues to rise? Or are they more likely to adopt alternatives like the SolarAid solar lanterns, of which half a million have been sold across Africa in the past six months alone? (Here’s a hint: Nobody who has one wants to go back to their kerosene lantern.) Founder Jeremy Leggett of SunnyMoney, who created the SolarAid lanterns, intends to sell 50 million of them across Africa by 2020.
Is there any reason to believe solar and wind will not continue to be the preferred way to bring power to the developing world, when their fuel is free and conventional alternatives are getting scarcer and more expensive?
Is there any reason a homeowner might not think about putting a solar system on his or her roof, without taking a single dollar out of his or her pocket, and using it to charge up an electric vehicle instead of buying gasoline?
Is there any reason to think that drilling for shale gas and tight oil in the United States will suddenly resume its former rapid growth rates, when new well locations are getting harder to find, investment by the oil and gas companies is being slashed, share prices are falling, reserves are getting taken off balance sheets and investors are getting nervous?
I don’t think so. All of these trends have been developing for decades, and new data surfacing daily only reinforces them.
The energy transition tipping point is here, and there’s no going back.
19 Comments on "The energy transition tipping point is here"
Meld on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 12:03 pm
So the transition is finally here is it? we’ll see what happens in the next few decades then as countries switch over to renewables. I’m guessing decline decline decline, wars, famines then…poof and the civilisation is gone. Hopefully replaced by a saner one.
rollin on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 12:42 pm
Pin cushion – toxic world is coming to an end??? Wow, I will celebrate by sowing seeds of edible plants and dancing in the moonlight.
Somehow I think celebration is premature as the destruction on the downside will be even greater than the destruction on the upside. Unless we actually start using our heads.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 1:09 pm
Another Subaru Environmentalist claiming the ascension of renewables to a position of prominence through all the usual arguments of economics and environmentalism. What is not dealt with is the primary question of the beginning of the renewable process, the maintenance of that process, and the replacement of that technology. We know from multiple analysis that renewables have a variety of difficult issues in a renewable penetration of the power market over 20%. To get this percentage of market share to work requires expensive grid upgrades. Widely dispersed renewables sources to support one another are needed in addition to on demand fossil generation like gas. There is no substitute for base load of a very significant amount. The whole renewable manufacture process is highly complex, using exotic materials, and awash in fossil energy from beginning to end. We are in a complex interconnected global arrangement facing a predicament of diminishing returns of the limits of growth. The sheer amount of energy and capex needed to build out renewables puts us in an energy trap. This energy trap is currently being on an energy plateau facing a decent down an energy gradient. The energy trap is the amount of energy and capex needed to build out will require shorting other segments of the economy. Our complex interconnected economic system requires growth to service the debt that must be created and serviced to maintain growth. A Growth based economy must have positive growth to service debt. If this does not happen bankruptcies occur and a vicious deflationary cycle ensues. Trading off renewable production with huge upfront costs and long ROI’s in today’s financial situation will require sacrifice elsewhere with the unintended consequences of negative growth. Renewables have shown some promise economically of late due to subsidies, false economies of scale, sweet spots taken, and improved technology. Subsidies are a no brainer money to lower poor economies of introduction. False economies of scale are mainly from China where market distortions of investment have taken place with over capacity and the consequent fall in prices. Many of the best and most productive sweet spots have been taken. The technology has improves with a parallel increase in the industry expertise is a bright spot. We will need a whole buffet of responses to this decent down an energy gradient society is faced with. Renewables have a very real place in various niches. I find the best applications are low tech, dispersed applications, and in combination with grid power. Residential applications for example would be a relatively small power system to cover low draw items in parallel with high draw grid use. In the event of grid instability you still have lights. The application of renewables where conversion is limited like solar hot water and direct use of wind mechanically is very smart. Passive solar and ground heat and cooling systems are a positive. The two primary handicaps of a renewable based status quo BAU world is renewables cannot create renewables and BAU society does not work on seasonality and variability. In a contracting and or collapsing global society the complex renewable manufacturing process will not be stable. Just as the automobile industry with long complicated lines of manufacture and distribution will become unstable and fail so will complex renewables systems manufacture. They have a limited life and will follow fossil energy systems into the technological dead end of a descending complexity of postindustrial man.
rockman on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 1:13 pm
Rollin – unfortunately I have to agree. The alt folks tend to rejoice at the prospect of higher fossil fuel costs/shortages bringing about a shift to the alts. But they typically refuse to understand that demand for alts won’t lead to significant expansion without significant capex. Capex that will become increasing short as the global economies spend more for fossil fuels. It especially silly when they imply that all we need do is shift the ff capex to alt capex. As bad as matters are to what would happen if the bulk of ff development stopped quickly? I doubt the economies would be very capable of maintaining the current alts let alone expand them.
No….said it before: the time to expand the alts was about 40 years ago when we had abundant and relatively cheap ff. Which is also the same reason we didn’t do it.
The absolute need for alts today doesn’t create their significant expansion any more than it did decades ago.
sunweb on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 1:21 pm
There is no question that fossil fuels are a bad mixed for life.
I believe the author is emotionally and financially invested in not believing the information below, regardless, as Galileo said, it revolves. Sometimes the truth doesn’t set you free; it simply creates denial for short-term fun or profit.
From: http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/machines-making-machines-making.html
Solar and wind capturing devices are not alternative energy sources.For the renewable devices – wind, photovoltaices, solar hot water, hot air panels – the sun and wind are there, are green, are sustained.The devices used to capture the sun and wind’s energy are an extension of the fossil fuel supply system.
There is an illusion of looking at the trees and not the forest in the “Renewable” energy world.Not seeing the systems, machineries, fossil fuel uses and environmental degradation that create the devices to capture the sun, wind and biofuels allows myopia and false claims.
Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) is a part of the equation.There is also a massive infrastructure of mining, processing, manufacturing, fabricating, installation, transportation and the associated environmental assaults.Each of these processes and machines may only add a miniscule amount of energy to the final component of solar or wind devices.There would be no devices with out this infrastructure.
And:
A new scientific study shows it takes years to payback the energy used in solar electric devices. EROI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) says it takes energy – mining, drilling, refining, transporting, installing, maintenance, and replacement parts – to make the devices necessary to capture solar energy.
Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution: The Energy Return on Investment by Prieto, Pedro A., Hall, Charles2013.
http://www.springer.com/energy/renewable+and+green+energy/book/978-1-4419-9436-3
andhttp://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
“This book presents the first complete energy analysis of a large-scale, real-world deployment of photovoltaic (PV) collection systems representing 3.5 GW of installed, grid-connected solar plants in Spain.Prieto and Hall conclude that the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny climate.Germany’s EROI is probably 20 to 33% less (1.6 to 2), due to less sunlight and efficient rooftop installations.”
“Solar advocates can learn from this analysis . . . “Not looking at the reality of EROI “is not good science and leads to wasted money and energy that could have been better spent preparing more wisely for declining fossil fuels in the future.”
This study does not detail the environmentally destructive mining, toxic chemicals or air and water pollution necessary to get the materials for manufacturing and installing solar devices.The sun is there, is green, is sustained – not the so-called renewable devices.
Sometimes the truth doesn’t set you free; it simply creates denial for short-term fun or profit.
Invest in solar now while we still have the fossil fuels from fracking, deep water drilling, Canadian tar sands and mountain top removal for coal.Then we can have the massive trucks, large refineries, huge manufacturing facilities for glass, aluminum, copper, and photovoltaic cells that are necessary for these high tech, temporary solutions.Don’t let true science or concern about the earth’s future stand in your way.
simonr on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 1:39 pm
Hi Rockman
When it comes to large solutions I totally agree, however in my own case, our electric bill is the same a paying off a loan for an off grid solar system, this is scheduled for next year.
so I expect more and more little people to chip away at FF generators.
Simon
Kenz300 on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 3:27 pm
The transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources is growing around the world.
Wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal and second generation biofuels made from algae, cellulose and waste are the future.
The price of oil, coal and nuclear keeps rising while the price of wind and solar keep dropping. Even the biggest fossil fuel supporters are beginning to see the benefits of moving to alternative energy sources.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 3:43 pm
Kenz you remeber the old days when we played 45 records and they hit a defect in the small ridges that produced the vibrations. It created a skip that would play the same phrase over and over. Don’t hear that much anymore but you resemble this. It is not about transition it is about locating small niches for renewables to help mitigate a decline in fossil fuels.
rockman on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 5:05 pm
Simon – I agree with you. It’s certainly beneficial to you and other folks in a similar situation. Unfortunately it’s not relevant to the vast majority of the world that’s still hung up on fossil fuels and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Folks get confused when they see negative comments about the scalabity of the alts vs. positive benefits to individuals. Those are two very different conversations IMHO.
Nony on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 5:29 pm
1. CAPEX/production of the majors is not same thing as overall industry. State oil companies and NA independents have different dynamics.
2. It makes no financial sense for people to invest in renewables when price is low (and outlook low). The returns aren’t there. If we have prolonged high prices and the $$ make sense now, then capital will flow just fine. Look at how the Bakken/EF were financed. Dollars will flow to real opportunities, even in a recession.
That said, I wonder whether these renewables are really economical (still) without subsidies. Natural gas on the other hand seems to be more and more interesting. CH4 is a lot smaller than C10H22 and the planet just has a lot more of it. The shale revolution in gas has a lot more legs than in oil.
Nony on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 5:33 pm
WRT 2, my point is that building out renewable capacity 40 years ago would have been silly. Those programs got killed in the 80s because they no longer made sense. If they make sense now, we do them now.
Let the market handle it. The market won’t be perfect (no one has a crystal ball), but they will make better decisions than Carter with synfuels or Obama with Solyndra.
Nony on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 5:41 pm
Oh…and there is a very, VERY simple and easy alternative to the private automobile. Don’t need to build a train track. Low capital, quickly and easily scaled. And much better economics and oil conservation. It’s called “the bus”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQTuYo6HmiQ
Stilgar Wilcox on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 7:00 pm
“But they typically refuse to understand that demand for alts won’t lead to significant expansion without significant capex. Capex that will become increasing short as the global economies spend more for fossil fuels.”
Rockman nails it, because as net energy declines so does the economic foundation to support renewables capex, which by the way would need to increase as the transition took place. So as EROEI descends and along with it net energy available to fund renewables, somehow that investment increases?
It’s similar to the struggle going on now by govt.’s to generate growth on a net energy decline.
It’s very difficult to force two interrelated (by energy) transitions headed in opposite directions to comply with inverse proportion, when the natural response is for one cancel to the other. It’s like colliding two ball bearings on the end of fishing line with equal force against one another – the collision quickly cancels the energy available to keep the balls moving and they come to a rest (collapse).
On the other hand we could expect physics to be wrong (like a lot of other magical thinking), and for colliding balls to result in the one we want to somehow move past the other ball and continue it’s ascent.
GregT on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 7:10 pm
“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
Good LUCK to you Nony.
For everyone that is actually cognizant of reality, now would be a very good time to invest in personal alternate energy infrastructure. While not a long term solution, definitely a luxury during our transition period to a greatly reduced energy future. Obviously not anywhere near as important as food production, but keeping the lights on for a couple more decades is definitely worth the ‘investment’. IMHO
Those that believe others will take care of them, are in for a very rude ‘awakening’.
Nony on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 7:13 pm
I just showed you a very simple solution. Ride the bus. I think we can afford the capital for some busses. It won’t be as nice or as convenient. But it’s not like we will need to start living in log cabins either.
Oh…and no planning required. People will just naturally start riding the bus more based on price signal. Cities will add more as needed.
No Solyndra, no light rail, no synfuels program needed. Ride the bus.
GregT on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 7:48 pm
Ride the bus to where? For what purpose? Many cities are already mired in debt. Where do you believe the capital will come from? Hell, our transit system here is already insolvent. As is our health care system, our education system, our social security system, our parks boards, our pension funds, and all levels of government. The direct result of a slowing down of our growth based economic ponzi scheme systems. What do you honestly think will happen when growth is no longer possible, and we go into decline? We’ll all be riding the buses to go to picnics on the beach? Eating caviar and sipping dry gin martinis?
simonr on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 8:59 pm
Hi Rockman
I agree, and whilst I could probably solve the energy crisis with hot air on the subject.
I thinkg I will invest in a wood burning stove/boiler (this year) and a grid independent system (next year).
simonr on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 9:04 pm
Hi Rockman
I agree, and whilst I could probably solve the energy crisis with hot air on the subject.
I think I will invest in a wood burning stove/boiler (this year) and a grid independent PV system (next year).
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 3rd Mar 2014 9:11 pm
I have gone small solar on my farm in parallel with the grid. Not enough to run everything but enough for small tools, lights, and electronics. I plan on getting a very small solar water heating system also. I may not even hook it up until I need it. The point for me is hot water and lights are a pretty nice luxury that is taken for granted. If the grid becomes unstable and fuel supplies in shortage or rationed then these items will have great value. For me now these systems are insurance. Do I need them no but it sure will pay for itself when and if I need them. We need to quit fooling ourselves into thinking we can run the show with these expensive alternative energy systems. These alternative energy systems shine in small low demand applications. There are so many applications for these systems in the small dispersed setting. If you look at the money put into a huge solar farm like the latest in the Mohave Desert that would pay for a large amount of dispersed solar around the country. We as humans can’t stand simple low tech plain Jane technology. No, we have to have the Towers of Babylon. It is my hope that enough people will catch on to the reality that the grid is going to destabilize and fuel sources will be rationed. The people that have planned ahead with some kind of alternative energy to run basic items will have a couple of things off their plate. They can focus on other necessities or enjoyments.