[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')
As the world winds down these factors, along with many others, will come into play. How it all works out is anyone’s guess.

[Newfie]

But yes they will see it as catastrophic by the same reasons you use to not folks won’t give up their life style but will die.

Not all but some. A significant voting block. One that can’t be ignored in the midterms.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')
As the world winds down these factors, along with many others, will come into play. How it all works out is anyone’s guess.

[dirtyharry]

Well,stuff will not get manufactured in the post FF world . Our current civilisation is a three legged stool ,the legs are oil,electricity and metals . Remove one and it is party over . Oil is the master resource , without this the other two legs automatically fail . How ? No oil means no mining for coal and uranium ,no drilling for natural gas which means no coal ,uranium and gas . You have to switch of the power plants . No electricity means no steel,aluminium,copper refineries as these are 24/7/365 days operations . They need a continuous supply of quality electricity which is within a certain range in all parameters . Intermittent electricity will not run an arc furnace . If no metals then what are you going to transform into a salable product ? Recycling of metals will not be possible as they face the same constraint as refining from virgin ores which is continous and quality electricity . We need electricity to produce electricity . Check out the supply chain . We use the internet everyday it uses electricity>the electricity comes from the power plant>the power plant uses coal,gas etc + moving machine parts >the coal is mined using earth moving equipment and moving parts are made on high precision machines >the high precision machines (lathes,Milling,power presses etc) run with electric motors which run on electricity .No electricity means the end of industrial civilisation and all the perks that came with it . There will be rudimentary production still maybe like the village blacksmith making pots and pans ,knives,swords etc for the local community ,but manufacturing as we know it (producing cars ,trucks etc) will be over . While my answer is in response to ^manufactured^ goods ,the issue is will it lead to contagion in ^agricultural ^goods . After all our system to produce food is highly industralised . No tractors,no harvesters etc .How will mankind cope ? I wish I knew .
P.S ; Some will post there is a lot of coal and gas . Yes ,I know that but the problem is how do you get the huge quantities from the mines to the plant . Not today or tomorrow but 24/7/365 . Remember ^It is not the size of the tank that matters ,but the size of the tap ^ . You may have $ 100000 in your bank account ,but if the ATM will dispense only $ 1000 per day then that is what your buying power is .

[KaiserJeep]

The problem with most post-FF doom scenarios is the same. People assume that something will end as if somebody flipped a switch from ON to OFF. That's just not at all realistic. There are so many oil wells and extraction methods and alternative petroleum sources that production will taper off over literally decades of ever more expensive petroleum fuels. In the last quarter of the age of oil, the largest consumers of fuels - petroleum and gas and biofuels - will be the mechanized farmers. Because in spite of our delusions of organic farming and permaculture and the like, we will continue to mine and process fertilizer chemicals and to manufacture herbicides and pesticides. So food will climb in cost until it is 2x, then 5x, them 10X as expensive as today. However uncomfortable that thought might be, the average American spends 6% of their income on food, and 10X that is doable, costing you your toys for the most part - unless you think you would make the decision not to eat.

When we crossover the cost barrier and begin to manufacture vehicle fuels from coal, we had better be well into the renewable energy conversion of our infrastructure. But as I have said before, you can live a modified version of today's energy-wasteful lifestyle on about 15% of the energy we consume today. I believe that FF's will taper off over 6-10 decades, personally.

By then, YES, we will be largely using a mixture of renewable and alternative energies, with a significant amount of distributed power generation. I do not plan to ever own anything except a "Net Zero Energy" residence again, and will do my best to modify my other home on Nantucket to that standard.

Are the rest of you actually planning lifestyle changes? A few of you are already there, most of you seem to be in the class of what I would call "complainers", because you will bitch endlessly about AGW, FF depletion, or politics, without ever taking any form of action to help yourself or the situation we are in. BAU.

BTW, my vision of energy-intensive manufacturing and industry in a post-FF world is what I just described, plus having the most power-intensive industries - such as electric arc furnaces for steel and aluminum refining - clustered around huge newly constructed third and fourth generation nuclear power plants.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')Here is where we disagree Ibon. Your self feeding farmer eating parched corn and beans will make it just fine so long as nobody meaner or bigger comes along and takes part or all of his food 'for the greater good'. By the same token the corporations that make microwave box meals (you know low food value crud) have an enormous cash incentive to keep producing those ready meals even if everyone in India or Mexico is literally starving to death in a famine.

[dirtyharry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')he problem with most post-FF doom scenarios is the same. People assume that something will end as if somebody flipped a switch from ON to OFF. That's just not at all realistic. There are so many oil wells and extraction methods and alternative petroleum sources that production will taper off over literally decades of ever more expensive petroleum fuels. In the last quarter of the age of oil, the largest consumers of fuels - petroleum and gas and biofuels - will be the mechanized farmers. Because in spite of our delusions of organic farming and permaculture and the like, we will continue to mine and process fertilizer chemicals and to manufacture herbicides and pesticides. So food will climb in cost until it is 2x, then 5x, them 10X as expensive as today. However uncomfortable that thought might be, the average American spends 6% of their income on food, and 10X that is doable, costing you your toys for the most part - unless you think you would make the decision not to eat.

When we crossover the cost barrier and begin to manufacture vehicle fuels from coal, we had better be well into the renewable energy conversion of our infrastructure. But as I have said before, you can live a modified version of today's energy-wasteful lifestyle on about 15% of the energy we consume today. I believe that FF's will taper off over 6-10 decades, personally.

By then, YES, we will be largely using a mixture of renewable and alternative energies, with a significant amount of distributed power generation. I do not plan to ever own anything except a "Net Zero Energy" residence again, and will do my best to modify my other home on Nantucket to that standard.

Are the rest of you actually planning lifestyle changes? A few of you are already there, most of you seem to be in the class of what I would call "complainers", because you will bitch endlessly about AGW, FF depletion, or politics, without ever taking any form of action to help yourself or the situation we are in. BAU.

BTW, my vision of energy-intensive manufacturing and industry in a post-FF world is what I just described, plus having the most power-intensive industries - such as electric arc furnaces for steel and aluminum refining - clustered around huge newly constructed third and fourth generation nuclear power plants.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dirtyharry', '
')Please stop smoking HOPIUM.

[Newfie]

It’s not that doom won’t come, soon enough. It’s just that we don’t know exactly when, where, and by what circumstances.

How the heck do you prep for that?

[ralfy]

It Will Take 131 Years To Replace Oil, And We've Only Got 10

Also, take a look at sunweb's messages about manufacturing solar panels, etc.

[Cog]

Stay healthy and out of debt works in almost all circumstances.

[MikeinNeb]

I spend A LOT of time thinking about how I should be going about finishing out my life. I’m 53, still fairly athletic, have 6 kids, (“Brady Bunch” arrangement…) 7 grandkids so far, all under the age of 7, 2 brothers, and a bunch more nieces, nephews, etc. And amongst all those people, I’m the only one who has matched or maybe exceeded the standard of living of my Parents. My Dad was a pharmaceutical salesman, (Parke-Davis) grew up in the Depression in a steel mill town in Pennsylvania, and was the first and only one of his siblings to go to college. His older brother and sisters were made to quit high school to work. I’ve been blessed with some smarts (mechanical engineer) and am doing pretty well. But I see my brothers and I am seeing a majority of my kids struggle. My wife and I are much more a “second set of parents” to our grandchildren. I live on 23 acres amongst farms between Omaha and Lincoln, and I built my own house. The place has a pretty good value to it, so either me selling it eventually, or my kids selling it when I’m gone, is one way to cash in its value. But I have now a very strong inclination to try to set it up where it stays as a functional “family farm”. I just dabble with stuff now. I Had horses for a long time. I planted 56 Chestnut trees this summer, and I’ve got a chicken coop!!.... But I want to start making this place my true second job, and get my kids, and especially my grandkids involved in being “shareholders” in the work and results of making this place the major producer of food for the whole family, with a cash crop (Chestnuts, pumpkins?) mixed in.

[KaiserJeep]

Around 81-96 AD the last book of the Christian Bible was written, Revelations. Chapter 16, the Apocalypse of St. John, was included. Predicting the End of the World has been popular ever since, especially in Christianity.

Thousands of versions of apocalypse. Thousands of predictions of doom. In my Junior HS Science Class in the 1960s, we gravely discussed the then-popular prediction of an approaching Ice Age, sure to doom us all in walls of ice. Grimly enjoyable, in it's way.

It's just as popular today, just this past month we have discussed at least a half dozen forms of doom. Here at peakoil.com, we wallow in doom, striving to predict and forecast doom, to squeeze out every morsel of enjoyment.

All of these thousands of grim predictions over the last 20 centuries or so have one thing in common. They have each and every prediction been completely wrong, because the world stubbornly will not end. I mean, really bad things happened, like the Dark Ages, the Spanish Influenza, and World Wars. But now there are more than 7.7 Billion humans and the world still has not ended. In fact, never have the portents been more serious, the signs of doom more explicit, the dangers greater, or the predicting of doom more enjoyable.

Still, <yawn>. I have to say, the most likely outcome in the decades and even centuries ahead, is that the world will not end.


So Sorry!

[MikeinNeb]

And my Dad had all those Hal Lyndsey books too.....:/ I don't think the world is going to go "Mad Max". But it is going rust belt, perpetually. The slow motion plague of despair and its accompanying drug use will continue to spread. I see first hand in my own family that without a college education in the "right fields", your career path is food service. And that's the here and now with "cheap" gas and oil. Plus, I have absolutely no faith that the United States is doing any appreciable R&D for those 4th and 5th generation nuclear plants that will be needed for those future steel mills. I have read that China is looking at nuclear for both direct process heat for manufacturing and district heating for cities. I just don't think the U.S. has the ability anymore to do the hard stuff. We are just coasting while paying lip service to someone '"invisible hand" to fix everything. So yes, I'm pessimistic.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'S')tay healthy and out of debt works in almost all circumstances.

[Cog]

The answer is Newfie, that no one has the foggiest notion of what the world looks like 80 years from now.

[Newfie]

Mike,

First I think those are excellent practical questions. I’m also an engineer, electrical, seems we are over represented here. I’ll be 68 this month.

A couple of thoughts. Does you property have enough wood for heat? Enough water?

But also, what do the kids want? I’ve tried to have these discussions with my kids and they just don’t get it. They are too worried about me for me to convey my worries about them. Hoping your situation is better.

My answer to this was to try to build an extreamly flexible base that would work for the short term or long term. Our “farm” is a small apartment building in Philadelphia that throws off income. It supports us in our dotage but will also assist the kids. I’ve bought 168 acres of remote land in Nova Scotia where it’s likely to get warmer and wetter. Maybe the grandkids will need a farmstead and this will give them the land to build it. We have restablished family ties in Newfoundland and acquired a cottage so that should the SHTF in the meantime we have some place safe to go, someplace where they know my name. We spend summers there. Winters we are floating around the Carribean, just enjoying life. But if the SHTF we could pick up willing family members and move them somewhere.

Now my one kid got married to a nice Columbia’s girl and their first choice is to move to Columbia when things get bad here. Good plan? Not a clue! My daughter won’t discuss this stuff, too much day to day drama fills her up. That may change. Another kid is in jail, and that probably a good thing for all. The last kid is estranged and has struck out on his own path, but is doing well. Good for him.

So that’s how it’s played out for me. No clear answers. I try to retain flexibility, which to some means no commitments.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')he answer is Newfie, that no one has the foggiest notion of what the world looks like 80 years from now.

[Ibon]

Maybe never asking the question is more adaptive, especially if asking the question pinches the decisions you make in your life.

Regarding our children it is especially adaptive for them to not be considering the future as a world in decline. For they have their greatest formative years ahead, and it is in the nature of youth to feel somewhat invincible.

It is the old, who understand more clearly the fragile nature of life, who tend to worry about obstacles that may befall their children.

When it comes to objectivity about considering the future consequences of human overshoot, we do have to realize that our seasoned perspective is biased by the fact that our own bodies are going into decline along with the civilization around us. Sometimes our narratives are flavored by these aging bodies.

If I remember when I was in my 20's, in warrior mode, hitchhiking the country and backpacking deep into wilderness areas, the last thing I would have indulged in were thoughts of securing my long term survival.

[Newfie]

That’s all true Ibon.

Consider this, what is the age of an average voter in the USA? It’s about 47.5 in recent national elections, a bit older in local elections. 47.5 is also about the average age of all eleigibke voters. So voters tend to be of average age or a wee bit older.

But at what age do we start to get some of this long term perspective of which you are speaking? I’m betting it’s older still. And it only occurs in a portion of the pipulation. Thus a democracy diminishies input from those with in the best position to consider the long term.