[Ayoob]

four days a week. I just realized that was the case. It's going to be in a very rainy area, so I don't think a bicycle is going to be all that practical for daily transportation. What kind of vehicle do you think might be available in 15 years here in the US?

Maybe an electric car? Pedal-powered, electric-assisted minicar? Something like the cycles in Tron? Honda Ruckus that gets 100MPG with gas at $15 a gallon? Any ideas?

[skateari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'f')our days a week. I just realized that was the case. It's going to be in a very rainy area, so I don't think a bicycle is going to be all that practical for daily transportation. What kind of vehicle do you think might be available in 15 years here in the US?

[lowem]

But if it can bring in good money in the interim ...?

[NeoPeasant]

I predict in the future key industries far from residential areas will have boarding for employees. You may kiss your wife goodbye at 3 am monday morning, board the company bus for work and stay in the company barracks all week. I understand it was common in the 19th century.

[Kingcoal]

During the late nineties while at Agere Systems, I worked on tunable lasers for high-speed telecommunications applications. There was a horse race on in what is called dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM.) These devices can send data at an effective rate of about 40 giga bits/sec (split up between several channels.)

This was all driven by the belief that everyone would soon have DSL/Cable high bandwidth internet connections. The telecom boom was in full swing and went bust. Currently there are thousands of miles of dark optical fiber waiting to be lit up with data.

I have friends that were working on 3D virtual conferencing, remote controlled surgery (ISRG is one company), etc.

I bring this up because what I see is Peak Oil making transportation of goods and people extremely expensive. America is a service economy which deals mostly with information businesses. Why do a lot of us have to go to work everyday? I think in the future, if it can be done from the home, it will be done there. We will have medical consultation, law consultation, software design/troubleshooting and all kinds of control by remote via the internet. I think the internet will boom.

Electronic devices (tube guitar amps excluded), for the most part, are very energy efficient. Cars and trucks are hugely energy inefficient. I could probably power my computer for at least a year with the energy that goes out the exhaust pipe of my car driving it one way to work.

A good example of what I'm talking about is the robots we send into space. We could send people, but every pound is more precious by orders of magnitude than gold. Every year the robots get more and more sophisticated.

The human condition has generally always been about intelligence. Without it, we would have been snuffed out a long time ago. Intelligence, more specifically, efficient use of limited supplies of energy will be at the top of the priorities list and should be right now.

I remember 1975 and waking up in a cold sweat and wondering if there would be any tri-power GTO's in the year 2000. The future seemed very bleak, but we became more efficient. Unfortunately, George Bush #1 derailed that process with his freezing the CAFE fuel economy standards during his wonderful presidency. In the very near future, this issue will be revisited no matter who wins the presidency.

[lowem]

Exactly. Sometimes I wonder why I have to drag my ass to the office every day (I'm a Java/J2EE software engineer). It's about 20 km (12 miles) away, about half an hour's drive in good conditions, a little longer if the roads are congested.

Today, I am at home for awhile, on medical leave. I can access the company servers via VPN; the software makes my home PC appear as a node on the office network. The upstream is a bit slow, but all they have to do is to pay a little bit for more bandwidth and we'd be all set.

I can reach across the network, deploy applications, debug, trigger an automated build, transfer files back and forth. I can check my email, I can send and receive instant messages, I can, if I want to, chat on Skype with my colleagues in the China and USA offices.

About the only thing missing is the "enormous" 100 Mbps bandwidth on the local area network, but if you consider that the office rental is in the 5-digit range and 4-digits will get us a very, very good high-speed link ...

Okay, some people talk about the "human factor" and all that, yeah, maybe, but since when did we geeks need to worry about "human factor" - well, perhaps a smaller office for us to do F2F meetings once a week or two, with a limited number of cubicles and seats.

[lowem]

*Or*, there is a slight variation to this that some other local software companies employ.

They have a "core" group of people who stay in the office - the managers, the admin/finance/HR ladies, and maybe a "guru" or two. The rest of the team goes out to work "onsite" at customers' premises, making use of whatever facilities the customers provide them - computers, network access, etc. Kind of a nomadic existence, but hey that brings in the revenue too.

So, you might still have to drag your ass to an office, but (depending on the customer), it just might happen to be a little bit nearer to your home than your main company's office is.

Mostly for companies who deal with financial-type of projects, though.

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lowem', 'B')ut if it can bring in good money in the interim ...?

[bentstrider]

With what remaining resources we have left, we should build these.
Supply canals that people could send shit down.
Air tubes you could pass things through.
All of these could be powered by biodiesel, solar panels, wind power, etc.
At least they won't use as much fuel as a big rig.
I drove an International 9200i for a year doing OTR.
That thing got about 7mpg on a good day.
But because of its fuel capacity, it could complete a 1500-1800 mile round trip.
Along with diesel locomotives, we could plan some sort of freight schedule.
As in you could deliver this much at this time, but only with this many trucks.
Kind of like in the cowboy days and even in some places today.
There would be supply transport intervals at 3-4 months at a time.
Until, the next supply transport rolls into town, you either do with what you have, or you're "shit-outta-luck".

[skateari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven at $20/gal gas, it would be a $40 round trip. Three of those is $120 a week, or $6K a year. That's less than 10% of my expected pay, so it should be fine money-wise. There might be opportunities to carpool once in a while, too.

[savethehumans]

A job you can do at home, or nearby, that DOESN'T depend on electricity (or at least fancy technology) sounds like a good idea to me. But then, I'm just a fool who uses common sense when making plans!

[frankthetank]

10/gallon doesn't affect you gas costs, it affects all costs...

[ohanian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'I') predict in the future key industries far from residential areas will have boarding for employees. You may kiss your wife goodbye at 3 am monday morning, board the company bus for work and stay in the company barracks all week. I understand it was common in the 19th century.

[gg3]

Kingcoal & Lowem: Re. telecommuting, I'm on the same page, exactly. My little company has been developing telecommute infrastructure and deploying it for our clients since 1998.

The piece of the puzzle I came up with was a substantial improvement in the handling of telephone traffic, so that remote employees (home offices, etc.) integrate seamlessly with the downtown office PBX. The feature-set I developed for this is now available in Panasonic's new line of PBX products, which of course we sell, install, program, and service. We also have VOIP (internet telephony) as an option in cases where it can be deployed without quality-of-service problems. (This isn't an ad in disguise; I'm deliberately refraining from mentioning our company's name until we start paying for advertising on this site!)

We're currently working on a business plan for something that will make it even more feasible for companies to "go virtual." We see telework as the wave of the future, and we don't see it coming at the expense of "the human element." Eventually it is going to become a competitive necessity in certain sectors.

We expect that building telecommute infrastructure will continue to be a "good job" post-peak, and a good investment. This is one of those areas where individuals and companies can legitimately prosper in the post-peak world, and an area that will grow even in a steady-state or shrinking economy.

[gwmss15]

i find it hard to understand that people forget that there are transport systems in existance of over 200 years that today are the most energy efficent and reliable but people still think that they need to drive a car or truck or bus

how about using a electric tram or train or cable pulled tram for both passenger and freight infact theses systems are the most effeienct way of moving large numbers of people and frieght even today but people still want to waste money on cars and large wide freeways which even at 3 lanes each side carry less people than a double track railway with 6 car trains every 2 to 3 mins

people 60 mile trip to work is still possiable even without any petrol in your car and i dont feel the industrys will collapes overnight as there are alterntive to how to move the products around the place without using any oil

[Coolman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 's') far as the cars that will be around then.., there should be plenty. In 15 years, I think you will be able to find broken down cars of all sorts that you can pick up for free. Just make sure you store plenty of gasoline with perservities to run them

[bentstrider]

It might've been repeated many times in here before.
If you could find a diesel, then that wouldn't be a problem.
Biodiesel is easier to make then you think.
Mix Lye, methanol, and a couple liters of veggie oil in a blender, and ther's your fuel.
I wonder if veggie oil barons will rise out of this.

[gg3]

Meanwhile, 75% of people surveyed in the Bay Area say that the question of how long the commute will be, is one of the key considerations when they look for a house.

One of my clients is moving their office to a location that gives the CEO a 15-minute *walk* from his home to the office.

And, one of the luxury car makers (I think it's BMW) have started running an ad on the radio saying "it even feels good when you're sitting still in traffic" (near-exact quote).

[hymalaia]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'M')eanwhile, 75% of people surveyed in the Bay Area say that the question of how long the commute will be, is one of the key considerations when they look for a house.

One of my clients is moving their office to a location that gives the CEO a 15-minute *walk* from his home to the office.

And, one of the luxury car makers (I think it's BMW) have started running an ad on the radio saying "it even feels good when you're sitting still in traffic" (near-exact quote).

[Bytesmiths]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', 'I') could probably power my computer for at least a year with the energy that goes out the exhaust pipe of my car driving it one way to work.