[welshgreen]

Hi and welcome! The media situation baffles me as well. Somthing so important with virually no coverage!

[Pops]

Hi and welcome to both of you, if there is one thing you will find here it is wide ranging discussion!

Dig in.

[Ferretlover]

Welcome, and boy, is Pops right!!

[Iaato]

Welcome, JBoulder. This is a great group here, and one of the few places on the internet where you can get some serious cogitating done on some really threatening topics without things devolving every 5 minutes into a flame war (well, mostly, anyway).

[Mquinon3]

Nano,

good questions, but I'm not sure I can say what younger generations feel they are entitled. Clearly we have had quite a bit of luxury in some developed nations when it comes to infromation and technology. With that luxury has come expectations, which can soon become a huge let down if the energy situation takes a turn for the worse, or any type of large scale event that will change the comfort zone they are in.

As far as the consequences of those expectations of permanent progress, I think you and I both know that people will not react warmly to the lack of progress and access they are used to. Its up in the air, people could become violent, hysterical, or perhaps unify to adapt to these changes. IMO it depends on the developed society. The US and some countries in Europe (for example) have different types of communities that will respond differently to unmet expectations. Also depends on all the different factors taht could cause a breakdown in progress.

[Leuchtturm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mquinon3', 'I') have been a faithful guest on this site for about a year now and will be starting my graduate sociology work in the fall which will be heavily focused on oil and conflict. I'm very excited to a part of this community.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JBoulder', 'W')hen I discuss PO with many of my family and friends, they consider me to be negative.

[Mquinon3]

lol! I'm a huge fan of the Mad Max movies. I'd hate to be stuck working in the methane pits after all that schooling.

[patience]

Welcome, GASMON!
Old, burnt out Yank automotive/automation engineer here. I like the problem solving aspect too, but as you see how the situation is changing exponentially faster, it will not yield to a traditional approach. So, we must look as far ahead as possible, to tailor solutions that will be useful for a longer period.

My first efforts at this were in the mid 1970's, after the OPEC embargo. I came up with a scenario of tiny 3-wheeled cars, the rear half of which was the rear half of a small motorcycle, with a blow-molded aerodynamic body. Maybe 60 mpg, and 2 people in a pinch. Added to that rail transport, and a mostly agrarian society, with passive solar heating, super-insulated underground homes. A Hobbit sort of thing. Not bad maybe, but I didn't know about Jevon's Paradox, as such, only that I saw the problem of getting everyone to go along with the idea.

Thirty years later, I see the impossibility of getting Idiots to do anything sensible, particularly the elected ones. The problems are orders of magnitude larger now, and many more problems are obvious, the most intractable being population. We had inklings long ago, with Silent Spring, Limits to Growth, and the Population Bomb, but the general public thought all that was nonsense.

I have chosen to put myself in a position to aid a few of my community, by way of introducing some of the above ideas as they can take it in. Along the way, I run a farm repair shop as a retirement business, and can probably make the locals a bit more comfortable on the way down the depletion curve.

YOU CAN'T TELL ANYONE WHAT HE DOES NOT WANT TO HEAR. Took me a long time to accept that.

I fear for my kids. They are 39 and 41, and well educated in these matters, but there is no way to change the future for them. All we could do was to teach and prepare them as well as we could.

Best wishes to you and yours. Jerry

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('patience', 'W')elcome, GASMON!
Old, burnt out Yank automotive/automation engineer here. I like the problem solving aspect too, but as you see how the situation is changing exponentially faster, it will not yield to a traditional approach. So, we must look as far ahead as possible, to tailor solutions that will be useful for a longer period.

My first efforts at this were in the mid 1970's, after the OPEC embargo. I came up with a scenario of tiny 3-wheeled cars, the rear half of which was the rear half of a small motorcycle, with a blow-molded aerodynamic body. Maybe 60 mpg, and 2 people in a pinch. Added to that rail transport, and a mostly agrarian society, with passive solar heating, super-insulated underground homes. A Hobbit sort of thing. Not bad maybe, but I didn't know about Jevon's Paradox, as such, only that I saw the problem of getting everyone to go along with the idea.

Thirty years later, I see the impossibility of getting Idiots to do anything sensible, particularly the elected ones. The problems are orders of magnitude larger now, and many more problems are obvious, the most intractable being population. We had inklings long ago, with Silent Spring, Limits to Growth, and the Population Bomb, but the general public thought all that was nonsense.

I have chosen to put myself in a position to aid a few of my community, by way of introducing some of the above ideas as they can take it in. Along the way, I run a farm repair shop as a retirement business, and can probably make the locals a bit more comfortable on the way down the depletion curve.

YOU CAN'T TELL ANYONE WHAT HE DOES NOT WANT TO HEAR. Took me a long time to accept that.

I fear for my kids. They are 39 and 41, and well educated in these matters, but there is no way to change the future for them. All we could do was to teach and prepare them as well as we could.

Best wishes to you and yours. Jerry

[Homesteader]

I have pictures of my parents in a 3-wheel car called a Zitta, or something, driving around France and Germany. One door in front where the windshield was.

[patience]

GASMON,
Yeah, new cars are a pain! Have a 2000 Chev S-10 pickup for my wife to drive (in self defense-rush hour is nuts) her last year beore retirement, but mine is a 1983 VW Rabbit. Pretty simple, reliable, and cheap to drive. I worked for GM for 14 years, which is worth probably no pension now. I saw enough from the inside to make me ashamed to have been part of it. Whatever engineering came up with got trashed by marketing, and redone for "saleability". So, I stayed in process engrg.

Now, I fix farm equipment in a home based machine shop, and one daughter works here, doing sheet metal she learned in the USAF. Most of her time was spent at Bentwaters/Woodbridge, BTW. Loved the folk there!

[MD]

Greetings and welcome Gasmon!

I highly recommend "1000 Barrels a Second", by Peter Tertzakian.

I'd also recommend searching "Jevons' Paradox" and EROEI. You need to look at economic activity as a system of producing and consuming energy. Look at economic activity as the movement of energy instead of money.

Finally, pay attention to BigTex.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')One of the first significant speed bumps you will encounter here is resistance to the idea that technology mated with human ingenuity is all that is needed to solve our current problems. The truth about technology is that it creates a lot of problems in the process of solving others. In a world of increasingly scarce natural resources, this structural problem with technological solutions may become much more pronounced and people may discover that technology is actually a huge dead-end, a one way ticket into a state of overshoot. In fact, many have come to the conclusion that technology actually aggravates the reliance upon phantom carrying capacity, and thus causes the original problem you were seeking to solve (the need for more energy) to become a much larger problem (the need for a habitat for our species).
.

[Devin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'I')ts 2008, and we live in a technological society, ALL of us. You cant alter that, NO one (I know) wants to alter that. Technology NEVER goes backwards. Technology NEVER goes backwards.
...
That is the way god, the ultimate mathematician, made this universe.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'Y')ou need to look at economic activity as a system of producing and consuming energy.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', '
')Yes, then i'm a typical cornucopian. Whats up with that ?, am I the only one here?, Am I / we banned from peak oil forums?

[MD]

Seriously, I can come off as a major doomer, mostly because I see an inevitable dieoff on the immediate horizon. Many billions will have to die.

As that is happening, there will be pockets of prosperity that will be driven by advances in technology. I know this because by trade an training I am an automation engineer. I've been designing productivity improvements for twenty years. I know full well the power of technology, and I don't dismiss its effect as we move forward.

There will also be pockets of prosperity for those that either own or work for energy production.

Here's the advice I give to young people these days:

"own energy or work in energy if you want to have access to energy."

That simple statement will be true now for many years into the future.

It's always been true, to an extent...for the last 100 years we've been blinded to that fact by the liquid gold that we've been burning.

[Moped]

Hi everyone, I'm Iain from New Zealand

In my day job I'm a power plant operator, I routinely operate a plant that Burns 1000 liters of diesel per minute, 24/7, for years I wondered how much longer this can continue, recently the fuel cost is causing some consternation even in this energy intensive industry, anyway just wanted to say hello before hitting the threads.

[Mquinon3]

I"m new around here to, glad to have you here.

[gnm]

Welcome to our nightmare Iain.

-G