[ozkrenske]

John
Personally I think your right, loud, a little caustic , but right all the same. The US is not going to be seeing systemic longterm blackouts for probably the next ten to fifteen years, the electricity is even more important than oil and is not directly convertable.

What will happen is that other smaller places and countries will start having longer and longer power outages. For example there are several Island nations now that are so poor they can't keep the power on. For example Naru, has effectively been turned into an Australian immigration detention station for very little money, but the clincher was the guaranteed Diesel fuel supply for the island generators until 2010. They were already having day to week long blackouts due to scarce fuel supllies etc. This will happen all over the world in third world and poor nations.

I suspect though that power in the US will start to get quite expensive especially due to NG costs and then with the pass on of operational costs from higher oil costs and also from growing demand for some electrical vehicles etc. (Plugging a car in and charging it is probably going to boost the power bill a bit.) Eventually the costs will rise so high that power past a basic allowance per household will be so expensive that demand will be forced down. For example Air con, clothes driers, wasteful lighting and wasteful conveniences will effectively never be turned on. For example when the Air con is going to cost you $10 an hour and the clothes will take $5 to dry a power bill, etc, a non conserver could easily break $200 a week on their power bill. Once hotels start to charge extra for the use of Air con I believe that is when the electricity price crunch has hit.

Certain luxuries of today are going to go away, EG, Air conditioned indoor footbal domes will be opened up if only to save the power, personal heated pools in winter, gone when it starts to cost major money. A lot of people are going to start throwing up their own power generation facilities that will quite possibly generate enough power for themselves or at least lessen their bills. For example filling localised water storage off peak and having micro water turbines at least spin the power meter backwards while you have a shower/bath/flush could start to be installed. Solar and personal wind power will grow in use and in hot climates vertical hot air turbines could well be installed. Here in Aus we have many houses factories and public facilities that have devices specifically designed to let hot air out of roof cavities, these could well be used to generate at least some power.

Personally I believe electricity rationing will be easier to apply in such a way with cost increases, most people will start to conserve especially when they do have obvious luxury high consumption items they don't truly need. Oil or fuel on the other hand, most people have one maybe two vehicles and the capital cost of buying a much more efficient one is potentially higher than the cost of just buying the fuel, also a lot of travel is effectively mandatory.

A one hour commute from a suburb is likely to remain a commute from a suburb for a long time, of course driving for the hell of it could well diminish a lot. For example the kids are going to start riding to school, the younger kids may well be taking the buss, long trips to multiple extra curricular activities are going to go away.

Anyway those are just my thoughts

[Permanently_Baffled]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
') This 'electrical epidemic' spreads nationwide, then worldwide, and by ca. 2007 most of the blackouts are permanent.

[nocar]

Countries that have a lot of hydroelectric power will be well off. Norway, and perhaps Austria, get all their electric power that way. Sweden gets half, the other half is nuclear.

Of course, if people start charging car batteries from the grid in a major way, that will cause blackouts. Although in Norway and Sweden the problem will likely be cold spells, because so many houses have electric heating, and when oil is expensive, even more houses will be converted to electricity.

Solution in Scandinavia can be wood burners - lots of forest here.

[cmlek]

I guess I read the original question in a more technical sense, but here's my explanation:

Power grids are an interconnected network of high voltage transmission lines that allows the system to be fed by multiple generators at once, allowing power companies to buy/sell power at least cost. This also allows for places to shift "extra" power around during seasonal fluctuations and that sort of thing. However, if too many people are drawing on the system, and it does not have the capacity to serve them all, then the system will shut down, like a blown circuit breaker. Lines may break, transformers may short out, and some things may need fixing.

Where the problem comes in is the massive consolidation of power companies in the last decade. There used to be several power generators all feeding into the system, but the smaller ones have been run out of business, bought out, consolidated or otherwise removed, leaving a very small number of power providers actually currently servicing the system. If one provider should fail, for whatever reason, the power grid they feed can collapse if they can't grab enough swing capacity from another group. Rolling blackouts occur when a failure in one grid adds to much additional drain on their interconnected neighbor, who fails, falls on his neighbor, and so on.

Honestly, I can't really imagine a permanent blackout for a long time. There may come a point after which the constant repairs are unprofitable, or the grid may have to be made smaller (fewer homes served) to accommodate fewer power generators feeding into the system, but there will always be the option to re-introduce smaller generating sources, like those people who have solar cells on their roof that produce more than the needs of the house.

*shrug* Just my 2 cents.

[johnmarkos]

Thanks, cmlek. Your answer backs up my suspicion that we could have temporary disruptions but that permanent large scale blackouts are unlikely. I simply did not have the technical knowledge to articulate my hunch.

[tmazanec1]

Then we WILL have those temporary disruptions, because it is only when things get that bad that we will take the sufficient measures to prevent the permanent blackouts.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', '
')The "rolling blackouts" are already happening (how could I have not noticed -- DOH!!)

[Guest]

There aren't going to be any "permanent" black-outs in the US for a VERY LONG TIME.
Here is how the US get's it's electrical power:
56.4% from COAL
9.6% from Natural Gas
21% from Nuclear
3.4% from Petroleum (oil)
9.5% from Hydroelectric
.2% from other renewable sources (solar, wind, bio-mass, etc...)
I have seen similar percentages from a variety of sources.

So to be worried about black-outs, we would be worried about COAL supply (not natural gas, not oil). According to www.coaleducation.org:
"Coal represents the United States' most abundant energy source. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified 1.7 trillion tons of coal resources in the United States. If yet undiscovered, but likely deposits are added, potential reserves may be as high as 4 trillion tons. The World Energy Conference estimated that the coal reserve of the United States accounts for two-thirds of the free world's total and nearly 28 percent of the total world's recoverable coal. By comparison, Saudi Arabia has about 23 percent of the world's proven petroleum reserves.
The United States has about 490 billion short tons of demonstrated reserves, which by definition are potentially minable on an economic basis with existing technology. At current domestic consumption levels, this is enough coal to last 300 years."

To sum it up, we (most likely) have about 300 years worth of coal in the United States ALONE.

Anyways, we have WAY more than 4 years of oil left. According to the U.S. Geological Survey World Assesment 2000, the world's proven reserves is about 891 Billion Barrels of Oil. World consumption is about 28 Billion Barrels of Oil. Considering a world where we discover no more oil, and where growth in demand does not occur, AND where oil is extracted completely, and evenly - we have 32 years left to come up with an alternative. However, this is small compared to the USGS's Oil Endowment of 3,000 Billion Barrels of Oil. If we include Natural Gas, we have 1,758 Billion Barrels of Oil Equivalent, and 43 billion Barrels of Oil Equivalent consumption. Our new endowment including Natural Gas would be about 6,000 Billion Barrels of Oil Equivalent. Of course, logically, we aren't going to be able to access ALL of this oil, as we can not predict easily how technology will advance, and also how fast we will actually discover more oil. There are actually many alternatives to oil available to us all - it's just that nobody is willing to pay the higher prices attached with renewable fuels. After the oil peak, hopefully many corporations will make the transition to renewable fuels in time to recover from any damage caused by the oil peak.

[EnviroEngr]

Oops. Think we addressed this one already --->
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')o sum it up, we (most likely) have about 300 years worth of coal in the United States ALONE.

[EnviroEngr]

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic280.html

&

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _peak.html

Confirm or Deny?

[Guest]

Hmmmm... I move to refute.
(does some research)

hmmmmm:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('United States Geological Survey', 'S')ometime during the last half of this production life cycle, however, when one-half or a little less than one-half of the coal reserves (economically producible coal) have been exploited and the remaining, less desirable coal beds are being mined, U.S. coal production will begin a long, irreversible decline. A national decline in coal production, is not anticipated for many years, and perhaps will not begin until sometime late in the next century.

[johnmarkos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cash', '
')Hardly more pessimistic than many of the scenarios discussed and defended here, and his extrapolations, while perhaps extreme in your view, are based on sound information. It's interesting that Duncan has grown increasingly more pessimistic in recent years in his discussions of post-Peak Oil developments.

Certainly the depletion numbers he cites in my original post are beyond question, since they're based on historical fact rather than his or anyone else's predictions. Duncan and Walter Youngquist, with Colin Campbell and Jean LaHerrere (sp?), have done some of the leading work in oil depletion analysis.

[Cash]

John, I think you meant your post above to go on the "Swimming" thread, since it quotes my post there. I essentially agree with your opinion of Duncan's predictions. I occasionally wonder if he takes such a radical position more as an impetus for discussion than out of a firm belief in the predictions. I'm unaware of any supporting data or additional details he might have offered.

Cash

[johnmarkos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cash', 'J')ohn, I think you meant your post above to go on the "Swimming" thread, since it quotes my post there. I essentially agree with your opinion of Duncan's predictions. I occasionally wonder if he takes such a radical position more as an impetus for discussion than out of a firm belief in the predictions. I'm unaware of any supporting data or additional details he might have offered.

[Cash]

Obviously I have to start spending more time over here. How did you use the quote function to move a post to another thread?

Cash

[Bandidoz]

I have believed the Olduvai Theory to be valid under the condition that no countermeasures are taken. Which is why it's on my signature.

However, the grid operators in at least the UK are able to "shed load"; ration electricity demand. On this basis a total collapse is unlikely, since there will be at the very least a trickle from renewables, pumped storage and whatever is left from nuclear and coal (combined with woodchip to keep the CO2 down) feeding through to critical services. The UK is in a better position than the US since there is still a single point of control (from the old CEGB days).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', 'O')h yea... and wasn't there something about 60 million people or so being without power in the eastern US last year? Oh right... that was just a tree branch hitting a wire... NOT. It was a result of the demand hitting and surpassing capacity, triggering a cascade shutdown.