[admin]

A friend of mine sent me these two articles that I thought were interesting:

Energy fears looming, new survivalists prepare
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080524/ap_on_re_us/environmental_survivalists

Wake Up, America. We're Driving Toward Disaster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/23/AR2008052302456.html

 

[MrSmitty]

What a joke, we might be headed for hard times but we are not going to fall back to living like the 1800's and before. Technology on alternate sources of fuel and unconventional oil supplies like the Oil Shale in Colorado and the Oil Sands in Canada will and can provide enough Oil for north america if they start to build it up now. Sure its going to cost alot more for energy but people have to get used to the fact that owning a gas chugger isn't feasible for much longer. Buy economy cars and maybe even electric cars and stop with the Hummers and Escalades. Wasteful uses of energy just have to stop.

 

[admin]

I didn't think it was a joke.

 

[MrSmitty]

I will give you an example of high energy prices and ways countries were able to manage. Look at the EU gas has been over 2 euros/litre for years there for everyone that would equate to 10 dollars per gallon roughly and they manage but they don't drive gas chugging vehicles most drive economy cars or use bus and train transit systems. The only people who buy trucks are the ones who really need them. People just need to make the small changes and this energy crisis won't be nearly as painful.

 

[MickeyC]

It hasn;t reach 2 Euros a litre yet, but Gas in Europe is betwene 2 and 2.5 times as expensive as here. Peoiple survive by being less wasteful. 30 MPG cars are the norm, some doing more. People here rave about the Prius, but in Europe thare are a bunch of cars that do over 40 MPg and that's normal.

European homes are better built, insualted and heated. But they cost more. In cities they use public transport more.

Generally they are simply less wasteful and as a result get by.

How many times over here do you see some retard doing 70 in a pickup, or drigin a surburban solo. That's wasteful. Energy costs will force Americans to become more efficient and it's about time. It isn't, however the end of the world.

 

[admin]

I read both articles and I'm pretty sure I read them carefully. In both of the articles it says that UNLESS we change our lifestyles we cannot keep doing this forever.

MrSmitty, you basically paraphrased the articles and then called them a joke ;-) Are you sure you even read them?

 

[MickeyC]

That's a fair point. Lifestyles are going to change, there is no doubt about that. The question is whether we change willingly now or are forced to do it later when we haven't prepared. so in a way you are both right.

Most cars are leased. Over the next couple of years you are likely to see trucks and SUVs being swapped for more economical vehicles. People will also think twice before taking more wasteful journeys, like going to the store just for a tub of ice cream.

Other people may start turning lights off in rooms when they leave. Think of all the office blockes that leave their lights on at night. It's not just individual use that consumes energy resources and drives up demand. Do freeways need to be fully lit or can it not be just the intersections.....cars have headlamps so why use street lighting as well?

America will change, the question is when and how painful will it be.

France has been prepared for this for a long, long time. 80% of their power grid is supplied by nuclear power. In another 20 years 100% will be. Over 70% of their cars run diesel, averaging 40+ miles to the gallon and the rest are more efficient petrol cars, all running over 20 mpg, on average.

America got caught on it's fat, lazy arse. Additionally the problem is compounded by an energy shortage comming at the same time as a general economic downturn and slim credit options. It's hard but the country can resolve this. The next three years will be tough as we adjust but after that it will get easier.

 

[MrChem]

I agree. America did get caught on its ass. You would think after the oil embargo of the late 70's we would have developed a logical, coherent energy policy with a goal of being more self sufficient.

 

[MickeyC]

Not with the political system here. Lobbyists press for the government to allow companies to have their way. Look at car companies, their US products are inferior to the rest of the world but they get away with it as the required standards for safety and economy are so low.

Housing: built to code is often cited as a statement of quality, what it really means is that the house was built as cheaply as legally possible.

I think America will come out of this stronger, but attitudes must change. The government must stop wasting money with massive overlaps, people need to be more efficient and accept that some convenience will change. Basically stop being so damned spoilt and lazy.

I think the biggest issue will be that for many the change will come out of need rather than a want or wish to change. That will make it long, hard and painful. Also I don't think the government can change, it's too corrupt and intertwined with the economy for that to happen.

Over here in Florida, our Governor pushed up a plan to cut property taxes and the pressure against him was huge. Counties are moaning about having to make cuts etc... If you drive past Orange County Police Headquarters, you will see over a hundered marked cruisers parked in the lot. If they aren't out on patrol what are they doing there? We've got police captains making more than $100k. The land of convenience and excess. the waste is phenominal, and yet each year they just crank up taxes and waste some more.

 

[variablebinary]

We've had it really good for a long time. A correction was bound to happen.

 

[NorthOfTheCity]

I will give you an example of high energy prices and ways countries were able to manage. Look at the EU gas has been over 2 euros/litre for years there for everyone that would equate to 10 dollars per gallon roughly and they manage but they don't drive gas chugging vehicles most drive economy cars or use bus and train transit systems. The only people who buy trucks are the ones who really need them. People just need to make the small changes and this energy crisis won't be nearly as painful.

People sure have a vested interest in things being "the way they always were". Can't really blame them, though. There's quite a bit to lose. But I guess most people were born into the "grand ways" of post war Americana and know nothing of widespread economic hardship, at least on a personal level.

That's why the second article in the OP is so important for everyone to understand. Heeding it's message requires that one pull the ol' head out of the sand and deal with the new reality. It describes a way of life very similar to that described by my mother as she struggled just for basics in rural America during the first great depression.

As for Europe's ability to manage high fuel prices; their societies were designed around perpetualy high energy costs. Ours was designed upon the assumption that there would always be cheap energy.

 

[MrSmitty]

Maybe thats why we start to make the shift to that euro style of transportation and lack of wasted energy now while we still have time.

 

[NorthOfTheCity]

Maybe thats why we start to make the shift to that euro style of transportation and lack of wasted energy now while we still have time.

There will be a shift in the way transportation works in the U.S. to be sure. The problem is that it will be forced on us in a way that won't be pleasant. Changing the layout of American society away from expansive suburbs located far away from industrial centers and the jobs they bring was something that should've been undertaken decades ago. It is far too late for such a sea change...

 

[MrSmitty]

Maybe alot of jobs can be managed though Technology. I know lots of jobs that could be done from home that force people to go to the office. Mine included, there is no reason why I have to come out to this place to work with tech today. That way people can continue to live in the suburban communities.

 

[NorthOfTheCity]

Maybe alot of jobs can be managed though Technology. I know lots of jobs that could be done from home that force people to go to the office. Mine included, there is no reason why I have to come out to this place to work with tech today. That way people can continue to live in the suburban communities.

I've been "telecommuting" (old term) for years. But there are still times when I needed to go into the office during the week. The upshot is that while this practice could be encouraged, it is a matter of too little, too late.

The real weakness of our spread-out, suburbanized society is food distribution. There are soooo many stores and supermarkets all over everywhere that it takes a tremendous amount of energy to keep each and every one of them continuously stocked. As deisel prices rise, there will eventually be a need to reduce the number of delivery points. This will result in "food distribution centers" where people will need to go to get food. And they won't be conveniently located close to your neighborhood like that Albertson's a mile away...

 

[MickeyC]

My company already does this. I have been telecomuting for six years and almost 50% of our employees have no assigned office or desk space. We are also trying to get 15-20% to be premanent home workers. It's relatively easy over here but in Europe, houses are smaller and many don't have space to dedicate to a home office. In Asia most places are smaller still and even harder to move out of an office mentality. One benefit of teleworking however is that people don't need to be clustered in surburban areas within commuting distance to offices. thay allows a wider spread of people and a reduction of urbaniztion and it's associated costs.

You are also correct in that food distribution is definately a weak point as is energy provision. Look how many more electrical devices are running in homes today. Thew world will change, but becasue it is forced to , not because it wants to.

 

[variablebinary]

All that urban sprawl for the sake of is coming back to bite lots of people on the ass.

And I agree, lots of jobs have no reason to come into the office.

I have a few more days till my defense industry contract is up and I can return to my native industry.

First project is tranistioning 1000 seats from a premise solution, to at home and hosted solution. Seems like the energy spikes are forcing companies to embrace the notion of at home workers, so I am jumping in at the right time. I will miss the access to cool toys though...

 

[MickeyC]

You can almost chart human and corporate development by looking at sprawl on commuter routes.

Home working can be fun though and you can still run cool toys at home.

My home office, dual 30" panels on the desk and more flats on the side table. XPS for games, Dual Opteron for work and a dual core desktop behind the IP phone for messing with. Work is a bitch sometimes!

My toy rack, CISCO VPN concentrator, KVM, RADIUS server, two DL380s, IBM Xseries server, three DL360s, Dell 2950, 1950, 2850 and Fiber Channel SAN.

Closet, with stuff I haven't put in the rack and such like. The server is a brand new Dell R900, with four quad core XEONs and 64 GB of RAM. A VMWare box. Who says you can't have toys at home. I've got a SUN comming so I need to find some more space!

Software and laptops, the stack of trays each has a laptop in as I keep one of each device in use at hand. For software, same is true. Most are stored as images on the two NAS devices but sometimes it's nice to have the discs handy.

 

[aziator]

Wow, I thought I was cool with 2 1TB hard drives and 2.4TB of storage on another 6 drives...You have enough computing power to host and run the entire forum!!

 

[admin]

Wow, I thought I was cool with 2 1TB hard drives and 2.4TB of storage on another 6 drives...You have enough computing power to host and run the entire forum!!

He's got a lot more than to just host this forum. With the SUN box that's coming and all the stuff he has, he could probably host EVERY GUN FORUM ON THE INTERNET and then some! ;-) Bandwidth permitting of course.