288 comments on DrumBeat: October 3, 2007
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288 comments on DrumBeat: October 3, 2007
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A rare repost of mine, reposted because of the underlying issue it illustrates.
...funneling energy toward infrastructure replacement and redevelopment will take energy and resources away from everything else. Less energy and resources will be available for maintaining quality of life and lifestyle, less available for other energy initiatives...
We cannot "crash everything" (as in build ALL options simultaneously ASAP). Unfortunately we CAN "crash everything" as in our environment and society.
My greatest fear is a massive effort to build CTL (coal-to-liquids) as a Peak Oil response.
I compare mountain-top removal, strip mining in general, spoil piles and Global Warming to the French trams that I posted on the Oct. 2 Drumbeat and sigh.
Will we run towards beauty and life or destruction and death in our panic ?
Best Hopes,
Alan
Edited to remove unnecessary oversized graphics.
Please remember that some are still on dial-up. And no, resizing with HTML tags doesn't help.
I am still on dial-up and load time is a few seconds (about 3) (High speed has been back a few months but I have not yet switched back).
I try and only include graphics that are important to the post and illustrate in ways that words simply cannot.
The pictures provide a vivid visual contrast of our choices that is worth 10,000 words.
They are at
http://images.nycsubway.org/i62000/img_62964.jpg
http://www.ohvec.org/old_site/images/Ovec22.gif
Best Hopes,
Alan
Thumbnail the images, don't resize them with HTML tags. It makes no sense to resize with HTML tags. The bandwidth hit is the same. And images made larger than actual size with HTML tags are really, really ugly.
You have a website. You could host the thumbnails there. Or use ImageShack or some other free hosting service that will resize graphics for you with a click.
how does one 'thumbnail' an image?
thanks
Use a freeware such as Irfan View (which is good for lottsa other useful purposes, too. Great program.)
Thumbnailing is simply downsizing an image and using it as a html reference. In Irfan View you load the original image, press CTRL+R and enter the new size values. So you can downsize a 2028x1024 pixels imgage to, say, 80x40 pixels (try what you like best), and then use the smaller one such as:
<a href="my-large-pic.jpg"><img src="my-thumbnail.jpg"></a>
Irfan-View allows 'thumbnailing' complete folders or volumes in one strike AFAIK, and many more batch operations.
HTH
IrfanView is fantastic, and is one of the very few programs which doesn't have a decent substitute in the Linux/free software world. GQview is several major steps behind IrfanView, for example.
Installation is simple, the number of formats handled is unbelievable, and its features are ideal for a graphics viewer. I've actually sent him money, years ago - he most certainly appreciates donations, but the program is pure craftmanship, not mere commercial activity.
Indeed Irfan View can do lots of routine operations which many of my colleagues use that monster Photoshop for (such as refining work on scans).
And you can even create slideshows and export them as *.exe files for Windows. And play all kinds of music and video files .. and, and ..
I never use both Photoshop and Power Point 'cause I-View can do it all.
Yep...you can't beat the squashed cat for quick graphic and photo alterations. I'm another devoted user.
[edited spelling]
I use Flickr to store my photos - my original images are typically in the three meg range, but after uploading the site makes many sizes available, including thumbnails like this, complete with the HTML necessary to add not only the photo but a link to a larger image in case the viewer is not bandwidth constrained and wishes to see detail.
Thanks for this Alan...what your are highlighting is the "morality" of maintaining the current course of economic growth in today's world. Have we reached the point where people will view sustained growth as immoral? Time will tell...
AD for Prez!!!
For the past year, I have been commuting about 60% of the time on an electric scooter, an EVT 168. It has the basic design of a Vespa. It goes 30mph, and up to 35 mph when I push it hard. But it gets me to work in the exact same time (or better) than my car. I talk to people walking past when I am at a stop, and can chat with bicycle riders when we lane share. My three and one half mile commute costs me less than a quarter's worth of eletricity. I am amazed that more people don't commute like this. Less energy, less resources, less wear and tear on the roads, and closer community connections.
I am trying to run toward the beauty and life part, but I also see the scrunched up faces of fear in those SUV drivers trying to get through the next light.
By the way, at least in my town, the difference between driving a steady 30 mph (the speed limit) on a main artery and driving 45 mph with jack rabbit starts is less than 20 seconds on a two mile stretch. But you can't tell my neighbor in his 5 series BMW that.
I always have the urge to vandalize BMW 5 series. I've managed to restrain myself, however. However when it comes to a BMW that wants to merge into my lane when I'm driving, I'll let them. *grin*
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com/)
Don't pick a fight with one of those 4000 lb compacts. They must be made of tungsten. In Iraq, BMWs are favored by those who still have money, because of their toughness. Yet they still have enough pep to zoom away from an ambush at a roadblock.
The 540i with a six-speed can do 0-60 in less than six seconds and has a top speed of 155 mph. And they really only weigh about 3750.
As a rule, have we been running towards beauty and life when times were good?
That is why it is easy for many to see doom.
Hard to believe the good ship 'consumption' will suddenly change course and switch to an organic sustainable steady state economy.
Would be lovely.
Yeah. The way I see it, we're going to be using a hell of a lot of coal no matter what. And whether it's via light rail or CTL or electric cars doesn't really matter, at least from an environmental perspective.
...via light rail or CTL or electric cars doesn't really matter
A reasonable estimate is that CTL to maintain Suburbia will require 20 to 50 times as much coal as it would to maintain light rail service to well insulated Transit Orientated Development.
Electric cars are in between.
I think that it does matter.
Best Hopes for Energy Efficiency,
Alan
But...light rail will not maintain suburbia, either. Why hold CTL or electric cars to that standard?
CTL and electric vehicles do ZERO, NADA, Nothing to create TOD development. (Hint: one needs the "T" to get the "OD").
Urban Rail, including light rail does.
There is an unmeet demand TODAY (per group of surveys referenced by Laurence Aurbach) by roughly 30% of the population to live in TOD. Post-Peak Oil I expect that % to increase. CTL & EVs will not meet that demand.
And for the rest, they can reform Suburbia into walkable villages and towns clustered around commuter rail stops. Some walk or bicycle to local work, others take the train in and bring money back in the PM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mbta_district.svg
So Urban Rail can maintain a certain type of Suburbia.
And I do not doubt that CTL, if built, will be used to maintain high energy, inefficient Suburbia as long as possible, with MAXIMUM environmental damage.
Best Hopes for Energy Efficiency,
Alan
If that's what people want, it'll happen. Electric cars and CTL will not maintain suburbia. Energy will be too expensive to waste that way.
But mass transit has too many obvious winners and losers. It's hard to get people behind it for that reason. I see electric cars (and probably light rail, too) as being a transition to a lifestyle where we all do a lot less traveling. It's not an end point in and of itself, but a way to make the drop down the backside of Hubbert's peak less catastrophic.
If that's what people want, it'll happen
I strongly disagree ! A strong minority have wanted this for decades and there have been some breakthroughs (Miami approved & funded linked plan below, 25 years to build because of weak federal funding) but not anywhere close to enough to satisfy market demand.
http://www.miamidade.gov/citt/RailMap.htm
Medium Brown lines are post-2015,
Alan
The key word being "minority."
Other key words being "25 years to build." Yawn. That's plenty of opportunity for the whole thing to fizzle out. And to use it you need stations within walking distance of both ends of your trip, which will be true for very few trips. (Or else you wait forever for connecting buses so what good is it.) That's plenty of reason for the whole thing to fizzle out.
Sooner or later it will dawn on the great majority of voters that it does nothing for them, only for somebody else.
The Blue line on the map is open today, the Red Line is under construction, the Dark Yellow Line (it stops a golf shot away from Ft. Lauderdale) is awaiting FTA funding OK to start construction, the Green Line is under advanced planning (The FTA has a rule that no city can have more than 1 project under construction at any one time).
"As is" Miami would have 90% of the population (and a higher % of jobs) within 3 miles of a station when completed and over half within 2 miles. With a bicycle one could live w/o a car.
But "as is" Miami is changing. On a 2004 trip to Miami I counted 15 of 23 construction cranes within 3 blocks of a Metro station. I could see half of Miami living within 4 or 5 blocks of a Metro station when completed, and 85% working within a few blocks of a station.
Best Hopes,
Alan
I've no doubt Miami will be changing even more.
I DO DOUBT that we will ever see a 1 meter sea level rise (as modeled in your link). That is still VERY much in question. And my doubt grows significantly if the time is limited to the next century.
Chicago will, one day, be ground to dust under advancing glaciers, but not in any meaningful time frame.
Alan
Climate experts disagree with you.
And I think they may be overly optimistic. It's happening so much faster than anyone expected. Even the scientists are behind the curve.
I think Leanan is correct. If anything, the climate models have been too conservative, or have failed to integrate some dynamic. The result has been that most of the climate models are wrong - but, wrong in the direction of showing too little change, not too much.
I suspect there will be a 1 meter rise within 25 years, since the climate experts are trained to be conservative in their estimates.
Apparently most of the models also fail to use realistic projections of hydrocarbon consumption base on what we, at this site, believe is their actual supply. All of the commonly cited models apparently use USGS or CERA type consumption projections.
That could go either way. We may not have as much oil as they think. OTOH, we may burn dirtier fuels to make up for it, without bothering with scrubbers, etc.
And it won't matter in the short term. Even if we stop all CO2 emissions today, the warming will continue for quite awhile.
Jim Hansen, who is peak oil aware, thinks we will see a sea level rise of several meters within the century.
Even worse, based on several recent observations, they are revisting those models NOW, and will most likely include more chaotic and non-linear elements into those models.
In which case, I believe that we will see low lying areas in trouble in less than 15 years.
Not a good time to be in Singapore or the Netherlands.
(which I have family in both!)
Holland already has proved they can battle the oceans. So they are “most” safe – solution for them: elevate and reinforce the already existing dikes and embankments...
Much worse off are all “the other” sorts of low-lying cities and hamlets facing the sea – Central Mumbai for instance is for the most part reclaimed land – and situated a few meters above the average sea level - "and here lives a number of people - equivalent to *about* the Dutch population …”
That's one interpretation. There is another:
Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts
Alan,
I think your doubt is a function of hope instead of prevailing evidence.
The concentration has been on the positive feedback loops, ignoring the negative feedback loops (IMHO an emotional bias as well).
One of those negative feedback loops is that higher temps increase evaporation, which then results in increased precipitation. If snowfall in high, central Antarctic (& Greenland might as well) areas increases, the world glacier total will increase, despite massive losses on the edges and in smaller glaciers.
One single data point, *ALL* the smaller glaciers are shrinking in Iceland, but depths of ice in the center of the largest glacier appear to be increasing. That may balance all the other losses.
Alan
One of those negative feedback loops is that higher temps increase evaporation, which then results in increased precipitation.
Of course, it's well know, specially from climate records from ice deposits, that whenever the global temperatures increase the glaciers cover the earth...
Alan this is maybe a valid point today !
- But give it another few decades and ADD 1 -,1.5 or 2 more degrees to the global average temperature … and you (and the other promoters of these observations) will see the picture more clearly.
The number of days and places for a likelihood of snowfall are reduced accordingly, and thus global water bound in the form of snow goes with it.
That melting-water is bound for the oceans …
The Greenland glaciers are thickening slightly near the middle due to more water vapor leading to more snow but overall volume is decreasing. This one data point taken out of context might be seen as a cause for hope ... but it is not.
This NASA report from 2004 states that the loss of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet exceeds the slight gain in precipitation accruing from the higher moisture content of the air crossing the ice sheet.
A newer report confirms that the ice loss is continuing, and in spite of slightly increased precipitation over the interior of the continent, net ice loss had increased to 224 cubic kilometers a year in 2005.
I have no firm data for net ice growth or loss for Iceland, but given the relative sizes of Greenland and Iceland there is no question that the losses in Greenland outweigh any gains in Iceland.
When talking about Antarctica keep in mind that it is the highest, windiest, driest and coldest continent on the earth. The deep interior of Antarctica is far from open water, more than 10,000 feet above sea level and bitterly cold. As a result, precipitation is sparse.
South Pole is more than 9,000 feet above sea level and averages less than a tenth of an inch of new precipitation per year.
More than 60 percent of the continent averages less than 2 inches of precipitation per year. Twenty percent averages about 5 inches a year and another 10 percent averages about 8 inches a year.
Most of the areas of Antarctica that receive more than 8 inches of precipitation per year are within 100 miles of the coast. Those areas are the same areas that have shown the greatest increase in glacier movement and resultant increased ice loss.
As projected by most climate warming models, there has indeed been a slight increase in precipitation in Antarctica, mostly within the existing higher precipitation area. See this 2006 report for more details.
Initially, this leads to a slight thickening in the ice sheet(s), primarily along the coastal and near coastal areas. However, the coastal areas have also begun to feel the effects of climate warming. Some of the new snow and ice melts and then penetrates the older ice.
When the older ice is a glacier, the meltwater often ends up at the bottom of the glacier, helping lubricate its passage over the rock it sits on and speeding its march to the sea. A large percentage of Antarctica's glaciers are in the same area where the most precipitation falls. This seems to be why recent research shows that a recent net loss of Antarctic ice mass of 36 cubic miles a year.
Because Antarctica is such a large land mass covered with so much ice, and because it is surrounded by ocean currents that greatly slow the movement of warmer water towards the continent while prevailing winds flow from the continent and slow the movement of warmer air to the continent, the Antarctica has been slower to react to the warming trends we have been experiencing. That seems to be changing.
Greenland's annual net ice loss increase by more than 140% between 1995 and 2005, and many experts expect it to at least double again by 2010. If ice loss follows a similar pattern in Antarctica a 1 meter rise in sea levels before the end of the century will be the least we can expect.
Maybe it is utter coincidence but just yesterday I took my car in for service and discovered crystalized sea salt had sprayed up in my engine compartment from driving through puddles of salt water on A1A near Dania Beach Boulevard. This is where I Happen to live, it is close to Fort Lauderdale. When I moved to South Florida 10 years ago I never noticed high tide flooding the road in this area. Now it seems to happen with some regularity. My rational explanation for this is that the road has probably settled an inch or so in this area and not that this is due to any increase in sea level. However this serves to illustrate the point that we in South Florida are extremely vulnerable to (what some might consider) very minor changes in sea level.
Generally a distance of 1/2 mile (10 city blocks) is used when calculating transit coverage. NYC, with several dozen subway lines and close to 500 stations, still has many areas not covered by subway (even excluding Staten Island).
That map looks like it might cover 250 square miles - there's no scale and I can't seem to locate my calibrated eyeball ;) - and with, at another guess, 60 stations when it's all done, about 20 square miles would be within 1/3 mile of a station. (Blocks? What kind of unit is that? 5 blocks in Manhattan might be a mile, or it might be hardly anything.) Moving half the population into 8% of the area - or doubling the population and putting all the newcomers into 8% of the area - no matter how it's done, it seems a staggeringly expensive undertaking. But no matter, as the kind of price and tax gouging already encountered in other places like those soon-to-be-packed 20 square miles will no doubt ensure that four fifths of the population will never be able to afford to live there.
At any rate, Miamians don't use transit much now, so the whole concept seems to require an all-embracing resource (not just oil) shortage, the likes of which we've never seen and that no economist will envisage for the next few decades. Otherwise business somewhat as usual would continue, just with hybrid and/or electric cars (and maybe electric scooters and bikes) as needed.
After all, few are so overburdened with spare time as to be able to afford to waste an hour on transit (and walking and waiting and transferring and sweltering and risking a mugging) when 20 minutes in a nice comfy car would do the job. Even in Manhattan, transit often takes more than half again as long as driving; lack of parking is what actually keeps the Transit Authority in business.
Nor does transit bring home the groceries, since you can't carry much on a train or a bus. You'd have to make several special trips instead of stopping off once on the way home from work. And it will get much worse when Homeland Security or the local police create long lines and paw through everything, as already happens occasionally in Manhattan and, IIRC, in a "pilot test" in Silver Spring, Maryland. Yuck. Oh, yes, sorry, I was forgetting, people will simply walk to the neighborhood bodega, because they'll be so overburdened with spare cash that paying triple won't be an issue. Right.
90% within 3 miles, bicycle distance, of a station...that doesn't sound overly practical either. After 3 yards of biking in the sauna that is Miami, everybody will avoid you studiously for the rest of the day. And Metrorail will graciously accept limited bikes but there is (obviously) no guarantee of space. Not much use, then, for getting to anything that's at a set time, such as school or work. And with Miami an orgy of crime, I wouldn't dream of parking the bike at the station even if I could walk at the other end of the trip.
But all right, for the sake of argument, let's buy the package (or most of it) for a moment. People are under such privation that for lack of resources, they will waste time on a grandiose scale irrespective of the huge opportunity cost. OK. But with what, then, do they pay the mortgage on all the infrastructure and housing rearrangement that was required to redistribute themselves in the prescribed manner? Or is that, somehow, free?
I am sure that the 103 mile Miami Metro will be as big a failure as the 106 mile DC Metro (and those developers building those 15 mid & high rises next to stations in 2004 will have lost their shirts by now, so not one will follow in their footsteps).
You know next to nothing about transit and TOD. So many misconceptions (BTW Zara's, 2.5 blocks away, has cheaper milk than WalMart, 7 blocks away) and such solid prejudices, why bother.
Alan
IMO, the key question that Alan Drake has asked, and answered, is devastatingly simple (and therefore, IMO, quite powerful), to-wit:
Prior to FF society, most human beings lived and died within a 12 mile radius of their place of birth. If they moved, they moved primarily by foot. Traded goods were relatively few and expensive.
I have no wish to undercut Alan's various projects but rail was an outgrowth of industrialization and the process of industrialization was itself dependent on the development of FF.
Water transport was the way that goods and people were transported long distances. This is why major cities were situated on the coasts, where there were natural harbors and at river mouths. The Erie Canal was built to facilitate the transport of goods. Barges were pulled by mule teams walking along its banks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_canal
Other canals were also built to act as conduits for transporting goods.
Nonsense. It's a monumentally silly question.
Answer: they didn't!
Years ago, I asked an old-timer why a certain church was built not far outside a small town when there was another one of the same denomination in town. The gist of the answer (which has since passed from living memory): remember there were no cars. With horses and carts, a family trip of just five miles took several hours one way. It was slow and it took a while to prepare. Not only was it costly (in resources), but in the agricultural season, they couldn't afford such a large amount of time. The dairy guys couldn't afford it at any season. So they built this place. And moving the heavy stuff around was really cumbersome...and a couple of guys got hurt badly, but thank God nobody was killed...two were killed building the one in town...
Moving people and stuff was an exhausting, laborious, dusty, dirty, dangerous, stinky, fly-ridden process. The railroads helped, but only where they went, and only in the direction they went. And even then they blackened everything near them with soot, ashes, and dust. There was not a smidgen of "efficiency" about any of it.
"Efficiency" only began to come about as horseless carriages became available, to cover those nasty first and last miles of long trips - and the entirety of short trips, most of which had never been along railroad lines.
So let's stop being stupidly nostalgic - and just plain stupid - about this. There's practically nothing to be desired about the good old days.
There's practically nothing to be desired about the good old days.
Yes, but unfortunately it just means that everybody underestimate the crunch due to power down.
That is, not only do we squander vast amounts of energy but the processes we use for that are nevertheless VERY EFFICIENT relative to the "good old days".
Loosing on both the primary sources of energy AND the processes efficiency will give?
And the simple answer to that question is, they didn't.
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
With due respect to the wonderful Alan Drake, we need to get beyond this "electrification of rail" and "light rail" paradigm. It might be a first step for a retrofitting of the US burbs, but it falls soooo far short of what has already been accomplished on this planet.
My experience is with Japan, one of the most railroad-intensive places in the world -- and also a place with seven internationally-competitive large-scale auto manufacturers.
Japanese rail is mostly a passenger system, while heavy commodity goods are transported by ship along the coasts. Rail in the US is mostly a bulk-tonnage system, driven by diesel.
First of all "electrification of rail" always looks funny to me, because Japanese trains are all electrified, and have been for decades. Today, rail=electrified rail. In fact, the word for "train" actually means "electric train." "Electric rail" is sort of like talking about a "horseless carriage." Huh?
I don't know about the extent of electrification in Europe, but I expect it is pretty high, especially in urban areas.
Second, while streetcars are nice, the most successful systems, in my personal experience, are high-capacity subways/surface rail/elevated rail on dedicated lines, not something sharing the roadway that has to avoid cars and stop at road intersections. This is combined with relatively small roadways, ie narrow streets. (I have lived in San Francisco without a car and used their light rail extensively. It worked, but it falls FAR short of the subway system in any Asian metropolis.)
I'm not sure that streetcars are really much better than a bus, and having commuted by bus in both Japan and the US, I can confirm that -- it stinks! (You can electrify buses too, as is the case in Seattle -- and yes, I've lived in Seattle and ridden that system too.)
The best example in the US is New York City, particularly the nice parts of Manhattan where the rich white people live. Big density+subways. However, this is not a very good example as the subway in NYC is very dingy and dirty, and Manhattan in general is a somewhat difficult place to live (especially for families/elderly) unless you have serious $$$. Subways in many other cities are very clean and pleasant, and they don't smell funny. Other cities in the world have managed to gain the advantages of density/trains without the failings of the NYC example.
I hope that, as we talk about what could be done, we can talk about something that is at least as good as what has already been done.
What does TOD stand for in this context? I'm getting confused because I thought it meant "The Oil Drum".
Transit Oriented Development, I believe. I've heard this defined as a city layout based around ease of using non-car transit of various types, including rail, bicycles, walking, etc.
Thanks!
Especially in Alan's case, whenever he says "TOD" assume he means Transit Oriented Development unless the context clearly indicates The Oil Drum. Alan is very vocal about TOD and justifiably so. In my opinion, what is going on right now in the developed world is a recipe for unmitigated disaster and death on a scale that cannot be imagined. It is only by making the "hard choices" and then sticking to them that even some of our global civilization is going to be salvaged from this mess.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone
See the letter below from Laurence Aurbach as an example of TOD (the other one) analysis.
Millennium Institute is located in modern TOD around the Arlington Courthouse stop of the DC Metro Orange Line.
Flexcars parked outside, ground floor retail with apartments or offices above, courtyards, etc. Not perfect, but a good try !
Originally, DC Metro wanted to route the new subway along an Interstate highway and Arlington had to come up with hundreds of millions extra to take a route that encouraged TOD.
New Silver Line in DC will be elevated in Tyson's Corner despite request from area (they funded multi-million $ engineering study) for subway that would encourage more TOD. What the locals wanted did not matter in that case. The feds said "any changes and we will re-evaluate funding".
That is why I disagree that what the market wants will happen. In Urban development it is what the TPTB (see General Motors) want that will happen.
Alan
Because that is the only use of CTL or electric cars. Electrified rail implies giving up on sparse suburban life.
I disagree. We're giving it up anyway. The only question is how fast and with how much disruption.
That's not the question, the question is, how hard will we fight to keep it? Giving up on it sooner is cheaper in the long run.
I don't see it as "fighting to keep it" so much as cushioning the crash as much as possible.
Maybe it would be best to abandon suburbia today. But it's not going to happen. Politics is the art of the possible.
It may also be best to abandon New Orleans today. That's not going to happen, either.
What exactly do you mean by "abandon suburbia?" Part of it comes down to your definitions of "abandon" and "suburbia."
The U.S. Census has some information of the populations of places having at least 100,000 people (source). These places have a total of about 80 million people. If you loosely define suburbia as places of under 100,000 people, then that is about 220 million people living in suburbia. So, are you advocating and/or predicting the movement of 220 million people from where they currently live to the cities and towns of over 100,000 people? This would be a huge internal migration. Exactly how and when is this going to happen?
Ideally, it would happen relatively slowly, as people are priced out of the happy motoring lifestyle. Over decades.
But I think there's probably going to be massive migration anyway. So many of our cities are built in harm's way. And today's suburbs might be tomorrow's cities. Or small towns.
If it is going to happen over decades then maybe it does not really happen in the long run. The peak fossil fuels problem is a 5-40 years problem. Either we transition to an alternative energy base or we have some kind of collapse and die-off. It hard to imagine replacing all that housing stock. It seems more likely that people operate more locally, from their current suburban locations, than that they move into the cities. Moving to the country does not work unless the population shrinks a great deal.
Most people here at TOD seem to discount the possibility but I think it is possible to transition the energy base to nuclear, wind and solar. Many people here believe this is not possible because they think there is a looming Uranium shortage but several of us dispute that, I think on strong evidence.
Disagree. Tainter, Greer, and others have shown that collapse takes place slowly. It could be a 400 year problem, not 40.
IOW, transitioning to solar, nuclear, etc., could be part of the collapse.
As counter evidence to a slow, long term collapse, consider the UK truckers strike of 4 or 5 years ago. Within 4 days local foodstocks were exhausted. If the strike had not ended, I am not sure what the impact would have been on day 10 but suspect it would have been ugly.
Our level of specialization and interdependence is much greater than it may have been in any prior era. Furthermore, our capacity to excercise wilful denial is much greater. Why should the media devote time to issues which might harm their advertisers and thereby undercut their own earnings? I do not believe the Romans had to face this problem.
Anything's possible. Especially in localized areas, things could get really unpleasant. Heck, they already are.
But I think as a whole, there's a certain amount of inertia that will keep the empire going for awhile. Perhaps quite awhile.
If this is really a multi-decade or multi-century process, then why did you say "Maybe it would be best to abandon suburbia today?"
Any process that takes a minimum of several decades to play out looks like business as usual for most people. This is plenty of time for economically free people to make rational decisions about where to live and how to get around. Household formation will tend to occur so as to minimize food, fuel and transportation costs, and household dissolution will tend to occur where such costs are considered too high. Under this scenario, migration will occur, but it will be incremental in the short run.
Because tomorrow we'll have fewer resources and fewer choices.
Which is why I don't expect us to actually do it.
There is a looking U-235 shortage. When it hits we'll get over this proliferation nonsense, breed a whole lot of Plutonium from the 99.3% of mined uranium that is U-238, and just keep truckin' ... or trainin', if Mr. Drake is correct in his assessment of our future transit direction.
The problem with suburbia is that it requires cheap and abundant gasoline. Which we won't have in the "future". Then what???
This is the only way I frame the problem these days, when I bother at all: "What are we going to do when we don't have gasoline?". This will be the break point. And if/when we bomb Iran gasoline shortages should materialize very quickly. And if we don't, it won't take much longer anyway.
The problem with suburbia is that it requires cheap and abundant gasoline. Which we won't have in the "future". Then what???
Bah. The economic order "we" have grown up with has that basis.
Suberbia is the least of the worries.
When I added up figures on Metropolitan areas in the US I discovered that half the US population, 150 million lives in the 40 largest metro areas. Most of this area is low density suburbia. That leaves roughly 98% of the US to the other 150 million. Like most folks we don't like being squeezed into areas of high population density. Each of us wants land, lots of land, under starry skies above. Like my wife says, "If you can hears the neighbor's guns or dogs they're too close."
People cringe in horror at the idea of "abandoning suburbia" but we've abandoned plenty of places already.
I have some land in upstate New York, a place that used to be bustling with small farms, towns and cities. It has pretty much been abandoned. My farm hasn't been farmed in at least twenty years, and I have heard that farms in New York have been closing at the rate of 1000 a year even today.
The Southern States used to be full of cotton farms packed with black slaves. All gone now, with the blacks migrating mostly up north for industrial jobs years ago.
How about Detroit? Abandoned, along with much of the Midwest farming states, as it took fewer and fewer people to farm. Buffalo, Syracuse, Akron, etc.
Certainly other urban centers have been abandoned, especially towards the late 1970s. Newark New Jersey, for example, Cleveland, Pittsburgh...places where the buildings are mostly empty.
The attention will be on the new places, the places where people are going to. We won't even think about what's abandoned. People won't care because there won't be any people there!
This decision will not be atomic at the level of society nor will it happen in an instant of time.
I packed up and moved out of a walkable suburb built in the 1950s. Others here have done similar things. As the mortgage scam continues to unwind people everywhere will make changes of all sorts to keep themselves together. We're already hearing about McMansions turned to rooming houses and the like. Some people will walk away from suburban housing, others will cling by a variety of means. Housepooling and carpooling will become the norm.
Suburbia will condense both in individual homes and individual locations that are beneficial. Think of the tendrils of housing going away from the city as stems of plants and oil as being their water. The areas that are dry (southwest) or otherwise harsh(too dense/too paved) will go first, and the areas with better conditions(space & water) will not go so quickly.
Peak suburbia will be just like peak oil, and I'd say the undulating plateau ended 9/30/2007 and Q4 2007 marks the clear beginning of the downturn. We'll have to look back in a few years to be sure, but the 'geological' forces at work are more clearly seen in this realm than they are in oil production.
I share Alan's worries about CTL, but we're forgetting the demon AGW and its handmaiden, economic collapse. Building all that stuff takes energy, money, and will, and our collective will may very well be broken in short order ...
I'm not forgetting it. One thing I find worrisome about rail is that so much of it is built where it's at risk of flooding.
With 80% of the population on the coasts - is this a situation where rail was built on the flattest places and where the people are?
Yeah, I think it was built where the people are. At least here in the northeast. It runs along the coast, along rivers, etc.
And floods occasionally already.
Didn't you post a bit from Hansen a while back saying he thought the sealevel rise this century would be 20+ METERS? I read it somewhere, anyhow, because I remember translating it to about 80 feet for the non-SI people.
A friend of mine lived in a Sacramento suburb and rode light rail downtown to her office.
One of the low speed plug-ins being marketed today would have been perfect for most of her driving. One can't (legally) drive fast in the 'burbs. Super-small cars would take a lot of pressure off of parking space at the rail stops.
If some people want to live in the 'burbs they will find a way.
We'll see the 'burbs morph. More mass transit in and out. An increase in 'need it today' shops. More reliance on internet purchases for things that aren't needed right away. More grocery/drug store deliveries rather that individual pickups. More 'fuel-powered' car rentals for the occasional long trips where the slower, longer to charge vehicle won't do.
I live rather 'remote', in the moutains an hour plus from the nearest urban center. I'll most likely continue living here as long as I can carry in the wood for the stove.
I'll adapt by going to town less frequently. I could easily do my grocery shopping once a month rather than once a week.
Don't forget the possibility for the growth of "Biwa"* type transportation. Convert your Mini-van or SUV, charge 50 cents a ride and run up and down the main drag - people jump on and off as needed.
Biwa is what they called them in Indonesia, probably numerous other names elsewhere.
Also known as a jitney cab.
Just took a look at U.S. coal consumption data at EIA (AER, Table 7.3, Coal Consumption by Sector, 1949-2006). The ten-year average annual rate of increase in U.S. coal consumption is about 1.5%. I wonder how realistic it is to expand the coal supply necessary to consume appreciably faster than this. My guess is that we will continue to ramp our coal consumption by between 1 and 2 percent per year.
And when the problem is climate change, what we do with our coal really doesn't matter, if the rest of the world continues burning coal.
We are a VERY significant fraction of global carbon emissions and what we do DOES MATTER. A significant downturn in USA GHG emissions could balance Chinese growth for example.
The "we are too small to matter" argument works for Iceland (but they did sign Kyoto and are doing things) but NOT for the USA !
And the next US President will have some moral authority (none ATM) and can have an effect on China, India, etc. *IF* the USA is doing it's part (at long last) and suggest that others can take similar paths.
Alan
Right on!
Any solution to peak oil, global warming and poverty will depend on wide or universal access to contraception.
A recent private eMail from Laurence Aurbach
Cervero R, 2007, "Transit-oriented development's ridership bonus: a product of self-selection and public policies" Environment and Planning A 39(9) 2068 - 2085
http://www.uctc.net/papers/765.pdf
Cervero derives numbers for the percent ridership increase shown by TODs, and the percent VMT decrease shown by TODs. He includes some detail about the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. Here are some excerpts:
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Even higher transit capture rates have been recorded among those living near rail stops in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Surveys from the late 1980s showed that the shares of work trips taken by rail ranged from 18 percent to 63 percent, with the rates among residents of Arlington County, Virginia heading to jobs in the District of Columbia. More recent surveys of those living along the highly urbanized four-mile long, half-mile wide Rosslyn-Ballston Metrorail corridor reveal that 39 percent use transit to get to work and 10 percent walk or bike, rates that are three times higher for Arlington County as a whole.
While the chief environmental benefit of TOD comes from coaxing motorist over to mass transit, a secondary benefit is the inducement of walk and bicycle access trips. Larger shares of rail trips accessed by foot and bicycle can reduce the need for parking, improve air quality (particularly by eliminating cold starts), and promote physical activity. In the case of Arlington County, Virginia, 64 percent of rail patrons who live along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor walk to stations. A study in California found that factors like sidewalk connectivity and mixed land uses significantly increased the likelihood of rail commuters accessing stations by foot or bicycle.
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... research on TOD and ridership can be of value to long-range modeling whose outputs weigh heavily on how scarce transportation dollars are allocated in Transportation Improvement Programs (TIPs). Recent scenario testing in Sacramento, California using an integrated land-use and transportation model, for example, showed rail investments combined with TOD and road pricing was more cost-effective and environmentally benign than a ringroad scenario.
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Figure 4 summarizes the "before-and-after" findings for 226 survey respondents. TOD residency clearly enhanced accessibility while reducing motorized travel. ... And because of mode shifts from driving to transit usage, the average mode-adjusted VMT plummeted some 42 percent once people moved to TODs.
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Laurence Aurbach
http://pedshed.net
Careful using Ballston - I lived there in the later 1980s, and watched it change - various versions of that area over a couple of decades had a neighborhood feeling, with local businesses and local organizations, from left over good ole boy Virginian (early 1970s) to Little Saigon in the 1980s to the soulless disaster that currently exists, with what, 3 lanes of traffic each way near Courthouse/Clarendon - or is it four after the parking is cleared? ( it has been a few years since I was last there)
Personally, I consider Ballston/Rosslyn/Crystal City to be more a model of what should be avoided in American urban planning than something to hold up as a model - especially 'Freedom Park' (which is not in Ballston, admittedly). Germany has little to offer as ugly and soulless as what happened to that region, though opinions might vary.
Admittedly, Ballston is still better than what happened to Loudoun County - farmland sprouting McMansions as their last harvest remains deeply disturbing, something which makes Ballston's flaws appear trivial. After all, destroying farmland dating from colonial times for no reason but greed tears at the soul in a way that removing some old 1940s housing and 1950s shopping centers in Arlington can't.
My repost reply.
No, we cannot engage on a "crash" program on all available options. But if we pick one available option, like EOT, at this late date, under already increasingly strained global resources, then at least one of the following is guaranteed to happen:
1. Other alternative energy options do not get the resources they need for research and development. We cannot have crash programs in ethanol, nuclear, wind farms, CSP, and EOT all at the same time -- there isn't the available energy or resources to accomplish all of those and maintain energy and resource investment in everything else we're currently doing. If we wanted a crash program in nuclear and EOT, even more energy and resources are not available to the rest of the system. Nuclear, wind farms, and EOT, still more energy and resources not available to the rest of the system.
2. Way of life or lifestyle, however you want to phrase it, will decline for a large section of the population -- huge sections of the economy responsible for supplying a given lifestyle will implode and fold. Apple: sorry you can't make iPods anymore; Microsoft: sorry, but you must stick with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, no other operating systems are to be developed, sold, or supported; auto industry: sorry but all cars sold must get at least 45 MPG starting next year; homeowners: sorry but you will only be apportioned 2 kilowatt hours per day per person; consumers: sorry but you cannot spend more than $500 on any item other than transportation, housing, and necessities, and big-screen TVs don't count.
3. Quality of life will decline for large sections of the population, possibly to the point of death, as is happening in Zimbabwe and Iraq currently -- there aren't enough energy and resources to "do the job right" or "fix the problem", and people suffer and die because of it. Regardless of whether or not either of the situations in Zimbabwe or Iraq were "caused" by peak oil or energy depletion, energy and resource depletion are preventing any functional addressing of the situation which would "solve" the problem to alleviate suffering and misery or stave off death, because we are spending those energy and resources elsewhere.
At this late date, we must make hard choices to implement any solution or any basket of solutions.
We are inexperienced medics on the battlefield, unaccustomed to the idea that we only have resources to address 10 injuries, and there are 20 injuries on the field.
Committing to a given set of solutions is the first hard part, which we have not yet done.
Committing to the consequences of our solution-set is the second hard part, about which we aren't yet even thinking.
Committing to the consequences of our solution-set is the second hard part, about which we aren't yet even thinking
I would argue that I have thought seriously about the consequences of my advocated solution set. Perhaps I have it wrong, and I certainly have overlooked something, but I have thought long and hard about the consequences of the different options and have chosen the most benign set.
Best Hopes,
Alan
One of the biggest problems with undertaking radical change--which is, after all what we have to do--is the unpredictability of many of the effects of our actions. A great feature of electrified rail is that it is practiced widely in Western Europe, is known to work well, and is part of a package that is proven to allow people to live prosperously on half the per capita energy we use in the US. Someone has done the experiment for us and it's known to work. You can't do much better than that.
Mark Folsom
Very well said !
:-)
Alan
Well put – and I’d like to add the pleasant feeling and atmosphere that many of the smaller and bigger cities in Europe has,actually DUE to the surface bound tramways and light rails – in concert with the more expensive and efficient underground systems (some places)
The latter (underground/elevated) is IMO NOT an option when PO is understood due to immense costs and long construction periods – and why should it “dig underground” in the first place? I mean as the streets will be “car free” in some decades thus being ready for a NEW AND WISE utilization – not?
How could the human race "commit to a given set of solutions"?
Possible answers:
A: The human race could determine that a commitment must be made, that sacrifices must be made, could evaluate the possible solutions, and, through dialog and compromise, select a set of solutions.
A: The political sphere could determine the most politically helpful set of solutions for the short-term success of the political sphere. In politics, there is very little long-term planning.
A: Time could pass or events could transpire which required more expedient choices, and the human race could quickly or randomly select a set of solutions.
History shows that the human race has never selected the first option. It is a wonderful thought, but the human race is incapable of it.
History shows that the second option is used most often when the human race - as a whole - is unwilling to make a choice. Although, choosing to not make a choice is still making a choice.
History shows that the political sphere chooses the third option when the ramifications of the second option are not clear enough or when there is not enough of a short-term gain.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Despite the consequences of PO or GW, the human race requires extraordinary proof before it will make a choice.
The proof is not extraordinary enough yet, and will only be extraordinary enough in hindsight. At which point, the only option will be the third option - a rapid, ill-considered rush to assuage global panic. We're a long way from there, and the human race will spend the intervening time attempting to continue business as usual.
1. The human race. Quite frankly, we are all mortal, and we all die. The problem lies in that, given the projections of energy, population, and resource usage leading to imminent collapse, that the majority of us will die around the same time period, and we will lose much if not all that civilization has accomplished. Even assuming that "90% of everything is crud" (Sturgeon's Revelation), civilzational accomplishments included, there is still 10% worthy of salvage for the next generation.
Our very living bodies are on loan from the planet, and we must be at least engaged in a social contract which takes at least one party into account: the next generation. Otherwise, all is for naught.
Also, while the human race entirely has never committed to a singular solution, large groups have managed to put aside their differences to meet an approaching threat. The Native Americans did it in response to the encroaching Europeans, although too late.
Is it already too late for us to even do this?
And if it is impossible for society to entirely embrace any one new or changed paradigm, then this becomes another hard choice we have to make which we aren't making: who survives, and who doesn't. What makes it, and what goes the way of the dodo.
2. The political/power sphere. Another large group rife with internal differences that could be put aside to address an approaching threat. The rich and powerful feel insulated from these mundane matters. They aren't. When their foundation crashes, a foundation made of the poor, working poor, and middle class, on the backs of which they draw capitalistic growth, a foundation which actually supplies them access to their "wealth", they will get hit perhaps the hardest of all, having such a longer distance to fall than the rest of us.
3. Evolution-based dispersed decisions. Under a metaphorical canopy of "Freewill" by Rush, we choose or don't choose, let the chips fall where they may, and we make it or we don't.
I would wager that the average IQ among the posters at TOD is at least two standard deviations above the norm, at least in the 130 to 140 range.
Are we saying that the social, psychological, people-based, mindshare-dependent challenges laying before us are beyond the intellectual and reasoning capabilities of some of the smartest people on the planet? That we cannot use these capabilities to make both the extraordinary claim and provide the extraordinary proof in ways understandable and convincing to the majority of decision-makers, button-pushers, and string-pullers involved?
Are we not capable of figuring out how to address the overall, systemic problem?
Do the results of Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" indicate the only and default solutions capable of implementation? Solutions based in ignorance, incomplete information, and fear?
Firstly, you seem to be arguing that option 1 is the best option. I agree with you. It is not that I don't think it is the best option, it is that I do not think the masses of humanity are capable of making that choice.
Secondly, yes, groups of humans have put aside differences to meet an approaching threat. However, the ramifications of PO and GW will not be solved by small groups of humans, but only by a vast and active majority.
Next:
These decisions will not be made, except as the struggle for limited resources plays out over time. My premise is the same: the human race is incapable of determining "that a commitment must be made, that sacrifices must be made, [and will then] evaluate the possible solutions, and, through dialog and compromise, select a set of solutions." Humans are animals, and act like animals do - perceived self-interest is paramount.
Next, how will the political sphere realize that they aren't insulated from the approaching threat of PO and GW, except in hindsight?
Next:
No and no. But analyzing the problem does not automatically entail that the solution will be implemented. How long have humans been aware that female humans are, in general, treated worse than males by human society? Has this awareness caused a solution to be implemented that has solved this problem?
Next:
A minority of the human race has never been able to accomplish what you write above for something as far-reaching as PO or GW.
I am reminded of a poignant scene in James Burke's "After The Warming" from the early 90's. If I recall, he's standing atop Muana Kea near the camera with a pathway heading off into the distance. He's talking about Global Warming and how the human race hasn't dealt with it (he's supposedly in the future ~2050). He begins by saying something like the following: "1970, problem discovered and a call to action". And then continues (as he appears further and further down the pathway heading off into the distance): "1975 a call for action, 1978 new evidence, 1980 a call for action, 1982 a call for action, 1985 a call for action, 1986 a call for action". This continues up to "2045 a call for...well, you get the idea".
I see nothing in the history of the human race that has prepared it to accept responsibility for addressing these challenges. When the human race is unprepared, it usually does nothing.
That is one of the virtues of conservation. Right off the bat you save the energy not wasted. Down the line the amount saved is multiplied as you no longer have to deal with the waste and problems generated by the excessive energy previously used.
If you drive a small, high mileage car, you save energy in driving it. Energy is also saved in making the car. A lighter car causes less damage to the roads so less energy is spent repairing the roads. As less fuel is needed less fuel is refined, less fuel is shipped by truck, etc., etc.
Similar analyses can be run on high efficiency lighting, better insulated refrigerators, longer lasting computers and so on.