"The U.S. will blend 10% Ethanol in 2009. per the EPA"

Sure, i am not arguing you cant mandate such an amount or even produce it, but given the low EROI of ethanol production in the US, how much oil will you have displaced? According to many analysis here on TOD and elsewhere, probably very little.

Anecdotal information. Misses long-term availability, system integrity, financial stability which I mentioned before.

And, actually, it's way more complex than I made out. I didn't address large-scale externalities like climate change, mass extinctions, or pandemic. I didn't mention scalability.

With a shot of sarcanol, I'm glad to see at this late date people are still steeped in denial. I do, however, recognize it as the lack of cultural adherence to a new and possibly threatening idea, which is usually necessary to maintain integrity. The force of "Mother Culture", as Daniel Quinn put it.

So the resistance is normal, but it certainly doesn't make the underlying wishes and hoping map any better to reality.

California's insulation grants come through some governmental body, from taxes. However, the flow of money from the public to the government back to the public is not the creation of resources. The grants which help pay for these require enough of the public to be paying taxes and enough of a governmental budget, and a general economic depression will adversely impact or eliminate both.

The physical availability of the resources to harvest, mine, manufacture, ship, and install insulation at a sufficient scale is also uncertain, due to many insulators requiring cheap energy (to melt rock for rockwool) or being made with plastic (the binders in fiberglass), which is oil-derived.

"Complexity doesn't prevent one form of energy, for example oil fired heating being replaced by another for example nuclear energy or wind power generated electric heat."
We can't pick and choose which individual elements get eliminated. "Oil fired heating" and "nuclear energy" are not individual elements in the complex system.

Some of the individual elements in the complex economy are the people who build, maintain, install, support oil fired heating, each of whom finds themselves with less work or out of work and not enough money. There are the same people who build nuclear plants who find their skills are in too much demand, costing more. These types of imbalances did not have severe consequences when times were good, when we were awash in cheap energy. They tended to find some dynamic equilibrium. More training could be made easily available for, say, training oil heating technicians to work in nuclear plants.

When the system is strained as it is currently, similar imbalances ripple through the economy, and can manifest as economic depression, social unrest, epidemics, and war.

Implementation of "oil heating" and "nuclear energy" are emergent properties resulting from millions of individual decisions among millions of people in a complex network.

"Non of this is rocket science, its not even 'complex'." The manufacture of synthetic fibers like fiberglass or rockwool from petroleum and molten rock is applied materials engineering, and arguably just as involved and technical as astronautical engineering ("rocket science").

The materials manufacturing process is wrapped in various systems of management, goods transportation, equipment maintenance, further wrapped in various corporate, legal, political, and societal systems, further wrapped in climate and ecological systems. It is also bound by various biological systems.

The large impacts the small and the small impacts the large, within and between all the other levels, across different scales of time.

Yes, it's complex.

For a better understanding, I recommend:
"Chaos: Making A New Science", by James Gleick
"Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos" by Stephen Strogatz
"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
"The Black Swan" by Nassim Taleb
"Overshoot" by William Catton

Hardship? This is not hardship compared to what is coming. It will get worse, we can agree on that. Plans are being made accordingly.

Where we disagree, is the final destination of all this. The issue here is one of nuance, or the scale of possible outcomes, which again, I posit is not being correctly noted by those painting a picture of inevitable, total and rapid collapse.

Hardship? You call this hardship? This is not hardship compared to what is coming. It will get worse, we can agree on that. Plans are being made accordingly.

Where we disagree, is the final destination of all this. The issue here is one of nuance, or the scale of possible outcomes, which again, I posit is not being correctly noted by those painting a picture of inevitable, total and rapid collapse. It's not inevitable, it may not be total and it probably won't be rapid. Then again it may, but I take issue with the whole tone of inevitability.

Tilapia is kinda far down in the hierarchy of fish... Tier 4, I think. Tiers 1-3 are 90% fished out. I expect barnacles to become a popular seafood before long at this rate.

Yes, but do they taste good and have good texture.

Well, it all depends on the quality of the cook and there are many different ways to prepare them for sure. The texture is really very good (I'm a sea food lover and live in Florida and often spear my own fish in the ocean and the texture of Tilapia compares well), I broiled this particular batch in a pyrex tray with sea salt, olive oil, sun dried tomatoes, fresh diced garlic and a good dash of white wine. Not to pat myself on the back here but the general consensus was that is turned out rather well. The side dish was roasted potatoes and a wonderful fresh Mediterranean salad (prepared by my significant other) with assorted nuts, fresh mushrooms and sun dried cranberries (the only nod to traditional thanksgiving foods), most ingredients came from the local farmers market.

Gail, Re Epcot Center, yes, I have been there and seen that as well. Very interesting stuff.

Hi Neil1947,

How much oil will it take to maintain the 5.8 million miles of highways is not the question. Rather, the question is will the oil get to the right place in time.

You did not include all of my reply, see below to XXX:

When the gas stations are closed and people can't get to work, that's it, there goes highway maintenance and the power grid. When state governments don't have revenues to put highway crews out in trucks that use gasoline and diesel, that's it, etc. etc.
4 wheel vehicles need open gas stations with gasoline/diesel to get out there. 4 wheel vehicles do not carry huge transformers, pylons, or cable all from hundreds or thousands of miles away. The transformers, for example come from Germany or South Korea.

No one is going to plan ahead as you are to figure out how to overcome these problems.

Governments are totally ignorant of what is happening and they are not planning.

I have personally been in communication with a colleague from grad school who works for a state FEMA agency. He ignores everything about Peak Oil.

I taught government officials for 30 years in 3 MPA programs until January 2008 where I retired from the Univ of NH, and I have many friends in government with whom I communicate regularly. Government is my life. Most do not want to hear about Peak Oil, and most run from it like it is the plague.

Will the National Guard come to the rescue. Yes, when it is too late, and they too need gasoline stations open in order to function. XXX

Here are other reasons why the highways and power grid will collapse.

Here come "the saw teeth," from TOD folks, "The 2008 IEA WEO - Oil Reserves and Resources," November 22, 2008:

Davebygolly: given the retreats in energy investments seen recently, I would think that a lot more of the remaining reserves will remain forever in the ground than was thought - the 2500 gb isn't real in that sense. The energy industry is highly capital intensive. I don't know how many blows like the current one it can withstand. So maybe there will be a few more reruns of the present crisis on the down slope, but maybe very few and not so far in between.
Like everyone else, just guessing. But we know where we are and we know where we'll end up. Just don't know the shape of the down slope. Linear? Naw. Vertical drop? Naw. Exponential dacay? Naw. Sawtooth down? Has to be, of one sort another, having excluded all else. How many teeth? A lot is not that much different from linear. Not so many and then a downward plunge as the world's infrastructure no longer can support the energy industry's ability to get ever harder to get at stuff.

Rockman: "I agree Dave. I've worked in the oil patch for 33 years and have lived on that saw tooth ride everyday of it. In the past, the aberrations we're caused by excessive production, economic down turns and growth spurts and a combination of these components. It seems we are now entering a period were those factors are still effective but have now added a new dynamic: inability to supply demand (at sustainable prices) during periods of growth in the global economy. I think it's becoming apparent that even as we slide down the PO slope we'll still experience the saw teeth. And those teeth will exact even more damage to mankind's ability to sustain itself in an orderly fashion."

Cjwirth: "Hey Rockman and Dave,

I like your saw tooth theory. The big saw tooth comes when the high price or lack of oil reduces the ability of states to maintain the highways.

[Google: state highway government budget cuts]

Then the power grid goes out and nothing modern works, including heating systems and transportation (electricity power pumps diesel and gasoline).

This will reduce the population of many cities, which provide the organization and finance for extracting and distributing energy. There could be smaller of such saw teeth when there are power grid failures in sections of the U.S. for weeks or months, or for a short duration nationally.

Another saw tooth is when gas stations are closed and people can't get to work to do the jobs required for oil or gas extraction.
When your car runs out of gasoline it stops. When the industrial machine doesn't get enough oil, something stops, and then that stops something else, I call this the 'gridlock effect.' " [credit here to Chris Shaw: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5964 ]

Aangel: "One more sawtooth: when the cost of transportation gets so high that it is no longer worth it for a minimum wage worker to go to work."
********************

Global Oil Production
per Capita (World Pop.)

1900 0.1
1920 0.4
1940 1.0
1960 2.5
1980 4.5
2000 4.0
2020 2.7
2040 1.4

Source: ASPO-International

>>>>>>Interdependence in the Production of Energy

The production of each type of energy is highly dependent on other types of energy. Shortages or high energy prices for one type of energy will limit the production of other energies. Oil is critically important in the production of all forms of energy. Shortages in oil will mean shortages in gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Thus oil rig workers won’t be able to travel to the oil fields and off-shore platforms; coal won’t be mined or transported; electric power won’t be generated in some plants; roads and bridges won’t be maintained; and spare parts won’t be delivered for oil drilling and refining, electric power generation, and for natural gas production. Shortages of natural gas will limit the generation of electric power and production of Canada’s oil sands (unless equipment modifications are made so that the oil sands can be used to generate heat for processing of the oil sands).

>>>>Inflation and Scarce Capital

High energy costs will generate rising inflation in most sectors of the economy. As inflation and unemployment increase, individual investing will shrink, resulting in reduced capital formation. Scarce capital will also result from the need to spend more and more national wealth on buying oil needed for food production, transportation, heating, and energy production. As the price of oil rises, the construction of nuclear power plants, coal GTL plants, and solar based alternative energy projects will become more and more costly. Individuals will lack resources for: building new homes close to agricultural production, buying energy efficient vehicles (especially because the trade-in values for low-gas-mileage-vehicles will plummet), and retrofitting homes with passive solar installations, insulated dormitories, and wood stoves.

>>>Limits of Market Economies

Corporate enterprises exist mainly to make financial profits. Over last two and half centuries, abundant coal and oil energies bolstered expanding economies and corporate profits, and over the last century oil, natural gas, and technology explain the expansion of economies for the last century. Oil depletion and ever-deepening recession will erase profits and most corporations will fail.

In an era of high inflation and deepening depression, individual investors will lack funds for investing. In addition, investments in banks, equities, and bonds will shrink in value. Investments in banks, bonds, equities, and pension and retirement funds represent promises to provide future products and services that require oil, natural gas, and coal. As the cost of energy increases, the real value of these investments will decline. In a few years, such investments will lose value, and some years later they will be worthless. When investors and the public understand these realities, they will avoid investing in financial institutions. Chris Shaw is correct in writing that energy “is the one true currency,” it always was and always will be.”

Because of ever-worsening economic depression and rapidly rising energy costs, banks will hesitate in making loans for projects that have uncertain profitability due to high future energy costs. Such projects include: ultra deep water production of oil and natural gas; development of coal GTL; construction of nuclear power plants and wind turbines; relocation of populations from metropolitan areas to agricultural areas; and development of cargo rail, passenger rail, and public transportation.

>>>Government

Federal, state, and local governments will do little to adopt policies to prepare for Peak Oil. Interest group pressures, constituency priorities, and political self-interest explain the political actions of most U.S. members of Congress, state legislators, and local officials. Most government decisions will yield policies that interest groups and constituents favor, rather than rational and scientific policies that benefit all of the people. The general public and leaders in business, government, the media, and the academic community believe that the U.S. can discover more energy, or we can develop some alternative energy or technology, and thus maintain economic stability in the future. Most citizens and leaders believe deeply that solar energy, nuclear energy, hydrogen, biomass, ethanol, other renewables, or some invention will provide adequate energy for the economy. Deeply ingrained in the American psyche is the belief that we can accomplish almost anything if we apply technology and hard work to the task.

As the energy crisis deepens, all available energy will be consumed for survival -- food production, transportation of food and necessities, heating, basic services, and for handling emergencies. The national government, therefore, will not develop initiatives toward: relocation of the population to agricultural areas; local farming infrastructure based on animal and human labor; community farming and food preservation; freight and passenger rail systems; alternative programs for providing domestic potable water; passive solar installations; insulated dormitory rooms in homes; and provisions for residential waste disposal.

>>>Quicksand Effect

Chris Shaw explains a “quicksand effect” for energy production: it takes energy to get energy, and because the highest quality oil is extracted first, high quality oil must be expended to extract oil that is of lower quality. And as depletion progresses, we must spend more and more energy to get less and less in return, until the difference between energy invested and energy returned is zero. To produce oil in the future, more and more oil must be consumed by constructing more and more oil rigs for drilling smaller and smaller oil pockets. For off-shore oil drilling, more and more rigs, platforms, ships, and pipelines must be constructed to extract oil from greater and greater depths. Matthew Simmons indicates that the replacement of aging oil rig, refinery, and pipeline equipment and infrastructure will cost a great deal in capital investments in the coming years. The manufacturing and transport of this equipment and infrastructure will use much oil. Canada’s oil sands is another case of the quicksand effect. In order to produce low quality oil high quality natural gas and oil are expended for processing and refining; the manufacture trucks, processing equipment, pipelines, new houses, and airplanes (for transporting workers); and the energy used by trucks, processing equipment, airplanes, and pumps. In addition, oil sands operations contaminate local water supplies and generate much air pollution and carbon dioxide. Similarly, the GAO study found that “EOR [enhanced oil recovery] technologies [to extract additional oil from depleted oil fields] are much costlier than the conventional production methods used for the vast majority of oil produced,” and “operating costs for deep water rigs are 3.0 to 4.5 times more than operating costs for typical shallow water rigs.” The same concept applies to the use of high quality oil and natural gas energy to produce alternative sources of energy, such as corn ethanol, bio-diesel, wind turbines, and nuclear power plants.

As oil depletion progresses, more and more oil is used to produce oil. When the amount of oil used to produce a barrel of oil equals the amount of oil produced, it is pointless to continue oil production. In addition to the oil used on site to produce and refine oil, energy is used in all of the processes for the machinery, equipment, and personnel used in the extraction, transport, and refining processes. For deepwater oil production, this would include all of the ships, platforms, steel piping (many kilometers of pipes on-site and to onshore locations), and their employees, including the energy used in making the hundreds of thousands of parts, the energy used in the factories that make the parts, the energy used in transportation of all of the parts and employees, as well as the energy that is consumed when employees and stockholders spend their salaries or dividends on goods and services (food, automobiles, yachts, airplanes, recreation vehicles, vacations, consumer purchases, etc.). Because there are a number of confounded energy input variables, it is difficult to measure all of this consumption of energy, but it is an economic reality that is shown in corporate decisions about the profitability of deepwater oil projects. For deepwater, heavy oil, tar sands, and extraction where special techniques are used, the point at which energy consumed in production equals the energy produced will be reached rapidly. For this reason, some oil that is classified as recoverable (for example deepwater oil, heavy oil, and the Bakken formation) may never be recovered.

>>>Multiple Crises and a Grid Lock of Crises

Peak Oil means that the U.S. lacks the energy necessary to provide for transportation, food production, industry, manufacturing, residential heating, and the production of energy. Oil shortages and natural gas shortages will generate multiple crises for the nation: (1) Shortages in gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will limit travel to work for oil rig/platform workers and technicians, coal miners, highway maintenance personnel, and maintenance workers for electric power generation stations and power lines. (2) Without truck and air transport, spare parts for virtually everything in the economy won’t be delivered, including parts needed for highway maintenance and energy production equipment. Simmons notes that 50,000 unique parts are necessary to create a working oil field. Many more parts are necessary for ultra deep water drilling operations, including a variety of high tech ships, remotely operated underwater vehicles, seismic survey equipment, helicopters, and technologically complex platforms (see The New York Times and click on Multimedia Graphic). Thousands of corporations around the globe manufacture these parts, and many of these corporations will fail in the Peak Oil crisis. (3) States governments will lack funds for maintaining the Interstate Highway System, including snow plowing, bridge repair, surface repair, cleaning of culverts (necessary to avoid road washouts), and clearing of rock slides. A failure in one section of the Interstate highway will cut off transportation for that highway and everything it carries: food, emergency supplies, medicine, medical equipment, and spare parts necessary for energy production. (4) The power grid for most of North American will fail due to a lack of spare parts and maintenance for the 257,000 kilometers of electric power transmission lines, hundreds of thousands of pylons (which are transported on the highways), and hundreds of power generating plants and substations, as well as from shortages in the supply of coal, natural gas, or oil used in generating electric power. Power failures could also result from the residential use of electric stoves and space heaters when there are shortages of oil and natural gas for home heating. This would overload the power grid, causing its failure. The nation depends on electric power for: industry; manufacturing; auto, truck, rail, and air transportation (electric motors pump diesel fuel, gasoline, and jet fuel); oil and natural gas heating systems; lighting; elevators; computers; broadcasting stations; radios; TVs; automated building systems; electric doors; telephone and cell phone services; water purification; water distribution; waste water treatment systems; government offices; hospitals; airports; and police and fire services, etc. Phillip Schewe, author of “The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World,” writes that the nation’s power infrastructure is “the most complex machine ever made.” In “Lights Out: The Electricity Crisis, the Global Economy, and What It Means To You,” author Jason Makansi emphasizes that “very few people on this planet truly appreciate how difficult it is to control the flow of electricity.” A 2007 report of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) concluded that peak power demand in the U.S. would increase 18% over the next decade and that planned new power supply sources would not meet that demand. NERC also noted concerns with natural gas disruptions and supplies, insufficient capacity for peak power demand during hot summers (due to air conditioning), incapacity in the transmission infrastructure, and a 40% loss of engineers and supervisors in 2009 due to retirements. According to Railton Frith and Paul H. Gilbert (National Research Council scientist testifying before Congress), power failures currently have the potential of paralyzing the nation for weeks or months. In an era of multiple crises and resource constraints, power failures will last longer and then become permanent. When power failures occur in winter, millions of people in the U.S. and Canada will die of exposure. There are not enough shelters for entire populations, and shelters will lack heat, adequate food and water, and sanitation. (5) Water purification and water distribution systems will fail, leaving millions of metropolitan residents without water. (6) Waste water treatment systems will fail, resulting in untreated sewage that will contaminate the drinking water for millions of residents who consume river water downstream. (7) Transportation and communications failures will cripple federal, state and local governments -- leaving and residents without emergency services, emergency shelters, police and fire protection, water supplies, and sanitation etc. (8) Mechanized farming will cease, and harvested crops won’t be transported more than a few miles. (9) Food won’t be transported from the Midwest, California, Florida, and Mexico to the U.S. population. (10) Fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides won’t be produced. (11) Due to limited farm acreage near cities (much of it destroyed by suburbanization), most cities and towns will be unable to support their populations with sufficient food from local farming (see Paul Chefurka and Paul Chefurka). (12) Homes across the U.S. will lack heating and air conditioning. Even if homes are retrofitted with wood stoves, local biomass is insufficient to provide for home heating, and it will not be possible to cut, split, and move wood in sufficient quantities.

In the coming years, the U.S. faces multiple energy crises. Each crisis will generate delays in handling other crises, thus making it more and more difficult to address multiplying problems. The worse things get, the worse they will get. A grid lock of crises will paralyze the nation.

Because the global demand for oil is high, conservation in the U.S. alone will not slow global oil depletion. Any oil conserved in U.S. would be consumed by other nations. The rational policy for the nation to follow, therefore, is to shift away from consumerism and economic stimulus programs (which waste oil) and use the available oil to prepare for Peak Oil risk management planning.

Cheers,

Cliff Wirth

I figure on plague war and nuclear war long before local survivalism establishes itself. A hole in the ground in the forest with a year's supply of food is probably going to be your best bet if the system goes down. After a year there will be plenty of abandoned land to farm if you are still alive.
I read books on the causes of World War One and brood about complex systems meeting stupid leaders. Here is hoping that Bush and Putin are a lot smarter than Nicky, Willy, and Franz.