Urban Survival: The GOM Situation
Posted by Prof. Goose on October 1, 2005 - 1:35pm
Let me sum up: Hurricane Ivan destroyed 7 platforms and 100 piplines and 0 rigs.
Katrina & Rita destroyed (so far) 90 platforms and (who knows) pipelines and 100?
rigs.
There are typically around 130 rigs working in the Gulf. Today, there are 23.
There will be virtually no new exploration in the Gulf for the next year or so, assuming everything stays the way it is right now. Plus, with the rigs left in operation, there are several countries bidding to have them work in their waters. Guess who wins? Highest bidder.
Gasoline was up $0.40 at my test location just since last night. Expectations are that it will rise over $1.00 by Sunday night. Two years ago, I could fill my SUV (26 gal tank) for $28. Today, it cost me $28 to fill my buzzie with a 10 gal tank.
Service companies are strained to the max. There is very little equipment available. Dive equipment, generators, winches and the whole lot were destroyed in the storms. Rentals are going out all over the world to get the equipment to do the job. Right now, everything is on an even keel, but one more surprise could put the whole remediation effort over the edge, as well.
Still working on the refinery data for you. Don't trust the happy talk. These are eyeball numbers. We are keeping a large wall map up-to-date in the war room. (Oilman1 is at an oil service company that does offshore work - G)
It's not only bad, it's very bad.
Ergo, we may not take too long getting there...we don't like lines any more than you do. (humming, "On the road again, just can't wait to get on the road again...")
Now let me add it up: A tenuous political situation in DC, New Orleans clusterfibbit, quakes pending west, and oil outages on the horizon. That means rationing and restrictions on travel. We'll take flight ahead of a crapstorm any day...
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I realize that the situation is still very murky, but it'd be nice to have more hard data. Is it possible for TOD to do a daily summary of where we stand in GOM recovery? You could include the MMS data combined with other data from your insiders.
I'm inclined to belive the government wants to play down the severity of the situation at best, and at worst, possibly hide reports such as the one above. Possibly they do not want to cause panic, or more immeadiately, not add to speculative buying of energy.
However the weekday report from the blandly named OFFICE OF ELECTRICITY DELIVERY AND ENERGY RELIABILITY contains quite a lot of information.
Here is Friday's report:
http://www.electricity.doe.gov/documents/gulfcoast_report_093005.pdf
It appears they have stopped weekend reports this weekend.
Note that even though downed refiners were given some partial power Friday, they seperately reported partial power is not enough to restart plants.
The fact is that American consumption needs to be lowered by 8% (=1.5 MMBPD GOM shut-in / 18 MMBPD pre-huricane consumption). In an egalitarian society, one would strive to spread this "suffering" across the population. However, in a market economy some will go on consuming like nothing ever happened--because they can afford $3/gasoline and $15/MMBtu nat'l gas. Others meanwhile will be forced to stop driving to work because what they earn and stop paying their heating bills because what they burn. They will lose their jobs and have their heating cut off. Their consumption may be reduced by ~100% then.
There is your demand destruction, which may very well be irreversible.
The fact is that capitalism drove the GDPs and with it, the demand for oil & gas, all they way up the Hubbard peak. On the way down, it is no longer part of the solution-- it is part of the problem.
What about oil import capacity given destruction of port facilities? Then of course there is the refining capacity. I think we will see higher prices at the pump than if the oil problems had happened elsewhere.
What we need are aggressive government-sponsered programs in coal-gasification and Fischer-Tropsch synfuels (or similar "alternative" but demonstrated technologies). The "market forces" won't make this happen becuase they are afraid that LNG imports will make coal-gasification uncompetitive.
There is this myth in America that all great technologies were developed without government help. The reality is that the most successful technologies in the fuels and petrochemicals were developed during WWII with aggressive government help-- fluidized cat-cracking for high octane gasoline and synthetic rubber being just two examples.
We've already paid a billion dollars for hybrids through the PNGV. It's a small step from hybrids to plug-in hybrids; we ought to insist that they be brought to market.
I also agree are better off using North American coal reserves to generate electricity (and thus displace natural gas consumption) than using the F-T process to generate diesel. I read in the papers a few days ago that GE and Bechtel agreed to begin engineering and design for a 600-megawatt coal-gasification plant in Ohio - finally! This is by far the largest plant to date. Coal gasification doesn't help much with our global warming problem but it greatly reduces particulate, sulfur dioxide and heavy metals emissions. I live in the Pacific NW and much of our air pollution and the mercury in our tuna come from coal fired electric generation plants in China. I wonder what the cost-benefit calculation would look like to pay the Chinese to replace their existing plants with coal gasification plants. GE would be all for it.
The President needs to take a step beyond conservation and put significant DOE money for plug-in hybrid development. His oil company constituency might not be thrilled, but it wins point on the fuel cost / national security fronts.
The plug-in hybrid was always the threat to the oil interests; it would have allowed anyone who cared to drive on energy from nuclear, natural gas, wind or even solar... on different days. I would not be at all suprised to learn that oil interests had a role in keeping CARB or anyone else from splitting the difference in the ZEV mandate, because once that cat was out of the bag it would have been really tough to keep the tech from spreading.
Also as fuel oil and natural gas prices go up many homeowners will choose to switch to electric heat. And it's not just heat for homes - a number industrial energy needs will switch over as well. Peak oil and peak natural gas will tend place a lot of increased demand on our electric grid independent of our transportation needs.
My point is that we already know how to increase grid capacity. Public utilities plan for growth as a normal part of business. It's just a matter of making sure investment dollars are available and estimates for future demand are realistic.
Hydrogen distribution for fuel cells is an entirely different story. Then we still have to address on-board storage issues, H2 production issues and fuel cell cost issues.
Maybe biodiesel works for Brazil, but I doubt it will work for nations far off the equator like the US and Canada.
So go hybrids. Go Toyota. Support gov R&D support for better batteries, more efficient electric drive trains, continued solar, wind, coal gasification and CO2 sequestration technology, and subsidized loans for electric grid infrastructure enhancements (both efficiency and capacity).
The internet could be used to broadcast to everyone in real time, when and how much recharge load the grid can handle. Electricity prices vary based on this info.
I guess that the best hydrogen distribution method when oil get realy expensive is as synthetic methane. And then you reuse the natural gas infrastructure for distribution.
You would drive into an open-trench service station similar to those fast lube job shops. They swap the battery from underneath without having to jack the car up. Maybe they can lube your hybrid car's gas engine at the same time if the car has a fossil fuel burning, booster engine.
That's the biggest bang for your buck of all... there must be, all over North America, a huge - massive - number of people that could trade some, or all, of their fossile-fueled transportation for human powered transport.
Too little mind-effort is spent on high tech solutions. Three wheeled bikes with comfy seats, high tech generators (for lights) and cargo carrying capability (on board or via trailers) could easily be mass produced at much lower cost... and given away... and would be far more effective in reducing overall fossil fuel energy use than any other initiative I can think of, other than a mass die off thanks to some new flu virus.
Bingo.
We'll be reading about homes that burn down this winter from poorly utilized electric space heaters, unfortunately. Winter electricity usage is likely to hit new highs, reducing spare capacity and the ability to take equipment off-line for maintenance.
I wonder if its possible that growing reliance on electricity due to high fossil fuel costs might ever (this year, next or ?) bring summer time conditions of near-peak capacity utilization to the winter, where failure would be dangerous, not just an inconvenience, in many locales.
I've not researched this but assume its possible.
- Electricity is prioritized and NG for home heating is reduced. Many people will learn about pilot lights.
- Home heating is prioritized and some peaking capacity is given up. People with oil or electric heat learn how well their houses are insulated during brownout or rolling blackout periods. These people also realize that building so many NG-dependent power plants was a rather bad idea.
Envelope time: typical gas-heated home uses 50 million BTU/year for heat. Average vehicle drives what, 14K miles/year and gets ~24 MPG? Call it 580 gallons/year at 126,000 BTU/gallon: 73 million BTU. If 35% of driving (4900 miles) is done during the heating season, that's 26 million BTU. Combined cold-season consumption: 76 million BTU of fuel.
Burn this fuel in a cogenerating furnace at 25% electrical efficiency and 90% overall efficiency. You get 49 million BTU of heat (close enough) and 18.9 million BTU (5540 kWh) of electricity. If the vehicle uses 350 Wh/mile at the charger, you get enough electricity to drive 15800 miles; if you only drive 4900 miles you'd only use 1715 kWh and have 3820 kWh left over. That's enough to use 1 kW continuous for 159 days of the year, replacing the gas or coal that would be used to power the grid.
The improvements get much, much better if you use the surplus electricity to run heat pumps; how much better depends on the efficiency you allow.
Yes, it sounds nutty but the numbers all work out. We could be getting so much more out of what we use than we are; we just haven't implemented the (relatively simple) technologies to do it. Well, it's time.
Climate Energy LLC has a venture going with Honda to make a cogenerating furnace (which would burn fuel conventionally when heat demands outran the cogenerator output). The cogenerator section produces 1 kW at about 21% electric efficiency, 85% overall (it does not appear to recover latent heat in the engine exhaust). The cost premium over a conventional furnace is about $4000.
It would take you quite a few years to pay this off. (My personal opinion is that it's too small for the expense, and we should throw it back until it grows up. ;-)
That's the high-cost option. At the other end are a whole family of engine designs cloned from a venerable English make, the Lister (sometimes called Listeroids). They're widely manufactured in India, are rated at 6 HP (4.5 kW) in the single-cylinder version, have a thermal efficiency I calculate at about 30%, and run for about $1000 FOB Oregon.
You'd need a few tweaks to press this into domestic use in most places: co-fuelling with natural gas or LPG, heat recovery system in the exhaust, noise suppression, vibration isolating mount, direct-drive alternator built into a modified flywheel. Add a coolant pump and a heat exchanger for the furnace air, and you've got a complete cogenerating heating system. I would be extremely surprised if this could not be built for $4000 complete, the same as a conventional furnace (automobile drivetrains cost about the same, and this thing is simpler).
How do you calculate payback? On the relative cost for a new installation, of course, but what for replacements? The economics look a lot better for the Listeroid than the Honda, and more I don't know yet.
I am personally a bit hesitant advocating new technologies that require many years of R&D work and radical changes in transportation infrastructure (from engine manufacturing plants to power distribution) -- we just don't have that much time.
Coal is plentiful and domestic (no security risk), and coal gasification is almost as clean as electric generation from natural gas so the NIMBY factor is minimal. I think the recent deals between AEP, GE and Bechtel, and Cinergy and Vectren for new 600 MW IGCC facilities is the tip of the iceberg. There are substantial long term price risks on both the coal and natural gas sides because of peak oil; it's a good idea to hedge bets and invest in every reasonable path. And IGCC technology is looking more and more reasonable: in the last 3 years the price premium over a traditional coal fired electric plant has dropped from 50% to 20%.
Any path we choose to reduce our dependence on oil will require radical changes. If we don't have time to implement massive changes in our transportation infrastructure, well, hope you and I both survive the collapse. I'm hoping we still have another 10 years before things really get bad. I think we will see practical plug-in hybrids on the market within 3 years and they will make up a significant portion of the market within 10. In the meantime I don't see fuel cell cars becoming much more feasible and am doubtful biofuels can increase in EROEI and scale up.
What gives me more hope for the weak hybrid to plug in hybrid to electric car path is the tremendous improvement in battery technology driven by the consumer electronics industry. If we can replicate advances in cell phone and laptop batteries that we've seen in the last 10 years in auto batteries we should be able to shift the majority of transportation energy requirements from oil to the electric grid with a minimum of turmoil.
I see political unrest coming soon.
On the other hand, though, I think there's a middle ground between driving as normal and losing jobs: There's carpooling. There's mass transit. There's bicycling and walking. There's moving closer to work. Many of these strategies are more available to poor folks (who often don't have to sell a house before they can move closer to work, for example).
I think the best we can hope for is that things get bad in the right way: a shock, so that people decide early to make these changes, and then a period where things get a bit better to give them time to make the changes (but not so long that the early adopters feel like they've made a mistake). Thrashing about with prices high enough to crush the poor followed by six months where prices are cheap again, combined with politicians saying things will go back to normal, would cause worse problems.
My prediction: no outside Christmas lights this year.
The only question is when George dons a Cardigan sweater and gives us the Jimmy Carter speech--better late than never.
Jeffrey J. Brown
This is a link to the following story: "Energy Department Plans Conservation Push." The Bush Administration is launching an aggressive energy conservation campaign next week.
By the way, the WSJ had a story today about how major oil companies are holding down the price of gasoline, because of fears of a political backlash. However, it is having a very negative effect on independent dealers. I think that I saw this in effect earlier this week.
An independent on one side of the street had gasoline at $3.21 for regular. ExxonMobil across the street was at $2.89--basically a 10% difference. The independent lowered his price the next day. He may have lowered it to the point that he was actually losing money on gasoline sales.
It's possible that the majors may be using the fear of a political backlash to drive independents out of business.
Jeffrey J. Brown
Perhaps I am also anal retentive, but I do believe in accuracy and honesty. When the first chink in the armor of accuracy appears, then the remaining thoughts, regardless how important they may be, become suspect.
Further, especially when one is dealing with a subject that may be considered to be on the "fringes" of accepted thought, it is all the more important to be 100 percent accurate or people will begin to question everything.
Compare the UrbanSurvival.com site with the original post. I will accept that Oilman1 sent an email to George Ure at UrbanSurvival.com, which is the portion that is quoted and is indicated by being indented. Then George Ure added the non-indented comments.
Let Prof Goose answer whether he (or she since I do not know unless it would have been Prof Gander)was the one who received the email from Oilman1@UrbanSurvival.com and is the one getting out of town.
There is only about 1% real content on the internet very few reference where the work comes from. Start your campain somewhere else. I also think George Ure would be very happy his work (and where did he get the info from?) is being posted elsewhere. If he wasent he wouldent have sent it to PG.
GET A LIFE. No one else care's.
I do try to protect people's (intellectual property) rights, and also like any teacher, condone any form of plagiarism.
While Mr. Ure may be flattered (if copying is the highest form of flattery), sources for non-original material should always be given. Furthermore, I would imagine as having followed the UrbanSurvival.com site for a few months that Mr. Ure would appreciate a link such that more viewers would be drawn to his site and perhaps encourage people to subscribe.
To Chris: I believe that I did not misinterpret the article. All that I am saying is that the everything beginning with "Our Houston Bureau" that starts this thread is a "cut and paste" copy from the UrbanSurvival.com web site and it is not obvious from the text what was the source of the work (an email or copying).
In this case, the source of the information - UrbanSurvival.com - was readily identifiable. Lets look at a common practice on the web: I often post snippets from newswires that look something like:
:: where (Reuters) is proper accreditation, and "Iran, the world's..." is the lead in to the story.
Compare that standard to the posting in question:
:: where "Urban Survival" is proper accreditation, and "The GOM Situation" is a title or lead in to a posting that is quite obviously sourced from the UrbanSurvival.com site.
Should there have been a link, such that those who are not familiar with the UrbanSurvival.com site could check out what else the source has to say? Sure. Does leaving out a clickable link, while not trying at all to disguise the source (putting the source in the title of the post is hardly disguising the source!) suggest anything untoward about the poster's intent? No.
On a completely seperate topic, only related to this since its a comment about the source itself - myself, I find UrbanSurvival.com a dubious source of information and rarely visit, except to get a chuckle now and again to see what the fringe elements are thinking about.
Its hard to take fully seriously anyone who would link to Scott Stevens' "http://weatherwars.info" or claim that high power radio frequency radiation is being used to steer hurricanes into New Orleans and may be the root cause behind earthquakes in LA. http://urbansurvival.com/lastweek.htm
Unfortunately there are plenty of folks out there who want to believe there is someone else to blame our woes on, so there's always an ample readership for folks like George Ure and the many other conspiracy theorists out there who are much farther off the deep end.
Hurricanes? The Russians or Italian mafia are causing them, not our profligate use of energy and resulting saturation of the atmosphere with CO2.
Earthquakes? Maybe its the Chinese or North Koreas... never mind that we've been building on land known to be capable of spawning monster earthquakes... for longer than advanced physics has even existed.
Got a cold? Blame "chemtrails" - supposedly mysterious airborne trails behind planes at altitude.
Don't have a job? Blame... all of the above!
Sheesh!
Rick
Patents pops out of nowhere with an accusatory tone - I do not agree with this approach. Having followed this site and participated in a good number of conversations, its clear to me that those connected with the site are operating with the best of intentions.
Had Patents nothing but an honest concern, he/she could have put the issue to to rest by asking a simple question "Is that note from the UrbanSurvival.com web site? I noted it over there too" and responding with a simple "thanks for clearing that up" when answered.
Instead, his very first comment on the subject came out swinging with accusations. Its therefore quite proper to question Patents' motives.
Is it any wonder someone immediately caught on that he was a lawyer? Patents is, unfortunately, reinforcing the perception about lawyers and giving the profession a bad name!
I suggest making your separate peace with the "downturn" (another euphemism) that's on the horizon. There's no avoiding it. And as westexas said, no Christmas Lights! Oh my....
I like this site but I learned about peak oil from peakoil.com and later learned about theoildrum. However, from the attempt to flog this site on the give em hell harry site (which I have dutifully done), my sense is that raising awareness is part of the purpose of this site. Patent is arguing from a standpoint of raising awareness of their site and calling patent an ambulence chaser is not productive.
Keep the dialog open and not personal. I am procceding to introduce the important issues of peak oil to MBA students and I am very interested in what they say by visiting the peak oil sites. Thus, I want to raise awareness. That is to me the key issue right now. I ask then for respectful and constructive rebuttal - please. Awareness is increasing and your site could be important to making meaningful change. Let us set a good example.
In my view, the answer is "yes".
"Patent is arguing from a standpoint of raising awareness of their site and calling patent an ambulence chaser is not productive."
I just asked whether patent was a lawyer and did not call him an "ambulance chaser", OilTrader did that. I did object to his legalistic view of where PG got his information from. Raising consciousness about Peak Oil does not involve accusing PG of plagiarizing his posts.
And since I'm feeling a bit intolerant of bullshit at the moment, I will say that a situation as serious as Peak Oil in this world is not subject to petty-ante nonsense like this or what I heard from patent.
This community discusses myriad ideas related to Hubbert's Peak/Peak Oil, sustainable development and growth, etc., and the many implications of these ideas on politics, economics, and our daily lives.
Also, incorrect spelling and grammar detract from the credibility of a comment.
It is a shame that you all had to waste all that energy on such a maladaptive pedantic who seems to have no idea about what we do here...
...but it does give me a chance to offer a sincere "thanks" to all of you for being willing to put forth the positive effort to maintain the culture and purpose we have here at TOD.
It is truly heartening.
I was also struck by the stats about rigs and platforms. While I agree that the stats are worse than what the MSM reports, the stats I've seen so far come nowhere close to suggesting this level of damage. I would need a secondary, non-anonymous source backing up these claims before I bought into them.
I'm not sure what he means about gas being up $0.40 at his "test location" nor the suggestion that it'll be up $1.00 by tonight. I haven't seen a jump like that and I'm in the same city as the source. I do expect prices to go up as reality sets in... so the scaremongering may turn out to be true. A lot depends on where demand goes and whether the media starts doing their job and investigating.
I've worked in the oil industry before. Just because you are a bit player, that doesn't mean you have better information than anybody else. This person may be right and have information that isn't in wide distribution, but I think we all need to be careful about what we believe in these emotionally turbulent times. I believe the patent lawyer is right to question things -- this is a skill that I wish more people in this country had. Don't blindly believe anything just because it plays into your fears or desires. Demand proof. Demand corroboration. Until you have something more concrete to back it up, all you have is a rumor.
Is it?
Nope, not according to the gas price finder at: http://www.houstongasprices.com/
A range between 2.60's and 3.13 seems to be the consensus; neither ot these appear to match the expectations of the 'Houston' sources of UrbanSurvival.
I think the overall tone of the notes are probably not to be argued with, but without verifyable backup, the information merely matches the guestimates and opinions folks here on TOD and elsewhere have come to -- a bad situation, not fully scoped out yet.
I learned a lot from Y2K. Although the energy situation is much different and potentially much more serious, there are some parallels. On one hand you have the people saying, "There is no problem, everything will be fixed in time." On the other hand you have people saying, "Unless we do something immediately, calamity will be here quickly -- and it might happen even if we act immediately."
The truth often is often somewhere in the middle. I think fear is a tool that motivates people to take action. There is a tendency for people who believe the same things to group together. Then when someone fuels the fire, it increases that fear. So while I like to think that I have an open mind, I try to view things critically.
I'll see what the prices are like when I go shopping tonight, but I talked to my mom she told me that the prices were around $2.95 to $2.99 on the north side of town today. That is a jump, considering that prices were around $2.79 a earlier in the week. Still, nothing on the order of what was predicted.
Anyhow, I agree that the situation is very probably worse than we've come to realize. Though I'm not sure that's a bad thing. If the media and government can buy some time, it could prevent panic that would make the situation worse. I have a feeling that if people knew half of the stuff that really goes on in this world, we wouldn't want to get out of bed in the morning. ;)
Jevons Paradox indicates that conservation isn't enough. We need a diversity of solutions, ideally of the renewable sort.
My question: what kind of damage would you expect to see from TWO (2) Category Five hurricanes--with 60' plus waves and 155-175 MPH winds--moving through the prime producing areas in the GOM?
Matt Simmons had an interesting observation regarding the GOM infrastructure damage. He noted that the pattern regarding storm damage is that the actual damage is almost always worse than what the initial reports suggest. That is certainly the pattern that we are seeing now.
In my opinion, what all but confirms the Urban Survival post is the fact that the Bush Administration is launching a nationwide push for energy conservation next week.
Jeffrey J. Brown
... chemtrails
... weather wars
... gold, period
... etc.
I see these folks all the time. The funny, ironic, thing about many of these folks is even if their worst fears come true, they'll be too wrapped up on their own perpetual doom and gloom that it won't matter they knew in advance.
Because the fellow behind the site makes a living off this 'sector', it seems only healthy to take anything there with a decent grain of salt.
I am not trying to insult the fellow - far from it - but am explaining in part why I personally will question anything originating out of there that can't be directly attributed to a real live person, willing to go on the record. Seems only prudent.
I would be shocked if we don't find ourselves in the middle of a recession pretty quickly. I've been predicting for a while that consumer spending can't continue at this rate. Wages haven't kept up with the cost of goods. Poverty has been growing quickly. The real estate market has been overheated for a while now. People can only buy so much with credit and home equity loans. Few people have a cushion to fall back on.
The key is to develop alternatives to petroleum. It doesn't matter how much we conserve or how much technology improves. We just keep finding ways to use more and more regardless. That is why we need energy alternatives in combination with better technology.
What Goes Around...
I have been asking both of our great resources in the oil patch the question everyone wants to know - will we have gas lines or just $4 gas before Thanksgiving? The answer from oilman2@urbansurvival.com...
<<It all depends on whether they can get full power back to those refineries, and what flooding actually did to their control hardware. Saltwater flooding is not like freshwater flooding with respect to electrical equipment. For instance, if you take a common relay, and submerge it in freshwater, you can dry it out and it will go on switching and doing its thing. If you do this in saltwater, it leaves salt behind when it evaporates, and that residue corrodes the contacts, making it basically useless. You can drop your cell phone in the tub, take it apart and dry it out, and it will still work. Do it while you're in the surf, and it's junk.<p> I know things are all supposed to be in explosion-proof boxes at a refinery, but keeping air out and keeping water out are two different things. Lots of times the flammable gases/air are kept out by simply pressurizing a box with good air from a compressor. Once the compressor is down, then unless every single input/output of the box is waterproofed, it will be filled with saltwater, making it crap.
Also, sealing from normal water (rain, washing, etc.) is different from sealing for submergence. You have waterproof, water-resistant, and submersible. I doubt any or very few plants are built with submersible components.
As most of these refineries are old, they probably will have a lot of fits and starts getting back online. And with NOBODY wanting an accident, they will probably err of the side of caution.
If they cannot get them back up in the next two weeks, it could happen, as the remaining refineries switch to winter products. I don't know about gas lines - but I think $4 is not crazy. It all depends on how much and what kind of damage they have to repair. I have heard from several people that the majors are holding prices down so as not to get hit with gouging charges. What is more likely to me is that they can use this to muscle-out the independent stores, by keeping their margins down a bit. Never think that any retailer is out for anything except profit, especially when their corporate bonus depends on it...right?
I am refilling my yard tank right now, if that tell you anything. If gas actually gets scarce, even for a moment, there will be a run on it, and it will be gone. That's when things can get nasty. Rita showed us that in a big way.
One footnote - I had one neighbor who bitched about my gas storage tank (behind my garage), and tried to get the city to force me to remove it. When Rita hit and nobody had gas, this guy actually came down and asked if he could buy gas from me. I gave him a very long lecture, gave him 10 gallons of gas, and now he is hounding me to learn about my gardens.
The one thing that can make suburbia work is when people stick together...>>
OK, that confirms it: We we get back to the ranch, it'll be once a week to town (26 miles round trip) and we'll be working in the garden getting in some fall crops. Maybe a freezer and some protein to go in it...
Sure, whatever you say Gomer. Armageddon is just around the corner and the 4 horsemen will come swooping in any time now. BTW, gasoline in my area dropped $.02 over the weekend. If you want to buy some $4 gas let me know, I'll get you as much as you want.