I think land will be a useful investment. Right now there is still a lot of land in the US that used to be farmed. It's being sold off cheaply for exurban developments. Around here (SE Ohio) people will buy 10 or 20 acres of a defunct farm (at $2000 per acre) to use as "hunting grounds", purely for turkey and deer season. Once peak oil hits, energy intensive farming will be more difficult and many of these former farm lands may become profitable again for farming as we will need more land to produce the same amount of food. If nothing else you can contract the land as managed timber acreage as the cost of timber will go up in step with the cost of natural gas. I know several people around here who switched to wood heating in their homes this winter and the cost of firewood went up locally. If we get into hyperinflation, land will probably hold its value well.
A twenty year old black walnut tree is worth around $20k right now for lumber. It produces food and scrap can be burned. Buy land and plant a bunch of walnut trees. Worse case its firewood. If peak oil is not catastrophe IE slow transition you have several hundred $K of premium hardwood.
My dad has 42 acres and we plant at least 10 trees a year and harvest every couple. Ussually one or two for fire wood but the lumber grade we sell. My sisters Phd was bought with walnut and redoak.
Don't forget the the stump!
The roots of the tree can also be sold
for "burlwood". It will be some effort to get them
out of the ground....dynamite not withstanding!
How about burning the nuts? I have a hickory tree that has things falling off if all year. In the spring blossoms over everthing. In the summer squirels throw drop immature nuts. In the autumn mature nuts everywhere for over two months. Winter winds blow off twigs and small branches. In a year at least a ton of biomass falls off that damn tree.
Most hickory nuts are edible (exception pignut, suitable for swine). Decent protein and oil content. Of course, one can burn corn so why not otehr edibles ?
The husks are a decent source of fuel in any case, I believe.
Are there any restrictions on developing on those lands? i.e. if they are "wetlands" or contain "endangered species", you can't build on it. Can I put up a fence around the whole property, put a waterwheel in the river, a windmill on land, a small house, etc.?
In Michigan a person needs permission from the state to clear the weeds away from their own boat dock. Better check with the locals before building that waterwheel.
Re: Wetlands. Your statement is 100% false. You do need a Army Corps of Engineers Section 404 permit to place fill in jurisicational wetlands. Saying that you "cannot build" in them is patently false. The Corps issues wetland permits every day of the week.
I bought a few acres of land, partially cleared it (leaving the half wooded), put in a drive, and will be building a new home on it next year. It backs up to a much larger undeveloped wooded area, and occasionally we find deer, racoon, and similar animal prints on the property. When it rains, the dry creekbed in the back has water in it.
We planted fruit trees (apples and pears) and blueberry bushes on it, rescued some of the muscadine (wild grape) vines and put them on arbors.
I'm looking into a grid tied solar array with battery backup for the house, which will be heavily insulated. I'm still debating as to whether or not to put in a well, or just stick with the county water available.
I bought a case of FMJ for my AKM, a camp stove, a hand cranked led flashlight, and a roll of silver coins. The coins are already worth more than I paid for them.
My wife put together a rubbermaid tub of "essentials", small bags of rice, beans, bullion cubes, canned soups, water purification tablets, and the like. She also picked up a solar powered battery charger, rechargeable batteries, and a solar/hand cranked powered multiband radio.
My wife is totally onboard, and has been very supportive, which I appreciate immensely. We have no children, and minus the home mortgage are now debt free.
Thanks, Consume More. We figured as much, but as we have dogs that shouldn't be much of a problem later.
Plan to add a small pond, as well, as some point. Fish are good.
Today, I sort through my pennies and keep 1982 and earlier ones (in 1982 they switched to copper coated zinc, so 1982 is a mix of copper & zinc cents. I just keep all 1982 date pennies). When it gets closer to TSHTF, I will get several thousand dollars worth of nickels from the bank (yes, I will have to be first in line).
Going solar. Grid intertie. Got the electrical permit last week, heading down to buy my panels this week. 7 x 200 watts.
Should pay for itself in 3 years. Get a $2.80/watt rebate from the state, and a fed tax credit of 2K.
Getting solar hotwater, wheatberries/beans will store is reused food service bucket w/ little dry ice for decade+, building relationships thru local peak oil group.
I sold my three flat in Chicago last fall and I've been trying to find 5-10 acres of land 65-80 miles south of Chicago to build an energy efficient building on and start small-scale farming. I'm a union carpenter/cabinetmaker so this is a fairly easy task. Unfortunately, Kankakee County and other adjacent counties recently passed restrictions to building on land under twenty acres of size, unless the plot is grandfathered in as an existing lot. I guess this was a response to all the "McMansions" that are popping up all over the area driving up the land prices and splitting up some family farms. My focus now is to find a "handyman" farm home with a couple of acres adjacent to other farmland that I could later buy or lease. I should find be able to find something before summer really sets in.
We moved to a more rural area about 3yrs ago, after our former home was over-run by sprawl. It worked out ok because our property values went way up, and we were able to trade for much more in an area that was not under so much pressue. We picked a property that was somewhat protected from development by virtue of its geographic features - read hilly, which means it's not great farmland. But we've got good running water, about 20ac of wood, some pasture land, and a small barn. I'm trying to get a garden going, but my time is limited due to other projects, and of course my job (a temporary problem, most likely). I'm working on rebuilding a porch for use as a passive solar heating area, hoping to install a wood fired cook stove with hot water preheat, and eventually want to put in a solar hot water pre-heat system. Got the main wood stove in last year and used it this winter, and I have to do more insulating before the fall is over.
One of the other big aspects of preparation for us is getting more connected to the community around us. Mostly this falls to my wife, as she is much more extroverted, and of course I'm not home much and am working when I am. The horses and other animals have opened a connection to people who are into organic agriculture, and to some of the local farmers.
Also paying off debt, reducing our spending, and putting away some food stores.
And if I can get a chance to breathe, I hope to get a forge, anvil and tools and learn iron working.
But I have to be honest - most of what we're doing was begun because it's a lifestyle we wanted. I don't doubt that for others a urban path might also be viable - just different. It's the suburban region that I would worry about.
Lastly, it requires turning off the TV, because there isn't time for that kind of stuff - too much work to do. And I have to cut back on my TOD time too, it's starting to become a problem!
How's everyone's investments (financial or otherwise) doing these days? I'm interested in any good stories about your personal preparations.
Moved most all my retirement accounts into metals; they have just launched a couple ETFs that make this possible -- ticker symbols SLV and GLD... I waited too late in life to really start saving, then in the late 90s realized OMFG, I'm going to be broke at this rate and started putting more into my IRAs. Had a lot in telecomm and internet stocks and lost about 75% of my paper value in 2001. Pfffft.
I've determined to call 'peak' on metals prices at some point, but don't yet know where that point is. Gold is all shiny and stuff, but:
you can't eat it or put it in your car;
an ETF is just blips in a computer base like a stock — when TSHTF, the brokers will simply turn the computers off, as someone mentioned on TOD the other day — whoever runs the vault will have the gold at that point;
if people are seriously hungry, they'll sell their metals and depress the market.
Aside from investments in energy, metals, what sectors are people interested in?
After peak metals, I dunno what. It's gonna be like the '70s runup in metals, so that would be a model, but it will be moreso. It would be a pipe-dream to start a silicon refinery in central Texas somewhere. I'm sure there will be a market for solar cells, but I have no experience running anything like that. Or anything for that matter.
What about in your personal life? Thinking of moving? Getting to know your neighbors better? Patching up things with your long lost family?
I still don't talk to my older, richer, more successful brother very much. We never got along when we were little... might be interesting to live on a ranch or farm, but no experience there either. It remains to be seen whether I can survive the mortgage on this here house. Eeep!
I was recently told by my soon-to-be solar cell supplier to expect a 6 month wait on them.....demand is high, and prices are actually climbing, not falling.
The climbing price is mostly due to lack of purified silicon, or so I've heard. I've also heard that this shouldn't be a problem for much longer. Also, as other types of solar cells hit the market (CuInSe stuff and the like), we should probably see a better price. I'm looking into this stuff, so I should be a better source in a month or two.
The founder, Stan Ovshinsky, has been going on about the virtues of amorphous semiconductors for longer than there has been a crystalline semiconductor industry. He now claims to have a solar 'printing press', where they coat a continuous roll of stainless steel with super-thin amorphous stuff that rectifies photons.
I actually had some of my retirement money in the company at one time.
After I got through my "denial" phase late winter/early spring 2005 I put a fairly sizeable chunk of funds into Evergreen Solar stock (Nasdaq ESLR) at $5.20. Sold a couple months ago at nearly $16, pretty much tripled my money in less than a year. Temporarily holding this in cash and looking for the next thing, but think the more prominent alt energies are played out, at least for short term trading (heck, may be wrong tho-- been before). Maybe good longer-term, as long as the market in general doesn't crash.
Idea-- maybe war-related energy stocks (like MCEL, etc.), though I usually try to avoid these segments.
my investment is a market garden in my rural town. 40k and counting. zero return on investment. I'm starting to really feel shipping costs.
my suggestion would be to start buying soil amendments now and stock piling them, t-tape, green house plastic, row covers all that stuff
Good suggestions re greenhouse stuff + used windows. Four Season gardening ,Eliot Coleman (i think) a great reference book to maintain fresh food in winter w/o heating greenhouse.
My investments are doing great, most of the gains are coming from mutual funds that invest in European / Asian companies, so I'm making money off the declining US dollar. Everything will get dumped if a recession shows up.
I should be car free and living in a maritime climate within 3 months as well.
ditto. I just dumped all of my domestic mutual funds in my IRA and merged them with my already existing European/Asian companies, a fund that's been growing 30% annually pretty much since Bush took office.
I'm still pretty young though (27) and have a ways to go before I touch that, but I'm pretty confident that things by then will be better outside the US than inside.
I'm another one who moved all my investments out of the US. The US economy is simply unsustainable. Look at the trade deficit, the budget deficit, the real estate bubble, and the energy import dependence. If you are tuned in enough to be on this web site you should realize that the US economy is heading for a big hurt.
And, yes, the return numbers speak for themselves. It pays to to have your dollars not be actual dollars - but Euros or Yuan or Canadian or...
What do people think about the potential resale value of PV panels? They started heading up about 2 years ago, they have a long lifespan (many guaranteed for 20-25 yrs), and I can't see either their usefulness or the demand for them going down from here on in. If we hit a 'serious' oil shock, the waiting period for shipping panels is going to grow, too. (Already a lot of product on backorder)
Seems to me like buying PV's gets at least two birds with one stone,
Solid, Growing Investment Property (which can count increased home resale value in it's ROI)
Good Hedge on personal energy dependence.
I just got my first 'real' panel (but small, 40w) right around the 12/16/05 'World Peak Date', to commemorate that event, and start preparing for the eventual consequence. I actually meant to get it at Thanksgiving, but I procrastinated 'just right', it turns out..
But I'm continually mystified that this completely simple and useful technology isn't more demanded than it is. Probably because folks are put off by how little juice you actually get from them. It doesn't bother me.. I just look at how little it would take to make a dark house usable, not at making a contemp. house match it's current ways. I figure that though we get grid power at .07-.12/kwh, when you buy AA's you're paying around $200/kwh.. (if there are any available).. so the economics of having your own convenient generating source have more than just the grid to be weighed against.
What is a billionaire, with a remarkable record for predicting future trends, doing?
http://www.energybulletin.net/11695.html
Published on 13 Dec 2005 by Fortune. Archived on 14 Dec 2005.
The Rainwater Prophecy
by Oliver Ryan
Richard Rainwater made billions by knowing how to profit from a crisis. Now he foresees the biggest one yet
Excerpt:
Back on the farm that night, he and Moore discuss future projects with their landscaper, Jenks Farmer, over a glass of wine. Farmer, who has a master's in horticulture and lives on the property, maintains Moore's extensive gardens, including vegetable beds that produce all year round. That morning Rainwater had been surfing the web, researching greenhouses in his quest to further ensure a steady flow of food through the winter. At his prodding, Moore has installed an emergency generator and 500-gallon storage tanks for diesel fuel and water. When Rainwater says that he's thinking about opening a for-profit survivability center, it's not entirely clear that he's joking.
Later in the night Rainwater returns to musing on how different his lot is from the residents of Lake City. And then, returning to the debate in his head, he gets a serious look on his face and says: "This is going to get a little religious. I ask why I was blessed with this insightfulness. Everyone who has achieved something, scientists, ballplayers, thinks they were given their talent for a reason. Why me? Was I given this insightfulness at this particular time? Or was I just given this insightfulness?" He pauses. "I just want people to look out. 'Cause it could be bad."
Greed is a major obstacle in dealing humanely with peak oil. The super-rich are severely mentally ill and are unable to do anything that might impose limits on their greed. Why does a billionaire try to accumulate more wealth? Only mental illness can explain this behavior. Unfortunately it is the super-rich who are charting our course and control the strings of power. If some members of TOD were given access to the MSM the political agenda could be changed. It appears to me that the super-rich would prefer war, chaos, and dieoff to any socially responsible plan to powerdown.
Land is a great investment, but in addition to making sure you can afford taxes that will be going up with inflation, you need to take a second and evaluate it from a squatter perspective.
If you wake up one morning and there is 20 destitute families busy setting up shacks, then you have a problem that you may find hard to fix. Granted - this was more a problem in urban areas where people flocked to find work, but in a powerdown situation, people may flock to wherever there is food.
Aside from investments in energy, metals, what sectors are people interested in?
What about in your personal life? Thinking of moving? Getting to know your neighbors better? Patching up things with your long lost family?
I bet there is land in upstate NY that is severely undervalued for lumber or agricultural production potential.
Nut and fruit trees sound pretty good as a passive way of producing food.
The roots of the tree can also be sold
for "burlwood". It will be some effort to get them
out of the ground....dynamite not withstanding!
The husks are a decent source of fuel in any case, I believe.
We planted fruit trees (apples and pears) and blueberry bushes on it, rescued some of the muscadine (wild grape) vines and put them on arbors.
I'm looking into a grid tied solar array with battery backup for the house, which will be heavily insulated. I'm still debating as to whether or not to put in a well, or just stick with the county water available.
I bought a case of FMJ for my AKM, a camp stove, a hand cranked led flashlight, and a roll of silver coins. The coins are already worth more than I paid for them.
My wife put together a rubbermaid tub of "essentials", small bags of rice, beans, bullion cubes, canned soups, water purification tablets, and the like. She also picked up a solar powered battery charger, rechargeable batteries, and a solar/hand cranked powered multiband radio.
My wife is totally onboard, and has been very supportive, which I appreciate immensely. We have no children, and minus the home mortgage are now debt free.
Plan to add a small pond, as well, as some point. Fish are good.
http://www.jeffvail.net/2006/04/ponds-resiliency.html
Should pay for itself in 3 years. Get a $2.80/watt rebate from the state, and a fed tax credit of 2K.
Bruce in Chicago
One of the other big aspects of preparation for us is getting more connected to the community around us. Mostly this falls to my wife, as she is much more extroverted, and of course I'm not home much and am working when I am. The horses and other animals have opened a connection to people who are into organic agriculture, and to some of the local farmers.
Also paying off debt, reducing our spending, and putting away some food stores.
And if I can get a chance to breathe, I hope to get a forge, anvil and tools and learn iron working.
But I have to be honest - most of what we're doing was begun because it's a lifestyle we wanted. I don't doubt that for others a urban path might also be viable - just different. It's the suburban region that I would worry about.
Lastly, it requires turning off the TV, because there isn't time for that kind of stuff - too much work to do. And I have to cut back on my TOD time too, it's starting to become a problem!
I've determined to call 'peak' on metals prices at some point, but don't yet know where that point is. Gold is all shiny and stuff, but:
- you can't eat it or put it in your car;
- an ETF is just blips in a computer base like a stock — when TSHTF, the brokers will simply turn the computers off, as someone mentioned on TOD the other day — whoever runs the vault will have the gold at that point;
- if people are seriously hungry, they'll sell their metals and depress the market.
After peak metals, I dunno what. It's gonna be like the '70s runup in metals, so that would be a model, but it will be moreso. It would be a pipe-dream to start a silicon refinery in central Texas somewhere. I'm sure there will be a market for solar cells, but I have no experience running anything like that. Or anything for that matter. I still don't talk to my older, richer, more successful brother very much. We never got along when we were little... might be interesting to live on a ranch or farm, but no experience there either. It remains to be seen whether I can survive the mortgage on this here house. Eeep!http://www.ovonic.com/sol_srv/3_1_solar_sol/solar_solutions.htm
The founder, Stan Ovshinsky, has been going on about the virtues of amorphous semiconductors for longer than there has been a crystalline semiconductor industry. He now claims to have a solar 'printing press', where they coat a continuous roll of stainless steel with super-thin amorphous stuff that rectifies photons.
I actually had some of my retirement money in the company at one time.
Idea-- maybe war-related energy stocks (like MCEL, etc.), though I usually try to avoid these segments.
my suggestion would be to start buying soil amendments now and stock piling them, t-tape, green house plastic, row covers all that stuff
the work involved the ultimately unsustainable nature of the project. but hey I'm trying and you should too.
I should be car free and living in a maritime climate within 3 months as well.
I'm still pretty young though (27) and have a ways to go before I touch that, but I'm pretty confident that things by then will be better outside the US than inside.
And, yes, the return numbers speak for themselves. It pays to to have your dollars not be actual dollars - but Euros or Yuan or Canadian or...
Bob
I've been told by several suppliers that the waiting period is already growing, as is the cost.
Seems to me like buying PV's gets at least two birds with one stone,
- Solid, Growing Investment Property (which can count increased home resale value in it's ROI)
- Good Hedge on personal energy dependence.
I just got my first 'real' panel (but small, 40w) right around the 12/16/05 'World Peak Date', to commemorate that event, and start preparing for the eventual consequence. I actually meant to get it at Thanksgiving, but I procrastinated 'just right', it turns out..But I'm continually mystified that this completely simple and useful technology isn't more demanded than it is. Probably because folks are put off by how little juice you actually get from them. It doesn't bother me.. I just look at how little it would take to make a dark house usable, not at making a contemp. house match it's current ways. I figure that though we get grid power at .07-.12/kwh, when you buy AA's you're paying around $200/kwh.. (if there are any available).. so the economics of having your own convenient generating source have more than just the grid to be weighed against.
http://www.energybulletin.net/11695.html
Published on 13 Dec 2005 by Fortune. Archived on 14 Dec 2005.
The Rainwater Prophecy
by Oliver Ryan
Richard Rainwater made billions by knowing how to profit from a crisis. Now he foresees the biggest one yet
Excerpt:
Back on the farm that night, he and Moore discuss future projects with their landscaper, Jenks Farmer, over a glass of wine. Farmer, who has a master's in horticulture and lives on the property, maintains Moore's extensive gardens, including vegetable beds that produce all year round. That morning Rainwater had been surfing the web, researching greenhouses in his quest to further ensure a steady flow of food through the winter. At his prodding, Moore has installed an emergency generator and 500-gallon storage tanks for diesel fuel and water. When Rainwater says that he's thinking about opening a for-profit survivability center, it's not entirely clear that he's joking.
Later in the night Rainwater returns to musing on how different his lot is from the residents of Lake City. And then, returning to the debate in his head, he gets a serious look on his face and says: "This is going to get a little religious. I ask why I was blessed with this insightfulness. Everyone who has achieved something, scientists, ballplayers, thinks they were given their talent for a reason. Why me? Was I given this insightfulness at this particular time? Or was I just given this insightfulness?" He pauses. "I just want people to look out. 'Cause it could be bad."
Some itmes:
Geographically diverse hydroelectric utilities or merchant hydro-owners.
Railroads
US based exporters
Oil & Gas companies
Int'l Telecom (emphasis in nations that will do OK post-Peak Oil)
Misc. I'ntl in natiosn that will do OK (Brazil, Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Russia). Political risk in some of these.
My father owns over 500 acres of the Kentucky Bluegrass.
Land is a great investment, but in addition to making sure you can afford taxes that will be going up with inflation, you need to take a second and evaluate it from a squatter perspective.
If you wake up one morning and there is 20 destitute families busy setting up shacks, then you have a problem that you may find hard to fix. Granted - this was more a problem in urban areas where people flocked to find work, but in a powerdown situation, people may flock to wherever there is food.