Peak Oil Matters

[NOTE: This post is part of an ongoing series (which started here) through the next few months whose purpose is to provide tangible examples of what our future might be like in a world where we will no longer have available to us the quality and quantity of fossil fuel energy sources as we have long been accustomed to possessing and using. Some examples will describe significant impacts beyond the most obvious one: less but more expensive gas to power our vehicles.
Other posts will describe routine aspects of daily living that will likely change when producers of goods and services no longer have inexpensive and adequate supplies of the fossil fuel resources they need. I’m certain that the questions I raise will in turn raise other concerns as well. It is only by acknowledging the consequences affecting each of us that we can begin an intelligent national process of planning and implementing new methods of providing the goods and services we’ll need or desire.]

~~~

Earlier this week, my wife and I returned from an 8-day trip to the West Coast. After suspending their annual sales conference for the past two years, my wife’s company resumed the practice this year. (The usual methodology is to alternate West Coast and East Coast locales, so we’ll be attending next year’s conference here in the East.)

Lavish sales conferences took a fair share of media and public pounding a couple of years ago, during the heyday of TARP funds and “corporate bailouts”. An easy target of course, and as is typical of easy targets, some of the bashing was perhaps justified, some was definitely not, and much of the facts supporting the reasons for conducting these events never made their way into the public domain.

I won’t devote too much to resurrecting the good image of the national sales conference. I will, however, point out that my lovely wife works an average of 70 – 75 hours each and every week. Hands-down, she is the best and most honorable businessperson I have ever encountered. I’ve certainly listened to enough of her customer calls from home to speak with considerable authority—the immense level of respect from peers and the phenomenal success she richly deserves are ample evidence if my word is tainted by personal bias.

On 6 major holidays during the year, the vast majority of her customers (but not all, of course) have the good sense not to call her. But that leaves almost 360 other days of the year when they do call, or ask for meetings, or otherwise require some of her considerable skills and services (as does her management, and peers, and colleagues in related professional fields who also seek her out). Sunday night call around 9:30? Check. Meeting at 8:30 Tuesday evening? Check. 7:30 a.m. call on Friday? No problem. 1:00 a.m. computer time to catch up on all the paperwork she didn’t get to that day? Almost every night. Vacation? No such thing … just a bit less time on the phone and computer those days.

Now, I don’t recite these facts—which I’ve been a first-hand witness to for all of the eight-plus years we’ve been together—to toot her horn. She doesn’t like me or anyone else doing so, for one, and her reputation speaks for itself. Year in and year out, customer surveys about her are off the chart, and deservedly so.

I point this out because one of the primary objectives in gathering several hundred of the country’s best and brightest is her company’s desire to let these high-performance, high-quality professionals meet and exchange ideas and information, strategies, marketing techniques, and a host of other brain-picking opportunities because it’s generally the only time of the year that it’s at all feasible to get so many together in one place. Now, there are of course business meetings during the multi-day conference (we tack on a couple of days whenever we do the West Coast trip if for no other reason than to try and adjust to the time difference), but the free exchange of information and ideas and critiques play an absolutely invaluable part in the successes these many individuals enjoy.

They succeed? So does the company. Better service ideas for customers? They benefit, too. All in all, just about the most effective way for high-ranking company professionals to pick the brains of peers and executives—all with the primary purpose of improving what they do. Kinda hard to argue against the strategy.

This conference was decidedly more low-key and less extravagant than the heady days of the early 2000s. We’re talking serious extravagant years ago, yet not a soul was heard to complain inside or outside the company. Big, big bullseye during TARP, and most understood what was happening. It was hurtful to hear criticisms from people who clearly had no idea what they were talking about, as it was from people who did. Part of the process….

Why was I there, along with most other spouses and significant others? The company’s perspective on this has always been to recognize and extend appreciation to those whose support, holding down of the fort, or other assumed household/family responsibilities in turn frees up the professionals to do what they need to do. It is, on balance, a nice gesture. Did we miss the conference these past two years? Sure! But we survived, and would have had the conference remained in suspend mode this year.

Speaking for myself, while I appreciate the efforts of my wife’s company executives to “honor” the spouses et al (and this company does make a sincere effort in doing so), I’ve always looked at what I do here on the home front as being part of our personal “deal.” The trips are always a great deal of fun; we go to places (Vancouver, for instance) that we would not likely have visited on our own, and partake of activities (a concert in the Arizona desert or a hot-air balloon ride, for example) we’d surely never have the chance to do on our own. The resorts are wonderful, the warmer and sunnier February climates are usually quite agreeable with us hearty winter-slogged New Englanders, and we do eat well.

So why all of this in PeakOilMatters?

As one could easily imagine, getting together in one location nearly a thousand sales professionals, spouses, executives, ancillary staff, and anyone else I’ve neglected to mention is no easy feat. Of course it has to be quite expensive. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess. But several hundred hotel rooms, a dozen or so meals per person, and air fares or similar transportation and travel expenses for a thousand or so individuals, speaker fees, cultural and entertainment expenses, and probably fifty other items I’ve omitted ain’t cheap!

But even that’s not the point. As oil production begins its slide downward, and increased fossil fuel costs or basic availability become prohibitively challenging, what happens to conferences like this? I cannot imagine even the most profitable company won’t triple-check much, much higher costs and transportation expenses (assuming those remain readily available for people scattered across the nation) before deciding to put together anything even approximating the kind of once-a-year extravaganza that has long been part of the sales industry culture.

Again, I’ll survive quite nicely if I never attend another one. It’s always been a great perk, but life goes on. But my wife and her peers? The benefits they derive from the personal exchanges with fellow professionals and executives are incapable of carrying any monetary value. Few do not benefit greatly from these gatherings. A rising tide lifts all boats….

Will they manage to carry on without the annual sales conference? Almost all will, no doubt. Surely there will be alternatives to the once-a-year national splash, but something will have been lost in the adaptation to fossil fuel decline. When industry after industry must deal with the elimination of these and similar business gatherings and the personal exchanges of information, a diminution of quality will creep onto the landscape. To the outsider, few tears will be shed, but when quality in all its manifestations declines, the effects are not restricted to only the industry or company in question.

The decline of peak oil means much more than higher prices at the local gas station. Cutting a wide swath across all industries is bound to trickle down and affect each of us in some way, easily measureable and recognizable, or not.

What’s their Plan B?

[NOTE: This post is part of an ongoing series (which started here) through the next few months whose purpose is to provide tangible examples of what our future might be like in a world where we will no longer have available to us the quality and quantity of fossil fuel energy sources as we have long been accustomed to possessing and using. Some examples will describe significant impacts beyond the most obvious one: less but more expensive gas to power our vehicles.

Other posts will describe routine aspects of daily living that will likely change when producers of goods and services no longer have inexpensive and adequate supplies of the fossil fuel resources they need. I’m certain that the questions I raise will in turn raise other concerns as well. It is only by acknowledging the consequences affecting each of us that we can begin an intelligent national process of planning and implementing new methods of providing the goods and services we’ll need or desire.]

~~~

My parents live approximately one hundred miles from me. A drive to their home is at most only ninety minutes, given that each of us lives fairly close to highways that quickly take us to opposite ends of the cross-state Massachusetts Turnpike.

If I didn’t own or have access to a car and had to rely on public transportation, I could—thankfully—still get from door to door.

Of course, getting there might be just a bit more costly (but only a bit) than if I toss in 10 or 12 gallons of gas into my SUV and pay the $7.00 or so in tolls. MBTA bus, MBTA subway, and Amtrak rail or Peter Pan bus fares will run about the same as near as I can figure, so that’s a wash. The big drawback is the time factor for that round trip.

First up is a pleasant and easy walk down the 1000 foot-plus hill that is our street. Getting up is a whole ‘nother story, however. My house is at the top of that very steep hill, and it’s not a casual stroll for a 15-year-old, let alone someone like me who is … older than that. But that’s a relatively minor trifle, especially since it is the only outdoor walking I need to do until I arrive at a bus stop near my parents’ home. From there, all I have to do is walk approximately 500 feet on two perfectly level roadways before arriving at their front door.

Walking down the hill takes about 5 minutes; at least twice as long going back up (it is a mean hill).

Right around the corner at the bottom of my street is an MBTA bus stop, which takes me directly to either of two MBTA subway stops of my choosing (both the same “Red Line”). From there, I can head directly to South Station in Boston and take either a bus or an Amtrak train to Western Massachusetts. Upon arrival, I could (I believe) still take a local bus line that would drop me off that very short distance away from my parents. If the local bus line is not running, then it’s about a 3 mile walk … and not all downhill, either. I’ll leave that one alone for now.

The local bus ride to either of the two subway stations near my home, with all the intermediate stops along the way and the expected traffic congestion upon arrival at either station, runs about 20 minutes, give or take. Assuming I don’t have too much of a wait for a subway train (generally not much of an issue), I can then get to Boston’s South Station in another 20 – 30 minutes.

In that amount of time, I’m (usually) already two-thirds of the way to my parents’ home if I’m driving, but no matter.

Granted, the cross-state bus or Amtrak train, with all of their intermediate stops, is going to take a while to get me to the other end of the state—certainly longer than my ninety minute door to door drive. But either of those options allows me work or read or rest, something a bit trickier to do when I’m driving. Fair trade-off? Sometimes, perhaps. I guess it just depends on the day, but if I can afford a 7 or 8 hour block of travel time, I can visit my parents entirely via public transportation. Not the most convenient way, to be sure, but the option exists.

I have a sister who lives in Pennsylvania. I can get there in just under 5 hours by car. No idea at all how long it would take me to get even close to her via alternative means of transportation, since she lives some 90 miles outside of Philadelphia and I have no idea at all if getting to within even remotely-walking distance via bus or rail is an option out there. Pretty sure that if it is, I’m budgeting a lot more time to get there than just a 5 hour drive. Given that they reside in a very tony suburban development which surely has no public transit options close by, I’m guessing there’s some walking involved at the tail end of that trip.

I also have two siblings who live in the western Massachusetts area. I think I could get to within a mile or so of my other sister’s home via a somewhat convoluted series of bus routes. I’m guessing that the 15-20 minute drive to her home from my parents is closer to 90 minutes via those multiple bus routes and the ensuing walk. A lot more effort and planning if I had to get there from my home….

My brother lives even further out in the suburbs, and I’m not certain if there is even any regular, local bus service in his very small town. If there is, I’m reasonably confident that it would travel only along his town’s one main thoroughfare, but which nonetheless would put me a very walkable three-quarters of a mile or so from his home. I’m not at all certain, however, that there is any way to get to his town via bus routes from either end of our state. As best I can determine, I could probably get within 3 – 4 miles of his home by other bus routes and transportation alternatives … perhaps.

Just a guess, but I’m probably looking at close to 3 hours via those alternatives in order to visit my brother if I were to leave from my Boston-area home (about an hour’s ride by car). Certainly an hour-plus from my parents’ home, which is otherwise about a 20 minute drive.

This all assumes I’m then within a reasonable walking distance after my last bus stop. I could do 3 miles or so … in the spring, when it’s a pleasant 60 sunny degrees. Not so sure about that in January (this month we’ve had more than 3 feet of snow and single digit temps tossed in for good measure—hardly ideal walking conditions. This morning’s forecast is now calling for nearly 18 more inches of snow in the next 48 hours. Not good). A 90 degree day in July? No hikes for me, thank you very much.

As mentioned in my very first post, we’re fortunate to have an ocean-view summer home along the North Shore of Massachusetts. Even under terrible traffic conditions, it almost never takes us more than an hour to drive there from our home. As I described then, we can also get there without driving: “It takes a bus trip, two subway trips, a commuter rail trip, another bus trip at the tail end, and a several hundred yard walk thereafter for us to get to our beach house via public transportation … about 3 hours start to finish if we schedule it right, and that’s not counting the brutal walk up our very long and very steep hill when we return home.”

I raise all of this for several very simple reasons. For one, I’m quite fortunate to have alternative options to visit at least most of my immediate family. None of those options are especially convenient, some much worse than merely inconvenient. And as for my out-of-state sister, I’m not entirely certain I “can get there from here.” We’re quite close, so that’s bothersome to contemplate.

We’re also fortunate that we have means of getting to the summer home we love—likewise more than a slight inconvenience, but doable.

I’m a very optimistic person. Even with all the information I’ve acquired and try to share with others about Peak Oil, I’m not convinced that the sky is falling in the next few months or even perhaps the next couple of years.

The inexorable decline in oil production we now face (slight upticks or disingenuous-at-best arguments to the contrary notwithstanding) is not going to get better, however. Slowly (I hope!) but surely we’re all going to soon enough be dealing with likely higher and then much higher prices for oil and gas, which will have their expected individual budgetary impacts, forcing most of us to cut back here and there in purchases, or traveling, or both.

While I don’t like to sound any alarms about rationing, I can state with great certainty that I will not be in the least bit surprised if somewhere down the road each and all of us find ourselves having to deal with restrictions in our ability to get gas as and when we need it. (Facts continue to be damned annoying.)

This will certainly alter the nature and frequency of my visits with siblings and parents. My daughter graduates from college this year, and it’s likely she’ll be living back in state, so I’m not too concerned about how I’ll get to see her … yet. My step-daughter attends college in New York City, and we already rely on Amtrak to get us there and back, so that’s not an issue now. My step-son graduates from high school in June and is then off to serve in the military. Big question mark, there.

My wife and I will certainly have to come up with some alternatives for getting supplies to and from our summer home. There’s a grocery store less than a mile away, and the downtown area is a good two or three miles away at least, but not impossible to get to on foot if we have to. Carrying anything back to the beach house is a different matter. I stopped being twenty years old several decades ago. Muscles and conditioning aren’t what they used to be.

There is also local bus service. Obviously we’d have to plan local trips around the daily bus schedule, which runs not nearly as often as I’d like. I doubt that my complaints will make much of a difference. Of course, I’m also optimistically assuming that bus travel will still be affordable in the not-too-distant future, and/or that rising diesel prices (or lack of availability) won’t force services to end entirely.

In that case, I can probably disregard at least some of the family travel options I’ve mentioned above. I’ve barely figured out Plan B. No clue yet about my Plan C.

So the declining oil production and availability is clearly going to have some distinct personal consequences, forcing some changes in lifestyle that I would definitely prefer avoiding. I’m convinced, however, that these small sets of inconveniences and changes will not be restricted to just me and my family.

How are these declines going to affect you? (Make no mistake, they will.)

Might be a good time for all of us to start thinking and planning. While we’re at it, might be a good idea to be asking our local, regional, state, and federal governments to do the same. Gonna take a good long while to figure this all out (and a lot more)….

More to come.

[NOTE: This post is part of an ongoing series through the next few months whose purpose is to provide tangible examples of what our future might be like in a world where we will no longer have available to us the quality and quantity of fossil fuel energy sources as we have long been accustomed to possessing and using. Some examples will describe significant impacts beyond the most obvious one: less but more expensive gas to power our vehicles. Other posts will describe routine aspects of daily living that will likely change when producers of goods and services no longer have inexpensive and adequate supplies of the fossil fuel resources they need. I’m certain that the questions I raise will in turn raise other concerns as well. It is only by acknowledging the consequences affecting each of us that we can begin an intelligent national process of planning and implementing new methods of providing the goods and services we’ll need or desire.]

Last week, I raised some issues and questions about what we’ll have to consider during and immediately after snowstorms in a post-peak oil world. I realize that someone sitting on a beach in Key West, Florida might not find that especially relevant.

So let’s take a look at another of post-peak oil’s impacts … a much more mundane example inside the home. (I promise that before too long there will be some logical continuity to all of this. For now, I think it’s important to just a sampling of how Peak Oil is going to cut across a wide swath of behaviors and needs and preferences.)

I’ll assume that my wife’s (and my) customary morning routines before work are not all that dissimilar from how most of you conduct yourselves at home as you prepare for your day.

That being the case, I’ll also assume that I’m not going too far out on a limb by suggesting that some or all of these bathroom items are familiar to each of you:

Toothbrushes
Toothpaste Tubes
Shaving cream
Shower Curtains / Shower Doors
Shampoo
Hair coloring
Hand Lotion
Deodorant
Combs
Perfume
Soft Contact Lenses
Lipstick
Nail polish

All, of course, are products whose design and/or manufacture and/or marketing and/or packaging and/or delivery to retail outlets for your ultimate consumption or use depend at least to some extent on petroleum. No petroleum, and some if not all of these products become more challenging to produce and distribute. But that’s a problem for the corporate world. How about for each of us?

I’m pretty sure that civilizations past, even those in the fairly recent past, have managed just fine without today’s bazillion varieties of toothbrushes and toothpastes, but we do have our preferences, after all. Millions of workers depend on our finicky preferences for this formula gel or that formula color to make us feel good. It’s also extremely convenient to just hop into the car and head to the local convenience or grocery or department store (or gas station!) and pick up a spare toothbrush or pocket comb or deodorant moments after we toss away an empty tube or container or bottle of our favorite bathroom items. A few dollars later and we’re on our way!

But when happens when product manufacturers are obliged of necessity to start making do with less of the “ingredients” they need? What changes will be required? How quickly can the health and beauty industry adapt to the elimination of a key component in producing many of our basic necessities? What costs might be involved? What happens to suppliers along the chain? To the transportation services who may now have fewer products to deliver? What kind of plans and processes will have to be revised—if not created anew—in order to maintain their same levels of production and supply in a world where no one and no company and no industry can rely on the same qualities and quantities (and at feasible costs) of petroleum-based products?

What about us? What happens when the 40 different brands of shaving cream we can count on in Aisle 4 at Walmart are whittled down to perhaps 15? 10? 5? How will we feel about having to now pay two or even three times the price of those once-plentiful and varied products, given that the domino effect of less supply will surely play a part in the health and beauty industry’s price increases no less than any other commercial or industrial enterprise dealing with supply and demand issues. What happens if entire lines of shaving cream or shampoos or nail polishes are discontinued because costs become prohibitively expensive and/or availability of petroleum is either rationed or simply diminishes, and the expenses associated with maintaining all the workers and machinery and distribution chains for certain products can no longer be justified?

No one will die if they have to suddenly rely upon some different type of product to shave their face or legs! Millions worldwide manage quite nicely, thank you very much. But creature comforts for we spoiled Americans are one of many indicators of the good life we usually take for granted, and that is all going to change long before we’ve put into place all of the needed alternative energy supply and production and distribution processes.

Like those millions of others, life will continue without our Brand X Spearmint Shave Gel With Whisker Softeners and Skin Regenerators in both the 16 and 32 ounce easy-press cans. Will we be so cavalier about this when combs and brushes likewise disappear from the shelves? And then half the brands of toothpaste gradually disappear as well? A favorite line of body lotion? Replacement shower curtains for the one your teenager ripped last night? And what of your soft contact lenses—the only ones that you can wear comfortably all day? Or your wife’s vanilla- and chamomile-scented perfume that lingers long after she’s left the house, the one that is now nowhere to be found? How about when your choice of deodorant is now down to just a handful, costs a lot more than you ever imagined, and is available only at a couple of locations in your area? None of those considerations are especially outlandish. It’s not much more than basic economics.

What about your brother-in-law the chemist? The one who has worked in the industry for nearly twenty years to help design our favorite fruit-scented hair sprays and now finds himself among the countless product designers and industrial artists and copywriters and machine operators and truck drivers and distributors and the employees of the companies that supply the lipstick containers and toothpaste tubes who are now all out of work because over the course of a number of years, the fossil fuel that each of their companies depended upon in some way, shape, or form (and likely without so much as a thought about that) is now being diverted to other uses and other industries?

How distressing might we find all of this in the years to come? We’re not exactly the poster children for doing without.

How much effort and financing and creativity are any of us devoting right now to preparing for that eventuality? Are we and the relevant industries just hoping for the best? Ignoring this issue entirely? Waiting for some magic design to materialize from someone’s basement? Should they, and we, just go on assuming that despite the facts of stagnating oil production and ever-rising prices (surely signaling that something is amiss), the supply of petroleum-derived products and ingredients and services will continue unceasingly and always affordably?

To be sure, I don’t expect any of us to suffer great trauma any time soon because we’re losing our favorite flavored toothpastes, but the process of designing and producing and advertising and testing and distributing and continuing to manufacture those products are all and each the end results of much labor and innovation over considerable periods of time. Entire industries and their countless employees and accountants and lawyers and all the rest are dependent on the continuing success of the health and beauty industry giants and their legions of chemists and machine workers and drivers and administrative personnel and marketing departments.

What happens when they are no longer giants and no successors have emerged?

How disquieting will it be for each of us to find ourselves having to adapt to entirely different ways of maintaining personal hygiene? Probably a bit (or a lot) silly to have to consider this right now. I’m fairly certain that each and every one of us not employed in the health and beauty industry have given this exactly no thought at all. Shampoo is shampoo, right? “I’m worried about feeding my kids and you’re wondering if I can manage without my favorite toothpaste? Seriously?”

Actually, yes. It does not begin and end with toothpaste, or lotion, or lipstick….

How many resources of any kind are being devoted to contending with this type of supply “problem”? (a term I admittedly use loosely at the moment. I won’t suddenly stop brushing my teeth because my blue gel toothpaste becomes a casualty of Peak Oil, nor will there be any hunger strikes on my part.)

The more important question is how many resources are being devoted in all kinds of industries who will themselves be confronted with the same kinds of challenges as those health and beauty industry corporations? There a lot of dominoes in play when the declining fossil fuel one tips over first. Changes in our morning bathroom routines should be our biggest concern in the years to come.

But it won’t be.

To be continued….

Just wondering….

Last week, my comfy little Massachusetts town was one of many to endure the brunt of a major nor’easter. Somewhere between 12” – 18” of snow fell in not much more than half a day. The big and little plows of our town worked pretty much nonstop through the pre-dawn hours and on through most of that day to try and keep pace with the impressive storm.

Later that day, the steady cacophony of snow blowers was everywhere. (2 of our 3 children helped me shovel – we don’t own a snow blower, although that would have been a good day to have one!) It’s amazing how high, thick, and heavy snow from the street can be when a plow passes by and dumps it all at the end of one’s driveway … several times!

[And as an aside: this past Sunday morning, I took my wife’s mid-sized German sedan (decent gas mileage and all) and filled the tank with premium gas ... $3.59 per gallon. Ten cents more than when I last filled it earlier this month, and if memory serves, 20 cents more than the Christmas-time price. Not a good trend....]

I found myself wondering what happens in years to come, as these massive storms intensify as a likely consequence of climate change. (I could switch political ideologies of course, which would have the primary benefit of ridding me of any concerns about global warming facts and thus more intense storms, but that might ultimately prove to be a limited advantage.) What happens when the storms are more frequent, more snow falls, and I’m a lot older and don’t have the benefit of 1, 2, or 3 able-bodied college-age children to help me dig out (on, I must add, the very steep hill on which our home is situated)?

Snow blowers might very well be relics 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Hard to imagine that fossil-fueled machines like that will have a place in most garages. Wind-powered snow blowers? Not so likely.

But that’s a small matter. Of course, plastic shovels may be a lot more expensive, given that we won’t have as much fossil fuel available to help manufacture and/or distribute those plastic items—given that petroleum is an important element in the manufacture and use of plastics. Metal shovels aren’t likely to be any less expensive, either … transportation costs and all will increase, and that means those costs get passed on to those of us buying the shovels … when we can find them. Not likely to be as many of them around….The cost of, and to run, the needed machinery; higher utility bills and similar costs at those industrial facilities, and all those other little extras that we tend not to think about when we swipe our credit cars at the local hardware store will all be that much more pronounced in the years to come as we find ourselves with less and less oil available to not just fuel transportation, but to serve as an irreplaceable component to manufacturing and distribution.

There are no signs as yet that the magic of technology will be able to seamlessly step in and allow industry to continue on as is with nary a glitch. What then?

Back to those plows. When diesel fuel production is similarly curtailed of necessity, how will the remaining smaller portions be allocated?

There are no doubt tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of similarly-fueled vehicles in dozens of northern states (now, even some southern ones), and their hundreds upon hundreds of cities and towns. Each and every one of those municipalities depends on fossil fuels to power the sanders and salters and plows which enable all of us hardy souls in colder climates to get around in the winter.

What criteria are states going to use to ensure that each community has a remotely-sufficient supply of fuel for its municipal plows (to say nothing of all of its other municipal vehicles)?

We live at the top of one of our town’s steepest roads. When it snows in any measureable amount, getting up and down our street becomes a bit of an adventure, to put it mildly. (Last winter we had to request a town sander to come to our home in order that one of our daughters could turn her vehicle into our driveway. The ice on the street and steepness of the hill rendered her immobile less than twenty feet away! Not nearly as much fun as one might think….I’m guessing we won’t have the luxury of that option too many more years from now.)

So what does happen when municipalities are confronted with the difficult and painful realization that they simply will not have enough fuel to power their snow-removal vehicles? Which locations or neighborhoods within each community will be serviced first, and how are those assessments going to be made in such a way that the remaining eighty percent or so of residents and business owners aren’t immediately raising a ruckus?

Aside from the obvious fire, police, hospital locations, what’s next? (Is that in fact obvious?) Are only primary streets going to be plowed? How is that designation going to be made? Do people whose homes were built on the hilly streets get next priority, or do they have to get at the back of the line? Are only some of the steep streets eligible for priority plowing?

I can assure you that once a half a foot or so of snow has fallen—notwithstanding the all-wheel drive features of my and my wife’s vehicles—we’re not going anywhere until our street is plowed. The steepness of the hill makes it impossible to gain traction to get to the top of our street some one hundred feet or so from our driveway, and the nearly thousand-foot descent is treacherous at best in inclement weather. Freezing rain? Make no plans. Lose control on the way down and there are lots of trees on either side of the road that will serve as a final resting place for skidding vehicles. Thanks, but no thanks!

Are lotteries conducted at the first snow fall, with “winners” being assured that their streets are plowed first? How well is that likely to sit with those holding all the non-winning “tickets”? Are some areas simply going to have to wait for melting temperatures if snowfall totals are by some criteria determined to not merit plowing at all?

Less plows needed, less plows manufactured. Less available plows means less plowing jobs, and we all know by now what that means. The dominoes tumble quickly.

What happens to all the individuals who depend on private contractors/other residents with plows? If gas is no longer as readily available for ordinary passenger and commercial vehicles, on what basis will the owner of a pickup truck and plow be deemed to have priority in acquiring gas over, say, a nurse at the local hospital, or the owner of the town’s primary grocery store, or … or … ? Why will the owners of some private parking lots be deemed to have plowing priorities over equally-deserving others? Mall parking lots or school parking lots? Plow today, or plow perhaps in a day or two? If multiple storms are forecast in a relatively short period of time (not uncommon here in the Northeast), does everyone have to wait for plowing until after the second storm has passed so as to conserve fuel and fuel costs?

I’m sure that others can conjure up dozens of other consideration and questions just as important as these. Is anyone thinking about this right now?

It is surely not a problem in isolation. Very few challenges brought about by declining oil production will lend themselves to facile, straight-out-of-the-box solutions. One problem begets another which begets more still.

No one wants to have to deal with any of this, of course. One can simply hope that the problems either go away, don’t materialize to begin with, won’t be as severe, or won’t happen for many, many decades into the future (with the hope that by then we’ll have just figured it all out by accident), but are those strategies ones that thousands and thousands of communities and their millions of citizens ought to be relying on?

Now is when we need to turn the immense skill and capability and potential of our citizens and industries and leaders to work to not just prepare for Peak Oil, but to transcend it. Are we up to the challenge?

Just wondering….

More to come next week!

Accompanying the planned series on discussing the opportunities we have at hand and the strategies we might start considering stemming from a decline in oil production (my last post), I’d like to pick up on a theme I had originally intended to devote more posts to when I first began Peak Oil Matters. Along the way I’ve put together a small number of posts (here, for example). The full list of links to those posts appears at the end of this piece.

The purpose is an attempt to get us thinking in more concrete, day-to-day terms of what life might be like without the same levels of similar quality, inexpensive, and readily available fossil fuels supplying us with … just about everything.

Petroleum plays a part in the creation, production, and/or transportation of literally thousands of products. Probably safe to assume that about 98% of us never give that a single thought in the course of a year. We just buy or consumer or otherwise use and use up whatever our merry little hearts desire, and we’ve known for many decades that if we want or need more, there’s a store not too far away that will get us what we want or need without too much fuss or bother. Our knowledge of petroleum-based products usually begins and ends at the local gas station. A nice life, indeed.

I’m on record from my very first post that my family has enjoyed more than its fair share of the nice things life and oil each make available. And yes, I’d be willing to wager that just about every single gadget or doohickey we own would not exist but for fossil fuels. With five drivers in our family (two away at college), we own four cars—and two homes! The foreign vehicles my wife and I drive are commonly considered to be luxury items. One of them is an SUV. Not the gas-guzzling, monstrous (but beloved) Land Rover LR-3 we owned a few years back, but a full-size SUV nonetheless, with most of the bells and whistles one would want. It goes on … in some cases, quite frankly, embarrassingly so, given my status as a fledgling, pseudo-serious expert in matters of and about Peak Oil production.

I’m also on record as stating that I really like this lifestyle! The arrangement my wife and I have is not without its challenges and turmoils, but we manage to keep afloat reasonably well. I’m no different than any other consumer in this country: I’d like to have what I want when I want it and how I want it, without much hassle, thank you very much. I don’t particularly want to sacrifice. Sure as hell I don’t want to have to be the only one, or in the small minority of those willing to step up to the plate and start giving up for the benefit of mankind or similar noble gestures.

There are, quite frankly, a lot of things I don’t want to see happen because oil production is declining, and I’m actually quite annoyed that I have to even consider the possibility. Like just about everyone else, my life has enough built-in stress and problems and all the rest. I’m not looking for more, thank you very much once again.

But now that I’ve gotten some of that out of my stem, I’m all-too-mindful of the fact that a lot is going to change in the years to come. I’m not, I’ll say again, a doomer. The sky is NOT falling next week, life as we know is not falling off the edge of the earth in the spring, and aside from higher prices, we’re probably not likely to see too many noticeable or noteworthy changes any time soon.

The problem is that changes are happening now, and one little ripple here leads to more ripples there, and if we’re not devoting time and effort to countering that, we will see some rather substantial and quite painful changes in the ways we live before too many more years have passed. Waiting until a week or two before we begin to tangibly experience the consequences of declining availability of fossil fuels is definitely not a strategy for coming up with solutions that we ought to be relying on. We depend on fossil fuels for a great deal; a great deal of effort and expense and planning and testing and marketing and transporting and revising and repairing and maintaining has come into play so that we’ve been able to at a minimum maintain our lifestyles and have at the ready the gratification of almost any desire or need we might wish for. It’s been a hell of a ride.

Adapting all of that to a world with less oil available to us, and going through the same processes as we adapt alternative energy sources to what we now have and use as well as adapting to entirely new products dependent on energy sources not yet commercially viable is no mean feat. Anyone thinking that that will all happen in a fortnight or two is seriously delusional! Years … decades, even, are more likely what we’ll need. Exactly how many more years are we supposed to wait?

Let’s not allow anyone to make the mistake of thinking that we can find anything that will replace oil and its by-products any time soon, at anywhere near the same inexpensive prices, at the same levels of ease of acquisition or availability, or with the same levels of efficiency and productivity. A lot went into the creation of all that we see, own, and use, and when we don’t have nearly enough of the basic energy source that makes all of that available, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Reflecting on the near-infinite supply of creature comforts and conveniences and products and services made possible by petroleum will be an awakening for most. Recognizing that soon enough we’re not going to have the same quantities or qualities of that same stuff will be an awakening as well. What happens then?

A lot of what we see and use and buy and rely on in our immediate environment and “out there” depends on readily available supplies of not-too-pricey oil. When the not-too-pricey stuff starts getting to the “Damn, that’s gotten expensive!” stage, changes will occur. We’ll either make the painful adaptations ourselves, or some person out there in Marketplace-Land is going to be telling us:  “We’re sorry, but we’re just not making as much of that stuff and sending it to your neighborhood store as we used to. And before you ask:  Nope, we won’t ever be making more than we are now … pretty sure, actually, there’s gonna be less. More expensive too – costs a lot more to get the stuff we need to make the stuff you need.”

A while back, in one of my posts, I offered this list as a very small sampling of products made from, used with, or transported by a derivative of petroleum.

Solvents       Diesel fuel       Motor Oil       Bearing Grease       Ink       Floor Wax       Ballpoint Pens        Football Cleats       Upholstery Sweaters       Boats       Insecticides       Bicycle Tires       Sports Car Bodies       Nail Polish       Fishing lures       Dresses       Tires       Golf Bags       Perfumes       Cassettes       Dishwasher parts       Tool Boxes       Shoe Polish       Motorcycle Helmet       Caulking       Petroleum Jelly       Transparent       Tape       CD Player       Faucet Washers       Antiseptics        Clothesline       Curtains       Food Preservatives Basketballs       Soap       Vitamin Capsules       Antihistamines        Purses       Shoes       Dashboards       Cortisone       Deodorant       Footballs       Putty       Dyes       Panty Hose       Refrigerant       Percolators       Life Jackets       Rubbing Alcohol       Linings       Skis       TV Cabinets       Shag Rugs       Electrician’s Tape       Tool Racks       Car Battery Cases       Epoxy       Paint       Mops       Slacks       Insect Repellent       Oil Filters       Umbrellas       Yarn       Fertilizers       Hair Coloring       Roofing       Toilet Seats       Fishing Rods       Lipstick      Denture       Adhesive       Linoleum       Ice Cube Trays       Synthetic Rubber       Speakers      Electric Blankets       Glycerin      Tennis Rackets       Rubber Cement       Fishing Boots       Dice       Nylon Rope       Candles       Trash Bags       House Paint       Water Pipes       Hand Lotion       Roller Skates       Surf Boards       Shampoo       Wheels       Paint Rollers       Shower Curtains       Guitar Strings       Luggage       Aspirin       Safety Glasses       Antifreeze       Football Helmets       Awnings       Eyeglasses       Clothes       Toothbrushes       Ice Chests       Footballs       Combs       CD’s & DVD’s       Paint Brushes       Detergents       Vaporizers       Balloons       Sun Glasses       Tents       Heart Valves       Crayons       Parachutes       Telephones       Enamel       Pillows       Dishes       Cameras       Anesthetics   Artificial Turf       Artificial limbs       Bandages       Dentures       Model Cars       Folding Doors       Hair Curlers       Cold cream       Movie film       Soft Contact lenses       Drinking Cups       Fan Belts       Car Enamel       Shaving Cream       Ammonia       Refrigerators       Golf Balls       Toothpaste       Gasoline

There are a lot more of those lists, and as I’ve indicated, the other regular series I’m planning to run for at least the next few months will center around what we need to do in the absence of all this stuff we use or rely on. It’s all fine and well to discuss the costs of unconventional resource extraction in far Western Canada, or oil drilling techniques in deep waters off the coast of Brazil. It hits a bit closer to home when all of a sudden the simple pocket combs you’ve been buying and using for years are suddenly harder to find, and when they are located, more expensive too … like just about everything else. When it starts hitting closer to home, Peak Oil will move from the nebulous “out there” kind of problem to the “Oh, jeez, now what?” stage in your own home.

It might make sense to do some preparing in advance. More information is always a good thing. A lot of the surprises that Peak Oil will bestow are not likely to be the kinds of surprises we all typically enjoy.

So that’s the hyper-broad overview for this series.

I’ll be back next week to begin my discussion….Stay tuned!

~~~

Links to my 2010 series on Peak Oil’s impact:

http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/06/09/peak-oils-impact-1/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/06/11/peak-oils-impact-2/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/06/14/peak-oils-impact-3-water-bottles/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/06/18/peak-oils-impact-4-visiting-your-dentistmd/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/07/01/peak-oil-impact-5-laptopscomputers/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/07/06/peak-oil-impact-6-rural-communities/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/07/09/peak-oil-impact-7-a-first-look-at-air-travel/
http://peakoilmatters.com/2010/08/03/peak-oil-impact-8-vacations/

Summer is full upon us here in the U.S., and that means for many of us the joys of summer vacations. Hiking, camping, biking, visiting, beaching … all the favorable-weather options are available to us. Just this past weekend my wife and I had the pleasure of hosting family from both out-of-state and from the opposite end of Massachusetts. I’m flying out at the end of the week to visit my daughter as she prepares for school. A lot of things to enjoy and a lot to look forward to during these warm summer days!

My wife and I have not yet taken our “vacation”. Our summer plans tend to be somewhat fluid. As I noted way back when in my introduction to this blog, we are very fortunate. We own an exquisite (at least to us), spacious summer home a hundred yards or so from the Atlantic Ocean. We vacation here and enjoy every blessed minute of it! In normal driving conditions, it takes us fifty minutes or so to go door-to-door from our suburban Boston home to the “beach house”, which is where I am as I write this. What a treat for us!

Summer vacation usually means grabbing as much time as we can here—work and young adult schedules permitting. That means frequent travel along the Route 128/Interstate 95 corridor … most times with more than one vehicle; most times more than once or twice a week.

As a strong proponent of Peak Oil, I have decidedly mixed feelings about this, as I have mentioned before (Kurt Cobb wrote a sensible piece touching on a related theme just a few days ago). I love this lifestyle, and I approach my task of disseminating information about our soon-to-be-curtailed availability of fossil fuel supply with more than my fair share of selfish trepidation. We do not yet own hybrid vehicles, and so we spend more than our fair share of time filling the gas tanks of my wife’s German import and my Japanese SUV in order to make many trips to and from our summer home from Memorial Day through mid-October. I balance that guilt with the acknowledgment (rationalization?) that I work from home, and that my wife’s office is about 6000 feet from our home, so we actually spend no more on gas than most other families.

Once gas prices begin their inevitable climb up, whether that’s later this year, next year, or a couple more years down the road, and with a simultaneous curtailment in how much fossil fuel will remain available to us to meet all of demands and expectations and needs, my rationalizations may not matter much.

With that in mind yesterday, for the first time in the 6 summers that we’ve owned this home, I used public transportation to make most of the journey from home to here at the beach house. My daughter drove me a couple of miles to a commuter rail stop which took me into Boston’s North Station, where I then—some fifteen minutes after my arrival—boarded a different rail line to take me to the North Shore. I then hailed a cab to take me the three miles or so from the train station to our summer place. (I’ve already informed my wife that I will soon take public transportation door to door, just to see what that’s like. That will add two bus trips and a decent amount of walking at the beginning and end of my trip, along with two separate subway rides. I’m expecting at least an additional hour of travel each way, but no more than a few more dollars in fares.)

The one way trip yesterday cost me about $20.00, and took me two hours and ten minutes door to door. Compare that to less than $10.00 of gas and less than 60 minutes of travel time when I drive. More expensive certainly, and clearly more time-consuming, but all in all it was a pleasant enough experience, and surprisingly scenic in several places along the way. It was nice to be able to read and engage in some computer work while traveling … not an option when I’m barreling along at 65 miles per hour on Route 128.

I’m expecting to have to do much more of this in the years to come if we intend (as we most certainly do) to keep this as a second home (and eventually as our primary residence, or so we hope.) At the very least, this kind of travel will become a not-inconsiderable inconvenience for us. I’ll expect no one to shed any tears for us, and rightfully so.

All of this got me thinking about what other families normally do during the summer for their vacations. My thoughts then almost immediately turned to one of our nation’s more popular destinations: Walt Disney World in Florida. We have vacationed there on a couple of occasions, as have hundreds of millions of others just like us. It’s a deservedly popular tourist attraction.

Then, as I find myself doing more frequently these days, I started to wonder how Peak Oil is going to impose itself on the subject at hand. Truth be told, not much will escape the consequences of declining oil availability.

Just for the heck of it, I started an internet search for facts about Disney World—to get some kind of idea about the place. (I make no promises that the following stats are the most current ones.)

“Approximately 46 million people visit Walt Disney World – including Disney’s Magic Kingdom Park, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park and Downtown Disney Area – annually.” [1]

“A Cast of Thousands . . . around 62,000 to be more precise. That’s how many people it takes to create the magic at the Vacation Kingdom. Not surprisingly, Walt Disney World Resort is the largest single-site employer in the United States
“Suds ‘R Us . . . If you were to wash and dry one load of laundry every day for 52 years, you’d clean as much as the folks at Walt Disney World Laundry do in a single day. The cast members there launder an average of 285,000 pounds each day. In addition, between 30,000 and 32,000 garments are dry-cleaned daily.
“Who’s Still Thirsty? . . . More than 75 million Cokes are consumed each year at Walt Disney World Resort along with 13 million bottles of water. Guests also gobble 10 million hamburgers, 6 million hot dogs, 9 million pounds of French fries and more than 300,000 pounds of popcorn
“Room Roulette . . . If you wanted to stay in all the guestrooms in all of the hotels and resorts currently open on Walt Disney World property (at a rate of one per night), it would take more than 68 years.” [2]

“There are 46,172 parking spaces at the Walt Disney World theme parks, water parks and Downtown Disney. That does not include the parking lots at the resort.” [3]

The point? That’s a lot of tourists traveling a lot of miles, buying a lot of airplane tickets, renting a lot of vehicles, and consuming lots of fossil fuels for transportation (to say nothing of the energy expenditures to do all the laundry, transport and prepare all the food, maintain all the rooms, etc., etc. A lot of dollars are spent while visiting Disney World.)

What happens when the $3.19 per gallon of gas that we now pay for premium gas is $4.09 per gallon? $5.29? $7.79? When the now incredibly inexpensive $200.00 round trip air fares from Boston becomes $380.00? $660.00? I have no illusions that we’ll see those prices in the next few years, but I can’t say that I’d be terribly surprised if that happens sooner than I expect.

Those higher prices will stand alone … they won’t be rising along with a commensurate increase in incomes. Incomes will be what they will be in the years to come while fossil fuel prices climb ever-higher, simply because we are not going to have enough to meet all the world-wide demand by the billions of people who either want to maintain their convenient and occasionally extravagant lifestyles, or who aspire to reach those goals themselves.

Something is going to have to give.

And when those gas prices begin that climb, how many families are going to make the decision that a trip to Disney World, or Las Vegas, or Myrtle Beach, or our astonishing National Parks, or to Europe, or to the Caribbean, or [insert preferred vacation spot here] are no longer in the cards? What happens to the countless millions who depend on those tourist dollars? How many dominoes tumble in all the industries affected by or existing because of tourism? Difficult to wrap your mind around all of that, isn’t it?

What kinds of personal lifestyle changes will each of us have to then embrace when we start thinking about the family vacation in July or August?

Something to think about, perhaps? It is definitely not too soon to do so. We’ll be thankful for having taken the time to consider these issues well in advance. Being blind-sided is not nearly as much fun as it might seem.

{Note to my readers: I’m heading down South later this week to help my daughter set up for her senior year of college, so this will likely be my only post until the middle of next week. This month, I’ll also be heading to New York for a few days to move our other daughter into her new digs for college year # 2, my wife and I will be taking some vacation time throughout the month, and we’re celebrating our anniversary at the end of August, so postings will be sporadic until after Labor Day. Thanks for your patience and interest!}

Sources:

[1] http://www.orlando-florida.net/press-releases/50-things-you-dont-know-about-disney-world.htm

[2] http://corporate.disney.go.com/media/news/Fact_WDW_Fun_Facts_08_06.pdf

[3] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_parking_spots_are_in_Walt_Disney_World

Last month, I came across a interesting article showing the production breakdown of a barrel (approximately 45 gallons) of oil.

I found it a bit surprising that only 4 gallons, or approximately 11 %, from every barrel of oil is typically produced as aviation fuel.

As Dave Jackson noted in another recent article:

“A-1 jet fuel, a high grade, moisture free kerosene, competes directly with the production of diesel. A refiner has a certain amount of leeway when extracting fuels from each barrel of crude oil. By and large, however, a choice must be made between kerosene or diesel.”

Jackson then asked pretty much the same question I have: What happens when there isn’t enough crude oil to satisfy the full demands of freight transportation and the airline industry? Can’t satisfy them both once oil production begins its continual decline, so what happens? As it stands now and if my math is correct, airlines use somewhere in the neighborhood of two billion barrels of oil each year. That cannot continue in the face of Peak Oil.

What decisions are the various transportation industries—freight and aviation in particular—going to be faced with when the worldwide supply of oil cannot ever match demand again? Who decides which of those two will have priority? It’s unlikely that only one industry will have all of its demand met, so that means both industries will suffer reductions in what is available to them. Then what?

As other writers have duly noted, once Peak Oil’s impact is being felt immediately and daily by the transportation industry, the foods and goods and services we’ve grown accustomed to having on hand 24/7/365 … won’t be. We’re going to have to start making do without some of those products and services we like to enjoy or use whenever the mood strikes, and if we’re being deprived, somewhere along the supply and distribution chain there will be employment and production cutbacks. We all now know what happens when people start losing their jobs and industries stop making or supplying goods and services.

A broader question as it affects aviation: what happens to air travel in general? Once Peak Oil is in full swing, we clearly cannot assume that that same eleven percent of each barrel of oil will still be devoted to producing aviation fuel. What then?

One obvious outcome is that the then more restricted air travel will become more expensive. I’m no economics whiz, but when supply decreases and demand remains steady, prices increase. So get ready for more expensive air travel as well as higher crude oil prices. For many, that means no more air travel. Then what? I’m fairly confident that airlines aren’t going to survive if their increasing costs for fuel lead to fewer passengers (who are obliged to pay much higher fares), and on and on the dominoes tumble.

When the price of a barrel of oil shot up to nearly $150.00 two short years ago, Brad Plumer—in a terrific New Republic article well worth reading—noted that nearly 25 airlines bit the dust just in 2008, almost four times the average. Should we expect anything different the next go-‘round?

On a more personal note, what will families do? As the parent of two daughters currently in college, I recognize first-hand the concerns any parent has when their graduating children decide to take jobs far from home. The emotional pull of wanting the best for your child while nonetheless wanting them close by has a powerful influence on our well-being. What happens if my daughter accepts a job in Portland, Oregon and in the not-too-distant future, the several dozen reasonably priced daily flights currently available out of Boston’s Logan Airport are reduced to just a handful, and the acceptable $550 flight through Dallas suddenly become a $1700 flight with multiple connecting stops en route, and an 8 hour trip is suddenly a two day adventure?

I am well aware that my daughter’s employment and location choices won’t depend one iota on what dear-old-Dad would prefer, but if my daughter does make the choice to live in a locale that is now an airplane ride away and a few years down the road I no longer have that as a feasible option to see her, dear-old-Dad is not going to be a happy camper. (I will let my daughter speak for herself on this subject!)

What happens to business meetings, to governmental business, to international negotiations, to sports travel, to family visits, and a host of other lifestyle and industry needs when we have less aviation fuel competing for our business and personal demands? What happens then?

Who decides which of the limited and now much more expensive flights have priority? Are your business meetings in Chicago more important than the Boston Red Sox seven-game road trip, or a fact-finding mission by several U.S. Congressional leaders, or seeing your parents? We cannot possibly hope to sustain the same level of air service when aviation fuel has doubled or tripled in price, and when perhaps only 4% or 5% of each barrel of a smaller supply of oil is now produced as aviation fuel because somewhere along the line, someone will have decreed that that is the most we can expect from each barrel because of countless other priorities.

To its great credit, Britain recently turned down construction of a 3rd runway at Heathrow Airport in favor of committing that same amount of funding to high speed rail, as noted here. Perhaps more insightful than most, the decision-makers likely recognized the pointlessness of committing billions to a service that will likely exist in a greatly-diminished capacity a few short years from now.

As Brad Plumer also noted in his 2008 essay:

“Small towns will be especially vulnerable to losing scheduled air service. That’s already happened to nearly 30 U.S. cities in the past year, from Wilmington, Delaware (population 72,000) to Boulder City, Nevada (14,000). Hagerstown, Maryland, lost all commercial air service recently, rendering its new $61.8 million, 7,000-foot runway useless.”

It won’t end there. What are the ripple effects to communities and regions when airports shut down, or flights are offered on a greatly restricted or reduced basis? What of the people accustomed to relying on those services? What happens then?

Technology is not close to finding adequate alternatives sufficient to meet current and projected demand increases, so what happens? And biofuels, for all their promise, are not close to being deemed an appropriate substitute.

So we can either start making plans, considering alternative forms of transportation, making a greater commitment to seeking alternative sources of energy, or try to come up with last-minute solutions to deal with the problems Peak Oil is going to force upon us.

Hint: That strategy is not likely to work

Last week I had occasion to visit with my father at my parents’ property in the lovely Berkshire Mountains region of New England. They live elsewhere in western Massachusetts, but have owned this 30 acre parcel in a very rural community since I was very young. It’s not especially well-developed … there is no running water and thus no usable bathroom (unless trees and bushes count), but it is a peaceful and lovely plot of nature I’ve always enjoyed. For Dad, it’s heaven here on Earth; Mom, not so much, but she deals with it.

As I was making the 135-mile pilgrimage from my home outside of Boston and across the state, contemplating once or twice how much gas my SUV was sucking down and wondering more how families will arrange to visit when the price of gasoline—or its unavailability—make these kind of treks prohibitive, I found myself thinking more and more about all the people who live in the small, out-of-the-way towns at the opposite end of Massachusetts.

What are they going to do?

After I exited the highways just north of Springfield (the largest city in western Massachusetts) and began traveling the sparsely populated back roads and on through occasional farmland—dotted only very rarely by anything that resembled a commercial establishment and miles and miles from any malls or shopping centers of note—I kept wondering: how difficult must it be for them now to just get around and run the types of errands that you and I do rather effortlessly?

What are they going to do?

How are these people going to make do tending to their most basic of everyday needs when gas prices are off the charts, when ownership of autos is prohibitively expensive, and when basic transportation becomes an issue of monumental complexity because we no longer have the readily available supplies of gasoline we’ve been accustomed to for decades? How can we expect public transit to help people when they live miles from anything even resembling a sizeable city?

How will they deal with the loss of the modern, daily conveniences those of us in and near big cities routinely take for granted, conveniences which they even now surely labor to enjoy? From my home in a quaint Boston suburb, I can walk to my bank, my dry cleaners, my wife’s office, the grocery store, several convenience stores and restaurants, the pharmacy, the post office, and scores of different retail establishments. At the bottom of the very steep hill we live on I can grab a bus which takes me to the subway which takes me to the Amtrak station or the MBTA commuter rail system or Logan Airport, and from there, the world.

And these rural townspeople far removed from city life: What are they going to do? Most, living in these hilly towns with neighbors often several acres away at the very least, cannot walk to … anywhere. There is no close-by there, there. Getting there requires a car, even for the simplest of errands (biking up and down some of those hilly stretches is a job best left to Lance Armstrong). I can get a gallon of milk 200 yards from my home. People in these rural communities can get that same gallon of milk three or four or eight miles away right now.

I don’t know if bus service of any kind runs out there (doubtful), but if it does, I’m sure it’s a once a day event for most. “Big city” Springfield is 40 + miles away from my parents’ property; not-quite-so-big-Pittsfield is about 15, tucked in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. While Pittsfield will never be mistaken for a big city, it certainly has most of the modern amenities anyone would need: malls, banks, restaurants, retail establishment, car dealerships, and all the rest. Still … can’t get there from rural here without a car.

Median income is about $45,000 in the town where my parents own their land; population is about 1000. Not a big demand in places like that for malls, stand-alone retail stores, convenience stores, grocery stores, or public transit. Hell, it shares its post office with another town! They do have a fire department and police force, but no one will mistake the size of those forces with what we’re accustomed to in cities or towns of 20,000 or 50,000 or 300,000.

I may be mistaken, but I sense that these people are much more what we recognize as salt-of-the-earth folks: hard-working, straightforward citizens content with many of life’s simpler pleasures (obviously, and to their everlasting credit), living most likely from paycheck to paycheck. I doubt many of them are wealthy progeny of big industry titans, or live on these outskirts thanks to endless piles of family money. They are thus likely to feel a fair amount of pain and stress when fuel prices increase and travel becomes more difficult every day. They are going to suffer more than their fair share.

How do they plan and execute their frequent trips to the market, or to stores to purchase family necessities, or get medical care, or entertain and visit with family members and friends, when they live so far from … well, everything? Right now I imagine it’s a bit of a convoluted process to try and get all of those things done. Surely some careful planning is required, whereas for me, I can just hop in the car any old time and complete my local errands in fifteen minutes. “Local” has a different meaning in the rural Berkshire communities.

What are they going to do?

It’s not just the inhabitants of these pleasant and placid towns that will suffer. What happens when we simply do not have enough oil and gas to meet our own demands—however sourced—and we have to endure restrictions of one kind or another that are much too painful to consider right now? How will those residents—so far removed from our easily accessible every day creature comforts and amenities in big cities as it is—manage when they simply can’t get anywhere?

What are they going to do?

Peak Oil is not just about big city residents suddenly being forced to rely on public transportation more than they care to. Peak Oil is about lots of people in lots of places who are not going to have the resources and conveniences and comforts they need as and when they need them.

What are we all going to do?

Continuing with my recent theme of getting readers to recognize more “I didn’t think of that” moments as they relate to Peak Oil (while avoiding any kind of structured or overly-detailed approach that might discourage readers from continuing on), today I’d like to discuss the ubiquitous laptop/personal computer.

These almost-mandatory-for-our-lifestyles products are in no small measure made out polycarbonates and synthetic plastics—petrochemicals … oil. Microchips and housings and keyboards and many of the assorted other elementary components essential to the manufacturing of one of our greatest inventions do not exist without fossil fuels.

How many hours a day do you use this marvel of ingenuity and vision and technology? How many different uses and applications do you employ in the normal course of your day without thinking even once about your computer’s ready availability and its relative affordability? Turning on our computers at home and/or at work has become as commonplace and as taken for granted as brushing our teeth.

Can you imagine what your work and personal life would be like without the computer you rely upon to simplify work and daily living a hundred different ways?

So when we soon enough begin the inevitable decline of oil production owing to geology, geopolitical events, economic factors, natural depletion rates, business investment decisions (take your pick)—while we’re simultaneously confronted with increasing demand from other parts of the world for an ever-decreasing supply—who loses out?

When we no longer have at the ready all of the oil each and every one of us needs to satisfy all the demands and preferences and expectations of industry as well as our own lifestyles, what are we prepared to sacrifice? What if you now had to share one computer with your entire family or with the co-workers in your office or department? Are you prepared for that kind of possibility?

What production limitations is Dell or IBM or Apple going to impose when they no longer have the needed quantity of petrochemical-based components they need to manufacture their products in amounts sufficient to match demand—let alone the fossil fuels needed to run the machinery that builds and delivers their products?

Who in the distribution chain is either going to be left out entirely or forced to make all kinds of accommodations to a decreased supply of fossil fuels they need to manufacture and transport their own pieces of the puzzle? When the quantity of component parts is curtailed because we simply no longer have enough oil to satisfy the industrial food chain and thus personal and business demands for all kinds of computers can no longer be met, how are we to decide which components, suppliers, transportation modes, manufacturers, marketers, stores, and consumers have priority in the supply and acquisition of computers?

Is the investment department of your financial services firm more deserving of a couple of computers than the business you run, or the emergency room of your local hospital? Multiply that scenario by the countless legitimate needs of your family members and friends and acquaintances and local and national and international businesses, and then imagine what happens when someone has decreed that the computer industry and the entire supply and distribution chain it relies upon will from now have to make do with 15% or 25% or 40% less of everything needed to meet demand because oil producers worldwide simply cannot meet demand any longer.

What happens then?

How is this all supposed to work itself out of we don’t start taking steps to recognize the limitations and challenges we’re going to face and begin doing something about it now?

Do we really want to wait until we are forced to try and implement last-minute plans and endure drastic changes? Keep in mind that I’m just presenting a casual overview of personal computers. Multiply the disruptions by the countless products we all use every day….

How are we going to even produce all of these items when we don’t have enough fossil fuels to meet the production and transportation and marketing and delivery processes? How many people lose their jobs along the entire distribution and production chain when Apple and Dell and all the others simply cannot manufacture enough laptops to meet demand because their suppliers can’t meet their own quotas?

Which businesses along the chain of computer manufacture and distribution have to revise their business practices because they no longer have a sufficient number of computers to match and meet the needs of their employees? Which departments get shortchanged? How do you undo the benefits of computer technology required to manufacture and distribute those very products—benefits we completely take for granted now?

How much re-configuration and re-invention of the entire computer manufacturing and distribution process will be needed to meet demand if suppliers and manufacturers and all the other necessary parties have to figure out how to make do with either less energy resources or alternative energy sources that simply do not match the efficiency and productivity of fossil fuels?

What kind of substitutions might then be available to these computer manufacturers? What cost increases would be associated with alternative components? What kind of restructuring would be needed up and down the supply and distribution chains? How quickly can this entire chain of revised production and distribution fall into place?

The reality is that in the not-too-distant—as oil supplies continue their decline and manufacturers everywhere and in all industries are obliged to re-configure the work they produce and the products they supply—we will have nowhere near the alternative sources of energy in place to effect seamless transitions for manufacturing and delivering computers.

What happens then?

One of the main themes that I will return to repeatedly as this blog progresses is that of transportation.

I’ll permit others more technically savvy, experienced, and knowledgeable to address the issue of automobile usage and our eventual conversion of internal combustion engines to those that either run on alternative fuel/energy sources, or electric cars. (I have discussed automobiles in several prior posts such as this one.) My focus will be on the broader theme of how much we depend upon all forms of transportation in our day-to-day lives.

The sooner we can begin having “Oh, I didn’t think of that…” moments, the sooner we can begin effectively dealing with, planning for, and transitioning to ways of living and producing that are no longer dependent on fossil fuels as the energy source needed. We’re all in this together….

My hope is that these types of post will inspire more and more frequent “I didn’t think of that” moments for everyone.

Fairly self-evident, but true: It’s only when we start asking questions that we’ll begin seeking answers. As long as we ignore issues or simply take things for granted, we have zero incentive to make changes. Changes imposed upon us are much less pleasant than those in which we have a say ahead of time.

Everything we do that requires transportation via automobile, either of necessity or of convenience, is going to be affected when the ready supply of relatively inexpensive and always available gasoline from our local service station is no longer relatively inexpensive and always available. We may not have in place formal rationing once the steady decline of gasoline is upon us, but we will experience de facto rationing.

The effect is going to be the same: we are not going to be able to just hop into our cars for a fill-up whenever we need it. Somewhere along the line, limited allocations are going to be imposed upon our lifestyles. It will happen voluntarily and with careful planning, or it will indeed be imposed upon all of us, protests notwithstanding. Which would you prefer?

With that significant change will come all kinds of changes and adaptations in what we do day-to-day. How we live our everyday lives, what we need to do or should do or prefer to do are all going to be impacted in one way or another when that trip to the local gas station is no longer an immediate option for us.

So let’s consider one of those every day common events and how this, too, will be impacted by Peak Oil: the appointment with our dentist/doctor.

How many of us regularly schedule appointments with our family MD or dentist? How many trips on average do we/our family make to see them during the course of a year? Two? Five? Twelve? How many of us walk to those appointments? How many of us have accessible and convenient public transportation enabling us to go with minimal difficulties?

I’m going to guess that the percentage is probably less than fifty—perhaps much less. Certainly those who live in major cities and whose medical providers likewise have practices in the “downtown” areas likely take advantage of public transportation, but most of us either don’t have that option, or for any number of other reasons choose to drive.

It’s quite likely that we combine trips around those appointments: perhaps some grocery shopping after the dentist appointment, or we’ll run over to our children’s school and pick them up after class, or we have to take the kids to practice on our way to the doctor, or we just decide to stop off at a couple of places along the way. There are any number of possibilities that strike us all as perfectly normal and routine events.

Peak Oil is going to change “normal” and “routine.”

So what happens when gasoline has become prohibitively expensive? How many of these combination trips suddenly require much more planning? How many of these trips even become possible? What sort of juggling are we all going to have to do to figure out how to accomplish these routine tasks when it’s either costing us small fortunes to fill up our gas tanks, or when we only have the option of doing so under guidelines that are completely foreign to us today?

If our dentist or MD has an office too far to walk to, too far from public transportation stops (or we have no public transportation options), what are we going to do? For that matter, what are those medical service providers and their staffs going to do when confronted with the exact same issues? How are they going to get to their offices?

Right now I have the option, inconvenient though it may be, of getting to my doctor’s office via two separate modes of public transportation and a half mile walk. But I know that my primary care physician (25 years and counting) lives nowhere near his office, and there is no public transportation that will get him from his home to his medical practice in any manner that might be considered convenient. What’s he going to do? What am I going to do when he can’t get to his office any longer?

My family dentist’s office is about 15 miles from our home. What is plan B for us? For he and his extensive staff? There is a subway stop about half a mile from his office, so once again I have the option of getting there via three separate modes of public transportation), but how convenient is that in comparison to just hopping into my car and shooting down interstate 95?

The solutions for me are not impossible, and indeed for a sizeable percentage of us, that may be true as well. But when a single twenty-five minute trip to our medical care provider—at our convenience (ignoring the countless other routine trips we take each week)—suddenly requires coordinating walking to and from public transportation (hoping that the weather cooperates, by the way), and then having to take into consideration multiple forms of public transportation with the time factors doubling or tripling or worse (all the while ignoring the types of routine errands we now tack on to these trips without a second thought), what are we all going to do?