What "Lower Consumption" Means
Posted by Nate Hagens on November 5, 2009 - 10:06am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: consumption [list all tags]
Note from the author (Dan Allen): As a high-school teacher, I wanted to give my thoroughly-industrial, suburban-NJ students a more detailed peek at their upcoming post-industrial future. I felt the need to challenge their prevailing mindsets regarding our resource-depletion predicament: the “shorter showers & change the light-bulbs” crowd, the “engineers will surely come to our rescue” folks, and the “problem? -- what problem?” people. This essay and the before/after comparison chart that follows are part of my ongoing (unsanctioned) attempts at doing so.
Tricking and Treating the Future
Posted by Nate Hagens on November 1, 2009 - 9:50am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Environment/Sustainability

We live in some pretty incredible times. The realization that we have borrowed so much from the future (US current deficit is 41% of expenditures!!)that we'll likely not be able to pay it back using our current economic model and existing wealth distribution is slowly starting to dawn on people. At times the implications seem overwhelming. But this Halloween Campfire post is a quick reminder that despite our massive challenges, (and that we are human, imperfect, and mortal) - we can find joy, fun, meaning and satisfaction in many everyday, low throughput ways - we just have to decide to do so. That's both the trick and the treat.
Meeting Energy Decline Part-Way - Potatoes?
Posted by Nate Hagens on October 28, 2009 - 7:20pm in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Miscellaneous

Before 1999 I had never grown a thing in my life except for chia-pets. I then bought a house in North Carolina which had an existing smallish garden of cherry tomatoes, spinach and blueberries, which over the next 4 years, I turned into a 360 square foot garden with numerous geometric shaped raised beds. This introduction to gardening was more of an art form to me - I didn't care about the end result so much. Fast forward 10 years and I have a larger, more serious garden. In addition to kale, corn, garlic, eggplant, tomatoes, wormwood, peppers, squash, beans, and peas, this year we planted 10 12 foot rows, 6 25 foot rows and 2 40 foot rows for a total of 330 row feet of potatoes. This post is about the energy return from my 15 bushel basket harvest and substituting gardening, at least at the margin, for fast neural hijack.
America 2.0 By Jay Hanson
Posted by Nate Hagens on October 25, 2009 - 10:30am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: jay hanson [list all tags]
Though it may not be apparent to most, we are in the social crisis of our era. It is becoming increasingly clear we won't be able to service our large and growing debts in relation to the existing infrastructure and geopolitical landscape. How this and the myriad social, environmental and energy related issues get prioritized will require incredibly tough decisions, ones that will only get tougher the longer we delay.
Planning for Water Contingencies
Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 21, 2009 - 6:14pm in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
We know that fresh water is essential to life. While we can survive for weeks without food, even a few days without water can be a problem. One rule of thumb as to the amount of water needed for drinking is two quarts (1.9 liters) per person per day. If one includes uses other than drinking, obviously more is needed.
In uncertain times, the question is what, if anything, we should be doing with respect to backup planning for water. We can think about this question on both a short term and longer term basis. In some instances, the issue may be more one of supplemental water (beyond what the city system is willing/able to provide) for irrigation of crops.

The Speech Obama Needs to Give
Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 18, 2009 - 10:30am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
This is a guest post by R. Daniel Allen Ph. D. Dr. Allen teaches at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in New Jersey.

Campfire Open Thread
Posted by Super G on October 10, 2009 - 7:35pm in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Miscellaneous
Lots of the TOD staff are here in Denver for the ASPO-USA meeting. Consider this a Campfire open thread.
Saving Seeds: Is this the way to go?
Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 8, 2009 - 10:27am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: hybrids, saving seeds [list all tags]
Through most of the world's history, people have saved their own seeds and replanted them. Now we have a multitude of hybrid seed to choose from. These hybrid seed have a lot of advantages-crops are very uniform, so they are easily harvested, and all mature at the same time. The crops generally have a very good yield, especially when adequate fertilizer is used, sufficient water is available (often through irrigation), and pests are kept under control.

But over the very long term, it is not entirely clear that we will be able to keep up this system. We likely won't have the commercial fertilizer, nearly as much irrigation, and probably not chemical pesticides and herbicides. We are likely not to be able to store the food as well, either, or to transport it long distances.
Whither The Oil Drum?
Posted by Nate Hagens on October 4, 2009 - 11:00am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Miscellaneous

A few short years ago, in 2005 when I started contributing here, it seemed that people could generally be partitioned into 3 main groups regarding their views about Peak Oil. By far the smallest group were those calling for a near term (<2012) peak in global oil production. A larger, and definitively more vocal and deeper pocketed group (including IHS, CERA, most Wall St. firms and energy agencies) were in the "peak oil is not real" or "peak oil is post 2020 at a minimum" camps. But by far the largest % of the population were oblivious to these debates on oils peak, unaware of the possibility and/or importance of a potential peak and decline in our socioeconomic hemoglobin.
Sustainability: Planning from a Base of Zero
Posted by Gail the Actuary on September 30, 2009 - 8:01pm in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: sustainability [list all tags]
If we want to plan for truly long term sustainability, it seems to me that we need to plan from a base of zero in terms of fossil fuel usage, rather than from present day usage. This is very much a change from most thinking--how we can make tweaks to our current system to use less oil or gas. Over the long term, we know our current system won't work, so at some point we need to be thinking where we want to head, while we still have resources in hand that we can use to make changes.
We are so unaccustomed to thinking local, that it is hard to even contemplate the idea. What can be made with strictly local inputs, besides simple things like baskets and bricks? It is hard to even contemplate the idea, if one has to put all of the necessary steps in place, like transporting the raw materials to an area where they can be worked on, then working on the raw materials, and distributing the finished products to new locations.

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