If... BBC documentary

I have just watched the TV programme "If" on the state of UK power supplies, and it really offered an insight into how much 21st Century England relies on the mains electricity supply; it pervades our every move from the minute we wake up to the time we go to bed.There is one argument that we've had it too easy for too long, and now with gas and coal reserves running out and emissions targets being set under the Kyoto Agreement, we're not going to have enough to go round and it could lead to the biggest power outage in our history!The problem is, we're building more and more houses with more mains powered appliances in them, and our households are consuming more and more power. More lights are being put up in our streets with bigger and brighter bulbs being put on existing ones.And our usage of gas is going up a lot too!The programme pointed out that it would take an explosion in a Russian gas plant to wipe away England's gas supplies within a matter of hours.I myself have written a similar sort of scenario, but mine was based upon the introduction of a computer virus into the power control computer networks.I am pretty sure that there will be a scenario like the one portrayed in the broadcast. Of course, many members of this board have prepared for such a scenario.I am fortunate that I have two coal fires and my cooker runs on gas, and I have 3 oil lamps, a healthy supply of candles, and of course like all members of this board, a good selection of torches and batteries.The coal fires will burn any combustible materials which turns waste wood and cardboard into a fuel.Petrol for any transportation could be a problem, as could water, as petrol pumps and water systems all use electricity. As it happens I may be able to restart a manual water pump fitted in my house, which was connected to an underground well.Petrol will always be a limited resource. Not only is it illegal to store more than 5 gallons on domestic properties, modern unleaded petrol soon loses its "freshness" and becomes unviable as a motor fuel. So, the motorbike would not be used unless absolutely necessary. The other problem is that public disorder could cause quite a disorder with some simple things like candles and heating fuel being fought over!It really makes you realise how fragile 21st century life really is! What would you do and are you prepared for "the big one"...?

I am moving toward preparing for when "if" becomes "is". It is inevitable. And the reason is 2 fold. First you have people that won't see the problem until their freezer stops working. Secondly money makes the rich go around, and they could not care less about the consequences.

We have some brilliant minds, that won't spend time on things like solar energy, magnetic propulsion, or clean, renewable energy because they aren't supported, and it doesn't pay. Even if there came an alternative it would be hidden and destroyed by the companies that now make trillions on coal, and oil. (Does Tesla ring a bell) I don't know why people won't wake up and realize you can only take so much out of the well before it runs dry, and the ground above falls in from lack of support. It seems like basic common sense.

We figured we were smart enough to walk away from the Kyoto Treaty. I just hope we weren't to smart for our own good!

Something I want to put.... the satelite that orbiting our earth and what its power source.

Ya, about the magnetic propulsion there already test cars run on that about 10 yrs ago.

May be it just not avaliable to open public or not allow to use.

This issue has had my attention since 1970 and I continue feel like I'm pissing into the wind when I attempt to promote change. Too few voters and politicians care enough about conservation and alternate energy.

Remarkably, many people spew forth that it's in our country's best interest to be dependent upon oil. The USA is deficit spending its environment and national security only because we probably won't suffer now and it's an easy out to maintain the status quo. However, our children may pay the price for our lack of action.

Emp.
Hi there and greetings.
I got a few disconected points to get across.

We got satalite TV in our com trailer here in Iraq. One of the free channels (waiting on our joker card) is BBC News. For the moment I have no major complaints in general.

On one issue they missed something. They were doing an article on poverty in the US state of Alabama. If they wanted to see poverty BBC should have come to MSR Tampa in Iraq. (MSR= Main Supply Route)The poverty of the locals here was stunning. I can see kids beging for food from passing convoys. It's sad and expected. What I diden't expect to find is old Iraqi men who have given up their dignity to beg as well.

This country should be as well off as Kuwait, but it's dirt poor. The citizens have been enjoying a 25 year train wreck.

Unfortunaly poverty, misery, and suffering is common in the world.

Second point.
For what I do and where I live, alternate energy is not an option. Yet I do what I can. Humidify the air in winter so to use a few less watts, by high efficency lamps, plan my trips better, all that kind of minor stuff.

The depressing part is I seem to be the only one giving a damm in Northern Virginia.

Why is the US using so much energy?

To be a world class producer of technology products, it can't be done on the cheap. Rockets, Aircraft, satalites, computers, are all products of combined efforts. You can't make exotic microprocessors in a mud hut.

The cost of living. Most parts of the world get four weeks vacation or more. We are lucky to get two. US citizens work very hard, and the results prove it. Same for the Brits I have met. We work hard and get results. We take care of our selves.

My experience in Iraq, Kuwait, Brazil, and Argentina was an eye opener.

Only in Argentina did I run into what I call 'low order professionals'. They were willing to work hard but where handicapped by poor quality tools.

The Brazilians were hobbiests, lovers and dreamers. Much more interested in fun and games than doing things properly.

Kuwait has a bad case of 'money can buy anything' attitude. That country's subjects can afford to hire people to do things for them.

Iraqis managed to pull off some things with a death threat.

Hopefully Iraq will get it's act togther and catch up to the Kuwait standard of living. Right now, the roads don't line up, basics like water, power, and sewage sytems are being rebuilt from 1930's technology. Iraq will never be a fun place to live, but it can be a whole lot better.

Burning oil and coal is a bad thing for the environment. So is living in caves and killing your neighbors for a scrap of bone. There is an unhappy middle ground. Depending on the job situation when I get back I will be nosing around for a hybrid vehicle in a year or two. Hopefully by then the price of such things will drop some. When H2 fuel cycle becomes popular I will look into that as well. In the mean time I keep my standard vehicles in good shape, check tire pressure often, and take relativly few trips with them unless I have to.

This year while Im out, Im having my truck rebuilt rather than buying a fresh one. My 89 will run for another 7 years minimum w/o a major issue. Rebuilt (recycled?) engine, transmission, front stearing parts. It's not one of the monster 4x4's. Full size 2x4 with a large V6. I drive it easy and it gets 18mpg. May do some things with the aero package to knock down wind drag in the tail gate. The point im trying to make here is how much energy dose it take to make a new truck, vs fix the existing one. Im betting on fixing takes less than smelting all that new steel.

If I buy a home it will be well insulated and have more than just a 'thermostat' on the wall. Some minimum of home automation will be in use. Our dogs know how to keep warm if I let the winter time indoor temps slide to 60F when the wife and I are out. They can adapt if I have the summer day time air conditioning slide to 78F. Will keep plenty of water for them. We won't have too big a fridge or a huge stove.

When I get back I won't need a sixty inch TV for entertainment. Or a 1000 watt stereo. I tend to keep my devices longer than most people. The TV my wife brought into the marrage. I rebuilt it twice before we retired it at about 16 years old. Rather than do that again, I purchased a new one for the wife's birthday.
(She gave the first unit to another family in working condition) My stereo is still working after 12 years. If it dies, most likely I can fix it if parts are still avalable. Same thing with computer monitors. Fix those too.

I do my part. Let's see what the rest will do.

Later dude
Jack Crow in Iraq

Actually a guy I know on a drumming forum wrote the theme song to that and many other shows and commercials. Just thought it interesting that this show got mentioned here.

Ups and downs towards a post-industrial world....

We're in a funny time, between the end of the industrial oil era and... well... something different. You can see it right on this board: Incandescents giving way before LEDs. Higher technology is usually more efficient, more robust and _way_ harder to produce than evacuated glass bubbles with a hot wire.

The question is: will we switch by choice, by preference, or by necessity. By choice is the folks who're off the grid already - they're in the next age: windmills, solar panels and satelite internet. Decentralized infrastructure supported by ultra-high technology. That's the future I believe we're headed towards.

By preference is probably how most of us will end up in that future: rising gas prices promote hybrid vehicles, and our kids get to ride their bicycles a hell of a lot more than we do . I really think it'll go this way - gradually rising gas prices and improving new technology will transition us across one by one.

Think of how electric lighting displaced kerosene lamps. We'll end up in an odd future: lots of decentralized infrastructure for power, water and the like just because it's more efficient that way* and a few dozen ultra-high-tech centers which produce the silicon and the vaccines and the movies. I really do think that's the most probable future. Big changes, but slow ones. Gradual levelling out of the world's wealth between nations through trade means we'll feel poorer, but fewer people will starve.

Unstable infrastructure will push people towards localized service provision, much as hospitals and factories have their own UPS systems, as the old infrastructure corrodes away because maintainence is unprofitable, new distributed systems will be adopted to take up the slack. Soft, albeit jerky, pathways.

* http://smallisprofitable.org/ - Amory Lovins on decentralized electrical power.

By necessity is the case we all worry about: economic or military problems causing infrastructure failure. Personally, I doubt this is going to happen, but I live in the mountains and I keep plenty of food (think: at least a month, perhaps closer to three or four) of food in the house. Small solar panel, 12V all-sizes, all-kinds charger and a small stock of good quality nimhs, 5m range FRS radios, decent out-door gear, water filters. The sort of stuff that would be useful in a month-long crunch. I don't currently plan for long term survival: no tool library, no oilclothed plowshares in the basement. If the poop really hit the fan, I'd sell a hundred pounds of rice for half of the contents of the nearest home depot

My whole "poop hits the fan" scenario planning got way, way simpler after somebody told me: "look, if you last out the first six weeks of a complete infrastructure collapse, you're doing better than 50+% of the population will have. I wouldn't worry about **STUFF** past that six-week boundry - it'll be lying around in the streets rusting."

Not a pretty picture, and not one I ever expect to see, but far more rational than the vast majority of "survivalist" thinking. If it all goes wrong, hang tight for two months, then commence scavenging. If you can survive psychologically, physically shouldn't be that much of an issue. I'd be a bit worried about who's planting the crops the first year, mind you...

I was pretty freaked out about living in the mountains after 9/11 - one town about two hundred miles from here began to run out of food after a four day storm so I though it could get pretty ugly pretty fast if there had been bio or nuclear events so around then I had six months or more for two people: enough to last out a mountain winter without additional supplies, plus some margin.

From another angle, look at the poor world. I'm half indian (east indian) and let me tell you, "developing world" is BS. We had musical universities two thousand years before Rome. What that tells me is that advanced cultures, arts and sciences can exist even with incredibly primitive technologies. The Greeks, Romans and Indians, and all the other old, advance cultures managed perfectly well with hand-harvested wheat and fires for heat. Nobody wants to go back there, but when people start getting all Mad Max, I really don't believe it. By our standards, the Founding Fathers existed in a pre-technological age and they did just fine.

I'm not saying that the transition might not be a *****, but I just don't believe in that even a permanent loss of high tech infrastructure would destroy us. Population would settle down to a sustainable level pretty quickly (yes, ok, perhaps five or ten years of mad max) but then we'd get back to planting crops and brewing beer and it would all seem normal pretty soon. One agriculture stabilized, odds-are that the surviving universities would start us back on the high-tech path within a decade.

Some of this, I guess, is also the European perspective: in the 20th century, europe was partially razed twice and survived dozens of "minor" wars. The USA hasn't seen anything like that on it's own soil since the Civil War, so people kinda think that life just ends when the bombs start falling. It doesn't. People survive. It's an aspect of human nature which Americans outside of the armed forces seldom if ever see, but just ask the former Yugoslavians. It sucks, but you get by.

Anyway, this is much too long a ramble much too late at night. Just touched a nerve, I guess.

(goes back to tinkering with a single LED running off 2 D cells - burn time is something like a month - why on earth would a person want that?)

Re: Ups and downs towards a post-industrial world....

M,
We agree on many points execpt this one.

Those that produce and are creative will always live a little better than those who don't.

I don't see standards of living merging.

I do see people who do dumb things or have poor luck starving to death.

We are on the tip of a huge Aids burn (deaths) in Africa, India, China and Asia. This will drasticly change the money balance in the world. The producer nations will be in better shape because our medical system caught this one early and only a small percentage of the population has been infected.

I remember seeing native people in Africa saying they were protected from Aids by various kinds of tribal medicine. These people are enjoing dirt naps now. Hopefully their neighbors are a tad smarter. Some ugly customs may finaly be put to rest in favor of survival. Time will tell. Humans have alwyas been slow to adapt to desaster.

I have that in microcosum in my tent here. I build stuff out of sticks and wire. Got the fancyest bug net support in the base. The other guys have yet to set theirs up.

Guess what hatched today. A few billion hungry gnats. Perhaps I will sleep poorly while lisitening to my tent mates slap bugs all night.

Iraq is real short on comidy.

Hope all is well
Jack Crow

Re: Ups and downs towards a post-industrial world....

I agree with a former poster on the Yugoslav situation - post 1999 many Serbians have had to put up with major infrastructure failure and the nightmare of DU powder scattered across millions of hectares of agricultural land, as well as chemical destruction of long stretches of the Danube, (which could carry the problem far beyond the borders of what used to be Yugoslavia). For these people in YU, "If" is now "is".
How people cope with crises is another matter. The Serbian population has lived with disaster for centuries, and seem to be very able in coping with it, although it is still very hard for them. On the other hand, English women get annoyed when they cannot plug in thier hairdriers, whilst Englishmen would complain that the tv isn't working and they can't watch football. English peoples' nature is such that sooner or later there would be fights in the streets over dwindling candle stocks. A few intelligent people will be able to see it out for several months if the infrastructure was to be out of sorts for very long.

Seriously though, going back to the original scenario, If is more like when! If we go on plugging more and more into our overstretched network the big fuse is going to blow one day without any help from Chechen terrorists!
There are ways to put back the inevitable, though!


Low Energy Bulbs: The advance in the technology of CF and LED bulbs over the last few years has been staggering, but it is 2004 and still the vast number of homes are lit by 130 year old filament bulb technology. CF bulbs are cheaper than ever before (in Leicester you can even buy them for just £1!). There is no excuse any more to buy filament bulbs any longer! Solid state technology promises even better efficiencies, allowing such lighting to run off locally produced renewable energy.

Producing energy where it's used: The average house roof recieves more than enough energy in the forms of light, heat and wind to run all the appliances within. Shipping energy long distances through wires is seriously inefficient. As is the transport of energy products by lorry, train or aeroplane. At present we buy electricity produced from coal mined in Poland, transported by lorries, ships then back to lorries again, to be burnt in a power station. The electricity then runs through several thousand miles of wiring and numerous transformers and substations before arriving at my house meter and finally to the appliance I'm powering. When you think of all the energy used in this process from mining to my 13A socket, it is hardly surprising that locally produced renewable energies could in fact be more efficient than the vaguiaries of the National Grid network. The problem is that locally producd supplies do not make much money for Bisto Railways, Inc. e.g. the gravy train that keeps the big businesses afloat!

Re: Ups and downs towards a post-industrial world....

EMPOWERTORCH said:...Low Energy Bulbs[CFLs]...2004 and still the vast number of homes are lit by 130 year old filament bulb technology.

This situation really shows the resistence to change. The April issue of Reader's Digest has a whole section on "the green house" and CFL's are featured. But hardly anybody thinks about them. How come?

BTW...I've switched over the lights I use the most and it knocked about 5% off of my electricity usage. Just by switching out a few lights.

I've had problems though with "infant mortality". These lights are supposed to last like 5 or 7 years. I've had lights fail after 3-4 months. I've had good success with GE and Sylvania...but other brands seem to fail prematurely.

You see the same "slow thinking like we always have" in renewable energy. Biodiesel is like this big secret. My car has been operating for a year now on biodiesel. I bought it off the lot (VW) with no mods and just run renewable biodiesel in it. My license plate reads "SOYFUEL". People stop me in parking lots and ask... "Your car runs on soy beans?"... like it is some impossible magic. We've got this totally workable renewable energy source...but no one knows about it and instead we are spending tons of money on a bet that Hydrogen might work out "some day".

One thing is for sure. The people that make profit by importing foreign oil...will not help us reduce our use of imported foreign oil. We'll have to do that ourselves.