05-27-2008
I love the mountains, and I am very fond of downhill skiing (although I do a lot more nordic skiing these days as it is more peaceful, cheaper, and aerobically challenging). Let me rephrase that, being on a mountain is what makes me feel most connected as a person; I just do not happen to live very near them.
That said, I was hiking this weekend in Warren, Vermont up a ski trail to Lincoln Peak.
As I was climbing along, it occurred to me that given sky-rocketing energy prices, downhill skiing is reasonably close to going the way of the dinosaurs, if they don't take some kind of action soon to drastically alter they way they acquire energy.
It is one of the least sustainable industries, especially during a severe energy crisis. The chair-lifts that convey people to the top of the mountain, the so-called detachable quads, are highly energy intensive, similar to the kind of machines you would see in a mining operation moving rocks to and fro.
As I climbed along during a beautiful Spring morning, I passed all the idle vehicles, the "cats" with their impressive treads, which are used to constantly groom and clear the downhill trails. They use tons of diesel, oil, and/or gas; the costs to run these vehicles might be 100+ percent more next year compared with 2008.
Then there are the snow-making machines, which require energy to run and oddly, force water up the mountain so that it may be emitted from their spouts.
This might be the first "amenity" to go in downhill ski areas, since it requires both cheap energy to motor the sprayers and move the water, as well as copious amounts of free water (it can't all be supplied from snow-melt running off the mountain; the pipelines going up the sides of the trails attest to this).
Of course, you cannot fail to mention the millions of gallons of gas and oil required to power the infrastructure of a resort; the hundreds of condos and Chevy Suburbans required to transport and house the suburbanites (unlike Europe, you cannot accomplish these trips via train).
There was an eerie silence wandering through the elaborate apparatus of the ski industry in its off-season, shutdown mode, as I thought I might be viewing the "power down" future of downhill skiing.
Or, skiing may become a niche industry reserved only for the wealthy; 300 to 500+ dollar per day lift tickets. Thus is the pervasive affect of sky-rocketing oil prices.
05-23-2008
"Peak oil" has been ringing alarm bells worldwide of late, as the gasoline price in the U.S. rises relentlessly with a whirling sense of "out of control."
The Paris-headquartered International Energy Agency (IEA), among the few global bodies whose oil-production data is reasonably trusted, has conceded that global oil production cannot meet the world's insatiable appetite in the years ahead.
What that means is $3.89 per gallon gas, which is what I am paying at the moment (that number could rise any second now!), will in all likelihood seem very cheap a year from now. In fact, when's the last time you paid four dollars per gallon for any commercial liquid; bottled water is still about three times more expensive.
I am predicting from this page that we will be seeing gasoline exceeding $7.00 per gallon two years from now, meaning by May of 2010.
Ten dollar per gallon gas is not out of the realm of possibility soon; the only thing preventing it being a more rapid decrease in demand for oil in America, as people and organizations simply cannot afford to pay for it anymore.
The fuel conditions of late raises the issue of what else becomes noticeably costly in the months ahead? Well...everything.
Food is very costly now, among other reasons, because it is becoming much more expensive to transport by truck. You might notice some degradation of roads, particularly in rural, under-funded areas of the U.S., because tar will become too expensive to buy for the purpose of filling those pot-holes.
Flying becomes prohibitively expensive, as airlines slash flights and begin charging piecemeal for every little thing they do for passengers (like dropping those little bags of peanuts on sleeping people).
You know all the little plastic tubs and bins that people find so handy? I would go out and buy a bunch more of them now, because their price will be sky-rocketing.
Amidst the grind of having to spend so much money on gasoline, oil's scarcity is already having some beneficial effects.
Americans are turning to public transportation much more so than in the past, even though we can concede that this mode of travel is in woeful condition, or non-existent, in many parts of the country. We here in the U.S. are a car culture.
People are also buying smaller cars. The SUV era is thankfully over.
Life is tangibly becoming more localized, as folks (like me!!) are putting in vegetable gardens and hanging out in the neighborhood more.
Just driving around aimlessly is no longer considered a viable activity anymore, not that I was ever really into it (sorry, Kerouac).
Finally, another obvious beneficial effect is the continued boost in research, investment, and adoption of renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
It must be admitted however, that renewables can never adequately compensate for our unquenchable daily thirst for millions of barrels of oil.
05-07-2008
Food. Nothing is more essential for survival, except for water, and perhaps oil, where a lot of our food comes from. What's that?
Petroleum is needed to transport food all over the country and the world, as most modern industrial societies do not generate enough food locally to properly feed a population. Petroleum products are also used as a feedstock for much of the fertilizers that are used for the mass production of essential crops such as wheat, rice, soy, barley, and corn.
The vast majority of the machinery used to farm food, all the trucks, tractors, conveyors, and the like, use oil for a lubricant and/or fuel.
When oil becomes prohibitively expensive or scarce, so does food, which makes what is happening now in the oil markets set off a major alarm bell (or it *should* set off an alarm).
Oil has exceeded $120 per barrel lately, and is expected to spike to $200 per barrel some time in the coming months.
Gas averages around $3.60 per gallon in the U.S. and diesel more than $4.20 per gallon. Diesel costs have increased in the U.S. about 50 percent in one year. Truckers in early April 2008 staged random silent highway protests about the high fuel prices.
A typical tractor-trailer rig gets five to six miles per gallon of diesel, meaning at current prices, they pay one dollar per mile of travel.
So a driver transporting fruit from Florida to New England pays about $1,000 for fuel one way.
They cannot make a sustainable living with these costs, so expect some level of crisis involving the transportation of food and other essential goods (like medicine), in the near future, as gas, the price of which has not yet reflected the current increases in the oil price, heads inexorably to seven dollars per gallon in the U.S.
By the way, the Europeans have coped with the equivalent of seven dollars per gallon petroleum for years now. These conditions have led to smaller cars and world-class train systems.
Don't you think the U.S. should begin moving in this direction, as fast as possible?