Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >I personally think all the energy usage needs to be curtailed back 
> significantly at all levels. 

I hadn't read much on this list in a few weeks so when I went to read this 
thread, I read all the posts at one sitting.  Quite a novella!

Several things were touched on cocerning energy and I thought I'd throw in 
my 2 KW worth in the pot.

As per above, lower energy use in in our future no matter what we do.  The 
world's primary source of industrial energy is oil and crude oil production 
peaked in 2005.  Yes, I know you can find tables and charts from IEA and 
other organizations that show that world oil production has edged up since 
then, but that increase is fakery.  It comes from the likes of  counting the 
petroleum products used to mine and distill tar sands as part of the 
production 
and the resulting products of the tar sands themselves as still more 
production.  It counts the oil used in growing soybeans and processing and 
refining the oil as part of the total prodution and also the resulting soy 
oil fuel 
as part of it as well.

Because of the recession world oil consumption quit rising (or vice versa), 
we are in a sort of energy hiatus right now.  But since world oil 
production cannot rise significantly, it is the 800 lb gorilla that sits on 
any 
retrun to the sort of economy we experienced over the last decade.  Just as 
soon 
as major industrial activity starts again, the cost of energy will rise 
again thowing the economy back into recession.

Business as usual isn't going to cut it.

Over the past few years in other fora (not so much here) people will bring 
up the phenomenon of Brazil saying that they are running their cars as 
busses entirely from ethanol and why couldn't we do the same.  Of course they 
are 
not.  More than half their motorfuel is petroleum and only one family in 27 
in Brazil owns a car.  If we went to having only one family in 27 owning a 
car (just one car) and driving the short distances that are the norm 
elsewhere, we would be oil independent with no ethanol needed at all.

Likewise France is pointed out, they get all of their electricity from 
nuclear, right?  No, it's about 77%.  Their per capita electric use is about 
half of ours.  But more significantly is the fact that France's nuclear 
program 
came about in the 50's because of large amounts of domestic uranium to be 
had.  That uranium peaked in the 70's and now France imports nearly all the 
uranium it uses for electric power generation.  If everyone in the world 
generated 77% of their electricity from nuclear power, the world's reserves 
of 
unanium would be depleted in a few decades and would become prohibitively 
expensive long before that.

As an aside to the above, when you hear of the (as yet undeveloped) breeder 
reactror technology where the reactor is supposed to produce more fuel than 
it consumes ... this is true and probably feasible.  What is not generally 
understood is that that it is a one time thing.  The original enriched fuel 
used for generation can produce about eight times as much fissionable 
material.  But that material does not produce more fuel.  Unless this system 
is 
fed with mined and refined uranium, it too eventuall runs out of fuel.

The world is headed for a lifestyle of less energy use whether we like it 
or not and whether we do anything about it or not.

James