Take Action against the
Oil and Gas Crisis
Production of oil and gas will dwindle
with each passing year. If counter actions are not taken, the lack of ability
to farm, manufacture essential goods, and transport people to work will
collapse the economy and create massive unemployment. This situation will get
worse with each passing year until starvation and chaos is the result.
Essential
countermeasures
* Think of the lives that the babies will
have without oil. Make sacrifices accordingly. It will be necessary to spend
trillions.
* Stop all immigration other than that by
intelligent, academic, strong, young, people. Land available per capita will be
a determining force in sustainability. We must not take care of other country's
birth rates.
* Forswear dependence on complicated
solutions such as fusion because they probably will not work. The lack of
strategic metals will probably cripple any exotic solution even if one is
found. Instead, concentrate on a simple formula of reducing per capita
consumption by 70% and producing 10% each from solar, wind, and biomass.
Conserve and recycle in all ways possible. Provide free fluorescent light
bulbs.
* Declare an emergency program where
people would double up in houses to save winter heat. This will save fuel and
transportation. Mandate full car pools. Get gas hog vehicles off the road
Construct emergency work programs in construction, salvage of houses to make
apartments, and biomass planting. Immediate
oil and gas rationing. Prioritized allocations.
Higher taxes on both oil and gas. Remember that energy
must be saved for farming, manufacturing, and food transportation. Little will
be left for personal use.
* Develop huge biomass planting programs
including crops and forests. Cultivate plants, which bear fruits or nuts and
make lumber and fuel. Plant on river and creek banks to
control erosion. Save precious energy by stopping forest fires. Cut
large firebreaks and use for pasture. Clear out brush with work gangs and use
all biomass for fuel. Consider fertilizing with ashes and sewage. Find ways of
germinating seeds, which require fire to propagate. Form a Civilian
Conservation Corps, use prison, volunteer, and student labor. Outlaw fireplaces
and wood stoves. They pollute, are inefficient, and will destroy forests. Well
designed gasifier power plants in large buildings use
wood better in every way.
* Build solar heating and power systems.
Reduce cost of focussed mirrors because they may make
solar cells, solar boilers, solar heating, and solar manufacturing cheaper than
otherwise. The cost of mirrors may be a crucial sustainability question.
* Deploy many wind farms. Use local
electricity to manufacture portable essentials. Experiment not only with
electric mills but also with mills that pump water, refrigerants, etc. Try to
lower capital costs.
* Stop building houses. Build only
apartments of at least 8 units in clusters. Combine various activities such as
apartments, manufacturing, general store, postoffice,
etc. into general purpose buildings. Larger buildings cost less to heat, save
land, and reduce transportation. Such complexes can also be heated with group
heating systems. Divide cities into wards of about 1square mile each. Try to
establish all needs within that area so that personal transportation can be by
walking, cycling, or horses. The horse can be used for plowing.
* In education stress mathematics,
engineering, botany, horticulture, and agriculture. Schools must research and
manufacture as well as educate. Schools should be a major factor in mass
planting programs.
* Put a major effort into small
manufacturing industries, which can be done in winter in large buildings.
Examples are grain to ethanol, wood to methanol, small foundry, food canning,
and forge work. Such cottage manufacturing will heat buildings.
* Flexible jobs will help workers to
manufacture in winter using biomass for fuel and work in agriculture in summer.
All people must be occupied in agriculture to some extent.
* Put stress on manufacturing essential
products in areas of excess energy. For example build nitrogen fertilizer
plants or liquid fuel plants either in the desert using solar energy or in the
wind belts using wind energy.
* Modernize the rail network. Make engines
that run on wood, coal, or wood derived methanol. Investigate methanol or
hydrogen fuel cell trains. Trains will be needed for moving food, coal, and
other essentials. Build highway trains. Stop flying airplanes.
* Develop and manufacture small scale
cogeneration, cottage manufacturing, heat pumps, total energy systems, fuel
cells, solar cells, solar heat, free piston engines, dual engines for trucks
and buses, focussed solar mirrors applied to
manufacturing, electricity generation, space heating, and sewage processing.
* Experiment and develop building
construction techniques using tamped earth, straw bales, underground
construction, or anything similar. Incorporate solar power and heating into
construction. Build no building smaller than 64' x 64', 2 stories, and full
basement.
* Partially return to draft animals for
small farming. Meat animals must get their food by grazing. Use animals for mowing.
Cities must grow food and fuel on city streets and parks. Every roadside must
be planted to the maximum with fruit trees. It will be essential to feed cities
as much as possible from the near countryside. This will, save transportation
energy.
* Develop social groups called clans.
Clans will eliminate social workers, help people, and ensure that everyone
works. Clans will in general be composed of people within a building or living
cluster. They would operate businesses, store food, plow gardens, and behave
like corporations.
* Make sure that all convicts work
usefully. Develop programs such as tree planting and plant nurseries, which
conflict as little as possible with other industries. Make prisons into
communities, which experiment with social relationships and conservation.
* Produce both by government funding and
free enterprise. There are many essential endeavors that government will have
to jump-start.
* By
Kermit Schlansker PE, Kssustain@provide.net Web page at http://www.provide.net/~kssustain