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Suburbia will die off, Suburbia is the most oil intensive part of the US. In most of Suburbia you can not go ANYWHERE except by car, and cars run by oil.
Not lets look at some of his other “errors”, First Peak oil will not dry up oil, oil will be pumped for another 150 years. During that time period it will become more and more expensive and people will have to adjust to it higher expense (i.e. by quit using it or using it more efficiently). This is turn will reduce demand. This will happen over and over again during the decline of oil. For example in 1997 Oil Prices approached $2.00 a gallon. At $2.00 a gallon gasoline became to expensive for poor people in the far east to buy. The Far East demand for oil dropped and so did the price, it fact the demand drop was so severe that in the US price dropped in some states below 90cents a gallon.
Such price moves will become quite common after Peak. For example, a Person in the US earing Minimum Wage ($5.15 per hour) earns just over $10,000 a year ($5.15x40hoursx52weeks = $10,712). If he lives in Public Housing he has to spend 30% of his income for rent and Utilities. That is about $3,000 per year (or $250 per month). He has to pay Social Security Taxes (7%), local taxes (about 2%) and state income Taxes (Another 1% based on his low income) that is another $1000 out of his pocket. He has to eat, assuming $2 a meal (and that is CHEAP), 3 meals a day, 365 days a year equals $2190. (We are assuming he lives alone, has no children and pays no child support). IF we total these figures $3000 for housing, $1000 for Taxes, $2190 for food that totals $6190 out of his $10,000. That leaves $3810 for all other expenses including an automobile so he can drive to work.
If we assume a car that gets 20mpg and he drives the insurance average of 15000 miles per year, that means he needs 750 gallon of Gasoline each year to go to work. If we assume $810 for insurance and upkeep of the Vehicle he has $3000 left over to buy his gasoline. He can do it at a dollar a gallon (that is only $750 per year), he can do it at $2.00 a gallon (that is $1500 a year) he might be even able to do it at $3.00 a gallon (that is $2250 per year) but at $4.00 a gallon he does not have the money to buy the gas to get to work.
What does out Minimum wage worker do than? While he can’t buy gas so he is fired from his job. Once he is fired he no longer needs to drive so he does not need his 750 gallons, thus his demand for gasoline drops. As more and more people fall into his situation (i.e. no longer able to buy gasoline) the demand for gasoline will drop (along with its price). As the price drops some people will be again able to buy gasoline, but many of the people who could not while gasoline was high would have lost their cars do to lack of work and with those cars their demand for gasoline.
In many ways what I outlined above happened in the Far East in the late 1990s. The Far East could not longer afford gasoline causing a demand to drop, leading to a drop in price. As the Price Dropped, many people who had used gasoline earlier would not use gasoline again. Either through adopting of a gasoline less lifestyle or some other accommodation to the loss of gasoline.
The same thing will happen in the US once the price of Gasoline goes up. People will adjust to a gasoline less lifestyle as much as possible thus leading to long periods of low(er) prices as people live that style. If the Government was smart it would than tax the Gasoline back up to its peak price to encourage such lifestyle (and use the revenue to transform society to such life styles) but I do not see our Government doing that until the price had gone up and down 4-5 times and people start to demand some sort of stable price (people will pay a premium for price stability, how else do you think Standard Oil was able to become the Monopoly is was in the 1800s).
As you can we I think the first stop will be again at about $2.00 a gallon (provided Bush does not so de-stabilized the Dollar so that it is no longer used to buy oil, but that is a different, but interrelated problem) i.e. when the Far East again drops out (But I do not see this to be much a a stop given the lack of increase demand in the Far East since 1997). The next stop will be $4-5 a gallon i.e. when poor Americans can no longer afford to buy Gasoline. How can Walmart keep its employees if the employees can no longer get to work?
The answer to the question LONG TERM, is Walmart can not unless it either moves its workers closer to its stores, or move the stores closer to its workers. Ether way it is the death of the Suburbs. Either the Suburban shopping area becomes the equivalent of the old Down Towns (With Apartments for the Working being built in OVER the existing parking lots) or Walmart will abandoned them and head for areas closer to their workers. I.e. the old inner city.
People will have to do the same. Distant Suburbs will be the first to go. The Further you are from your work the longer the commute, this commute will become to long given that Bicycling the only variable short term alternative to the Automobiles. Sooner or later it will come down to can one bike to and from work from your home? If no, the home or work will have to be abandoned. Even today in most inner cities most things are within one hour bike ride. Most people do not bike because of the heavy car traffic, but Gasoline at $5 a gallon, biking will come back. The older Suburbs will go one of two ways, if close (and easy bike ride to) a city center, they will survive, if to far the suburb will be abandoned. One hour seems about the limit. Please note what I mean by City Center is something like the old Down-towns, AND what many Malls will become after they start to build housing for their workers. I see the Malls building the Apartments before Walmart type stores, and doing a better job of becoming a “Urban Center”. It is these “Urban Centers” where I see most people living during the decline of oil (and the post-oil era as while). The Urban Centers will be areas where people can get together and interact with the smallest amount of energy usage. I see LRVs and Trains connecting the Urban Centers together, but it will be the Urban Centers where people will come tegether and make exchanges.
As to Farming, people today do not remember the high food prices of the early 1970s. It was these high prices that killed the “Green stamps” and other programs, people wanted lowest possible prices. Many people had gardens during that time period, even in the cities. Such Gardens will come back as the price of Food goes up.
Those Suburbs to far from the new “Inner Cities” will return to farmland, maybe even farmlands visited by its owner once or twice a week (i.e. two hour bike ride to check the crop on one’s days off your regular job). Many of these crops will be sold locally. Today’s Large Farms will just break up. The main source of increase productivity has not only been the addition of oil and natural gas derivatives, but the removal of labor (Both animal and human). With oil and Natural gas gone the only real alternative is horse and plow and that is limited to very small farms. Thus the large farms will revert to the size farms they were around 1900. But this will take time, for Farming is the closest thing to pure capitalism that exists (i.e. every year, every change in the price of oil will determine if a farm is profitable or not. Once it is no longer profitable it will be broken up to farmers with horses who will barely survive on them till prices stabilizes at the end of all oil.
Another factor is that there are hillsides today used as pasture simple because to use a tractor on them would topple the tractor. In the 1800s these areas were farms by Horse and plow and if the price of food gets to high can be again.
A Third Factor is the increase use of Bio-mass as a fuel. Bio-mass will become the fuel of the future, it may costs $10-20-50 a gallon, but some people will have to use it for nothing else will be able to operate a car engine, and for certain things such engines will still be in demand. To fuel these engines (For things like ambulances and emergency generators etc) the only viable fuel is bio-mass. I can see a farmer hauling his load of bio-mass fuel (Distilled on his property from his crop) to the local Inner City so that the Ambulances could run (and the Military could still operate some ships).
I could go on, but My point here was two, First, that we do have time to change to a post-oil society, about 150 years, it is the change that will be rough but we do have time.
Second, a post-oil Society will NOT be the same as a Pre-oil Society. For example we will still have the roads made during the age of oil, Bicycles can best exploit those roads. Computers use electricity, but are more efficient today than ever. It may be more energy efficient to store all of our information on Computers than books (with books, weight being a huge energy costs to produce, and transport compared to computer’s weight storing the same level of information). Thus my point, we are going into a post-oil age, not some sort of permanent dark age. Life will change (may even change to the better), they may be less people in 150 years than now but the drop will not be do to some massive famine do to lack of oil (But more likely drop down as people do not have children during rough times and than die of old age without heirs).
The next 150 years will be interesting, but not some huge Dark Age, unless you want it to be.
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