planning contraction

PLANNING CONTRACTION

I haven’t read it, but here is what should be a nice little paper on Energy Return On Energy Invested.

http://www.postcarbon.org/new-site-files/Reports/Searching_for_a_Miracle_web10nov09.pdf

In other words, if the energy required to pump up a barrel of oil thousands of feet under water is the same energy as that barrel contains, you get no energy return. Or, no net energy. It ain’t friggin rocket science. If you eat a thousand calories a day and burn two thousand, you have a negative energy return. Your body burns the reserves of fat and eventually muscle and you end up looking like some Karen Carpenter groupie. People get all excited about frac gas or coal or bio-diesel or whatever, but if they aren’t taken net energy in account they are whistling Dixie. And net energy return isn’t just about the energy in the fuel compared to the energy used to capture that fuel. There are three costs in extraction. The cost to pump the fuel, the cost making the tools that pump the fuel, and the infrastructure built to do the other two. The accepted figure seems to be that any fuel that doesn’t yield three times its cost can’t pay all three. In other words, a net yield on ethanol of one and a half isn’t yielding half again its energy cost, it is actually only yielding half what went into it. I think the only reason that ethanol is able to function is that we are using already produced machinery and infrastructure from the past. If ethanol was introduced a hundred years ago as our transportation fuel it never would have flew ( sugar ethanol is much better than corn ethanol ).
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The Arch Druid Dudes report this week was pretty good, involving shrinking our needs to cope with the continuing contraction.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

Planning contraction isn’t all that difficult. It can be a fun activity embraced by the whole family ( okay, perhaps not, but the parasitical bastards can suck it up ). Instead of thinking of living on far less energy as a way of life being akin to living like me, a cold tin box with little lighting and no garden, peddling to a crappy job no matter the weather ( in my case I leapt pretty far down the energy use ladder all at once, you can go slower ), think of a gradual contraction. Remember, collapse planning is an immediate concern. The bolt gun and wheat and wool. It is cheap and easy, and there JUST IN CASE. But in the case of slower collapse, you need to have an additional plan of slowly using less energy. It isn’t any different than paying money up front to save money in the future. You raise kids, and in a best case scenario they support you when you are old and decrepit. You buy a college education hoping a career nets you more than the investment ( I’m not saying that usually works anymore-remember, in a diminishing energy economy, even worthy and needed careers are dead ends-but rather using it as illustration ). You pay for a home in your productive years and thus need less money to retire on ( again, this is illustrative, not taking into account the legions of stupid humping jerk bag morons who paid way too much for housing ).
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Nothing is free, and everything requires an investment to yield a reward. Yes, using far less energy will be required. No, it isn’t any less of a lifestyle than your current one, as long as you plan, invest and do it now. If you wait you have no recourse come equipment or supply shortages. You don’t weather strip during an oil embargo, but before it. A passive solar home is no more uncomfortable, perhaps less so, than a conventional home using a central heating unit. It just requires investment. And the investment is not beyond any of our means. If I built a 10x10 plastered sandbag cabin with a southern and eastern window warming up an underneath insulated concrete slab I poured myself, my cost should be under two grand. Which didn’t even have to be all paid at once. My annual winter propane cost would make that an uncomfortable ten year payback ( if there was much of any cost savings at all over the long term ), but despite the higher cost, I would be much more comfortable in the cold and that would last me a lifetime and I would be unconcerned about the future cost of fuel. Living on less petroleum would make me more comfortable, not less, as long as I invested. The same with LED lighting. I paid twelve times the bulb cost and only used six times less the watts, but that will be amply paid back with less solar panels and longer life spans on my batteries. As long as I don’t get hit by a car ( the chance of which goes down with the increase of gasoline costs ) riding a bike seems like a lot of work and a lot of discomfort, but by forcing myself into better health I’ll experience a much better quality of life as I age. The medical cost savings, not to mention my productivity increase from health, plus my overall positive mental outlook, more than offset the costs.

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The same can be said of gardening. Land cost alone make this more expensive than store bought, but you are investing in health and future food security. I only disagree that it should be done with a mortgage, not that it shouldn’t be done at all ( the wheat store is for those of us not gardening, or for gardeners and the inevitable yield shortcomings ). All around, using less energy is a positive experience, not a painful one ( again, my experience was not only too fast but far too frugal. I’m slowly changing that, so don’t be discouraged ). In my quest to adapt to far less energy, I went almost totally primitive and am building up in comfort. You can stay as you are, just cutting the most silly extravagances such as too many cell phones, cars or eating out, and invest in a future of less energy slowly so that the discomfort level is almost zero. After all, as much as I spit and claw at lazy and weak, that is what we are forced to deal with. You might as well work with it instead of against it. Granted, taking your time might not work out come a fast collapse. You won’t be ready. But the alternative right now for most folks is to do nothing, which is worse. You can start now, painlessly and very cheaply.
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