the mother of all "prepare for peak oil" essays

Ooo-la-la this is a very good one - it's a must read for all "Peakniks":

http://www.energybulletin.net/19929.html

The guy makes excellent points about what's viable and not viable if things get really bad. There are way too many excellent points to isolate, so let me just toss out a few - maybe not even the best:
- List of things that won't help: energy-related investments, a month's worth of canned goods, and switching to flourescent lights
- Stop reading books about peak oil - buy lots of survival type books and books about ending civilizations (esp. the highly regarded Tainter's book)
- Buy a big rural area with lots of foraging potential, a large woods, and ideally a swamp (although he doesn't get into why a swamp is desirable)
- Become a food storage expert

I especially like the comment at the end from the editor, something to the effect of, "be nice and community-oriented." Ha.

alternative energy drilling equipment

Does anyone know of an oil services company that leverages wind or solar as part of their drilling process? In other words, they have an electrical drill & other equipment that can be powered by wind or solar.

Why do I ask?

Some folks talk about "net energy" extracted from oil drilling and what-not. This is important because they reason, "if it takes a barrel's worth of energy to extract a barrel, then it no longer makes sense to extract the energy." If it takes that much energy to extract the hard-to-extract oil, it no longer makes sense to try to suck the oil out of the earth.

Well, this would be true if oil wasn't such an incredible "battery," in that it can store energy basically forever. A regular battery can't even come close to doing this - the electricity will dissipate over time, and the battery will fail - all within a few years. Contrast this to oil being created and "stored" for literally millions of years.

That means it makes sense to use fleeting energy (e.g. solar or wind) to extract permanent energy (ie. oil or gas), even when it takes more than a barrel's worth of fleeting energy to extract a barrel's worth of permanent energy.

peak oil caused the Soviet collapse?

a precursor of things to come?

This commentator makes the observation that it wasn't Cold War policy, or inefficiencies of Communism, or any other crap like that. It's simply what happens on a "micro" scale when oil peaks:

http://www.energybulletin.net/19837.html

I always wondered how the USSR could have collapsed so quickly & completely, with so little warning. Now I can imagine it.

Salvage & homemade energy

Read an interesting article about a "salvage economy":

http://www.energybulletin.net/19630.html

He gives a couple of examples, such as taking all these "useless" old alternators, fixing them, and using them (along with some lead batteries & a piece of wood) into a wind generator capable of powering a refridgerator.

I'd like to learn more ideas like this. These are the tidbits that will help ensure that you can always have at least a little electricity if things get really bad.

If I find a book or something along these lines I'll let yall know.

crude oil ETF

Just learned of a new ETF that is based only on the price of crude itself - U.S. Oil Fund ETF (symbol "USO"). As someone noted a couple days ago, the problem with these oil companies is that they don't generally own the land itself - just ask Hugo Chavez.

And since most of us can't buy 100 gallons of crude oil, the ETF is the next best thing.

I'm getting rid of many of my oil stocks and getting into this.

Where is the mainstream media?

Something that has been bugging me - where in the hell is the mainstream media about all this? They may be the only ones who can realistically do anything to mitigate the calamities that are to come.

I'll tell you where those bastards are - right in GW's hip pocket. It's the only thing that makes sense: "You're right Mr. President, we can't upset the American public by letting our reporters talk about the end of cheap energy (or insert any other major crisis that's upon us)."

Want to prepare for the end of cheap energy? I say shut off your mainstream media and find your news elsewhere. As things progress, the mainstream media will only become more and more of a pawn to the government. There are lots of alternatives:
- Blogs
- Independent news sites
- News aggregators (e.g. www.newshub.com)
- Independent news papers, programs, and other sources

Conservation muscles

I just read an interesting blog post:

http://peakoildesign.blogspot.com/2006/08/designing-with-spoons-philosophy.html

He talks about a friend who used to eat everything with a spoon. Steak, bread & butter, didn't matter. Besides being mondo-strange, it's a great way exercise conservation. Literally - she was building her "conservation muscles."

This may be the most important way to prepare for peak oil. We'll have to do without lots and lots and LOTS. The best thing is to get ready for it mentally (and physically!)

The bad thing is that if you're a normal American like myself, it's realistically among the most improbable things you'll actually do. Think about it - for no immediate reason, you have to do without something you otherwise use up without thinking twice.

It's like dieting by consuming less of everything, not just food.

What is Geothermal heating?

This is a great post if you'd like to understand geothermal heating a little better - lot's of good (and bad) comments as well...

http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/08/the_case_for_ge.html

great ideas for wind power

Site that sells wind generators et al: http://www.hydrogenappliances.com/Hornet.html#anchor425204

Couple tips it has:
1. If you're in a higher wind area, why not buy a bunch of smaller turbines instead of one big one? It would be cheaper, more power, and not violate zoning height restrictions, to name a few.
2. A FORKLIFT BATTERY! Of course - one of the biggest hassles of going with wind is the battery. You have to take super good care of them, they're not high enough capacity, the go out after a few years, etc. But you can use a forklift battery! It's super powerful, durable, high capacity, etc. You can get a used one and it should work 20 years. I assume it would work just as well for solar as it would for wind (pls correct if I'm wrong).

Glad I came across this one.

Systems engineering approach to Peak Oil

Here's a very interesting blog that's starting up. It's all about planning for peak oil from a systems engineering perspective.

http://peakoildesign.blogspot.com/2006/08/designing-future.html

I'm going to keep an eye on it and may put it on my permanent list of links.

401k's - What the hell?

My wife & I both work for big, bureaucratic, "safe" companies who look after us by giving us all these WONDERFUL choices for our 401k's.

What a bunch of horse *%$)#&*!

These bastards give us basically no choice regarding where we put our investments. I look at my wife's choices, and here they are summarized:
- Company stock
- A few permutations of domestic stocks (but no choice of industry sectors)
- Domestic bonds (none that are protected against inflation)
- A mix thereof
- One stinking international stock fund (which happens to also be one of my 15 choices)

That's it. Why is this important? Because when peak oil hits, all of the above are going straight into the toilet, leaving what's generally one's largest net-value investment all but worthless.

What's their problem? My guess is that the people who make these decisions get indirectly paid by these funds to include them in their vast portfolio (of a whopping 13 different choices). Politicians know about it but get paid by the mutual fund companys' lobbyists, and figure the public is too stupid to realize it, so they say, "screw it - I'll take the money (from the lobbyists) and run."

This is our futures they're messing with! It's terrible. Why in the HELL can't we have more choices - or better yet, a self-directed 401k? It's because the employers and politicians don't give a *!#$#%&! about you or I. They'll make up some lie about why it's not feasible, but in reality they just don't give a damn about us.

I'm writing a congressman about this, although I doubt I'll find one that's worth a crap. We should all insist on being allowed to roll over our 401ks into personal IRAs without having to quit our jobs. It's absurd.

In terms of preparing for peak oil, let's say you have a sizable 401k with a very limited selection - what should you do? Here are my thoughts:
- Consider leaving your company to allow you to roll it over into an IRA so it can be self-directed. Perhaps you can arrange to get re-hired at the same level you are at. This may seem like a big risk, but actually the big risk is keeping it in the crappy domestic stocks they force you in.
- Ask your HR to do a special rollover just for you. I doubt it'll work, but if it does let me know.

Once you've rolled it over:
- Consider avoiding investments in:
regular domestic stocks
regular domestic bonds
cash or money market accounts
foreign investments that are extremely dependent upon the dollar
- Consider moving into investments such as:
energy companies, both oil/gas et al and alternative energy
oil service & equipment companies
unhedged foreign bond funds that aren't as dependent upon the dollar
TIPS mutual funds (inflation protected bonds)
gold, precious metals, natural resources

Fantastic mutual funds to consider - ProFunds

Here are a few very interesting mutual funds to look at that heavily leverage derivatives and what not, all from ProFunds:

FDPIX - this one is relatively new (maybe 18 months), but I just learned of it. It's called the "Falling US Dollar" fund. It shorts USDX, the US Dollar index - morningstar qualifies this as a "world bond" fund. I'm jumping on this one hard - the dollar has only one way to go relative to the rest of the worlds' currencies.

OEPIX - this is a brand new one (perhaps 2 months) I just jumped on, and will likely continue to jump on. It's like ENPIX, but is 150% of the Dow Jones US Oil Equipment, Services, & Distribution Index. It's very heavy into Schlumberger (which is good) as well as Haliburton (which makes me cringe), but I figure it's a cheap & easy way to get leverage. I need to find one just like this but for international companies.

ENPIX - I've told a couple people about this one. It's an index fund, matching 150% of the Dow Jones US Oil & Gas index. Pretty high price right now - if it gets below $35 I'd say go for it, but you can't go wrong even at $40 - oil is only going up as we know.

SRPIX - If you are heavily leveraged by your home & are worried about the real estate bubble bursting, this one's for you. Or if you would like to speculate about it popping, here's a way to do it without becoming a trader - It's short against the DJ US Real Estate Index.

PMPIX - 150% of DJ Precious metals index. (as per a previous post, you might also think about GLD - a fund that buys gold bullion and only gold bullion).

I recommend checking out ProFunds offerings - http://www.profunds.com/. I think it's a great mutual fund company, looking out for investors with unusual offerings like short funds (for example, you can short the S&P 500, or even effectively short ENPIX if you're crazy enough to think oil is going down).