Eastern Oregon Apollo
by Thomas HojemJanuary 30th, 2006 at 21:32:53
Last week as I sat reading in my room, one of my roommates sat upstairs having a sort of epiphany. He thumped down the stairs and threw open my door without knocking. I thought something horrible had happened because of the fury with which he came into my room and because of the traces of panic I saw on his face. I braced myself for some horrible news as he opened his mouth . . .
“Dude, what is going to happen when we run out of oil?”
“No one really knows, man.” I denied him reassurance.
“You know what the worst part of it is?”
“Yeah,” I said, “agriculture.”
“How’d you know?”
I knew because I had the same sort of epiphany a couple of months ago. I think many of us have. Those of us with brains tend to think, and thinking can sometimes take you to scary places. My roommate and I sat for a little bit, rapping about the complexities of the energy crisis that will happen upon our species in the coming decades, most of which we were ill equipped to fully understand. But we did know it was scary.
Both of us come from the same farming community east of the Cascades. He has driven tractors, wheat trucks, and combines for the last five or so summers in the farms around our town. So he is especially equipped to understand the immensity of moving a combine the size of small house without diesel. Don’t worry about being unable to transport, market and sell food without oil; it couldn’t even be farmed.
It is with much relief that I laud the Apollo Alliance, if for no other reason than I can sleep better at night knowing that at least somebody has got the renewable energy ball rolling. But it is with even greater relief and a good dose of excitement that I read about Oregon Apollo. It makes so much sense; rural Oregon gets more farming opportunities while green-tech businesses in the valley hire more workers. More farming and more fuel for farming. For eastern Oregon, it couldn’t be better.
Maybe I should scrap my plan to become a survivalist and just give a few bucks to Oregon Apollo instead.
February 4th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Dear Thomas Hojem
You have the right idea about fossil fuel shortage, but you are naive about the timing. It’s here NOW.
I refer you to Daily Reckoning, an Investment newsletter- That’s the kind who do not sell stocks; they earn their bread by their reliability in predicting trends and the future for their readers. These guys are good. ( two recent books on the NY Times best seller list ).
Anyway, find them and look for the edition entitled “E-Dayâ€, dated 11/04/05. You have little idea the magnitude of the problem or its consequences. They predict oil at $150/ barrel by July of THIS year!
You need not worry about agriculture problems, the stores will be empty and people won’t be able to get to them anyway. I hope you study Solar Energy, or any other alternate, renewable energy sources before you graduate
You will find another bit of the energy shortage story on our web page, http://www.ritchieunliimitedpublications.com. . I am a writer/publisher and fully half of our 40 + books deal with energy conservation.
No, I am not a “tree huggerâ€, but I have spent the last fifty years trying, by example, to encourage energy conservation. Then I write about how to do it from experience.
Don’t be so hard on the people of Western Oregon. Trees can make methanol and the trees may be our salvation. I have spent time on methane digesters, too.
As to the doped up group, attribute that to statistical population density. There will always be some bent on self destruction. We tolerate them much like you tolerate mosquitos at home. While we came back to the city, Springfield ( hardly a city), for our later years; we spent over 30 years in rural living, and we miss it.
Survival may become foremost and that’s the theme of more of my how-to books.
I was teaching engineering, at Cal Poly, during the Viet Nam War and I am fully aware of the effects of a conservative Republican group on campus. More of the mosquito thing.
What scares me more is the reemphasis on Nuclear Energy. I worked on the Manhattan Project at UC Berkeley after WWII and I know the hazards involved. There are too many unsolved problems that keep being postponed. I believe that we would be better off with an energy shortage than having it from Reactors. I just hope that Bush lives to be 100 so he will have to cope with his mistakes.
Sometimes I feel like Methuselah talking to babes, but you have your head on straight; all you need is time. I hope you have the time to learn.
March 2nd, 2006 at 10:35 pm
I agree with Ralph Ritchie and Thomas Hojem on the seriousness of this energy crisis. The average joe needs to wake up and take heed. I try to live simply and meagerly…recycling since 1980, turning off lights when leaving the room, consolidating errands. I grew up in the 50′s and 60′s. We didn’t have all the fancy readymade gadgets. My skateboard was literally an old board nailed onto my steel rollerskate. A washing machine lasted 25 years or more til needing any sort of repair. My $625 washer is defective in little over one year. We live in a throw away society. Disposable. Materialistic. And the U.S. is responsible for 25% of the greenhouse gases of the entire world.
Nuclear energy scares me too. I never could figure how any source of energy was worth the 24,000 year radioactive bi-product. And now I see on the telly President Bush in his visit to India agreeing to assist and aid in materials for their nuclear energy program. Another disappointment coming from this administration.