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Walked down the High Street in Banbury this afternoon and everything seemed to be going down the toilet...

Err, let's start again:
Walked down the High Street in Banbury this afternoon and everything seemed to be going down the "TO LET" (I wish they could spell sign right!). Thinking about the words of the chief scientist on the Today programme this morning ("'Perfect storm' poses global threat" -- see video at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7952348.stm and article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7951838.stm) this seems to be fairly certain if even government advisor's are jumping on the wagon.

I've been thinking about energy and economics around the peak fossil fuels issue since I really got into this in 2000/2001, and it occurred to me...
yeah!

Does anyone else get this?

Is a bit early to tell? Last year it looked like TEOTWAWKI with $150 oil, but it didn't last. Now we may have a good old fashioned recession, with a few extras added due to the effects of globalisation, and a certain G Brown being proved wrong about putting an end to boom and bust. Maybe we'll get over it, and BAU will resume for a while. Or maybe not.

What I find uncomfortable is the instability. There is no way to make any sort of plans, even fairly short term ones, at the moment, and it seems like anything could happen next.

It feels like PO itself might. We won't know if it's happened until some time after the event.

mobbsey wrote: <<snip>>
Does anyone else get this?

Yea. We are witnessing a global debt-and-interest-based system losing the ability to grow.

Quite nasty since we depend on infinite exponential growth to keep the system running, and without the system we will starve.

This stupid thing don't have any fallbacks, escape mechanisms or redundancy or anything to save us.

The financial system is going down the pan, some people in the third world will die because of it.

We can make our lives more comfortable in the future by preparing today. We're lucky, I hope we don't waste this chance.

JohnB wrote:Is a bit early to tell? Last year it looked like TEOTWAWKI with $150 oil, but it didn't last. Now we may have a good old fashioned recession, with a few extras added due to the effects of globalisation, and a certain G Brown being proved wrong about putting an end to boom and bust. Maybe we'll get over it, and BAU will resume for a while. Or maybe not.

What I find uncomfortable is the instability. There is no way to make any sort of plans, even fairly short term ones, at the moment, and it seems like anything could happen next.

It feels like PO itself might. We won't know if it's happened until some time after the event.

It has already happened. Sure, it seems like almost anything can happen next...but some things most certainly are NOT going to happen. Demand for oil is not going to go up for a few years. The price of oil will remain relatively low and there will be a lack of investment in expensive new oil infrastructure projects. There can be no return to BAU because any attempt to do so will result in the price of oil shooting back up to last year's levels at a lower production level than then. Peak oil has already happened because peak demand has already happened.

Hello All,
This my first visit to the forum.
I have been following peak oil developments since 2006.

I have been asking and looking for information of the likely effects on
telecommunications of peak oil.
I do know some technicians that work for telecoms and their only
comment is that spare parts might be a bit difficult as many are imported.
However that could be overcome by holding larger stocks.

Assuming power supplies remain ok and there could be priority for
telecoms anyway.
One factor could be fuel for technicians to get to remote sites.
I suspect that the reliability may fall away and it could mean loss of
the internet if trans ocean cables fail.

Has anyone seen a report along those lines ?

Yea. We are witnessing a global debt-and-interest-based system losing the ability to grow.

M4 says otherwise, its still rocketing ahead.

Quite nasty since we depend on infinite exponential growth to keep the system running, and without the system we will starve.

Well, the last time the system failed to grow was 92, I didnt starve.


Over the last, almost two decades, we spent a lot of capital badly, it has been lost, and its owners are now demanding it back.
The Government (various ones) in a fit of madness many years ago promised to return it if it was ever lost, but lack anything near the resources required to return it.
They can dilute capital, and share it out, but that will just piss everyone off.

DominicJ wrote:

Yea. We are witnessing a global debt-and-interest-based system losing the ability to grow.

M4 says otherwise, its still rocketing ahead.

Looking at the US I came across an estimate that there is $30T of debt > then the vaule of the underlying assets , to correct this would bring debt to GDP down to 150% as a whole. It would seem that any upward move in cash will not match the real mark to market decline in asset values.

DominicJ wrote: <<snip>>
Well, the last time the system failed to grow was 92, I didnt starve.

Young people today are so impatient - please give it some time!

Hello Baz and welcome to the forum. There are a few other people from Oz on here who'll know the situation better than I do but I wonder, how many of the remote stations you mention, are solar-powered? Does it come with the territory, or do guys have to drive out there with batteries/diesel?

In the UK I think now all the little Met office weather-monitors have gone solar.

However I've not seen a report about the effect of PO on telecomms specifically.

DominicJ wrote: M4 says otherwise, its still rocketing ahead.

Rocketing? Might be growing but it isn't doing much good stuffed in socks under the bed or in the accounts of banks which aren't lending. It's not moving -that's the problem.

Hello Renewable Candy,
Tks for the reply.
No they are all solar powered but someone does have to visit them from time to time.
Major sites have diesel gen sets as well which can be started
remotely if needed.

It would only need one key item to not be available and that would be
the end of telephone calls and the internet.
The mobile phone system is largely in the same boat.
I think many work arounds would be possible, but there comes a limit
to how far you can go with that.

I suspect that telecommunications as we know it now could disappear
fairly early in the energy descent time.
That is why I have been looking for any reports on this angle of peak oil.
Anyway thanks for the reply.

Hi Bazz - g'day blue.

Nice to see another Aussie on here. Interesting to see how vunerable you think the telecoms infrastructure is. I must admit I always thought it was quite "safe".

Can you elaborate a little more? It would be a big blow on a personal level if we lost both the ability to call people and the internet! But on a business level it would create havoc - and that's from somebody who supplies computer systems to business'.

Hello Snow Hope,
Well I think there are several areas where the telecom
system could fall over. As I mentioned import of spares is the first that
comes to mind. If the airlines go broke, and many consider them to be
the canary in the mine, the delay in getting spares in from the original
manufactures could be considerable.

The manufacture of the electronic components may also be a problem.
Many parts use plastics of various types.
Will the plants manufacturing them be operational ?

If an international under sea cable fails/breaks will the cable ship be available ?

If the landline exchanges fell over for one reason or another, the mobile
phone system would also immeadiatly fail because it is only configured
for peak period traffic. It always fails when a natural emergency ocurrs
because of overload.

From what I was saying above you can see that everything is dependant
on a chain of parts and equipment all working and one part failing can
bring down whole areas of the system.
It is a bit like a single PC, if one IC in the pc dies the whole m/c dies.
As far as I can find out no one has done a systematic study of the
whole telecommunications system.

cheers Bazz

Ever since I read this thread I'm spotting "To Let" signs absolutely everwhere - cycled in to work this morning and there were 6 To Let signs and 4 For Sale signs on offices on the same road as where I work - it's only a short road where there are mainly solicitors, accountants, chartered surveyors etc.