Regarding major shift in private transport... I am quite with you here...soutions are way way behind.. adn the investment needed willl take a decade at fast speed....so driving less and flying less is the only option I foresee now. Luckily, this would be enough since we are overusing roughly 15 million barrels per day on unnecessary driving.
Another question is how people would feel about having to drive less and about the oil-realted inflation in agricultural and imported products.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
It will be difficult on the transport front.. but not as much in the energy front.. amaor projects in electricity would probably be needed .b. utt hey are roughly on time adn with a delay of 5 years at the most.
Not in the UK, unfortunately. We have plenty of greenwashed PR spin, but not so much of the useful power-generating windmill spin.
The point isn't so much about where we are now, it's that there are no plans - none at all - for dealing with peak oil.
There will be contingencies for rioting and civil unrest, and probably some mouldy minimal food stocks somewhere. But Whitehall and Westminster have no clue how to deal with oil or gas shortages.
The last time this happened inflation exploded, and we were all on a three day week with rolling power cuts trying to survive by candlelight. I don't see any evidence of better organisation this time around.
It's going to take mega-schemes like the Saharan Sun project to make a difference, and that's not looking likely until around 2020 at the earliest.
I wonder if there will be a 'Not investing enough in your future energy needs' funds?!
The problem in SPain is the same as in other parts of the world regading no "forwad thinking" regarding peak-transport but I wanted to point out that not everyone is as fuc*** as UK and other coutnires in similar situations) which may have problem in the electric grid without shrot-term solutions :)
If it gets to the stage of 3-day weeks and rolling power cuts, then I would expect such bureaucratic/administrative luxuries will be ditched quicker than a very quick thing. Of course if our governing classes had been a bit more clueful then we'd have avoided all the costs and inefficiencies of doing a crash build at the same time as world+dog - but you can't have everything.
Regards Luke -- #include witty_sig.h
I start my PHD in nanophysics this July, working on nanocrystalline diamond, which could be a really efficient converter of solar heat to electricity. My project will be trying to adapt the material to use in Condensed Thermal Solar plants, with any luck we'll be producing it within five years at much greater efficiencies than the steam ones used now. If we don't get there, someone will. The technologies are coming and it's beginning to get serious funding so hopefully any new plants in the short term will just be stopgaps.
