Peak Oil (1)

I assume that I will be writing about peak oil more than once, and hence number the title. Peak Oil (1).

This is a topic of interest and concern to me, and is, really, in a relationship with climate change. The two sisters that will change the world.

We went down to the Cactus Festival a week ago, and had a great time riding on a very peculiar twirling boot ride and eating cotton candy. I also met and talked to a small group of people who are trying to organize Dundas as a transition town. I, of course, was standing there with a ridiculous plastic battery operated bubble making gun (wondering how my kids had suckered me into that one). Regardless, it was nice to make contact, I was glad they were there. I have regularly checked their website and it has not be updated recently.

The idea behind a transition town is that, when the effects of peak oil begin to be felt, we are going to have to live more simply and sustainably. Gardening, permaculture, chickens in the backyard. Bartering.

What is peak oil? Good question! Why don't we hear about this more?

Very simply, the concept of peak oil is "the point in time when global oil production has reached a maximum. From here on, production rates will decline and our modern economy which was based on cheap and abundant fossil fuel will have to switch to renewable sources of energy." (quoted from Dundas in Transition brochure)

Essentially, it becomes more and more difficult and expensive to get oil out of the ground (e.g. tar sands, deep sea drilling), the cost of oil and gas will become extremely high and have a serious affect on the cost of goods, the economy, etc.

Lettuce driven to Ontario in trucks will be financially prohibitive. Heating homes and driving cars extremely expensive.

So I find it a worrying topic, as I look around my life and see how dependent I personally am on oil and gas, and I realize that oil is finite and becoming more difficult to get.

Nuclear power plant in the tar sands, anyone? yay.