The End Of Suburbia
Last night I watched the documentary The End Of Suburbia. It's been in a Netflix queue for a long time, but its availability was always "Very Long Wait". I can understand why after seeing it; the film was quite thought provoking. It covers the emergence of the suburbs in North American society then discusses Peak Oil and how it will affect society.
Because so many people list in the suburbs, they are dependent upon cars (often gas-guzzling SUVs) to travel for work, shopping, leisure, etc. Moreover, most of what they consume (food from far away places such as California, Florida, etc.; cheap goods from China; etc.) is also transported long distances by transport trucks (as the North American rail system is not much to speak of). Consequently, when the supply of oil drops in the next few years, the economic upheaval will be massive due to the fact that our way of life requires an unsustainable of energy. Moreover, most homes are heated by natural gas and the electricity for those homes (air conditioners, etc.) often comes from burning natural gas. However, the production of natural gas will also undergo a collapse in supply at some point in the near future, exacerbating the pending energy crisis that has the potential to cause another Depression.
[For more information about Peak Oil, see my post nine months ago, Peak Oil? about an Australian TV documentary that's available free online for viewing].
4 comments:
Saw this last night. Many good points. Canada has only about 8 yrs of Nat Gas left. Amazingly, Canada is exporting almost all of their gas to the US. Canada is a country that has no energy strategy. Just sell it to whoever will buy it. They are in for a big shock. Millions of Canadians heat their homes with gas, and they are not going to be very happy when they find out that almost all of their gas was sold to the US, and is nearly exhausted. The US would never sell off such a resource to a foreign country.
This documentary seemed quite negative to me. Then, towards the end of the program, it became very political. There are a lot of left wing folks that think everyone should live in tightly packed cities, not own cars, and really not have much of anything in the material sense.
Several things were missed. The biggest one was the Alberta tar sands, with reserves of 174 billion barrels of oil. Another big one was the fact that the world has vast coal reserves, enough for several centuries - not mentioned at all. Hydrogen was slammed, but there was no mention of hybrid vehicles like the Prius, which gets 70 mpg.
$4 per gallon oil was discussed as if it would cause a crisis in the US. Well, Canadians pay well over $4 per gallon and they seem to be coping. Europeans pay a lot more.
The sky is not going to fall. We will adapt. There will be some pain, but it will likely come from the trillions of debt the US is racking up, the housing bubble bursting, or some terrorist attack - not from the price of oil.
Nice flickr photos. Like your blog.
Thanks for the good comments.
Have you seen Who Killed The Electric Car? It touched a bit on hybrid cars, Hydrogen, coal, etc.
I never saw "Who Killed The Electric Car?". I read a story about a sports car last year that used Li-Ion batteries (camcorder style). Very expensive but apparently it worked well. Still, electricity is very expensive in many places and it may be that it'll cost more to charge the batteries than what it would cost to run a gas/electric hybrid....
I don't know a lot about electric cars, but they definitely are something Detroit is not keen on, and either are governments. Much easier and cheaper to stick with the gas-guzzling internal combustion engine, and governments love that gasoline tax.
I drove a Camry Hybrid last year. Wow! It is rated at 50mpg (Cdn) in the city, but it is probably more like 40-45. Still, amazing for such a big car. The writing is on the wall. The Japanese (and possibly Europeans)are going to force the big three to embrace this technology. Can't happen soon enough for me.
Mimo to początkowy złożony proces repliki zegarków umożliwił stworzenie tego typu oprawy wyłącznie w kolorze czarnym. Następującymi przełomami były dodanie zielonych i niebieskich kolorów do listy opcji, a także utworzenie pierwszej dwustronnej wkładki (w kolorze czarnym i niebieskim), która była prezentowana na poprzednim ostrygowym wiecznym gmt master ii kawałku, który rolex replika widział światło Z ostatniego roku.
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