Energy Security

[Surferbeetle]

My focus is more at the other end... how can people plan for and best administer a fuel shortage.
The following may be of interest as the same principle (of solidarity in burden-sharing) is a cornerstone of international response to an oil supply shortage.

Rick,

Thanks for the links and conversation. My interest in energy security was certainly energized by a tour in Iraq (sorry, couldn't resist ).

At a marco level mapping is a powerful tool to use in gaining a better of understanding the of condition, needs, and capabilities of centralized energy infrastructure. My dirty boots experience in Iraq (03-04) was counterintuitive when compared to the typical emergency response that we would mount in the west.

Decentralization was the name of the game for energy requirements in Iraq. There are of course added costs and inefficiencies for an economy as a result of decentralization, however as an Iraqi if you wanted to have water, electricity, and fuel you could not count upon the Government to deliver it.

Blackmarket activities were prevalent, gas stations were dangerous places, and 'normal' economic activities were thoroughly disrupted. If one had money one would purchase a cheap generator (often Chinese brands - Caterpillar was big money and usually only seen in government applications) and sell electricity to nearby neighbors. Some of the families I visited would head out to the nearest watermain, dig a hole in the street, shoot a hole in the pipe (cross-contamination was prevalent due to open channel conditions), run a rubber hose back to a small pump attached to a large aluminum box in the courtyard and wait for the watermain to be filled (every 7 days or so where I was at). Others would contract with a water truck entrepreneur for deliveries. Cooking was done by propane canisters delivered by huge trucks at centralized locations.

Early in my tour (generators were not yet prevalent) I visited with some farmers near the Euphrates. They had dug rectangular pits/wells down to the water table and had mudbrick wellhouses nearby for irrigation. The centralized electricity was out and we brainstormed solutions...I shared a trick I have seen which involves pulling a tire off a car rim, while the car is on blocks, and running a band between rim and pump to power the pump (run the car while its on the blocks)...

Farm applications...hmmm. Popular Mechanics has had a few articles on 'closed loop' farm systems. It's not pretty but it's definitely the type of 'get ur done' that might get one through tough times.Cows to Kilowatts: U.S. Farms Save Big Turning Manure to Energy

Holstein No. 2699 gazes warily over Shawn Saylor’s shoulder. The 39 other cows lining the stainless-steel stalls of the milking parlor at Hillcrest Saylor Dairy Farm appear unperturbed—by two strangers or by the vacuum pumps being swiftly attached to their udders. “They’re very particular,” notes Saylor, a fourth-generation dairy farmer. “Everything has got to be consistent.” No. 2699 gives one last measured look from under long lashes, lifts her tail and ejects a stream of runny, brown energy that, very soon, will help power the farm.

Most people don’t think of manure from 600 cows—18,000 gal, produced daily—as an asset; Saylor’s neighbors in Rockwood, Pa., certainly didn’t. Until two years ago, the waste was pumped to a holding pond on the property and spread on the fields every spring and fall. “You’d see a 2-ft crust floating down there that you could pretty much walk across,” Saylor says matter-of-factly. “The odor was unbelievable.”

A lot of people might not see a 50-gal drum of used cooking oil, flecked with bits of fried chicken, as a resource either. That’s why I asked my uncle, Dave Hubbard, to drive me here from West Virginia in his biodiesel Jetta TDI. Uncle Dave converts the waste oil from local taverns into fuel to run his car, a motorcycle and tractors for five farms, so I figured he and Saylor could trade tips.

Saylor, 35, is both practical and inventive—much like Uncle Dave. Above the Leatherman clipped to his belt, the sleeves of a well-worn blue work shirt are rolled up to the elbows; his face dimples from smiling even as he talks shop in the milking parlor. “There’s a recycle–flush system here,” Saylor says, activating a pump. Water recovered from other uses cascades across the floor, sweeping manure in murky streams down the length of the barn and into a tank at the mouth of an anaerobic digester.