Peak Oil before 2020 a significant risk - Report from the UK

How about a target for each house in Bangalore by 2020 to take care of its household energy needs via solar panel & windmills on its roof. Energy exchange to buy and sell excess energy produced. Harvest water and channel excess to a community pool. 

Daunting and we havent even learnt to lay roads properly yet. We should probably join Somalia and campaign to stay backward.

interesting post sri.

first a side rant. sorry for using your post for this. even as we keep saying this. last evening i saw people using half a dozen gas based lawnmowers to trim grass, get this, growing next to a rail road!!!! not to mention sundry "middle class" people and their acres of lawn. meanwhile, piddly little "third worlder" trying to get to work on a dilapidated set of wheels (coz thats the only thing he can afford) is being educated and lectured. btw., our jairam ramesh is trying to sell, per capita consumption as a metric. good luck selling that to the original snake oil salesmen.

Ghadricholi where maoists slaughtered elite corps of police. (The Hindu)

but we will have to tackle this on our own initiative for our own benefits. bt what can bangalore or even ka do? other than perhaps, use this as a growth sector?

have some qs on PO itself. will have to read somemore before i get back. briefly, we cant use rise of oil prices as an indicator can we? the prices dont necessarily reflect the rarity of the commodity. and is mostly set according to the whims of the cartel, and wall-street-wale speculators, isn't it? now, the issue that we have neither a say nor control in dictating its price should be a powerful motivator by itself.

aside 2: naveen, i see you are quite besotted with the chinese these days. :) you must be aware of the intricate dance and song about treasury bills, non performing assets, and the multi hundred billion economic stimulus that they have doing. sustainability is another ball game altogether. one day somebody has to pay for these things. the olympic stadium is now a white elephant i hear, for example.

out here, everything from schools to churches to centuries old race courses are closing. you heard everything on high fat, done mostly to "look nice" is getting it.

 the issue is not which system of governance is better. the issue is who decides what needs to be done, whether something has to be done etc etc. in our system, decisions get infinitely delayed. so whimsical, knee jerk interventions are not possible. flip side, even reasonable and needed intervenions take time. but thats a tradeoff.

i think our main problem is adhoc thinking about the issues. not governance or buerocracy. you should always streamline g&b, but you cant eliminate them.

I think it's amply clear that the oil crunch is only a matter of time & will effect India more seriously than it does other countries despite lower levels of per-capital oil consumption. This will be mainly because of the slow pace of creation of PT infrastructure, which will mean fewer alternatives for cleaner forms of travel that also consume less fuel per individual, such as bicycling, electric trains, CNG buses, 4-stroke engines, etc. Private transport would become more & more expensive, eventually to become unaffordable to most - all over the world.

Other countries, particularly those in Europe & soon to be joined by China, will be much better positioned then as they would already have such infrastructure or are creating them now when oil supplies are cheaper to transport goods & services for such developments.

As mentioned here previously, I don't think we need to plan for oil shortages immediately since there will be many such PT systems in the world that will also be hit & efforts will most certainly be to find ways to develop alternatives to ensure that these systems can continue to be used, as before, perhaps even with alternate fuels.


What we need is a govt or system that delivers & delivers infrastructure fast for the future since we have been left far behind & the gaps are clearly increasing. We claim credit for a 6 or 7% growth when most of this growth is with reference to benefits for urbanites. When is it going to be time to address the rural poor ? We are seeing an example in China of a similar large country that has lifted some 400 million out of poverty within the last couple of decades. In sharp contrast, our poor have become even more poorer now. During the recent economic crisis, China was largely uneffected & it may soon begin to lecture the west about preventive measures for such eventualities ! It hasn't just created things that "look nice" - it is creating things carefully that look nice today & are also of value for the future. American media may claim that white elephants are being built, but this is probably out of frustration & to cover up their own predicament.

Contrary to what you state, I think that issues exist because people decide & the politicians are scared of losing elections. Thus, they are unable to focus on the issues & are restrained from using their own judgement as leaders, as they should be doing. Also, I think knee-jerk reactions are what have been emerging when issues have reached critical proportions, not long-term or futuristic solutions, as we have been seeing. Thus, it has been a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, repeatedly, like some chronic, incurable disease.