The Commute Will Be Terrible What are We To Do?

The San Jose Mercury News today ran an article that while innocuous, simple, and superficially benign, holds ominous consequences for all.

The Bay Area's economy is booming.  While we in Northern California continue with our self imposed conservative austerity, waiting for the promise of prosperity that never comes, Silicon Valley, San Jose,  even Oakland, are more than revived economically.

Technology is fueling it, but this time it is  not a superficial dot com one time phenomenon;  rather, a global demand for software, hardware, robotics; electronics of every dimension.  And the brain power to invent, innovate, and build these gadgets lies in the Bay Area, with its multitude of educational institutions, and variety of populations.

Meanwhile, this bastion of progress, of economic growth, are once again blundering into a trap that will surely bring economic ruin and  civilization disaster.

The words are simple really.  And we have learned to even trust them even though we hate to do it, we all have.  The words are:  "The commute will be terrible, but what are you going to do?"

You see, the employees of this economic growth cannot afford to live where they work.  Rents are skyrocketing, the price of a house in Palo Also averages well over $500,000.   Homes that in Redding, or Medford, sell for $200,000 sell for $700,000 in the Bay Area.

And many are priced out of the market.

So, to hold middle class jobs, the middle class has to move to Salinas, to Tracy, to far flung commutes.

Meanwhile, with a drought raging in the state, against objections from practically every environmentalist and geologist who realizes earthquake danger and water resource scarcity,  fracking proceeds to mine the "huge" Monterrey  Shale.

And we are still running out of gas.  

As the world economy begins to grow again, China and other "developing nations" copy the American urban sprawl model, fueled by the commute.  And more and more, this commute is provided by a single passenger automobile.   And that was never predicted by the Peak Oil scenerio.  China and India joining the commute, only means world oil reserves have peaked times two...it is only going to get worse!

"Its the commute", will sadly be our modern civilization's epitaph.  

We really are running out.  What is really frightening, is nobody seems to give a damn.  

Think about it.  If we are now fracking to get oil and natural gas, sucking every spare drop out of already depleted oil and gas reserves (the key word is reserves), then WHAT IS PLAN B?

We are already using Plan B.  During the oil embargo of the 1970s, many oil companies started to turn to what is the world's only last gasp oil reserve, tar sands and shale.  Oil companies started to ramp up production, but the embargo ended too soon, and efforts were abandoned because it was too expensive; besides there was still vast reserves of sweet crude.  That was in 1975!   

The oil would have been heavier, and more polluting than the sweet crude of the Middle East, and much more expensive.

But, as every oil resource expert knows, it is there, there is a lot tar sands and shale (by 1970 standards), and it is the last reserve.

And right now, with the Keystone Pipeline about to be approved, with fracking going on all over the place, the world is blithely using up this last reserve, and pouring CO2 into the atmosphere!  

Most sweet crude oil wells only can harvest about 50% of the actual oil reserve miles below the surface of the earth.  Fracking can recover about 10 to 20% more, and that is it.  After that, nothing.

Nothing, nada, its over soon, the car in your driveway will be the hood ornament!

The "Peak Oil" predictions, that EVERYBODY, including environmentalists ignore, provided for fracking!   Peak oil is only getting worse!

There have been no new oil reserves found since Peak Oil was postulated.  All we are doing is tapping the world's last reserves.

And now, when we should be conserving, the Bay Area lights up, and commuters endure two hour car commutes one way, by themselves, single passengers on their way to environmental hell!

High Speed Rail is attacked by conservatives, farmers, as impracticable.  Lawsuits are filed, backed by oil companies, to reduce rather than add to commuter mass transportation.

So we troop into our cars every morning, move further away from our jobs because we have to, and suck the last oil reserves of the planet up.  

And what is Plan C?  What happens when the Monterey  Shale is used up (oh, it will provide enough oil for three to four years of the entire United States consumption)!  Oh boy!

What a bonanza!  And what happens after the three years?  

Living day to day is alright, it is certainly less stressful, and more beneficial for Me, Me, Me.  But we are sociological, historical creatures.  We can look forward and predict.  We have the intelligence to see a train wreck when it is coming.

And it is coming, sooner than most of us think.  

We have no choice,  we have to develop renewable energy sources NOW.  We have to figure out ways to keep workers closer to their jobs now, even if it means rental and housing market constraints.

The free market always has done a horrible job when faced with limited resources.  Anthropologists can tell you that.  Every kingdom, empire; you name it, that has collapsed, did so because of scarcity of resources in one way or another.  Either drought, or war, caused depletions of resources that strangled the empire to death.  We have never seen this on a world scale.  We are about to!

Every time, I mean every freaking time, free markets deplete resources, scorch the earth, and move on.  

Regardless of what some cons say, there is no move on left; in spite of one loon toon who wants to mine the Moon, there is no Plan C.

 Once the oil reserves are gone, they are gone; that means no more commute even if there are trains (no oil for trains, planes, or automobiles).  

And we will be looking at global economic meltdown or worse.

Don't settle for the damn commute.  Demand that housing and rental prices come down.  Stay close to your  job.  Quit shrugging your shoulders and muddling through, by sitting in your car burning up your children's futures with a four hour commute.

"The commute will be terrible, but what are we to do?"   PLENTY!