Friday, Nov 09, 2007
How prepared is the UK for Economic collapse
Energy Bulletin: Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US
Slide [7] I've described what happened to Russia in some detail in one of my articles, which is available on SurvivingPeakOil.com. I don't see why what happens to the United States should be entirely dissimilar, at least in general terms. The specifics will be different, and we will get to them in a moment. We should certainly expect shortages of fuel, food, medicine, and countless consumer items, outages of electricity, gas, and water, breakdowns in transportation systems and other infrastructure, hyperinflation, widespread shutdowns and mass layoffs, along with a lot of despair, confusion, violence, and lawlessness. We definitely should not expect any grand rescue plans, innovative technology programs, or miracles of social cohesion.
Posted by lvmreader @ 06:21 AM (1058 views) Add Comment
23 Comments
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1. lvmreader said...
2. lvmreader said...
While this all may sound doom and gloom, there is a place in the UK which went through a similar collapse 35 - 40 years ago. It moved to an almost entirely black economy, and while crime was widespread and the city earned the contempt and enmity of all across the UK, it survived.
That place is Liverpool.
3. planning4acrash said...
Flippin eck, that's a depressing way to start the weekend!
4. Orwell said...
Liverpool is ok don't knock it - its the uk twin of Bristol....
5. seanb303 said...
sound like the tv series jericho
6. planning4acrash said...
The UK, and Europe are far better placed than the US. We all consume 50% less oil per GDP. The UK (notwithstanding climate concerns) has a lot of coal left that becomes viable with fuel shortages, particularly with coal gassification, which can reach currently unviable seams. The UK's unrivalled access to wind, wave and tidal power (we also have many rivers for small scale water power) means that we are capable of a post oil industrial revival. Much derided, our planning policies, which concentrate new development in existing centres and around existing public transport, avoiding sprawl via greenbelts, mean that all cities are linked by train or bus. A coach network could be set up with little investment and a diversion of cash from road to rail could revitalise our rail system. Furtunately many of our cities are walkable or cyclable. Those that aren't are generally dense enough to accommodate bus networks. Maybe the villages will begin to thrive again as farms require more physical labour?
We actually have enough waste from farms to convert into enough biodiesel to fuel local buses and municipal vehicles and can set aside some farm land for additional demand, but don't have enough for private cars, so we'll all have to get used to that until nuclear fusion or renewable energy can be harnessed to power cars, but private transport is plain stupid in a world of dwindling energy supplies and we are much better off putting whatever energy we have into farming, public services and industry.
The NHS is one of our strongest points, it will ration and prioritise needs when necessary.
Much of our food needs will be met by just moving from meat based to vegan diets (this will be forced upon us as the price of meat goes through the roof and meat prices after zooming will only come down after a fall in population) because something like 7x more land is required to rear the same calorific value in meat that can be provided by food crops, because animals need space to live and food must be farmed and fed to them for them to grow and stay alive.
7. Lierbag said...
True, the UK has plenty of coal left underground (let's not forget though, that coal production in the UK actually peaked before WW1) but sadly that's where most of it is destined to stay. As with oil, the problem isn't with the resource 'running out' - but with the remaining supplies being harder to access, making it a much more expensive proposition to mine and process. Those costs will have to be passed on to the consumer. As far as feeding ourselves is concerned; increased agricultural output has only been sustained (against the decrease in available agricultural land) because of the input of petrochemical products for transport, machinery, fertilisers and pesticides, as part of the 'green revolution'. All of these are destined to become much more expensive as the price of oil rises inexorably. Frightening to contemplate, is that 60 years ago - with a smaller population and more land available under the plough, the UK even then couldn't provide enough food for itself, and had to embark on a programme of extreme austerity just to survive..
8. inbreda said...
P4ac - what you describe sounds like utopia to me. If this is the outcome of a depression style collapse then bring it on!
9. seanb303 said...
imbreda
you forget the months of transition with riots in innercities, food wars and whatever else desperate people do
watch the tv series jericho
10. Happy Mondays said...
sounds a bit Apocalypse Now
11. paul said...
Does anyone seriously think that the US is facing economic collapse?
12. seanb303 said...
paul
no not really , the americans are prepaird to do anything to stay on top
13. Wealthyvagrant said...
Great comments planning4acrash!
Apparently the water required to produce the meat in a burger is equivalent to that of just under 40 average showers.
14. planning4acrash said...
Within the next 20yrs the suburban model will begin to break down. When the lower 20% of people can't afford to drive into work. Many American suburbs are not walkable, have no bus, train access, some have no sidewalk. Its total nuts!! No planning, no thought, except endless supply of gasoline and private transport. The same applies to many parts of Australia.
I doubt it will face economic collapse, but it will either have to shift emphasis imediately, swallow its pride and put money into socialism with public transport, healthcare, investment and regulation to achieve energy efficiency and renewable capacity along with sustainable town planning or whither on the vine. I don't give the current model more than 20yrs.
15. lvmreader said...
@Paul,
Jim Rogers does for one.
16. paul said...
So not this time round, but this may be a precursor to a downward trend? That I'd agree with.
lvmreader, Jim Rogers is betting against the USD, that's all. It doesn't mean he thinks the US economy will collapse.
17. seanb303 said...
"...get out of the dollar, teach your children Chinese, and buy as many commodities as you can."
jim rogers
18. Icarus said...
"Been there, done it, got the T-shirt" - Robert Mugabe
19. Lvmreader said...
@Planning4aCrash,
Seems like you know your transit planning. Have you heard of Texxi?
Texxi - the Transit Exchange for the XXI Century / The Taxi you Text
Guardain News Article on National Express' new service dot2dot
Plentymag Article on Carsharing
How Telecom Italia uses mobile phones to plan transport
Texxi - sms for a cab
20. lvmreader said...
@Planning4aCrash,
Seems like you know your transit planning. Have you heard of Texxi?
Texxi - the Transit Exchange for the XXI Century / The Taxi you Text
Guardain News Article on National Express' new service dot2dot
Plentymag Article on Carsharing
How Telecom Italia uses mobile phones to plan transport
Texxi - sms for a cab
21. lvmreader said...
ZipCar and FlexCar to merge
Zipcar and Flexcar to merge
Zipcar and Flexcar, North America's two biggest car-sharing services, have agreed to merge as a means of accelerating their expansion and responding to competition from conventional car-rental operators.
Zipcar Carpools with Flexcar
Venture-backed Zipcar, whose by-the-hour car-sharing service is used by college students and urban dwellers, is merging with Flexcar, a cross-continent rival service funded by Steve Case’s Revolution, the companies said Wednesday. In a conference call, Scott Griffith, chairman and chief executive of the combined company, said the top post-merger shareholders will be venture capital funders Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Globespan Capital Partners, and Revolution. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
22. planning4acrash said...
The one problem with the UK is our stupidly high population. Its simply not sustainable without imports and oil hungry agriculture and transnational shipping and airfrieght. All of these things must contract and so will our population. The world's population must fall, that's the tough truth that is really hard to stomach. Looking forward? The next 50yrs could become ugly. No doubt the Brit's'l try to pillage the world for its survival and prosperity, yet again. Got way more competition for it this time tho.
23. planning4acrash said...
A last thought, what I predict is that private industry will compete visciously with the public sector for dwindling resources, kindof a resource war within economies. This is something we must resist and I'm afraid to say that some form of socialism will be the only way to effectively ration resources such as biodiesel, healthcare and public transport when the s$it hits the fan. They said that the 1980's killed political radicalism? Well, I'm not sure that'll last.