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I think about the concept of peak oil and how I am preparing for it; What skills am I brushing up on that will help me down the road? Am I building a good network of friends, neighbors and contacts? How is my garden doing and is there any way I could expand it?
All sorts of practical things, like most people.
But there is a whole section of society that will die miserable horrible deaths because of peak oil. I'm convinced of it. It won't be the poor, because the poor have learned how to do with out for so long that their survival instincts are pretty well honed for such a thing. The middle class, will fair okay, but will have to pick up the slack pretty quickly to keep from starving to death.
The modern rich however, have no skills, do nothing for themselves and pray upon society because they believe their social standing is all that is required to get what they want. Peak oil will change that.
This following story proves my point but also made my head explode. And I'm sure yours will too.
A buddy of mine works at an architecture company and is currently doing the MEP (mech, elect, plumb) on a massive house here in texas. When I say massive, I will let you know in a moment, but first let me give you the background on this guy.
He's insanely wealthy. No not rich, not, well off, not money bags, but wealthy as in 8 figures a year wealthy.
So anyway, he's moving from his 5,000 square foot house to another house. (I will get into the size in a moment).
He is currently paying $1800 bucks a month in electricity. Yes, you heard me right. Well, he was curious as to why it was so high when his friend who has a similar house only pays $350 a month.
So in walks the energy auditor. He interviews the maid. He inquires as to how many times a week she does a load of laundry. She says, "daily, I do 4 to 5 loads with the dryer of course". What? why so many he asked. She states, "because Mr. so and so, doesn't like to have any dirty laundry laying around the house". Okaaaaaaaaay. then he goes into the kitchen and asks the same maid how many times a week does she use the dishwasher, she replies, "a week? we do 5-6 load daily". Arg. because mr. wealthy doesn't like to have dirty dishes around. (clean freak?)
Next he notices that all the lights in the house were incandescents. The bedroom alone uses 1500 Watts! The owner states that he doesn't like the color of the light that the CFL's give off. Sigh.
then to top it all off, he must keep the A/C at 60 degrees otherwise he can't sleep. 61 is okay 62 maybe, but nothing higher. Oy!!
Okay thinks the auditor, that's a lot of power but it still doesn't add up to 1800 bucks.
He looks around and sees a normal plasma screen tv and makes a comment about it to the maid. Oh she says, you didn't see this. Where upon she opens up the wall behind the tv and reveals a floor to ceiling audio component system. (all on) then she takes him out to the backyard. located there is a 12 x 12 "shed" which houses a full AV system with an on demand library of 800 movies. All the equipment is up and running. Plus a huge A/C window unit that runs 24/7.
Ahhhhhh!!!
it was no wonder this guy is paying as much as he is. And it's only he and his wife that live in the house.
But wait, it gets worse
He is now moving into, hold onto your seats, a 20,000 square foot house. this house has 2 chiller units and 20 hvac units. He hasn't moved into yet, but the month electric bill just from the workers doing the building there is already 2500 a month!!! it's estimated that his monthly electric bills will be in the area of 8 grand!!
Now get this, to make matters worse, he has...this one blinds me...single paned windows. Why you ask? because he had them specially constructed for the house for some stupid ass aesthetic reason. Logic would dictate that one could get the same windows in double pane. no duh, but this fool stood firm on having the single pane.
So the energy auditor informs the contractor that with single panes the sun will cook anyone standing next to them during the day, that they will cause mold and mildew, that they will also cause his monthly electric bill to sky rocket. The contractor informed the auditor that the owner was fully aware of that.
this wealthy guy is why we are in such an energy mess. he is the poster child of waste. he alone probably uses enough electricity to power several homes.
It's stories like these that make me yearn for peak oil to happen sooner.
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