Sudbury Parents' Group

I am interested to see how people feel about how Sudbury will respond to the end of cheap oil. I'm not sure how many Sudburians have even given it any thought. As the world reaches Peak Oil (the point where we have pumped out half of the usable oil in the world. The US reached peak in the early 70's) how to think Sudbury is prepared to face rapidly rising oil and natural gas prices. Many of the large home could become impossible to heat, and impossible to sell since they are impossible to heat. It could easily become too expensive to commute to a job in Boston. As the cost of oil and gas goes up, so will the cost of food, and basically every other aspect of our lives. What are your thoughts and concerns as we move into this new decade that could be very different from the last?

Hi Dean! As you probably know, the concept of "peak oil" is highly debatable - (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Timing_of_peak_oil for a balanced view on this). The fear of "rapidly rising" oil prices has been around since I waited in the line for gas with my dad for over 3 hours back in the 70's. While I am a HUGE supporter of electric cars (see evcast.com) and huge supporter of renewable energy, I do not buy into many of the fears that exist today of "doom and gloom" due to running out of oil or "global warming".

Now to your question, I think we as a country are on the right track for the future and as a Sudbury resident I am confident we as town will fall right in line with the positive steps our country is taking to free us from our oil addiction.

Hi Bo,

I hope your belief is right, but I have some pretty serious doubts. Everything in life is "highly debatable" but it's interesting that scientific people are predicting a peak or a plateau or whatever you want to call it, but that it is economists and corporate strategists that predict no peak and that technology will pull us through. Technology is great thing, but it's not a source of energy. Unfortunately as most agree, a peak can only really be determined by looking in the rear view mirror, but it seems prudent to assume that there will be a peak at some point and to act (instead of react) accordingly.

I do believe that there are vast reserves of oil still under the ground, but that we will soon run out of the easy-to-get oil and it will require more and more energy to extract it. It’s great to have a new technology to extract oil from shale or wherever, but it requires significantly more energy to get it than this stuff that is basically bubbling out of the ground for us now. The other problem is that burning oil pollutes. Even if you don’t believe that the current climate change we are experiencing is being exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels, you’ve got to believe that it’s not good for our air quality. Electric cars are cool, and will help, I’m actually in the process of converting an internal combustion car to electric, but it’s still not a solution, or at least it’s not coming fast enough to save us. There are so many obstacles still in our way and so many people not ready to change their lifestyles that a transition to clean energy sources will not come without a lot of pain to a lot of people. No, it won’t hit Sudbury first, but it will catch up to us sooner than most of us will be ready.

Dean