Becoming Resilient

I watched the ‘Crash Course’ yesterday and I was amazed!  This is by far the best presentation that I’ve ever seen on money, the economy and our financial future.  You’ll need some time but it’s worth it. Grab your pen and some paper.   I truly believe that this is the most important post on my site!

This series of videos clearly explains how our economy, energy systems and environment face increasing challenges, and explores likely implications for the future.

Just click here to watch theCrash Course on the original site

Chapter 1 –Three Beliefs

Chapter 2 -The Three E’s by Chris Martenson

Chapter 3 -Exponential Growth by Chris Martenson

Crash Course: Chapter 4 – The Power of Compounding

Crash Course: Chapter 5 – Growth vs. Prosperity by Chris Martenson

Crash Course: Chapter 6 – What is Money?

Crash Course: Chapter 7 – Money Creation

Crash Course: Chapter 8 – The Fed & Money Creation

Crash Course: Chapter 9 – A Brief History of U.S. Money

Crash Course: Chapter 10 – Inflation

Crash Course Chapter 11: How Much Is A Trillion?

Crash Course: Chapter 12 – Debt (1 of 2)

Crash Course: Chapter 12 – Debt (2 of 2)

Crash Course: Chapter 13 – A National Failure to Save

Crash Course: Chapter 14 – Assets & Demographics

Crash Course: Chapter 15 – Bubbles

Crash Course Chapter 16: Fuzzy Numbers

Crash Course: Chapter 17a – Peak Oil

Crash Course: Chapter 17b – Energy Budgeting

Crash Course: Chapter 17c – Energy and the Economy

Crash Course: Chapter 18 – Environmental Data (1 of 2)

Crash Course: Chapter 19 – Future Shock

Crash Course Chapter 20: What Should I Do? (click on this link to watch the final chapter)

What is Peak Oil?

by Graham Strouts

click here to view the original article

Sometimes known as “Hubberts’ Peak” after the American geologist M.K. Hubbert who accurately predicted the peak in US oil production in 1971, ” Peak Oil” refers to the maximum extraction rate of oil, after which the rate of extraction will decline.

It has been found that the extraction of oil always follows more or less a bell-shaped curve: first the oil is discovered and once it starts to be pumped out, the rate increases steadily until it reaches a peak, after which it becomes impossible to pump at the same rate: production will inexorably decline.

World discovery of oil peaked in 1964 and has been declining ever since, despite considerable improvements in technology, and there is no prospect of any significant new large discoveries. We are currently consuming more than 4 barrels of oil for every one discovered.

It is widely believed that we are now approaching World Oil Peak .

Does this mean that the world is running out of oil? Not exactly. Globally, it is thought that approximately half of all oil that was laid down in the earth has been extracted. We have currently used about 1Trillion barrels of the 2Trillion barrels that was the legacy from geological vents of over 90million years ago.

**So what’s the problem? If it has taken us 150 years to burn the first Trillion barrels, we have plenty left for at least a couple of generations- right?**

It is true that there is still a lot of oil left. The problem is really that we are running out of cheap oil. We have picked the low hanging fruit first and both the quality and accessibility of the remaining oil is declining- fast. The light sweet oil that was near the surface has been largely exhausted , as have the more accessible oil fields. Oil companies are starting to look in ever-more inhospitable environments such as the Arctic , Antarctic and deep seas in the quest for more oil. Drilling in these locations presents extraordinary technical and other difficulties, and we can be sure they would not be there unless there was nowhere else to go.

**So when is the world Oil Peak expected?**

According to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) world oil peak is likely to occur sometime between 2008 and 2010. Some analysts believe we may have already passed the peak and are currently on an uneven plateau. It seems certain however that within a few years, the effects of oil peak will begin to be felt as for the first time in history the amount of available energy in the world begins to decline.

James Howard Kunstler suggests in ” The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century” that peak could well be this year judging by the repeated failure of OPEC to control spiralling price increases despite promises of increased output. It would seem that the world’s biggest producer, Saudi Arabia , has no spare capacity. If Saudi Arabia has peaked, then the world must also have peaked.

**What will be the rate of decline?**

ASPO calculate the rate of decline after peak to be about 2% per year. That doesn’t sound to drastic- surely we can make up the shortfall by taking measures to increase energy efficiency and avoid waste?

Energy efficiency and more frugal use of energy are certainly important steps we can take, but if the Peak in production is already upon us, we may be forced to make sudden and abrupt changes to our lifestyles if we are to avoid the worst consequences of oil depletion in a world so heavily dependent on oil for the lions share of its economy, trade, industry and general lifestyle.

**Won’t higher prices just destroy demand and thereby let the market balance the situation out?**

In addition to production steadily increasing through the 20th Century, so has demand. Unfortunately, while production will now start to decline, demand is still growing- faster than ever, with the emergence of both China and India as major new energy consumers entering the market place and looking for their share of the industrial and consumerist lifestyle.

What Peak Oil really means is that there will be a gap between supply and demand. There will be less to go around just as more and more countries want more and more.

Another major factor is that because we live in an economy that demands unending growth, the decline in oil availability will lead to economic recession and, later, depression- a depression we will never come out of because the economy simply cannot grow without a growth in energy.

After Peak Oil, we will be looking at something neither our governments nor economists are preparing us for- a permanently shrinking economy.

**But why cant we just switch to alternatives like solar and wind?**

It takes a while to really let it sink in the truly extraordinary properties of oil which make it effectively irreplaceable by any combination of alternatives. Apart from uranium, oil has the greatest energy density of any other substance known.

One way to understand this is the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) ratio for any given energy source. In the 1930s, for every unit of energy invested in getting oil, the return was 30 times as much, and in the case of some oil wells in Louisiana , the ratio was a high as 100:1.

Currently, oil is yielding an EROEI of about 8:1 and this will only decline as the remaining reserves become increasingly difficult to obtain. Still, this is far higher a return than anything else- solar photovoltaic cells have apparently yet to break even and all alternatives currently require oil in their manufacture and maintenance, be it high quality steel in windmills or simply keeping the service roads and vehicles going.

Bio diesel would require perhaps all the available agricultural land just to supply petrol at the pumps, but when you consider that it takes 80-90 barrels of oil just to manufacture a car, it becomes clear that alternatives will come nowhere near to making up the shortfall.

The problem is that not just that we need more energy than we can get , but that we have created a society that depends very largely on a particular kind of energy. We are dependent on oil because of its versatility, liquidity -which makes it easy to move around- and also because we can make so many things out of it, including plastics and asphalt for our roads. We wont be powering the vast fleets of international air transport on wind power. And we wont be repairing roads with sunbeams.

**What else can we expect after oil peak?**

It is not just higher prices at the pumps that will indicate a looming energy crises. The more you look into it, the more it becomes apparent that nearly everything we do in the modern world is predicated on an unending availability of cheap fossil fuels.

This includes even the most basic commodities like food. In the modern world, the average food item has travelled between 1000 and 1500 miles before it arrives on our plates. For every 1 calorie of energy in our food we have burned 10 calories of fossil fuel energy in farm machinery, fertiliser, pesticides and packaging. If you want a definition of “unsustainable”, there it is. This situation simply cannot continue, and one of the most pressing responses we need to make is to start growing our food closer to home using organic and low-energy intensive methods.

In fact, the use of fossil fuels to produce food is the single most important factor in the rapid explosion in the human population since the industrial era began. In the 1850s, world population was only about 1.7billion. Now it is over 6.5billion but with food production also peaking and under serious threat from energy decline, we can only speculate as to what may be the likely population levels 50 years from now.

**What about Hydrogen? I just read that the world’s first hydrogen powered motorbike has just been produced.**

Hydrogen is not an energy source but and energy store- all you need is water and electricity, but the electricity has to be produced from conventional sources of energy. At present, most Hydrogen is created from natural gas which is itself likely to peak in production a few years after oil- and unlike oil, will fall very sharply since the nature of a gas is that it can be extracted more completely than liquids like oil. The last thing the world needs is a new user of natural gas. Furthermore, it must be remembered that the world’s infrastructure is built to run on the properties of oil such as ease of transport. It will be no easy task to refit everything to run off a different form of energy, especially something as volatile and hard to transport as hydrogen. It would cost far too much and take far too long.

For these reasons, the dream of a new, clean “Hydrogen Economy” is likely to remain just that- a dream.

**What about coal? Both China and the US have vast reserves of coal.**

That is true, but if we started using coal as a replacement for oil we would soon find ourselves in a “Peak Coal” situation. Coal shares some of the difficulties with oil in that the good quality coal is already in short supply and thus the EROEI is declining rapidly. Coal extraction involves a huge human and environmental cost that also makes it unsustainable- and again, we wont easily be able to convert the world’s 500 million internal combustion engines to run on coal.

**What about Nuclear? There are reports of new breeds of fail-safe reactors.**

Even if nuclear power were a safe option- and the record of the nuclear industry thus far is lamentable- we would need ultimately thousands more nuclear power stations to replace the energy we get from oil and this would require an enormous capital investment- and energy investment. There is a time-lapse of 10-20years from drawing board to energy production from nuclear power and we may be entering a world of energy descent within the next 5 years or les. There simply won’t be the spare capacity to build the power stations. Not only that, but uranium is itself a depleting resource, mined and transported at great environmental cost and risk, that will deplete all the more rapidly if we use it to replace fossil fuels.

But surely we have the ingenuity to find alternatives to oil in some combination of wind or solar, or invent some new form of energy?
The bottom line is, it will take at least 20-30 years to switch over to any new or alternative energy resource, and we wont have the time or the spare capacity to do so. Blackouts and energy shortages such as effected millions of people across the NE United States in 2002 are increasingly likely as of now, and as I write this, more reports of escalating oil prices are reported on the radio. Technology has never invented a new source of energy; it has only devised new ways to use energy. The whole fabric of what we know of as “the modern world” has been woven from cheap oil, and we are soon going to find that this world is going to change dramatically and in ways we can as yet scarcely contemplate as we begin to run out. Many analysts see the US invasion of Iraq as only the first blow of what could become globally escalating resource wars for the last remaining oil supplies. In Ireland , social relations could be severely strained and shortages and soaring prices could mean queuing at petrol stations and unaffordable heating bills for many. Unemployment may increase and ultimately there may be a shortage of basic commodities such as food as the economic relationships of world trade begin to break down with the unavailability of oil.

**This sounds all very gloom and doom. No one is going to listen to you unless you give us some good news!**

The first thing to remember is that Peak Oil is a geological reality. It is not just a fantasy created by negative thinking. In fact , quite the reverse- the biggest problem is that few people are aware of the wider issues and would rather not know, perhaps. Everyone wants to believe we can continue with business as usual.

The real issue is not about the amount of energy per se but what we want do we want the energy for? How much do we really need? What will we use energy for if we have it? And do we need an economic system that requires unending growth which itself requires endlessly more energy?

Now is a golden opportunity to ask these deeper questions about the kind of society we want to live in. There is abundant evidence that simply more growth, more money and more energy will not bring us a higher quality of life or more fulfilment. For example, Elizabeth Cullen in the Feasta Review published earlier this year has shown that there was little increase in happiness or satisfaction during the Celtic Tiger years, and that many negative indicators such as poverty in old age, the gap between rich and poor, male suicide and alcohol consumption increased in parallel with a growing economy.

The good news is that Peak Oil also presents an unrivalled opportunity to embrace the reality that environmentalist have known for over 40 years- that the Industrial Growth Society is unsustainable and therefore will inevitably come to an end. Like Communism, the Capitalist system has not fulfilled its promise. In a word, it is a failed system. We now have a window of opportunity to implement ideas and structures that do not rely on an endless supply of cheap oil but can provide a high quality of life that is socially just and ecologically sustainable.

**Sounds good. What will we have to do to achieve this?**

There are things we can all do right now to move towards a sustainable world. Invest in alternative technologies, reduce dependency on the electricity grid, cycle or walk rather than drive, try to create work nearer to where you live, make efforts to provide more of your basic needs of shelter, heating and food production closer to home and within your own communities. There are already many initiatives around the world trying to create locally self-reliant communities. One method is that proposed by permaculture – a system of design that models human settlements on natural processes and attempts to find benign and sustainable ways to harvest the suns energy to meet our needs.

The main changes we need to effect are a move away from globalization towards local economies that value and preserve their own stores of natural capital- such as local food supplies, traditional skills, trees and woodlands, the practices of good land use and urban design. Peak Oil presents an enormous challenge to us all, but if we respond now we may yet be looking forward to a more harmonious future .

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Peak Oil Reality: Discoveries & Production Won’t Match Future Demand

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Click here to see the list of countries that are past peak oil production

Snow Melting Roadways
Filed under Consumer, Environment, Government, Promo no comments
By John Vlahakis

As a third of the country recovers from this last blizzard and ice storm, there may be a future technological breakthrough on how we clear our roads from snow.  The Federal Highway Administration has awarded contracts to two separate companies that are building snow melting road technology.  Solar Roadways in Boise, Idaho recently built a solar road panel prototype that is made out of solar panels encased in strong and durable glass with the traction of asphalt and that it won’t cause glare. Each encased panel generates 7.6 kilowatt hours of electricity per day, and can be connected to smart grids to power homes and business. Wireless LED lights embedded in the glass create road signs and weight-sensitive crosswalks. They also contain heating elements that can melt snow and ice.The technology to make snow plowing obsolete is similar to what’s already used in automobile windshields. Heating elements in the glass melt existing snow or ice and prevent accumulation from developing. The new highway panels would end the need for plowing and salting roadways, and reduce the yearly operational expense for snow and ice removal.  No word on how much this would cost us, but it’s a breakthrough anyone in the snow-belt would welcome.

Spray-on film turns windows into solar panels

By Ben Coxworth
20:11 August 17, 2010

Imagine if all the windows of a building, and perhaps even all its exterior walls, could be put to use as solar collectors. Soon, you may not have to imagine it, as the Norweigan solar power company EnSol has patented a thin film solar cell technology designed to be sprayed on to just such surfaces. Unlike traditional silicon-based solar cells, the film is composed of metal nanoparticles embedded in a transparent composite matrix, and operates on a different principle. EnSol is now developing the product with help from the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

“One of the key advantages is that it is a transparent thin film that can be coated onto window glass so that windows in buildings can also become power generators,” said Chris Binns, Professor of Nanotechnology at Leicester. “Obviously some light has to be absorbed in order to generate power but the windows would just have a slight tinting (though a transmission of only 8-10% is common place for windows in the ‘sun belt’ areas of the world). Conversely the structural material of the building can also be coated with a higher degree of absorption. This could be side panels of the building itself, or even in the form of ‘clip-together’ solar roof tiles.”

For the time being, the research partners are developing prototype squares of the material, measuring 16 square centimeters each. The researchers say that, due to nanotech research that has already been performed at Leicester, the institution is uniquely suited for production of the film. Ultimately, EnSol hopes to achieve a cell efficiency of at least 20 percent, and have its product ready for the commercial market by 2016.

This development is reminiscent of Sphelar cells – solidified silicon drop-based solar cells recently developed by Kyosemi Corporation. Although the technology is different, they are also intended to be used in solar panels that double as windows.

Breakthrough solar technology a step towards cheap full-spectrum panels

Filed in: Energy , Environment , Science
By Raggy Jin, February 01, 2011 @ 6:28pm

The solar age is now a day closer thanks to Wladek Walukiewicz and Kin Man Yu at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who have developed a new full-spectrum solar cell that uses common production methods.

Cheap, common solar panels in production now typically only use a small percentage of the light hitting their surface, as the semiconductor materials in them only respond to certain segments of the solar spectrum. Though highly efficient solar panels that respond to the full spectrum of light have been created in the past, they’ve been unfit for mass production as they’re too complex and expensive to manufacture.

As each semiconductor reacts to a different light wavelength, efficient solar cells use several materials stacked atop one another and wired in a series, each semiconductor taking a portion of the light spectrum. In 2002, Walukiewicz and Man Yu tweaked indium gallium nitrate cells until they were capable of reacting to everything from infrared to ultraviolet — the full light spectrum. The resulting cells, however, were too difficult and costly to manufacture on a large scale.

Two years later, the pair created an alloy of zinc, manganese and tellurium doped with oxygen, creating an entirely different, highly efficient full-spectrum solar panel. But again, it was one unfit for production.

But now they’ve created a new multiband semiconductor alloy, gallium arsenide nitride, which uses the industry’s most common semiconductor fabrication method: metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Their tests show that the prototype cell based on this new semiconductor reacts strongly with every segment of the solar spectrum.

The results of the breakthrough may not be instant, but this is a large step towards cheap, highly-efficient solar panels and their wide-spread application. Beyond, you know, death rays and such.

Solar Cars

What is a Solar Powered Car?

Solar Powered Cars traditionally are defined as cars which run on energy from the sun. They got their first recognition as a possible transportation method through the series of annual races across Australia.

This definition however is changing, in recent years of the green movement, solar power explosion now allows people to charge plugin electric vehicles (PEVs) through solar panels installed on their homes and in recent history solar panels installed on the roof of the car itself.

There is a very bright future for solar energy to power our transportation needs and we’re just scratching the surface of the possibilities.

Learn more about solar cars by clicking here

Toyota Prius goes Solar
NOVEMBER 10TH, 2008 BY SAIKAT

The ‘Prius’ is Latin for ‘(to go…) before’. Quite fittingly it heralds a new era of hip cars which have moved away from Henry Ford’s vision. Today, they are petrol powered environmental ogres. Necessary ‘evils’, for cars have been the harbingers of human advancement by taking the wheel much forward. They may be Hollywood’s latest fad…Leonardo DiCaprio owns one, but they also are truly one of the most practical environmentally cars on the roads today. The 2008 Prius was tagged as the best fuel efficient car in The United States by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The Prius is what is called an electric hybrid. More technically looked at as a SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle). It is powered by an internal combustion engine (1.5L) as all gasoline driven cars are. In synergy with this engine are various other technologies based around an electric motor running on NiMH batteries. The computer program used in the Prius monitors and controls fuel consumption by using the engine, electric motor, or both to power the car and recharge the battery. The working together of two disparate units leads to greater fuel efficiency. The 2008 Prius gives 48 miles per US gallon in city driving, 45 miles per US gallon on highways. With over one million units sold by mid 2008, Toyota says that the Prius owners have stopped 4.5 million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. That’s 535,500,000 gallons of fuel or at current prices $2.01 Billion Dollars saved. Even without Leo’s endorsement, the Prius should be on every green minded guy’s Christmas list.

The latest models of Prius can now go even greener. The grapevine has it that Toyota is looking at the option of solar panels on the roof of the car. Reports state that the panels could be an option on the high end versions of the car. And no they won’t add a third dimension to the electric-hybrid combo but mainly would serve to cool the car when it is parked and idle. The panels are to be outfitted by Kyocera, a Japanese company known for its ceramics manufacture. We can expect to see the specially fitted out cars by the spring of 2009. There are no details currently on the website regarding this development. As officially Toyota does not elaborate on future product plans, details are vague on the exact picture of the modifications. Industry watchers though say that though adding solar cells would add ‘just a tinge’ of ‘green’ to the car, the cost of solar cells could jack up the price. The benefits could be little as some independent experiments have shown that the power output of the solar cells alone is close to just 160 – 250 watts. Not enough to power the AC but can add something economy of operation. Will the perceived utility warrant the cost on option?

But the great thing is the innovation itself. Toyota’s forward vision resulted in the Prius making an electric hybrid uber cool and with the solar panels it will be another first for the Japanese car giant. By 2009, the car enjoying an upsurge in popularity is expected to go through a substantial makeover. Solar panels are just one part of it.

Meanwhile, a company called SEV – Solar Electric Vehicles has already experimented with a solar rooftop on the Prius. The website quotes –

With the SEV solar system, the Toyota Prius can operate up to 20 miles per day in electric mode thus improving fuel economy by up to 29% (depending on driving habits and conditions).

There system available as a kit sets back the user by $2000 – $4000, but expectedly the amount can be recovered in 2-3 years through fuel savings.

As gas prices start to defy gravity, even a small shaving off the fuel bill could be a bonus for both the user and the planet.

Make sure you check out our Solar Powered Car section of our site for much more information about solar powered cars.

Solar plane completes historic 24-hour flight – click to read the entire article
Aircraft could stay in the air indefinitely, charging batteries from sun’s rays

By Eliane Engeler
7/8/2010 5:51:38 AM ET

PAYERNE, Switzerland — An experimental solar-powered plane landed safely Thursday after completing its first 24-hour test flight, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.

Pilot Andre Borschberg eased the Solar Impulse onto the runway at Payerne airfield about 30 miles southwest of the Swiss capital Bern at exactly 9 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT) Thursday.  Helpers rushed to stabilize the pioneering plane as it touched down, ensuring that its massive 207-foot wingspan didn’t scrape the ground and topple the craft.  The record feat completes seven years of planning and brings the Swiss-led project one step closer to its goal of circling the globe using only energy from the sun.

Learn about Solar Powered Aircraft here

Breakthrough Solar Technology Could Double Cell Efficiency
Tuesday, August 3rd 2010 3:43 PM
By GetSolar Staff.
Beating efficiency limits and overheating have long been the holy grail of solar panel research and development. Now, California’s solar scientists think they may have found a way to solve both problems with a single, elegant solution.

Researchers at Stanford University’s Global Climate and Energy Project and the Stanford Institute for Materials Energy Systems say that they have conclusively proven that a process called “photon enhanced thermionic emission” (PETE) works to improve the efficiency of solar modules as they heat up.

Typically, solar panels lose efficiency as they heat, which is problematic for a device designed to bake in the hot sun all day. Cooling systems use power and waste energy, and energy conversion efficiency rarely exceeds 20 percent.

PETE uses cesium-coated gallium nitride semiconductors – chosen to resist heat levels in excess of 200 degrees centigrade – to convert both heat and light into electricity. The California researchers think that the technology would be best deployed in solar concentrators and big, utility-scale solar farms.

In theory, though, they could be deployed alongside any solar installation. Rather than engineering an entirely new infrastructure for the PETE system, the team thinks that it would be better to create a bolt-on augmentation for existing systems.

With a theoretical energy conversion efficiency of as much as 50 or 60 percent, PETE represents a truly exciting quantum leap in state-of-the-art solar panel technology.

Here are 10 invaluable skills that will likely help you sustain yourself in a hand-made local world

By carolyn, on November 30th, 2010
read the original article here

1. Organic Gardening and Seed Saving: Skills involving food production will be the most valuable in a post-collapse society. Learning to grow your own food is a must.  Obviously, it is necessary to feed your family, but you will also be able to trade your abundance for other items. Additionally, learning to save seeds will also provide another excellent means of trade.

2. Food Processing and Preservation: Learning to process and preserve foods will be another huge skill in a post-collapse world. Taking seasonal abundance and preserving it for future consumption or trade will be vital.  Remember, learning to do this with limited electricity is a must. This can also include learning to brew beer, mead, vinegar, or other alcoholic beverages from meager ingredients.

3. Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering: Learning to fish and hunt is essential to survival. Having the proper gear and training will be priceless after the collapse of modern civilization.  Having reference guides for edible plants in your region, repairing weapons, trapping wild game, and fishing are great tools to have if you haven’t the time to learn them now. In regards to weapons, your ability to use them also gives you the skill of working security.

4. Animal Husbandry: Notice the first four categories are related to food production.  It’s that important.  Just gaining knowledge of one of these categories will give you an invaluable skill to thrive in a post-apocalyptic world.  Knowledge of animal husbandry can provide endless amounts of sustainable meat, eggs, and milk to you and your tribe.

5. Construction: Construction skills will be very important in a shattered civilization.  These skills, especially without power tools, are not something you learn overnight.  If you have some basic skills it may be worth learning a few techniques for building small structures with crude hand tools.  There are many books teaching anyone how to build basic cabins, sheds, and composting outhouses.

6. Alternative Energy and Fuels: Having the knowledge to implement alternative energy systems will make you a wealthy survivor in a “dark” world. You can learn to build your own alternative energy systems, or you can purchase back up solar generators in preparation for emergencies. There are also small fuel refinery systems available like the biodiesel Fuelmeister, and the new invention from Japan that turns plastic into oil.  Knowledge of how to create energy would be invaluable when oil is scarce.

7. Water Purification: Since it’s difficult to pump well water without electricity and with surface water likely to be contaminated, clean water will be in very limited supply.  Learning to purify water will allow you thrive during this time. You can also purchase water filters for your go-bag that will last weeks, and you can have back-up tablets should you need them.  However, the skill and knowledge to purify water should be the goal as that can never run out.

8. Basic First Aid and Natural Medicine: This is another skill that can take years to develop and learn, but that will be crucial when supply lines of pharmaceuticals are cut off and hospitals are over-run. Knowledge of growing herbal gardens for making medicine at home will prove to be very important.  Learning basic procedures for stitching wounds, CPR, and more will also be of great assistance.  Being the tribe’s shaman with a natural medicine chest is a prestigious position

9. Mechanics: Mechanics for cars, motorcycles, tractors and other machinery will likely be in high demand.  In addition, bicycle mechanics will also fair well in world where fuel is very expensive or hard to come by.  These are also skills that are not learned over night, but it will be wise to at least have access to books or how-to videos.

10. Soap and Candle Making: With long supply lines decimated and electricity on the fritz, soap and candle makers will provide a valuable product. Clearly some preparation of storing raw materials may be needed to achieve trade-able levels of these goods.  Even if you just had the knowledge to make soap or candles just for your immediate tribe, you will be much better off for it.

You’ll notice that many of these skills also fall into the category of what you would need to be self-sufficient. Again, learning all of these skills will be virtually impossible, especially if the collapse isn’t that far off as many predict.  Determine which skills that most appeal to you and focus on them by studying and acquiring the tools needed. Since you can’t become an expert in everything it may be wise to recruit tribe members with various survival skills.  It will also be beneficial to build up your library of “how to” books and videos for tasks that you are not proficient in.  You can download any video from Youtube by using Keepvid.com and build your library into an external hard drive.

Remember, knowledge of and skills to produce human necessities will be the only form of wealth creation in a hand-made world. Knowledge is something that no one can take from you. It’s the eternal wealth that will help you thrive in a Post-Collapse world. Get Prepared Now!

100 Things You Can Do to Get Ready for Peak Oil

Sharon February 22nd, 2008
Read the original article here

SPRING

• Rethink your seed starting regimen. How will you do it without potting soil, grow lights and warming mats. Consider creating manure heated hotbeds, using your own compost, building a greenhouse, or coldframe, direct seeding early versions of transplanted crops, etc…
• Your local feed store has chicks right now – even suburbanites might consider ordering a few bantam hens and keeping them as exotic birds. Worth a shot, no? You can grow some feed in your garden for Them, as well as enjoying the eggs.
• Order enough seeds for three years of gardening. If by next spring, we are all unable to get replacement seed, will you have produced everything you need? What if you can’t grow for a year because of some crisis? Order extras from places with cheap seed like www.fedcoseeds.com, www.superseeds.com, www.rareseed.com.
• Yard sale season will begin soon in the warmer parts of the country, and auctions are picking up now in the North. Stocking up on things like shoes, extra coats, kids clothing in larger sizes, hand tools, garden equipment is simply prudent – and can save a lot Of money.
• The real estate “season” will begin shortly, with families wanting to get settled in new homes during the summer, before the school year starts. If you are planning on buying or selling this year, now is the time to research the market, new locations, find that country property or the urban duplex with a big yard.
• Once pastures are flush, last year’s hay is usually a bargain, and many farmers clean out their barns. Manure and old hay are great soil builders for anyone.
• Check out your local animal shelter and adopt a dog or cat for rodent control, protection and friendship during peak oil.
• As things green up, begin to identify and use local wild edibles. Eat your lawn’s dandilions, your daylily shoots, new nettles. Hunt for morels (learn what you are doing first!!) and wild onions. Get in the habit of seeing what food there is to be had everywhere you go.
• Set up rainbarrel or cistern systems and start harvesting your precipitation.
• Planning to only grow vegetables? Truly sustainable gardens include a lot of pretty flowers, which have value as medicinals, dye and fiber plants, seasoning herbs, and natural cleaners and pest repellants. Instead of giving up ornamentals altogether, grow a garden full of daylilies, lady’s mantle, dye hollyhocks and coreopsis, foxgloves, soapwart, bayberry, hip roses, bee balm and other useful beauties.
• Get a garden in somewhere around you – campaign to turn open space into a community garden, ask if you can use a friend’s backyard, get your company or church, synagogue, mosque or school to grow a garden for the poor. Every garden and experienced gardener we have is a potential hedge against the disaster.
• Join a CSA if you don’t garden, and get practice cooking and eating a local diet in season.
• Eggs and greens are at their best in spring – dehydrated greens and cooked eggshells, ground up together add calcium and a host of other nutrients to flour, and you won’t taste them. We’re not going to be able to afford to waste food in the future, so get out of the habit now.
• Make rhubarb, parsnip or dandelion wine for later consumption.
• Now that warmer weather is here, start walking for more of your daily Needs. Even a four or five mile walk is quite reasonable for most healthy People.
• Start a compost pile, or begin worm composting. Everyone can and should compost. Even apartment dwellers can keep worms or a compost Bin and use the product as potting soil.
• Use spring holidays and feasts as a chance to bring up peak oil with friends and family. Freedom and rebirth are an excellent subjects To lead into the Long Emergency.
• Store the components of some traditional spring holiday foods, so that in hard times your family can maintain its traditions and celebrations.
• With the renewal of the building season, now is the time to scavenge free building materials, like cinder blocks, old windows and scrap wood – with permission, of course.
• Try and adapt to the spring weather early – get outside, turn down your heat or bank your fires, cut down on your fuel consumption as though you had no choice. Put on those sweaters one more time.
• Shepherds are flush with wool – now is the time to buy some fleece and start spinning! Drop spindles are easy to make and cheap to use. Check out www.learntospin.com
• Take a hard look back over the last winter – if you had had to survive on what you grew and stored last year, would you have made it? Early spring was famously the “starving time” when stores ran out and everyone was hungry. Remember, when you plan your food Needs that not much produces early in spring, and in northern climates, A winter’s worth of food must last until May or June.
• Trade cuttings and divisions, seeds and seedlings with your neighbors. Learn what’s out there in your community, and sneak some useful plants into your neighbors’ garden.
• If you’ve got a nearby college, consider scavenging the dorm Dumpsters. College students often leave astounding amounts of Stuff behind including excellent books, clothes, furniture, etc…
• Say a schecheyanu, a blessing, or a prayer. Or simply be grateful for a series of coincidences that permit us to be here, in this place, as the world and the seasons come to life again. Try to make sure that this year, this time, you will take more joy in what you have, and prepare a bit better to soften the blow that is about to fall.

SUMMER

• If you don’t can or dehydrate, now is the time to learn. In most climates, you can waterbath can or dehydrate with a minimum of purchased materials, and produce is abundant and cheap. If you don’t garden, check out your local farmstand for day-old produce or your farmer’s market at the end of the day – they are likely to have large quantities they are anxious to get rid of. Wild fruits are also in abundance, or will be.
• Consider dehydrating outer leaves of broccoli, cabbage, etc…, and grinding the dried mixture. It can be added to flours to increase the nutritional value of your bread.
• Buy hay in the summer, rather than gradually over the winter. Now is an excellent time to put up simple shelters for hay storage, to avoid high early spring and winter prices.
• Firewood, woodstoves and heating materials are at their Cheapest right now. Invest now for winter. The same is true Insulating materials.
• Back to School Planning is a great time to reconsider transportation in light of peak oil. Can your children walk? Bike? If they cannot do either for reasons of safety (rather than distance) could an adult do so with them? Could you hire a local teenager to take them to school on foot or by wheel? Can you find ways to carpool, if you must drive? Grownups can do this too.
• Also when getting ready to go back to school, consider the environmental impact of your scheduling and activities – are there ways to minimize driving/eating out/equipment costs/fuel consumption? Could your family do less in formal “activities” and more in family work?
• Consider either home schooling or engaging in supplemental home Education. Your kids may need a large number of skills not provided By local public schools, and a critical perspective that they certainly Won‘t learn in an institutional setting. Teach them.
• Try and minimize air conditioning and electrical use during high Summer. Take cool showers or baths, use ice packs, reserve activity When possible for early am or evening. Rise at 4 am and get much of Your work done then.
• Consider adding a solar powered attic fan, available from Real Goods www.realgoods.com.
• Don’t go on vacation. Spend your energy and money making your home A paradise instead. Throw a barbecue, a party or an open house, and invite The neighbors in. Get to know them.
• Be prepared for summer blackouts, some quite extensive. Have Emergency supplies and lighting at hand.
• Practice living, cooking and camping outside, so that you will Be comfortable doing so if necessary. Everyone in the family can Learn basic outdoors person skills.
• Make your own summer camp. Instead of sending kids to soccer Camp, create an at-home skills camp that helps prepare people for Peak oil. Invite the neighbor kids to join you. Have a blast!
• Begin adapting herbs and other potted plants to indoor culture. Consider adding small tropicals – figs, lemons, oranges, even bananas can often be grown in cold climate homes. Obviously, if you live in a warm climate well, be prepared for some jealousy from the rest of us come February  .
• Plant a fall garden in high summer – peas, broccoli, kale, lettuces, Beets, carrots, turnips, etc… All of the above will last well into early Winter in even the harshest climates, and with proper techniques or In milder areas, will provide you with fresh food all year long
• Put up a new clothesline! Consider hand washing clothes outside, Since everyone will probably enjoy getting wet (and cool) anyhow.
• If you have access to safe waters, go fishing. Get some practice, and Learn a new skill.
• Encourage pick-up games at your house. Post-peak, children will Need to know how to entertain themselves.
• For teens, encourage them to develop their own home businesses over The summers. Whether doing labor or creating a product, you may rely On them eventually to help support the family. Or have them clean out Your closets and attic and help you reorganize. Let them sell the stuff.
• Buy a hand pushed lawn mower if you have less than 1 acre of grass. New ones are easy to push and pleasant, and will save you energy and that Unpleasant gas smell.
• Keep an eye out for unharvested fruits and nuts – many suburban and rural Areas have berry and fruit bushes that no one harvests. Take advantage and Put up the fruit.
• Practice extreme water conservation during the summer. Mulch to reduce The need for irrigation. Bathe less often and with less water. Reduce clothes Washing when possible.
• This is an excellent time to toilet train children – they can run around naked If necessary and accidents will do no harm. Try and get them out of diapers now, Before winter.
• Consider replacing lawns with something that doesn’t have to be mown – Ground covers like vetch, moss, even edibles like wintergreen or lingonberry, Chamomile or mint.
• If it is summer time, then the living is probably easy. Take some time To enjoy it – to picnic, to celebrate democracy (and try and bring one about  , To explore your own area, walk in the nearby woods.

FALL

• Simple, cheap insulating strategies (window quilts and blankets, draft stoppers, etc…) are easily made from cheap or free materials – goodwill, for example, often has jeans, tshirts and shrunken wool sweaters, of quality too poor to sell, that can be used for quilting material and batting. They are available where I am for a nominal price, and I’ve heard of getting them free.
• Stock up for winter as though the hard times will begin this year. Besides dried and canned foods, don’t forget root cellarable and storable local produce, and season extension (cold frames, greenhouses, etc…) techniques for fresh food when you make your food inventory.
• Thanksgiving sales tend to be when supermarkets offer the cheapest deals on excellent supplements to food storage, like shortening, canned pumpkin, spices, etc… I’ve also heard of stores given turkeys away free with grocery purchases – turkeys can then be cooked, canned and stored. Don’t forget to throw in storable ingredients for your family’s holiday staples – in hard times, any kind of celebration or continuity is appreciated.
• Go leaf rustling for your garden and compost pile. If you Happen into places where people leave their leaves out for Pickup, grab the bags and set them to composting or mulching Your own garden.
• Plant a last crop of over wintering spinach, and enjoy in The fall and again in spring.
• Or consider planting a bed of winter wheat. Chickens can Even graze it lightly in the fall, and it will be ready to harvest in Time to use the bed for your fall garden. Even a small bed will Make quite a bit of fresh, delicious bread.
• Hit those last yard sales, or back to school sales and buy a few extra clothes (or cloth to make them) for growing children and extra shoes for everyone. They will be welcome in storage, particularly if prices rise because of trade issues or inflation.
• The best time to expand your garden is now – till or mulch and let sod rot over the winter. Add soil amendments, manure, Compost and lime.
• Now is an excellent time to start the 100 mile diet in most locales – Stores and farms and markets are bursting with delicious local produce And products. Eat local and learn new recipes.
• Rose hip season is coming – most food storage items are low in accessible vitamin C. Harvest wild or tame unsprayed rose hips, and dry them for tea to ensure long-term good health. Rose hips are Delicious mixed with raspberry leaves and lemon balm.
• Discounts on alcohol are common between Halloween and Christmas – this is an excellent time to stock up on booze for personal, medicinal, trade or cooking. Pick up some vanilla beans as well, and make your own vanilla out of that cheap vodka.
• Gardening equipment, and things like rainbarrels go on sale in the late summer/early fall. And nurseries often are trying to rid themselves of perennial plants – including edibles and medicinals. It isn’t too late to plant them in most parts of the country, although some care is needed in purchasing for things that have become rootbound.
• Local honey will be at its cheapest now – now is the time to stock up. Consider making friends with the beekeeper, and perhaps Taking lessons yourself.
• Fall is the cheapest time to buy livestock, either to keep or for butchering. Many 4Hers, and those who simply don’t want to keep excess animals over the winter are anxious to find buyers now. In many cases, at auction, I see animals selling for much less than the meat you can expect to obtain from their carcass is worth.
• Most cold climate housing has or could have a “cold room/area” – a space that is kept cool enough during the fall and winter to dispense with the necessity of a refrigerator, but that doesn’t freeze. If you have separate fridge and freezer, consider disconnecting your fridge during the cooler weather to save utility costs and conserve energy. You can build a cool room by building in a closet with a window, and Insulating it with Styrofoam panels
• Now is a great time to build community (and get stuff done) by instituting a local “work bee” – invite neighbors and friends to come help either with a project for your household, or to share in some good deed for another community member. Provide food, drink, tools and get to work on whatever it is (building, harvesting, quilting, knitting – the sky is the limit), and at the same time strengthen your community. Make sure that next time, the work benefits a different neighbor or community member.
• Most local charities get the majority of their donations between now and December. Consider dividing your charitable donations so that they are made year round, but adding extra volunteer hours to help your group handle the demands on them in the fall.
• Many medicinal and culinary herbs are at their peak now. Consider learning about them and drying some for winter use.
• If there is a gleaning program near you (either for charity or personal use) consider joining. If not, start one. Considerable amounts of food are wasted in the harvesting process, and you can either add to your storage or benefit your local shelters and food pantries.
• Dig out those down comforters, extra blankets, hats with the earflaps, flannel jammies, etc… You don’t need heat in your sleeping areas – just warm clothes and blankets.
• Learn a skill that can be done in the dark or by candlelight, while sitting with others in front of a heat source. Knitting, crocheting, whittling, rug braiding, etc… can all be done mostly by touch with little light, and are suitable for companionable evenings. In addition, learn to sing, play instruments, recite memorized speeches and poetry, etc… as something to do on dark winter evenings.
• While I wouldn’t expect deer or turkey hunting to be a major food source in coming times (I would expect large game to be driven back to near-extinction pretty quickly), it is worth having those skills, and also the skills necessary to catch the less commonly caught small game, like rabbits, squirrel, etc…
• Use a solar cooker or parabolic solar cooker whenever possible To prepare food. Or eat cool salads and raw foods. Not only won’t You heat up the house, but you’ll save energy.
• A majority of children are born in the summer Early fall, which suggests that some of us are doing more than Keeping warm  . Now is a good time to get one’s birth Control updated  .
• Celebrate the harvest – this is a time of luxury and plenty, and should be treated as such and enjoyed that way. Cook, drink, eat, talk, sing, pray, dance, laugh, invite guests. Winter is long and comes soon enough. Celebrate!

WINTER

• Your local adult education program almost certainly has something useful to teach you – woodworking, crocheting, music training, horseback riding, CPR, herbalism, vegetarian cookery… take advantage of people who want to teach their skills
• Get serious about land use planning – even if you live in a suburban neighborhood, you can find ways to optimize your land to produce the most food, fuel and barterables. Sit down and think hard about what you can do to make your land and your life more sustainable in the coming year.
• The Winter Lull is an excellent time to get involved in public affairs. No matter how cynical you tend to be, nothing ever changed without Engagement. So get out there. Stand for office. Join. Volunteer.
• Now is the time to prepare for illness – keep a stock of remedies, including useful antibiotics (although know what you are doing, don’t just buy them and take them), vitamin C supplements (I like elderberry syrup), painkillers, herbs, and tools for handling even serious illness by yourself. In the event of a truly severe epidemic of flu or other illness, avoiding illness and treating sick family members at home whenever possible may be safer than taking them to over-worked and over-crowded hospitals (or, it may not – but planning for the former won’t prevent you from using the hospital if you need it).
• Most schools would be delighted to have volunteers come in and talk about conservation, gardening, small livestock, home-scale mechanics, ham radio, etc…, and most homeschooling families would be similarly thrilled. Consider offering to teach something you know that will be helpful post-peak (although I wouldn’t recommend discussing peak oil with any but the oldest teenagers, and not even that without their parents permission
• Now is the time to convince your business, synagogue, church, school, community center to put a garden on that empty lawn. If you start the campaign now, you can be ready to plant in the spring. Produce can be shared among participants or offered to the needy.
• The one-two punch of rising heating oil and gas prices may well be what is needed to make your family and friends more receptive to the peak oil message. Try again. At the very least, emphasize the options for mitigating increased economic strain with sustainable practices.
• Get together with neighbors and check in on your area’s elderly and disabled people. Make a plan that ensures they will be checked on during bad weather, power outages, etc… Offer help with stocking Up for winter, or maintaining equipment. And watch for signs that they Are struggling economically.
• Work on raising money and getting help with local poverty-abatement Programs. After the holidays, people struggle. They get hungry and cold. Remember, besides the fact that it is the right thing to do, the life you save May be your own.
• Get out and enjoy the cold weather. It is hard to adapt to colder Temperatures if you spend all your time huddled in front of a heater. Ski, Snowshoe, sled, shovel, have a snowball fight, build a hut, go winter Camping, but get comfortable with the cold, snowy world around you.
• Have your chimney(s) inspected, and learn to clean your own. Learn to care for your kerosene lamps, to use candles safely, and how To use and maintain your smoke and CO detectors and fire extinguishers. Winter is peak fire season, so keep safe.
• Grow sprouts on your windowsill.
• Now is an excellent time to reconsider how you use your house. Look around – could you make more space? House more people? Do projects more efficiently? Add greenhouse space? Put in a homemade Composting toilet? Work with what you have to make it more useful.
• If a holiday gift exchange is part of your life, make most of your gifts. Knit, whittle, build, sew, or otherwise create something beautiful for the People you love.
• If someone wants to buy you something, request a useful tool or preparedness Item, or a gift certificate to a place like Lehmans or Real Goods. Considering giving Such gifts to friends and family – a solar crank radio, an LED flashlight, cast iron pans, These are useful and appreciated items whether or not you believe in peak oil.
• Do a dry run in the dead of winter. Turn out all the power, turn off the water. Turn off all fossil-fuel sources of heat, and see how things go for a few days. Use What you learn to improve your preparedness, and have fun while doing it.
• Learn to mend clothing, patch and make patchwork out of old clothes.
• Write letters to people. The post is the most reliable way of communicating, And letters last forever.
• Make a list of goals for the coming year, and the coming five years. Start Keeping records of your goals and your successes and failures.
• Keep a journal. Your children and grandchildren (or someone else’s) may want To know what these days were like.
• Wash your hands frequently, and avoid stress. Stay healthy so that you can be useful To those around you.
• For those subject to depression or anxiety, winter can be hard. Find ways to relax, Decompress and use work as an antidote to fear whenever possible. Get outside on sunny Days, and try and exercise as much as possible to help maintain a positive attitude.
• Memorize a poem or song every week. No matter what happens to you, no one can ever take away the music and words you hold in your mind. You can have them as comfort and pleasure wherever you go, and in whatever circumstances.
• Take advantage of heating stoves by cooking on them. You can make soups or stews On top of any wood stove or even many radiators, and you can build or buy a metal oven That sits on top of woodstoves to bake in.
• Winter is a time of quiet and contemplation. Go outside. Hear the silence. Take pleasure in what you have achieved over the past year. Focus on the abundance of this present, this day, rather than scarcity to come.

Eventually we hope to buy an electric car.  We’re waiting for prices to come down and for a later, more improved generation of EVs.  However, this article is full of information to help guide our eventual purchase, so I thought I would share it with you.

Things You Need to Know Before Buying an Electric Car: To read the original article click here

Interested in buying an electric car? Check out these buying tips, so you know about maintenance, battery charging and warranties, and other key factors.

The buzz in 2011 is about all the new electric cars on the road, led by the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf. But because these are new products to the U.S. market, we asked Nick Chambers, who has written about next-generation automobiles for the New York Times, Popular Mechanics and others, to cut through the hype and offer some practical tips for consumers interested in buying an electric car. He came up with these nine things you should know about electric cars before making a purchase:

1. There Are Two Kinds of Electric Cars

Turbocharger? What’s that? In this new world of plug-ins there are really only two types: all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids.

All-electric cars are solely powered by large batteries charged from the grid; when they run out of juice they can’t move anymore. The Nissan Leaf (left) is an example of an all-electric car.

Plug-in hybrids have a shorter all-electric driving range using a smaller battery pack. After the battery pack is drained, they can either revert to being a normal fuel-fed hybrid, or they can use fuel to run a generator and recharge the batteries on the fly. The Chevy Volt (right) is an example of a plug-in hybrid.

2. There Are Lucrative Federal and State Incentives to Buy Them
Although the sticker prices for electric cars tend to be higher than similarly-sized and -equipped conventional cars, federal and state governments think they are worth subsidizing and have offered some seriously chunky incentives for you to buy one.

All U.S. taxpayers are eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit — but only if you have a one-year tax liability that exceeds that amount. If you don’t have that much tax liability, don’t fret, you can lease the car from the manufacturer and use the entire $7,500 to pay down the lease right off the bat. As a result, Nissan and Chevy — the two electric vehicle manufacturers first out of the gate with mass-market offerings — both have relatively affordable $350 per month lease deals. The federal tax credit will remain in effect for a given EV (electric vehicle) manufacturer until it sells more than 200,000 EVs.

In addition to the federal incentives, many states have sweetened the kitty with their own. For example California has a $5,000 credit, Oregon has a $1,500 one and the State of Washington waves its usual 6.5% sales tax charge. Some states also provide special parking and carpool lane privileges. Nissan’s LEAF website has a handy tool to help you figure out what incentives are available where you live.

3. There Are Three Ways to Charge Them
Although the engineers will tell you this is a complicated point of discussion, what it really boils down to is that electric car manufacturers in the U.S. can provide three “levels” of charging support for their vehicles.

Level 1 charging happens off of a standard three-prong household outlet. Every electric car comes with a cable that supports this type of charging, but it’s slow — only adding about 5 miles of driving range for every hour of charging.

Level 2 charging uses special wall- or pedestal-mounted equipment unique to electric cars. Even so, it is essentially like charging from a standard household dryer outlet. Level 2 charging is faster than Level 1, adding about 15-30 miles of driving range per hour of charging, depending on the vehicle.

DC fast charging uses industrially-rated, gas pump-sized stations to dump electrons into your car’s battery like a firehose. Only some cars support this type of charging, and it’s usually an option that costs extra. DC fast charging can add about 80 miles of driving range in a half hour of charging.

Related: The Future? Electric Car Charging for Free, While You Shop

4. It’s Easy To Install a Home Charging Station, But It Costs Extra (Don’t Worry, There Are Incentives)
Although every electric car comes with support for Level 1 charging, most people will want to install their own Level 2 charging station at home so that they can fill up their car’s battery overnight — but it’s by no means a free endeavor.

Level 2 home charging stations will cost between $1,500 and $2,500 to install, depending on the manufacturer and the equipment chosen. If you have special circumstances, such as a long wiring run, the costs can be considerably more. Sounds like a lot, no? The federal government, again, has a pocketful of cash it’s ready to dole out, providing a tax credit of 30% of the cost of purchase and installation, up to $1,000.

5. Public Charging Stations Are Coming, But The Rollout Will Be Slow and Sporadic

So you’ve got your spiffy new electric car, and you coughed up the dough for your own home charging station. If you’re like 80% of Americans, that’s likely good enough for most of your driving needs — you’ll get to the work and back, and have enough to run typical errands. But what about if you want the same freedom that a gas tank and a filling station ever few miles offers? That’s where public charging comes in, providing you the ability to extend your electric car’s all-electric range substantially. (The Wattstation, at right, is an example of a public Level 2 charger.)

There is currently a huge push from the EV Project — a $250 million joint federal-private program — to install nearly 15,000 public Level 2 charging stations in a handful of early deployment regions around the United States over the course of 2011. This includes areas of Oregon, California, Washington, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona and Washington, D.C. If you live in one of those regions you will have a relatively robust public charging infrastructure quickly. If you don’t, you may have to wait a while unless your community is charging ahead without federal support.

6. All-Electric Cars Are for Daily Driving, Not Cross-Country Road Trips
If you buy a plug-in hybrid, you can ignore this because they are capable of taking long-distance trips. However, most of the initial crop of all-electric cars have a range of around 100 miles on a full charge. Some have up to 200 miles, but are quite a bit more expensive. If you have public charging where you live, or you return home and plug-in during the day, you can drive your EV more than 100 miles. Even so, you’re not going to be taking them on long trips. Most people who buy an all-electric car will have a second car available for the occasional long trip.

7. You’ll Spend Less On Maintenance, But… (Yes, There’s a “But”)
All-electric cars ditch the thousands of moving parts of a combustion engine and associated transmission for a handful of moving parts in an electric motor. They also have no emissions equipment. As a result you will have very few maintenance costs — no more oil or transmission fluid changes or catastrophic mechanical repairs. And, although plug-in hybrids still have an engine and emissions equipment, they will need far less maintenance than a typical gasoline engine because they will operate as an electric car much of the time.

Even so, EVs have large, expensive batteries that may need to be replaced after 7-10 years. However, in this first crop of electric cars the manufacturers have provided long battery warranties. In the case of both the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt, that warranty is 8 years or 100,000 miles. The average new car buyer owns the car for six years.) In 8 years the price of batteries will likely come down substantially.

8. All-Electric Cars May Not Have Tailpipe Emissions, But They Aren’t Emissions Free
Sure, we’ve all heard the “zero emissions” claim, and some of us have seen it plastered on the side of a Nissan LEAF — but it’s not entirely true. About half of the U.S.’s electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, so many drivers are filling up on a dirty fossil fuel – it’s just burned a few miles down the road, rather than under your hood. Depending on where you live, this ratio might be more or less — and in places like California or Washington, a large proportion of that electricity comes from natural gas and renewable energy sources, like wind, solar or hydro power.

Even if your electric car is powered by 50% coal there are several studies that conclusively show it will pollute less than the average diesel or gas car, such as this one from the Electric Power Research Institute. (Photo: Istock)

9. Electric Cars Are Really Cheap to Operate, But Expect Higher Utility Bills
Given the average cost of electricity in the United States of about 12 cents per kilowatt hour, you can drive an EV for around three to four cents per mile. At $3.20 per gallon, a 30 mpg gas car costs about eleven cents per mile to drive — plus regular and unexpected maintenance that you likely won’t have in an EV. If you drive your EV 50 miles every day, you can expect your electricity bill to increase by half.

Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/electric-car-buying-tips#ixzz1BjKUroY5