Chris Hardie » gas

Five Geopolitical Scenarios to Consider

Chris — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:11:45 +0000

From the “I hope it doesn’t happen but wouldn’t be surprised if it did” department, I have some predictions and scenarios to throw out there about stuff that could happen sometime in the rest of 2008. I suppose this is mostly just a mental exercise for me, but maybe it’ll spark some interesting comments/responses:

The price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the U.S. will hit $6 a gallon sometime this Summer, and perhaps $10/gallon or more by the end of the year. Measures will be taken by the federal and state governments to temporarily alleviate the financial burden on some people, but nothing sustainable. Some people will not be able to get to work at all, while others will have to carpool more, take the bus, ride their bikes, and walk.
The U.S. will initiate military action against Iran, probably in the form of heavy air-strikes. There will be no clear notion of victory or desired outcome other than to significantly destroy the country’s own infrastructure, especially targets related to nuclear facilities. This action might be justified to the American people by…
An apparent attack on one or more U.S. locations, resulting in significant loss of life or infrastructure.
The U.S. airline industry will significantly cut back or even cease flight schedules as we’ve known them, and air travel will (once again) become a privilege reserved for the rich and famous who can afford private flights. Any frequent flier miles you’ve accumulated will become worth near nothing.
Most grocery stores will significantly scale back their inventories and restocking schedules, and significantly raise prices on what remains. Obtaining food from non-local sources, even basic staples, will be difficult at best, and most communities will begin to take emergency steps to feed their residents.

Hey, look, I don’t like the thought of these things happening any more than the next person, but perhaps there’s some value in naming what might be, even if it seems a bit outlandish or gruesome. Maybe if we believe these things are possible, we might feel more prepared to prevent or deal with them if they do happen.

What do you think? Too cynical? Worse? What are some other scenarios?

Peak Oil

Chris — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:24:51 +0000

Hey, did you know that the worldwide demand for oil will outpace production in the next 20-40 years? Price goes way up, oil-dependent economies crumble, wars over energy resources explode. The fix? All we need is “a few dozen technological breakthroughs; unprecedented political will and bipartisan cooperation; tremendous international collaboration; massive amounts of investment capital; fundamental reforms to the structure of the international banking system; no interference from the oil-and-gas industries; and about 25-50 years of general peace and prosperity to retrofit the world’s $45 trillion dollar per year economy, including its transportation and telecommunications networks, manufacturing base, and agricultural systems to run on these new sources of energy.”

Or maybe we’d be fixing the wrong problem.

What will you be doing in 20 years?

Gas Pump Buffer Overflow

Chris — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 22:56:52 +0000

Random rant: In 1970, Intel produced a memory chip, the first, capable of storing 1 kilobyte of data – a couple of paragraphs of text or so. Today, one can obtain memory chips that store many gigabytes of data – enough to hold entire movies, encyclopedias, and more – for mere hundreds of dollars. So, why is it that when I finish pumping gas at a gas station and hit the “RECEIPT YES” button, the piece of crap machine can’t store that one simple keystroke in its input buffer long enough that it doesn’t have to ask me 5 seconds later, “RECEIPT? (YES/NO)”. It can remember a credit card number, do complex fuel tax calculations, and even tell me about the latest sugar-coated crap I can buy inside, but not that I pressed that button a few seconds ago. It’s a scary, scary world we live in, folks. Bah!