Whatever happened to Peak Oil?

[CA renter]

[quote=harvey][quote=CA renter]You’re naive if you think that speculators don’t control markets. And some of that does involve conspiring with and against other speculators. That is a fact.[/quote]

Of course you have inside knowledge about how the secret economy works.

You read all about it in Rolling Stone magazine.[/quote]

Wrong, once again.

[CA renter]

[quote=The-Shoveler]OK sure that might work.

But really I would still want my own car.

Call me a throw back but I like going to Costco, loading the back of the car to the Gills then driving home and hitting the clicker to open the three car an unloading the stuff the 15 steps into the kitchen LOL.

Starting the Bar-B-Q in the yard etc…

I love living in the burb’s LOL.

to each their own, I just don’t like living in a crowded City.
A Honolulu Burb I could take however,[/quote]

Right there with you, Shoveler.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=FlyerInHi]We will see… Let’s give it 20 years.

I think that people will want to live near “town centers” like the Irvine Spectrum. [/quote]

The Irvine Spectrum a town center? Irvine is the definition of burbs.

They have jobs, job concentrations in business parks and during commute times it takes close to an hour to go from one side of irvine to the other.

[FlyerInHi]

Yes, Irvine is the definition of the burbs. But it has developed into its own as the most desirable job center of Orange County.

There’s an urbanization of the burbs going on. People are seeking town center like, more dense areas, rather than just bedroom communities. Those are perfect locations for ride/car sharing facilitated by apps.

[FlyerInHi]

Here’s interesting data on miles traveled.

Remember it’s the change in growth rates that affects prices.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/10/u-s-car-travel-has-been-on-the-decline-for-a-decade-will-cheap-gas-change-that/

[The-Shoveler]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Yes, Irvine is the definition of the burbs. But it has developed into its own as the most desirable job center of Orange County.

There’s an urbanization of the burbs going on. People are seeking town center like, more dense areas, rather than just bedroom communities. Those are perfect locations for ride/car sharing facilitated by apps.[/quote]

Yep that pretty much describes “ALL” Socal Cities.

Start out as far off bedroom Burbs, then develop into Job centers, then large cities on their own.

BUT they almost all start out as far off burb’s.

With the possible exception of L.A. and San Fran, and SD.

They started because of their ports.

[FlyerInHi]

Santa Barbara is not a suburb, but, yes, you’re right on the development of California.

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I see less interest in cars from the younger generations. A friend has fleet of cars, but his kids don’t drive. They are off to college and don’t want a car.

I predict car/ride sharing to be enabled by technology. Combine that with more efficient cars and that will hold down demand for auto fuel.

Also LED in homes will drastically cut energy usage.

[spdrun]

I think people will still want to have their own cars — having to unload EVERYTHING from a shared car that you’ll likely never see again every time you’re done with it would be really annoying. A lot of women I know use a car essentially as a second handbag.

Plus Americans are prissy and don’t want to share seats that have been sat in by others repeatedly. Rental cars get NASTY after about 30,000 miles.

I wouldn’t say that LEDs would cut energy usage drastically. Lighting is only about 10-15% of energy use in the US. LEDs use about 1/5 the power as incandescents, so the cut will be 12% if we’re lucky. And that’s not taking into account fluorescent fixtures that are already installed as well as increased electric heat usage in winter.

[FlyerInHi]

Sure, we’ll still have plenty of cars. But less growth or no growth means less price increases.
Maybe families can have 2 economical cars. They don’t need to have that van or truck if they can easily rent one or use an app to share.

LED TVs hardly use any energy compared to the old plasmas.

Less heat from LED will reduce cooling costs.

Plus smart controls in the home will reduce energy even further. I love my Nest thermostat!!

[spdrun]

But families could have done so during the height of the SUV boom as well. People didn’t need SUVs. They wanted them. Most of the non-farmer world got on just fine without them for 100 years or so. SUVs were about marketing, not utility. Most big furniture and appliances are delivered anyway.

Read about Clotaire Rapaille if you’re interested in that sort of thing — he’s the mad shrink who basically convinced US automakers that the American public REALLY wanted SUVs and it was a good idea to market them to the average burb-dweller.

My parents never owned a truck and they renovated a few houses, took long road trips, etc. It wasn’t that hard.

Hopefully smart controls without the spyware will become more popular. I want my thermostat to talk directly to my phone or computer, not have data-mining swine like Google as an intermediary. If I get smart controls, I’ll go the following route. Kloudkrap optional, not mandatory like in Scroogle Nests.

http://www.networkthermostat.com/

[FlyerInHi]

But now, we have apps that facilitate many things. The sharing economy is the new thing. It’s not the be all, end all, but can create change.

For example in the housing market, it’s not total demand that matters, but it’s the marginal demand above the supply that cause price increases.

The Nest thermostat is smart and programs itself. You can add smoke detectors that act as occupancy sensors to turn off the HVAC. Works great. For a family with people going in and out, you can’t rely on any one person to manually operate the HVAC, even using an app.

That one device can save a lot of money in energy usage. I’m talking about the “average” family here. Some people like you would rather manually control, but most people want to set and leave.

[spdrun]

Technically speaking, if they’re on the same WiFi subnet, there’s no reason why a Nest can’t talk to sensors directly without using the Google mothership as an intermediary. It could even auto-discover occupancy sensors on the subnet.

And the self-programming firmware is internal to the Nest. Again, no intermediary needed to spy on users.

As far as sharing, I was the kid who hoarded all the toys in kindergarten 🙂

[FlyerInHi]

Spd, of course you are right. But gadget makers want your data and they want to charge subscription fees in the future. Google actually works with utilities companies to allow them to control your thermostat.

I’m willing to sell my soul for cheap products that save me money and provide me convenience.

[spdrun]

I on the other hand, will wait till the cheap product is hacked six ways from Sunday to work without Google’s dubious help. I’ll use it without giving Google a fuckin’ thing, and ride off the backs of the sheep who don’t know any better.

Same deal as a cheap Android phone running Cyanogen.

[CA renter]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Spd, of course you are right. But gadget makers want your data and they want to charge subscription fees in the future. Google actually works with utilities companies to allow them to control your thermostat.

I’m willing to sell my soul for cheap products that save me money and provide me convenience.[/quote]

Sometimes, you say some really crazy things, Brian. This one is particularly bad.

It scares me to know there are people out there who have so little regard for privacy rights. This emboldens the spy world to push things further. Too many people have been brainwashed into giving out the most personal of personal data. It’s just scary.

[Author]

Posts