Ok, this text was a little longer than I expected and maybe this is not the proper way of trying to post many articles wich though are part of a whole. But these are mostly valid and good articles about how each and everyone has to be more energy conscious and responsible to each other. I am not talking about some tree hugging, whale loving green liberalism, no but the pure individuality of providing yourself all or most of your own energy needs.
Here in Iceland many of these ideas are not as neccasery as for the US and most other places, as we have energy in abundance, but we have to be energy conscious when it comes to transportations as we have to import all our gasoline and it is very exspensive because of the distances and government taxasion. But we have not noticed the recent surge in gasoline prices as much as most as the gasoline tax was recently changed from a fixed percentage (around 70% tax) of the world market price to a fixed dollar value (ISK value) so the fluctuations have not been as great.
But although all our electricity comes from renewable means, from hydrodams and geothermal energy, wich provides most of the heating also some of these ideas could be useful here. F.e. the windmills on each houses roof could boost our electricity production a lot without the visual pollution wind farms in many places are, but there is nearly constant wind here. Solar panels would not be as good investment here as in most places, although I beliewe they are also getting cheaper and with better productivety.
Even are coming solar panels that could with microtechnology be included into regular roof tiles so it could be the most natural thing to have such on your roofs. And then there are coming solar panels that can harness more than just the visual light from the sun so ewen though it is often cloudy here in Iceland, we could still be producing energy from it. But we have the independence in most of our energy issues, but here are suggestions of how other nations can, in economical way harness the energy all around them, just as we tap into our waterfalls and hot water running underground. Good luck, because this is ever more becoming a neccasity.
Most people equate energy use with cars and heating houses but that is only a part - we also use energy to grow food, harvest food, transport, preserve and store food. We use energy to manufacture things and move them too - and the convenience, availability, and relative inexpensiveness of things will end with the drawdown of petroleum.
Our whole culture will change with the reduction of plane flight, cars, trucks, and train movement. This will force us back to urban centers with shorter distances to travel...and many, many more changes we will learn later.
"Alternative energies" are fine but relatively expensive. And some have effects that we are not smart enough to see the permutations of their use (wind generators influence the ecological balance by reducing part of the natural air flow, possibly changing the climate in areas where there are too many - geothermal energy use changes the rate of cooling of that area of the Earth's mantle; how much advance or disproportionate cooling will change the movement of the crust and cause movements we did not anticipate?).
We need to face the near future as soon as we can so that these changes cause as little upheaval as possible. But the changes are here.
Petroleum replacement solutions will be less convenient and less fun than the world we are used to, the low cost oil world we enjoy today, and so must have a lower total cost than petroleum solutions to be more than technical curiosities. In other words, petroleum will have to get much more expensive before you start seeing roofs covered with solar cells as the rule.
As far as the Prius goes, that car (I have studied it some) has many interesting features. The low internal resistance NiMH main battery charges and discharges at an amazing breakthrough rate. Nippon Electric must have spent a billion or two developing the technology. If the Japanese had to make back their costs on the Prius, like GM or Ford would have to, the machines could not be sold for the price required. Just a little car with a technocult "Modernismus" transmission.
As far as high fuel efficiency cars, BMW produced a car that averaged, city and highway, 50 miles per gallon in the 1950's. My old Rabbit Diesel got over 50 miles per gallon tank after tank. VW has put multi-thousand car test fleets out that average better than 70 miles per gallon. What the Prius is doing is not all that interesting except in HOW it is doing it, not in WHAT it is doing.
A big research operation here in the US showed American type cars could be made that averaged 70 to 80 miles per gallon. My own calculations indicate that much higher fuel economies are possible, though over a hundred miles per gallon current vehicle air conditioning technique consumes more horsepower than does driving the vehicle.
Housing energy use is easily curbed. Energy costs rising enough to pinch and then hurt will have salutary effects. The people will complain bitterly and want war waged against the villains responsible, unless, of course, the war is inconvenient for themselves, personally.
People aren't going to change wanting whatever it is that their cute little heart's desire, and until petroleum becomes more dear are not going to change their energy consumption habits.