Resilience

UK more vulnerable from disruption to oil supplies

Petrol station closures and cutbacks in storage capacity have made Britain more vulnerable to oil supply disruptions, the Government has been told.

the Telegraph,

19 March, 2013

The extensive rationalisation, coupled with the rundown in storage depots and refineries has reduced the amount of petrol and diesel stocks at filling stations by the equivalent of two days demand.

It also means the average time it takes a motorist to get from home to the nearest petrol pump has doubled from five to 10 minutes.

Currently, stock levels are enough to meet six to eight days demand but, with some operators running below capacity to save money, total storage capacity could be lower, according to data produced by business advisers Deloitte for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

The report is one of two covering the shake-out in the petrol retailing market resulting from the entry of supermarkets and the demise of independent retailers.

The second, produced by the Office of Fair Trading, rejected arguments from independents that competition in the market was not working because supermarkets with their purchasing power controlled the market.

Deloitte was asked to assess risks to the security of supply and the impact on motorists of the market upheaval and, although the consultants had reservations, DECC is satisfied the retail market can cope with disruptions.

John Hayes, energy minister, said the report showed the retail sector had more than enough stocks to “meet fuel supply shocks” before contingency measures were taken. 

But the Petrol Retailers Association, dismayed by the OFT report on the competition issue, claimed the Deloitte analysis demonstrated that the majority of forecourts were running with “dangerously low” levels of reserves

.

The total number of petrol sites has slumped by 75pc since 1970 from 37,500 to just under 8,700 in 2011 as a result of the supermarket invasion and rundown in company-owned and independent outlets.

The rate of closures has slowed over the past six years but between 2001 and 2011 storage capacity was reduced by 15pc-20pc, equivalent to two days demand.

Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and other supermarkets control around 40pc of the £47bn-a-year petrol and diesel market from just 15pc of sites.

The consultants estimate that further closures could reduce stocks to less than six to eight days cover. Companies are reluctant to increase capacity because it would be expensive.

The consultants see little relief for independent operators due to supermarket competition and new types of contract offered by suppliers that reduce margins and increase wholesale prices.

Another 50 supermarket sites have been earmarked as potential sites for petrol forecourts.

The consultants are also warning about further fragmentation in the fuel supply chain as BP, Shell, Esso, Total and other major oil companies either sell or close their retail outlets and reduce refinery capacity.

The UK Petroleum Industry Association has already told the Government that the loss of further refinery capacity after the closure of two plants in the past three years would pose a “serious risk to energy security of supply and resilience”.

An imbalance in the production mix means that Britain exports petrol but imports large quantities of diesel and aviation fuel.

The consultants say that, while the market changes had improved the efficiency of the supply chain, a reduction in spare capacity had damaged the resilience of the system to supply disruption.

High volume supermarket sites buy most of their supplies from importers but, with limited storage, need frequent refuelling. That means that during supply disruptions they will quickly run out of petrol.

The consultants said that, while the market changes had improved the efficiency of the supply chain, a reduction in spare capacity

The French village that gives out hens

"This is a radical solution! I think it is called Permaculture

French Village to hand out free waste disposal units — Chickens

Digital Journal,

29 March, 2012

A tiny village in North West France has come up with a novel waste disposal scheme combining cost saving, environmental and social benefits.

One of the teams on last night’s airing of ‘The Apprentice’ on BBC1 last night came up with the idea of a ‘compost compressor’ as a ‘must-have’ home gadget to market to major retailers. The newly 'invented' compost compressor looked and functioned like an oversized cafetière.

Here in Sarthe department in France, the tiny village of Pincé (pop.206) is about to prove that you don’t have to re-invent the wheel to solve an everyday problem. Following a village council meeting last Wednesday, the Maire (mayor) of Pincé is proposing to offer two laying hens to every village household to reduce the amount of organic waste.

"It's a way to both reduce the amount of waste, to play an educational role for children and cost savings given the current surge in the price of eggs," Maire Lydie Pasteau is reported as saying in the local regional newspaper Ouest-France.

Councils in France are under pressure to reduce the amount of waste heading for landfill sites. Failure to reduce waste in accordance with targets fixed by the European Union could result in substantial fines being imposed on the French sate for non-compliance.

The village of Pincé lies within one of the major French poultry rearing areas centred on the town of Loué. Loué eggs and poultry are renowned throughout France. Eggs carrying ‘Label Rouge’ French mark of quality and produced in areas around Loué are produced from hens having daily access to the open air and fed in accordance with strict environmental standards. It was natural that Pincé should look to a local solution to solve a local problem.

It is reckoned that each hen can ‘process’ about 150 kilogrammes (about 330 pounds) of organic waste per annum. The bonus, of course, is that the hens lay eggs – on average 200 eggs per bird per year.

Pincé’s mayor conceded that, at first, the idea seemed something of a joke but the more it was discussed, the more its advantages became apparent:

• It reduces waste that would otherwise go to landfill

• After the initial outlay, the village saves on waste transport trips

• It improves diet from a natural food

The mayor also felt that the scheme was likely to improve social ties in the village saying, “Just as villagers already look after neighbours’ dogs and cats during holiday periods, then they’ll also keep an eye on the hens!”

Under the scheme, each village household interested in acquiring its living waste disposal units would receive a pair of hens in September. Those receiving hens would require to undertake that the birds would be well treated, properly fed and were housed so as not to cause a nuisance.

The cost to the village would be between eight and ten euros per hen – that about €20 cheaper than the ‘Eco waste compressor’ which the boys' team dreamt up on ‘The Apprentice’ last night.

Emotional resilience

OPENING TO COLLAPSE

By Seemorerocks

The whole question of denial of the reality of humanity’s current predicament is one that has bothered me - especially in recent times when people from within the Transition and green movement - people that I always thought should know better, have tried to turn the whole conversation away from Peak Oil and catastrophic climate 

I have recently had another look at Carolyn Baker’s “Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilisation’s Collapse”  and found more than enough to reflect on - and to help me answer the question of why so many people are in denial.

She quotes people who who have written to her in the following way:

“I’ve just unsubscribed to your email list.  Your website is filled with negative stories and articles, and I need a positive attitude and do what I can to make my world better”.

She asked herself what the tone of such of a letter was - disappointment, anger, fear?  Perhaps some of all of those emotions, she concluded; but the main word she found to describe the reader’s perspective was righteousness.

She describes righteousness in this context as being a false sense of doing or feeling the “right thing”.  

The main problem with this attitude is that it leads to detachment from reality, illustrated by Barbara Bush (wife of Bush Snr) not wanting to trouble her “beautiful mind” with statistics about troop or civilian causalities in Iraq.

One example of this wishful thinking I encountered this last weekend when a good friend lectured me that you ‘can’t change the world’ so the best thing to do is to ‘look after yourself’ (‘you can’t make a poor man rich by making yourself poor’) - and everything would look after itself.

This comes pretty close to the ‘self improvement’ movement which says that the best thing is to unfailingly maintain ‘prosperity consciousness’ and ‘positive thinking’ which says essentially that if  things don’t quite work out then obviously I haven’t thought positively enough.

A lot of these attitudes are very related to Judeo-Christian thought and ultimately to a very deep fear of death.  Any thought that allows even the tiniest admission of our mortality (or that of human civilisation)  is seen as ‘negative’.

It is at its base a refusal to see our nature as animals and as an integral part of nature.  It is therefore ‘human-centric’.

To talk about the collapse of human and industrial civilisation, about the destruction of the world that we live in and depend on, is seen as a form of mental illness; ecologists are seen as ‘hating’ their fellow humans.

Carolyn Baker compares this addiction to ‘positive thinking’ as being akin to a situation in an abusive family where abuse is actively going on where a member of the family insists on ‘thinking positive thoughts’ and resents anyone who points to the truth of the situation.

Carolyn Baker in her book advocates a spiritual approach to the collapse of industrial civilisation that is based on being fully anchored in reality, taking on the emotions that arise and letting go -  denying nothing.

This involves fully recognising the truth, the way things are - to look at reality in the face.

This is going to bring up all sorts of emotions of fear, anger, denial, doubt etc.

We need to be able to accept these emotions, to give them space and to let them go.

This gives us the space for acceptance and provides us with an inner strength that allows us to act in a way that is free of fear.

Many people who have accepted Collapse have said that it has opened up areas in their lives that were not available to them before, that “I have never felt so alive before”

This comes from accepting and letting go rather than trying to suppress the ‘negative’ and replace it with the ‘positive’.

Carolyn Baker talks about this in the context of accepting the inevitably of our own mortality  as well as accepting that no species on this earth that has been so successful and reproduced to such high numbers has ever lasted forever.

The reality of all life is birth, maturation, decline and death.  In the realm of nature there is no ‘positive’or ‘negative’ associated with this - it simply IS.

She gives the example of the Dalai Lama who, most people will agree is a positive individual who is able to inspire many.  His spiritual practice is one of contemplating death every day.  It is precisely (as well as the development of compassion) this that allows him to be so positive. 

Another teacher, Stephen Levine says:

There seems to be much less suffering for those that live life in the wholeness that includes death. Not a morbid preoccupation with death but rather a staying in the loving present, a life that focuses on each precious moment. I see few  whose preoccupation in life has prepared them for death. Few  who have explored whatever might come next be it death or sickness, grief or joy”.

In conclusion, as Carolyn Baker says , there is nothing we can do about collapse, but there is plenty that we can do with collapse.  It can open up a whole new realm where we open up to other dimensions that have the potential to bring a sense of fullness and even joy into our lives.