However, all of that convenience depends on hundreds of thousands of miles of aging gas, water, and sewer pipelines inter connected to a fragile and undercapitalized national electrical grid fed by fossil fuels and uranium that are rapidly approaching the point of peak production.  Once these resources begin to “PEAK”, he will all be forced to adjust to their relentless and irreversible decline. Monthly heating oil bills that equal the mortgage payment is just the first canary in the coal mine.

• World oil production peaked in 2006 and we are currently at a production plateau.  Even if we open ANWR and the outer continental shelf to drilling now, it will only produce a small blip in U.S. production in the year 2020.

• Natural gas production in N. American will peak around 2010 and we will not be able to make up the shortfall with either arctic gas or imported LNG.

• 40% of the uranium used worldwide for power generation comes from decommissioned Soviet era warheads.  Russia will shut that program down in 2013, and the production of mined uranium world wide is expected to peak by 2025.

• Coal is America's most abundant energy resource, but due to the depletion of our high energy coal deposits, we have already peaked in the U.S. based on the annual energy content produced.  Production of coal is expected to peak world wide by 2030, and Chinese demand has already caused unprecedented price increases.

• It will take 2 to 3 decades to replace fossil fuel and uranium energy inputs with renewable sources like geothermal, wave energy, solar, and wind.  Shortages of energy, food, and major power blackouts will be common occurrences during this transition period.

• 120 existing housing units will desperately need to be converted to a much higher energy standard.

Oil prices already have the suburban American homeowner struggling with the cost of his commute and hungry for the introduction of plug-in hybrids.  In the Northeast, heating oil bills already equal monthly mortgage payments.  40% increases in the price of coal will soon be passed on in the form of 40% increases in electric utility rates.  Natural gas heats 60% of American homes.  Prices have already increased by 40% and we will see higher prices and shortages as we approach a  North American peak in natural gas production around 2010.

Homeowners need help with real world solutions to the coming shock to their way of dwelling and these How To books are one small contribution to help with the coming energy transition.

May we all find our way to a more hopeful and sustainable future.