100 North and 100 East in Centerville

(click on the image for a clearer version)

I'll let the satellite image explain itself. But another nice thing about this location is that it's right between 400 East, where bus 55 runs, and Main Street, on which bus 70 runs. And it's also a historic neighborhood with some very lovely homes and mature trees. And lastly, this neighborhood has some undeveloped infill, which would come in handy for local food production.

The truth hurts

People don't want to accept the realities of the world that go against their preconceived ideas.

This is exactly why so many people here in Utah are quick to dismiss evolution. Because the theory of evolution doesn't fall in line with the idea that the world and all of its creatures were created 6,000 years ago, some people believe that it must be an "evil doctrine" put forth by those "atheist scientists." Personally, I think that the "conflict" between science and religion is a self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else; it only exists to the extent that people create it. Religion is about the perfection of the soul, and science is about measuring and observing the natural world. And I could go on, but this blog is about energy, not evolution.

Likewise, a lot of people don't want to believe the reality of peak oil production. Peak oil implies that the world could change very quickly and for the worse, and that's not easy to swallow. It also implies that our current lifestyles are problematic, seeing as how our culture of consumption contributes to the problem. So a lot of people are in denial. Instead of accepting that our entire world is built on cheap oil and that we need to do everything possible to change that, they cling desperately to the idea that we'd have plenty of oil indefinitely if it weren't for the environmentalists/OPEC/"Big Oil"/Democrats/Republicans/teamsters/Martians/[fill in the blank with whatever group you want to scapegoat].

Maybe Google_Peak_Oil and others will share some of their peak oil denial stories in the comments section.

200 West and State Street in Farmington

(click on the image for a clearer version)

This location couldn't be better as far as mass transit goes. If you walk two blocks east, you can get on the 55 and the 70. These are the two most essential bus routes in Davis County that will get you many places. If one route doesn't work well for when and where you need to go, then the other one probably will. For instance, it's faster to take the 55 to Ogden, but if you need to go to Clearfield, you take the 70. The 55 will take you to Fruit Heights, east Layton, South Weber, South Ogden, WSU, the U of U, and anywhere along 4th East/Orchard Drive in Centerville, Bountiful and North Salt Lake. The 70 will take you through the downtowns of SLC, Bountiful, Centerville, Kaysville, Clearfield, Sunset, Riverton and Ogden, but the 70 is much, much slower than the 55.

But most importantly, this location is close to a proposed FrontRunner station, which will get you to downtown Ogden and SLC faster than any bus will.

If you have children in school, this is a good location, because the junior high and the elementary school are just two blocks away. Evidently, the Davis County School District has a site for a Farmington high school by the fairgrounds, but I don't know exactly where. If it really is right by the fairgrounds (kitty corner maybe?), then that's within pretty reasonable walking distance too. Even if you don't have kids, it's nice to live near schools because many events are held at them.

As far as proximity to government/civic buildings go, this location is excellent. From here, you can walk to the library, the courthouse, city hall, the school district's office buildings, the post office, the City's public works building, the County's health and human services building and the firehouse (the latter three aren't shown on the above image).

If you're LDS, you can walk to church. It's a little farther away, but you could also walk to the fairgrounds (how often do you have to go to the fairgrounds anyway?). If you bank at Wells Fargo, you can walk there too.

If aesthetics are important to you, then this is also a good place. The immediate neighborhood has plenty of historic homes, and mature sycamore trees line the streets.

And just a couple blocks away are Farmington's swimming pool and arts center, and it's just a little farther to Woodland Park. You could also walk to Lagoon (although I don't think it's worth paying $33.95 for a day pass).

But there's one big downside.

There are no shopping places within reasonable walking distance, except for a floral shop, a pizza place, a sandwich shop, and that's about it. And most dissapointing, there's no grocery store now that Bowman's is gone.

On the bright side, there will be commercial development adjacent to the new FrontRunner station. But there might not be a grocery store there. We'll see.

So this location gets an "A" for aesthetics, mass transit, and proximity to public places. But it gets an "F" for proximity to commercial establishments.

Strategic places to live

The three rules of real estate: location, location, location.

When I'm ready to buy a house, I'm going to look for one that is within walking distance of important places.

My dream house would be six blocks (or less) away from as many of the following as possible:

Bank

City hall

Church

Library

Grocery store

Commuter rail and/or light rail station

At least one bus route

Two or three schools

Post office

A park and/or some other kind of nice open space (mountainside, cemetery, nature preserve etc.)

Other various shopping places

And lastly, it would be wonderful to live within walking distance of where I work, or at least within walking distance of a mode of mass transit that can take me to where I work.

You might be thinking that the above is too much to ask. But if you study an area carefully, you can determine what locations are within walking distance of most of the above. And if you stay vigilant, you might find a good house for sale in one of those locations.

I'm going to start a series of posts that will highlight good locations in Davis County for buying a house, based on the above criteria.

I just think it would be nice to live in a place where you didn't have to get in your car to go everywhere.

Utah peak oil connection

For those of you who still think that the principle of peak oil production is just some doomsday prophecy of left-wing, environmentalist nut-jobs; you're wrong.

Wilf Sommerkorn works as Community Development Director for Davis County and runs a local blog dedicated to urban planning in Utah. Wilf Sommerkorn lives in Kaysville, and he isn't convinced that peak oil is a serious problem.

Kaysville is also where Matthew Simmons grew up. Who is Matthew Simmons? He's the chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International, which is a private investment bank that specializes in energy research, trading, and capital structuring. According to Matt Savinar, Simmons' bank is considered to be the "most reputable and reliable energy investment bank in the world." Simmons wrote Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which explores the peak of Saudi oil production and its implications for the entire globe. Simmons has also worked as an energy advisor for the Bush administration.

So even some of the world's best investment bankers are concerned about an impending peak in worldwide oil production. I'm just trying to drive home that peak oil is real, and not some idea that was just made up by some granola-crunching lefties.

There's only so much of the stuff...

Here's some informative reading that can be found on page 49 of James Kunstler's The Long Emergency:

"By the 1980s, the world had been geologically mapped to the extent that elephant oil fields on the scale of East Texas or the Ghawar field of Saudi Arabia were unlikely to have evaded discovery. The Russians, unhampered by conventional business constraints, had been especially avid in exploring their vast Siberian territories. World oil reserves were pretty much all accounted for. Hubbert lived a long time, and by the 1980s, the "rearview mirror effect" showed that world discovery had indeed peaked in the 1960s. Most importantly, the decreasing rate of discoveries comprised only small fields of minor consequence, which played out quickly. Hubbert's previous estimate about America's peak had been based on his theory, proved correct, that peak discovery preceded peak production by roughly thirty years. Hubbert initially estimated that the world peak would occur between 1990 and 2000. He was a little off, but not by much. Some experts think that the world had, in fact, entered the "bumpy plateau" of the global production peak in the early 2000s, but it was a little too early to get a clear view via the rearview mirror effect."

I was talking with someone who claimed that OPEC nations charge enough for a barrel of oil in order to get rich, but that they try to keep the price low enough so that there isn't as much motivation to discover new oil reserves. I told him that worldwide oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s anyway.

Many don't seem to understand that there's only so much oil that can be discovered. Yet some hold on to the belief that we can keep discovering new oil reserves forever, and that if it weren't for those darn environmentalists, OPEC, or [fill in the blank with whatever group you think is bad], we could be discovering and drilling in new oil fields and thus solve our energy problems.

If only it were that simple.

It's worth repeating that oil production does in fact peak. Domestic oil production peaked in 1970 and has been in decline ever since, even with some new offshore drilling operations and the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska. Some contend that maybe peak oil only applies to fields and nations, and not to the world as a whole. But, keep in mind that oil production in the non-OPEC, non-FSU(former Soviet Union) portion of the world already peaked in the late 1990s (you can see an illustration here).

Why would oil production peak in North America, but keep going up indefinitely in the Middle East and Russia? That doesn't make any sense. Even if the oil fields in the Middle East are much larger, surely the same geologic realities apply.