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News for Seattle, Washington
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So now Mike, a sheet metal contractor, has enlisted in a growing movement to change the way America does business. Whenever possible he and his men work four-day weeks – 10 hour shifts – as a way to cut costs, reduce pollution and congestion.
“It would be astronomical what states, the federal government and the nation and the world could save on energy consumption, pollution traffic congestion and everything else,” he said. The idea isn’t new one. The oil crisis of the 1970s prompted some employers to switch to a four-day work week, but the idea never took hold nationally. These days, though, energy and congestion issues may give the concept more traction. Several petition drives for a shortened work week are now circulating on the Internet.
A handful of cities in Nevada, California and Arizona are experimenting with the idea. Working four days instead of five would mean 20 percent fewer trips to and from work, reducing oil consumption by an estimated 40 percent. That’s about 65 million fewer gallons of gas used per day, not to mention more time with family, and for Mike Cummings, a bit more hope for the future.
Seems like a relatively easy solution. I switched to a 4 day work week about a year ago, between the fuel savings and the improvement in my attitude overall, its been nothing but positive. I highly recommend it.
This is a great idea as a health care worker I work 3 twelve hour days per week with full benefits. I have never enjoyed my time more.
Have been on a 4-day week since last Summer…longer days but, the 3 day weekends are great…can’t afford to drive anywhere now but still, the worst day off is still better than the best day at work.
I’ve been on a 4-day work week for a while. I mean I still go into work 5 days. I just stopped doing any work on fridays.
Everyone in my office now works 4 days at home (using the Interwebitubes) and we meet 1 day a week at the office.
Eventually we’ll eliminate the office, use off-site servers and just meet once a week at Starbucks.
That’s how I can still afford to drive my V8 Mustang GT.
I’d love to do 4 10 hour days…3 days off would be perfect. However, so many labor laws are in the way, and employers would hate it I’m sure.
What about people who work 10-hour days already? Or more? Do they get to work four 18-hour days?
Sounds like a good solution for the sheetrock guys, or workers at the Ford plant, but not a practical solution for many others.
Not much could for a workplace that provides services to other workplaces that don’t have 4 day work weeks.
#5 What labor law do youthink get’s in the way of 4 x 10 hour days?
Why should we compromise. This nation was built on the ability to move freely within the borders. If the settlers had compromised then maybe the U.S. would still be East of the Rockies. Our economy is based on this principle of free trade between States and the ability to do business via travel to new markets. Demand should drive price competitiveness, however OPEC’s constricting policy is a punishment and buffer against U.S. presence in the Middle East. This equals the American Middle Class and Poor being punched in the pocketbook at every fill up. Our economy is at war – they have brought the war to U.S. soil via the attrition of hard working Americans.
As for peak oil – the news I have read is that that there are vast untapped amounts of oil yet to be realized. With a volume of 1,097,509,500,000,000,000,000 cubic meters, we have only perhaps realized .005% of the Earths oil potential.
As for the environment… the greedy oil companies and auto manufacturer’s know that exhaust systems exist that can “scrub” diesel and gas emissions down to near zero. I don’t want to destroy the atmosphere anymore than anyone else and there are ways so we don’t have to. The oil and car manufacturer’s should subsidize funding to retrofit every car and truck within 4 years – America should lead the world not follow in this attitude.
If you want to look at the wrong path to take look at China and the mess they are spewing into the skies at least we have environmentally considerate policies and regulation – But more needs to be done.
Honest Americans deserve the right to life, liberty and happiness – none of which we are going to have if the core of our economy is gutted. We must urge our representatives at every level of government to ask questions and demand core answers from oil companies, refiners and OPEC.
My children need assurance that the American Dream is still going to be there, just as they need to breathe clean air – we have to strike a balance, logic demands it.
What about some flex time and flex schedules? And perhaps some places that allow you to work from home?
Aren’t we all connected already?
If you’re just filing TPS Reports, then do that from the comfort of your double recliner. If you’ve got to save lives, then get a room at the hospital and do a week on and a week off.
Lucky I get paid to blog.
Jeff
http://www.thingstoworryabout.com
It would give us much more time with our families for touring & trips to the beach.
RBG
the problem here is a basic change in society is in order, that’s why people can’t even wrap their heads around the concept beyond an elementary level.
>>the news I have read is that that there are
>>vast untapped amounts of oil yet to be
>>realized.
Link?
13, people like this don’t rely on quaint things like “facts”
#8 you’re a nut
My wife’s a nurse.
She does 2 16-hr shifts, and 1 8-hr shift a week. Four days off a week, I’m envious.
#8 You need to read http://theoildrum.com and http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
All of the misinformation in that post has been disproven. We are at the limits of what we can suck from the ground, it matters not how much is left. Demand continues to grow faster than supply, and supply has been stagnant for three years now, in a couple of years it will start declining.
Its a fact of geology, not a conspiracy of oil companies or OPEC. We can only pull so much out so fast due to EROI (energy returned over invested)
To ease the cost of fuel, shorten the work week!
I used to work a job that had a rotating 12-hour shift, which averaged 42 hours per week, but I wouldn’t recommend it. 12-hour shifts are brutal if you have outside interests. It would be better if the government created incentives for businesses to offer a voluntary 4-day workweek having 8-hour workdays and also a voluntary 5-day workweek with 6-hour workdays. There shouldn’t be a loss of productivity because there are now fewer jobs than workers to fill those positions.
I remember my employer implementing similar programs for a while 10 years ago. 4-10 is really easy to do, we also had a weird one where you would work 8 9-hour days and would tale the ninth day off (no one really like it). But flex scheduling is a great idea, I wish my employer would reconsider it again.
I have a job that is a prefect fit for tele-commuting (database & misc tech support) so of course I have to come into the office everyday. [sigh]
I had no idea John was French!
#19
Link 1: Daniel Yergin and CERA have been consistently wrong on oil reserves and projected prices. Oil is currently priced three times higher than Yergin says it should be.
Link 2: The shale oil fields in Utah and Colorado are worthless, with current technology it would take a couple of barrels of energy to extract one barrel of oil from shale. This is primarily why no one has bothered with it.
Link 3: Iraq is one of a few countries left still growing in oil production, but obviously the war is getting in the way. Its not about the reserves in the ground, it is about what they can pump.
The truth is I’m worries about life in America in a few years myself. A lot of this could have been avoided had we prepared for it back in the 80’s, but we didn’t. In fact “Globalization” made it worse.
For 5 years I had a 3-day work week (12.5 hour shifts, for a total of 37.5 hours, with the ability to claim the additional 2.5 hours to round it up to 40 for time spent reading e-mail during the “weekend”). It’s been difficult to get back into the 5 day grind.
Those long days were pretty rough, but the 4 days off made up for it.
13 MM.
“the news I have read is that that there are vast untapped amounts of oil yet to be
realized.”
Link?
http://tinyurl.com/52w3q
“By conservative estimates, the underground deposits around Fort McMurray hold 1.6 trillion — with a “t” — barrels of oil, making them the largest lode of hydrocarbons on Earth. Up to 330 billion barrels of the crude here in Canada’s oil sands region are recoverable, geologists say. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, possesses 262 billion barrels of proven reserves.” USA Today
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands
These are the Athabasca-Wabiskaw oil sands of north northeastern Alberta, the Cold Lake deposits of east northeastern Alberta, and the Peace River deposits of northwestern Alberta. Between them they cover over 140,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi) – an area larger than England – and hold proven reserves of 1,750,000,000,000 barrels (280 gigatonnes)
We just need to wait until the Arabs price themselves to make recovery worthwhile by American Free Trade takeovers.
RBG
Didn’t I just read the news about Brazil striking oil? Something like the third largest oil field in the world?
#25 those are good links. I wonder what the price point of imported oil is going to be when it will be feasible to extract from this resource. $5, $10, $15 per gallon U.S.? Personally I think the economy in terms of the living wage and U.S. trade competitiveness will be badly damaged beyond $5.
Can we recover?
The talk show host David Ramsey said that one of the reasons we are not as up-in-arms at the price of gas (this is a few weeks ago..) is that we are
now (as apposed to the 1980s squeeze) is that we are mostly paying by credit card now. If we were all required to pay with cash we would not be talking about this oil squeeze, but taking action. I am tired of parking next to Lincoln Navigators that tower over me (at 5′-10″) with 5′-6″ moms with maybe a kid or two shopping for a dozen eggs. If we really had to pay for our gas with real money we would be well on our way to handling this. Try it for a week, see if you are more outraged at the price of energy.
First off — how about overtime at 32 hours?
Now, the four day work week won’t catch on unless schools can do it too. They’re a driving force in scheduling.
“#25 those are good links. I wonder what the price point of imported oil is going to be when it will be feasible to extract from this resource. $5, $10, $15 per gallon U.S.? Personally I think the economy in terms of the living wage and U.S. trade competitiveness will be badly damaged beyond $5.
Can we recover?”
First, we are already extracting oil from this resource. Second, the process need to extract requires water and lots of it. It only rains so much in Alberta.
In other words, it does not scale up. Alberta cannot produce any more oil from oil sands than it is producing right now. We wouldnt want to anyways, the process contributes heavily to global warming, and the oil sands oil is low grade oil which limits its uses.
All these articles about huge oild deposits are worthless if we cant get it out. Another huge deposit is the Bakken shale deposit centered around North Dakota. Virtually untapped because the cost of drilling is too excessive.
And it is not an economic matter either. If you put more energy into drilling than you get out in barrels, its not viable no matter how high the price of oil gets. This is quickly becoming the case in Ethanol production.
Bottom line is this: Our energy future is based on electricity from renewable sources. We have to get off this “fuel” kick. Say goodbye to the internal combustion engine, hello electromagnetic motors.
7-In California (and am sure other states as well) overtime is deemed any week over 40 hours or any workday over 8. As good an idea as 4-10 hour shifts would be, there’s no way businesses would be in favor of it.
“How To Bring an Infidel Superpower to its Knees without Firing a Shot” by your Middle Eastern Friends and Allies.
OUT OF IRAQ NOW! AND BRING HOME ALL THEIR DAMNED OIL!