Racing against Time: Racing against Finite Petroleum Supply - Challenges and Opportunities
Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 6, 2010 - 10:39am
This post is a contribution to Honda’s “Racing Against Time” thought leadership series. The Oil Drum was selected to provide a unique perspective on how we should approach the discussion of oil as a finite energy source. During the first week of October 2010, five individuals provide their own thoughts on the subject. These independent contributors were not compensated for their participation and as such their views are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Honda. Details and links to what others are saying about “Racing Against Time” can be found at www.facebook.com/honda.
This week, Honda is focusing conversation on the world's dependency on oil as a finite resource. Many people assume that the concern about the finite nature of the world's oil supply is way off in the future, but this really isn't the case.
We hear that there are huge reserves of oil, so we assume that the oil will be available when we want it. That is not necessarily true. Even if we know the oil is there, if it takes more than one barrel of previously-extracted oil to extract a new barrel of oil, the fact that the oil reserves are there doesn't really help us--it is too expensive in terms of oil, to extract the new oil. This relationship also holds in terms of dollars. Once a barrel of oil is too expensive in $$ to extract, relative to what it can produce, the system starts breaking down.
The question is how high oil prices can go, without the economy being adversely affected (say, by recession). Analysis by Oil Drum staff member Dave Murphy suggests that this level is $80 or $85 a barrel. The current oil price is about $82 a barrel, so we are again reaching the problematic range.
Lending further credence to this concern is the fact that world oil production has been flat for five and a half years now - 2005 to the present - despite a rising number of vehicles. So there is a reason we keep hearing about alternatives.
Biofuels
Biofuels would seem to be ideal for replacing petroleum-based fuels, but there are several issues we are up against:
Low blending limits for most biofuels
If biofuels are not chemically identical to what they are replacing, they can only be used to "extend" petroleum-based fuels by a relatively small percentage, before chemistry differences start causing problems for conventional vehicles. As a result, the amount of biofuel that can be added to gasoline or diesel "maxes out" at a fairly low percentage. More importantly, as the amount of petroleum available decreases in the future, the amount of the biofuel that can be added decreases as well.
For most cars, the maximum amount of ethanol that can be blended into gasoline is 10% by volume (equivalent to 7% by energy content), based on manufacturers' warranties. The amount of ethanol being produced from corn in the US today is already reaching this "10% "blend wall", causing problems for the industry. To get around this issue, ethanol producers are now turning to exports to provide what CNBC describes as "a much needed shot in the arm to a moribund industry." So a person wonders what we would do with a huge amount of additional ethanol, say from cellulosic sources, if we did manage to produce such ethanol.
Bio-diesel tends to cause gelling in cold weather, so it also hits a blend wall quite quickly--as low as 5% of the diesel mix. And again, if the amount of conventional diesel fuel decreases in the future, the amount of bio-diesel that can be blended into the diesel can be expected to decrease as well.
Special vehicles - such as E-85 compatible vehicles - don't solve the problem
Experience shows that building flex-fuel vehicles and offering a limited number of E-85 fueling stations results in only a tiny quantity of E-85 sales. The big issue is that biofuels (not just ethanol, but other biofuels too), tend to be more expensive (relative to their energy content) than petroleum-based fuels, even with subsidies. How many people want to drive out of their way to find a station selling an optional higher priced fuel for their vehicle?
The EPA is currently considering allowing automobile stations to sell E-15 to owners of newer cars. But even if this change were made, it is not clear it would have much impact:
- Service station owners wouldn't want to incur the cost of extra pumps and tanks.
- Service stations owner might be held liable if owners of older cars accidentally purchase E-15
- E-15 buyers may invalidate their warranties.
Perhaps the over-arching issue, though, is how many drivers will go out of their way to buy a fuel that costs more than E-10, in terms of the energy provided?
Cost of alternatives tends to stay above oil-based products, even when oil prices rise
No matter how much the price of oil rises, the price of biofuels (and for that matter, most other alternatives) tends to rise as well. There are admittedly efficiency gains, but even when these are considered, the price doesn't drop enough.
The problem seems to be what we call "receding horizons". Biofuels and other alternatives use oil and other fossil fuels in their manufacture and transport. As the cost of these fuels rise, the cost of producing the biofuels tends to rise as well. You can't even get ahead for long--perhaps on a temporary price drop for a glut of corn, but not much longer.
Land, water and fertilizer limit total biofuel production
There is a fairly low limit--probably not more than 20%--on the amount of biofuels that can be produced, because of competition for land, fertilizer, fresh water, and other resources. Phosphorous for use as a fertilizer is one limit to this expansion.
Bio-diesel from algae could theoretically circumvent some of these issues, but it is still very expensive to produce ($32.81 a gallon for one company). Scaling the process up is difficult, because indoor production of algae tends to be expensive, while outdoor production suffers large evaporation losses and tends to attract unwanted species. (See here and here).
Implications and Opportunities
The net of all these things is that it that biofuels might at most replace 20% of petroleum-based fuels for the current transportation industry, leaving large gaps.
There is work being done on chemically equivalent fuels--so called "drop in" biofuels. Some of the "next generation" biofuels are of this type, as described in this booklet by the USDA called Next Generation Biofuels. The quantities available of these drop in biofuels is not large, however, and they tend to be expensive, so it is doubtful that they can be cheaply scaled up to large quantities.
There may be a few niches where biofuels are particularly useful--perhaps in recycling vegetable oil that might otherwise be thrown away, for example, or for "drop in" fuels created by pyrolysis or other heat-based approaches applied to waste plant or animal products. Such fuels may be especially helpful for local markets, since this will cut out the energy costs associated with transporting the biofuel. Also, it may be easier to match the biofuel with specially adapted service station pumps and vehicles using the fuel in a local market. (See Robert Rapier's article about the possibility of using E-85 in Iowa.) But even this approach is difficult to make work, if the cost of the biofuel is higher than what it replaces.
Developing cars that are optimized for alternative fuels, such as ethanol, may help overcome the cost hurdle, since an optimized vehicle will not have the mile per gallon shortfall that a non-optimized vehicle has. Because of the difficulty in building a widespread fueling network, distribution of the optimized vehicles may have to be limited to a small geographic area where adequate fueling stations are available, however.
Natural Gas
We hear a lot about natural gas as a possible transition fuel. As such, it might be helpful for reducing coal dependence for electricity generation, and it might be helpful for replacing gasoline. But the fact of the matter is that we don't know how much extra supply we have--perhaps a few extra percent--and for how long this extra supply might last.
According to the way the EIA counts fuels--in heat energy--petroleum is our single largest fuel source, amounting to 37% of the total. Natural gas--with is used for industrial uses, and home heating, besides electricity production--amounts to 23%, and coal amounts to 21% of the total. (Biofuels are about half of the 4% slice that I have labeled "wood + ethanol". The other half is wood used as fuel.) The wind, solar PV and Geothermal are all part of the "Other" slice, which together amount to 1% of the total.
We don't know how much extra natural gas we will have, because it depends on factors such as the extent to which fracking will be permitted near populated areas, and also how high the price of natural gas will rise. But suppose that with additional investment, we raise our natural gas supply by the equivalent of a wedge the size of the light blue hydroelectric contribution--that is, by 3% of the total. If this wedge were applied entirely to petroleum, it would replace 8% of the petroleum supply. Or alternatively, it might be used to replace about 14% of the coal supply. So under any reasonable assumption, we are not going to be able to replace a very big fraction of petroleum use with natural gas use.
Implications and Opportunities
If there is a little extra that can be put toward transportation, a reasonable approach might be to use it on fleets of commercial vehicles--perhaps busses or delivery trucks that do not travel far from their home base so that they can refuel there. Most of these might be in areas near where natural gas is extracted, so that there is not a need to add a lot of extra pipelines to transport the gas.
The above discussion relates to the US. Natural gas supply varies around the world, because natural gas is relatively difficult to transport. There may be a few places near gas production sources where cars powered by natural gas may be feasible, at least in the near term.
Cars with Batteries
If biofuels and natural gas don't solve the potential shortfall, how about electricity?
With electricity, we have two pieces that need to work together:
1. The electric grid
2. The battery operated cars
Regarding the electric grid, it is not clear whether the supply of electricity in the future (say 20 years from now) will be as great as it is today. For example, if coal were to be scaled back, we would need huge quantities of something else (wind and nuclear?) to replace the coal. Making this addition would be very expensive. So it is possible that the supply of electricity will be less in the future, and if this is the case, adding electric cars may strain electrical supplies further.
There are also issues associated with charging a large number of vehicles simultaneously from the grid. While there is much hope that the electrical industry will take care of this issue through a smart grid, we doubt that this will happen in a reasonable time frame, because of organizational and funding issues. Also, if electrical supply is significantly lower, even with a smart grid, there may still be high demand times (cold winter nights, for example) when getting adequate electricity for recharging is still a problem.
With respect to cars with batteries, electrical cars and hybrid electric cars have the advantage of being less expensive to operate than cars with internal combustion engines. This difference is especially great, if the cost of liquid fuel is high.
One advantage of oil-based fuel is that it is very dense and easy to transport. Batteries, in comparison, are much heavier, and don't allow a vehicle to travel as long a distance (unless used as a hybrid with another fuel).
Another advantage of oil-based fuel is that it is an expense paid as the vehicle is used. Batteries are usually paid for up front.
Another advantage of oil-based fuel is its convenience. Batteries are inconvenient in that most take several hours to recharge, and charging may not be available except at home. We note, however, that progress is being made, and the Nissan leaf is available with an option which will allow it to be charged in under 30 minutes, if a 440 volt L3 charging station is available.
Batteries also are expensive, especially in the quantity needed for EVs, so that the cost of an EV is higher than of a car with an internal combustion engine. The price of batteries may be partially offset by the salvage value; GM has teamed up with ABB to investigate uses for Volt batteries after they are removed from vehicular service.
Some analysts point to supplies of e.g. lithium as a limitation on electrification of vehicles, but lithium is a very small part of current battery prices and the market can easily accommodate more expensive supplies or alternative battery chemistries (e.g. zinc-air).
Implications and Opportunities
At this point, hybrid electric vehicles seem to be a better choice than EVs for many users because they are less expensive, and users are not tied to one or two sources of electricity for recharging. However, the price of hybrid powertrains is unlikely to fall as fast as the price of batteries, so this relationship may change over time.
Some individuals may decide EVs are their preferred option even today--especially those who value EVs' independence from filling stations, immunity from petroleum price increases, low-maintenance, and pollution-free nature.
What else should we be considering?
It doesn't look like any of these solutions is more than partial. Part of the solution probably needs to be in the direction of lighter, smaller, and more aerodynamic vehicles. According to Luis de Sousa:
Somewhere after the Second World War the car industry simply forgot about aerodynamics (or may have passed it to the back seat). Charismatic cars like the Volkswagen (later christened as beetle) or the Citroën DS, where built with much higher concerns on this field than those available today. Air is the largest obstacle to the movement of a car on a paved road, and the only one in flat road at constant speeds. The other obstacle is mass, entering the equation whenever there is acceleration. The car industry seems to be slowly tackling the mass component with energy recovery systems on braking (something associated with the popular concept of "hybrid-car"). Though indirectly penalized by taxes on fuels, movement through air has so far been left unmitigated.
Implementation could be achieved with progressive industry standards for minimum frontal area / shape ratios or by adjustments to the taxing scheme.
A few examples of vehicles with promise:
The Aptera (photo above)
http://www.aptera.com/
Compromising freight capacity for range, the Aptera is perhaps today the best example of a highly aerodynamic car with many of the possibilities of regular internal combustion engine cars.
Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid (photo above)
http://www.porsche.com/usa/aboutporsche/pressreleases/pag/?id=2010-02-11...
While it's unlikely that we'll all be running on 6 cylinder gasoline engines in the future, this car is a serious candidate for a street legal unit with a kinetic energy recovering system based on a manifold, not a chemical battery. The mass production of such systems, if possible, may revolutionize the electric/hybrid car concept.
Aerorider (photo above)
http://www.aerorider.com/en/aerorider.html
Possibly the best example of how focusing on a single field of application (commuting in this case) can yield incredible efficiency results.
Nissan Leaf (photo above from auto blog)
http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/index
Compromising range for the comfort and practicality of modern internal combustion engine cars.
Many thanks to all the staff members contributing to this story!
Racing against Time: Racing against Finite Petroleum Supply - Challenges and Opportunities
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Racing against Time: Racing against Finite Petroleum Supply - Challenges and Opportunities
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I tried reading the comments on the Honda facebook site, and it sounds like most of the people there aren't taking it seriously. Lots of denial.
It looks to me as though the Honda link to this site isn't available yet, since they are on Pacific time. We can cross our fingers, and maybe the response to our post will be better. At least we tried.
I got a lot of help from other staff members on this post, both in terms of posts I drew from and in terms of direct input. Luis de Sousa and Engineer Poet were most involved in terms of direct input. Those with posts I drew from include Robert Rapier, Heading Out (Dave Summers), and Dave Murphy. Many thanks to all!
Somehow I doubt that the response will be any different. The problem is that we need to get past several defenses - many people who are reading this have never heard of Peak Oil before, and the initial reaction is always going to be one of denial - "it can't be true", or something along those lines.
Some of the comments suggested that they had heard of it before, but for some reason they were dismissing it (without evidence, of course). In one case someone said there would be oil for 1000 years (again with no evidence cited). Others are blaming environmentalists for preventing the development of shale oil.
So I expect we will see lots of denial and scapegoating in an attempt to make the problem appear to go away. This is only what they are saying - I have no doubt that for many of them the thought keeps gnawing at them in the back of their minds, but they are afraid to deal with the things that one could logically conclude might happen if peak oil were true.
The woman who runs www.peakoilblues.com sounds like she might have some interesting things to say about the psychology of all of this.
I did have one slight nit with the above. Depending on the engine, some diesel engines can run 100% biodiesel in warm weather. I have done it and gone thousands of miles in a 2002 VW TDI. In the winter we would cut the 100% biodiesel with 30% kerosene to keep it from gelling. Supposedly newer common-rail diesels can't handle these concentrations for reasons that are unclear to me - part of it seems to be that the manufacturers don't want to extend the warranty to cover this, so they just tell people not to do this just to cover their backsides. I kind of lost interest in biodiesel a year or two ago because of the food-vs-fuel issue...
Good introduction to the topic. Well done.
Glosses over the race to start producing LNG at signifcant production levels. Australia will establish major LNG facilities within a decade (using new gas fields - not existing production ones). The US apparently is increasing LNG import capabilites. Dependng on the decline rate of liquid hydrocarbons, LNG may will become a significant bridging technology (to what I can't say). China in particlar has already already signed signifcant contracts for future supply of LNG).
Even if you don't see LNG as a viable bridge or solution or bridge, I'd like to see the point argued.
Yes, LNG is emerging as a strong contender. The recent advances in liquid injection have further improved the numbers, and dual-fuel vehicles are already real.
So LNG has a open road ahead, in the ease with which it can ramp.
In a recent edition of its Waterborne Global LNG Production Tracker proprietary reporting tool, the company predicted that global LNG production will grow a staggering 26% year-on-year in 2010. The increase stems primarily from the large number of liquefaction trains commissioned in 2009 that will reach a full calendar year of production.
The story was getting longer than we wanted as it was. I find it difficult to believe LNG will ever scale up enough to be a significant transportation fuel. One issue is that there are quite a few countries in Europe that will need LNG for heating and electricity, because of the decline in North Sea natural gas, and that will take a huge amount of the LNG supply that does become available.
At this point the world LNG supply isn't all that great. We can speculate that it will grow a lot, but we really don't know. It would take a lot of energy resources to build huge new capacity, including ships and places to make the liquid into a gas again.
29/9/2010
Where will the natural gas come from for a transition to CNG/LNG as transport fuel?
http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/?p=1902
21/9/2010
40 questions on future fuel and energy supplies for cars
http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/?p=1886
Its funny. Every single time that some major story, or means of peak oil awareness goes mainstream I get this gitty feeling- and then a few minutes, hours, or days later when I realize that out of the limited number of people who even heard the news only those who are already keenly aware pay any attention.
Recent examples:
Richard Branson and the ITPOES report to the Parliament.
German military report.
Robert Hirsch's new book with a forward by Schlesinger.
The 2008 price spike (promptly followed by a global recession that was apparently independent from anything to do with oil prices).
Reports on exaggeration of reserves in Middle Eastern countries (2009).
And fresh off the press Honda's well intended attempt to create public awareness.
I have a distinct feeling that this major event will be another lackluster clarion call. Its like violently shaking someone while they're in a coma. This isn't pessimism; in fact, I genuinely believe that a number of people will unintentionally take the red pill when visiting chrismartenson.com, peakoilblues.com (although, thats really for afterword), or theoildrum.com. They'll at least have the ability to race past the self-doubt phase (hopefully. That was the worst for me- thinking that maybe YOU are the crazy one) due to the tremendous library of knowledge now accumulated.
What you see as a long list of efforts that are achieving no result, I see as a result.
Five years ago not only were armies, car makers, entrepreneurs, government agencies, etc. completely ignorant of peak oil, we were all convinced they would always be. Now they are out there actively participating in and leading the discussion.
I think the resource constraint issue has gone mainstream, which was one of the big goals when TOD was first set up in 2005 or so.
The battle is far from over, but we are clearly making huge progress.
If you think there will be a shark fin downturn, that energy and economic growth are inextricably linked 1:1 and that a the global economy is based on a debt system that will collapse when the economy slows, then this is all too little too late.
But if you see a an oil plateau (with production never exceeding current levels, and then gradually waning, an ability of economies to weaken energy elasticity, and don't think the only major project with debt in a lower growth environment is related to the transition and hence temporary, then we could be moving in the right direction.
Those two scenarios roughly frame (bookend) my view of the future with a significantly higher weighting on the second.
It seems clear to me that there are a large number of theoretical solutions to energy and resource constraints but that these are difficult to implement because of a societal inertia which is underpinned by an ignorance of the gravity of the problem and the nature of solutions.
Discussing this openly and publicly is not only a big part of the solution, it is the essential first step.
Ten years ago Matt Simmons personally briefed the White House on peak oil.
Governments and militaries cannot claim to have seen the light in just the last 5 years.
I don't disagree with that. But still discussing it with the public is progress.
The military has always been "peak aware" to some extent. Access to fuel supplies is the sort of thing that keeps generals awake at night and anything that can threaten that access is fair game for modeling. This is, after all, one of the particular threats the National Petroleum Reserve exists to counter.
The recent spate of publicized reviews are just an indication that it has risen to a new level on the list of overall threats, so they are including it in shorter term strategic planning.
To paraphrase Churchill,speaking sometime in the earlier part of WWII, I believe we have reached the end of the beginning in respect to the discussion of resource depletion in general and oil in particular.
It is now at last registering on most radar screens, even if only as something to be ridiculed and if possible squashed, in the case of some political entities and business interests.
Another piece to this: we will eventually have to revisit the paradigm of owning an automobile that can take anyone anywhere. The fact is that for the vast majority of us, most of our daily trips are short and local. Most of us take longer trips only occasionally. Yet, the vehicle that we need for those longer trips we drive for all trips, including the short local ones. Thus we have the syndrome that Chris stated yesterday: driving around in a 2-ton box, where 5% of the fuel is transporting the occupant and 95% is transporting the box.
It would seem to me that a better paradigm would be to use very small, lightweight, and highly energy-efficient vehicles for local travel (to the extent that walking or bicycling or public transit won't work - and there are many parts of North America where they won't), and then rent a larger, longer-range vehicle just when it is occasionally needed for the more distant trips (again, to the extent that public transportation isn't available). The former vehicles could very feasibly be electric-powered, while the latter may need to be hybrids with liquid or gas fueled back-up engines. The latter would also require a considerable extension of the present network of car rental agencies. These are presently concentrated at airports, but for my suggested paradigm to work there would need to be car rental agencies scattered across the landscape. If people are going to only own a short-range electric car, then there is going to need to be a car rental agency within their driving range. This would seem to be a promising opportunity for the present network of automobile dealers and car repair shops, and expanding into the car rental business may be the only way that many of these will be able to stay in business.
As for those with long commutes, many people are eventually going to be forced to live closer to work. We also need to avoid thinking that commuting options are a bifurcated automobile vs. public transit. It is more likely that we will be evolving into a bi-modal or multi-modal system. Workers may walk or bike or drive an EV to a nearby mass transit node, then take a bus or train to another node, and then walk or take a shuttle bus to their place of employment. Or, perhaps workers will drive to a rendezvous point, and then either carpool or take a shuttle bus (perhaps run by their employer) to work. (Many mass transit systems are already bi-modal, with "park and ride" nodes being common and jam-packed along the outer lengths of their lines, so I am hardly going out on a limb in my prediction.)
Your paradigm can work with car sharing, which is already up and running in many cities in the U.S.
Cities need to change radically to become more compact, which will facilitate walking,biking, etc. The goal should be to facilitate the least carbon intensive solution available, including the use of Human/Hybrid three wheeled trikes with enough covering to keep people out of the rain.
Quit building or widening any more roads. Quit facilitating sprawl. Make automobiles pay their way. Institute toll roads for long distances. One travesty is the increasing use of general tax revenues to repair roads, your stimulus dollars at work as the sign says. My stimulus dollars at work just tore up part of a pristine national forest near where I live.
The automobile industry is beginning to bet on the EV as a way to just plug and play the auto into our existing inefficient, land destroying, city destroying, climate destroying infrastructure.
Car sharing will be part of the mix, at least transitionally. Of course, if you've got 4 co-workers each living 20+ miles away from the workplace and all 4 only own limited-range, two-seater EVs, that won't work. They could all drive those to a rendezvous point though, to be picked up by a company shuttle bus.
I agree that the entire built environment in the U.S. is all wrong and needs to be radially reconfigured. This, unfortunately, will require beaucoup bucks and many, many decades. A transportation system will have to evolve that can bridge the transition between a decline in liquid fuel supplies soon and that reconfiguration in the built environment that will mostly happen later.
The quickest way to save oil, greenhouse emissions, auto deaths (40,000) and injuries
quickly is first to run the trains and buses we have already in major Metropolitan
areas. Here in North Central New Jersey which has 70% of NJ's population we
already have 8 major train lines which already run trains, besides Hudson Bergen
Light Rail, the PATH, the RiverLine and Newark Subway and Light Rail.
These tracks are operational, peak hour trains run on all of these lines so
the tracks are already available including enough trains to run on all these
lines on peak hours.
Furthermore most of these trains and systems are already electric and not dependent
on diesel.
Yet since 2006 NJ Transit has been actually cutting our train service, cutting
my lines Hoboken weekend service 50%, weekday Hoboken service 40%, and on many
train lines there is little or no weekend service.
The same occurs on many train lines and public transit systems around the country
like Maryland's MARC system and others.
Worst yet since the Great Recession 150 transit systems around the country are
facing both service cuts and fare hikes.
(See http://t4america.org/resources/transitfundingcrisis/ )
By spending a few billion dollars we could very cheaply restore and then
expand public transit and take thousands of cars off the roads at least
part of the time saving many gallons of gasoline with little expense.
One of the main problems with mass transit is subsidies!
I have no problem with public roads, public rail trackage, public airways, etc... But, all of the public mass transit that I have read about requires subsidies on every public mass transit fare - And that is not sustainable. If everyone took public mass transit it would become impossible for governments to supply the necessary funding for a per fare subsidy. From a practical standpoint, with the accelerating decline in government revenue it is unaffordable now.
Private mass transit like air lines and bus lines don't usually get a subsidy per fare. Public mass transit almost always requires a (big) subsidy per fare.
If public or private mass transit is going to be viable it has to find a way to organize that will not require a per fare subsidy. Fares have to cover the cost of the rolling stock, the energy to propel the rolling stock and the cost of the labor to operate and maintain the rolling stock. If public mass transit can not do this, then it will fail when the government revenues decline to the point where it can no longer supply a per fare subsidy - and realistically, this point may be in the past already.
If we quit subsidizing autos by paying for roads and maintenance through taxpayer's subsidy, then we can discuss subsidies to transit. Also, the full costs of the auto should be paid through gas tax or other user tax through a toll system. This does not include how our cities are organized around the use of the auto with very little consideration for other modes. The game is rigged. And you want to eliminate any chance of transit being viable.
Further, decisions to drive one's car on any day are influenced by the fact that they are only considering variable costs since they have already incurred fixed costs like depreciation, taxes, fees, registration, and insurance.
If governmental entities are concerned with declining revenues, they could begin by quitting the subsidization of the auto.
Are there any rail mass transit systems that run on publicly owned and maintained tracks?
AFAIK they all own and maintain their roadbeds, tracks, signals, bridges, tunnels, etc., or lease rights to use from a private railroad.
Fuel taxes and/or electronic tolling should be used to ensure that cars, buses and trucks fully fund the construction and maintenance of roads in order to put the two modes of transportation on an equal footing. Railroad property taxes on real estate, tracks and yards should be eliminated for the same reason.
It seems that 'subsidies per fare' is not generally a correct way of looking at the issue. Putting 20 more people on a half full train does not make that train cost any more. It certainly doesn't contribute much to 'wear and tear'. Subsidies per mile traveled for each train/tram/bus seems more apt. Doesn't directly consider ridership, but one assumes with more fare paying riders the system requires less outside money.
Putting those 20 people on the road in their individual cars does contribute to 'wear and tear', and can more easily 'overload' the road network requiring expensive upgrades (as opposed to, say, running another bus or adding a train car) or wasting valuable time and releasing pollution due to congestion.
Melbourne, Australia, just spent $2 billion to buy a new ticketing system for the PT systems which is high tech piece of junk. $2 billion could have bought a heap of new track or rolling stock. This fiasco got me thinking about PT funding and if there might be a better way.
My preffered funding option for public transport is to levy the costs to each property relative to the accessibilty to PT from that property. Charge it accordingly as part of the property taxes. Then make make it essentially free for all riders, eliminating fare evasion and all the costs and delays associated with ticketing. Highly serviced inner city commercial districts like offices, would pay the most as they recieve the biggest benefit by bring people in to the city to work, shop and spend on entertainment. Private investment will flow into PT as soons as there is a guaranteed revenue stream that is independent of bums on seats. People will also be more likely to use a service that they are paying for anyway. There would need to be some regulation to ensure services were serving actual needs and not just being created to rake in the levies.
Gets me so angry the amount of money they wasted on that dum system - and the joke is its gonna INCREASE fare evasion. The fact is a vast majority of the cost of a public transport system (about 75% for Melbourne) is subsidised by government. That 2 Billlion could of gone towards fixing the broken down infrastructure - a direct result of private enterpise trying a run a rail system by the way.
Not sure I agree with taxing those more that live near pulic transpoprt. That could even have the effect of spreading (cheaper) outer suburban housing away from tranport if the tax was draconian enough - exactly what a spread out city like Melbourne doesn't need.
"That could even have the effect of spreading (cheaper) outer suburban housing away from tranport if the tax was draconian enough "
I thumbed through John Hofmeisters (former Shell US CEO) new book at the library yesterday and he has a wholechapter of land use management as key necessity that must go hand in hand with transport planning and therefore ultimately energy use. I don't agree with much of his appraoch but I do agree on this point. The only way you can gett good land management outcomes is with regulation which must come from government.
There is definitely a place for market forces to respond to changing price signals but governments and planning authorities are actors in the market for teh really big stuff like infrastructure and someone has to make teh decsion about what will, and won't, be purchased on behalf of the public.
If people don't want to live in a city, and pay for the transport services provided, then their options should be limited to move to somewhere else, not just carve up more land just outside the zone and then keep driving their car. Everyone already pays a large amount of tax on petrol which most would agree is draconian, but we still pay it.
aren't cars 'subsidised' by cheap oil - especially in the US?
Our whole unsustainable, yet nonnegotiable way of life is 'subsidized' by a cultural system that 'values' some things and some people more highly than others.
(Yo. Let this guy's house burn to the ground. He does not value high enough to deserve firefighter protection cause he didn't pay his 75 pieces of silver fee.)
__________________________
I wonder if they would've let the Whitehouse burn to the ground if it had been Obama that missed paying that $75 fee?
Jon,
here is your train system that is NOT subsidised;
http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/Calgary_CTrain_Effective_Capital_Utili...
It had the lowest capital cost to build and the highest ridership of anh system in North America.
Their operating cost, per train, per hour is $163 (includes all train +track maint etc) for 600 passengers per hour, or $cdn 0.27 per passenger.
They found the cost of carrying a passenger by bus is 6x!
The secret has been a pragmatic, "no frills" approach. It is not a cadillac system, it is what is needed to move people. One tenth of the city;s 1m population rides the train, every day, and it is a Y shaped system - just three lines (at present)
The problem is most cities that build new transit want cadillac systems -everyone perceives that someone else is paying for it so they want/demand much more than if they were paying themselves. The system does not need to be "state of the art" it needs to be practical and cost efficient. Expensive systems that can never come close to paying for themselves (even just operations) mean that it will never get done again, and so nothing really is achieved.
I believe in trains in principle and in fact, where frieght is concerned, especially where railroads exist already and can be expanded or extended.
Passenger rail that must be more or less built from scratch costs so much, and the benefits are so concentrated to the advantage of only a few people,namely those who live, work, or own businesses near the tracks,that getting the remainder of the public on board (pun intended!)may well turn out to be a political impossibility.
An independent store owner or landlord or home owner or the owner of a hotel NOT LOCATED advantageously in relation to the proposed new tracks has a very powerful incentive to see that such track is never laid.
The citizens of cities and communities not located on proposed new lines are waking up to the fact that while they may or may not get some other sort of subsidized goodies, such goodies are very unequally distributed,and that they are apt to wind up paying for more than they get, or getting goodies that can't be exchanged like a birthday sweater that doesn't quite fit.
I used to know a crusty old county school superintendent who often said that a dollar in state and federal money was worth only fifty cents in local money, because it could not be spent as efficiently.
We may be entering an era wherein the public is going to cast a very jaundiced eye on any new federal and state expenditures, rightly seeing that in the short term at least, such expenditures must come at the expense of other expenditures, such as those already existing-which range from social security and medicare to highway maintainence to the local schools and so forth.
I agree that we would be far better off with some well designed and well operated transit -a lot of it in fact, especially if it can be built and run like the system in Calgary, brought to our attention courtesy of Paul Nash.
Before that can be built , however, we've got to get away from the entiltlement mentality associated with such projects.They are envisioned, as Paul noted, as being Cadillac status symbols with every employee provided a cushy living, in comparision to his actual responsibilities, and a cradle to the grave benefit package.
They are going to have to be plain, simple, mostly off the shelf,and I suspect mostly locally financed.Else they may never get built in the large large numbers needed.
This would basically mean that Conneticutt money would stay in Conneticutt at the expense of people who live in the southern mountians, such as yours truly, Dear Reader, but this may be the new political and economic reality.
Insofar as long distance high speed rail travel is concerned,I tend to think that we can survive and thrive without it; somehow I doubt if the wheels of industry and commerce will stop turning if the road warriors currently filling up the planes and hotels find it necessary to do something else.
Every tourist trap that is kept open employing people saved by high speed rail will be a big plus of course but the people who own the businesses at the end of these lines, if they are built, should be the ones paying the loin's share of the cost of building them.
The owners and employees of tourist traps off the line are going to be DOWN THE CREEK (WHY people say up the creek has forever escaped me, boats float downstream but must be padddled upstream) without a paddle and VERY unhappy.
Right now if the one local furniture factory still running wants a new million dollar machine, three salesmen will fly into town to try to sell it.But the plant owner would have bought one anyway, regardless, if no salesman showed up.
The immediate benefits of such long distance systems tend to accrue to the relatively small number of people situated to take advantage of them.To be perfectly blunt about it,in terms of a personal example, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that a line will be built anywhere near where I live, and I don't particularly care, in the short term, about how great such a line would be for the hotel and restaurant owners in Charlotte, or the owners of the car rental agencies there.
(Actually I'm glad of it, as we have too many new nieghbors for my tastes already.One thing about the coming crunch that i like is that it will probably put a stop to most of all of the influx of new people bringing thier high consumption, big govt habits with them.Pretty soon the local lifestyle of living on a small farm will become an impossibility due to the insatiable demands for ever higher property taxes.several of my nieghbors have already found it necessary to sell off land held by thier families by generations-nieghbors who are mill hands , and who are able to live on thier earnings-but not to pay property tax bills running into several thousands of dollars on a few acres of basically worthless-except to a person interested on building a vacation house on it- steep barren ground-good only for harvesting timber every third generation. )
Now of course being almost the sole declared conservative(but not a repuglithan!) posting here, I expect to be slimed for this comment by people who only skim it.
I do realize that in the longer run, we would be better off with mass transit than without, and I am in favor of it being built-locally.I am simply of the opinion that if a community wants it, they should buy it with local money.Since this is obviously in short supply, the only way to get it, short term, would be of course to send less to Washington and to state houses..
There is nothing wrong in principle or concept with creating special local tax districts to support such projects;the owner of a store NEAR the lines who can draw numerous new customers at the expense of the store owner located OFF the line SHOULD pay more.Ditto homeowners and everybody else who will reap the most benefit the fastest.
Of course I also realize that mass transit will help solve the balance of payments problem, reduce the need for overseas military adventures, help clean up the enviroment , and so forth.
I also realize that the days of affordable gasoline are numbered.
My primary object in composing this comment is to inject a little common sense discussion of the day to day realities of mass transit into this discussion.I am not opposed to mass transit although as casual reading of this comment can be construed in this fashion.I have no dog in this fight, at least not in the short term.
I wish we had lots of affordable, well run , environmentally sound transit.Getting it built is going to be tough.
I'm simply trying to bring a little balance to a thoroughly one sided stream of commentary.
OFM, You are on the mark with your comments about who wins and loses from trains, and it has always been thus But since not much passenger rail construction has happened in recent decades, people have forgotten this. It also leads to the inevitable pressure on politicians to then have the train serve some ares/people that it really should not, so the efficiency of the system is reduced. The reveres can also happen, where group of people make sure the train doesn't run through their (high priced) suburb, as they don't want the other people going through their suburb.
The culture of entititlement manifests itself in many ways. It seems the only time it can be overridden is during war.
I agree with high speed rail being a fool's paradise.
The cost of building the line, and the train, and operating it goes up exponentially with speed. Once the trains are over 200 mph, the system is then no more energy efficient than flying (though it is not using any oil)
(http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/04/planes-on-whe-1.html)
Also, the faster the trains go, the less capacity in people per hour, the line has. You end up subsidising those people whose time is so valuable that they need a high speed train, instead of just a train.
For those people in LA who dream of a high speed train to San Francisco that can compete with flying time, is it worth the $20bn? For a fraction of that you could have an express train that does say 80mph, still faster than driving, and you can be productive (read/phone/text/web/sleep etc) along the way. If you are not doing the trip every day, just plan to make good use of the time. If you are doing the trip every day then you need to change your job/lifestyle.
One of the things with a train service is you have to adjust your life to fit the train location and schedule. Not a big deal, but you have to do it. Where I live near Vancouver, I have to take a ferry to get to Vancouver. Not a big deal, runs every 2hrs and costs $40 for the round trip, $9 if you are just a foot passenger. Last ferry is 9:15 at night. An inconvenience, yes, but you just plan accordingly. Expecting systems like this to provide for everyone, all the time, makes them very expensive, but again if people think it is government money, they value it differently I would put the valuation, of what people think should be spent, rather than what they would spend if it came out of their pocket, at about 10:1. When people say the government should build X, ask them if they are prepared to wear a special tax to fund X and you will see. I am actually a fan of that approach, have a local improvement tax, for local improvements. It gets people very focused on what they really need, and how much it costs - pragmatic then wins over cadillac solutions, as they should.
I saw an example of this in Vancouver this year. There is an old pice of train line that runs 2 miles from Granville Island (popular and trendy public market) to a point where it meets with the city's Sky Train LRT transit system. This line had been served by a restored historic streetcar, but did not get that much use. Half the line had to be torn up to build the Olympic Village, though the village was designed for the line to be -relaid and run through it.
Bombardier, the Quebec based train and plane maker, brought in a sexy Euro style train for a trial during the olympics, running back and forth on the 1.1mile section remaining, which joins to a new sky train station on the new airport rail line. It was very popular, of course, and everyone wanted the remainder of the line to be completed, and a scheduled train service. The catch - it would be $90m to complete the project (the remainder of the line, overhead electrifiication, fancy stations, sexy trains, a new maintenance facility etc etc)! The City asked the Provincial and Federal governments to pay for it, both of whom said Vancouver had had more than its share of their money for the olympics to date - if Vancouver wanted the train, they can tax their people to build it. Once faced with that reality, the train project was shelved. Of course, the $90m is a cadillac system. For less than a tenth of that, they could complete the line with lightweight rail and run lightweight trains like this;
This train can carry 60 people and runs on a 2L diesel engine from a Ford Fiesta! (with the help of a clever flywheel energy recovery system hidden under the train floor) It can run on 30lb rail instead of needing 120lb, it costs about $700k, more than a city bus but much less than $3m for a normal train, and does not need $10 m of unsightly overhead wires to avoid using $30/day of fuel!
Another example is in California with the Sonoma Marin train (www.sonomamarintrain.org) This is to run a passenger train on an already existing, and in sparsely used service, freight line. But the proponents want a cadillac solution, a fancy train that can do 70mph on the 2-5 mile spacing between stations. This requires upgrading the entire track length (currently rated for 50mph). Along with landmark stations and state of the art trains, it is a $500m project!
If they were content to just run ordinary self propelled trains, like the one pictured above, the average trip would take 12 minutes longer and save $450m, and could be operating today, instead of the project 2014 in service date. And the people who most need this train, do not care if it takes 12 minutes longer - they care about having a train at all so they can not have a car - the travel time is a minor point.
Like I say, when it is someone else's money people ask for cadillac solutions when a no frills chevy solution will achieve 80% of the result for 20% of the cost. You can then afford to actually do it, and do it again somewhere else, and do it sooner. That pretty much sums up Calgary's approach - the train is utilitarian, not a mobile piece of art. Stations are to stop people getting wet while waiting, not architectural monuments. Lose the grandeur, and you lose the grand price tag. From here on, no one can afford the grandeur, but we can still afford simple solutions - they just don;t satisfy the dreamers, but since when can society afford to do that?
Hi Mac,
Not sure if anyone is following this thread now - but I do have a little experience with riding trains in several countries: UK, France, Ireland and the US (I was too chicken to get on the trains in India).
UK and France were high speed trains. UK train was very plushy - French train was pretty nice also. Irish trains were about the same luxury level as an older McDonald's diner and they were definitely not high speed.
I loved the Irish trains! So easy to get my bike on/off board. Very bike friendly. Seating was spartan but plenty of room. Lots of stops so I could visit many places without a lot of backtracking.
However, Ireland suffered from the same problem as the US - many routes were eliminated as automobiles became more popular.
Here is my opinion: as a nation we should commit to a comprehensive rail plan. High speed trains are rarely needed; luxury seating is unnecessary. I would recommend a network of slow to moderate speed trains that employ the least expensive types of rail-beds, tracks and trains - the idea is to create a model that allows for the most coverage at the least cost.
I agree that trying to build luxury high-speed trains in limited corridors for mega-bucks is a losing proposition. OTOH, if each state developed a long range plan to implement rail throughout the state (urban and rural alike), then it might be more politically acceptable to start building such a network.
Our old family farm in northern Minnesota had its own train stop many years ago before autos dominated transportation. The bike path I ride on several times a week used to be an "InterUrban" rail line. It is still possible to build such a train network again. Actually, if we have the will, we can simply convert selected highways to rail-beds. I would give up our bike path for a return to rail if automobiles can no longer treat NEV, HPV, bikes, etc as second class users.
No, it doesn't. When a barrel of oil is to expensive to extract, the extractor moves on. Maybe into another business.
As an anarchist, I'd be more than happy at the prospect of the system breaking down, any system. Sadly for us 'death to the man' types, systems are often very resilient creatures: resilience through adaptation. The market system is very resilient, made more so by good public policy. The latter point explaining why well governed countries will prosper, less and less oil be damned.
In the case of transportation, well-governed countries will be those who understand that mobility of labour and the flow of goods are essential for productivity and prosperity, not the movement of cars. Labour can be moved electronically and it can be moved electrically. It is especially beneficial to move it bi-pedally. Maybe Honda should design a better shoe.
When I think about it, the general antipathy of doomers towards the public policy process especially the market design aspect, is just another manifestation of the dumbing down process initiated by the 'great right wing conspiracy', to quote Hilary C., in an effort to convince people that it is government, and not the overwhelming influence of the uber-rich on government, (or property developers/speculators in the case of local government) which is the problem. The dumbed down don't even ask why the uber-rich make so much effort to be the government, if government was indeed the problem.
I see Jeff Rubin is talking about this issue at the ASPO-USA convention. According to the article linked in Drumbeat,
What will be available in the way of live blogging, TOD posts, twitter etc, at the ASPO meeting. Has C-Span been invited to cover any of the events?
I know Dave Summers (Heading Out) has always written posts in the past. This year he is giving two talks, and moderating another panel, so he may not have as much time to do this.
I understand Sharon Astyk (on the ASPO-USA board) plans to do some blogging about it as well. I imagine there will be others too.
There is press conference tomorrow at 12:30pm. Presumably there will be some other members of the press at the conference as well.
tweets by Sharon Astwk, Jim Baldauf, KrisCan and others can be found at #peakoil2010
http://twitter.com/#search/%23peakoil2010
Latest tweets 4:30PM PST Thursday suggest that ASPO-USA may be considering a move of its headquarters to Washington DC. Is that true?
http://twitter.com/search?q=peakoil2010
yes, it is under consideration and the decision may have already been made.
The price that the economy can afford to pay for oil depends on how efficiently the oil is used to add value to the economy.
The US is particularly poor on this issue. Most oil is used in transportation, and the US drives far less efficient, larger vehicles further than other developed countries, due to perennially cheap petrol. The rest of the OECD has had high and steadily rising fuel taxes for 30 years that has lead to half the per capita fuel consumption of the US. Yes the US is a larger country built around the car, but that doesn't change the resource constraint.
In the short term the economy is very inflexible at becoming more energy efficient. It takes at least a generation to double the fuel efficiency of the transport fleet, and so the global economy is constrained by the supply of oil, and any growth in Chindia consumption is at the expense of recession in the US and similar countries.
At present, at least outside of the US, most economic contraction is in people's discretionary spending. However, as the fallout from the financial bubble begins to hit home in Greece, Ireland, and increasingly the UK we too are being hit hard.
In a sense the US has the most low hanging fruit in terms of efficiency gains, but it also has a huge cultural barrier to climb, in the form of the American Dream, and a sense of entitlement to resources.
In the big picture, it's not really relevant how much efficiency we get at the beginning because the decline of oil "eats that" within the first few years — and keeps declining. At the same time, the decline of oil will likely not mirror the upslope of production. It's much more likely to be steep because the remaining oil is much harder to get and of much poorer quality. Then there is that little problem of it being located in places that aren't easy to get to or run by governments always friendly to the West:
Add to that the Net Exports problem and I believe that the oil tap will turn off significantly more quickly than anyone can imagine i.e. it will look like a shark fin. Most people think we have until the end of this century while I think we're already too late.
I'll be describing the various forces conspiring to constrict oil in my talk tomorrow at the ASPO conference.
You may be right if one is looking at the big picture. However, won't the individual be better off in the future if he/she invests in efficiency now. For example, I will still have my Prius in the future. Higher gas prices will eat part of the cost savings but I would be even worse off I owned a gas guzzler. I guess all we can do is minimize the pain associated with the beginning of the downward curve of the shark fin.
Come to think of it, won't societies which invest and change now to minimize dependence in the future be better off. Won't places like Copenhagen which have an extremely high incidence of bicycling as a transportation tool be better off than,say, Atlanta? Yes,maybe everyone will be worse off than now but better off than they would be if they just continued BAU.
Yes, the individual will be better off; I should have made it more clear that I was talking about the big picture.
Cities and nations that are on the "extreme" side of the spectrum of oil dependency will have a very rough time. They will find that the supposed "low hanging fruit" doesn't make much of a difference once a few years have passed.
That's because even just a 2% decline in oil translates into a 20% loss in just ten years.
Most people who talk about efficiency haven't really grasped how quickly we need to move off oil, probably because they haven't done that simple calculation above. Thus they don't see that efficiency gains are used up within the first few years of decline — if the society isn't also suffering from an imploding debt bubble and can actually spend the money on replacing its equipment.
As for your question about societies minimizing their dependence now, you're very correct. The only problem is that the majority of minimization strategies had to be complete by now. Instead we are just starting (and not really even doing that in the U.S.).
Right when we need to ramp up public expenditures on common infrastructure for public transit, say, we are going to be spending it all on debt repayment. Or, due to cascading debt defaults, barely maintaining our existing infrastructure. There simply won't be the money to do the work necessary no matter how much we want and need it.
I'm not saying give up: we should do everything we can while we can. But let's get an accurate view of where we are in the process so that we make solid choices.
No. It means that efficiency isn't simply a oneoff change of technology or lifestyle, but something we have to continually work at. If availability is declining by 2% per year, that means we got to improve efficiency by 2% every year. Eventually the improvements just won't be there, but hopefully we will get the message and get serious about alternatives (including moving fewer people for shorter distances).
That's because even just a 2% decline in oil translates into a 20% loss in just ten years.
16.6% or so I think.
1 - ((.98) ^10) = 18.3% loss in 10 years.
Angel,
Interesting, what does Greer mean with "Ecotechnic societies"? Certainly not a Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid...
Snomm
He has a book by the same name and there is a series of posts on his blog that I've posted links to before but can't find it now.
Have to hop on a plane to D.C.
Ah, Memmel's shark fin. That does seem about right, reading on and between the lines here and elsewhere. If so, it might be wiser to invest in gardening tools and bullets than in electric cars, hybrid or otherwise.
aangel, enjoy your posts with the great embedded graphics. I think proper attribution on the latter one displayed should go to Paul Thompson, not to Greer, who probably read Thompson and copied many of his original ideas. Here's a link to Thompson's PDF: http://declineusa.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/paul-thompson-the-twilight-of...
D3PO, thanks on both counts. I post with the graphics because some of these concepts hit home best with a picture.
Also, I'll take a look at the PDF and confer with John. John cheerfully admits that many of the ideas he is spreading are not his own so I'm guessing that there is enough difference in the way he is framing them that it works not to attribute them to people like Thompson. But I'll check and change the slide if needed.
It takes one generation to replace the fleet.
But it can be significantly accelerated.
With sufficiently high (and not that much higher gas prices) it pays off $$$ wise to abandon an SUV with a fair sized loan on it and buy a smaller, efficient car. Number vary, but gas and service savings from using new car pay for outstanding loan (I did that, sold SUV at a loss and bought a smaller car. See below how much smaller). Gov't even could subsidize purchase of the new car, if the old one is surrendered - to take it off the road. Gov't saves on trade deficit, interest on Treasuries and stimulates new car manufacturing, while buys itself a few years to implement real changes, which it can't do now.
From the individual perspective - for example working poor or of a person in financial trouble, numbers could be HUGE.
Nothing attract individual attention like free money or tax
This is a Honda thread so here is an example of comparing interior dimensions of a Ford Explorer and Honda Fit (which is not exactly that economical nowadays at 30mpg)
Headroom (Front) 39.8 40.4
Headroom (Row 2) 38.5 39.0
Hiproom (Front) 55.4 51.5
Hiproom (Row 2) 55.5 51.3
Legroom (Front) 42.4 40.4
Legroom (Row 2) 36.9 34.5
Shoulder Room (Front) 59.0 52.7
Shoulder Room (Row 2) 58.9 51.3
Passenger Volume 106.1 98.0
Fuel Economy Cty/Hwy 13/19 27/33
Americans complains small cars are, well small.
Smaller, yes, but not by much
I'm 6'2", 190lbs and have been driving a 2000 Honda Insight for 10 years. VW Fox before that, and 1983 Honda Civic before that...
...Yep even tall people fit, that's because legroom in all cars, big and small is designed around a 90-95 percentile male.
Speaking of design, the regulatory environment does not help. The idea of regulations is to tell the designer was he MUST do. So a lot of innovation goes towards satisfying the rules not really improving products.
E.g.
2000 Golf TDi had mileage of a Prius, but died due to introduction of Tier II emissions.
But doesn't someone end up driving the used SUV, even if it isn't you. The bank doesn't hold on to it. Unless you junk the car, it still is in the mix of cars used by someone, somewhere.
No, junk it...Sorry recycle. That is the point. Pay $5000 cash for any V-8 that owner can drive into the lot and can prove it's been registered over last 3 years (as fraud prevention)
My numbers (in CAD)
SUV: 300 payment + 100 insurance + 300 gas + 100 service and repairs =~ 800
Fit: 280 pmt + 110 insurance + 100 gas + 300 SUV payment = $800
The drastic gas difference is because I drive a bit less, too.
From the global standpoint fuel use has not changed because I sold SUV for a few bucks and it was promptly shipped overseas.
this is what the market price is really its telling us.. the amount of "low hanging efficiency gain fruit" inherent in the US economy. The sheer ridiculousness of NA consumptive habits is a form of spare surplus capacity that is supporting the life span of the plateau at a constant price
this $85 dollar fig always struck me as unspectacularly and somewhat surprisingly low. So did the $147 dollar july 2008 price. I remember a lot of talk of £300 oil and the argument for this price was based on a perceived notion of where consumer relinquishment would take place.
what price do people stop driving.. a bit? and it was lower than I thought but in hindsight these high estimates were blinded by the obvious. The disparity in consumptive habits (wealth) is extreme. If billions of people can live with very low oil consumptive habits it stands to reason that the US population can easily.... repeat easily... trim off a fair bit before really noticing it.
The USA as a functioning federated state with no new miracle technologies at all could probably I GUESS function on less than 7mbpd with in a couple of years if need be. would be a fair push but not collapse..ok its a WAG but thats an extreme end of the wedge... how about the USA running on 15mbpd or 12 mbpd?
but oil consumption per capita slashed by 70%.. still leaves US citizens in the top half of the game and doesn't count the onshore coal and gas endowment for the rest of your lifestyle choices.
its not unbelievable to imagine growing demand in the developing world to be serviced for a good few years yet.
the point is there is a lot of flab to be squeezed out yet.
Perhaps a repeating saw tooth pattern of mini price shocks creating a series of economic contractions or(with positive spin) trimming down/reorganisations/adjustment optimisations
this could allow time for some alternative transportation implementations
just nudge perceptions over a bit..
The insanity continues:
From http://winnipegsun.autonet.ca/autos/news/2010/10/07/15614056.html
well unless the metrics for US petro products goes up I guess a lot people will just end sitting in them in their driveways?
what does this mean? Consumers want a big car with leather seats and really sh!tty milage but are prepared to sacrifice actually using it!
madness indeed
I liked the twisty renault electric car/scooter thing myself.
Many auto subsidy promoters make the specious argument that the US
"does not have the population density" to support public transit.
Actually my state of New Jersey has a higher population density than China
and the highest population density of any US state. Moreover there is a train
station within 5 miles of 50% of our population.
Yet we are still spending billions on ever more lanes, interchanges and roads
while our new Governor Christie, has slashed $300 Million from NJ Transit's
budget.
More roads and interchanges increase the value of adjacent land and buildings. These are typically owned by political contributors. The road construction companies are also contributors, as are the unions whose members work for the contractors.
On the other hand, there is hardly any upside for a politician in supporting NJ Transit.
Patterns of transportation and real estate development are 90% determined by political influence, rather than rational economic planning.
Rubin makes two errors here: first, the nonsensical idea that you can always boost production, or offset depletion (given the scope of the different concepts herein, he should decide just how wrong he wishes to be); and second that the recession indicates that the global economy can't afford to run on (high) prices.
Wrong on both counts.
Really, I don't think he meant always as in forever or an infinite amount of time. He meant it is something we can always do right now.
And as for the second error, or what you think is an error, is not an error at all, he is spot on on that one. The global debt based economy requires growth. And every time we have growth we have an increase in demand of oil, driving prices up, driving the economy right back down.
Ron P.
Yeah! It might look something like this...
Excellent overview! The vehicles you've noted are certainly appropriate, and I would add buses and other mass transit to the mix.
In between the Aptera and the velomobile could be a lightweight electric motorcycle niche based on Allert Jacobs' feet forward, fully faired, 200 mpg Honda, which relies on significant reductions in both coefficient of drag and cross sectional area (previously covered on TOD).
If there are millions of super light vehicles, what happens during the first commute in Chicago with 30-40 mph winds? In our area, hwy 5 gets a cross wind that is strong enough to push and pull my Ford Ranger. I'd hate to think what it would be like in the VW I had years ago.
Line the roads with plantings of conifers as windbreaks? That has the additional advantage of creating a more pleasant and eco-friendly environment.
How can you get Americans to take the above suggestions seriously when gasoline remains relatively cheap? Even with oil at $82/barrel regular gasoline is below $3/gallon in most of the nation.
I wrote a letter to the editor that was published in our local paper a while back about seeing a petite young woman enter a drive-through to pick up lunch at a Taco Bell in a Ford Expedition. I pointed out how wasteful of energy that was. I was "attacked" in the paper by women for not considering their need for safety, room, etc.
Without significant price increases for gasoline, to at least $5/gallon, you aren't going to get most Americans to change their driving habits or their attachment to big vehicles. Everywhere I park around my community my Kia looks like a midget or a toy.
Her children will be safe now, doomed later.
Older cars are and trucks are going to be junked at far faster rates than indicated by past history for several reasons.
I can't put the various factors in any particular order,or provide a comprehensive listing, but
I can provide some relevant commentary:
Emissions testing required as part of the inspection and registration process often uncovers the need for repairs that can quickly run into four figures.If an older car also needs new tires or brakes,it is likely to be scrapped, especially when scrap metal prices are up-which is likely to be pretty much all the time.The day of the clunker on blocks in the side yard is gone;the scrap dealers have bought almost every last one of them.
There has been a long term trend towards more and more models with fewer and fewer interchangeable parts,and fixing ever more complex cars is getting to be beyond the capabilities of back yard mechanics with limited training and equipment.Parts sellers can "see the customer coming" as in setting an ambush and robbing him in terms of parts prices, since there are few sources, or only one source, for so many of them.
I was recently quoted a best price after extensive shopping of almost four hundred dollars for a part as big as my thumb needed to repair my 84 Toyota pickup;the equivalent part cost only forty dollars or so for an old model Chevrolet as there are several sources and therefore price competition.This may sound like an extreme example but I assure the reader it is perfectly commonplace.
I was able to buy a used part for peanuts, but the supply of used parts has shrunk dramatically due to high scrap metal prices.
The people who drive the older clunker cars are going to be largely priced out of the market soon as the supply of cheap and easily repairable older cars dries up.Since most of them necessarily must have a car to get to work, they will somehow have to scrimp enough to buy newer cars, which are almost certainly going to be more fuel efficient.
Your main components in a used vehicle are brakes, engine and transmission. You can replace all three completely for a damn site less than buying a new car.
The new car companies have done a marvelous job of brainwashing the population about the "high cost" of repairing old cars and why it is "much better(?)" to just scrap the old and buy a new car.
You can replace a worn out V-8 with a six or 4 cylinder engine to give acceptable performance and much better fuel economy. Likewise, you can replace the old 3 or 4 speed transmission with a more modern 5 or 6 speed transmission that will improve fuel economy and performance. If the front end and brakes go out, you can sub-frame it (replace the whole front end by cutting the frame and welding in a newer and better front end - this is done all the time in the hot rod/custom car field) to get better and safer handling of the vehicle.
Some people think newer is always better, but it sure isn't very often that it is cheaper.
Recycle and reuse!
Yep! +10
I happen to be the proud owner of a 1999 Ford Escort sedan with a five speed manual transmission and a new 4cyl. Mazda engine, I also added a heavy duty clutch just in case, while I was replacing the engine which had died a natural death at 200 thousand plus miles on it. It's probably about time to replace the front brake pads soon, rotors still looking good from the last time they were replaced.
Of course it helps to be good friends with someone who owns his own auto shop and will let you borrow his lift and tools...
I can do this about ten more times for the price of a new Prius, but since I only drive about 6K miles a year at this point chances are this will be my last car ever since at this rate it will take me about 30 years to wear out my current engine and I'm not planning on renewing my driver's license the next time it expires.
hi Jon,
You can do all the things you mention, but they can't be done on a large scale, or with the existing vehicle fleet, for the most part.
It simply costs too much.There aren't that many mechanics or garages or suitable engines or transmissions available,unless new ones are manufactured.The market is too fragmented for that to happen.
I work on cars a lot, and have friends in the business;it is not unusual to replace an engine or transmission , but it is a very expensive job, and older cars are so cheap-for now at least-that it is usually cost prohibitive if a car is ragged or elderly.
I have posted comments at least once about a mandated standardization of parts and service procedures here , which would make it posssible to do exactly what you propose-change out and repair parts including engines and transmissions fast and afffordably.
Commercial trucks are already built this way;you can mix and match major components fron different manufacturers in numerous ways; you can order your new Ford dump truck with a Catepillar engine, Eaton transmission, and Ford rear axle and differential assemblies.When the catepillar wears out, you can bolt a Cummins right in without a problem.
It is easier and faster to change out the engine in an eigthteen wheeler than it is in a typical late model car.
There is no real reason, other than manufacturer's reluctance to do so, why cars couldn't be built to be easily and economically repaired and up graded like big trucks.
Of course this could save society a ton of money and resources, but it would also cut into new car sales so it won't happen until numerous car buyers evaluate the purchase deal the way a trucker does-on the basis of overall long term operating costs.
I agree that NEW is apt to be more expensive than fixing and recycling, but the facts on the ground are that a newer BUT USED car is generally a better deal for the typical driver faced with four figure repairs.
I am actually a pretty good mechanic and have a very well equipped shop, but I can buy a car for a couple of thousand bucks that will run for a very long time-probably as long or longer as fixing one that already has over two hundred thousand on it will run after spending the same two grand on repairs.
Even if I don't include my own labor in the calculation, I have usually found it to be cheaper to junk a car with a really major problem than to fix it;but of course I only drive older, cheaper vehicles anyway.My primary transportation at the moment is an 84 Toyota pickup.No air, no ps, no pw, no pb, no automatic transmission, but it does have a really good heater!
But a backyard mechanic can often buy and fix a newer car himself and save some serious money-so long as he doesn't get in over his head.
I paid only two hundred fifty bucks for my elderly Toyota pickup because the frame was rusted thru and fixed it myself.I expect to drive it around a hundred thousand miles, if I live and gasoline is affordable.
what happens during the first commute in Chicago with 30-40 mph winds?
Go with what works in an area - in Chicago it might be bus rapid transit;
"... what happens during the first commute in Chicago with 30-40 mph winds?"
Commute roadways need to be redesigned for the change in vehicles. These things will cause much less pounding on the roadbed. Long wind breaks on the shoulders should keep the cross winds away from ground level. Outriggers and sails might reduce fuel consumption to zero.
Every major manufacturer subjects their prototypes to heavy testing in all extremes of temperature, performance and road conditions. I expect crosswind stability and aerodynamic stability in general to be among those tests. The backyard hobbyists might not test in such extreme conditions, and fully faired motorcycles like the one pictured above will be a handful.
I had no problem commuting in heavy crosswinds on a 400 lbs (unfaired) motorcycle; we get Santa Ana winds coming off the mountains the foothills east of LA. High profile vehicles like trucks and motorhomes are more sensitive to winds and drivers of those vehicles should know to slow down or stay off the road with high wind warnings.
The short answer is, if the weather is that bad, slow down and take your time getting to work.
What kind of car do you want to buy in 2017 as your last and final automobile/light truck?
The average life of a car in current use is about 17 years. So on average, we will need a new car in about 2017. The one that we buy in 2017 will last until 2034, which is likely beyond the point at which the majority of people will be able to afford to buy increasingly expensive energy to run a private vehicle.
So for the majority of the population, the next vehicle you buy is likely to be the last.
What kind of vehicle do you want the manufacturers to be building in 2017, when you are ready to buy your last and final vehicle?
No one answer here, as there are commuting considerations as well as family transport. Indeed, my first response would be "velomobile with electric boost".
An updated Quasar
For 2 person vehicles, it would have to be extremely high fuel economy, with pedal hybrid a bonus;
For 4 seater consideration (some for backseat adults, and some for only children 2+2);
From the xPrize competition;
I have visited Turkey a few times, and I found that nearly 1/3 of their vehicle fleet (so I was told) runs on natural gas. This use is heaviest in service vehicles (taxis, police cars).
The difficulty is that LNG engines in these vehicles do not last as long as a modern gasoline or diesel power plant.
We might have to go back to the 50K auto (and yes, there was a time when that was a lot of miles on a car).
My bet for future vehicle? My bike. And the rack on the front of all city buses that extends my range.
There is no reason for an engine running on natural gas to wear out faster than one running on diesel or gasoline;as a matter of fact, such engines are notable for thier long service lives on machines such as forklifts and farm tractors..
If the cars being converted don't last, the problem is not the natural gas fuel in and of itself, unless perhaps it is contaminated.
Well there is. A diesel requires lubrication in the upper cylinder which diesel provides. Natural gas does not provide the lubrication.
Tell it to the mechanics who work on them and the engineers who design them;gasoline is not a lubricant.The necessary amount of oil is left in a film deposited by the third or forth piston ring, and it is only a VERY minute amount.The second ring is generally an oil "wiper" and the top ring is the "compression " ring that provides the combustion seal.
I have seen many examples of gasoline engines that have reached over two hundred fifty thousand miles without consuming a quart of oil between changes;THAT shows how little oil is needed for upper cylinder lube.
Diesel engines became famous for durability simply because for a long time nearly all diesels were specifically built to last for many years in constant service;they lasted because all the parts were top quality and super heavy duty.The engines in heavy equipment and big trucks are still built that way.
But a lot of diesel engines are being built these days to automotive ( read "disposable" ) standards rather than commercial standards, and they often don't last any longer than gasoline engines, if as long.
There are plenty of ng engines running without an overhaul with MANY thousands of hours on them.
If converted cars are not lasting, there is a reason for it-perhaps the cars are old cars to begin, perhaps the installation is not properly calibrated, perhaps the cars are not being maintained properly.
Natural gas and its first cousin propane are rather inconvenient and bothersome in terms of tank requirements and filling up, but both are EXCELLENT motor fuels.
Almost no one does that: the people who buy new cars trade them in when they about five years old, the people who buy five years old used cars trade them in when about ten years old, the people who buy ten year old cars keep them until they die.
Cite please.
All my cars were bought brand new and the newest one was bought in 2003. I know only a few people, such as the company president, who regularly cycles through cars.
As for all these neat concept cars, they'll be fine in the summer or south, but try driving one in a northern winter. None of the skinny-wheel designs would make it past the end of my driveway!
Like pasttense points out, my family buys a new car about every five years. Many times, we hand it down to another family member who hands down or junks their older car. It works out better than trading in.
As for my next car in 2017. Assuming BAU and a gradual Transition, something like a Honda Fit. Small, efficient and stylish with decent cargo and passenger room. I don't expect to be driving much, but when I do I'll need room for carpoolers, gardening supplies or bikes. I probably won't get a hybrid. The complexity and expense aren't worth it if I'm driving low miles. I plan to be biking or motorbiking as many of my trips as possible. It helps to have mild weather. Velomobiles look interesting, but they seem a bit expensive and impractical. Of course, I might think differently if I wanted more weather protection.
A friend sent me this yesterday. Made me LOL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5dIzY7yvRA
This article does point out the limitations of the current automobile based transport system from the vehicle aspect. Certainly cars can be much more efficient, but my concern is the amount of energy used in building the cars and maintaining the infrastructure for cars. Huge amounts of energy are used in repaving roads, rebuilding bridges, cutting grass along right of way (or spraying for weeds), lighting highways and streets (millions of kwh used every night), and lastly energy used in disposing/recylcling cars.
From nearly every stand point - vehicle manufacture, vehicle maintainance, infrastructure construction, infrastructure maintenance and ancillary systems (security, gov. administration/taxes) rail transport is far more efficient than automobiles. For example, the average railroad car in Amtrak's fleet is over 30 years old and some are over 50 years old. Railroad cars are engineered to last 40 years minimum and travel 5 million miles during their useful life. Railroad bridges are engineered to last 50 to 100 years and some are over 125 years old and still carrying traffic safely (Eads bridge in Saint Louis).
The current system of roads and its support infrastucture is so energy intensive, even for very high fuel efficency vehicles, that the US cannot continue to support the current system as now operated. In the current fiscal year the US gov. will have spent over $30 billion of general tax money to keep the roads in good safe condition. The gas tax brought in less than half of what was spent on highways in FY 2010. With declining gas taxes due to higher mpg and electric/hybrid vehicles the US debt. will increase further and the auto/road system become more difficult to maintain.
After peak oil (and peak capital) the US will have to move toward a more efficient transport system, such as electric powered rail, that is accessible and affordable to a majority of its citizens, or a large percentage of Americans will have to stay within wlking distance of their house.
Regarding railroad infrastructure, the rail line from Saint Louis to Chicago is being rebuilt to increase the speeds from 60 - 79 mph to 90 - 110 mph. I watched the railroad workers (about 30 operating 12 machines) replace rail from 1952 (115 lb. per yard) with new rail (136 lb. per yard) which took 15 days to do a 32 mile section. This old rail that was nearly 60 years old had been carrying dozens of trains per day and has supported billions of tons of freight traffic. The old rail will be sent to a steel mill that will melt the steel, modify the alloy content, then roll it into new rails, good for 30 to 40 years.
mbnewtrain: I'm not sure what you're trying to say here? Are you suggesting that the 60-year-old rail was still in fine condition and would have last another 60 years, and that the new rail with a lifetime of 30 to 40 years is a waste of energy and possibly self-defeating because the energy available for replacing the rail yet again will be either very expensive and non-existent so it would have been better to leave what isn't broke alone because everything's going to be slowing down, anyway, and that we're dealing with the notion that time is money, or are you saying that the higher speeds will cause the heavier rail to degrade sooner? What's your point?
Old rail (1952 rolled) was still acceptable for use under lower speed conditions. larger rail would last as long as old rail, but under a higher speed (for both passenger and freight trains) will not last as long. But rail life still exceeds highway pavenment life by a factor of three to five.
Thanks for clearing that up.
No opinion on whether it's either a shortsighted waste of energy (doomer POV) or a change for the better that addresses our future needs to be faster, faster (optimists POV)?
As energy prices go up, a lot of truck transportation will shift to rail. This will reduce maintenance expense for roads, since the wear is mostly caused by heavy trucks, rather than by cars, light trucks, and buses.
Highways will revert to more cement, since asphalt availability will decline. They are likely to be quite rough with many seams, patches, pits, etc., so vehicle design for the future must take that into account in the design of tires, wheels, and suspensions. For example, tire profiles should be raised.
Concrete (cement plus aggregate) still requires a lot of energy to make as the cement is pulverized limestone that is cooked at high temperature. Also the need for trucks will not go away, but they will be needed less I hope. All main roads must still be designed for the heaviest load even if used largely for vehicles that are 1/50 the weight. I know that the pavement will last longer with fewer trucks. However, some states are considering raising truck weight limits on interstate and federal highways in the name of fuel efficiency.
I find it interesting that the one really high mileage car that is closest to actually going into mass production, the VW L1, is hardly ever mentioned in these discussions of energy efficient cars?
Anyone have any ideas why the energy efficiency crowd seems to turn a cold shoulder to the VW L1?
China does a lot with bicycles, tricycles, etc. They move all kinds of stuff around with loads that defy the imagination. Rickshaws unite!
The Amish think that the automobile is a work of the devil. Maybe they are right. It is about time for the US to discover Dr. Faustus.
That is because it has been "going into production" for years, but has never actually been produced. We can drool all over lots of the interesting concept cars, but most never make it.
In the late 90's GM developed the Precept concept car - series hybrid, diesel engine, 80mpg! Decided that it "wouldn't sell" so never built it. Wouldn't have sold then, but would to day, and still won't get built.
In defence of the car companies, their main job is to make money as a business. Reducing world oil consumption is for governments and drivers. Look at Aptera, Ap, Xebra, etc etc all these little companies trying to make a save the world car, and they are all going broke while selling almost no cars.
you can't save the world if you are broke, and if you aren't, and try, you soon will be broke!
The VW L1 seems far more sensible
Those 3 wheeler Aptera like designs just "look" inherently unstable to me
My expectation is the world will use traditional oil until it is all gone, then switch to oil sands, natural gas and coal until they are all gone.
I don't see why the authors suggest such a low limit for natural gas; the price is very low now and it will be easier adding new pipelines and distribution structure than alternatives. And natural gas cars have all the advantages of traditional cars except somewhat lower fuel tank mileage capacity. As to the environmental hazards of fracking, this society does not take environmental protection seriously--if it did there would not have been the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Why was not coal to liquids added to the discussion? We just had a post about that in Australia.
Don't know, of course, but maybe all those comments had an impact on the decision to include a fuel that would just increase our ability to use the highest carbon fuel, coal.
I thought the comments on the GTL article showed it wasn't really a commercially or environmentally viable solution.
With respect to the natural gas, there seems to be a whole lot out there, but the problem is what price the economy can afford vs what it costs to extract it from the ground. It is not clear the natural gas companies (especially shale gas) can make money unless the price gets quite a lot higher than it is today, but it is also not clear how a price the economy can afford.
Natural gas is a place where technology may make a difference. If there are improvements that bring the price of natural gas down, or if we can really afford natural gas price at say, double our current price (its been there before), then maybe natural gas production can grow, and stay up for a while.
Coal to liquid has "issues" - not available now, would take quite a while and a huge amount of money to scale up, objectionable from a CO2 point of view, needs water for production--something that is hard to come by in the arid US West. It is not something most people are seriously thinking about at this point.
Those issues for coal to liquids sounds the same as one hears for oil shale.
"What else should we be doing?"
How about the design of our cities? Consider a city in the round, e.g., 30 miles in circumference, n stories tall, but less than 10, perhaps 200 feet wide. Within the city ring is a Central Park, perhaps with garden space available for Toroid City residents to grow fresh vegetables, fruit trees. The construction includes mixed usage: residential, schools, medical, office, retail. All infrastructure is underground, including subway transportation. Each residence has window views of either the Central Park, or an outer view to the Toroid City Farm (perhaps starting at one mile and making a concentric circle of several miles around Toroid City; treated sewage from Toriod City is recycled through the Farm). Spoke roads bring in produce, and link to Sister City to the North, Brother City to the South, etc.
Toroid City is perhaps 200 feet thick: 80 on the outer ring, a 20 foot central corridor ring, and 100 on the inner ring of the structure. Extremely well insulated. Play with the dimensions.
I realize that Toroid City rings Orwellian, but it seems a great alternative to chaos, and is not inherently Orwellian. The diameter of Toroid City is about 10 miles, just about my ride to work today. Energy sources - TBD. That is what TOD is mulling over.
Seems like a very civilized solution to what may be shaping up as an uncivilized future.
After writing this, I googled "Circular City" and found that the concept is not new..I'm not surprised. But I haven't heard of it or similar civil engineering solutions to this engineering problem.
Bike on.
Tom
"How about the design of our cities?"
Um, yeah. Good luck doing that in a recession dovetailing straight into peak-oil doom.
There is another advantage of a toroidal city design - it looks very like a castle.
And when the hoards are ravening, a castle can be a very useful design...
Yes for sure, urbanism/architecture is key, and getting out of false myths (like skyscrapers making sense for housing building for increasing density, which is false, besides them being energy hogs)
Otherwise about electric vehicules, there is also the Renault twizy which is apparently truly going into production for 2011 :
Two seaters (in line), somehow in between a car and a scooter, couple of videos :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKzkNJBqmlQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqfgZCEo7tk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlxQoQ-vZQA
Maybe it is just me, but that thing looks like it was designed for a 5-year old..
It's you...
For me it looks ok and much better than the first versions, the thing is designing a minimal "car" around 2 sitting human bodies doesn't provide that much options for the "overall shape", and this one isn't too extreme in the sense that the sitting position isn't too recline (to minimize frontal surface) which would make it barely usable in current cities (point of vision too low compared to other vehicules).
Anyway as for me no cars for a long time, and doesn't plan to buy one (scooter and bicycle)
Car free cities [ http://www.carfree.com/ ] discussion groups have already worked out the least-energy least-cost ways to convert current USA city structure to a lower-energy car-free design. Besides the benefit of drastically reduced resource needs to the city, you get the extra bonuses of freeing up nearly all the land currently used for roadways (typically 10%-50%) for food production and, also, much more livable and pleasant cities.
It generally involves putting clusters of high density infill housing at nodes of an electric rail transport system for people and freight, with transportation augmented by pedestrian and bike friendly paths. Most of the current land will be replaced with food production and park land and structural material salvaged for above mentioned infill housing.
Note that the car free design approach can be used on any modern city as a gradual 'total conversion'. I have seen plans for the conversion both pre and post collapse, and both seem viable in their respective realm. Note that 'car-free' also dovetails with 'permaculture', 'renewable energy', and 'reduced carbon'.
Everyone concerned about resource depletion should know about the Carfree Cities plan and effort. It's the logical place to go, once we all wise up enough to abandon the concept of auto-centric transportation systems. You might not be ready for that step but, once you realize it is a necessary step for dealing with global resource depletion issues (absent rapid die-off), you will probably come around.
Oddly enough, several of the vehicles in the thread above would be permitted in a car-free city. Credit to Ivan Ilich, and his strong argument that the top speed near any human habitation should be 25 mph. Perhaps counter-intuitively, reducing top speed in the city to a threshold (25 - 35 mph) increases overall average speed.
Regards,
Bruce Stephenson
energyscholar@gmail.com
P.s. Bicycle advocates, such as myself, should also like CarFree cities. The author even designed a 'bicycle-based carfree city', as something we might have to live with post-collapse before the local food production, infill housing, and rail lines were complete.
I've followed J.H. Crawford's work for quite some time, and joined him in one design exercise.
One example of what a refactored city might look like is Lyon (which others may not have seen);
Yes have looked at the carfreecities site quite a few times, and in fact also bought J.H. Crawford book (but didn't find time to read it completely yet)
One work that should be restarted is the one done by Leslie Martin and Lionel March (in the sixties) on building forms, density (floor area ratio), and natural light for the
flats.
Asked myself the question a few years back and was suprised that almost nothing was there, and in fact started doing the same calculus before finding their work (through
Christopher Alexander's books). But the key results being that slab or courtyard buildings are much more efficient than towers in optimizing the natural light in flats
for a given density (floor area ratio). Towers are basically a stupid shape (except south of a non constructible area) for housing (a bit less for offices as they can then
be made much thicker), and all this also depends on the climate and latitude.
It seems like you had better be pretty sure of your electric supply, before you build a city n stories tall. Otherwise, people are going to get an awfully long walk up and down the stairs whenever electricity is not available.
Walk?! You need to run...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv26mGY2SIM
I especially like the 68 year old Brazilian guy who makes it to the top of the Sears Tower in 29 minutes. Most people can't walk on a flat surface for 29 minutes. Sad!
Carz ... it's always about the carz.
Peeps don't understand whats happening right under their noses. 800 million carz, they are a 'life form' (death form) that exists to compete both with humans and with nature.
Carz need roads and lots of 'em. They need bridges, tunnels, stop lights, overhead lights, factories, asphalt, concrete, steel, hospitals (for the 1 million deaths per year) and two parking spaces each - one where you left and one where YOU are going.
Carz need destinations so there is something to drive to. Since the object of carz is to go places FAST the destinations have to be blatant and easy to recognize through a bleary windshield. All destinations also need to be the same regardless of location. The consequence is the proliferation of chain stores and the depressing, soul- destroying sameness/ugliness of our auto habitat.
Part of the auto habitat is the real estate 'development' which is a collection of cartoonish 'home' like houses along with washing machine- box 'workplaces' where nobody works but janitors and window washers. Like all other carz destinations the developments are strewn across the landscape from sea to sea to sea to sea. China has 65 million vacant apartments! Sea to sea to sea to sea.
Carz are robots bent on destroying the human race. I defy anyone to give one example where carz have contributed anything positive to human development.
Such as books, colleges, fine art, musical instruments, wine (beer), football (???), poetry, theater, French (Italian) food, sailing ships/boats, jazz, telegraph/telephone, rocket stove (???), Swiss Army knife, etc.
Carz have made people fat and lazy, aggressive and stupid, they kill and maim millions, have destroyed the landscape in all continents save Antarctica, are destroying the atmosphere and the oceans, are a primary force in both industrialization and financialism, have corrupted politics (before bankrupting political structures) and have wasted almost all of the easily obtained crude oil!
The oil the human race was planning on using to explore the solar system and beyond.
They have enriched a tiny handful while impoverishing everyone and everything else.
Fortunately, humans also invented 'markets' and the markets are working just fine. Oil was always - thanks to John D. Rockefeller, who came up with the oil marketing plan that the world uses today - a loss leader. Cheap oil and cheap gasoline put 'The Rock's competitors out of business and also led to the purchase/sale of carz, highways, bridges, tunnels, developments, stores and malls, plastic and plastic crap, hospitals and whatnot. All these things consume energy. That is the purpose of carz, which made use of what was at the time a waste product of oil refining.
Our current 'finance crisis' is the market working properly. The problem is not credit imbalances but the systematic mispricing of a valuable natural resource. The markets are in the process of properly re- pricing the same inputs, along with water and other natural resources. The outcome is that all the carz will die, like the Invaders From Mars in 'War of the Worlds'.
Repricing is a beaitch ... but it itself is also the spawn of carz. The carz have been too successful, too efficient at destroying the natural capital that they absolutely depended upon.
Below is the real solution, get rid of the carz and build versions of Santorini everywhere, from sea to sea to sea. Add farms and leave the rest/best to nature. To get somewhere, walk! The carz will ultimately go anyway:
Doing so would be the life- work of generations, an answer to the challenge posed to us by our ancestors ... which we have been failing to meet.
Photo, Nathan Lewis
Your position is very naive. Walk 10 miles in a sub zero blizzard, I bet you'd give your left dangler for a nice warm car to take you the next 10 miles. If that's not good enough for you, think; Ambulance.
How about you miracle some Mediterranean climate everywhere, then we'll talk.
Walk 10 miles in a sub zero blizzard
One shouldn't be driving in a blizzard to begin with. And with the type of development SfV mentions, it would never be necessary to walk 10 miles - one would hop a metro or bus instead.
How about you miracle some Mediterranean climate everywhere, then we'll talk.
Some Scandinavian cities have significant sized pedestrian zones, such as Stockholm, Vaxjo, Malmo, and Jakriborg in Sweden.
See the reference to Calgary's mass transit in Paul Nash's comment.
And you'll find an awful lot of pedestrians walking about Oslo and Helsinki, among other locales, in sub-zero weather, so that shows that cars are truly unnecessary for the vast majority of citizens. Convenient? Perhaps, though rush hours and costs reduce any perceived convenience dramatically.
Given the extreme national security risks America has placed on itself with it's addiction to oil, getting away from ICE cars is by far the best mitigation we can take on, and that does include carfree district development.
Want to know what generals, admirals, and CEOs think about the energy risks associated with our oil addiction?
http://www.secureenergy.org/policy/national-strategy-energy-security
Want to know what Frank Gaffney (Reagan's Undersecretary of Defense) says about our oil dependency?
http://www.iags.org/n111104a.htm
I agree that no one should be out in a blizzard, but "Sh!t happens" as they say. A person doesn't always have a medical emergency at 2:30 on a sunny summer afternoon. When my grandpa had a fit of diabetes I was very thankful for the ambulance that drove 20-ish miles in a blizzard. It would have been foolish to wait for a bus, especially since there was no bus service in that area. And walking to the hospital with my grandpa on my back wouldn't have been very practical either.
I agree that a large reduction in the vehicular miles traveled per year would be possible and beneficial; but this is far different from saying "cars are evil."
It's carz v. humans and the carz are winning. One of the salient points of ASPO was listening to Sharon Astyk describing the stupidity of feeding human food to carz.
The question was what have carz done to advance human development, to make us smarter, faster, stronger, wittier, nicer, better humans.
No answer so far since none is really possible.
Having an ambulance in the area is completely different than saying everyone should have cars. Non-sequitar.
Well said Steve. I can't understand this American obsession with cars. Then again I can't understand the obsession with guns either. Which ever way you lean in terms of a PO date isn't it clear that private car ownership will be a thing of the past? All these slick EVs and Hybrids are indeed transition vehicles - but they are transition to a world without cars not a world with hundreds of millions of privately owned vehicles as at present.
Thanks Steve, +10
I like to check back here from time to time to see if you TOD guys are making any progress.
There's a little bit, but it's 90% the same "the solution to cars is electric cars" nonsense.
At some point, people may finally realize that we solved all these problems centuries ago, back when cities didn't have cars -- and were thus designed for people, not cars. Just add a few trains and you're done.
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2010/100310.html
Americans have no idea how common this already is today. Look at this photo of a shopping street in Seijo, a residential community on the west side of Tokyo. All of this was greenfield in 1950. This is a city of 32+ million people, in a country with nine internationally-competitive car companies. What do you see? NO CARS and also NO BIKES! Don't need them.
This is all extremely easy to do.
Ummm, the Beetle had a Cd (Coefficient of Drag) of 0.48, and Citroën DS a Cd of 0.36.
2005 Toyota Camry/Lexus LS 0.28
2003 Saab 9-3 0.28
2001 Lexus LS-400 0.26
2004-2009 Prius 0.26
1999 Honda Insight 0.25
2010 Prius 0.25
2009 Mercedes E 220 CDI Blue Efficiency (European only) 0.24
EV1 0.195
The Aptera would be nice at 0.15.
Seems to me there is a lot of concern for this by many manufacturers, and that it is erroneous to say "where [sic - were?] built with much higher concerns on this field than those available today."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient
Aerodynamic design is where it is at, and no mistake.Reducing the energy needed to bulldoze a path thru the air can pay bigger dividends than any other design strategy;next comes wieght reduction;these two matter the most, given any particular propulsion system can work-more or less- in any given car.
I am not the sort of conservative who believes the market can cure all of our problems, but I do believe that if the fuel crunch arrives gradually rather than abruptly, the market will bring forth cars that are both very light and very well streamlined-IF we can break the strangle hold the safety nannies currently have on the regulatory process.
Right now the only way for a manufacturer to bring a really light car to market at an affordable cost is to put only three wheels on it and market it as a motorcycle.
Personally I wear my seatbelt, drive very conservastively, and wish my old pickup had airbags.
But I am enough of a libertarian, and have enough common sense, to recognize that people should have the right to decide for themselves, within reason, how safe thier car should be;forcing them onto a motorcycle if they can't afford an ultralight car is not good policy.
There are tradeoffs made with every regulatory decision-the cheapest possible car would be more dangerous but it would leave its owner with more money-money he could, if he wishes, spend on a healthier diet or acquiring skills needed to earn a living.
These things are not always as simple as they look;I have for instance seen claims that people who make a long term habit of biking on public roads actually on average live longer and healthier lives than those who drive on the same roads.
I have seen a dead bicyclist lying in the road as the result of an accident that wouldn't have been at all serious in any car, and a couple more motorcycle riders severely injured in a similar fashion-hit by cars that were not going fast enough to have seriously injured someone in another car.I personally gave up my own motorcycles some years ago as too dangerous an indulgence for someone with responsibilities.
The bicyclists of course are saved from heart attacks and strokes at a greater rate than they are killed by collisions with cars.
We need to beware simple minded solutions-especially any that lock us into and onto a given path.
The more leeway we give well intentioned bueracrats to write rules, the more opportunitues they find to justify thier existence by writing more rules-and the more opportunities the lobbyists find to get to the regulators and get the rules written like they like them.
If anyone needs to be hit in the head with a brick, let them ponder the fact that we can't buy cars- cars that pollute a tiny bit more but burn MUCH LESS fuel- that European drivers are driving today.
I cannot believe that any thinking person could believe this is in our own interests after contemplating the big picture, which includes oil wars, a huge balance of payments problem, ff depletion, and so forth.
The bicyclists of course are saved from heart attacks and strokes at a greater rate than they are killed by collisions with cars.
Interesting comment, any data to support that? The last time I looked bicycles were 7 times more deadly per mile than motorcycles and motorcycles were 7 times more deadly than cars.
Try this :
passenger cars account for far more miles traveled than motorcycles, and consequently there are 1.05 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled in passenger cars compared with 32.61 in motorcycles.5 On a per-mile basis, motorcycles are over 30 times riskier.
- the 'theory' with Cycling, is the health benefits compensate for the higher risk, but that 'theory' overlooks that there are OTHER ways to get exercise, without needing the risk adder.
Only someone with low IQ would claim playing cyclist russian roulette is the smart thing to do.
Exercise safely, and drive, will out-darwin the self righteous every time.
Another recent study showed that cyclists were much less likely to be killed in areas where a lot of people cycle.
Not clear if this is cause or effect - probably a bit of both. The more cyclists a driver sees, the more (s)he looks out for them before making that un-indicated turn.
Here in Cambridge UK about 25% of people commute by cycle. We average less than one death a year, in a city of 100,000.
I get 1 hour's vigourous exercise 4 times a week. It is probably adding 5 years to my lifespan.
[edit]
Doing a quick calculation, 25,000 cyclists doing 4 miles a day for 300 days a year is about 30 million miles.
That makes Cambridge cycling 3 times more dangerous than driving at one per 100 million.
The health benefits are overwhelming.
[edit] At one death for 30 million miles, I should be killed cycling once every 20,000 years. I can accept those odds.
Sounds plausible. More awareness, and probably also more actual infrastructure for
cycles.
Two wheeled transport should be encouraged, and I thought it a tad unfair when a local toll road, moved motorcyclists from $0 to parity with cars.
Not much of a 'thank you' there...
what about measuring the statistic from the POV of who does the killing
Only the self-righteous call someone else self-righteous from my experience.
Name-calling is a form of weakness generally.
My bicycle can haul 100 lbs of groceries and two boys to the shopping center on a safe bike pathway 2.5 miles. And I like the fresh air and the exercise. And it is very safe.
The car is starting to die in my lifetime.
Care to share your data on that? OMG that seems high. More people die from bicycles than cars each year? Did you extrapolate miles traveled? Did cars kill the bicyclists?
Yeah I bet very few bicycle-bicycle crashes occur relative to car accidents and car-bike accidents.
I'd love to see your dataset though.
What a bunch of crock!
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
Picture taken by me last month at a train station in a German town.
Yeah bicycles are sooooo dangerous don't you dare ride them folks. Plus it's either too hot or too cold to ride them anyways. You must drive your five ton box of steel or you will die! It seems an awful lot of people in this great land of our are just plain full of it... We need some serious societal laxatives to purge some of this idiocy.
IIrc,somebody posted links to this info right here on TOD not too long ago;probably one of the big fans of bicycles.
I can't prove it myself, and I'm not interested enough to hunt up links, but I "used to" know a fair number of people who are dead now that would more than likely be alive had they gotten plenty of exercise.Personally I do not doubt that a cyclist who gets a good workout several times a week over the years is likelier to live longer than a person who does not exercise regularly;and I do not doubt that while the risk of dying on a bicycle ridden on a public road is high, the risk associated with inadequate exercise is higher still.
The Aptera has a nice and low drag coefficient but it's really designed for smooth roads, something that is already disappearing. In the kind of contraction I foresee, there are going to be a lot of potholes and pavement that should be repaired but won't be.
The vehicle of the future is the pickup truck, not the Aptera. Put some batteries under the bed if you'd like but suspension is going to be key.
Good list, but you left out what was then the world record for low drag, and possibly a record for most breathtaking shape, the Fiat Turbina (Cd 0.14, 1954, and right below the Aptera on that list)
Hmm, I wonder where they got the idea for the "batmobile" from?
Far sexier than a Prius, or an Aptera.
Make a body kit like this for a Japanese Kei car platform and away you go, on a 660 cc engine!
I would like to offer a radical theory:
(1) If human beings in an area behave more often like small, slow, soft-bodied self-locomoted bipeds
(2) And behave less often like large, fast, hard-bodied quadrapeds
(3) "Walkable", "bicycle-friendly" neighborhoods and communities will emerge
(4) And automobile habitat will shrink
What I'm saying, is, what if habitat follows behavior? Even more radically, what if we tried to change behavior by trying to change behavior instead of hoping that if we manage to change habitat, the behavior we want will follow?
Or does the possibility of "humans as cause" fall outside the realm of the conceivable in The Oil Drum discourse?
True, but maybe a tad late in the game for a redo on suburbia.
Aw cummon guys.
Once again a disappointing, flawed and biased effort by the TOD boffins/editorial staff.
The best hope to win the Peak Oil Race Against Time is
absolutely flexfuel cars.
60% of US oil consumption is for light cars and trucks(gasoline). A flex-fuel 1996 Taurus could run on both E85 and M85. This is old, proven technology. It's simply untrue to claim that ethanol (and methanol) requires 'special'vehicles.
Ordinary cars can be converted to alcohol.
Much of the problem revolves around legal liability issues not science.
Boosting flexfuel cars also means that when fuel cell technology for cars becomes commercial they can run on methanol/ethanol directly instead of hydrogen with no change to the infrastructure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible-fuel_vehicle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85_in_standard_engines
The current alternate is ethanol, but methanol from coal and natural gas could be ramped up quickly(natural gas is much easier with costs of 50 cents per gallon). In 1998 the US produced 2 billion gallons of methanol per year which has been reduced greatly by increased imports of methanol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_fuel
http://www.woodgas.com/Science1.pdf
1 ton of coal will make about 5 barrels of methanol.
Methanol is slightly less toxic than gasoline.
1000 cubic feet of natural gas will make about 11 gallons of methanol.
200 million tons of coal coal could supply 42 billion gallons of methanol. 4 Tcf of natural gas could supply 44 billion gallons of methanol. Today the US produces 14 billion gallons of ethanol. All together that's 100 billion gallons of alcohol plus 20 billion gallons of straight gas would total 120 billion gallons of E85/M85. The US uses 120 billion gallons of gasoline.
Would there be a modification of range and somewhat reduced fuel economy?
Yes, but we are told this is a race against time.
Of course China has already set a goal of having their auto fleets running on M15 in 2025.
It is true that making gasoline substitutes from coal and gas is generally less efficient than drilling them or cooking bitumen but the integration into the current auto fleets and gas stations would not be a problem.
http://ourenergypolicy.org/docs/8/MTFLBLF.pdf
What the staff should have suggested to Honda is that the government should mandate all new US cars be flexfuel M85/E85 compatible and that Honda should get withe the program and make sure ALL their cars are flexfuel.
But preconceived ideas and fantasy solutions(completely redesigned cities, toy Evs for everyone, aerodynamic 'funny cars', etc.) are normal for the TOD experts.
majorian,
Agreed.
The first vehicles produced (e.g. model A Ford) a century ago were flex fuel vehicles.
M85 would have been fine then just as it would be today.
The greatest resistance to a methanol economy and similar solutions is psychological.
The oil barons, scientists, politicians, academians, and government officials face blood guilt for their decades of deceit and self deception concerning the addiction to oil.
They have led us to a dangerous place so they suffer denial in a big way.
We must therefore deny them the right to any more propaganda in this matter.
It is time for them to listen.
Another less discussed fact about the alcohol fuels, is that, when the engine is optimised for them, you will get more miles per btu than with gasoline, or even diesel. And the emissions are much better too.
A diesel engine co fuelled with alcohol has emission levels low enough that the expensive pollution control gear is not required.
The fact that you can make methanol from almost any carbonaceous feedstock is a huge bonus, also overlooked.
Absolutely agreed that the barriers here are political, not technical, or even economic.
Some modern nuclear power stations supplying electricity to a reticulated system that powers vehicles as they drive along highways and motorways, with each vehicle having enough on board battery power for around town trips and, for longer journeys, getting them to and from the powered highways.
This would:
Reduce the size of the batteries required to make each vehicle practical.
Reduce the cost of each vehicle.
Solve the peak oil problem.
Solve the global warming problem.
Retain the present independence we get from having cars, which apparently, lots of people prefer over riding on buses.
Such systems have high losses, and have clear 'who pays' problems, plus are very costly, and are not very load-tolerant.
All up: Not going to pass a cost-benefit test.
"Such systems have high losses" nonsense, electrical systems are very efficient when compared the ICE's, transmission loses need be no higher than those from current electrical reticulation systems.
"have clear 'who pays' problems" again nonsense, investors (including no doubt Govt) do the investing, users pay for using, next you'll be telling us current electrical distribution and road systems have "who pays problems".
"are very costly" What we have now is very costly, this system has the advantage of building on what we have now rather than looking to build something else from scratch, while I've focused on cars, we still need some system to power road freight in the future, and barring a huge leap in mobile electrical storage technology, batteries ain't going to do it. If you look at what's on offer to replace the current oil fueled transport system, well, there are no cheap alternatives, by using current EV designs but electrifying only the fraction of the roading network required for longer journeys we would be getting the best return possible.
"are not very load-tolerant" again you could complain that current electrical reticulation systems won't work because demand fluctuates too much.
"All up: Not going to pass a cost-benefit test."
Unsupported assertion.
Amongst those people who're interested in the likelihood of imminent peak oil there is a faction who see peak oil as an opportunity to ditch many of the current social and economic norms, they wish for a greener, fluffier society.
They don't understand, or don't want to understand, that this society would be far poorer without the transport networks we have now or something that can at least equal its ability to move people and materials.
Poorer societies have less money to look after people, the result is people live shorter lives.
Hmm, wow, I can see you've never actually tried to couple power over a large air gap, and onto a moving target!!.
And again, you have never tried to invoice a whole line of moving customers, all sucking variable power from your master system, with no means to meter the loads from your end!.
This would need some pre-pay system to allow access to the available power, and it would have to cease when the money ran out.
I've given the reasons it fails to stack up. This is not a 'new' idea; the numbers
are why it is not already being done.
(and I didn't even get onto minimum economic load issues..)
If you want an example of a more workable power transfer system, see the Fast-Charging System for Buses further down.
"I can see you've never actually tried to couple power over a large air gap, and onto a moving target!!."
Unbelievable claim given the success of current electrified transport systems (hint, they use contacts, wheels or brushes, so there's no "large air gap").
"you have never tried to invoice a whole line of moving customers,"
You are also obviously unfamiliar with modern metering technology and data transfer methods. Yes, sometimes people don't pay their power bills on time, perhaps you can appreciate how unattractive a proposition it would be to a road user to be unplugged from the road system? A bit like having house power disconnected.
"(and I didn't even get onto minimum economic load issues..)"
Oh please!
"the numbers are why it is not already being done."
The numbers are why nothing has seriously challenged petroleum fueled ICE as the principle land transport system, most of us here think the numbers are changing.
Well, I must admit I never thought you meant trams, or slot cars, when I read this ...
power stations supplying electricity to a reticulated system that powers vehicles as they drive along highways and motorways,
I thought "drive along highways and motorways" meant cars. Silly me.
Be sure to keep us posted when ever a system "using contacts, wheels or brushes" gets off paper, and onto any highway and motorway!.
People have suggested induction systems, but as you point out, there's been nothing practical.
I'd go for a system that collected power off of rails (a fence) on the left hand side of vehicles, such a system wouldn't be pedestrian friendly which is another reason to limit it to motorways and highways.
This wouldn't limit the roads to only those vehicles that are powered by the system (Important for the transition period).
Eventually the whole thing could be automated to the point of dispensing with the need for drivers to be at the wheel for most of their trip, perhaps dispensing with drivers for freight vehicles altogether.
I think the whole section on EVs is overly negative, but then again I am biased toward EVs.
"it is not clear whether the supply of electricity in the future (say 20 years from now) will be as great as it is today." Well, peak oil is the immediate concern. We have enough coal, natural gas, uranium, hydro, solar, and wind to keep the grid up.
"There are also issues associated with charging a large number of vehicles simultaneously from the grid."
No, there really isn't much of an issue here. People charge their cars overnight. All the new EVs (Leaf, Volt, etc.), include systems that allow you to tell them when to charge and when not to charge. Just have everyone charge overnight and today's grid could handle 73 million EVs without adding a single new power plant. That is in DoE study.
http://energytech.pnl.gov/publications/pdf/PHEV_Feasibility_Analysis_Par...
"there may still be high demand times (cold winter nights, for example) when getting adequate electricity for recharging is still a problem."
Who heats with electricity? It still happens but it is becoming more rare all the time. It is a really bad way to heat a house.
"With respect to cars with batteries, electrical cars and hybrid electric cars have the advantage of being less expensive to operate than cars with internal combustion engines. This difference is especially great, if the cost of liquid fuel is high."
Yes . . . exactly. And this will compensate for the higher up-front cost. They are not quite there yet but with cheaper batteries and more expensive oil, we will hit the cross-over point relatively soon.
"One advantage of oil-based fuel is that it is very dense and easy to transport. Batteries, in comparison, are much heavier, and don't allow a vehicle to travel as long a distance (unless used as a hybrid with another fuel).
....
Another advantage of oil-based fuel is its convenience. Batteries are inconvenient in that most take several hours to recharge, and charging may not be available except at home."
Yes, liquid fuels win here. But if oil becomes too expensive, I'd rather be able to drive 100 miles electric than not drive at all. But PHEVs, fast-charging, and battery swap systems can mitigate here.
"Another advantage of oil-based fuel is that it is an expense paid as the vehicle is used. Batteries are usually paid for up front."
Financing systems or leases can handle this.
"Batteries also are expensive, especially in the quantity needed for EVs, so that the cost of an EV is higher than of a car with an internal combustion engine. The price of batteries may be partially offset by the salvage value;"
Forget the salvage value . . . it is the much lower operating cost that will make up for the higher up-front cost.
EVs are not a 'magic bullet' solution. But when gasoline costs $10/gallon, those 100 mile-range EVs are going to look damn good.
The only "problems" with ev's are the cost and energy density of the batteries - all those other things are non issues, unless there is proliferation of rapid charging stations, being used in peak hours (which is a real possibility).
But even with the battery issues, the bigger problem with EV's is that people want them to be like ICE V's. if we are prepared to have smaller, lighter, slightly slower vehicles, and less range, then we can have affordable EV's today.
If we want big, powerful, long range Ev's then we they will cost so much that no one can afford them.
The biggest problem with Ev's is people wanting them to be like ICE's - they can;t be - ICE's are much better at that.
Oversized and overweight vehicles are so last century - with EV's less is more - it;'s just not the American way.
It is mostly the cost. I think the battery swap idea could actually handle the range, refuel time, and energy density issue. I wouldn't want to get locked into the BetterPlace system but eventually the car companies can standardize on a replaceable battery standard.
I don't believe EVs will ever be as cheap as gas cars. However, I do believe they will eventually be much more economically practical than gas cars due to increasing gas prices. When gas costs $10/gallon, even the die hard V8 driver will see the wisdom of EVs. We will still need gas & diesel vehicles for long range and heavy-duty applications. But EVs will be able to handle most light-duty transport. (Commuter vehicles, soccer mom, local delivery, etc.)
Agreed that it is mostly the cost - spend enough on batteries, like these guys did, and you can go as far as you could want;
http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1047993_what-range-anxiety-daihatsu-...
It will just cost a fortune, and use a lot of internal volume, that's all.
Barring a battery breakthrough, the pure ev's will only really be successful -where they are successful, and that is in city driving. That is where the ICE is at its worst, and battery electric at its best. We will see a lot of small city sized ev's and that is great. We will also see people park their big vehicles and only use them when the need to, that is also good. For business, they will look closer to sizing the vehicle to its function, instead of just buying bigger because you got more for your money. With higher fuel prices, bigger means you have less money.
I really like Japan's system with the Kei cars, a special category of small cars, that gets significant tax breaks on registration, parking fees, etc, and all powered by 660cc engines! Ideal candidates for EV's (which is what the Mitsubishi I-MIEV is). Make the car small, light and cheap, and ev's will proliferate. Make it big, and expensive, and they will remain niche players. The real problem is the obsession with big vehicles, regardless of their fuel source.
We don't need to go to the extremes of the X-prize cars, but somewhere in there is a happy medium - when the ev's find it, they will sell. Until then , they will need to be subsidised.
Something like this might be a more cost effective solution to electrifying public transport
Opbrid Introduces New Overhead Fast-Charging System for Buses
By fast charging these batteries for 5 or 6 minutes at each end of a bus route, a bus can run throughout the day on 100% electricity from the grid. This enables the upgrading of many hybrid-electric buses to use up to 100% electricity from the grid instead of diesel, Opbrid says. Opbrid calls such buses Rapid Charge Hybrids (RCH).
Yes, these are a easy and natural way to extend Hybrids, and they allow more flexible routes, and usage, than full trolley bus designs.
The Bůsbaar can be installed in days at a fraction of the time and cost for installing an electric tram or trolleybus system.
The article contains the comment "We hear that there are huge reserves of oil, so we assume that the oil will be available when we want it. That is not necessarily true. Even if we know the oil is there, if it takes more than one barrel of previously-extracted oil to extract a new barrel of oil, the fact that the oil reserves are there doesn't really help us--it is too expensive in terms of oil, to extract the new oil. This relationship also holds in terms of dollars."
That is most misleading as there are many more physical and other limits to what oil can be extracted. Oil generally provides the fuel used but what about all the materials used in providing the machinery. What about the engineering limits that are growing as many oil fields become more difficult? Deepwater Horizon is only one example of this developing problem. What about the skill level required by those controlling the extraction process? It is quite likely that the price of oil will more accurately reflect the future difficulty of extracting oil than the simplistic measure in the quotation.