Drumbeat: December 2, 2010
Posted by Leanan on December 2, 2010 - 10:21am
Progress lagging on cellulosic ethanol
The future of renewable fuels is supposed to be largely about breaking down the stubborn cellulose fiber in such cheap materials as wheat straw, cornstalks, switch grass and wood chips, converting them to energy and putting the results in your fuel tank.The future didn't seem to get much closer on Monday. That's when the Environmental Protection Agency lowered its 2011 expectations for cellulosic output from 250 million gallons to 6.5 million gallons.
John Michael Greer: In the wake of victory
All this raises an interesting conundrum for the peak oil movement. Of the risks run by any movement that seeks to upend the status quo, the most commonly underestimated are the dangers of success. Plenty of movements that have triumphed over every adversity have faltered or even imploded when adversity gave way to achievement. There are plenty of ways that this can happen, but I suspect the one most likely to beset the peak oil movement will arrive when the movers and shakers of the world’s industrial nations turn to the more respectable members of the movement and say, “Okay, you’ve made your point. So what do we do about it?”I suspect that this challenge has been on the minds of a number of people in the peak oil scene of late. Several peak oil-related organizations and websites are pretty clearly shifting their focus from arguing for the reality and imminence of peak oil—the necessary focus of the last decade—to advocating and lobbying for some set of responses to the end of the age of cheap energy. A number of other people in the peak oil scene, most of them less organizationally connected, have reacted against this trend in one way or another. Which side is right? Both of them, of course.
Petrol shortage due to bad weather
The bad weather is leading to "critical" shortages of petrol, it has been revealed.Some forecourts are already out of fuel and others could run out of petrol, and especially diesel, by the weekend, warned the Retail Motor Industry Independent Petrol Retailers Association (RMI Petrol).
Nigeria agency says to charge Dick Cheney over Halliburton
(Reuters) - Nigeria's anti-corruption police said on Thursday they planned to file charges against former Vice President Dick Cheney in a $180 million bribery case involving a former unit of oil services firm Halliburton.
What’s the future for fracking?
Yesterday’s decision by the Obama administration to put a moratorium on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico further intensifies the current debate about hydraulic fracturing, the controversial process by which much of the unconventional gas is being exploited in the US.
'BP still supported after oil spill'
BP continues to receive the backing of governments around the world after its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, chief executive Bob Dudley told employees in an e-mail today, even as doubts remain around its US business.
Spill Panel Co-Chairman Blames Management For BP Oil Spill
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The co-chairman of President Barack Obama's commission investigating the blowout of BP Plc's (BP, BP.LN) Macondo well blamed management for the disaster that led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history."The series of decisions that doomed Macondo evidenced a failure of management and good management could have avoided a catastrophe," William Reilly, a co-chair of the panel, said at the start of a final, two-day round of the commission's public deliberations.
Why going unconventional is BP's safest bet
FORTUNE -- BP needs low-hanging fossil fuel fruit. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, the company has tarnished its offshore exploration reputation. Also, the company is selling assets to free up $30 billion in cash by the end of 2011.So it's time for BP to get unconventional. BP got the all clear signal from partner Husky Energy to start moving on the Sunrise oil project in Alberta Canada. BP bought 50 % of the Sunrise project back in 2007, and now plans to fund the first $2.5 billion of the project, the Financial Times reports, since it's time to start developing.
Supreme Court won’t hear Saskatoon First Nations’ claim against Enbridge
SASKATOON — The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed the cases of three Saskatchewan First Nations who say they weren’t adequately consulted about the construction of a massive pipeline.The applications by the Sweetgrass, Moosomin and Standing Buffalo First Nations were dismissed Thursday with costs by the Supreme Court.
Oil price spike: blame greedy speculators or peak oil? (book review) (review of Griftopia)
If you care about peak oil, it's natural to connect resource depletion to economic crisis.And if you're growing increasingly impatient about the failure of government and the mainstream media to accept peak oil as a major challenge or even acknowledge the issue at all, then you may also be open to the idea that the American ruling class is wholly corrupt and self-serving.
Europe turns to Africa for energy from the sun
Madrid - Imagine vast stretches of the Sahara desert, covered by shiny parabolic mirrors capturing heat from the sun that a system of steam turbines will transform into electricity.An extensive network of high-tech cables would then transport the energy long distances to Europe, which would be getting all of its electricity from the sun and other renewable sources, with no more need for nuclear plants or contaminating fossil power.
Until recently, such a vision would have seemed like science fiction. But now, projects are already underway to make it reality.
But as the planet warms, as northern sea lanes become accessible to shippers, as companies hungrily eye vast petroleum and mineral deposits below its melting ice, a quiet, almost polite, scramble for control is transpiring in the Arctic."Countries are setting the chess pieces on the board. There are tremendous resources at stake," said Rob Huebert, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.
Desire Falkland Oil Find May Reignite U.K., Argentina Feud
Desire Petroleum Plc, the U.K. energy explorer, said a well off the Falkland Islands made the region’s second discovery this year, threatening to reignite a diplomatic dispute between the U.K. and Argentina.In May, Rockhopper Exploration Plc made the first potentially commercial find around the South American islands 8,000 miles from the U.K. that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went to war to defend in 1982. Argentina still claims sovereignty and is protesting the drilling by forbidding vessels to load cargo at its ports, while the Falkland Islands has said no Argentine company will be given a license there.
“The more successes that happen, the greater the prize and the more that diplomatic tensions will rise,” said Peter Hitchens, an analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co. in London. Desire’s discovery “has proved up another play in the area and it could become a major hydrocarbon zone.”
Oil hovers near $87 in Asia on economic hopes
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Oil prices hovered near $87 a barrel Thursday in Asia after a sharp rally the day before that was powered by strong economic data from the U.S. and China.
Iraqi oilfield target is raised
ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell have raised their target for oil production from Iraq's West Qurna-1 oilfield by about 22 per cent to more than 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd), a volume equal to the total output capacity of Abu Dhabi.The adjustment follows extensive reservoir appraisal and surveying work on the oilfield in the year since the Iraqi oil ministry awarded a 20-year contract to the companies to develop the field, which is among the largest in the Middle East.
Russia November Crude Oil Exports 20.10 Million Tons; Down 2.5% On-Year
MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Russia exported 20.1 million metric tons of crude oil in November, down 2.5% from the same month last year, statistics from Russia's energy ministry showed Thursday.
`Fair' Price for Crude Is $100; OPEC to Hold Output Steady, Ramirez Says
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is unlikely to change its output quotas when it meets in nine days time and $100 represents a “fair” price for a barrel of oil, Venezuela’s energy minister said.Gas-exporting nations also need an OPEC-like body to “regulate” prices, Rafael Ramirez told reporters today. The Venezuelan is one of several ministers attending a meeting in Doha of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a gas producers group that does not set supply quotas.
Angola Says OPEC to Keep Existing Oil Quota, Next License Rounds in 2011
OPEC is unlikely to change its production quota when it meets at the end of next week, said Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angola’s Minister of Petroleum.The members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries “feel” oil at $80 to $85 a barrel is a “comfortable price” and will probably keep the group’s output targets unchanged at their meeting on Dec. 11 in Quito, Ecuador, Vasconcelos said in an interview late yesterday in Luanda.
Chinese Power Producers Jump After Report of Government Coal Price Freeze
Chinese power producers including Huaneng Power International Inc. rallied in Hong Kong after the state-run Xinhua News Agency said the government ordered a freeze in 2011 contract prices for coal used in power stations.
Indonesia aims to end subsidised fuel for private cars by 2013
(Reuters) - The Indonesian government is aiming to end the use of subsidised fuel by private cars by 2013, starting with the capital Jakarta in January next year, officials said on Thursday.
Brazil changes oil drilling rules
Brazil's Congress has modified laws relating to the country's oil sector which could increase development of its offshore oil fields.The bill ensures that the state-run oil company Petrobras will have a 30% stake in any new joint exploration ventures in Brazil's offshore fields.
Exploitation of the reserves could turn Brazil into a global energy exporter.
Soldiers raid militant camps in oil delta
Lagos - Soldiers on Wednesday raided three militant camps hidden in the winding creeks of Nigeria's oil-rich and restive southern delta, seizing heavy weaponry in an attack rebels claimed killed more than 100 people.
Salazar vows 'utmost caution' OKing Arctic leases
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Interior Department will use "utmost caution" in future drilling lease sales in Arctic Ocean waters, Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday as he announced an updated national offshore oil and gas policy.Interior officials also said Shell Oil's plan to drill at least one exploratory well next year in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's north shore remains under review, and they will not be rushed by Shell's request for a decision by this month.
Administration's Offshore Plan Fails to Protect Arctic
Marilyn Heiman, director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. Arctic Program, issued the following statement in response to the Obama administration's announcement today on offshore oil and gas leasing."We appreciate the leadership from President Obama on the importance of looking carefully at the nation's energy program to balance exploration with environmental concerns. We are, however, concerned about the pressure this decision puts on the U.S. Arctic Ocean. If we learned anything from the Gulf, it's that oil spill response is challenging—even in temperate waters."
Louisiana Coastal Hurricane Fix Stymied by U.S. Holdup on Oil-Backed Debt
The federal government’s failure to write rules for offshore-drilling payments is blocking Louisiana from borrowing as much as $1 billion to fix a coastline ravaged by two hurricanes and the largest U.S. oil spill.
Tibet power grid to link with national network in 2012
LHASA (Xinhua) -- A multi-billion dollar project to connect the power grid in Tibet to the one in the rest of China will be completed by 2012, ensuring a steady supply of electricity to the plateau region.
Putin May Have Offered Berlusconi a Share of Energy Deals, WikiLeaks Says
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may have promised his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi a percentage of profits on projects developed by OAO Gazprom with Eni SpA, a U.S. diplomatic cable posted on WikiLeaks.org shows.“The Georgian ambassador in Rome has told us” that his government “believes Putin has promised Berlusconi a percentage of profits from any pipelines developed by Gazprom in coordination with Eni,” U.S. Ambassador Ronald P. Spogli said in a cable sent on Jan. 26, 2009, according to the leaked document.
WikiLeaks dubs Russia's Gazprom 'vulture'
Russian gas giant Gazprom behaves "like a vulture" in its attempts to gain new assets, WikiLeaks cables from the new tranche of the leaked documents said.
Peak oil and the end of growth: we need to start planning now
Might Peak Oil spell the end of growth as a political, economic and social goal?Let me try to explain.
We have become increasingly aware that there are fundamental constraints to ongoing economic expansion, that perpetual growth on a finite planet is a fool's dream.
If Peak Oil is here - and there is solid evidence showing that it is - then it means we have begun to run up against the planet's natural constraints. Mother Nature has begun to tell us that the party is over.
Community energy, climate action conference Saturday
Montpelier — On December 4, nearly 300 Vermonters are expected to gather at the Lake Morey Inn in Fairlee, Vermont for the annual “Community Energy and Climate Action Conference” co-hosted by the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network, UVM Extension, VPIRG and Peak Oil Awareness.
Some event stands represented relevant issues, like Martha Goodsell’s table about the impacts of natural gas drilling on agriculture, specifically in the Marcellus Shale. Goodsell is compiling studies from other areas — like Arkansas, California, and Alaska — where drilling impacted critical resources: water quantity and quality, soil erosion and ozone impacts on plants.“I was surprised to find out about all Cornell Dining is doing with local foods. It’s important for one of the nation’s leading agriculture schools to set an example in sourcing food locally,” said Casey Knapp ’12.
Africa can feed itself within a generation: study
African nations can break dependence on food imports and produce enough to feed a growing population within a generation despite extra strains from climate change, a study said.Research into new crops resistant to heat, droughts or floods, as well as better support for small-scale farmers and greater involvement by national leaders in setting policies in sectors from transport to education were needed, it said.
What it really costs to fill up a plug-in car
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Even if they aren't always terribly accurate, EPA fuel economy estimates have at least made it easy to compare the gas mileage of one car to another. But now that plug-in cars are entering the market, things are about to get much more complicated.How do you compare the fuel efficiency of a car that runs on gasoline to one that plugs into an outlet?
Ernst & Young: China clear leader in renewable energy
Driven by a surge in wind power installations, China is building on its lead in Ernst & Young's ranking of top renewable energy countries.Wind investment in China this quarter is nearly half of global spending, ensuring that one out of every two wind turbines to go live this year will be in China, according to consultants at Ernst & Young which does a quarterly "country attractiveness" index.
U.S. Needs Critical Boost in Energy Research, Panel Tells Obama
The United States needs to more than triple its spending on energy research, development and demonstration projects, from about $5 billion now to $16 billion, and should institute a strategic review of national energy policy every four years, an advisory group of scientists and engineers said in a report to President Obama this week.
Motech of Taiwan May Increase Capacity by 50% in 2011 to Meet Solar Demand
Motech Industries Inc., Taiwan’s biggest solar cell maker by market value, said it may expand capacity by 50 percent next year to meet demand from customers turning to renewable energy sources.
A Few Cheers for the Sun in Suffolk
The event at the Brentwood train station is part of a $125 million project to install solar panels and generate electricity on carports at seven public parking areas in Suffolk County. Work has already begun on a related $300 million project to build the state’s largest solar energy farm on 153 acres at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. That project will provide up to 32 megawatts of power to the Long Island Power Authority grid — enough energy for 4,500 homes.For those who think that we’re actually creeping toward meaningful production of solar and other forms of renewable energy, this is good news, though, like virtually all good news today, it came with its share of nuance.
Maine Officials Say Turbines Are Too Loud
Last week, in a letter to the wind farm’s developers, Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection concluded that the turbines do, under certain conditions, exceed state noise limits of 45 decibels. The agency further ordered the developer, within the next 60 days, to come up with a new operational plan to ensure that the turbines are in compliance at all times.
Event is taking place at the University of Leicester on Monday December 6 at 5.30pm.The University of Leicester is hosting a Christmas lecture focussing on climate change with a specialist speaker from the University of Cambridge on Monday, 6 December.
`Homeless' Industrial-Gas Offsets May Flood New Zealand, IdeaCarbon Says
United Nations offsets from industrial-gas projects may flood the emissions-trading program in New Zealand and push the country’s carbon prices lower if the European Union prohibits their use, according to IDEACarbon.
Leaked cables reveal Saudi minister of petroleum helped craft toothless Copenhagen climate accord
So far most of the attention on Wikileaks' Nov. 28 release of formerly secret U.S. diplomatic cables has been focused on what the cables reveal about Iran's nuclear aspirations. But buried in these cables are tantalizing clues about the back-door negotiations that surrounded last year's Copenhagen climate conference. A year later, many of the same negotiators are now in Cancun, where their motivations are likely to be the same. So what do these cables tell us about what to expect from current and future climate negotiations?
Climate-Science Critic Wants to Lead House Science Panel
A race is on for the chairmanship of the House Science Committee, but whatever the outcome, the post will clearly be held by a staunch opponent of mandatory caps on the emissions that contribute to global warming.
US, China move closer on key climate issue
CANCUN, Mexico – Prospects for a limited deal at the latest climate talks appeared to brighten with the U.S. and China narrowing differences on a key element: how to monitor greenhouse gas emissions.But other issues that go to the heart of a new global warming treaty — long-term commitments for cutting emissions — proved stubbornly unmoving, and out of reach for any resolution during the annual two-week conference.
Emissions Performance Standards Needed to Meet U.K. Carbon Goals, MPs Say
Emissions performance standards limiting the amount of carbon dioxide produced by U.K. power stations are needed to meet climate change targets, according to an Energy and Climate Change Committee report released today.
Lakes Around the World Are Warming
The world’s largest lakes are warming along with the air — and sometimes at faster rates — but the intensity of the warming trend differs strikingly around the globe, a new study by two scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says.The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, shows that the warming trend is most intense in northeastern Europe, where Lake Vanern in Sweden and two lakes in Russia, Ladoga and Onega, are. There, temperature data drawn from satellite measurements taken from 1985 to 2009 show a rate of warming as high as 1.72 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
Sea Level Could Rise in South, Fall in North
Climate change is expected to cause sea levels to rise -- at least in some parts of the world. Elsewhere, the level of the ocean will actually fall. Scientists are trying to get a better picture of the complex phenomenon, which also depends on a host of natural factors.
Unprecedented tundra fire likely linked to climate change
A thousand square kilometers of the Alaskan tundra burned in September 2007, a single fire that doubled the area burned in the region since 1950. However, a new study in the Journal of Geophysical Research finds that the fire was even more unprecedented than imagined: sediment cores found that it was the most destructive fire in the area for at least 5,000 years and maybe longer."If such fires occur every 200 years or every 500 years, it's a natural event," University of Illinois plant biology professor Feng Sheng Hu explains in a press release. "But another possibility is that these are truly unprecedented events caused by, say, greenhouse warming."
Global Sea-Level Rise at the End of the Last Ice Age Interrupted by Rapid 'Jumps'
ScienceDaily — Southampton researchers have estimated that sea-level rose by an average of about 1 metre per century at the end of the last Ice Age, interrupted by rapid 'jumps' during which it rose by up to 2.5 metres per century. The findings, published in Global and Planetary Change, will help unravel the responses of ocean circulation and climate to large inputs of ice-sheet meltwater to the world ocean.
Global warming could double food prices by 2050, experts say
CANCUN, MEXICO—Even if we stopped spewing global warming gases today, the world would face a steady rise in food prices this century. But on our current emissions path, climate change becomes the “threat multiplier” that could double grain prices by 2050 and leave millions more children malnourished, global food experts reported Wednesday.Beyond 2050, when climate scientists project temperatures might rise to as much as 6.4 degrees C over 20th century levels, the planet grows “gloomy” for agriculture, said senior research fellow Gerald Nelson of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
The specialists of the authoritative, Washington-based IFPRI said they fed 15 scenarios of population and income growth into supercomputer models of climate and found that “climate change worsens future human well-being, especially among the world’s poorest people.”
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Gleanings from the WEO 2010:
2/12/2010
Fly, but leave your car at home
http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/?p=2320
SO, who sets the ceiling for reasonable oil prices: China, the US, the rest of Asia?
That question is easy. The economy sets the ceiling for oil prices. When prices get too high it kills demand and prices start to fall. That is the case in any country. That is what happened in 2008. That is what is happening right now all over the world. We are at the ceiling of what prices will bear today. But that does not mean they could not go higher tomorrow, or next week, or next year. They will go as high as the world market will bear and the supply at that price dictates.
Ron P.
This is what SocGen believes:
this is what they think about spare capacity:
full article:
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/oil%60s-sliceworld-gdp-nears...
Regards,
Nawar
The year over year increase in annual oil prices, from 2009 to 2010, is going to be quite similar to the average rate of increase from 1998 to 2008, i.e., about 20%/year. And I have previously noted the approximate doubling pattern in year over year price declines in this period--from $14 in 1998, to $26 in 2001, to $62 in 2009.
If the above patterns hold going forward, I would expect to see a continued average rate of increase of about 20%/year, until we see the next year over year price decline, which would bring us down to the $120 range (again, if the above patterns hold going forward).
My assumption is that as some consumers are forced to reduce their consumption, it takes a higher price to force the next round of reductions in consumption, since many of the weaker competitors have already been forced to reduce their consumption. Somewhat surprisingly, the winners of the bidding war in the 1998 to 2008 time period generally appear to be developing countries. I suspect that this pattern will continue.
If we simply ignore spikes up and down, and look at the long-term trend line, prices have risen steadily since about 2000. Prior to 2000 the price was a surprisingly steady $20 per barrel. Since then it's averaging maybe $6 per year rise.
Perhaps a best-case scenario is that such a rise continues, with random but increasingly large spikes up and down as a likely overlay?
This steady rise in price appears to be the effect and cause of our current plateau -- flat production in the face of growing population and needs drives the price increase, which in turn drives production of ever-harder-to-get crude. Where the "knee" in production really happens is not at all clear to me. As we fall off the plateau, the price slope will likely go up, but demand could just as likely fall down.
I think it is obvious that quick, high spikes drive recession, so on a personal basis a plan to live with steady energy cost increases and tolerate short high spikes is reasonable. Staying employed and living beneath your means seems to be the critical (and not necessarily possible) goal.
Let's go back a little further than 2000, though. I did a quick hack using data from the BP Stat Review and one of the visualizations from the US Minerals databrowser. Here's what it looks like:
Global production is on the horizontal axis, inflation-adjusted price on the vertical axis. The annual price jumps in 1974 and 1979 are immediately obvious. (Note that the jump comes after the 1973 embargo because we are looking at annual averages.)
The minor decline is global consumption between 1979 and 1983 is clear as is the "hitting the wall" runup in prices in the last couple of years. The 2009 drop in prices occurred, within error bars, at exactly the same global production=consumption level of the past couple of years.
I wonder if $100/bbl forms a "ceiling" which we cannot get above economically? Then we really would be "boxed in", just as shown in the chart. Economists want to believe that we can push the top and right sides further out as needed, but I'm not so sure. I think we may be stuck in that upper right corner for a while before we figure out, willingly or not, how to make do with less oil.
Best Hopes for thinking "outside the box".
Jon
Great graphic. Edward Tufte would approve.
I wonder if $100/bbl forms a "ceiling" which we cannot get above economically?
It certainly represents a ceiling at which alternatives become cheaper: efficiency and electrification.
Maybe it does, but those items have their prices hanging on cost of production, too (so in part, fuel costs), so you'd have to expect their rates to follow it up. Then there's a price swing that follows increasing demand for RE, if that happens, as well as decreased supply, in case 'shock demand' clears the shelves after a black swan moment..
I think the best news is that people start getting uncertain about fuel's price stability, and start looking at Alternatives because they are basically 'prebuying' their energy at a fixed rate, and not going to be subject to wild price and availability swings a couple years out..
those items have their prices hanging on cost of production, too (so in part, fuel costs), so you'd have to expect their rates to follow it up.
Not much. Manufacturing uses very little oil, and EVs and wind turbines are manufactured items.
a price swing that follows increasing demand for RE
In the long term increased demand will allow economies of scale and lower costs.
'prebuying' their energy at a fixed rate
I agree. Price volatility has a real cost. Most people don't try to calculate it, but finance types do.
Not much. Manufacturing uses very little oil,
WT and PV production are very energy intensive and/or materials intensive. Even if they don't use oil directly (past the transport costs of both materials, labor and finished product, which aren't nothing), the energy they do use will likely be pricier as various fuels will be likely latched to an oil rise, as NG, Coal and Electricity in general will be getting hit with substitution from a mass of customers looking to get away from oil costs, too.
The long term economies of scale are all well and good, and I'll take every advantage we can get, but we're talking about 'getting over the hump', which is all about short term obstacles, market reactions, etc.. It should be perfectly clear by now that I'm as pro-Renewables as anyone here can be, but I think you have been feverishly glossing over the serious obstacles we need to be ready for in getting there.
My main theme since joining here has been that PV in particular may still look 'pricey' to people now, but if the PO situation was suddenly brought into real public awareness, that the shelves would either empty and the demand-driven prices would skyrocket for PV, or the next thumps down in the economy would further crater people's ability to buy anything beyond 'too little food'.. (and possibly BOTH conditions would exist together..) IE, that the time to set some up is still NOW, and while it would hurt or force stark sacrifices for people in other areas of their budget.. that it will only be harder tomorrow, but that the increased base of PV power available, while still pretty paltry, will leave us in a better long-term position to rebuild from, and rebuild with more reasonable expectations of what we can live with, at that point, as well.
**(none of the above to preclude the other critical steps, serious insulating, Solar Hot Water (where applicable), reduced overall electric demand, lifestyle shifts towards less energy and stuff consumption, etc...)
Joe,
I think we need to be clear whether we're talking about the short term (let's say less than 20 years out) or long-term. Also, are we talking PO or AGW? These make a big difference.
WT and PV production are very energy intensive and/or materials intensive.
These really don't matter in the short term, or for PO. For better or worse, we have lots of coal and NG in the short term.
Also, WT production really is not energy intensive. It really isn't. Modern WTs have an E-ROI in the range of 50, and most of the energy input isn't oil.
the energy they do use will likely be pricier as various fuels will be likely latched to an oil rise, as NG, Coal and Electricity in general will be getting hit with substitution from a mass of customers looking to get away from oil costs, too.
Not really. NG will rise somewhat, but we've already seen the NG and oil markets become unsynchronized. There's a lot of NG in the ground at prices that are only somewhat higher, say $7 per Mcf. More importantly, coal is priced in long-term contracts (so spot market volatility is much less important than for oil) and coal cost curves are much, much flatter than for oil.
The long term economies of scale are all well and good, and I'll take every advantage we can get, but we're talking about 'getting over the hump', which is all about short term obstacles, market reactions, etc..
OK, so you're thinking about the short term. Well, Aleklett projects only a 11% decline in overall liquids by 2030. That's more than enough for freight, industry, etc. Personal transportation will take the hit, with people driving a bit less, carpooling a bit more, and moving to lower-fuel-consumption vehicles ASAP.
My main theme since joining here has been that PV in particular may still look 'pricey' to people now, but if the PO situation was suddenly brought into real public awareness, that the shelves would either empty and the demand-driven prices would skyrocket for PV
PV is important for AGW, not PO.
PO will only bring panic if people have the unrealistic idea that PO will cause TEOTAWKI. IOW, that will only happen as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Was the year 2000 when US 401k's started to become strongly advocated and funded?
I wonder if there is a correlation between retirement money going into 401k's and oil price.
Why?
Re: Climate-Science Critic Wants to Lead House Science Panel
Mr. Rohrabacher (and others much like him) are remarkably scary people. If (when?) he takes control of the House Science committee, one might expect that the funding for science would tend more to what might be called "applied research", that is, science which makes money. Of course, climate science doesn't make money for the fossil fuel industry, so they will try to kill any effort to further research into Climate Change. Well, science is fundamentally about finding the truth and is not subject to democratic process. I can only hope that these guys will quickly learn that they can't legislate the Laws of Nature...
E. Swanson
"I can only hope that these guys will quickly learn that they can't legislate the Laws of Nature..."
They certainly can, and will, legislate our response to these natural laws, and how they are affecting us. 2 steps forward, 2 steps back.
Oh, Dear.
.. I'm glad I picked up some more pallettes today, I think I need to vent some serious rage with my grandpappy's axe!
Courage!
Whenever I feel nervous, I sharpen my axes and knives. Yes: You can shave with a very sharp axe. We all need ways to work off our worries and frustrations and stress in general. Since studying TOD my blades have been the sharpest ever.
Amen to that, Don.
My dad used to do woodsplitting with the image of some VERY direct catharsis in the axe-blows, he would tell me. (ie, This block is Hitler, this one is Stalin..etc) For me, I think there's just a great release in going HEEYAw! Smash!
And an axe has turned out to be an excellent way to take pallettes apart. forget the prybar and the skilsaw.
I have Sharon Astyk's talk The Future of Food up on Our Finite World.
One quote:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/david-roberts-and-steve-e_n_740...
David Roberts and Steve Everley Debate Our Energy Future - AN OPEN BLOG
I know the whole "if only those selfish, extravagantly wasteful Westerners would just stop driving and consuming so much, there would be plenty of food for everyone" meme is very popular here. Though it has *some* basis in truth (yes, we westerners --especially Americans-- are extravagantly wasteful compared to poorer nations), this popular refrain is missing the two 800 pound gorillas in the room:
1. There is a positive correlation between material consumption, happiness and what we might loosely term "quality of life" --up to a certain point. Despite all the heated "Westerners are pigs" rhetoric, there are not many here or anywhere who would willingly trade places with Egyptian trash scavengers, or one of India's Untouchables.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09/07/the-perfect-salary-for-happiness-...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049415/
2. Population growth. We are still adding ~75 million net new people per year to the planet, most of them in the Third World. Meaning, we're adding another Europe every 10 years at the current rate. Any offset in Western material consumption from conservation efforts, recycling, renewable energy, etc. is going to be dwarfed by this reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
On number 1, "up to a point" is the point. Happiness doesn't seem to improve much over about a $10,000/year income anywhere. If everyone that makes more than that dropped down to that level, that would leave a lot for bringing the billion or so that make less than a dollar a day up substantially higher into livable and not absolutely miserable conditions. And,yes, of course, it's much more complicated than that. But maybe not quite as complicated as one would like you to believe.
On 2, I see very few here that would deny that this is an enormous problem. I don't know about "dwarfed" though. The birth rate is dropping steadily, and the death rate seems to on the verge of making a historical shift to steady increases, a shift predicted to come in about thirty years that may have already happened this year.
The fact is that there is a limit to what most of us can do about decisions that couples are making about their future families when they live next door to us, much less when they live in different countries with very different cultures. (Though family planning programs and efforts to educate and empower women might be good things to support.)
Consumption, though is something we can confront right away, in our own lives, in families, communities...Let's work hardest at tackling the part of the equation that we are most responsible for, while giving whatever support we can to those working in the rest of the world on others.
Using the excuse that we don't have to change because other people are part of the problem too just seems to me an extremely immature approach, an argument I wouldn't tolerate from my fourteen year old.
(By the way, I think in general the extremely local lifestyle of the Dalits--untouchables, as you call them--IS something to aspire to. Even the very poor in India do not have happiness ratings much lower than the poor in the US, unless they are homeless--the homeless being the least happy everywhere in the world.)
dohboi - Could you expand some please: "that would leave a lot for bringing the billion or so that make less than a dollar a day up substantially higher into livable and not absolutely miserable conditions". So if I were making $40,000/yr but then agreed to work for $10,000/yr how would that benefit someone making $1,000/yr? Who ever was paying me isn't going to turn around and give that money to someone else who isn't working for them, are they? What about the fellow I pay to cut my lawn? Now that my income is reduced I'll be cutting my own grass. Same goes for all the other folks depending on my former disposable income to support thmselves at least in part. No one needs to pay $5 for a cup of coffee. But if we all gave it up how many tens of thousands would be unemployed over night?
I understand your point about excessive consumption. OTOH a fair sized portion of our population depends on that same consumption for their livelyhood. I agree with you though: this is a tough nut to crack.
Tough nut, indeed.
That's why I conceded that it was complicated.
Most of the real answers would of course have to come from the macro scale--dismantling the US empire that siphons so much of the world's resources to the few, leaving the rest impoverished.
As for unemployment, that is happening anyway, and we could have full employment tomorrow if we went to much shorter hours spread across many more people (and I know, this would be easier for some industries than for others and would again entail lower incomes).
Ultimately, we need a robust new economics for easing the disruptions of powerdown and ideally some redistribution, but almost all of economics has its head up its...er, is stuck in a growth paradigm and can't imagine anything else.
Don't reduce your income, reduce your spending.
Actually, just reduce your resource consumption by switching from goods to services: Buy art, get better healthcare, take some classes.
Please show me where I said this, I don't recall it. However, I do recall posting this:
yes, we westerners --especially Americans-- are extravagantly wasteful compared to poorer nations
If you prefer living in abject poverty and in dangerous, unsanitary, overcrowded slum conditions, then by all means knock yourself out. But good luck trying to impose that lifestyle choice on other people.
For anyone interested in an analysis of hyper-local consumers such as Dalits versus global consumers such as most of the rest of us, see Gupta Ramachundra's " How much should a person consume":
http://www.amazon.com/Much-Should-Person-Consume-Environmentalism/dp/052...
You're responding to a comment about food. Meat eating is the 800 pound gorilla, and I've know a lot of very happy vegetarians.
Pop growth of 1% per year is awfully easy to offset by reductions in per capita resource consumption. On the other hand, we can reduce fuel consumption overnight: buy a Prius, cut fuel by 50%. Buy a Volt, get to 90%. Buy a Leaf, get to 99%%.
NG storage report:
Summary
"Working gas in storage was 3,814 Bcf as of Friday, November 26, 2010, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net decline of 23 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 23 Bcf less than last year at this time and 347 Bcf above the 5-year average of 3,467 Bcf. In the East Region, stocks were 88 Bcf above the 5-year average following net withdrawals of 16 Bcf. Stocks in the Producing Region were 235 Bcf above the 5-year average of 1,028 Bcf after a net injection of 14 Bcf. Stocks in the West Region were 25 Bcf above the 5-year average after a net drawdown of 21 Bcf. At 3,814 Bcf, total working gas is within the 5-year historical range."
This years Max storage was 3,840 billion cu ft the first week of Nov. last year the peak was 3,837 the last week of Nov. a difference of 3 billion cu ft.
So much for all the additional NG production. Data Per the EIA
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm
I have been keeping a few spread sheets on NG for the past 5 years.
Dry NG production in the U.S. for the first 9 months of 2010 compared to the same period of 2009 is up by 405 billion cu ft.
Total consumption for the same period 2009 vs 2010 is up by 908 billion cu ft.
NG for production of Elect in this period alone is up by 392 billion cu ft.
How much will gulf production decline over the next year?
Do you have any daily or yearly data? It would be very valuable if the storage could be compared against the yearly production.
If storage is like a few percent storage could have a very large impact on price but say very little about the production potential.
GOP Hands Polluters and Oil Companies A Major Victory
I read that article before getting on here today. But what can be done about it? The right now get their news from Fox which constantly repeats the mantra that global warming is a hoax. From what I understand Glenn Beck is adament, even indignant about it. He's their lead guy now. People hooked on Fox adore Beck and absorb every single syllable he utters.
At this point in time we have two universe's in the US. One is on the right watching Fox and the other is on the left watching MSNBC. One says its a hoax and the other defers to the climatologists.
Obama couldn't negotiate a stick of bubble gum from a poor kid with a thousand dollar bill. He'd give him the bill and the kid would run off, leaving Obama to wonder what went wrong. So with the House under Repub control they own Obama, lock, stock and barrel. Which means this situation of being pro-FF, ignoring global warming and rejecting renewables is only going to become more entrenched.
Earl - Might not make you feel much better but there is one fan of Fox News around TOD who understands global warning, PO and also thinks Beck is a waste of skin. As far as President Obama goes I've always assumed he would take the most expedient route available...just like the vast majority of all professional politicians. With the R wins in the last elections it just means his route has been altered somewhat.
And even sadder: when the really tough choices present themselves and we are forced to react I doubt it will make much difference whether there is absolute D or R control in D.C. Their actions will be governed by the will of the voters. IMHO no politician will commit professional suicide and ignore the great majority of the public. And if you don't remember: I have low expectations of our fellow citizens. When the situation becomes truly dire I'm sure our citizens will finaly band together for a common goal: do whatever it takes to maintain BAU no matter the cost...$'s, conscious or blood.
Sad, but true.
Sadder: there isn't a d****d thing we can do about it.
The next two years are pivotal; at this point the tea baggers have muddied the waters and the Faux News zombies will have their way.
If there is anything left to repair, perhaps Obama will see a challenge from the Progressives and we can get back to trying for change. Unless, that is, we wind up with President Palin, in which case emigration may look like a good option.
Craig
And yet, the US congress passed a speed limit law back in the 70's oil embargo. When it is evident to the electorate that there is a problem, I think action will be taken, GOP or not.
I agree. Politicians don't lead they follow. Watched a show about the establishment of Earth Day. Clearly the politicians were following, whether they and their cronies liked it or not, which they didn't. Where is the anger over the banking disaster, the wars in Iraq/Afganistan? We seem more concerned about immigrants, while our country gets looted.
So you want to live in a country of 400,500 million people, many of them poor and estranged from each other? All the while real resources are declining?
I hate this damn, meaningless right/left paradigm. Everything is politicized, nothing is policy.
Let's be honest. The banking system is bad. Ongoing wars are bad. Massive immigration is... bad too.
Although, to be fair, our rapid descent into second world status will dissuade many immigrants from coming here. Why do so, only to become a debt and tax slave in a dying country (and without healthcare benefits, to boot)? But there's going to be a lag in this recognition.
I certainly don't want to be a debt and tax slave anymore than I want to see this country slide into 400 million poor, estranged people.
I just have zero belief that our political leaders have our best interests in mind. Earth day and the various environmental clean-ups are just an example of the population leading the leaders.
I think the same will hold true today.
Like the guy in Europe who wants everyone to withdraw their money on Dec 7. Who do these banker think they are? Without "our" money they are nothing.
Chomsky:
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20100603.htm
But isnt the oil peak problem likely the bigger hot potato.
maybe the idea is to divert attention from peak oil to climate science to distract the public from the REAL DILEMMA!
I actually believe that the term 'Peak Oil' needs a PR makeover.
We all talk about PO because we are aware of the Hubbert bell curve, and we are aware of said curve because we have taken the time to explore the subject in some detail. As a non-geologist I made it my business to obtain a sufficient education in the detailed subject matter so that I can at least understand when geologists and industry experts talk about PO.
To the average Joe out there geology and oil field depletion dynamics might as well be Ancient Greek. In fact, one of my best friends is a very bright Oxford graduate with a MSc from UCL. He could certainly get to grips with the subject matter. Unfortunately he has a demanding job, three small girls and an even more demanding missus. So the last thing he wants to do in his leisure time is delve into the science of energy and FF depletion - even if he though he should! What he can understand though is the very rational expectations of finite quantity. I don't know what would be a better phrase, but what I do know is that when I mention Peak Oil the first thing people ask is 'what is that'. I am then compelled to provide a layman's lecture on the Hubbert Peak etc and it is at that point that people's eyes begin to glaze over.
PR for PO is needed! It would be interesting to give the subject to the Madison Avenue boys and see what they come up with!
Agreed. I can only convey PO when I show the discoveries curve for new oil fields peaking in the 1960s.
That curve causes smart people to gasp and say, "oh, sh_t!" or "Oh sh_te!" ;-)
Oil depletion and high prices are very accessible to many people.
How best to combine these issues in a 30sec sound-bite?
very hard problem.
I admit in 2005 when Katrina caused havoc on the GOM refineries and production platforms, I first acknowledged that oil was limited in certain ways based on geography and pipelines and so forth, BUT I just did not believe how important Oil was to the entire economy as we know it. Not until 2008 did I realize that oil and the financials are so interrelated.
When the whole system is so interconnected, the time to untangle it in a simple conversation is mind-numbingly hard.
This seems to be part of what John Michael Greer was talking about in his post above the line.
"... the problem that the peak oil movement is most likely to face is the one that comes when a movement, having gotten access to the halls of power, lowers its sights to target only that set of goals it can reach consensus on, and thinks it can get from whichever subset of the political class is currently in charge."
Now that more and more recognition of Peak Oil is happening, we need to get better at presenting the alternatives. So far as I have seen, TOD is one of just a few major blogs that takes on these issues (others include Post Carbon Institute, and LATOC). The difficulty is presenting without being seen as over the edge. It is hard to stay calm, but reasoned conversations work better than standing on the sidelines, screaming at each other.
Craig
I like the term; "Decline in net energy"
Clean and simple to convey with known and visible historical evidence in deep water, artic. It is also unarguably unarguable. I couldn't agree more that there comes a point when a critical mass of people will ask (rather urgently) 'So what do we do'?
What the leaders of TOD have decided in starting to change the focus of this blog is one of the most intelligent and foresightful things I have ever witnessed.
D
Jim Baldauf's "Media Message" presentation from ASPO 2010 is the outline for the PR makeover:
PDF file: www.aspousa.org/2010presentationfiles/10-7-2010_aspousa_MsgMediaOutreach_Baldauf_J.pdf
I liked Greer's article at EB today, but in terms of PR, I have to suggest that the Name he's using for it, 'Green Wizard' will cut off a lot of potential advocates. I like wizardy stuff, but it's a little too 'Medieval Festival' even for my tastes.. (woo hoo, Gentle Giant Fan!)
It might be inevitable that anything that carries the suggestion of 'Change' or 'DIY', or 'Live with less consumption', etc.. will ultimately get tinged with the same derision that Organics, Al Gore and Climate Change carry today.. but I think the language has to be very clearly neutral if it wants to get a running start.
But regardless of the name, the concept of targeting the small and local efforts as opposed to putting so much of our collective energies into Policy Advocacy and basic Media Access for getting the word out is one that I can support. (It doesn't preclude my writing to the OpEd or the Congressman, but if I've got something concrete to show them, I think it gives any of them who would hope to share the ideas something to put a finger on, not just a 'letter-count' or demographic of the interest base..
Maybe it should covertly form two movements, one named to appeal to Left and the other to Right, and then fuel the process with some of the vigor that currently pushes us apart. .. Lemons>Lemonade!!
I totally agree that a Left and Right narratives are required to convey peak oil. If it seems like climate change then the right is turned off. The left thinks, "Good oil is gone! I wanted that to happen." But the left do not appreciate the fact that oil cannot be simply removed from the equation.
I thought the idea of reducing foreign oil consumption was broad and to the point and appealing to both political types.
It seems though that the Right like to say that we don't get oil from bad foreign people so foreign oil is ok.
Hard to know what will work.
Yes, energy independence is appealing to both, but one side thinks the method is to go renewable, sustainable and environmentally friendly while the other advocates nuclear power or thinks there is an unlimited amount of fossil fuels in America except for interference from environmentalists and politicians preventing energy companies from retrieving them.
Who is responsible for the disinformation campaign and why?
The Left/Right divide is not the only divide in this country.
If you can help it, don't perpetuate that conflict into every arena. Working class people, and a great many middle-class people -regardless of political stripe- are going to be suffering, and there are things to be done by all of us, while the Misinformation you point to seems to come from big money that stands to lose a lot with the upending of the Status Quo..
Sure, there are people who parrot this or that party line.. but the battle-lines have to get redrawn so we don't forget where things are really coming from, and who we can include in common needs and interests. The polarization is, in fact, a convenient tool for keeping us battling the 'percieved enemy' across the street, and paying no attention to the man (with the Star) behind the curtain.
Rome used to do this, get two city-states fighting each other, and when they were both weakened from the effort, Pappa could easily step in and have their way.
I agree.
It's a good idea not to buy into the us vs them approach.
Couldn't agree more. Even as a great admirer of Mr. Greer and his writing, every mention of that term leaves me cold--even though I like the concept. And as his excellent piece from today attests, he is keenly aware of the importance of branding.
Even putting my personal reaction aside, I could probably get away with discussing "Green Wizardry" with my academic colleagues, but a term I could use with a straight face in more mixed/social company would be vastly preferred (maybe it's an age thing).
He's a brilliant guy. But I've gotta wonder who his target audience is. His excellent piece today seems an able restatement of the "fear success" warning with which Ben Metcalfe admonished Bob Hunter in the early years of Greenpeace. But the nearly unsellable branding on his message makes it seem like Greer fears it a little too much.
I think the demographic which may be attracted by "green wizardry" may be slim indeed on the near side of collapse. I suppose there's something to be said for having one's mythos in place well beforehand, but even I - a radical nature advocate by most human standards - find the green wizard angle feeling a bit contrived, hailing from the "smuckers jelly" genre of ad jingles.
I give him style points for getting such a large following despite the trappings of weird; I'm frequently in awe of his synthesis ability and cummunication skill. But green wizardry?
I too would like to put in a vote against a term that to me conjures up an image of Merlin the Magic Kermit on Sesame Street... How about something like Greer's Grey Wisdom instead? It's still a bit better than Gandalf's Peak Oil Survival Guide for Dummies.
I apologize if my comment seems a bit harsh but I too have the deepest admiration for Greer himself, his style of writing and his message and would like to see it branded in a way to make it more palatable to a wider and less imaginative audience.
Best wishes!
I doubt that we are Greer's target. Young adults like my son, who grew up collecting "Magic Cards" and playing fantasy role-playing games, may relate more (my son does). They also consider the 'appropriate tech' stuff from when their parents were their current age 'retro cool'. My son must have thought growing up with my constant tinkering, trying to do more with less, was like living with Ed. Greer has given an 'old-is-new' context to the 'back-to-earth' days that their parents experienced.
Greer has some massive competition from the BAU culture that wants your child's money and mind.
I'm all for infecting children with pro-earth designer memes, if only to develop their mental immune systems. And I'm definitely not the target of his campaign; people have spontaneously considered me a supernatural being sometimes (wrongly, natch) and I don't even wear a funny hat.
I actually think the druid thing might have better virulence when it comes to sticking with kids. Seems more "adult", less contrived, has that desirable air of secret ritual and implications of hidden knowledge and powers held by the core cognoscenti.
The re-branding of reality is a tall order, speaking as one who has dabbled. So is this just a poor choice, or is Greer playing his chess game 4 moves ahead?
actually, I like that one. a touch of humor goes a long way.
I agree completely. I find Greer's writing compelling and appreciate the depth of his thought, but the Arch Druid/Green Wizard packaging in my opinion limits his audience, and frankly, makes me limit the circle of people I feel comfortable recommending his blog to.
Maybe the green wizard thing is to attract the children whose lives will be most effected by net energy decline.
Yes, I kind of feel the same. Though maybe I wouldn't, if I were a Harry Potter fan. ;-)
Peak Oil Advice from German Poets is one of my favorites, but the title is pretty off-putting, even for peak oilers. German poets are just not very interesting for most people. But those who get past the title usually really like the article. Which doesn't have much to do with German poets.
This is another article of his I really like, but the title is so odd I can never remember it.
Perhaps a "Years to Midnight" like they did for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock
My thought on it would be to show a clear tall water glass, a straw in the glass, where the straw shows tics of 'years left at current consumption'. The glass would be filled to that level with black liquid, of course....
HAcland, agreed! This is why, nowadays, I prefer to use the term "Limits to Growth". It also gives one plenty of examples from a wide variety oftopics to talk about - from overfished fisheries, food price spikes and throw in a few tidbits about how a lot of things are finite on the planet. Talking to people about their jobs is a good starting point, afterall, all of us are connected in so many ways in this fossil fuel era where we all help the woken up Energy Beast transform everything in it's way! We don't understand the capabilities of this species, do we?
But as JMG points out (article linked in this DrumBeat), it is quite apt to say that the peak oil movement, if you can call ourselves that, has already "won" in terms of making the point. The clueful are beginning to realize the conundrums.
The common man need not understand Peak Oil, really. And giving it PR will only help establish the reciprocal altruism relationship between the political powers and the movement and take the 'movement' farther away from the common man (towards the powers and away from the poor and the affected ape-descendant cousins), the local and the community. The common man needs to be related to and for that, from what I've seen off late, oil will only distract him away from the topic. Its an art to implant the idea without evoking a fear response... and I'm beginning to enjoy talking about it to folks - friends, colleagues, relatives. Of course, as an average Joe Patel, the people I interact with on a day to day basis are common men and hence my views :)
For starters, shouldn't we be calling it Post-Peak Oil (PPO) since most members here believe we are at or over the hump?
aardy - I get your point but I would hesitate to stick a post peak tag on it. Not that I disagree but it allows to much potential for PO deniers to slam it back at us. What if the next oil price run up slams the global economy down and we see demand destruction push oil below, say $50? We know it would just be temporary but the deniers would argue that we can't be PPO if prices are dropping. Yes...we could try to explain the dynamics but in reality I doubt most would hear anything once they proclaimed that PO has been debunked.
Personally I'm disliking the term "peak" more and more. Plateau just seems to cover the short term rise and fall of production rates/prices much better and allows for the noise. Granted that if a peak could only be proven by looking in the rear view mirror than the permanent down turn from the plateau will be more difficult.
We are now in P3W mode
(Petro Production Plummet Watch mode)
__________
Sometimes procrastination is a good thing
Good point, RM.
Incidentally, Leanan, what happened to the oil price forecasts we were asked to make some time ago? Will you be revealing them? (I got it horribly wrong. I forecast $40, expecting a double-dip recession.)
Yes, the problem with even trying to apply 'peak' is that implicitly is singular. - but there are many peaks, spread over many years.
Smarter is something like Finite Affordable Fuel, which avoids the distraction of a debate about which peak and of what.
This also covers your example case of an economic slam-down so severe, that countries cannot afford to buy all they would like.
Initial unemployment claims tick back up
Initial claims went back up this week, and last week's record low was revised upward. This is probably going to be an official record bad job market as of tomorrow.
Japan blazes a trail for living with stagnation and deflation
That article describes things very accurately here in the Tokyo area. But the similar-ramifications-for-the-US part may be wishful thinking.
Japan started its decline while there was still a huge credit bubble abroad. That money flooded over here and propped up the economy a lot. But will that be possible anymore for any country? Only the ECB and the FED know for sure, I guess....
Tokyo---the home of so many institutions like Tokyo University and huge company headquarters and the stock exchange, the elite private schools, grand department stores----these are the goals of everyone, to shop, to study, to work in Tokyo! Tainter would say it is "complexity" that you can find in Tokyo....
But a sort of blight has taken hold, the payoffs from going along with everything "Tokyo" are not as sure. Jobs after graduating from one of those big name school?? Maybe not. Department-store quality? Everything is made in China or its overpriced; get something cheaper elsewhere and no one will know or care. Working at one of the huge companies?? Well, some people in rural areas working with their hands can do better---lower living costs, producing something people need, free fresh air and clean water.....
It is a classic Tainter scenario. The payoffs from investing in complexity become less and less.
But it is a competition still. Someone who is really smart still wants to go to Tokyo University. The payoff doesn't matter. It is the prestige.
Similarly, some people want to work for the big banks and companies. They want to wear those elegant suits, negotiate big deals. It doesn't matter that their salaries are stagnant. It is the prestige.
People are ambitious and want to prove themselves superior to others. No one likes to have someone look down on him/her. So they will put up with poverty, threadbare suits, one room apartments, tiny meals, worn out shoes.....but "let me please have a high rank and be known far and wide as a brainy person, a classy person, an elite. That is all I ask!!!"
Puh-lease! I know many people like this.
Generally they are in their 30s and 40s. Too late for the party, BUT can pick over the remnants....gracefully and elegantly.....
I've just listened to an interview on Financial Sense which discusses the Eagle Ford Shale field.
It was stated that each well in this play is capable of producing between 1,000 and 1,600 barrels of 'oil' a day. Is this true? Did I mishear or did he misspeak?
I know this might be somewhat of a dumb question, but I have not had much education about shale oil. Is this nothing more than a quick-buck-generation-scheme or is it going to offer a significant yield of liquid fuels in the future?
Interested to hear what others might think about these shale fields. Ta.
You have to watch the terminology carefully. The Eagle Ford Shale is primarily a NATURAL GAS play. What they are talking about is BOE - Barrels of Oil EQUIVALENT. They take the natural gas production and convert it to oil, typically at a ration of 6:1 - 6 Mcf of gas equals 1 barrel of oil, which is what it is on an ENERGY EQUIVALENT basis.
Unfortunately, natural gas is currently trading closer to a 20:1 ratio - 20 Mcf of gas equals 1 barrel of oil on a DOLLAR EQUIVALENT basis. At the current depressed prices of natural gas I can't recommend investing in it.
This is not a game for amateurs. If you're not a seasoned pro, don't give the promoters any money, and if they shake your hand and pat you on the back, check to make sure you have your wallet, wristwatch, and rings afterwards.
Rocky/HA - I would characterize the play somewhat different than Rocky. Virtually none of the EF players are drilling for its NG content. Beside NG being so low the EF wells (the profitable ones, anyway) don't produce a lot of NG. It's a hot play because of the oil yield. And it's not that similar to the SG plays of east Texas and elsewhere. It is a shale formation but the production is coming from fracture systems in the EF. Exactly the same as the Austin Chalk play that was hot years ago. Everyone knew about the NG in the EF for decades but it just wasn't very profitable. But they discovered a sweet spot with a high oil saturation.
But as Rocky explains so well: be careful how you read the press releases. How much will a typical EF produce? Easy - anywhere from a non-commercial flow to an extremely commercial flow. IOW there is no "typical" EF well. It's still much too early to offer such profiles IMHO. There have been some truly outstanding initial high flow rates from some wells. Others won't recover even a small fraction of the investment. Remember the nature of all fractured reservoir plays: high initial flow rates followed by rapid to very rapid decline rates. Long term recover is still an open question. It's going to take several more years to get enough history from enough wells to make a valid characterization IMHO. If it develops as other typical fractured plays there will be a small percentage of exceptional wells and a larger percentage of non-commercial wells. The majority of the wells will fall in between. But also typical of such plays the highest returns will be earned by the folks who bought acreage early and cheap and then sold it at a very high mark up and kept an override. These folks will not have invested a single $ in the drilling of any well. The next below them are the landowners: no investment but cash those big leasing checks and that monthly "mail box" money from the royalty. The next big money makers will be the promoters who drill the wells but pay for little or none of the costs. Next down the pyramided will be the operators drilling and investing their own capex. Next are the passive non-industry investors who send their checks off to the promotors. Typically these folks have the smallest return (if any). They just wait for a phone call telling them how much they made. These folks live at the tail end of the food chain. This is how it has always been and, IMHO, will continue to be.
Austin Chalk is the analogy that occurred to me too for most of these shale plays.
WT - I wish I knew more but the little I picked up at Devon is about the unique nature of some/most of the NG coming from the SG reservoirs. Similar to the methane in coal beds seams the NG is absorbed on the organic molecules and is released as the pressure/water content are reduced. As I understand it all the hydrocarbons from the AC, EF and other fractured shale plays is strictly from the fracture porosity. But from a practical stand point I'm not sure if that distinction is critical.
As you probably know all too well: fracture plays are a promotor's wet dream. I easily call the AC hype back in the day. I still picture the photo of a couple of oil tanks turned on their sides and coverted into "motel rooms" for landmen who were working the AC during the buildup.
Thank you gentlemen for your advice. Exactly why TOD is such a great resource, being able to get expert clarification.
Much appreciated.
Hugh.
Gasoline was still reported to be in short supply in the New York Harbor area this morning, with prices in the NYC area trading at a premium to the widely quoted futures price (the later not discussed in link below).
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0221974120101202
Elsewhere in the world, gasoline supplies are also in demand – mostly because of various refinery problems and the previous strike in France.
http://www.tradearabia.com/news/STN_189865.html
If there is anything magical about the $87 crude price level, it appears we will pass it today unless something shakes out late in the day. Currently showing $87.51 on Bloomberg. Seems lately that price has gone up at least 50 cents a day.
Brent crude hits $90 for first time since Oct. 08
Brent comes from the North Sea, right? And most petrol/diesel in British cars is thus from Brent. So would I be right in suggesting that the prices on UK petrol station forecourts is more determined by the wholesale price of Brent, rather than WTI?
Whatever, it is now £1.26p a litre for unleaded at the Shell station along the road from here. That is an all-time record for that place. And we got the 2.5% VAT rise in January so will push it well over £1.30p in the New Year. Joys.
From Wikipedia:
so how come when newsreaders and journos refer to the price of oil it is always the WTI price they use? According to wikipedia, if 2/3rd of the world's oil is priced against Brent then Brent should be the de-facto price. Ergo, oil is already over $90 a barrel.
EDIT: and maybe TOD should change the little chart on the right to display Brent price. Or at least provide both.
Russian news sites usually quote Brent price. And I see it's 90.48 already.
http://www.upstreamonline.com/marketdata/markets_crude.htm has daily prices for several oils including Brent, Tapis, Louisiana Sweet.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/cdus/degree_da...
shows degree days for various states and locals in the US.
I thought it might be refreshing to see a plot of the Brent field oil production with data taken from the government websites. But my HTML is limited. Any tips or protocol I should follow for TOD?
I see the graphs of pence/litre in UK for the last period and then i guess that for the next 2 weeks the people there will have a record high average weekly price of 125 p/l for unleadead and 130 p/l for diesel in London area. That hurts so much.
This winter will be surely be another energy crisis winter for UK (and Ireland).
"North Sea production for december is expected a bit lower"
words from interview at Hanson Westhouse Oil and Gas, analyst : David Hart
[NOVEMBER 9, 2010 Sarah Kent of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES]
I noticed at a gas station near me (I live in Japan) that the price this morning was 129 yen/liter. Just yesterday it was 123! What a jump! I've been noticing a seesawing trend upwards for the past year or so. Down a little then up more for longer, then down a little bit for a while, then up again. Slow but sure.
Just 26 more days to $100 / bbl!
Which financial market is going to pop this time?
(Door #1) PIIGs
(Door #2) US State and local govts
(Door #3) Commercial properties
(Door #4) Stocks
Who loses their jobs next? govt workers? Private sector?
who picks the losers? who will be safe for another 2-3 years?
I noticed a couple of weeks ago that since July, the monthly prices of oil in 2007 and 2009 have been quite similar.
Was about to make that same simple observation. Someone get their secondary Y axis on, asap.
Typo time. Meant to say 2007 and 2010:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=RWTC&f=M
Which financial market is oing to pop? Door 1,Door 2, and Door 4. Door 3 will fall 6 to 12 months after, when the depth of the new Depression becomes stark.
Who loses their jobs? Gov't workers first for sure, especially state and local workers. Fed workers may last longer, but with more than just a hiring and wage freeze, IMO. Private sector? Probably there will be some more shake out there as well, though it may take a bit longer for them this go around. Again, when the reality hits home, all H*** is going to break loose.
Who picks the losers? Adam Smiths dead hand.
Who will be safe for 2-3 years? No one.
Craig
There may be a subtle change in the oil market going on here, mainly in that China is looking more to import all kinds of resources mainly because it is implementing price controls on domestic producers. Basically I think that China has now tilted the oil market previously balanced on something of a knife edge, over to the point where demand now exceeds supply – at least as far as internationally available oil under your standard exportland model.
But that’s not all. Saudi Arabia is importing gasoline (see my post further up) and selling it for pennies a gallon. Perhaps we need a new term like exportland-squared for this crazy manifestation in the post peak world, something as crazy as the concept of CDOs squared (collateralizled debt obligations) – which essentially hold ownership rights to the uncollectible part of many mortgages.
I don’t want to guess a price where this will go, but $100 is possible before a few months or so. The trend is more important than the actual price, and I don’t believe much in the tipping point effect of a specific price, more like the leaning point, with lots of lagged effect.
Time to emigrate?
Try Istanbul or Lima, or Santiago, Seoul, Singapore, or Sydney. How's your Mandarin?
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/1130_global_metro...
Which reminds me. Weren't Argentineans supposed to be eating each other by now?
They probably would be if they actually followed IMF
"guidelines."
Re: What it really costs to fill up a plug-in car, up top.
What I love about the controversy surrounding the EPA numbers is that it dramatically illustrates the problem of comparing different forms of energy which I have ranted about until it probably bores everyone here to tears.
How do they know that? Are they measuring the BTU's used when gasoline powers an electric generator? If they are they are comparing an ICE engine which generates electricity to the output of a ICE engine system that mostly generates movement down the road. Can't do that.
It is bad logic.
It is important how kWh in a gallon of gas was determined. Since gasoline engines are not 100 percent efficient it is likely a lot of energy is lost in the conversion to kWh.
On the other hand electricity is nearly 100 efficient when it is used to create heat.
Unless that figure represents the same system used when gasoline is burned in an ICE powered car, the whole argument breaks down.
The fact of the matter is that there is no automobile comparable to the Leaf that gets 99 miles per gallon. The 99mpg car does not exist. Any gasoline car similar to the Leaf would likely get in the area of 35-40mpg at most.
This 99 mpg nonsense comes about because of fallacious reasoning so common in energy analysis. It is especially egregious in this case since it implies that such car can be had in the real concrete world when it can not.
The EPA is comparing fantasy to concrete. It is worse than comparing the abstract to the concrete. At least the abstract represents a collection of the different concrete things.
Fantasy represents nothing but the dream of the fantasizer. It is worse than comparing things that are different. At lease when comparing things that are different we can test the hypothesis to see if it is valid.
But how do you test a concrete electric car against a hypothetical car that does not exist and is likely impossible to exist, at least in the near future.
The insistence on applying gasoline standards to other forms of energy is a major impediment to moving away from oil.
I think it is similar to the insistence when cars first appeared that their power be measured in horsepower even though they are not powered by horses. An imaginary horse was conjured up that could eat gasoline, run all day without getting tired and would never get scared in traffic.
Then this imaginary horse was used to rate gasoline powered cars and it is still done to this very day.
We are now in the process of creating a imaginary ICE car with which to measure electric cars thereby applying a gasoline standard to electric cars rather than letting electric cars being compared to each other on their own standard of kWh per hundred miles.
This is the same nonsense that applies gasoline standards to ethanol and then determines that ethanol is inferior since it has fewer BTUs of energy per gallon. Other relevant characteristics of ethanol such as renewability, creating jobs for Americans and keeping American wealth at home are ignored in favor of concentrating on one attribute of gasoline, its BTU content, and ignoring all its faults such as oil depletion and the spilt blood that comes with every BTU of gasoline.
it doesn't matter a fig. So long as the methodology is the same then consumers can compare one EV with another EV. That is the whole point of the exercise not necessarily to compare ICE v EV.
One should consider maintenance as well as gasoline/energy use per mile.
I spend more on brakes, water pumps, alternators, clutch, batteries, oil changes, service (and even this year a break-in attempt on my car) than gasoline.
I thought the idea of an electric is no water pump, transmission (gearing), sparks, air filters, oil changes, et al. Heck where I live you get free parking, other perks, like travel over bridges for free as well.
So indeed it is hard to compare gas to ev but the EPA need to start somewhere.
Best to compare EV to EV in the future.
But that is not here and now.
As Yoda would say: "Compare we must."
I drove 136 miles yesterday nonstop... I could only do that trip in a Volt at this point. Even the fast chargers sound like they would take 1/2 hr of charging to get you back to almost full (480V) with the Leaf...and i'd probably need to stop at least 2 times down and 2 times on the way back...figure about 50 miles at 70mph before you'd probably start looking to recharge. The temp was 20F here, so you'd need heat running.
They are going to have to put chargers everywhere...which shouldn't be too difficult. I do think a kiosk type setup (like those DVD machines)and pay by cash/credit/debit...
Someday post a picture of your mom for us ;-)
I totally agree that EV has a nasty little charging problem. Here's to hoping for some chargers. Thankfully they are glorified power outlets which are quite a bit cheaper than a gasoline pump and storage tanks and so forth in a traditional gas station. Furthermore, I bet in certain cases finding a power outlet could be easier than a gasoline station. I remember looking for those pesky gas stations.
The final issue which is related to the charging time will be a cultural adjustment. maybe plan on reading the newspaper (gasp) news online while the car is charging on that 200 mile journey.
Here is to hoping.
No doubts they would work...just more time, more hassle if you have to go searching for a charger.
Personally I prefer making more stops. I hate long distance driving. When I was younger I didn't mind it so much, now it just gives me an instant headache.
Another option these electric cars will give you is the opportunity to take rural roads. I can take 2 main routes to Madison, WI from home. The shortest route is something like 20 miles less (depending on destination), but is a lot slower because you are going through small towns the whole way, and a lot of it is 2 lanes. An electric car would probably excel at a trip like that, because of slower speeds (60mph vs 75mph) and more chances to pull off and top up or find a hot little country girl to help keep a guy warm on a cold winter day ;)
"They are going to have to put chargers everywhere"
If/when EVs gain significant market share, I'm sure they will. Restaurants would be an obvious place. McDonalds will offer free charging with a purchase of $5 or more, the same way they offer free WiFi. Malls, grocery stores, theaters, etc. will offer "charge while you shop".
"Red Roof Inn exit 420. Free WiFi and EV charging"
Putting chargers everywhere isn't going to work because when enough EV's get on the road, charging will have to be done at night only when the grid has the capacity to handle them.
Well, there's another convenience for Solar peaking during the day though, isn't it? Add more solar and you've supported the daytime grid's ability to support an EV infrastructure.
I mean otherwise, your comment is a little off.. People will plug in what ever they can when they want to, including EVs during the day. You make it sound like everyone will have to wait til dusk to do any charging. Grid supply is a constantly moving target.. I suppose with the right smartgrid controls in place, Car Chargers will be among the load that can be simply throttled back remotely when a sector is under strain.. but it's not an all-or-nothing situation.. and of course, we've got a LONG way to go before any of that really comes up, considering the paltry amount of EV's getting on the road right now..
Interchangeable batteries might be the way to go. I was just reading about that snow-induced traffic jam near Buffalo. Cars have been stuck on the highway all night. They're sending out cops and firefighters to deliver gasoline to those who have run out. I guess if you're driving a Leaf, you're out of luck.
"Interchangeable batteries might be the way to go."
I've posted some on the advantages of standardized EV batteries. Best hopes for common sense.
EVs aren't for everybody. They don't have to be. Living in the South, it wouldn't make sense for me to mount a snow plow on my truck, though I'm sure you'll see some northern EV owners mount generators on their cars in the winter.
Right. battery stations, just like gas stations -everywhere. You pull in to a slot, a robot grabs your depleted battery, zips it out and slips in a charged one, you pay, and off you go. Quick, simple, cheap. Go as far as you want. No dang IC engines.
The battery company does all the R&D, and does better every year to keep up with the competing battery companies, and you get the latest one, packaged of course in exactly the same x,y,z dimensions.
I am putting together my own such, using simple lead-acid deep discharge battery pack (only 11 miles/day) 3 batteries, one in car, one at home, one at lab. The robot is a couple of strong guys I know each place, plus a gurney.
And not to forget the PV charger. And when there is no sun (often) a wood fired generator -not in the car.
But back to important stuff. JMG says we gotta live with success,by doing, not sitting around calling others fools. So my vote is solar in the desert, like the late Hermann Scheer had been preaching for about 30 years.
Oh dear, I do hope that gurney is not for the strong guys after lumping those batteries around.
NAOM
Naah. The gurney is for that poor ol' tired-out battery that's too weak to walk after its heroic service of wheeling me down to the 7-11 to get cigarettes , beer and digitalis at 4:30 in the cold wet morning.
How long does the Leaf's heater work for on a half charged pack? Deep frozen motorists? Maybe they need to prioritise evacuating EV drivers from such conditions.
NAOM
How long does the Leaf's heater work for on a half charged pack?
Quick back-of-the-napkin calculation - about 18 miles. Then it coasts to the side of the road with both the heater and the engine dead. It doesn't look like a good commuter car for a really cold climate. Be sure to carry a down jacket and snowshoes with you when you start out in the morning, just in case a blizzard blows up during the day.
Yeah but how many cars are exactly not in a cold climate in the US. More than half I bet.
Consider all coastal regions (entire West Coast, nevada, NM, TX, AZ, the South up to the mid atlantic (about VA). Pretty darn temperate.
A lot of Leafs will sell. People are not that afraid of the limits especially those looking for a basic local commuter car which satisfies many folks.
The trouble with the US is that most of those people who are not in a cold climate are in a hot climate. Then the air conditioner uses up all of your battery power.
Of course, you always have the option of turning off the A/C to extend the range, but in places like Houston I don't think that's going to be popular.
The future is going to suck. Ain't it?
I usually roll my window down when its hot, but I live in N. Calif which is not so bad usually.
I lived in Atlanta (without AC in my car) and it was livable.
Something will have to give in the future and AC is likely the first to go with an electric car.
Indeed electric cars are not for everyone, especially at their high price, but those that want them will overlook these minor issues.
about 18 miles.
How in heck did you come up with that?
The Leaf battery has a 24kWh capacity. 12kWh would produce 1 kWh for 12 hours. If you drive at 30MPH, you'll use up 12kWh in about 1.25 - 1.75 hours.
The heater isn't a really big factor.
...about 18 miles.
How in heck did you come up with that?
You have to realize we were discussing people trapped on the highway in a blizzard near Buffalo. Police and firefighters were delivering gasoline to stranded drivers. The question came up of what your range would be if you were driving an electric car back from work with a half full battery pack, and got caught in a blizzard.
So I took the EPA rated range of a Nissan Leaf (73 miles), cut it in half for a half-full battery pack (36 miles), and cut it in half again to allow for running the heater full-blast (18 miles).
It has been noted elsewhere that running the heater full blast can cut the already short range of an electric car in half, which makes it less than ideal for northern climates.
This was also the experience with the old air-cooled VW Beetle with the optional gasoline heater. The heater could use more fuel than the engine, which caused people to keep their tanks topped up in winter, particularly in the older VW's which didn't even have a fuel gauge. OTOH the VW got much better gas mileage than American cars, and the engine weight sitting on the rear tires gave it much better traction in snow, so there were trade offs. You just kept an ice scraper handy so you could scrape the windshield with one hand while you steered with the other, and kept on going while the American cars spun their wheels on the ice or skidded off into the ditch.
With the electric car I don't think there are many trade-offs. Particularly after the electricity goes out at your house in the dead of winter. With a hybrid, you could run the house power off the car charging system (people have actually done this kind of thing).
It has been noted elsewhere that running the heater full blast can cut the already short range of an electric car in half,
Ok, so it's clear that idea was unrealistic, right?
So I took the EPA rated range of a Nissan Leaf (73 miles)
The EPA rating is conservative, to take into account that most people drive badly. If you drive carefully you can get 100+ miles.
The nice thing about an EV in a traffic jam - unlike an ICE vehicle, it uses no power idling, and very little power at very low speeds. A/C and heat would use power, but as we saw, not that much.
Particularly after the electricity goes out at your house in the dead of winter. With a hybrid, you could run the house power off the car charging system (people have actually done this kind of thing).
Yeah, I think EREVs like the Volt and PHEVs like the plug-in Prius will be useful to a wider range of people. I have seen a Prius used as a whole-house power backup, and an OEM Prius has a pretty small battery.
Best-case scenarios are unrealistic. On average, the average person is average, so you have to work with the average case most of the time. Worst-case scenarios are useful for determining failure modes.
It's clear that electric vehicles are going to be impractical in a northern climate in winter.
Besides which, I don't think electric vehicles are a practical solution to the peak oil problem, I think they are a way of avoiding thinking about finding a practical solution until it is too late.
Best-case scenarios are unrealistic. On average, the average person is average, so you have to work with the average case most of the time.
Not at all. People have control over their driving behavior. If they're only traveling 30 miles, and they have a full charge, they can ignore efficiency. If they have a 50% charge, and their destination is close to their vehicle's range, they can drive carefully. It's as simple as that.
Worst-case scenarios are useful for determining failure modes.
I suppose we can assume drivers are all idiots. OTOH, we can assume that someone who is starting to be in danger of running out of juice will actually take that into account.
Getting back to where we started: someone with a 50% charge caught in a traffic jam would be in much better shape in an EV than in an ICE car. The ICE will run out of gas just idling.
It's clear that electric vehicles are going to be impractical in a northern climate in winter.
No, it's really not. The heater uses little power, relatively. I do agree that EREVs like the Volt will be useful for a much wider range of people.
I don't think electric vehicles are a practical solution to the peak oil problem
It appears you're working from a gut assumption, not the numbers. Run the numbers, and you'll find that they'll be no more expensive overall, and their production will be fully scalable. They'll work just fine.
When taking a population then you need to go by the average not the best. What the best get is a bonus and remember that some are worse than the average.
Worst case scenarios are best for the failures. Your second sentance does not seem to take into account the first. It is no good planning just for those who are prepared, it is the ID ten ts that you need to worry about.
But it is that idling that keeps them warm and stops nasty things happening to their life force.
NAOM
When taking a population then you need to go by the average not the best.
In an average situation. In an unusual situation things will be different. Again, people have control over their driving behavior. If they're only traveling 30 miles, and they have a full charge, they can ignore efficiency. If they have a 50% charge, and their destination is close to their vehicle's range, they can (and will) drive carefully.
But it is that idling that keeps them warm and stops nasty things happening to their life force.
Exactly. And an EV will be a much safer place - no carbon monoxide.
The question was
not about the range. This was in response to the snow induced traffic jam. Delivering gasoline, to trapped cars, is all very well but that does not help EV users. The emergency services will need to change their response and be prepared to start getting people out of their EVs. The point of the question was to explore the time scale before rescue became a requirement. The discussion has been interesting though :)
NAOM
An EV is less likely to run out of power in a traffic jam than an ICE; can provide heat for roughly as many hours as an ICE; and can do it much more safely (Carbon monoxide kills a lot of people keeping warm in snow storms in cars).
How long does the Leaf's heater work for on a half charged pack?
Well, Nissan has not exactly been open and aboveboard about what kind of heater the Leaf has - they just said that the best solution was to pre-heat the car before you left and not use the heater very much, but I did manage to discover it has a 5,000 watt resistive heater heater - not the most efficient way to heat an electric car.
So, if you had the 24 kW.h battery fully charged when you stuffed the Leaf into a snowbank during the blizzard, you would have 4.8 hours of electricity to keep you warm. If you had only a half-full battery pack, you would have only 2.4 hours of battery power to keep you warm, as long as you didn't go anywhere.
A journalist worked this out while sitting comfortably at home listening to the radio to reports of a blizzard that turned a 20-minute commute into a 5-hour one, and wondered, "Would I have enough electricity to get home in a Leaf?" Not if he used the heater, he determined to his dissatisfaction. He decided it was better to keep a gasoline car as backup for the winters. Use the electric car when the weather is nice - not too hot, not too cold. A Goldilocks car.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. A lot of classic British sports cars were Goldilocks cars. As long as you kept an old beat-up Japanese car for backup when the weather turned unpleasant, there was no problem.
a 5,000 watt resistive heater heater - not the most efficient way to heat an electric car.
5kW is a lot of heat. It's unlikely you'd run the heat at more than 1kW for an extended period of time. Remember, we're talking about a stopped, closed, inhabited car.
So, that's 12 ours of operation, during which time the idling ICEs will run out of gas.
when you stuffed the Leaf into a snowbank
If you get stuck in snow, electric heat is far safer than a CO producing engine.
OTOH, an EREV like a Volt is more versatile - I suspect EREVs and PHEVs will outsell pure EVs for a long time.
Thanks, the emergency services will have to rethink these situations if there are EVs that are likely to be stuck for more than a very few hours. There will be a risk of people freezing to death. Also, when the ploughs get through these cars will be bricks that will need moving. I think that honesty in the description if the current EVs is required. As you say Goldilocks cars and for getting around the city or shopping, definitely not for commutes or trips. Maybe they need to be called JAC cars - Just Around the Corner.
NAOM
Always pack blankets in your car no matter what if you live in a cold climate.
i was once trapped for 16 hours in my car in a severe ice store.
It was cold as hell.
A sleeping bag rated to minus 35 degrees F is better than blankets. I always carry one in my car during the winter. Also a small bottle of Cognac is good, so you don't run out of spirits--but don't get drunk in cold weather, because that is a quick way to die.
I always carry a shovel, down jacket, and blankets in the car in winter. Snow boots, warm socks, hat, and mittens are nice to have, too.
A bunch of candles and a lighter in a coffee can is useful. Light a candle, drip a few drops of wax in the bottom of the can, and stick the candle to it. It provides light and can keep the interior of the car relatively warm. Crack a window open a bit so you don't asphyxiate yourself.
A few chocolate bars for food could be handy, too.
Actually, I just throw my backcountry skiing backpack in the car, and it has all of the above except the can with the candles. Yes, it does have a shovel in it - plus avalanche probes, an avalanche transceiver, first aid kit, bivvy sack, and a VHF radio with all the secret government and helicopter company channels programmed into it. Most people would carry a cell phone instead.
This is one area where I agree that the market will rule. Even a modest EV share of the market would mean significantly increased revenues for power companies. Off the shelf smart metering dedicated to charging stations allows producers to charge a premium for kwhs at certain times, and reward charging at other times. For-profit power cos. are in the business of selling power and I'm sure they would like a bigger piece of the immense transportation pie. They could invest in infrastructure and still easily compete with fossil fuels once EVs and PHEVs become more common, considering the consensus on oil.
When the brown-outs start returning (as they did in California a few years back) you can bet that it will be declared illegal to charge your car during the day. The only way this will eventually work out is for a significant increase in nuclear power.
HankF-
We are going to need to pump out some more nukes for all these electric cars:
Last year the Pt. Beach nuclear power plant here in Wisconsin produced 8,285 GWh... I did the math and that is enough energy to drive roughly 2 million of the new Nissan Leafs 12,000 miles... Wisconsin has around 4.4 million registered vehicles.
So....We'll need a couple (2) of Westinghouse's AP1000 to "fuel" the entire state with Nissan Leafs ;) :)
And you'll get to brag about driving a nuclear powered car. :-)
I think Enron helped create a lot of those Brownouts in California. It was via market manipulation.
The traders were rather rude too:-) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml
The California electricity crisis, also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis, of 2000 and 2001 was a situation where California had a shortage of electricity. The state suffered from multiple large-scale blackouts, one of the state's largest energy companies collapsed, and the economic fall-out greatly harmed Governor Gray Davis's standing.
Drought and delays in approval of new power plants[4] decreased supply and forced up wholesale prices, which increased over 800% from April 2000 to December 2000.[5] This rise was exacerbated by market manipulation, with Enron accused of deliberately shutting down power plants gratuitously.[6][7] Because the state Government had a cap on retail electricity charges, this market manipulation squeezed the industry's revenue margins, causing the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and near bankruptcy of Southern California Edison in early 2001.[8]
The financial crisis was possible because of deregulation legislation instituted in 1996 by Governor Pete Wilson. Enron took advantage of this deregulation and was involved in economic withholding and inflated price bidding in California's spot markets.[9] The crisis cost $40bn to $45bn.[10]
Before passage of the deregulation law, there had been only one Stage 3 rolling blackout declared. Following passage, California had a total of 38 blackouts defined as Stage 3 rolling blackouts, until federal regulators intervened in June 2001. These blackouts occurred mainly as a result of a poorly designed market system that was manipulated by traders and marketers. Enron traders were revealed as intentionally encouraging the removal of power from the market during California's energy crisis by encouraging suppliers to shut down plants to perform unnecessary maintenance, as documented in recordings made at the time.[14][15] These acts contributed to the need for rolling blackouts, which adversely affected many businesses dependent upon a reliable supply of electricity, and inconvenienced a large number of retail consumers. This scattered supply raised the price exponentially, and Enron traders were thus able to sell power at premium prices, sometimes up to a factor of 20x its normal peak value.
Tell me . . . what exactly did you do yesterday that required 136 miles of driving? Is that typical of your daily driving?
Clearly anyone that does drive that much is not a candidate for the Nissan Leaf. However, that amount of driving is certainly not the norm . . . you are up in the 95% percentile or so.
Surely almost everyone has 100+ mile days? Most of us suburbanites do, for sure. Most may average 15-40 per day commuting, but add a business trip or a Sunday at Grandma's and your max is blown.
The Volt has that covered, with liquid energy. The Leaf does not. For years there has been a notion of a towable generator, which puts the noise, heat, and fumes of the engine, and the weight of a generator, off-board. Of course that would be less efficient, but if you're talking about once a month it's no big thing. Once a week and it's a hassle - go get a Volt or Prius. Twice a year - go rent a petro car instead.
http://www.madkatz.com/acpropulsion/longRanger.html
The Long Ranger(tm) by AC Propulsion Inc.
The Long Ranger(tm) range extending trailer converts an EV to hybrid mode for long trips. The efficient, high specific-output, gasoline-fueled genset maintains battery charge, allowing unlimited driving range at speeds as high as 75 mph. Proven over more than 20,000 highway miles.
100+ mile days of driving are surely not common for anyone except Americans I think.
When I used to do field service/contract work 100 miles was just a quick trip.
NAOM
I used to drive 600-mile days installing computer networks and software at remote oil facilities and gas plants. I would get up at 6:00 am, drive all day from facility to facility (much of it on gravel roads), and be back home at 10:00 pm so I could get a good night's sleep, get up the next morning, and do it all again.
My wife gets upset because I don't stop driving on our trips. I tell her, "when you get tired, just tell me and I'll pull into a motel. But I'm used to it so don't expect me to get tired before you do."
what exactly did you do yesterday that required 136 miles of driving? . . . you are up in the 95% percentile or so.
The average American drives 12,000 miles per year. If you assume 200 days of driving, that's an average of 60 miles per driving day. The range of the Nissan Leaf is 73 miles according to the EPA, so it's barely adequate for the average day for the average American.
Those who have an extra-busy day, e.g. drive to work and back, drive to the shopping center and back, drive Billy to football practice and back, and drive Susie to her friend's birthday party, drive back, drive back to her friend's place to pick her up, and drive back - have a problem.
I drive about 2,400 miles per year--almost all to visit friends and relatives. By cutting these visits in half I think I'll be able to get down to 1,400 miles in 2011.
So gasoline went to $3.05 in my neighborhood today--so what? I can afford to pay double or triple that if I get my annual mileage below 2,000.
Alan Drake has the right idea. He drives very few miles per year and has a great old German car, just as I do.
I also drive a great old German car, an Audi A4 2.5 TDI. I get 25 mpg(US) urban. But my comment is about range anxiety. My car tells me I am low on diesel (warning light) when I actually have enough fuel for another 100+ miles. Which is the starting point for a Nissan leaf, no?
When I get down to half a tank (which is about once a month) I refuel. I've never run out of gas, and I think I never will. I recall that Leanan also refuels when she is down to half a tank. Why would you want to run your tank lower than half? More air in the tank means more water to condense out of the air when temperatures fall--thus perhaps resulting in ice in the fuel line.
73 miles is clearly more than 60 miles...hence the Leaf serves the average need.
As far as the extra drive back and forth and back and forth and back and forth..well, you hit the nail on the head, as this behavior is what will, what must, be modified.
We need to stop confusing wants and luxuries with needs.
I'm sure most people would think they absolutely couldn't get by without their cell phones or 100+ channels of TV either!
Wrong....scarcity, of money, will drive different consumption patterns.
I think TV will be here for a LONG time. It's a low-power, low-cost palliative compared to driving somewhere to do something that takes energy and money. Ditto for Facebook and on-line entertainment.
73 miles is clearly more than 60 miles...hence the Leaf serves the average need.
It's 13 miles more than 60 miles. What happens if you are approaching home, and there is a road full of police cars, and the policeman says, "A truck carrying toxic chemicals rolled over on the bridge. You'll have to take a detour through East Podunk, Dismal Flats, and Sagebrush Vistas to get to the other side of the city, and then come back through the middle of the black ghetto to get back to the other side of the river."
This sort of thing induces "range anxiety", a common new problem with electric cars.
I know that I start to suffer "range anxiety" and start looking for a gas station when the fuel gauge drops below 1/4 full on my Toyota, and at that point it will probably go another 80 miles before it runs out of gas. I really get tense when the yellow "Fuel Low" light comes on, and at that point I probably have another 40 miles left.
Studies have indicated that most EV drivers will not go more than 50% of the indicated range without recharging, and some will not go more than 10 miles from a charging station if they can possibly avoid it.
Unfortunately I can't locate the figure right now, but there is something like 90+% of all automobile trips are under 40 miles. Some of those high mileage figures are undoubtedly from trips. For example a few months ago I went down to the beach...it was about 800 miles RT, but my daily commute, round trip, is only 20 miles. That one little trip represents what driving back and forth to work only would take me two months. Two years ago I went up to New York to the tune of about 1,600 miles...I could commute for four months on that mileage. I'm sure most everyone else is similar.
Back in 1996 to 1999, I was a same day courier, for my first two routes I only drove under 70 miles in a day, then I became a backup driver and could drive any amount up to about 200 a day, I was a backup driver for most of my time at that company averaging as one, about 45,000 miles a year. Then I got a few state routes, I'd drive 3,000 miles in 7 working days. We had an in-house shop and they changed the oil every 3,000 miles like clock work. We also had our own gas pumps, So only the state route people saw need to buy gas if their route was long enough.
The longest single day travel I have done was 1017 miles in 16 hours, but that was back in 2006. I currently drive less than 100 miles a year, though I do ride around in a van a lot, but I don't drive it much.
Most of our trips are to several places if we can help it. Though some weeks we might not drive more than a dozen miles. We help a lot of people who don't have cars, and don't have bus lines they can use, so there is a lot of ride sharing going on in our household.
Service drivers and salesmen and I am sure several other people drive loads of miles everyday. Trips that could not be made by public transportation, but maybe with more heavy EV trucks or cars, though some of them just would not be practical.
There are a lot of jobs, that can't be done by telecommuting. So just a blanket statement that every job can fit in the same can, is not true. None of my jobs could ahve been done from home, just wiring in my work from my easy chair.
As someone mentioned before, if you can do your job from home, sooner or later it'll be done from another country and you'll have been looking for more work elsewhere. Be careful what you wish for, an easy job makes it easy for you not to have that job much longer.
Charles,
BioWebScape Designs for a better fed and housed world.
Folks, pay attention.
NAOM
Specu-
Nope. I drive around 1000 miles a month (family has one car) but never go more then 50 miles a day except for trips... which was yesterday/today. We had to run to Madison. Usually do that 2 to 4 times a year.
Yeah, I suspected it was a rarity. EVs will make great second cars. Series hybrids like the Volt can be only-cars. EVs can be used as an only car but on probably needs access to a gas car on occasion for long trips. This can be done with car-sharing programs, borrowed cars, rental cars, etc.
In fact I think a lot of people could just offer to trade their EV for a neighbor's gas-car for a day . . . the EVer would get a gas car for a long trip and the gas car owner could get to drive an EV for a day and check it out.
It will all be incremental. Rome wasn't built (or torn down) in a day.
"I spend more on brakes, water pumps, alternators, clutch, batteries, oil changes, service (and even this year a break-in attempt on my car) than gasoline."
I'm actually amazed that is the case for you. It seems it would take a rather odd bunch of circumstances, few miles driven, high mpg, and a very unreliable car, for that possibly to be the case.
Say, 12,000 miles a year, 4 oil changes, $120
You might get a $500 repair every few years in a modern car, say $200 a year.
A battery lasts 10 years and costs $80, $8 a year.
So far I'm up to $328 a year. If gas is $3 a gallon, that's about 110 gallons. Enough to only drive you something under 500 miles even in a efficient car.
Batteries are 3-4 years here, but otherwise I had the same thoughts. You should add tires, for another couple hundred a year, at most.
I'm not sure I get your last line. 110 gallons should be enough for several thousand miles, or 5,000 in a Prius.
Once you add insurance, for another $500 per year, the break-even gets shorter. Shorter still if you live in NY or NJ where insurance is ridiculous.
Add tags, and they get shorter still.
Add a car payment or least for $300-$500 per month, and gas is positively cheap!
There is a lot to be said for having a small, cheap, reliable, efficient little used car, if you must have one at all.
Parking fees for my work: $1000
Insurance: $600
Repairs: (this year) Batt., Brakes, Front tires, tune-up, oil changes, vandalism = $1500
Gasoline: $1000
Well that totals to $3100 / year / car (we have two cars)
That is like $5-$10 a day to drive depending on the issues that year. Is it worth it?
Repairs needed in the future: Clutch (gone), timing belt (soon), rear tires.
Pretty typical. Not sure what electrics will do differently. Save you about $1000 I imagine. I hate my car in a way. It is cheaper to ride my bike. I wish I could sell the car and kill these bills. Working on getting rid of the parking fees at work, but sometimes I need to drive to work.
Cost to drive bike per day: maybe 50 cents a day ;-)
Of course, the thief that tried to steal my car a couple of months ago almost saved me the trouble of having to sell it.
I have imagined EVs to be less Mx-intensive: Zero fluids to leak, evaporate, refill...
No oil, hydraulic fluid (transmission fluid), brake fluid, power steering fluid, coolant...
No drips and stains in the driveway and in parking lots and on the street...
No crappy automatics transmissions to shred...
That may be offset to some degree by the need to replace worn-out battery packs and electronics modules.
Make a lightweight car with plastic body panels and an EV drivetrain...none of the fluids mentioned above and no body panel rust.
"Make a lightweight car with plastic body panels and an EV drivetrain...none of the fluids mentioned above and no body panel rust."
That sounds pretty much like my Zenn:
http://www.zenncars.com/
(Click on 'view' then 'gallery.')
http://www.thinkev.com/
Think is a spunky little Norwegian electric car that has struggled for existence in a gasoline dominated world. Now that EVs are finally becoming attractive due to high oil prices, Think now has to fight with the big auto companies like Nissan & GM.
I think all the EVs still have to have some fluids . . . brake fluid for brakes, some lubricant, for a gearbox, and wind-shield cleaner fluid. But that is about it.
brake fluid for brakes
I think the brakes are electric.
For me:
Parking fees: $0
Insurance: $700...would be less for liability only.
Repairs: $120 - new brakes and rotors (did it myself)
Gas: $1200
I support 4 cars for 8 people. I would like all of THEM to bike. :)
It would be easy for a young kid at their first job to spend 1/3 of their income on a car, working for a little more than minimum wage.
Your story writ large is the story of US indebtedness. I remember well all the bills my husband and I paid to fix the ancient old car we needed in Chicago. But we moved to a country where no car is needed and we each have a bicycle or use buses and trains and yes, it is a lot cheaper. This country is deeply indebted too....but that is because so many other people insist on having cars. There are cars everywhere. Highways, roads and parking lots are just everywhere you look. And fools (in my opinion) buy cars and squander money on them because no car is needed here. Almost all examples of car ownership here are in my opinion cases where status and convenience and luxury and ease are being given priority, not necessity. Having a car here is a kind of failure of imagination to creatively access alternatives.
Perhaps also in the US (or anywhere) the fact that primary transportation devolves onto automobiles represents a failure of imagination of the larger collective. A failure to look beyond the easy way. Cars seem so easy. Open door. Turn on switch. Go. Stop. Park. But in the end, the easy way has turned out to be the very most difficult way.
I imagine that trying to live a reasonable car-free life means emigrating. Although that could change in a few years. Possibly Americans will change things around so that cars won't be emphasized anymore. I could really see that happening. A sudden burst of enthusiasm for car-free lifestyles. A huge wave of re-zoning, government initiatives, road closings, re-localizing, local production. In America all things are possible. I'm not kidding, by the way. I think it is definitely possible. Americans can be very creative and forward-thinking. In that case, I would like to hear what my relatives over there have to say..... Some of them are really car fans.
I keep remembering, though, how amazingly crowded the places in Japan that have great train and bus service are. In the case of the Tokyo region, nearly the population of the whole of California crammed into the acreage of a county in an eastern state, or less than one-third of Los Angeles county.
Then I remember how few Americans I know who would want to live that way ... no, that's sugar coating it - how few Americans I know who aren't repelled by the thought of living that way. Different strokes for different folks.
Yair...You must be a hard man Oct.
"I spend more on brakes, water pumps, alternators, clutch, batteries, oil changes, service (and even this year a break-in attempt on my car) than gasoline."
How come? Maybe you should buy a Toyota.
I have an '89 1.8 litre Hi-lux with 190,000 kays. It's had a set of brakes, one starter motor, one alternator rebuild, oil change and filter every Christmas if it needs it or not, never had the sparkplugs out, still running original air filter.
No matter what the car you will spend ~$3000 per year roughly.
Add it up man. I am not unusual. Look at the average cost of repairs in the US per car. It is ~$700-1000 per year.
Finally to beat this dead horse:
Average Annual Household Expenditures, 2004
Item Proportion of Total Expenditure
shelter (home mortgage or rent) 32%
car ownership & operating expenses 17%
food 13%
pensions & Social Security contributions 10%
utilities 7%
health care 6%
entertainment 5%
clothing 4%
household furnishing 4%
education 2%
See second from the top of the list after shelter is that darn car and all its nickel and dime expenses.
Unfortunately, most of the costs associated with the car are fixed costs related to depreciation, interest, insurance, maintenance, etc. About 5 or 6% of the budget is for fuel, which makes the consumer resistant to using mass transit, since mass transit prices tickets to cover fully allocated costs, while the consumer considers only the incremental cost of gas for the trip when driving. It also makes the consumer resistant to cutting mileage when the price of gas goes up, since the consumer feels that with all the fixed costs, he may as well continue to drive in order to make use of the investment.
Not to mention that mass transit simply isn't an option in many areas of the US. If you want a job, you need a car.
I doubt I spend $3,000 a year on my car. There's no car loan, and at five years old, there are no repair costs (yet - IME, that will change, especially as the car passes the 10-year mark). I do have to pay for insurance, inspection and registration, gas, and maintenance like oil changes and tire rotation, but that doesn't come up to $3,000/year.
If you started out with a $20,000 car that you are depreciating over 10 years on a straight line basis, that is $2,000 per year.
Since the undepreciated asset value is $10,000, the opportunity cost of having that money tied up in the car instead of an investment is probably about 4% of $10,000 or another $400.
These amounts need to be paid into an investment account each year so that you will have the cash to buy a new car at the end of the 10 year period. (Or whatever period you expect to keep the car.)
To which you need to add the rest of your expenses.
It's a $13,000 car which I expect to drive for 20 years.
According to the AAA, the average cost of operating a car in the US is now $8,487 annually
I believe that includes financing/depreciation. If the car is paid off, it won't be that much. Unless you drive a heck of a lot and/or have high insurance costs due to your accident history.
The $8,487 was an average for the US. Some people spend less, some people spend more. The average American car owner spends the average amount. People in all other countries spend less.
You could always spend less by buying a depreciated car. That was my father's solution. He never bought a new car in his life. He bought a new truck once, and only once, but that was a business expense and it didn't have any options, none, not even a radio. Painted bumpers, small six, three on the tree, and Armstrong steering six turns lock to lock. He kept it until it was officially considered an "antique" by the license bureau, and then sold it for a good price.
There's also the alternative of not owning a car at all, in which case your annual cost is $0. It's not really a viable option in most of the US, but in many other countries it is.
I once worked in Calgary for an oil company that decide to transfer my working group to the head office in Houston. It came as a complete shock to the head honchos in Houston that some of the employees' wives did not know how to drive. That became a serious problem when they moved to Houston because the wives were trapped in the suburbs with no way to get around. In Calgary they had always been able to walk, bicycle, or take public transit (particularly the wind-powered electric trains) wherever they wanted to go.
There were other problems as well, so most of the employees were back in Canada within a few years.
I ran the numbers past the computer (most people don't think of this) and told management that they needed to top the transfer package up with a company BMW to make it worth my while - and not one of those cheap four-cylinder BMWs, either. In Calgary I could ride the light rail system to work for about $500/year, and walk to the shopping center for nothing whereas in Houston, transportation costs were horrific and if I paid for them myself, while living in a comparable neighborhood, I would be down about $10-15,000 a year. They didn't understand the basic concept, so I stayed behind.
Cars cost far more money than people think, but they never run a full financial analysis on it, so they don't realize it.
I ran the numbers past the computer (most people don't think of this) and told management that they needed to top the transfer package up with a company BMW to make it worth my while - and not one of those cheap four-cylinder BMWs, either. In Calgary I could ride the light rail system to work for about $500/year, and walk to the shopping center for nothing whereas in Houston, transportation costs were horrific and if I paid for them myself, while living in a comparable neighborhood, I would be down about $10-15,000 a year. They didn't understand the basic concept, so I stayed behind.
_____________________________________________________________________
I suspect that they fully understood the basic concept. The executive management that made the ultimate decision in your case probably had the benefit of a company car. The basic American idiom is "why buy the cow when you're getting the milk for free". The people who don't understand the basic concept is the American worker.
Well, that's true. The executives understood the economics from their perspective. They had a company car and free parking in the executive parking lot. Texas has no income tax, so they were dodging a lot of taxes at their salary grade. They could afford to send their children to private schools, since Texas public schools are a bit on the iffy side. They could live in a big house in a gated community to get away from the crime problem.
Then, look at it from the standpoint of the average worker. While Houston has spent more on its freeway system than it took to send a man to the moon, Calgary has only one (overcrowded) freeway, and a severe lack of parking downtown, but it has an electric light rail transit system that gets people to work quickly and cheaply. While Texas has no income tax, Alberta has no sales tax - which one do you think the people on the low end of the salary scale pay more of? And the crime rate is much lower in Calgary than Houston - the city has no slums (none) and no areas which could be considered as dangerous as the safest areas of Houston. Gun control keeps the murder rate down, and the police are efficient.
Also, public schools in Calgary have among the highest standards in the world - grade 12 graduation in Texas is roughly comparable to grade 10 in a Calgary public school. In addition, if their kids are particularly smart, people can put them into an International Baccalaureate program in a public school, which will get them into any English speaking university in the world, or 12 years of French immersion for the same price ($0). Their football skills will atrophy, though, because they won't have any time to play football.
So, Houston was great from the standpoint of the wealthy corporate executive who wants to live in a gated community, drive a big, expensive company car to work, send his kids to a private school, and watch them become football stars or cheerleaders. But for the average Joe who couldn't afford all these things, and wanted his kids to have better opportunities than him, it wasn't the same.
Unfortunately, the people who transferred didn't realize this until they actually got there, and realized it wasn't a lot of fun to be an average worker there.
The $8,487 was an average for the US. Some people spend less, some people spend more. The average American car owner spends the average amount.
No, it's really not. The average car in the US is about 7 years old, while the AAA study is for a new car, for it's first 5 years. That's very different.
There's also the alternative of not owning a car at all, in which case your annual cost is $0. It's not really a viable option in most of the US
I'm looking forward to the expansion of car-sharing, like zipcar.com. Very cheap.
The average car in the US is about 7 years old, while the AAA study is for a new car, for it's first 5 years. That's very different.
Well, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of vehicles and their maintenance costs American consumers an average of $8,758 per year, almost the same as the AAA number. That is a total of 17.6 percent of their annual budget.
I'm looking forward to the expansion of car-sharing, like zipcar.com. Very cheap.
I'm looking for people to do more walking, or just stay home. That's just based on my estimate of what they will be able to afford to do.
Realistically, most Americans are stuck in a suburban box where their options are limited. They need a car just to get to work or the nearest store to buy food. When the oil production curve starts to get into the steep part of the decline (in a decade or so), they will wish they lived a lot closer to work and essential services.
according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of vehicles and their maintenance costs American consumers an average of $8,758 per year
Do you have a source for that? If we look at it carefully, we'll find out it's for new cars, for the average car. Or, it's a total per household, not per vehicle.
Run the numbers. A new car costs about $.55 per mile to operate,and most of that is depreciation. Next highest cost is insurance, which also declines with the age of the vehicle. Fuel costs are maybe $.11 per mile, maintenance maybe $.05.
When the oil production curve starts to get into the steep part of the decline (in a decade or so), they will wish they lived a lot closer to work and essential services.
Or, they'll buy an HEV/PHEV/EREV, and be just fine.
A lot them already wished they lived closer to work and essential services. They can't afford to. Hence "drive till you qualify."
Leanan is right -that's overstated. That's for the first 5 years. The average vehicle on the road is about 7 years old.
That's unusually economical driving: the average US car goes for $28,400/
The average new car, maybe. You can avoid most of the depreciation by buying a used car.
Me, I bought a new car because I'm planning to drive it into the ground. My last car was 17 years old when I finally got rid of it. It had less than 50,000 miles on it.
The average new car, maybe.
Exactly.
I bought a new car because I'm planning to drive it into the ground.
We keep our cars until they die. Our last car retirement was due to a tree falling on the car at year 20. The one before that was due to body rust at age 23 - we gave it to a homeless guy who repaired it and is still driving it (he got a job delivering food, and is now not homeless).
About eight years ago I bought my 1993 Audi for $4,000 from an Audi mechanic, whose wife had driven the car from day one. Currently the car has 240,000 miles on it, and the mechanic says it is fine for the next 20,000 miles. I put about 12 gallons of gas into it each month and change the oil every ninety days (because I want to keep the car for a few more years). Over eight years and about 60,000 miles I've put about $2,000 into the car for repairs, plus about $400 for new Michelin all-weather tires.
I know I left out amortization.
It all adds up imho but it is hard to escape the costs reflected in the statistics for the average joe.
The car is losing its economics in our current economy. Admittedly, few folks will acknowledge the problem since we are all so used to using our multiple cars per family over the last 4ish decades.
I would expect to see some families reduce the number of cars as the bad economy drags on.
Here is to hoping for a change that can help people with their budgets.
Exactly. The era of cheap automobile transportation is coming to an end, and people refuse to acknowledge it. The viability of the automobile as private transportation is based on the availability of cheap petroleum-based fuels. It's all about oil. As oil production peaks and starts to decline, the viability of the automobile will peak and start to decline.
Although people will argue otherwise, alternatives such as hydrogen, ethanol, and electric vehicles will make little or no difference to this process. The alternatives are incapable of scaling up like oil production did. Automobile use followed the oil production curve up for the last century, and it will follow it down for the next century. People will object to this process, but economics will dictate what they actually can afford to do.
It's not too soon to start planning for this. Actually, it's a bit too late, but do what you can with it.
alternatives such as hydrogen, ethanol, and electric vehicles will make little or no difference to this process. The alternatives are incapable of scaling up like oil production did.
That's just not true. EVs can be scaled up just fine, and with economies of scale they'll be just as cheap as ICEs.
EVs can be scaled up just fine, and with economies of scale they'll be just as cheap as ICEs.
Right, and I've got a bridge for sale, real cheap. It only reaches halfway across the river, and the rest of the riverbed is quicksand, but with a little creative cantilevering I'm sure you can make it reach the other side.
That's funny, but it's not a real argument.
HEV/EREV/EVs will work just fine.
Could and will are not the same thing.
True. I said "will" because I think the likelihood is very, very high - roughly 99.5%.
Actually, if they're going to be choosing between ICE and EV for the time being, it would also be nice if they could compare ICE with EV. But before x waded into the concrete and got stuck there, there was one very useful point: any such comparison will be complicated. The appropriate conversion factor will depend on what one is trying to discern.
For example, taking a gallon of gasoline as 33.7kWh, i.e. in effect equating motive power with gross heat of combustion, seems a little strange from a physical point of view. It might even mislead a hasty reader into thinking that electricity at 11 cents/kWh is as expensive as gasoline at $3/gal in providing motive power, when at these rates the electricity is much cheaper. No one seems to know how to get more than about 60% out of any widely used fuel, and cars might get somewhere around 25%.
Thankfully the small print of the EPA sticker does show kWh per 100 miles, if I read it correctly, so the EV part can be compared 'apples to apples' with other EV mode vehicles.
Sir x, perhaps it would interest you to learn that horsepower is a measure of power which was developed more than 200 years ago with the development of the steam engine. That was roughly a century before the IC engine hit the market.
Converting from electricity to thermal energy is not "creating heat". The energy is simply converted from one form to another. The electricity was produced by another conversion process, often using a steam engine powered by lots of BTU's liberated by a chemical reaction between oxygen and a fossil fuel and such conversions are not 100%, usually 60% for a combined cycle or less than 50% for a steam cycle. But, don't let physics get in the way of your rant...
E. Swanson
I can just imagine all horse scams that must have appeared. Go buy motor, dealer claim it is very strong 10 horse power, bring home and it does almost similar work as one well trained working horse, bring back motor and the dealer show you the smallest f***ing pony you ever have seen.
Lets hope the shale plays are better. Exploration claim production of 1000 barrel per day, it is developed with the newest technology and high quality components that could last for decades, it produce 100 barrels daily, exploration claim highest number ever flowed.
1 horsepower = 746 watts :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower
"On the other hand electricity is nearly 100 efficient when it is used to create heat."
Yes but that's usually the answer to the wrong question unless one needs the heat at a very high temperature. For low temperature heat, it takes a lot less energy to move it than to 'create' it, which is why heat pumps are sometimes used.
I've wondered where that figure comes from too. AFAIK, I think it comes from how much electricity that a theoretically-perfect gasoline-to-electricity machine would produce with 1 gallon of gasoline. (Does anyone know for sure?) That answer seems to make some sense.
Of course, I'm not sure what benefit a consumer gets from that. There is no perfect gas-to-electricity generator. And different energy forms cost different amounts.
You can get a gallon of gas for $3.30/gallon where I live. But a 'gallon' of electricity costs $4/gallon using $0.12/KWH. Pretty soon those 'gallon' prices will be near equal. The advantage of the EV comes from the very high efficiency of electric motors. Thus, the Nissan Leaf goes ~100 miles (or 73 miles per EPA combined measurements) using its 0.7 'gallon' tank . . . 99 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe).
Gas cars just can't match that since their efficiency is crap. Plain old school gas cars get 25 MPG. Crank up the efficiency with some advances and you get to 30MPG. Further crank up the efficiency, use high gearing, manual transmission, and you can get 40MPG on the highway. To hit 50MPG, you need to move to hybrids. But even the latest/greatest 10-year refined Prius only gets half the MPG of a Leaf.
"To hit 50MPG, you need to move to hybrids. "
Eh, not quite:
http://www.aerocivic.com/
http://www.metrompg.com/
"I think it comes from how much electricity that a theoretically-perfect gasoline-to-electricity machine would produce with 1 gallon of gasoline."
Yup, that's about right. It's essentially the heat of combustion. So as with a lot of things that are not quite identical, you have to take some care when you compare them. (Which is not to say you can't compare them.)
Comparing fantasy to concrete? Not at all!
This is concrete to concrete based on pure energy equivalents. I fully agree that you can't build a 99MPG gas car . . . AND THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT! Gasoline engines are NOT efficient.
What is the fantasy that you see? The numbers the give are all hard-nosed real physics numbers.
I fully agree that the numbers are not all that useful to consumers . . . they really don't give a crap about physics or efficiency. What they care about is cost. And thankfully, the new EPA sticker do include numbers on cost.
But the tricky thing about those numbers is that they are so fluid, temporary, and vary geographically. Gasoline & electricity prices vary geographically. Electricity prices vary temporally on a daily basis (time of use metering allow you to buy cheap electricity at night). And both gas & electricity prices will change heavily over the next few years . . . and that is the one that consumers are utterly unprepared to handle. Then again, CERA and theoildrum.com don't do very well at predicting future oil prices either. ;-)
Please, there've been numerous examples of high mileage vehicles built. It's just that they don't look like the average car or SUV of the 1990's. Aerodynamics and transmission improvements can be combined to build a car with mileage that high, but the performance and looks would be so radical that they wouldn't sell to today's average buyer. I personally built a vehicle which produced 235 MPG, based on a small motorcycle and others have done even better.
The fact is, most people want a car with 4 seats and side-by-side seating, which results in a rather wide vehicle with a poor aerodynamic design detail on the rear end. The VW 1 Liter design produced more than 170 MPG. When the time comes, such designs will be available for those who wish to buy them. All that's needed is a much higher price for fuel, which we are likely to see rather soon, whether from taxes or from Peak Oil's rationing-by-price demand destruction...
E. Swanson
So? That is irrelevant. You could also build that very same vehicle but with an EV drive train and the EV would end up with a 500 MPGe.
The point is to create an apples to apples comparison.
It will be kinda nice when gasoline hits $4/gallon and electricity is $0.12/KWH since that makes the energy costs exactly equal such that the MPGe & MPG numbers are accurate comparisons on both a physics basis and an economic cost basis.
The fact is, most people are trained to want, by the car companies, a car with 4 seats and side-by-side seating, which results in a rather wide vehicle with a poor aerodynamic design detail on the rear end.
Fixed
NAOM
I think you have to compare FF with FF. So g/km CO2 for the ICE engine vs g/km of the electric vehicle assuming a modern efficient coal-burning power station is generating the electricity. Actual coal %age in the power mix varies from place to place, which the vehicle manufacturer is not responsible for. We need a standard which can be re-calculated according to local conditions.
I'd like to see such a figure. But honestly . . . most consumers don't give a crap about g/km CO2. And yeah, that would be a very difficult number to calculate since it is very dependent on the local utilities.
The man with no pulse is to be charged.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-01/nigeria-to-charge-dick-chene...
There is a God
I'll hold off on saying that. After he is convicted and thrown into a thirdworld jail cell, then I'll gladly say it.
If you have no pulse - you are dead. Yet, this man with no pulse moves among us.
He's some kind of Undead. If he was tied to the Investment bankers, I'd say vampire. (see Vampire Squid reference)
http://www.oil-price.net/
At 11:56 pst oil is at 87.97
Almost 88! Only 2 short of 90.
closes at 88.03
Craig
Yeah . . . a two-day rally in the markets and oil shoots back up to recent highs.
A week of good financial news and we may end up in triple digits before the end of the year/
Leaked cables reveal Saudi minister of petroleum helped craft toothless Copenhagen climate accord
Half? That's 3x of other estimates I'd come across or calculated on my own! But he has a link to back up this assertion: Saudi Arabia May Double Oil Use by 2023, Cut Exports, ACWA Says - BusinessWeek
Westexas linked to this on the 23rd, and good on ya man. Don't see it on the DB from the 24th. This is pretty earthshaking! If my calcs were off by a factor of 3 - which is applying this 1.2 mb/d number against the 415 kb/d that I estimated for 2006 - then my WAG of 2,468 kb/d total for the top 10 consumers of oil for power in 2006 was also off - it was more like 7.4 mb/d. But that list is full of shaky grids in Iran, Iraq, Mexico, etc. Hmm. I brought up power generation briefly in my guest post here about past consumption patterns, mentioned a post by JD about this, and also a remark therein from Henry Groppe that something like 20 mb/d of the then (2007) 84 mb/d was for power generation. This announcement from ACWA lends credence to that theory, to say the least. Will crunch more numbers later.
Here's a profile of ACWA from MEED, for those interested.
Of course, Sam has Saudi Arabia approaching zero net oil exports no later than 2037 (net export data through 2006 are shown; projected 2005 to 2015 net export decline rate highlighted):
The 2007 to 2010 data points are solidly between his middle case and high case projections. It's a little ironic how accurate Sam Foucher has been, when one considers the money spent on oil market analysis worldwide.
Westexas, Ace has done a fine job and I, coincidently just happened to notice how closely the chart from the Feb 2010 Petrobras article, which he posted, matched the new IEA chart. I looked because i thought I remembered the chart from before.
It is interesting to do a little math. If you assume that we can find 10 billion barrels a year, from now until 2035 ( not likely), and also assume that you can produce all that oil over that period of time ( impossible). It would amount to an increase of 27 million barrels a day by 2035. Both charts indicate we would need about 60 mbd just to stay even. And that doesn't take into account the export land model. Hang on guys, it is going to be quite a ride.
"it already expends half of what it digs up on electrical power generation"
Between this and the rest, I'm confused, besides drowning in amorphous number soup. Supposedly the kingdom is producing - "digging up"?! - around 8.2mmb/d. So if it's using 1.2mmb/d to generate electricity, that's quite a bit, but how does it get to be half of what it is "digging up"?
Oh, that's just a sloppy ist, short for journalist. He's confusing half of consumption with half of total production. 1.2 mb/d is about half of 2009's 2430 mb/d consumption.
On average 2000-2006 in descending order the biggest gainers for them were in these:
Other
Distillate
Gasoline
Resid
LPG
Jet Fuel
Kerosene
Which gives an idea of what matters most to them. But they've been burning raw crude in the summer months to meet peak demand - that likely isn't reflected in these EIA numbers. EIA also provides numbers for how much resid and distillate were used for bunkers, i.e., ship fuel; some distillate goes into diesels, and probably none into space heating, although I understand those desert nights are pretty cold. But even when you tally up everything sans bunkers for 2006 you only get 774.5 kb/d. Maybe Paddy P the CEO of ACWA meant absolute peak, i.e., mid July? Or he was misunderstood? His name suggests Irish and Hindu heritage, imagine the mouthful of marbles that would produce...
I checked some other number of Sam's and it was close to bullseye. Certainly no one's bothering with carrots and sticks here so that's what you get, even in a jumbo recession. Plus with the price going up up up the populace will have even more money for jumbo A/C and a Ford F650 or whatever. Ack!
I should also mention that I got my figure for power generation same way as JD, doing a conversion on total of Tkw/h in a World Bank doc, just using 2006 numbers instead of the 2004 ones he had. It all just makes it more puzzling, did they pile on 800 kb/d of added power generation in 4 years?!?!?!?
It wouldn't be in the Drumbeat on the 24th if someone posted it on the 23rd. I try not to re-post things that have already been posted.
NASA Discovers New Life: Arsenic Bacteria With DNA Completely Alien To What We Know
Think we can grow and burn them - and I use them in a very unclear way - for fuel ;-)?
Pete
Likely only a good way to clean up Arsenic in the environment.
i think the spin that this is a new life form is a bit overdone. The DNA is not entirely different. The Phosphate is replaced with Arsenate, which is not too far fetched.
I would be more surprised if the chemical structure of the genetic information was entirely different. That would be an incredible discovery.
True. This isn't like it's not carbon based, which it still is, it's just a basic life element in the CHNOPS basket is substituted. Still, very interesting.
Arsenic can barely build anything, unlike a carbon atom.
What a joke science news story.
Pharyngula has a good take on it.
It's real comfort to know that even if we mess up the planet and its ecosystems for many thousands of years, causing immeasurable loss to biodiversity, pushing the planet to a new hot state, there will be bacteria around that are hardy enough to start a new round of evolution.
However, it might yield another form of semi-intelligent life that is too daft to realize that it is a good idea to protect its environment.
Right, so it's not really "real comfort."
Besides, this old world is getting pretty aged, and the sun is due to expand enough to make it uninhabitable in about 500 million years.
Given the double or triple wammy we are smacking the world's life systems down with, there is no sure guarantee that they will recover in time to evolve that level of complexity again ever. And of course, there could be other terrestrial and non- causes of extinction in the next few tens of millions years that could set back what ever developments may have gotten going by then.
So, not to burst your bubble, but I just can't buy the (weird) smugness of the 'life will go on' meme. Ya, as you say there will be some kind of bacteria, and perhaps a few higher life forms. But we just can't know that anything like the rich diversity that exists and existed much more fully just a few decades ago will ever return to earth.
The sun will become a red giant in about 4 billion years.
Web,
You know a lot about math/stats, but not about biology or chemistry. The arsenic isn't substituting for carbon, it's substituting for phosphorus, to which it is quite similar in many chemical respects.
Please don't go dismissing something as a joke news story when you are profoundly ignorant of the subject.
I suggest that you read a bit more deeply on the finding. The arsenic replaced the phosphorous in the cell, not the carbon...
E. Swanson
Oh yes, it is a very fascinating discovery. I wonder what the doubling time of the critter is.
Bacteria and most life forms are limited (when food is plentiful) by the rate of DNA replication.
Arsenic is only 1.5 ppm in the Earth's crust.
Phosphorus is %1.2
So life "choose wisely", but perhaps Arsenic chemistry is faster for duplicating the DNA.
Leave it to Huffington Dumpster to get it all wrong:
PZ Myers.
I think (as a person in this area) that this is a major finding. No one ever thought you could make life without phosphorous.
Think about that.
That is a new life form, but it is not too too different from the phosphorous critters we already have here.
As an astrobiologist, I agree, this is big.
From an energy perspective, if such microbes could be engineered to produce biofuels in an environment with no phosphorus, it would be exceptionally difficult for any of the usual suspects to contaminate their ponds/bioreactors/whatever.
Interesting idea. Use genetic engineering to clone a new algae which is happy in an arsenic rich environment which also produces oil as a byproduct. I'd hate to be the one who did the EIS on this to see whether these bugs would talk over the Earth if released. For starters, one would wonder whether it would prove fatal to normal organisms if this new life form were ingested...
E. Swanson
But you'd need to replace a ton of genes in algae right?
All the central dogma genes: polymerases, gyrases, et al.
So many enzymes use ATP.
You'd have a lot to replace imho.
But Arsenic is only 1.2 ppm in the earth crust.
You are replacing phos with an even more rare element.
I would go with chemical selection if I was doing that strategy myself.
Choose a metabolite which would be toxic to a contaminating critter with the wild-type machinery.
Howard and Elisabeth Odum offer some very insightful thinking on the question posed by John Michael Greer...."so, what do we do about peak oil?" in their work, "A Prosperous Way Down." http://www.energybulletin.net/node/3813
Wind turbines are required to stay under the noise limit of 45 dB in Maine.
45 dB is the usual environment noise in residential areas at day time.
50 dB is a normal conversation, or the sound of a dish washer.
80 dB is a vacuum cleaner.
From 85 dB ear protection is required at work.
Environmental noise in many places in Cairo/Egypt is said to be 90dB due to excessive use of car horns, this compares to a freight train at a distance of 12 feet.
The original article noted that the limit was for night time (when people are asleep, not during the work day), and was about the noise a refrigerator makes when it's running.
It also noted noises in areas that are quiet are far more noticeable and annoying that noises in places where there is already a lot of background noise.
The residents are upset because they feel they were lied to. They were told they wouldn't hear it.
The overwhelming majority of residents support the windmills. A very few residents are upset, and one can doubt if it has anything to do with truthtelling or otherwise.
See the comments on the Green blog in the NYTimes.
They should make it right for the ones who are upset. Don't lie to them. It gives a bad name to wind.
Most states went through this already with the highway system. The precedents are in place.
They used to try to snow property owners, paying them the least amount possible and downplaying the drawbacks. Until they realized that it was actually cheaper to tell the truth, pay a fair price, and avoid lawsuits and bad will.
They could have sited the wind turbines so they're further away from the homes. If that wasn't possible, they could have bought the homes most affected. If the people complaining really are just whiners, they should be able to resell the homes to non-whiners who love windmills. Even now, they could offer to buy the homes of the complainers, or pay compensation for the drop in their property values.
Sure, it would cost more money upfront. But right now, they're being forced to throttle back the wind turbines at night, and it's costing them money in lost energy generation. If they were honest from the beginning, and did it right, maybe they wouldn't have to do that.
I grew up at the north sea coast where there is wind all day and night, so I wonder how someone could complain about 45 dB sounds from wind turbines. I'd guess the wind alone is louder. But maybe that's different at Maine's coasts.
The sound from the wind is fairly steady. But the sound from the turbine pulsates, and draws attention to itself.
I just have to wonder how many of the fervent complainers ever use Leaf-blowers, Lawnmowers, or heaven forbid, run a generator or a mattress pump when they are at a campground.
I do appreciate that any ongoing drone sounds can be extremely arduous, particularly new ones that we haven't acclimated to.. so it's really not just the volume, but also the quality and vibrations, etc of a noise that is put upon us.. but it's no secret that Windpower is also getting 'the treatment' for anything that could tweak a tweakable set of opponents who are coming from all sides..
Too bad the Mercury in a Coal Plant's emissions didn't also make some irritating sound, it just makes Maine Freshwater Fish inedible..
The trouble with wind-turbine noise is often not a steady drone. Every time a turbine blade passes by the tower, the eddies from that blade strike the tower, shifting the turbulence patterns temporarily. That makes for a pulsating whoomp, whoomp, whoomp effect, which is bad enough. Every time the wind changes speed, the pulsation changes speed and calls attention to itself, which is worse. This will drive more people nuts than a steady drone, it's a newfangled version of the famous old "drip drip drip". And because it's at low frequencies, it's not attenuated much by walls. (The problem with walls causes aggro with stereos in apartment buildings; even if the walls are fairly good, the pounding "thump thump thump" still gets through, calling attention to itself in the manner of an old Excedrin commercial, except that the commercial at least ends.)
Unfortunately, typical sound level monitoring won't pick up this effect very well, or even at all. Oftentimes all that's measured is loudness in dbA, which will not pick up fluctuation in the quality (timbre) of the sound, but only picks up fluctuations in loudness, which may be small. And oftentimes the sampling interval is set too long to pick up the pulsation even if it affects the loudness substantially. (You might be wanting two or four samples per second to see it clearly.)
As Leanan said, no use lying to people - or, maybe more precisely, no use telling them that they can't hear what they're hearing. And no use telling them that because their neighbor claims not to be hearing anything, they can't be hearing it. Not so, hearing varies all over the lot.
The industry is simply going to have to work this one out, and it will probably take some time.
Edit - and the fact that the relevant standards make no distinction between sound that draws attention to itself and upsets people by pulsating, or draws attention to itself by having a definite and possibly fluctuating pitch or whine (e.g. the Taos hum), and sound that is less annoying because it is steady white noise that tends to have a masking effect rather than to draw attention, is sheer lunacy. But then again everyone bows down to the great god of Administrative Convenience, which, in the world of tenured civil servants, trumps everything.
I am deaf in right ear, though it is not totally deaf, they told me I had a 0.1% hearing in it. I also have tinnitus in my left ear. I was 12 and got Mumps encephalitis which what they say caused both to happen. But as an asthmatic I was told my hearing was better than most everyone else. So it is a mixed bag.
So sometimes I go into a store and have to leave again as there is some sound in there that drives me nuts.
Yet my tinnitus is not a bad sound, more like tonal music, and even though it is on all the time, I have grown used to it.
But I hate those thumpers from woofers, which you get when you have car stereos tuned with high wattage speakers and sub woofers and the like. I can't stand the sound of a tv on when I am trying to sleep( had to suffer that a few times when working nights, and others were up ).
Not every ear or person is the same. My dad can hear things when others think they were being quite. My brother can sing in tune, hearing the notes.
CD's only sample sounds, audiophiles like LPs( vinyl )the sound is purer and there is no sampling, where you can loose sounds to the computer data crunching. Live music is the best though, where things can be heard that a recording would miss altogether.
There are few places in the world where it is truly silent (not that I would ever know as I carry my own sound device in my head), but nature is not an overly noisey place normally. It is manmade machines that add a lot of noise to our world.
They recently put up a wall between the section of I-40 that runs just south of Levy, here in North Little Rock (Ark), before that you could hear that stretch of road up here over almost 2 miles away, because it echoed off a hillside, and the highway is higher ground than we are. Topographically we are in a stream bed valley between two ranges of hills, the curves in the main road never seemed to slow down the sound at night.
I can see where poor planning on the part of the sound engineers, and people in general got in the way of the peaceful small town, which now has to put up with something that other told them would never happen.
I hate leaf blowers with a passion, I also don't like lawn mowers much. If I had my way, they'd not get used much, but cities would hate me on their beautification boards.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed world. Where mowers are only for grain harvest and hay harvest. And leaf blowers are replaced by rakes again.
One of the quietest places is in a big crater in the Hawaii volcanoes, I forget the name. The crater walls block the wind and block distant sounds. I think -5dB (re 20 µPa) has been measured there on a calm day with a very expensive microphone and preamplifier.
I think you explained the noise problem very well.
And I forgot to mention that dB levels are given for close distances (1 meter, I think, but I am not sure.) So one has to admit that being forced to listen to a normal conversation from 1m distance 'only' wouldn't be nice at all.
Yes, the dB levels used for lay-language comparisons, such as "the level of a quiet conversation", are measured at short distances. Since such comparisons are approximate unscientific, there's not really an agreed distance standard, but clearly one would not normally measure conversation at 30 meters.
If a turbine is producing the "whoomp whoomp", it will feel more like trying to go to sleep with somebody whispering in your ear and refusing to stop, than like trying to go to sleep with white noise or pink noise that has no well-defined pitch. This is a severe deficiency of the standards. It also applies to some types of poorly designed ventilating fans on commercial buildings, which don't produce white noise, but instead produce a loud annoying hum with a very definite pitch that can be heard a long way off even if it doesn't actually exceed the standard.
I bet they don't run leaf blowers at midnight, when people are sleeping. If they did, they'd get a visit from the cops.
I find highway noise to be unbearable when I used to live near a highway, but I imagine I couldn't sue anyone over it. Good lord. The wind noise/sight wars continue.
You can't blame wind for air pollution and strip mining, but you can blame wind for the sight of the wind tower, bird kills, noise, and so forth.
My Yoda adage would be: "Perfect no one energy source is."
Actually, you could sue...if they built the highway after you bought the house.
If the highway was already there, no, you couldn't sue. Because you knew when you bought the house that there was a highway there, and a reasonable person would know it was noisy.
If they built the highway after you bought the house, then they'd owe you mitigation/compensation, and you probably wouldn't have to sue to get it. At least here in the northeast. Might be different in other parts of the country.
I hear on that Maine Island that their electric rates went up 270%. So they then pooled resources to build the wind farm.
The wind farm was not a green thing, but a cost-saving maneuver.
Too bad there is all this fuss. Seems people were trying to save a community some money.
But that's always the case with this type of project. A new highway, a new nuclear power plant, a new school or mall or Wal-Mart. It's for the public good, but some individuals bear a heavier burden than others, usually in terms of impact on their property. It's usual for such people to be compensated by the ones benefiting from the project, whether that's a business or the taxpayers.
IMO, there wouldn't be all this fuss if they'd been honest about the impacts beforehand.
Too bad. I hope they settle this in a fair way.
I think "noise" comes from what you are adapted to. I live in the boondocks. 99% of the time there is no "noise"; wind in the trees, birds, yes. And, you become attuned to "quiet." I look up if I hear a plane. When I hear gun shots (not unusual here) I consider where they are coming from and whether I should check them out (and I've raised hell over people shooting when and where they shouldn't).
Now and then I hear a hiss of road noise in the background (from a road three miles away) when the humidity is high and sound carries. I hate it even though city people probably wouldn't notice it.
I would go nuts if I heard "noise" on a regular basis. I absolutely hate suburban and urban areas because it is never "quiet."
Todd
That's correct, suburban and urban areas are never very quiet. And the noise standards for wind farms and everything else (except national parks) tend to be one size fits all. And as I said a little further upthread, typical monitoring may not pick up the pulsation that makes wind turbines annoying, and the standards take no account of it at all, treating it the same as steady white noise.
Might I suggest you never try spending a night camped out in a tropical rain forest...
GM studying how to double or triple Chevy Volt production
That is encouraging if they have that many interested buyers. At the current high price, I thought it would only appeal to a very VERY small niche.
Apparently there is someone so interested in the first Chevy Volt that they've bid it up to $180,000 in a charity auction for the first Volt:
http://volt.charitybuzz.com/
Money will be given to Detroit schools . . . very nice & classy.
For whatever value it may - or may not - have it is Motor Trend Car of The Year
2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year: Chevrolet Volt
Queue JHK...
Pete
The article tells us that the Volt will deliver a mile of driving for $0.038 in EV mode and $0.070 in ICE mode at $2.80 a gallon. (Note the journalistic license, the EPA rates the volt at 37 MPG in ICE only mode.) So, one will save $0.032 a mile while in EV mode. Over a life time of, perhaps, 150,000 miles, one would save $4800. A Toyota Prius is rated at 50 MPG in combined driving, so it would cost $0.056 a mile, thus the Volt would save only $0.018 a mile at today's prices. Over 150,000 miles, assuming the price of gasoline stays the same (which most TODers don't expect), one would save $2700, but only if one always drives less than the battery capacity. If one drives much of the time in ICE mode, those savings evaporate...
E. Swanson
Just test drove a Volt a few minutes ago and it was pretty sweet. The onboard computer showed over 41 mpg in the gasoline mode after over 250 miles of driving. If you drive less than 40 miles per day to and from work it would be easy to avoid the gas pumps. It is a very solid car and handles well in snow too.
Too bad you have to run it in ICE mode to get rid of the gas (especially e10 or e15) that has gone bad from sitting in the tank too long. Has this been factored in to the mileage estimates?
Stabil?
I keep seeing this meme about gas going bad while reading TOD. I have never heard of this in the UK. Also, I have not seen any stabiliser products here in Mexico either. Would somebody please explain this gasoline going bad thing for me.
NAOM
Would somebody please explain this gasoline going bad thing for me.
Gasoline is not a stable product. It is not designed to sit around for long periods of time without deteriorating.
Probably the worst thing is that the lighter fractions (e.g. butane, pentane) will evaporate off while the heavier fractions remain. This will make the residual product burn too hot, and it will burn holes in your pistons.
Other than that, bacteria will get into the gasoline and eat it. Yes, Virginia, there is oil-eating bacteria, and it will eat gasoline, too. You will get less power and your engine will get gunked up with bacteria poop.
And then there are a bunch of additives that oil companies put in gasoline, such as detergents that are designed to keep your fuel injectors and cylinders clean. These will deteriorate and your fuel injectors and cylinders will get all gunked up due to a lack of additives.
Also, oil companies change the composition of gasoline depending on the season. In the winter they put in more butane because it aids vaporization, and in the summer they put in more water because they can get away with it. If you store it more than a few months you get out of sync with the season, and in summer your fuel system will vapor-lock because there is too much butane in it, while in winter it will freeze up because there is too much water in it.
Since riding my bike, I leave gas in my car for 1-2 months at least before refilling.
I'd rather leave gas in my car than burn it all the time just because maybe something might happen down the road.
I bet the Volt will not have too serious of an issue with gas degradation.
If this were a real issue then all those lawn mowers and other small engines and boat engines would die in the off season -- since they lay idle for like 5 months in the winter.
Audi A3 TDI 1.6
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/27/audi-a3-tdi-1-6-review
Price £18,085
Top speed 121mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 11.4 seconds
Average consumption 74.3 mpg (British gallons, they are larger)
CO2 emissions 99g/km
Eco rating 9/10
Bound for: Bypassing the petrol station
There are European sport cars with better fuel economy than those "miracle" Japanese and American cars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZehePzWOBo
0-60 in a 1996 Saturn sedan in about 12 seconds. The car in the video is automatic; I can do it in well under 11 seconds in my manual 96 Saturn.
Calling that diesel a sports car is generous.
Totally besides the point, I know. I just thought it was funny to see 11+ seconds to hit 60 as a selling point for a sports car.
By the way if you're driving that car in a way that takes advantage of that rating, you won't be seeing those MPG's. :)
That 0-60 is equivalent to a Civic Hybrid, which is slow by any reasonable measure (though perfectly docile in everyday traffic).
Factor in the cost delta for diesal and gallon size, plus the EPA smog regs and crash reg differences, and that 73 mpg for diesel isn't much different.
My problem with all these efficient diesels is the simple fact that not all the available hydrocarbons from a barrel of oil can be made into diesel.
So how can everyone drive a diesel then?
There still needs to be electric and gasoline electric on the road.
There is no way around it.
The electrics have significantly faster acceleration. Diesel smells bad too -- lol.
But I appreciate your point.
My problem with all these efficient diesels is the simple fact that not all the available hydrocarbons from a barrel of oil can be made into diesel.
They can turn 80% of it into diesel fuel if they want.
I remember working with a bunch of guys at a very sophisticated oil refinery. During the summer they produced 80% gasoline. Then, in December, they'd adjust the processes and do a run of Christmas candles.
Gasoline, diesel fuel, Christmas candles. It's all petroleum.
Not being an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination.
Why do the US refineries ship diesel to Europe, when Europe could make its own diesel then from its oil?
And why does Europe ship its gasoline to the US, if the US could make all the gasoline it wanted?
why is there this imbalance then?
Seems like there is a structural problem in the types of cars available in the US and Europe and general refining limits. Just from this observation.
I've asked myself many times why Australia exported 19.000 tons of mineral water to the UK while the UK exported some 20.000 tons of mineral water to Australia the same year.
(From memory; I read the statistic some years ago; maybe the figures are vice-versa. Doesn't make a huge difference though)
I think this is called absurdity.
But perhaps due to local shortages of mineral water and a lack of storage facilities made this happen? Very strange and not economical since water is essentially a lot of shipping costs at the end of the day.
The invisible hand carried it.
Talk to the hand.
Most likely demand for gasoline is higher than that for diesel fuel in the US, and the reverse is true for Europe, so the US refineries ship their surplus gasoline to Europe and the European refineries ship their surplus gasoline to the US.
However, neither the statement, "Europe could make its own diesel from its oil" and "the US could make all the gasoline is wanted" is true. Europe doesn't have enough oil production to support all of its diesel consumption, and the US doesn't have enough refinery capacity to produce all of its own gasoline.
Both have to import oil from other regions, and the US hasn't built a new oil refinery in over 30 years.
Grassley does the Republican twist and calls eliminating ethanol subsidy a tax increase. Also wonders why a 30 year old ethanol industry is mature and doesn't need subsidies anymore while a 100 year old oil industry still needs subsidies.
http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=219586
So much BS in Grassley's speech, but let's take two:
If tax incentives lead to more domestic energy production and the result is good-paying jobs, why are only incentives for oil and gas important, but not for domestically produced renewable fuels?
Uh, because there is already a mandate in place via the RFS. Maybe the oil industry can get a mandate saying that 50% of our oil usage has to come from domestic sources.
A lapse in the ethanol tax incentive is a gas tax increase of over five cents a gallon at the pump.
Ethanol prices are already falling in anticipation that that VEETC isn't renewed. So Grassley missing the mark on that one. Demand will be soft for a quarter or two, so consumers will see lower prices, not higher. (Not that lower prices are a good thing, but the VEETC with a mandate in place subsidizes consumption in the long run).
Ethanol prices are already falling in anticipation that that VEETC isn't renewed. So Grassley missing the mark on that one. Demand will be soft for a quarter or two, so consumers will see lower prices, not higher. (Not that lower prices are a good thing, but the VEETC with a mandate in place subsidizes consumption in the long run).
___________________________________________________________________________
That statement seema devoid of any basis in reality. The price of gasoline will jump Jan 1 when VEETC expires. The blenders are going to pass that 5 cent cost along and it will be paid by the consumer. It won't have much affect on oil companies or ethanol producers beyond the effect the increase in price has on gasoline sales.
Demand for ethanol may be soft, but that has nothing to do with whether VEETC is extended. The market for ethanol is saturated. Sales volume will not increase much until the government stops arbitrarily limiting the amount of ethanol that can be sold. A lot more ethanol would be produced and sold today, if blenders were allowed to ship E25 gasoline to their customers as they do in Brazil.
My personal suspicion (WAG) is that if VEETC expires we will see an increase in ethanol sales. The effect of allowing the tax exemption on ethanol to expire combined with the recent EPA approval of E15 for some vehicles will be that there will be more ethanol in the market than there currently is due to not as careful accounting as to where exactly the ethanol is going. This means that blenders can slip some extra ethanol into the general E10 gasoline pool with less chance of being detected (or penalized even if detected). This is what happened 10 years ago when oil refiners were using MTBE as an octane booster. When it was legal to add MTBE to gasoline in the US there was something like twice as much MTBE in the gasoline pool than the government mandates required. Some batches of gasoline were found to have as much as 25% MTBE in markets where there was not any requirement for oxygenates. And MTBE is more corrosive to fuel systems than ethanol.
Then again, Grassley is from Iowa, the one place where a modest amount of corn ethanol, used fairly locally, might conceivably make sense. The trouble is, one size doesn't fit all, but when you get the Feds involved, all they know how to do is force-fit everything to one mold, no matter how much blood might be spilled...
WTF?!?! That is the most twisted logic EVER.
If they get rid of the $7500 tax-credit on EVs will tree-hugger get to call that a 'tax increase'? That damn communist Rush Limbaugh keeps calling for a tax increase on EVs! ;-)
Seems US automotive sales (ratio of hybrids to non-hybrids) are BAU, unfortunately.
http://www.hybridcars.com/news/rising-auto-market-hybrid-car-sales-remai...
BAU has great momentum. It can go on (in modified form) for another fifteen or twenty years. Indeed, BAU will continue until declining oil production stops it. And always remember that Peak gas and Peak coal are not far in the future. The politics of the OECD requires BAU.
There will be drastic and abrupt changes in politics, as I've mentioned in a score of previous comments.
US unemployment back at 9.8%, up 0.2%, if one puts stock in U2 numbers. Dec. and Jan. are usually bad months for hiring. It's going to be a long, cold winter for many.
The jobless report says only 39,000 jobs were added. So much for economists' ability to predict these things.
Yes, the jobs report was a huge disappointment. They were expecting much better than that.
Denninger thinks it's even worse than the headline number leads you to believe.
The rate for hispanic and black highschool-non-grads is likely well over 40%, possibly aproaching 50%. A society that can't offer these idle members a purpose, a way out if you will, is in for big problems. Time is limited to get these kids doing something productive. Folks who are against Federal/State work programs haven't thought this situation through, IMO. Pehaps they think it'll be cheaper to employ them as inmates.
Denninger seems spot on, though he increases my paranoia a bit :-/
I love straight talk. There's nothing more refreshing than the truth. But just think how tough a situation this is:
A. 17% national unemployment
B. Debt that will surely reach 100% of GDP in next few years
C. Renewing the Bush tax cuts that was a big part of more than doubling of the debt from 2000-2008, from 5.4 to 11.8 trillion.
D. Annual deficits now 1.4-1.7T
E. Baby Boomers retiring onto Social Sec.
F. Oil at 89 dollars a barrel
G. Real estate values halved in many areas
H. Large number of mortgage holders under water
I. Republican efforts to shift greater tax burden away from wealthy to middle class
J. Peak oil exports in 2005, with less exported each year via ELM
K. Prospects of peak coal
L. Fracking shale for NG in some cases damaging freshwater sources
M. Efforts to reduce carbon footprint on backburner due to economic uncertainty
N. Eurozone debt concerns
O. Two wars still costing hundreds of billions a year
I guess that really ought to be a enough to keep us all busy wondering how it will all turn out.
Canadian unemployment down 0.3% to 7.6%. Economists disappointed, they expected better. We need to get the US economy growing so they can buy more stuff from us.
It's going to be a long cold winter in Canada, too, but that has nothing to do with the unemployment rate.