The Oil Drum | Why peak oil is probably about now

389 comments on Why peak oil is probably about now

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2006 - 11:55am

> What are we going to do ?

Besides my local work in New Orleans (a "Shining City in a Swamp" ? :-), I wrote the referenced paper during my summer evacuation.

I posted it on a Light Rail website (other good stuff there). I eMail EVERY person I see quoted in national media talking about energy (called Hirsch at home during business hours, so far, too busy to talk to me).

I joined this group to get more exposure and convince others here that my ideas are PART of the solution/rational response (with some success I think). I am reasonably well known in Light Rail circles (known in part for antipathy towards Amtrak >:) and have done work for DC & Austin streetcars.

Work, work, work, all unpaid, BUT with some possibility of future, limited success.

BTW, I would appreciate a critique of my paper by anyone interested. I plan on doing a rewrite soon.

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jokuhl on March 1, 2006 - 3:44pm

Alan;
Don't forget to link to that (unless you did above and I missed it).. It sounds like a great idea. I have seen different reports on rail, often politically-biased, on how efficiently you can operate rail systems. Though I understand Amtrack was often expected to be able to operate in the black without the kind of infrastructure help such as Highways and Airports would get, and was therefore at an unfair disadvantage, I also wondered about the ability of even 'Heavy Rail' to introduce efficiency developments in their Techn. that would improve their competitiveness.

From an energy standpoint, how does Rail-freight stand up against Trucking, and Busses as opposed to Passenger Trains? I can't imagine that Rubber on the Road stands a chance against steel wheels, but I don't know where to find the info, and I don't know how the Maintenance of Track and other Equip. costs play into the numbers.

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2006 - 4:15pm

Link for Electrification of Transportation as a response to Peak Oil is:

http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2005-02.htm

Critique requested.

Freight rail uses 1/8 as much diesel as 18 wheel freight per ton/mile. OTOH, Greyhound is a bit more fuel efficient than Amtrak (Amtrak moves more steel/pax than buses and other inefficiencies).

I am not a fan of Amtrak.

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jimvj on March 1, 2006 - 8:53pm

Good luck getting the US truck drivers to defer to freight trains! They can bring Washington DC to a complete halt just by driving on the streets at slow speeds.

That's just onr of the reasons I think Hirsh is optimistic wrt mitigation.

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KJP on March 1, 2006 - 11:36pm

Most trucking firms and railroads already are heavily integrated through intermodalism. It's the fastest growing segment of the rail industry and that says a lot for a rail industry that has seen its overall traffic grow 64 percent since it was deregulated in 1980. Truckers have a saying "If you bought it, a truck brought it." Railroaders now counter that by saying "And we brought the truck, thank you very much!"

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KJP on March 1, 2006 - 11:31pm

Alan, You don't need to be a fan of Amtrak to objectively consider the BTU efficiencies of intercity passenger rail vs. other modes. The differentiating factors are the equipment used(locomotives/rail cars, buses, etc), load factors and passenger-miles traveled.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, on heavily traveled intercity rail corridors where trains are powered by diesel locomotives (like Santa Barbara - Los Angeles - San Diego or Chicago-Milwaukee), passenger trains are slightly more energy efficient than an intercity bus (like those operated by Greyhound) with an average load factor, but 2-3 times more efficient than a Boeing 737, 3-4 times more efficient than a typical passenger car, and more than four times as efficient as an SUV.

On electrified routes, like Amtrak's Boston-Washington D.C. Northeast Corridor, passenger trains are more efficient. The reason is more than just the motive power. High speed trains (including those that Amtrak operates) have regenerative braking systems so that when they slow, electrical power is returned to the overhead wire in such quantity that Amtrak often ends up selling spare electricity to utilities along the route. Thus, the BTU efficiencies work like this, according the UofCS: high speed train is twice as efficient as a Greyhound bus, five times more than a 737, seven times more than standard sized passenger car and nine times more than an SUV.

I hope this helps. But if you really want to change energy usage, build/rebuild communities into compact, mixed-use neighborhoods where people can take care of most of their day-to-day needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of home. Anything else that's farther away, that's what the buses and trains are for.

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 2, 2006 - 12:08am

There is a limited market (up to 400 km/250 miles based upon EU* & Japanese experience) for intercity rail.

Last time I calculated, Amtrak was 73 pax-mpg and SW was 52 pax-mpg. With new aviation technology, that gap will narrow.

Amtrak consumes about $1.5 billion each year in operating subsidies. The fed share of capital spending for light rail is about the same $.

Light rail is a century+ long improvement that can transform cities, save thousands of lives and massive amounts of oil. Amtrak $ are lost with zero impact the next year.

A $1 spent on Urban rail capital spending is worth $50+ spent on Amtrak operating subsidy when the long term effects are considered.

Intracalifornia and NEC pax rail are worthwhile fro relatively close city-pairs. Lomg distance AMtrak is not, IMO.

* Berliners take DB to Hamburg ALL the time. Very few rail to Madrid or Barcelona, Spain, despite the very expensive & fast rail between the two.

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reno on March 2, 2006 - 7:37am

Inasmuch as light rail is probably the "right" thing to do, can you give us an estimate as to the cost of changing our infrastruture over to light rail?? Current rail systems are limited in where they go versus trucks that go anywhere..

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 2, 2006 - 10:48am

I use the term "Urban Rail" to cover the spectrum from streetcars/trolleys, light rail, rapid rail/subway, and commuter rail. Each in it's place.

A while back I totaled up ALL of the serious plans that have been considered and ran out of projects before hitting $250 billion.

Among these projects are:

NYC 2nd Avenue subway and extra PATH tunnel underneath Hudson Ocean
LA "Subway to the Sea", Gold, Expo, Downtown Connector
103 miles total "Subway in the Sky" in Miami
BART to San Jose, eBart, Muni trolleys
St. Louis extra 30 miles
New Orleans 35 miles streetcars
Dallas plans till 2030
Houston plans as approved by voters
Salt Lake City 30 year plans (they may vote to triple taxes to build faster)
Portland Green Line + next line
Seattle plans, current + north extension
Phoenix 30 (25 ?) year plans for almost 100 miles
Denver project for 117 miles (?)
Minneapolis-St Paul 11 miles
Memphis plans (~50 miles)
Atlanta extension to north suburbs
Charlotte
DC Purple, Dulles & Green extension to BWI
and more (above from memory)

NOT enough for complete transformation. The US has been exercising "birth control" and pushing buses for a long time. Once the above get funding, many more viable plans will appear. "Stars" for new lines are Miami, Denver, Salt Lake City & Dallas. Likely to be built IMHO.

Once built, even prePeak Oil, they attract development and generate their own ridership.

Note that costs are at least 1/3 higher than they need to be due to low volume and "the FTA process". I think above could be built for ~$150 billion.

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DuncanK on March 2, 2006 - 3:04pm

How much is the US spending in Iraq?

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KJP on March 3, 2006 - 12:23am

First, the operating subsidy for Amtrak is not $1.5 billion. The FY2006 $1.3 billion appropriation for Amtrak is allocated as follows:

Operations: $490.05 million;
Capital/debt service: $772.2 million;
Efficiency incentive grants: $31.38 million.

Second, Amtrak's revenue-to-cost ratio is 72 percent. I would encourage you to look at the revenue-cost ratios for light-rail systems. I love light-rail systems, but I think you're being too reactionary in your dislike of intercity rail.

Third, there is an extensive market of corridors up to 300 miles (an arbitrary number some faceless person decided was the dividing point). Think of all those city pairs in the Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Texas, California and even into Arizona and Nevada. Compare the population density and travel density data of these corridors against those in Europe. I think you will be surprised. Heck, even Ohio has population density numbers that are only slightly less than those of France -- where a 500-mile TGV route between Paris and Marseille is traveled in just three hours (equivalent to Cleveland to New York City, or Pittsburgh to Chicago).

Fourth, I'm sick of people bashing the long-distance train. Show me another mode of transportation that can cover 2,500 miles in less than 50 hours while stopping in more than 50 towns and cities along the way. Prove to me another mode can do it better and for less money than the passenger train.

Now, if you want to debate the ability of Amtrak management and their workers to be good custodians of the passenger train, then I will probably agree with you. But we also should blame Amtrak for the way it is funded. It's a stupid funding mechanism that only Congress could have dreamt up. Oh wait, that's who did it!

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 4, 2006 - 10:14am

A "dead thread" but--

My biggest problem with Amtrak is not that it exists, but is has very little social value and hence, is not worth the public subsidies that it gets.

It saves very little energy
It kills 70 to 90 people every year (mostly members of the General Public) A quite high rate for the few pax-miles.
It slows down and screws up operations of the tax paying, and essential freight railroads.
It provides very little service to small towns, Greyhound does more for less public subsidy.

5)

If I was given a choice between 2¢ for building more Urban Rail or $1 for Amtrak, I would take the two pennies in a heart beat !

What do we have to show today for ~$50 billion (2005 $) in Amtrak subsidies ? What would we have if that wasted money had been put into Urban Rail ?

NYC 2nd Avenue subway
LA's "Subway to the Sea"
Almost double the post-1973 Light Rail miles around the country

Instead we have a mode that carries 2/3 of 1% of intercity pax-miles (from memory) and requires $1 in public subsidy for every $ in fares.

To your points-

"Debt payements" are just maintenance under a different name. Instead of paying in the current year, $ were borrowed and paid back later.
Please note, FY 2004 Fare Revenuw was $1,256,424,267, so $1 in General Fund Subsidy for $1 in Pax Fares. 50% fare recovery looks like to me.

Light Rail is socially useful and worthy of subsidy (local BTW), Amtrak is not socially unseful, see above.

3) First, Americans will ride the rails significantly less than Euros & Japanese, NOT more. One reason, every large & medium size city there has good Urban Rail systems to feed intercity rail, we do not outside NEC, Chicago & SF. Intercity rail without Urban Rail is next to worthless.

Any way, it is 250 miles/400 km (straightline) not 300 miles where EU & Japanese stop taking very expensive high speed rail and start flying.

My favorite Example is London-Brussels (~225 miles). Second most expensive rail line in the world. Ditch to slow down cars. Eurostar gets a bit less than 1/2 of the market, BUT when $2 billion more in improvements are made in the UK, they should get a bit more than half. Eurostar is talking abut offering just two trains/day to Amsterdam (with stops in Antwerp & Rotterdam) vs. 9/day to Brussels. Add a bit of mileage and pax % fall off quickly. There is no talk of a non-stop between the MAJOR financial centers of London & Frankfurt. Pax would rather fly "that far".

Same results in Japan.

So rail-centric societies will not take high speed rail for 300 miles (straight-line) or more in large numbers, with superb subway, etc. connections at the station, why will Americans take Amtrak in any numbers ?

4) There is no social or economic need to "2,500 miles in less than 50 hours while stopping in more than 50 towns" WHY ??

One of AMtrak's faults is too many stops. Half or more should be cut out.

Greyhound can service the small towns, and would serve more if it were not for tax subsidized Amtrak. "Ambus" is very much part of AMtrak.

If you insist on cluttering the tracks of the freight trains, get a 2 crew Colorado Rail Car (MUed if there is demand), run one shift between two cities with airports (giving mid-day service to small towns) and unmanned stations along the way. Vending machine food, sleep in a hotel overnight if one want to go further the next day (rolling a steel hotel along is TERRIBLY energy inefficient !! A sin ranking with driving a Hummer)

Better - No "middle of the night" "service", much more energy efficient (no sleepers, much less rolling mass)
Cheaper - Certainly !

5) David Gunn was the best manager AMtrak ever had, or ever will have. HE made it better, downhill from here.

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KJP on March 4, 2006 - 9:27pm

I'm surprised at you Alan, using the kind of data against intercity rail that Wendell Cox likes use against light rail. He'll claim that a light-rail line in a metro area will draw less than 1 percent of auto-transit trips in a metro area when the salient comparison is to see what its market share will be in a given corridor. The same should apply for intercity rail in this country. If you look at some of corridors in this country, especially many of the intermediate segments, you'll find that the market share is pretty respectable, even though the federal government has largely ignored our intercity (and even urban) rail systems for much of the post-Depression era.

How can I say we've ignored rail when Amtrak has received since 1971 $30 billion (some capital, some operating subsidy, and $3 billion of it railroad retirement for pre-Amtrak employees that count against Amtrak's subsidy)? Easy. When rail's primarily competition (highways) has received $2 TRILLION in the same period, it's amazing that rail has even survived in this country (be it freight, intercity or urban rail).

Are you aware that a number of freight railroads -- Norfolk Southern, BNSF, Kansas City Southern and a number of regional railroads -- have lobbied states and Congress to run operating passenger trains? If I were king for a day, I would eliminate much of the Amtrak subsidy and would allow these and any other interested freight railroads to take a federal income tax credit on the property taxes they pay on routes used by intercity passenger trains. Considering that freight railroads pay $500 million in property taxes each year (and their competition pays none), the credit would help offset part of their costs of operating passenger trains.

We need passenger trains, especially when it becomes to expensive to fly post-peak. I live in Cleveland, and we have more than a half-dozen flights a day to EACH of the following cities within 300 miles of here -- Chicago, Washington DC, Baltimore, Detroit, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Indianapolis. I can tell that few people are going to want to sit on a bus for up to eight hours. Why do this when a train can cut that time in half? Just between Cleveland and Chicago, there are more two dozen flights carrying 600,000 people per year -- representing less than 15 percent of the travel market. Much of the Ohio Turnpike was already widened to three lanes each way for $1.4 billion -- offering NO reduction in travel time. Where is the yield in that? Except it made us more dependent on oil.

I'm sure the highway lobbyists love reading your messages. They can say amongst each other "see, even the rail advocates can't agree on a future course. Let's just keep paving." I know, because I've heard them say it for the 20 years I've been in the rail industry.

I'm not your enemy, Alan. We both have much to gain from a nation less wedded to pavement, sprawl and oil. I hope someday you'll come to realize this. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors.

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 5, 2006 - 10:17am

Several responses.

My paper does give an intercity "semi-high speed" (max ~110 mph) electrified freight & pax (freight "carries the freight" with pax an add-on) possibility. Three corridors added to the NEC (which once did carry freight and should again). DC-Miami (NEC extended), NYC-Chicago-KC (IF more cities expand Urban Rail) and San-San in California. Link early in this thread. Quite frankly, I see semi-high speed freight as a way to take market share from air & express trucking (perishable fruit, veggies & fish, packages, JIT inventory deliveries) with pax a very noce add-on.

Amtrak tickets, absent any subsidy, will STILL be more expensive that air past post-Peak Oil. There is a small and shrinking fuel cost advantage for Amtrak. Last time I checked (in 2004 ?), Amrak was 73 pax-mpg for diesel, Southwest was 52 pax-mpg for Jet-A. When the 737 replacement flies, it should be pushing 70 pax-mpg (a bit less for shorter hops).

So unless/until rail electrifies, I quite disagree with your statement "We need passenger trains, especially when it becomes too expensive to fly post-peak". Air has significant labor advantages as well over Amtrak.

And sleepers (a rolling steel hotel powered by a diesel generator) is just terribly wasteful ! MUCH more efficient to sleep in an insulated brick hotel powered by the grid.

Mexico has luxury buses in regular scheduled service, often express. Once oil increases in price, congestion may decline and these may appear here. There is no good reason for buses to take twice as long as AMtrak.

In the meantime, let "who ever" run 2 crew Colorado Rail cars (2 or 3 joined together) between Chicago & Cleveland a few times/day (subcontract the maintenance).

Given the lack of Urban Rail in Baltimore (limited) Detroit, Pittsburgh (limited), Buffalo (very limited), Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati & Indianapolis, people will want to drive there in any case since they will need a car to get around once there.

My proposal is let any railroad that electrifies avoid paying local property taxes since they are in Interstate Commerce.

I have sympathy for the freights and see them as a major part of any solution. Amtrak is messing up freights in several areas (UP Los Angeles to El Paso, they are double tracking @ 50 miles/year, Sunset Ltd is a headache for them).

There is a market for intercity rail when you have 1) large cities within 250 (not 300) miles straightline apart 2) Viable Urban Rail systems (one can get to most places by rail) in both cities 3) freights have room for extra trains and 3) the cities are large enough.

However, providing intercity rail where there is a market is "not a big deal" outside the NEC. Relatively little fuel saved vs. driving and almost none vs. air. Few, if any, lives saved. No impact upon urban development patterns (Urban Rail affects sprawl significantly, Amtrak doesn't).

In these limited cases, I see intercity pax rail as a "nice to have", not the essential of Urban Rail. I will be greater supporter of intercity rail (in the above cases) WHEN we have a massive building boom for Urban Rail. As stated elsewhere before, "The Best is the enemy on the Good".

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JustZisGuy on July 13, 2006 - 5:12pm

"Southwest was 52 pax-mpg for Jet-A. When the 737 replacement flies, it should be pushing 70 pax-mpg"

Uh... no. There is no way a "737 replacement" is going to be anywhere near 34% more efficient than a current-generation 737. No way. What's your source?

As for "52 pax-mpg" for Southwest - is that a calculation based on total fuel consumption and total passenger-miles over a certain period? Or is it some extrapolation of cruise fuel burn rates? Turbofans are very inefficient in dense air (almost an order of magnitude more fuel burned per hour near sea level as in cruise, all while travelling half as fast), and it takes a lot of energy to get an aircraft to altitude, energy that is not necessarily returned on the way down, especially if extra drag is required (flaps, spoilers, landing gear). Short flights such as those Southwest operates should be relatively inefficient, especially when considering local maneuvering (e.g. taking off into wind and landing into wind can mean heading in the wrong direction at both ends!). Add in fuel burned taxiing and running the APU on the ground and ... well, I can't find the data online but I'm almost certain your "52 pax-mpg" figure is off. I'd be happy to sit corrected though - what's your source?

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JustZisGuy on July 13, 2006 - 6:18pm

Ok, it occurred to me that Southwest Airlines is a publicly traded company, so I went to their web site, downloaded their 2005 annual report, and found the following figures for 2005 (page 14 of report):

85172795000 Available seat miles
60223100000 Revenue pasenger miles (this matches claimed 70.7% load factor)
1287000000 Gallons of fuel burned
Ergo 66.18 ASM/gal, 46.8 RPM/gal

Wow, I'm impressed. I'll bet they're not including fuel consumed for servicing vehicles, but even so, that's quite efficient.

Now some sanity checks:
7.94 cents Operating expense per ASM
6.37 cents Operating expense per ASM, excluding fuel
Ergo fuel is 1.57 cents per ASM
They paid 101.3 cents per gallon, so that's 64.5 ASM/gal, which is close to the above.
The only 737-700 fuel burn statistic I could find was 792 gallons per hour in cruise. Assuming, say, 400 knots (450 mph) that's 0.568 miles per gallon. Assuming a full plane of 149 people, that's 84.6 passenger-miles per gallon. One would expect the cruise figure to be somewhat higher than the overall figure, so it all seems to hold together.

Think of it the other way, though: the most efficient aircraft in the world is barely equivalent to an efficient car at highway speed. With one occupant. A 47-passenger highway coach at, let's say, 6 mpg (right ballpark), gets 282 passenger-miles per gallon. A 3000 hp diesel-electric locomotive is said to get about 0.3 mpg (761 L/100 km is the figure I came across), but it can haul a 10-car double-decker commuter train with 162 seats per car - if it's full, that's 486 passenger-miles per gallon! If you want to get truly silly, consider that it is permitted for people to stand on the train. Bombardier lists the crush load capacity of their bilevel coaches as 365, so in theory you could haul 3650 people at 0.3 mpg, which is 1095 passenger-miles per gallon!

A full diesel train is still a far better use of fuel than a fleet of 737-700s.

Electric traction is even more efficient.

In short: the Europeans have it right.

On another topic: you are mistaken about the distance "limit" for high speed rail. SNCF's market share from Paris to Marseille (783 km) was 45% even BEFORE the opening of the last section of high speed line (which brought trip time down to 3 hours). SNCF's director general said "We thought that three hours was the psychological limit for high-speed rail, but delays to air services have helped rail a lot," Pepy explained. "On average one-third of airline services are delayed by more than 15 minutes, whereas globally 90% of TGVs arrive within five minutes of schedule. It will be a real challenge to maintain this in the future. The Paris--Lyon line is already full. We have reduced train headways from five to four minutes, and we are now aiming for three minutes."

Every four minutes. A high speed train every four minutes!

http://www.highbeam.com/library/docFree.asp?DOCID=1G1:81006309

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389 comments on Why peak oil is probably about now

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