The Oil Drum | Thursday Open Thread

176 comments on Thursday Open Thread

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PaulusP on March 23, 2006 - 7:09am

Earning a living serving shipping companies, I can tell you that the industry is surprisingly well informed. They have to be with fuel costs rising. My clients have either converted their vessels from running on gasoil (diesel)to heavy fuel, or sell their old ships and build new ones to run on heavy fuel.
The latest newsletter of one of my clients said they were selling old ships and build new ones on heavy fuel literarely because the world was running out of light sweet and that fuel prices therefor will continue to rise.
There is by the way, as with oilworkers, a surging demand for engineers with the skills to run these more complex machines.

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PaulusP on March 23, 2006 - 7:11am

Wall Mart may therefore not go down on shipping the goods over 12000 miles, but distributing all that stuff with trucks.

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Ridge on March 23, 2006 - 8:20am

Walmart has plans to double the fuel efficiency of their trucks by 2015, from 6.5 mpg to 13 mpg. 13 mpg may not be great, but at least it's going in the right direction.

http://www.walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/navigate.do?catg=349

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reno on March 23, 2006 - 9:39am

13 mpg may not be great, but at least it's going in the right direction.

This would be a miracle if they could pull this off. I would like nothing better than to see big truck get at least 10 mpg's on the road.. I drive over-the-road and know how much fuel truck take each year to run.

I also see they have a statement from the Rocky Mountain Institute and are looking out to 2020..

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Cherenkov on March 23, 2006 - 7:19pm

Anyone here ever hear of railroads? Only the most efficient way to transport goods.

Why are we keeping a fleet of vehicles and the concomitant roadway system in the mix?

That seems pretty stupid.

Why not take the oil we do have, at this relatively cheap price, and revive the rail system? Revive the streetcar system?

The amount of fuel saved over the lifetime of a railroad would be exponentially greater than the fuel saved by more marginally more efficient trucks.

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 23, 2006 - 10:25pm

And run the railroads on electricity. 3x as efficient energy wise (and uses a flexiable energy source). See EU & Japan (and Russia in a MASSIVE conversion).

Urban Rail of all types, subway/rapid rail, light rail, commuter rail and streetcars all offer 100 to 1 energy savings as well as a better "fuel" than our cars.

My article (once again)

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

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AlanfromBigEasy on March 23, 2006 - 12:58pm

PreKatrian, there was talk of a prototype barge tugboat that ran on bunker fuels instead of diesel. No refueling infrastructure up now, so refueling in New Orleans & Chicago were considered at first (using ocean going fuel depots).

Asphalt and bunker fuels are not that close to peak yet. Light sweet down, down, heavy production up.

Also, if one ranks transport by energy efficiency, the following ranking is close to correct (with caveats).

Pipeline
Water (ocean & barge)
Rail
Rubber tires
Air

Trucking a container 1,000 km (or miles) takes more oil, and higher value oil, than shipping that container 10,000 km (or miles) by ship.

Asian cargos bound for US East Coast would use less energy to go to NEw Orleans, then barge up Mississippi River system and rail to final destination than going to LA and turck/rail from there. Of course, factors other than energy use factor into shipping decisions.

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176 comments on Thursday Open Thread

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