Which blog, might I ask, is "based in Paris and run by a self described member of the French technical elite"?

Daily Kos is not a Peak Oil site ... even though there are those within that community who are passionate about energy, global warming, such issues.

And, well, perhaps you should read the principles section (section 4) in the annotated briefing to see the radical 'business based' concepts that are core to EA2020 development.

I agree whole heartedly.

I have had some private discussions with a locomotive manufacturer about an electric battery switching locomotive (or use in rail yards) and we touched on hybrids. I am not quite as optimistic about diesel hybrids as you are. They will have, IMHO, a very limited role. Current battery technology cannot store the energy from slowing a freight train for example. Perhaps a lighter, short passenger train.

Diesel-electric locos can be rebuilt as all electric locos fairly easily.

Best Hopes,

Alan

BTW, larger is not always the way to go for highest efficiency in avaition. The 80 m x 80 m limitations for very large a/c caused the A380 to have relatively short, fat wings instead of the long thin wings of other modern a/c with a related efficiency penalty. And Mr. Sutter, father of the 747, calculated that a double deck added more structural weight than is saved in aerodynamics.

As a polite question, did you really mean to write that "The limits of fuel efficient technology have been reached with the Boeing 787"? Seriously?

Trying to keep the current modal split of near 85% going by car, 12% going by air and 3% going by bus and train will not work in the energy constrained future. A large part of the public will have to shift to electric powered rail transportation or even diesel hybrid reail transportation if we are to make serious headway in reducing oil consumption and GHG. Other option is to just tell people to stay home and watch a good portion of the US economy, the travel industry, collapse.

The mode split way of looking at this is partly correct. Focussing only/primarily on efficiency is a recipe for disaster. The only flaw in the above argument is the last bit about staying home. Conducting commerce more at the local level is imperative to keeping economic vitality. Continued dependence on transporting people and goods all the time, everywhere for everything is not sustainable no matter what mode is used (except maybe non-powered modes like walking and biking).

The federal gov't may or may not have a large role in reestablishing local economies but probably can have some incentive-based role in helping that along. At the very least, we should look at policies that hinder this from occuring, and change or get rid of them. The feds do have a role in basically connecting local economies with other local economies with transport as was mentioned.

As a former employee of an aircraft manufacturer, I agree with Alan that incresing the fuel efficiency of aircraft by a factor of 1.5 is an impossible task.

...
Better solution is to have a federal program that partners with the states & cities for upgrading rail corridors up to 400 miles with faster track and electric propulsion.
...
Trying to keep the current modal split of near 85% going by car, 12% going by air and 3% going by bus and train will not work in the energy constrained future.

Wow. Well said. It's surprising such things are not more commonly understood. I laughed at the "50% better fuel economy" idea as well. The only way to achieve that with aircraft is to STAY HOME. Do these people have any clue whatsoever about aircraft? Take an example, a very very common example: the Cessna 172, first model built 51 years ago. Fuel economy has essentially remained unchanged over all that time. Ok, you say, but fuel economy is not a big deal with a small aircraft, and a 172 is not at all efficient, with a fixed pitch propellor and using extra unburned fuel for engine cooling. All true, yet if you can fit 4 people in a 172 (shorter trips) the economy works out to 50 passenger-miles-per-gallon. Compare against the latest, all new technology (composite construction), smaller cabin, high-aspect-ratio wing, liquid-cooled diesel engine wonder, the Diamond DA-42, which achieves... 70 passenger-mpg, at a guess.

http://strickland.ca/efficiency.html

Meanwhile the A320 and B737 both achieve about 60-70 passenger-mpg in actual service. (Again, see table for details.) You can't simply wish the laws of physics away. Unless someone comes up with some magic not-astronomically-expensive material significantly lighter per unit strength than aircraft aluminum or composites, there isn't going to be a big change in aircraft weight. Where, then does the efficiency improvement come from? Shifting fuel around rather than suffering aerodynamic losses for trim was a great idea. Been there, done that, decades ago. Wings have been optimized for the particular use for eons. No big breakthrough likely there. A totally different plan? Flying wing? Dual fuselage? Maybe, but such things have been done. The supposed huge advantages always seem to melt away by the time all the real-world issues are dealt with.

But these simpletons don't need to worry about any of that. They will simply legislate incentives, and the physical world will move out of the way.

Back to your post. What do you mean by "hybrid diesel powered locomotive"? Every mainline locomotive in North America, as far as I know, is diesel-electric. This is the way it's been for decades. Perhaps you're referring to a dual-mode locomotive, i.e. one that would work in electrified sections of track as well as non-electrified?

I just spent a few minutes following your link. The key phrase I found wrt heavy truck mpg was "possible to envision"

Lots of things are possible to envision.

Also a lot of rigmarole about equivalent mpg. Which is not real mpg.

Then railroads will become efficient by studying the wonderful possible to envision things the kossacks are doing with heavy trucks.

wtf?

Would agree with Alan about more emphasis on rail travel. Even when not electrified you get enormous efficiency gains over long haul trucking. It is great that Walmart intends to double trucking efficiency. I hope they are successful. However, there are greater efficiency gains already possible with a proven technology. All that is needed is to lay more track, build more trains and shift as much freight as possible to rail. Along the same lines expansion of barge lines wherever possible would give a factor of ten improvement in efficiency, if I am not mistaken, over rail, and it is also a very proven technology. This is not to say that there shouldn't be work to improve the trucking fleet mpg, But I think other areas need to be emphasized and also provide a more cost effective and proven approach.

Can't say I am familiar with Daily Cos, I suspect I wouldn't see eye to eye on many of their political views. That, however, is irrelevant, this is an issue where people should be banding together and debating in a reasoned manner issues of truly common ground. Must say, that with its excellent work on predicting PO, TOD often seems very focused on this one topic and it is refreshing to see this sort of discussion of possible solutions from a quarter I must admit I would not have expected.

There is a tremendous amount of material for review here and I really have had only a chance to skim a portion so won't comment further. Except to say, what is perhaps most impressive about this initiative, and please realize I am not intending this as any sort of backhanded compliment, is that these ideas are translated into government "bureaucratese". That is no small feat. Yes it is dry, it is boring, a lawyer could probably spin it three ways to Sunday if needed, but its what the government understands and what it runs on. This may be one of the best, possibly the best, opportunity for PO types to influence public policy. Creating a draft of a legislative act, upon request no less, sure beats writing a letter to your congressman. I am a minor and recently added contributor to TOD, but I think its great you asked TOD to play.

Lastly, someone was commenting earlier that we need to continue to get the message out. Well things will probably not really get going until oil price increases go further, just the way it is, but do you really think congressional legislators would ask a recently developed website not directly related to PO to draft energy policy legislation if there weren't at least a decent minority in congress who are concerned.

I simply do NOT believe WalMart.

As noted elsewhere, I had visions of Dilbert's short, bald boss issuing this impossible directive.

WalMart is not even an appeal to authority when it comes to engineering.

Alan

All flawed. I am uniformly unimpressed with EA efforts.

Quick summary on Bio-fertilzer as I understand it (not enough time other than to skim).

I have toured one of the few electricity to nitrogen fertilizer factories in the world in Iceland. It has since closed. It was not economic even with the very cheap interuptiable renewable power in Iceland. Ain't going to work in the US.

Use US wind power to replace natural gas for generating electricity, and use the saved NG or LNG for fertilzer here or abroad.

Best Hopes for Reality Based Planning, which EA is not,

Alan

My quick critique of the Community Emergency Power Act. Also poorly thought out.

Budget of $120 million/year is probably not enough for one shelter in Manhatten in less than 2 years. And that leaves several other Manhatten districts plus 43x districts outside Manhatten.

Allocating by congressional district certainly makes pork sense, but not otherwise. It is far easier to walk between congressional districts in NYC than it is to drive from one end of a single congressional district to another in Montana, Alaska, Wyoming and Hawaii.

Unless there is a nearby constant flow river or creek or landfill, all forms of small scale renewable power are intermittent, which implies battery storage. Today, that would mean lead acid batteries.

Is the highest and best use of our tax $ to buy a limited # of lead acid batteries ? I think not !

It would be *FAR* more economic to fit emergency shelters with diesel generators (bio-diesel if you must be PC) and install grid scale wind turbines elsewhere. MUCH more renewable energy for the tax $ !

Not one word on the size of these emergency shelters. About 700,000 people in each congressional district.

I was aware of the problems & issues with emergency shelters in New Orleans before Katrina. We had exactly one structure (Jefferson & St. Tammany Parishes zero) that could withstand sustained wave action; the SuperDome (note the indent on the lower edges for exactly this reason) (more specifically, the outer ring of the SuperDome, the roof was marginal for semi-high winds). The problem was capacity. If it was made too attractive too many people would forgo the hassle (8 hours stop & go traffic with 3 carless people for me) and expense of evacuation and just go down to the SuperDome; overwhelming capacity. It was explained to me that widespread deaths were expected just from overcrowding @ 75,000 people for 4 days. (I took part in a public fallout shelter experiment as a child; it was clear to me then that even with unrealistic parameters (Dr. screened for disease before entering, all volunteers inside, anyone could leave at any time) that 10 sq ft/person and inadequate water & ventilation would result in deaths within a week).

Emergency shelters are a complex social and engineering issue, ill suited to the ad hoc approach of EA.

I would advise my representatives to vote against this act.

Best Hopes,

Alan

A major point about this legislation that you are missing in your techno-optimism is not that great innovations can't be achieved, but that in a world of limited resources, high deficits and the Dollar hitting the skids, WE DON'T HAVE THE LUXURY of randomly persuing "better than not" approaches. We have to be as realistic and sober about policy as can be, with an eye to the long term, or we might as well just go out to the back deck and rearange the chairs.

Bigger trucks means more road wear and we're gonna have a hard time keeping up the roads as it is. Alan has pointed out the circus idea of alternative energy for emergency shelters. This is just piecemeal and lends itself to pork barreling. We might as well be talking about how corn ethanol will fix everything.

Investing in efficiency and reducing consumption is priority number one. Fuggetabout trucks & cars and concentrate on Transit Oriented Development and rail. Biofuels and renewable electricity research should have independent project evaluation and funding allocation to avoid ethanol-style pork barreling. CAP AND TRADE with aggressive targets, CARBON TAXES. If you fix the macro stuff and have targeted programs in the key sectors then the market can move the rest (as much as it can anyway).

Finally, we have to accept that the "American way of life" is not only negotiable, but fundamentally flawed in it's twisted ideal of anesthetized democracy vis-a-vis consumer demands. Just-in-time production will be dead before too long. Any legislation worth its salt must embrace ELP (economize, localize, produce).

Yikes, I was planning to get a smart car (very tiny). My memory suggests that each passage of a twin semi trailer does about 1500 times the road damage as a car (normal car).

sf

Behind that 59 foot cargo box the kossacks have an aerodynamic boattail. That magically disappears for EZ loading and unloading. And never ever falls off.
You won't have to share the road with these monsters because they only exist in magical thinking.

I absolutely agree that we should forbid all new coal plants and plan to phase out all existing plants unless they can sequester co2. Unfortunately, we will continue to build new plants and expand existing plants and production while we "research" sequestering co2 which may never be demonstrated to be sufficiently vialbe to have much impact.

I favor the most radical approaches possible and fear that anything less will spell doom with a capital D.

Having said that, I understand political reality and understand that these EA people are trying to get their foot in the door. To go immediately with banning coal and phasing out a great deal of auto use and substituting it with walking, transit , etc. is a non starter on capital hill.

Sadly, the American people are not even close to accepting what needs to be done. We need better leadership but then there is the chicken and egg problem. We may need better people first.

Just perpetuating the truck based delivery system is insane but then I don't know how anyone playing in the political arena could realistically suggest otherwise.

The dilemma is that to do what is really necessary is to plan to do nohting. To do what is better than what we have may be politically viable but then may push off what needs to be done to the point where it is too late.

The EV have a pretty hopeless task in front of them. I would not simply condemn them by saying "not good enough". Well, if one thinks it is not good enough, then pull your own political strings if you have any.

All these plans cropping up that say we're going to cut X percent of emissions by 2050 are also scary. It's so easy to have goals in 2050, especially if you won't be in power or even be alive. The vast majority of those touting the plans will not be alive. Those who will be alive may wish they weren't alive when the time comes.