The Oil Drum

Once we get the tree huggers and duck lovers out of the way, we should be able to increase that total to 10%.

Mmmm.

Well done!  Amazing what nonsense can be dispelled with some scribbling on the back of an envelope.

Now the job is to get that news out there, so the propagandists get sneers and jeers when they try to push these lies onto the public.  The sooner we can eliminate the credibility of the non-options, the sooner we can get policy aligned with the things we have to do.

Though not in any sense a disagreement, I would like to point out that rapeseed oil can be poured directly into a diesel motor, at least when it is warm enough outside. This isn't exactly happening where I live in Germany (yet), but a lot of the small tractors here which are decades old won't have any problem, at least in the summer. And yes, there are a number of places which can press the oil locally. As a matter of fact, there is a dealer on the B3 parallel to the A5 Autobahn who can sell you a thousand liters to store at home, since such 'refined' oil is safe to handle - he uses the same plastic/metal enclosed containers that are common for wine or milk. (If we buy a diesel, I have thought about buying one or two to keep around the house in the garage.)

In other words, at least in terms diesel substitutes on farms, it is possible to imagine a fairly simple system, thus increasing the amount of energy available within a somewhat closed system.

I realize that this point doesn't apply to an agricultural production system which is no longer local, as in the U.S., but there is reason to believe that efficiency can be improved by removing the 'refining' step of biodiesel (at least for rapeseed) - especially when you look at some of the interesting work being done to modify a diesel's fuel system to allow it to burn straight plant oil efficiently, even in winter.

Obviously, this only replaces oil in a limited context, but considering the amount of energy currently used to get refined oil products to a farm, this is likely not a trivial gain. Equally obviously, this scenario only allows for farming to continue using mechanical means - it doesn't help with food distribution much, unless you have a decent electricified rail/barge network in place to move bulk amounts of grains.

Jeff,

I think you are right. Coal production in the US had a false peak. It began dropping in the US in the late 90's bc/ of regulations favoring the use of NG and discouraging coal enacted in the 80's. The vast majority of electricity plants built in the last couple decades burn NG. The NG frenzy peaked a few years ago. In 2000, 95% of all new electric plants were NG burning. This changed demand dynamics and thus a false peak in coal.

In my backyard, Appalachian Ohio coal "peaked" a while back bc/ of strict regulations on sulfur. Now that coal has increased in value, old mines that had been boarded up for 25 years are reopening and Ohio has increased coal production by over 10% in the last 3 years. It is now economic to mine the dirty coal, and just spend more on scrubbing.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/472879/mining_rebounds_in_ohi...

Heinberg says: "all nations with significant coal resources (excepting India and Australia) that have made the effort to update their reserves estimates have reported substantial downward resource revisions."

And then lists several countries that have had to downgrade coal reserves substantially. Note, however, none of those are the top 6 countries that possess 90% of the world's coal reserves.

Heinberg claims that US coal production peaked in 1998. This is already old data. There was indeed a peak in 1998, but US coal production surpassed the '98 peak in 2005, and then 2006 topped 2005.

http://www.commodities-now.com/content/market-news/market-news-200701094...

I think we'll have to read the Energy Watch Group's report closely. I hope it doesn't give us a false impression of coal- at least for the US. It is proabably inevitable that we will use coal to help the transition during the backside of the PO slope but this is enormously problematic due to environmental impacts of mining and CO2 production, even if we do scrub out the sulfur and heavy metals.