DrumBeat: January 2, 2008
Posted by Leanan on January 2, 2008 - 7:29pm
Topic: Miscellaneous
Oil Touches $100 a Barrel on Supply Concern, Increased Demand
Crude oil rose to $100 a barrel for the first time in New York as record global fuel consumption threatens to outpace production....Higher prices have been cast as vindication for a theory that the world has reached the maximum rate of oil production as explorers fail to discover major new fields to replace aging deposits being tapped in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.
While Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and Exxon Mobil Corp. President Rex Tillerson have said oil supplies will last for decades, energy traders are increasingly debating the amount of available crude.
Investors who back the peak-oil theory, such as Boone Pickens, a Dallas hedge fund manager and former oil executive, have led the price rally of the past two years. Pickens, chairman of BP Capital LLC, correctly predicted in 2004 that oil prices would top $60 a barrel in 2005 and in early 2006 said oil could reach $90 to $100 a barrel within two years.
China a big, but not only, contributor to record oil prices: analysts
China's unquenchable thirst for oil is contributing to sustained high prices, but it is not the main factor in crude's latest surge toward new records, analysts said Wednesday.Speculative trading, geopolitics such as unrest in the Middle East and US efforts to fill its oil reserves, as well as the weakness in the US currency, are more important reasons for crude nearing 100 dollars a barrel, they said.
Chávez, China cooperate on oil, but for different reasons
One country's motivation is political, the other's pragmatic. Venezuela is seeking a strategic geopolitical alliance, China a steady supply of energy.
OPEC, war in the desert and bicycles in Bali
Nicholas Moore, former chief energy correspondent at Reuters, remembers covering OPEC policy in 1980, when inflation-adjusted oil was last worth $100 a barrel.
California sues EPA over greenhouse gases
- California sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday for denying its first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, challenging the Bush administration's conclusion that states have no business setting emission standards.
Helium supplies endangered, threatening science and technology - Second fiddle to oil, natural gas production
"Helium is non-renewable and irreplaceable. Its properties are unique and unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil), there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium. All should make better efforts to recycle it."
NEW YORK - Oil prices soared to $100 a barrel Wednesday for the first time ever, reaching that milestone amid an unshakeable view that global demand for oil and petroleum products will continue to outstrip supplies....Light, sweet crude for January delivery rose $4.02 to $100 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to Brenda Guzman, a Nymex spokeswoman, before slipping back to $99.27.
Oil prices are within the range of inflation-adjusted highs set in early 1980. Depending on how the adjustment is calculated, $38 a barrel then would be worth $96 to $103 or more today.
White House won't tap oil reserves
The White House on Wednesday ruled out a release of fuel from the nation's oil reserves to drive down soaring prices."This president would not use the (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) to manipulate (prices) unless there was a true emergency," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "Right now we understand that prices are high and demand is extremely high."
She said Bush was focused on ways to increase oil supply in the United States.
Neighbors wary of China's Three Gorges Dam
“Almost all my fears have come true,” said the Chinese journalist, a persistent opponent of the project whose writings are mostly banned in China. “The landslides and cracks have made people migrants once again. The water in the rivers and reservoirs is no longer drinkable. No matter how much power the project generates, it cannot make up for the losses.”
The Invisible Ingredient in Every Kitchen
That’s the basic challenge: We’re often aiming a fire hose of heat at targets that can only absorb a slow trickle, and that will be ruined if they absorb a drop too much. Are you ever annoyed by pots that take forever to heat up, or frustrated by waiting for dry foods to soften? A kitchen that becomes hot enough to be a sauna? Big jumps in the utility bill when you do a lot of cooking? The problem, as you will notice if you pay more attention to your kitchen’s thermal landscape, even in terms of what you can feel, is how much heat escapes without ever getting into the food.
Canadian firms to assist construction of 2 refineries in northern Iraq
An official at the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq announced that the government is planning to establish two refineries valued at a total of $300 million with Canadian oil companies, Iraq Directory reported.The KRG will provide four production-sharing contracts to finance the building of two oil refineries with a capacity of 20,000 barrels daily, the official pointed out.
CSIRO anxious over taxpayer-funded research versus private
Bruce Robinson, convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, is more hopeful now that his several submissions to the CSIRO over the years will be taken seriously."I think the CSIRO should have done more on oil vulnerability," said Mr Robinson, a physical chemist and former radio-astronomer.
OPEC Review: Group Could Fail To Meet World Oil Demand By 2037
A newly published report by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries indicates the group will be much harder pressed than previously thought to meet the world's surging oil needs and could realistically fail to supply its share of global oil markets by 2037.The report in the December issue of the OPEC Review, published by the organization's Vienna-based Secretariat, also says Kuwait is likely to be an extremely inconsistent and unstable supplier and questions Saudi Arabia's assertion it is capable of meeting world oil demand for the next 50 years.
Oil company hopes to cap thefts
A Canadian oil company is seeking the public's help after thefts of property worth nearly $1 million last year from remote oil facilities on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border.Theft has always been a problem at construction sites, but now enterprising criminals are raiding the oil well sites, usually late at night.
Graham White, spokesperson for Husky Energy, told CBC News that the thieves have targeted dozens of their facilities near Lloydminster in the hunt for copper tubing and wire. Both are easy to resell.
Kenya crisis causes regional fuel shortages
Political violence in Kenya is choking off supplies of fuel and petroleum products to neighbouring countries such as Uganda and Burundi and is likely to hit a swathe of others from eastern Congo to south Sudan.They all get fuel from Kenyan ports, where supply lines have been interrupted by the chaos that has followed the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki.
In Uganda's capital Kampala on Wednesday, many cars stood abandoned by their owners on roadsides as petrol pumps ran dry.
NW Shelf Gas Venture Halts Output on Electrical Fault
Australia's North West Shelf venture halted production due to an electrical fault, stopping output at the nation's biggest liquefied natural gas project and cutting two-thirds of Western Australia's gas supplies.Gas production for customers in the state should resume late tomorrow, while LNG output will restart after that, Perth-based Woodside Petroleum Ltd., the venture operator, said today in a statement. The shutdown will result in power shortages tomorrow, said Western Power Corp., the grid operator.
Bangladesh: The growing energy crunch
HIGH economic growth in the new year must be the singular aim of the government as an effective response to the myriad of economic problems faced by the country. But an economy will grow only when it is backed by ever increasing investment operations. Such operations are for setting up new industries, expanding the old ones and for the creation of new services. Whatever the nature of the enterprises, the same can be set up and operated when there is an adequate energy supply. The first in the order of such energy in the Bangladesh context is power followed by gas. Good power supply is indispensable to run existing industries and the newly commissioned ones. Entrepreneurs will not risk setting up new industries without reasonable assurance of uninterrupted power supply. Gas directly powers many industries in Bangladesh. It is used also to generate electricity or as the raw materials for some chemical industries.
"North India facing serious power crunch"
Entire northern India is facing power shortage due to failure of winter rains and less availability of electricity from hydro-generating stations because of less inflow in reservoirs."The abnormal increase in demand in all sectors has widened the gap between demand and availability of power resulting into low grid frequency, which is the cause of the unscheduled power cuts," a spokesman for Haryana Power Utilities said here Wednesday.
Pakistan: Five thermal power projects of 1200 MW to be completed in 2008-09
Caretaker Minister for Water and Power, Tariq Hamid has said construction of five thermal power projects of 1200 MW capacity will be completed in 2008-09. He said this during a visit to the site of under construction plant of Attock Gen. Limited alongwith representatives of Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB).
Argentine farmers give up beef business
Export caps imposed by former President Nestor Kirchner as an anti-inflation measure, have flooded the local market with meat, keeping beef prices low while soybean, corn and wheat prices soar....Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the open plains of Argentina's pampas, a vast grassland where thousands of "gauchos" herded cattle like in the old Wild West. The romantic vision of ranch life remains important in Argentine culture, but the economic equations involved have changed profoundly in recent years; boosted by U.S. ethanol production and a global interest in biofuels, prices for soy, wheat, and corn have soared to record highs.
Supermarket flies fish 5,000 miles from country where millions are starving
A major supermarket chain has outraged human rights activists by selling fish from Zimbabwe.The campaigners said it is wrong to fly in food more than 5,000 miles from a country where millions are on the brink of starvation.
Woes mount for Mexico's state oil titan
Much of the trouble stems from Cantarell, Mexico's largest oil field. Located in shallow waters off Campeche state in the Gulf of Mexico, Cantarell supplied about 60% of Mexico's output until recently. The field's production peaked in 2004, when it averaged more than 2 million barrels a day. Output has tumbled since then, down about 30% to an average of 1.46 million barrels a day through the first 10 months of 2007.Analysts for years have predicted the decline of this aging workhorse, which has been pumping for nearly three decades. The real shocker, they say, is that Mexico's government did so little to prepare for its inevitable demise. Geologists believe there is plenty more oil to be found in the deep waters of the gulf. Pemex simply doesn't have the tools to go after it.
As millenarian prophecies go, “the peak is nigh” might not carry the same doom-packing punch as a promised “end”. Except, that is, in oil circles.“Peak oil” theorists posit that the world has exhausted about half of all the crude it had to offer originally and that output will soon peak prior to an irreversible decline. Conventional oil fields are a bit like champagne bottles: once “opened”, pressure forces out the contents. After reaching peak ouput, field pressure drops and, in the absence of such techniques as re-injecting gas, production declines. Back in the 1950s, Marion King Hubbert, a US geoscientist, correctly forecast, to within a few years, when oil output in America’s lower-48 states would peak (it was 1970). The “Hubbert curve” has become a totem of the peak oil movement.
Applying this globally, however, is fraught with problems. Mr Hubbert’s own forecasts of where global oil output would be at the turn of the millenium were wildly inaccurate. One problem is inadequate data. Modelling the mature US oil industry – with its huge sample size of more than half a million producing wells and many more inactive ones – is comparatively easy. In contrast, Saudi Arabia has only 2,000 producing wells and large unexplored areas.
The other event with truly global impact was the soaring price of oil, which has been hovering at just below $100 per barrel for the past four months. It may go back down, of course, but it is unlikely ever to drop below $50 again and it is just as likely to rise as to fall. Indeed, many people suspect that we are now at or near “peak oil”, after which production will steadily decline and the price will continue to rise indefinitely.The impact of higher oil prices on the world’s economies has been remarkably slight so far -- much less, for example, than the credit crunch that has been unleashed by the “subprime” crisis in the United States -- but in the longer run more expensive oil will drive up almost all other prices. The world is skating along the edge of a global recession, and only the continued dynamism of the emerging Asian economies keeps it from toppling in.
Iran struggles to meet gas demand
Iran has cut gas exports to Turkey after high domestic consumption and a halt in supplies from Turkmenistan.About a dozen Iranian towns and cities have been left without gas in freezing weather, an Iranian news agency reports on Tuesday.
Heavy snowfalls and temperatures in Iran's north plummeting to -10C have increased demand.
Iran not to extend deadline for Shell's gas deal
An Iranian official said Tuesday Tehran will not extend the June-2008 deadline for oil giant Royal Dutch Shell to sign a major gas deal with the country, Iran's English-language Press TV channel reported on its website....Shell is reportedly hesitant to finalize the deal with Iran over concerns about U.S. pressure.
South Korea sees 2008 energy imports up 15.4 pct
South Korea will likely pay nearly one-sixth more in importing oil and other energy sources this year than it spent last year mainly because of higher prices, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said on Wednesday.
Broke Britain: millions face struggle to stay afloat as financial crisis hits home
Debt experts are predicting a record number of personal insolvencies this year as excessive Christmas shopping, rising mortgage payments and soaring food and fuel costs force thousands of people over the financial edge and into bankruptcy.
Japan: Solar panels to go in 30% of houses by 2030
The government will aim for 30 percent of all households to have solar panels installed by 2030 as part of its efforts to fight global warming, officials said.
Giant sail technology could make shipping greener
One of the first large cargo ships in 100 years to cross the Atlantic with the help of the wind will set off from European shores this month on a voyage which is due to make maritime history.When the 10,000-tonne Beluga Skysail is well clear of the land, it will launch a giant kite, which wind tunnel tests and sea trials suggest will tug it along and save 10-15% of the heavy fuel oil it would normally burn. If the journey from Bremen in Germany to Venezuela and back proves successful, it could become common to see some of the largest ships in the world towed by kites the size of football fields.
Tiny parking spaces give drivers fits
Many parking lots and garages built since the energy crisis of the 1970s have small spaces and tough turning arcs. That's because zoning laws, which govern the size of parking spaces, assumed people had learned a tough lesson by waiting in long lines to fill up and would buy small cars to conserve fuel.But American automotive tastes followed a different path, especially with the rise of SUVs, and motorists are paying the price, in dings to their cars and frustration to themselves.
Top 10 Global Warming Stories of 2007
What events or actions had the most positive or negative impact on the likelihood that the nation and the world will act in time to avoid catastrophic warming? Here are my picks:#10. Over a barrel: Oil nearing $100. Technically not a global warming story -- but who can doubt that part of the renewed interest in energy policy in general and alternatives/efficiency in particular is due to record oil prices? Certainly OPEC is a bit worried. And if, as many believe, this is evidence that we are nearing peak oil -- then this story foreshadows even more dramatic changes in the future.
Corals may move from warming seas
IF their watery world continues to warm as climate change scientists predict, Western Australia's corals may head south to cooler climes.
James Hansen: The wrong choice for Massachusetts
As a society we face a stark choice. Move on to the next phase of the industrial revolution, preserving and restoring wonders of the natural world, while maintaining and expanding benefits of advanced technology. Or ignore the problem, sentencing humanity and other creatures to struggle on an increasingly desolate planet. Massachusetts is on the cusp of making this choice, and, barring citizen objections, is in danger of making the wrong choice on two counts.
List of Historic Streetcar Lines
I have often made the claim that the USA built subways in it's largest cities and new streetcar (tram) lines in 500 cities, towns and villages in just twenty years (1897-1916). This claim was based on private communication with Leroy Demery. Fortunately, Leroy has now placed a summary of his data (a world-wide effort !) on Wikipedia.
Check out your own state
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_town_tramway_systems_in_North_Ameri...
Best Hopes for a Repeat,
Alan
Remember these lines were built with a USA population on either side of 100 million (>half rural), a developing nation economy (3% to 4% of today's GDP) and primitive technology (just hydraulic jacks to bend rail would have been a great labor and cost savings vs. manpower and lever bars !)
Leroy Demery is also the foremost US expert on Japanese rail.
Dick Pintarich has a chapter on Western Oregon electric rail in his wonderful book Great and Minor Moments in Oregon History, including a nice chart. Lots of cities not covered on the Wiki but then they were likely just stops on the line. Most every town of any note in the Willamette Valley was on a tram line in 1915.
The list does NOT include "inter-urbans", which is a major shortcoming.
If one includes interurbans, the turn of the century effort becomes even more impressive !
However, the definition of short line RRs vs. interurbans is fuzzy at best. And electric & gasoline powered streetcars would operate over the same tracks as freight trains (FRA safety rules do not allow this today), so was that an interurban ?
I understand the difficulties of investigation of long defunct service and his exclusion of interurbans from his compliation. I just wish that they were included !
Best Hopes for Back to the Future,
Alan
One of the largest/best developed Interurban networks was in Indiana.
Here is a map
The hub of the network was in Indianapolis, which had the world's largest interurban terminal:
My memory might be failing me, but I seem to remember this structure still being used by the city bus system in the early 60s when we would visit relatives in Indpls.
My mother has told me stories of going out on dates in the early 1940s and taking the interurban from Kokomo to Indpls. I grew up in Indiana and remember older folks talking about their fond memories of the interurbans and lamenting their demise.
Sadly, that structure is long gone, and Indy now has perhaps the worst public transportation of any US city its size. Indianapolis does, however, have an ambitious plan to make its downtown more bike- and pedestrian-friendly:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/10/15/indianapolis-paves-the-way-for-bik...
At the risk of being a spoil-sport I must point out that the rapid build-up of city street car lines during the turn-of-the-century was because there was money to be made in doing so. And the reason there was money to be made in building street car lines was that they represented a step-change improvement over the way most ordinary folks got around in a city: walking. (The well-off didn't care, as they had their private carriages, and then their motor cars.)
However, after having become accustomed to the convenience and speed of using personal automobiles, most people in the US would view switching from cars to public transportation as a step backward. While it may be what we need, I doubt it's what most people want. As such, I think the return of street car lines and the like would be more of the nature of something dictated by the exigencies of fuel shortages and heavily subsidized by government rather than something naturally growing out of an attractive business opportunity. Thus, increasing public transportation in the US today is going to be long and tough uphill battle.
Nothing causes something to happen quicker than the prospect of making a good buck, and that does not seem to be the case with public transportation in the US.
Remember also that those old lines were built when we didn't yet have an impenetrable thicket of Federal regulations requiring everything from massive overpayment of transit drivers, to treating streetcars and other public facilities as intensive-care wards for every conceivable kind of physical deformity, to giving NIMBYs and BANANAs carte blanche to add limitless costs by shutting down any project indefinitely any time they happen to feel like it.
So we suffer from a hopeless self-inflicted affordability problem that hadn't even been conceived of a hundred years ago.
According to even advocates, just the modern vehicles themselves cost somewhere north of $3 million each, never mind the tracks, the stops, the maintenance facilities, and so on. And for that, all you get is a vehicle that carries 50 or 100 people to work and back each day. That vehicle is so inflexible that it just runs up and down that one track and that's it, so it's little use for the other trips a person needs to make. Oh, and up North, snow and ice interfere with the electrical contact, and jam up the mechanically hyper-complicated trucks under the low-floor vehicle that might be used to try to meet the thicket of regulations. So you have no idea when or even if it will arrive.
Now, recently, there's been a minor boom in streetcars (and light rail), as cities have moved to stuff them into the same urban-jewelry niche occupied by major-league stadiums, convention centers, and other such money-sucking leeches. But I wonder if "we" will ever be able to afford to move beyond that, as the expense is so enormous already and the regulations only metastasize with time. If we have a relatively smooth energy transition, we won't need or want to pay the price. If we have a rough transition, we won't have the money to pay the price. Damned either way. Oh, and just because the problems are largely self-inflicted, doesn't mean it's politically possible to fix them.
I do not have time to address all the points of your screed ATM (intensive care ??) but will point out that New Orleans built 24 new streetcars for the Canal Line @ $1.5 million apiece and they ran under budget. After the first 5, the marginal cost was slightly over $1 million each.
Best Hopes for Stopping the Federal "Ration by Queue" that drives costs up and slows projects Down,
May we become as fast and efficient as French bureaucrats,
Alan
AlanfromBigEasyRulingClass,
All questions about the wisdom of spending money on a sinking city aside, I think it's funny you complaining about screeds from other posters. I can't remember a day on the Oil Drum where you didn't post the exact same thing, again and again.
I finally got fed up with your posts earlier this week when you blamed the protests by poor folks from NO outside the zoning meeting on theatrics. You obviously speak for only a tiny segment of the NO population, and you speak about it more than your share on this forum.
The protesters were not "poor folk from New Orleans".
Alan
Alan is right! The protesters were mostly out of town anarchists. People that did not live in these housing projects! Complaining about tearing these projects down is sort of like a cancer patient being mad at his doctor for curing his cancer! It was/is a failed system that no person ought to be subjected to! Plus, public housing should not be a permanent place for people. It should instead be transitional! A council vote of 7-0 makes it very clear how the people of this city feel!!!
Not sure why I'm wasting the electrons, but...
Of course, in any real light-rail system, each vehicle makes trips at frequent intervals, so that a LRV in Denver's system makes 6 or more round trips in each commute period, transporting hundreds of people each day, rather than "50 or 100".
Don't know where this FUD comes from, but almost every city in Northern Europe runs rail transit through winter with no problem. Norway, Finland, and Sweden know a little about ice and snow, and they somehow manage to run LRVs even in small Northern cities like Trondheim. Wikipedia lists at least 30 cities in Russia running light rail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_light-rail_transit_systems#.C2.A0Fi...) so someone better inform them that ice and snow will soon be shutting all their systems down...
Look, I used to commute on an electric line. Every time it snowed a little, the service was disrupted. Every time it snowed a lot, the service was totally a joke for a day or three (or five.) And the cars basically made one round trip during the rush hour, with most folks getting off at the last stop. The end-to-end round trip was about 90 minutes in perfect weather, so there was no question of the cars making two rush-hour trips; most of the time, most just sat there in a yard doing nothing but costing big bucks. I don't live there now, but none of this has changed one iota, except that the old cars, which had openable windows through which you could hear the sparks crackling as the electricity was disconnected by ice, are long gone.
As for Trondheim, if they have some magic Norwegian trolls who can run a transit line - using any type of vehicle - in a competent manner, let's import some. Let's hire 'em yesterday, preferably sooner. For that matter, I can recall watching folks in Amsterdam get upset because the trams were running up to two minutes late due to a foot race. But here in the USA, people are usually expected to be grateful if the tram, train, bus, or whatever merely deigns to arrive at all - even on a perfect day without foot races.
Now, maybe part of the problem is price. Looking at Copenhagen, I see you can get 12 trips for about $2.40 (DKr 12) each, and it's a zoned system where that typically gets you only a few stops. Tokyo's a bit cheaper, but it, too, charges by distance. OTOH, in New York, $20 gets you 12 trips, $1.67 each, and you can go dozens of stops, clear from Coney Island or Far Rockaway to the north Bronx.
You rarely get what you don't pay for. But if we pay Danish prices, which might triple or quintuple the fare for a typical real-world commute, we get back to the affordability issue. Right now, we "solve" that issue with lavish taxpayer handouts, but I wonder how much longer we will be able to keep it up. As oil and energy keep going up, people will only become more reluctant to pay heavy taxes to give somebody else a nearly free ride, and yet I see no plans afoot to provide streetcars or light rail on a broad enough basis to serve (and earn the votes of) a majority. No, I submit again that we're still at the urban-jewelry stage.
Agree with some of your comments, especially the part regarding reliability here in the US. Somedays I don't know if the transportation will show up or not. Having lived in Japan for a few years I became accustomed to the train showing up on time, every 10 minutes at the latest and at rush hour every 3 minutes. Adjusting back to the US, where the company/city employees and management just don't care has been rough.
However, you're still ignoring the major premise of TOD - that is, oil will become increasingly unavailable which, given the US dependence upon oil for transport, will cause a crisis. Thus the choice of ignoring rail, an approach we have been able to do up until today, will disappear.
Don't discount the power of need. As you've ridden rail in Japan you realize that an electric rail transportation system can be run well; the Japanese built it because they needed it. Profit will once again be a driver in rail transport in the US when (more than just a small percentage of) Americans need transportation by other than oil.
As for the long standing social stigma in (most of) the US - only time can address that. However, I would argue that it doesn't have to be an either/or situation for most Americans. Automobile (powered mostly by electric) ownership can coexist in society along with greatly enhanced rail.
You're right, this really looks well run.
When I first heard about "pushers" I thought it was a joke :)
Why can I not stop laughing at that picture, and from NZ's comment? Thanks guys for making my day.
If you saw the movie "Sargent York" then you have heard of pushers. One of Sg. York's buddies from Brooklyn, or somewhere in that area, was a "pusher" for the New York subway. That was the first time I ever heard of "pushers". Funny though, I did not think it was a joke, I believed him.
Ron Patterson
A friend of mine worked in Japan for some years as an activist, and she's outspoken even by USA standards; she's also a 6-foot blond amazon with a nice figure. She noted that during the 'compression' phase of getting on the trains, there would be Japanese men who would position themselves so the brownian motion would wind up with their faces in her breasts. And she commented that the manners in japan are such that women are accustomed to being groped and not saying anything, while she would grab errant hands and hold them in the air, yelling "whose hand is this?!"
I think I'd get the heebiejeebies from the lack of personal space and start lashing out like an escaped gorilla... which would only deepen the gaijin stereotype.
...I said god DAMN the pusher man...
That's the Yamanote line in Tokyo, I believe, which I've only ridden in the off hours (thankfully). The picture actually though illustrates my point - they need to get those trains going, so they do what they need to. FWIW, all the lines I used to ride had no need of "pushers".
What I don't understand:
What I've read about Japanese corporate style business is that no-one is quick to leave at official closing time. The guys hang around, trying to impress the boss, until they are told to leave. Then they go hang out someplace until a "respectable" (late) hour to return home. All so it will appear to the wife and neighbors that the guy has an important job and must work late.
What I've read, anyway, which doesn't seem to match up with these pictures of everyone in such a rush to get home that they must jam them onto these trains. So is what I've read incorrect?
Maybe those pictures are people going to work?
Last Train.
Live in Japan and learn to hate those words. The train lines shut down around midnight (it varies from line to line) and don't start up again till the next morning.
Last train is often packed like you see above.
But most major lines are packed like that during the morning rush as well.
BTW, to whomever was complaining about snow and ice, its a major problem for Tokyo trains as well (thankfully we don't that much). Even a hard rain will delay the otherwise supremely punctual trains. When that happens the crush is mind boggling.
I'm a bit claustrophobic. So I have to plan my trips carefully to avoid the above situations.
Don't get me started, I can rant about the over crowded trains here all day long.
Heh. I remember riding this myself in the off hours. The thing that struck me was that I could look out across the car and see over the tops of nearly everybody's head. In the U.S., I wouldn't be able to do that.
I am not a very tall person, and yet when I've been in a gaggle of Japanese tourists I've felt like my name is Lurch.
In five years of living in Tokyo in the late 1990s, and commuting during rush hour, I never once saw the "pushers" that ignorant Americans like to jump up and down about.
I think there were a few in the 1960s, when there were a lot fewer train lines. It's ancient history now.
Lighten up! I've often crammed myself onto a CTA bus during Chicago winters rather than stand outside in the subzero cold.
Ha! Did you ride with your eyes closed?
There are pushers on every morning and evening express train in Tokyo.
Give me a break, you lived here for 5 years and never saw that?
The morning rush had a stronger peak. The afternoon/evening rush was more spread out. I lived in Japan for nine years. In the morning at Kawasaki station I saw the pushers every morning. They did always have to push. Sometimes they helped with coats, briefcases and umbrellas that got caught in the doors.
I read that the train management watched the weather reports and scheduled more or fewer cars based on the expected temperatures. On colder days more people wear overcoats and that takes up space.
Before I went to Japan I had heard that people ride the trains a lot. I had this romantic idea of riding to work in the morning on the Orient Express, drinking my coffee out of a china cup, reading the IHT while the scenery flew by. What a rude awakening was in store for me!
I lived there for five years, commuting to Otemachi (the center of the financial district), and I never saw a "pusher." I asked about them too, and I heard they still exist, maybe on the last train out, but I never saw one. Ever.
I'm not saying it wasn't crowded, but simply that this is something approaching an urban myth, and one that is propogated mostly among Americans who have never been there anxious to feel smug about something they know absolutely nothing about.
I guess you lived in the wrong place! Maybe that's why everyone is deserting the suburbs and moving into the central city these days. There has been a trend towards centralization, apartment living and shorter commutes for about ten years now. A lot of former industrial land has been converted into apartments.
You know, instead of commuting from Kawasaki into Tokyo, you could have got a small apartment in town.
I lived in Fukuoka city (pop 1.3 M) for six years. There were several different train lines run by different companies, as well as the National JR line. We never had pushers. There was no need, although the trains at rush hour were standing room only, unless you were elderly or pregnant (Japanese riders always give up their seats). The system is relatively cheap (a few dollars a day) and very reliable. One result is while many Japanese have driver's licenses, most are paper drivers. I ended up teaching a few people how to drive when they bought their first car at 30 or 35.
In the cities, the train stations are usually pristine temples to capitalism as each one is full of restaurants, hair salons, and other shops, and noodle stands are often set up right outside the entrance. But they're bustling and vibrant. People are always meeting at train stations to go do something. In the countryside, though, you're lucky to get a corrugated tin roof.
Japan is much better prepped for peak oil than we are, with their compact living arrangements, excellent electric public transport system, high mileage cars, efficient appliances, etc. But with a consumption of 11 barrels per person per year, they're still going to take a body blow. 30% solar by 2030? They need to move that percentage up and the year down.
PaulS:
Maybe you'd like to rewrite that post with some actual and useful information in it.. there will be difficulties and problems to address, but every point you address seems so mired in Hyperbole that it unhinges the argument.
"Impenetrable Thicket of Regulations.."
"Hopeless self-inflicted Affordability .."
"50-100 People" -over and over, day and night.
"Inflexible- up and down one track" - .. probably multiple, connecting lines with crossover stops to transfer between lines. Does the 'one-track' reflect the dimensions that your thinking is capable of visualizing? And how many of those replaced Commuting Vehicles were used daily, only going from points A to B, where they might as well have been on a single track?
"Hyper-complicated Trucks.." (Do please explain that one..)
'Ice on the Electrical Contacts'
"urban-jewelry niche .. money-sucking leeches" That would be 'MISTER money-sucking leeches that save energy and make better use of Urban Spaces' to you, bro.
etc, etc...
If you need to rant about something, at least make it make sense, please.
Bob
Saw your reply above.
Sorry you were stuck in a place with a poorly designed or wasteful system, but your comments should have made that point, and not implied that this would extend to all electric mass-transit, all financing options, or all the regulatory hurdles.
It felt like an overly unfair summary and I replied in far too childish a tone. I do apologize for letting it get to me.. Maybe NYC spoiled me with a Transit system and a mostly walkable City, and I forget how UNworkable so many other Munis are likely to be for decades to come..
Best,
Bob Fiske
I was a bus driver from 1973 to 1977 in Minneapolis. I think I know about the short comings of mass transit and have to generally agree with PaulS.
Even in countries that have excellent systems, people still want private cars. If mass transit is so great, how come?