Bumpy Crude Oil Plateau in the Rear View Mirror
Posted by Gail the Actuary on April 4, 2008 - 6:10pm
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: graphs, incremental production, oil, oil production, peak oil [list all tags]
Which countries are increasing in oil production? Which are decreasing? How is this changing? Can we expect that the increasing ones will continue to increase in 2008? Does the megaprojects data give any insight into the future increases of growing countries? These are some of the questions that Matt Mushalik and I explore in this post using what Matt calls "incremental production graphs".
Matt Mushalik is a retired civil engineer and regional planner from Sydney, Australia. In this post, he provides an update of his incremental production graphs, which he first provided in the post Did Katrina Hide the Real Peak in World Oil Production? And Other Oil Supply Insights
Matt has an ingenious way of graphing oil production. In his graphs, he separates oil production between base production, which stays the same during the entire graphing period, and incremental production, which is the "top" of the graph, after base production is subtracted. He then groups together different countries with similar production patterns, for some interesting analyses.
It has been about six months since our previous article. The additional time allows us to continue and deepen the analysis. As in the earlier post, incremental production profiles of various countries or groups of countries are stacked in such a way that it gives us information about production trends. Incremental production in a given country and period is defined as the production exceeding the minimum production in that period.
Individual Country and Small Group Profiles
Figure 1 shows incremental production profiles for selected countries and groups. The tick marks on the side correspond to 1 million barrels of oil a day, so one can tell approximately how much production has recently been increasing or decreasing, for the countries or groups shown. What is shown for each country or group is equivalent to the top "slice" of the graphs for that country or group.
A few comments about the profiles on the above chart:
• Iraq - production drops during and after the Iraq war
• Venezuela - a steady decline and a big drop during the strike in 2003
• Angola, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Libya, Canada, China, and Russia - all countries with increasing production
• Saudi Arabia - boosts production during the Iraq war and in 2004, but then is not able to maintain production levels in 2006/07. Recent uptick in production still leaves it below 2004/2005.
• Nigeria - fairly flat production; high year 2005
• Peaks 2006/2007 - Ecuador, Vietnam, India, Qatar, EIA's "Other", Kuwait, UAE - These countries appear to be on a plateau or slightly declining.
• Peak 8/2005 - Iran, Mexico, Malaysia
• UK and Norway - shows North Sea decline
• Post Peak - Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, Gabon, Argentina, Colombia, Australia, Oman, Yemen, Denmark - all in terminal decline
• US - on a declining path since its peak in 1971, showing production drops during hurricane seasons
Four Major Groups of Countries
To get a better overview of the underlying trends further groups are formed:
• Top Group - Iraq and Venezuela shown separately with their big production drops in 2003
• Second Group - the growth wedge (+ 8 million b/d) showing clear signs that Russia plus some other hitherto growing countries are maxing out
• Third Group - "peaking group" - the various recent peak and the plateau groups - This group is dominated by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE. The rebound in 2007 is mainly from Saudi Arabia. Production for this group dropped between 2001 and 2002, then increased by a whopping 6 million barrels a day between 2002 and 2005. If one compares 2001 and 2007, production is just 2 million barrels a day higher now.
• Fourth Group - the decline wedge (US, North Sea, others post peak). This group's incremental production went down from 6 million barrels a day in 2001 to 2 million barrels a day in 2007.
In these graphs, note that the base production (the amount that did not change) is not shown. Also note the colors of countries are the same between graphs, so that they can be better identified.
These groups can now be stacked in two different ways to give us different information:
(1) Starting with declining countries on the bottom
(2) Staring with the growing countries on the bottom
Graph with Declining Countries on the Bottom
From bottom to top: declining group, peaking group and growing group. Iraq and Venezuela are put on top as their one-off production drops in 2003 distort the picture if stacked somewhere in between. Because of the definition of incremental production, their layers are disproportionately thick because of the big temporary drops in production. To minimize the distortion this causes, they are put at the top of the graph. This is the graph shown at the top of the post, which we show again here.
The bottom black line shows the underlying trend in the declining group of countries.
The second from the bottom black line outlines the sum of the bottom two groups - that is, the declining group, and the recent peak/plateau group. The trend line clearly shows an underlying peak when these two groups are combined.
The third from the bottom black line adds the "growing group" to the previous two groups. The growing group of countries was able to offset the declining trend after the peak and lift total crude production to an only slightly declining trend.
White and black crosses mark the points used for the declining trend lines. Increasing trend lines have been inserted by estimating the growth between a low in 2002 to a maximum in May 2005.
Graph with Growing Countries at the Bottom
In a different view of the same data, production profiles from growing countries are stacked at the bottom and Saudi Arabia on top. The graph clearly shows that Russia, Kazachstan and Brazil have maxed out (unless megaprojects change this in the future) and that Saudi Arabia is no longer performing its function as swing producer.
This analysis helps us understand what the late Dr. Ali Bakhtiari called the transition phase T1 between growth and decline. During the Australian Senate hearings on oil supplies in July 2006 Ali said this transition phase would start in 2006 and last for three to five years. It seems the transition phase is marked by two crude oil peaking events, one in 2005 and another one happening right now. The big question is therefore how long will that peaking of the hitherto growing group take? These are the current trends:
Former Soviet Union
We have already mentioned that Russia seems to be at peak. In other Former Soviet Union countries, Kazachstan's doubling of oil production starting in 2005 has stalled, leaving just Azerbaijan with an annual increase of 200 thousand barrels a day.
It is possible that the increase will be greater than this. Russia, Kazachstan, and Azerbaijan have megaprojects scheduled to begin production in 2008 which total 1,186,000 million barrels a day in maximum production. This total production is not expected to be reached in 2008, and a significant share of it will be needed to offset declines in older fields. Given these considerations, increased production for the Former Soviet Union may be somewhat more than 200,000 barrels a day, perhaps on the order of 400,000 barrels a day. This may very well be an overestimate. Numerous reports suggest, such as this one, indicate that Russian production will fall in 2008.
Angola and Brazil
Angola joined OPEC and will come under a quota system. A recent announcement indicates that Angola's production for 2008 is expected to reach a plateau of 2 million barrels a day, and maintain that level until 2013. Production for December 2007 is reported to be 1,986,000 barrels per day, so Angola has apparently now reached its peak production, and only a plateau can be expected henceforth.
Brazil's growth has apparently flattened. There are four megaprojects scheduled to start production in Brazil in 2008. The ultimate production for the 2008 projects is expected to be 475,000 barrels a day, although not all of this is expected to be realized in 2008. There are also a number of megaprojects (totalling 648,000 barrels a day in ultimate production) that were expected to begin near the end of 2007. If the various 2007 and 2008 projects come on board as planned, Brazil's production may increase by 400,000 or 500,000 barrels a day in 2008. (All of these future production estimates are very rough.)
Other African Countries
In another group of African countries Algeria's and Libya's growth is modest, but steady while Sudan and Equatorial Guinea grew at 300 Kb/d last year. There do not seem to be any significant megaprojects for these countries for 2007 and 2008. If decline rates are as in other countries, the increases for these countries may be smaller for 2008.
Canada
For Canada we know the potential is in syn crude from tar sands but this is limited by the supply of natural gas. CO2 emissions are a big problem and NASA climatologist James Hansen has not included this un-conventional oil in his carbon balance. There is just no room for it, according to this paper he wrote.
Irrespective of environmental and climate change concerns, there are a number megaprojects planned for the Canadian tar sands. The ultimate production from these total 266,000 barrels a day from projects with 2007 start dates and 605,000 barrels a day for projects that are planned to start in 2008, according to the megaprojects list. Some of these are very long term projects - not to be completed until 2018. Actual production increases are likely to be much more modest. Canada's oil production grew less than 100,000 barrels a day in 2007. It would be surprising if Canada's 2008 oil production grows more than 200,000 or 300,000 barrels a day.
Conclusions
This analysis is mostly a review of what has happened in the past with oil production. Another article, very closely related to this one, was written by Matt and is posted on the Sydney Peak Oil website.
We have included a few very rough estimates of production for some of the increasing countries for the future. It looks as though there still will be countries with increases in 2008. Our rough estimates of increases for the countries shown total only about 1.0 to 1.5 million barrels a day. This is fairly similar to what the increases for the growing group of countries has been over the past five years. This is not very much to offset the countries with declining production.
There are many countries that we have not considered to be growing, that theoretically may grow in the future. Saudi Arabia and Iran would be two in this category. We have not made any estimates, upward or downward, for these countries. If oil production is to stay on its current plateau, it would seem like we would need increases from some of these countries as well.
We remain on a bumpy crude plateau, where the exact timing of new projects and the coming hurricane season will determine which temporary wiggles we get on the production curve. 2008 should be an interesting year.
Thanks for another very interesting piece.
I love that this is for crude only. This chart can be juxtaposed with all liquids charts to reveal the vulnerability we have in the system. It might be one of the better charts for getting the attention of those either unaware or not convinced a problem is brewing.
If those trend lines won't scare a person into belief, nothing will until TS has HTF.
Cheers
On behalf of Matt, thanks! The idea of looking at things this way was all Matts. We worked together on refining a few things, and I think it gives some ideas of different ways of looking at things.
I for one want to watch how the "growing group" really develops on a monthly basis. Also, the plateau group really needs to hang on the plateau, or we have a huge drop ahead of us.
I too appreciate the crude only aspect of these charts, kudos to Matt for the amount of work it took to produce this quality analysis. For those looking to do the same with biofuels/etc, it would be nice for any "liquids" to be assessed for the energy balance required to produce said 'liquids', subtracting the appropriate figure (oil equivalent) from the overall total.
Crude and Condensates is the energy source on which our economy is built. Until some other source of energy proves for a decade that it can form the base of a sustained economy, focusing on crude seems the most wise choice.
The way you grouped data helps show the deterioration in Energy Growth.
Lack of crude growth is impacting the economy. Mortgage foreclosures caused as rising costs and interest rates make it difficult for more and more people to pay for their commute, food and home.
I would like help refining some metric for measuring lack of growth. A rough draft is:
Economic growth = (Energy Growth * Efficiency Growth) / (Energy Price Growth * Critical Importance Factor)
I think that lack of growth is what we are seeing in the current recession (or pre-recession, if you don't yet believe it is a recession).
I will think about your formula. I have to leave for an appointment now.
Thanks. I have been trying to find the right analogy for economic growth. The best I have come up with so far is:
The economy is like a freight train that to grow must constantly increase momentum as it gains speed and more and more people get on. Increasing momentum requires some combination of factors. I adjusted the formula to:
Economic growth = (Energy Growth * Efficiency Growth * Discretionary Income) / (Risk Factor)
Numerator:
Energy Growth: more applied power
Energy Efficiency: power more effectively applied
Discretionary Income: Power to drive and innovate
Denominator:
Risk Factor: Some fuzzy factor for risk
Unlike the 1973 Oil Embargo where everyone suffered, Peak Economic Growth (May 2005) affects people based on their spendable incomes.
I like Matt's graphs because you can see trends and subjectively visualize risk and growth potential.
I tried to capture the effects of discretionary income, in this graphic. The horizontal scale on the two left graphs are indicated. Peak Growth(May 2005), discretionary income and foreclosures are indicated.
I think that there are a lot of things that work into this that we don't think of:
A lot of bad practices look like efficiency, and feed into current efficiency measures, but really are not, in the long term. In not long, we will have to pay the price:
• Failure to maintain the grid, at above minimum levels
• Failure to replace bridges, water infrastructure, oil and gas pipeline systems, at above the absolute minimum levels
• Failure to train new engineers - just let a smaller and smaller number of people nearing retirement age handle all of the issues, as they arise
• Deplete the land and pollute the land, water, and air;
Built into current efficiency and growth measures is some expectation regarding the long-term use of assets, like cars, trucks, and factory equipment. To the extent that we need to change to a new fuel system, or our current fuel becomes available, we suddenly have a huge amount of assets that become essentially worthless overnight. Somehow this needs to be built into the measure. This is a sudden inefficiency cost.
Our current system assumes that we can use factories in China and other developing countries to produce our goods. If this no longer is the case, perhaps because they cannot buy enough fuel, or have not maintained their grid, or we have balance of payment problems, we suddenly have the need to build a huge number of new factories. This cost may be a heavy drain on energy resources that might be used for other things.
Historically, the energy needed to do a given activity has tended to fall a bit, because of improved technology. We now have a countervailing force, as we reach resource depletion:
• The EROEI is going down for almost everything, and is reaching low enough levels that the greater energy required makes a difference (going from 100:1 to 99:1 makes a lot less difference than going from 4:1 to 3:1).
• When we run short on fresh water, there are technologies for getting it (desalination; pumping water long distances, even uphill, to the required location). These require more energy, to get to the same end point where we were before.
• Mining requires more and more dirt to be removed from the oil, as ores become lower grade.
• Most any of the climate change proposals are very inefficient. Carbon capture requires burning vastly more coal, and using more of it to store the CO2 underground. Substituting ethanol for gasoline is horribly inefficient, in terms of the amount of energy required to get a liquid fuel (and is doubtful whether there are any benefits from a climate change point of view).
Historically, our energy efficiency growth has been something like 1.6% per year. It is easy for these things to overwhelm it.
Hi Gail
Here is another cut:
Economic growth = (Energy Growth * Efficiency Growth * Discretionary Resources * Durability Factor) / (Risk Factor)
Numerator:
Energy Growth: more applied power
Energy Efficiency: power more effectively applied
Discretionary Resources: Capital and capacity to innovate
Durability Factor: Maintenance and skills of the system.
Denominator:
Risk Factor: Some fuzzy factor for risk
I like the comments about maintenance, water, education, etc... and added the Durability Factor. It would probably be advisable to detail contributors. Listen to Matt Simmons talk about the age of the oil infrastructure. It is terrible. So is the current age of the electrical grid.
I also like the EROEI comments. Part of the reason I think Total liquid fuels should be ignored is that the net work capability is over counted. Oil sands and biofuels are double counted, their energy and the energy of natural gas to create them. We got to the party on conventional crude. It's health is what sets the health of the economy.
Re-tooling transportation will require Just-in-Time local manufacturing. Here is a link to an article I wrote on Re-tooling Transportation. Durability of the grid is one of the reasons we integrated power generation into our concepts.
The cost savings in re-tooling can pay for the re-tooling. It is not hard to get the electrical equivalent of 200 mile per gallon urban transport. CSX notes in the TV ads they get 423 mpg to move a ton of freight.
I do not think the sump cost of superseded infrastructure matters. As the infrastructure that is the cause of climate change is superseded, it will gradually be recycled. Transportation is currently an intense capital and expense activity(car, gas, parking). As we automate highly repetitive travel, it will gradually change to a lower cost service. Read PB-244854 for a blueprint, NJ Study and EU study.
Innovations will have to be profitable, add more value than the cost to compete. This will be essential post peak. Few subsidies will survive.
It is not hard to get the electrical equivalent of 200 mile per gallon urban transport.
No, not hard at all. Since it is less than the reported average for Urban Rail in the USA per Strickland (and my own sense of the #s, I do not think in those units).
http://strickland.ca/efficiency.html
Spend our money on stuff that we KNOW works and not unproven gadgetbahn,
Alan
Hi Alan
I am not asking to spend "our" money. JPods will be privately funded.
If we followed your thoughts in 1984, we would not have the Internet or cell phones.
Our current infrastructure is the cause of Global Warming and Peak Oil. Our current infrastructure is not working.
We can reinforce current failure or we can change.
France is changing with mature, workable technology.
Velibs (rental bicycles), 1,500 km of new tram lines in a decade, 3 TGV lines under construction, electrify every meter of French railways.
We do not have the time or resources to spend on gadgetbahn and related debugging (if it every works properly for decades in the Real World).
I know that you are posting here to advertise your business. Those before you have done serious damage to REAL transit projects.
Alan
The reason I post here is hoping to find people looking for viable solutions to peak oil.
Peak Oil is a civilization killer. We have a relatively short time to solve the problem.
I do not understand why you are hostile to rail that is not yours? I think rail is a good idea.
Your argument that we should not invent new and better solution makes no sense. Do you think we should return to rotary phones and stone tablets?
Your argument that we should not invent new and better solution makes no sense
It takes quite a few years/decades to first debug and second optimize any new gadgetbahn technology. We do not have the time or resources to go down a potential dead, or even invest in a seriously sub-optimum technology.
Also, I have seen (did not fully understand) a mathematical proof that PRT "networks" are severely limited in their complexity and reasonable "flows" of pods. Once past a certain complexity, scheduling gets tied up (traffic jams) at rush hour.
A wide variety of things have been tried in the last 175 years of railroads. Funiculars, cog railroads, different gauges, 3rd rail, elevated, etc. A wide spectrum of possibilities, all proven.
There is no real need for jpods, a hypothetical solution looking for a problem.
I do not understand why you are hostile to rail that is not yours ?
I have seen gadgetbahn salespeople come into town as cities were voting on good, workable Light Rail systems, sell their snake oil, defeat the workable systems with over-wrought claims of "better, cheaper", and then pack their bags the day after the vote, never to return.
Thus I cannot tolerate unsubstantiated claims of "better, cheaper" gadgetbahn. Hostility, skepticism and "Prove it !" are the only correct responses IMHO.
In my considered judgment, jpods sales efforts will have a negative impact on moving forward with real solutions (and will never fulfill their promoters promises).
That is my honest opinion.
I do *NOT* know if you are a misguided idealist or a cynical con-man, but in either case I cannot support your efforts. In the first case, I feel compassion, but will still move to block your claims, etc.
Alan
I see your point Alan, re the simplest/most robust/existing engineering solutions [I'm an engineer myself], but since the hurdles to getting the public/gov mindset around to public transport are both huge [and paradoxically small - once its built and everyone tries the damn thing..] surely a new gadget idea in one or 2 locations could spark the public conciousness. Dumb humans love new gizmos - even when TSHTF in 2009.
I grew up in an area of joined up public transport with electric urban rail [not streetcars] and I know the advantages. It is a huge quality of life advantage for the majority of any community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_and_Wear_Passenger_Transport_Executive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_and_Wear_Metro
Any public transport is OK with me.
Yes, Tyne & Wear, a KarlsRuhe type of operation (a mix of Urban Rail types) and with the unique "pretzel" line :-)
Consider if some town builds a jPod system. In the first couple of years, breakdowns (including wheelchair bound pax traveling alone) are common, and scheduling software "locks" up periodically.
Costs come out 12 times what was promised, and cracks appear in the lightweight supports (bad welding it turns out), Rust also appears after a few years and it looks like the whole lot will need to be junked in a few more years (Remember that it was all speced to be built for 1/10th the cost of a real transit system).
Has the public benefited ?
Alan
Personal attacks seem so unworthy. I would like an open debate on possible solutions. Emotional "gadgetbahn" seem like saying in 1989 the Internet will not work or PC are gadgetbahn, mainframes are proven. Both PC's and the Internet are like PRT, the application of distributed collaborative networks. PRT is nothing more than web browsers you get in, look up a web site and travel on a packet-switch network.
The need to find solutions is so great and time so short. I do not see the harm in trying to find niche solutions. Morgantown's PRT has delivered 110 million injury-free, oil-free passenger miles. Not a bad result from a beta version. We would not have the Macintosh computer without the Lisa. On the Internet, we would not have megabit transfers without 300 baud iterations.
Perhaps the big problem between us in talking about this is you want an answer and I think we need a process for testing and finding answers. I think if we had the answer, we would have solved the problem.
A great limitation of the the age of cheap oil in America is we made the car the answer to fill all niche needs. We built cities (long term investment) around cars/cheap oil (finite solution).
Just as background for anyone interested here are some comments:
European Union
Contract No. GMA2/2001/52046-S07.13187
The Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems Report
VR 2001:3
Booz, Allen, Hamilton Study for the New Jersey Legislature
This is the expected growth of these networks:
There are many more studies. There is current construction at Heathrow and Uppsala Sweden. In the process of iterating to find solutions.
Visit www.jpods.com/studies.html for more studies and notes on other efforts. The page starts with a quote about the car from a systems engineering perspective. Scroll down the page to see a significant amount of academic work.
I think if we had the answer, we would have solved the problem
WE DO HAVE THE ANSWER !
It is only the will to build it !
Gadgetbahn distract from that will.
I do not see the harm in trying to find niche solutions.
Austin Texas would have the first 20 miles of Light Rail operating TODAY ! and 50 more miles in planning if it were not for gadgetbahn salespeople.
Morgantown PRT is an economic failure, the costs per pax-mile are too high.
The computer analogies are valueless, we cannot shrink people like we did transistors. And the shrinking transistor is the underlying basis for advances in computers.
We have had 175 years to try alternatives, develop and debug the best operating system, we KNOW the solutions.
And it was not meant as a personal attack. I do have some compassion for you if you are a misguided idealist. But personal feelings of sympathy cannot sway me to support a self destructive course for society.
Best Hopes for Mature, Robust technology,
Alan
Lobbying for an ultimate solution to distract from an immediate improvement that competes with a current system is an intresting tactic.
Even if it has been used it do make sense to do research and development projects for new solutions, it is healthy for a technological society do do such RnD. But we should not mix RnD and starting solving problems today, we need to do both in parallell.
Even if "gadgethbahn" yet again turns out to be fairly useless good research programs will give new insights. You use to refer to Moscow metros 90 s headway, why do that work? What insights would a stressed "gadghetbahn" system give for such situations?
And it could have market niches. They could be good for saving the property value for current style Swedish external shopping centers if plug-in hybrids dont work out, but that would only be 10-20 systems. They could be a topographic solution inbetween streetcars and cableways for making some towns denser.
Sweden is in the enviable position of having a viable Non-Oil transportation system largely in place (yes it can and should be enlarged and improved).
The USA will have to strain every effort to get where Sweden is today in less than twenty years. We need tracks on the ground ASAP, and we are NOT doing that today. Diverting too small efforts and attention to gadgetbahn is the wrong strategy for the USA, but Sweden has that luxury.
If get them to work, we may buy some in 2026.
Best Hopes for Swedish R & D,
Alan
We act as a host for one such project and there are some RnD being done.
In RoI terms the situation is more or less the same in USA and Sweden. There is a very long list of reasonable rail investments and it tends to get longer with the growing traffic. There are efforts in finding ways to hurry up the development but it is not easy.
Collective traffic investments in towns and cities is slow planning that often is driven by other things then good economy. The fast moving part is changing to biofuels in the busses and adding more busses. Most tend to focus on commuting rail to other towns since that is a long term grow or die issue and road investments if there are any local bottlenecs since those give an immediate effect.
Car traffic is still growing with a petrol price of $8 per gallon and overall growth is centered around regions with a european style town in the center with a growing city center, external trade via car travel, a halo of suburban growth that often are an extension of old building structures and satellite towns connected via rail. We more or less got two trends running in parallell, one US and one "continental city". The loosers are deep rural areas and towns withouth good rail service to a growing center, they only survive if they have a key industry.
Quote from Swedish study:
Quote from you
Heavy and Light Rail, for all their great attributes are not personal transport. Your claim "We have the answer" seem to be unsupported by the places that already have extensive light/heavy rail systems.
That percentage will increase dramatically in an oil supply emergency. Ridership will climb quickly and total miles traveled (motorized) will fall dramatically.
Please note that the study excludes two vital modes, walking and bicycling, since they are not "motorized". A vital role for Urban Rail is to enable and encourage walking and bicycling (both forms of Non-Oil Transportation, and the supply of both modes can be easily doubled or tripled in an emergency *IF* the basics are in place).
Look at Sweden during WW II, when very little oil was imported.
Best Hopes for Sweden, walking and bicycling,
Alan
WW 2 gave an emergency electrification of the railways and a large part of that infrastructure is still in use.
There are still parts that are not electrified and there are suggestions for it but it is not a major win. The benefit is to a large degree in being able to use more unified wehicle fleets and get fewer diesel-under-wire freight trains. But it is at least somthing that is quick and easy to do for some added benefit, everything that is needed is anyway available for maintainance and reinvestment of electrified tracks.
What we got now is a reasonable electrified rail infrastructure between all large and most medim sized towns. But we lack high speed rail between the major cities and there are more initatives for additional freight and commuting then capacity. The freight demand is a free market demand, the commuting demand is subsidized with tax money.
During WW 2 we imported coal from nazi Germany in exchange for iron ore and machine parts. Trade and lick ass or get invaded, it were not our bravest moment.
There are more than 4 million miles of car roads in the US. By my best guess, we will need about 1.4 million miles of rail to build a sustainable infrastructure.
That rail will have to move both people and cargo.
From our perspective, we need to build a circulatory system for our economic community. Trains may provide some arteries but we need secondary and capillaries to survive.
The USA does not need 1.4 million miles of rail (OR PRT), unless you want to preserve Suburbia and Exurbia (and their associated energy use patterns).
The USA has about 178,000 miles of railroads today. Assuming most people can walk, bicycle or take a 25 mph GEM NEV (like a golf cart) a mile or two, I see little need for more than 300,000 miles of rail of all types (and that is pushing it).
For the next 25 years we should be focused on building the electrified arteries ! And in 2033 we can buy the debugged and improved PRTs from Sweden to fill in the gaps :-)
Walking is Good !
Alan
Walking is good. So it biking.
We have the cities we have. The 1.4 million miles is to get logistics and transport within a couple miles of most places in most cities.
We cannot build 1.4 million miles of sidewalks before significant effects of post-Peak Oil bite.
We have the cities we have, we have wasted trillions on Suburbia, Exurbia, McMansions, drive-in banks, strip shopping centers and shopping malls. We will not have the energy to heat and cool, light and support roads, water & sewer and police this overgrown mess.
Average homes have gone from 1,000 sq ft to 2,500 sq ft as average people/household size has shrunk. Average shopping sq ft/capita has increased ten fold since 1950.
Even absent personal transportation, we will not have the energy to support this Megapolis !
Urban Rail provide a nucleus for people to escape to.
Alan
The most advanced PRT project in Sweden in South Korean. They are here since our authorities are flexible enough to give a within EU ok for new kinds of rail technologies if they work out ok.
The effort at Uppsala is good. The general interest in Sweden is good. I have done a fair amount of business in Sweden and believe the Swedes will provide a significant jump to the industry.
POSCO has put an estimated $50 million.
I have seen perhaps half of the suggestions in media and otherwise. It is a mix of reasonable ideas, realy bad ones and some good.
I have personally adviced to not invest public money in PRT:s for my home town Linköping since we got good busses and a potential dual mode tram line that would be a nice combination with old railway lines.
But the "Kungens kurva" mall area and Arlanda airport suggestions are good ones that seems to make business sense. They could with a reasonably sized system connect multiple points of already present demand and some of the end points are on premises owned by interests with deep pockets.
Suggesting PRT:s anywhere is ok for the small number of people who live on selling studies but I realy hope the first systems are built at the best locations where they can add something unique that no other system can do. I would advice aginst PRT:s in my home town even if I loved them.
You are correct that networks need to be put where they fit their niche well. If properly placed, they should be a financial success.
I do not believe subsidized transport of any sort is sustainable in the time of peak oil. Transport will have to operate at a profit, add more value than the cost to compete.
It is likely that once put into operation, profitable solutions that achieve public policy objectives, will likely be refinanced under some bonding support. This will free the private capital to recycle and build more rail.
If a private company cannot build fast enough and operate profitably, the mode of transport they create, then they will fade away. The risk to choose well, build quickly and effectively needs to be a private responsibility.
I completley agree here, as although tradition is good in some forms of life, we should look for innovation when discussing peak oil, and technoligical advancements. Although this is the case, I do not think that we should consider it a civilization killer just yet. This is because most people dont face the problem until it is actually in front of us. It doesnt hurt to be technlogically prepared , but reality wont hit until its there.
Hi Alan
I looked at the web page and really like it. I will study more of the assumptions.
There is no doubt that rail can provide radical reductions in oil use and emissions.
We may not agree on some rail specifics. I do not oppose trains beginning built and used. I like trains, especially for freight.
I do not like trains for move individuals and individual pallets of cargo for several reasons: