 | We're Off To See The Wizard - Storing Energy Using Ammonia | The Oil Drum | An Open Letter to Our Next President about Energy Policy |  |
The contents below are paid advertisements. Their appearance does not imply an endorsement by The Oil Drum.
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.”
—Henry Ford
Search The Oil Drum with Google
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Prof. Goose, Heading Out, Stuart Staniford, Nate Hagens
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Gail the Actuary, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Khebab, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Local: Glenn
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Technician: Super G
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Local
- Ask not what your next President can do, Ask what you can do for your tribe
- Summer Streets a Success!
- Plan for Hydro-Fracture Drilling for Unconventional Natural Gas in Upstate New York
TOD:Europe
- RAMseS: a new agricultural paradigm
- RAMseS: a new agricultural paradigm
- The First Wave Energy Farm of the World...It's About Time...
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
- Oil Megaproject Update (July 2008)
TOD:ANZ
Peak Oil Primers
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
DC Metro Extension to Tyson's Corner and Dulles Resurrected
After intense political pressure (and outrage from area residents, Sen. Warner R-VA was reported to be "bright red" upon learning of the cancellation), this oil saving project is supposed to have it's 18% federal funding restored.
Previously killed weeks before the start of construction, new delays to restart (my guess) will add a year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR200804...
Best Hopes for 268 more days,
Alan
The initial phases that they were going to be working on involved relocation of utilities to get them out of the way. And given that I live in the area where all of this is supposed to take place, I can tell you that there has been an extraordinary amount of utility work going on in the past few months. Since I thought the project was dead, I didn't give it a whole lot of thought, so I need to dig some more and see if this work is related to the Metro in any way.
Right near where I live they have a former Cadillac/Hummer dealer. The cars are gone, and they are selling furniture out of the building. I was hoping they would tear down the Hummer dealer (I would have taken a photo and sent it to fuh2.com), but this is almost as good. My understanding is that this business is a placeholder using the old buildings until the plans are completed for whatever it is that is supposed to replace this. The ultimate fate of this site also depended on the Metro expansion.
Yes, the "April 2008" update has this:
http://www.dullesmetro.com/pdfs/FACTSHEET_UtilityRelocation.pdf
which suggests that the utility relocation work has been proceeding all along, as planned.
Who is going to buy furniture? With walk-aways, foreclosures, etc. of which we have only really seen the beginning, with Alt-A (or whatever they are called) resets coming up, not to mention other credit crunches (cards, cars, etc.) and the high and rising cost of gas?
Ah..light dawns...in smaller homes, and with doubling up, not to mention the costs of moving furniture, new and different furniture is needed...Maybe it’s not so dumb after all. ;)
Best hopes for more modest life styles,
Noizette (copying Alan)
Dunno. Don't care who does or doesn't buy the furniture, really. I just want a picture of them ripping down the Hummer building :-).
The credit crunch and real estate mess is still very localized in the DC area. The inner suburbs are still doing fine in terms of real estate - many of them were bought before the funny loans came to exist. In some neighborhoods, they report that prices are still increasing, and foreclosures are still rather rare.
Go out 10 miles or so, and you are really in the exurbs with no mass transit at all. That's where you find new subdevelopments that were thrown up more recently, and when the funny loans and the crazy valuations. That's where there is a lot more foreclosure activity.
Where we are in Tysons, it is kind of inbetween. I am not aware of many foreclosures (there could be some, but I don't pay close attention). To be honest, one of the problems in Tysons is a general lack of housing. It is mostly office and retail, which leads to the horrible traffic that they are trying to partially correct with Metro.
I just want a picture of them ripping down the Hummer building :-).
On 3 freeway trips I saw:
1) Sign saying 'this bank and this location will be a Hummer Dealership
2) A building was there with the H and all that.
3) A demo crane and a mostly flat building.
yes, hummer being ripped...niiiice. thanks for the other info.
I bought decent furniture ONCE, never again. Furniture for me now is the cheapest junk, used, milk crates, etc I can get away with. In the US, one has to assume they're going to be cleaned out, lucky to have the shirt on their back, every decade or so. Just like in the old Dickens novels - in fact Dickens was probably a time-traveler who came to our time, and wrote back in his trying to warn people of the evils of predatory capitalism.... etc etc etc anyway....
I had to give away the last good furniture I had, which was also the first good furniture I had. Someone at an antique store told me: "I remember in the Great Depression, all the furniture out on the street".
So yeah, Who buys furniture in a Depression? It is to be looked at only as firewood. Perhaps to build a bonfire to burn its wealthy owners on, if we are lucky!
But in a Depression, there are always people willing to try some business, desperate, willing to try anything that might bring in a few dollars to feed their family. They may have the old Hummer dealership rent-free, just to have someone in there.
Alan,
Have you ever seen this blog?
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=786
This particular post does a nice job at looking at potential mass transit solutions for the DC area.
Yes.
As a proof of concept that US Cities could be "rail saturated" with projects that would be worth doing with oil at $30/barrel, I worked with Ed Tennyson and another friend. on Washington DC, Los Angeles and New Orleans.
The results from DC are 15 new lines (3 proposed lines rejected as not viable) at $30/barrel) with first year ridership on the new lines would be 80% of DC Metro in 2004 and DC Metro (existing lines) ridership up 10+%.
Later TOD would substantially increase those ridership #s.
Most of the increase would be in the suburbs around DC, but market share for DC would also increase (perhaps 60% to 65% of DC commuters with oil @ $30/barrel).
Our lines chosen were different than those shown (in part). Ed Tennyson's last major job was estimating ridership of the 103 mile DC Metro system when completed before the first line opened. He was off by 3%.
Most interesting was a "Rose" Metro Line splitting the Red Line at Bethesda, down to Georgetown and then west north of existing line to Union Station (hitting Dupont and another circle). Two Red/Rose services, Glenmont to Bethesda and Shady Grove to Union Station. Shuttle between Orange Line and Rose line with a stop in Georgetown.
Also extending Purple line Light Rail from Bethesda to Tyson's Corner.
With oil at $116/barrel, the number of viable lines increases.
Best Hopes for Urban Rail,
Alan
Alan, when you mention 15 new lines is your thinking metro style rail, or street tram type rail, or a combination?
Thanks.
From memory (without checking my notes somewhere ...)
2 long streetcar lines in DC proper. Metro feeders as well as cross-town surface transit at slower speeds.
Improved commuter rail (electrified, faster) to Virginia all the way to Richmond.
Extend Silver Line Metro past Dulles to Leesburg, to pick up more suburbs and the mentioned "Rose" Line, splitting the Red Line into two overlapping halves.
And the rest Light Rail. Tysons' Corner would have Metro Silver going through and 3 Light Rail lines terminating there (Purple from Bethesda MD, Another to Pentagon and 3rd along "VA Turnpike or such" that is unclear in my memory). Bethesda would have existing Red Line, start of Rose Line and Purple Light Rail going through).
Hope that Helps,
Alan
Very cool Alan. I think by "VA Turnpike" you may be thinking of Little River Turnpike, which is Route7, it runs from Old Town Alexandria to Tysons Corner.
The 3 trillion shopping spree site has an option to Build a National High Speed Rail System, which might be flanked by some other offers (one can propose.) The ppl who bought it also bought 'finishing repairing Katrina damage' as well as 'end dependence on foreign oil' - quite.
OK, that is publicity / awareness, it does count:
link
I just finished my first AMTRAK trip, and I would like to start promoting a simple step to improve its efficiency. Make the line (The Coast Starlight) more bicycle friendly. On local lines, AMTRAK has convenient bike racks, but not on any long distance lines. And from my local stop, Dunsmuir, Ca., I can't even ship a bicycle in a box, because that station doesn't check baggage. Ideally, I could have ridden my bike the 10 miles to the station, then I could have been nearly car free for my week in Southern California.
Other than that, how was the trip? In two weeks I am taking the California Zephyr from Denver to San Francisco (Emeryville).
20 years ago I did the trip in reverse. The Sierras and Glenwood Canyon were quite awesome to view from the train. If you're riding coach, I suggest earplugs and eyeshades and loose comfortable clothes for the overnight. A small bottle of your favorite distilled beverage is also recommended, as are a good collection of snacks and a canteen.
I'd love to travel by train. I'd love to be able to get a ride to the town of Drake, not that far north of here, and take a train from there out to Los Angeles, Orange County, somewhere in there. Instead, it's not possible, and traveling by Amtrak is expensive! And I refuse to fly.
Oh well view's good from a motorcycle too.
Nice, but too long. It takes nearly twice as long as driving, and about three times as long as flying, including getting to the departure point and waiting time. The top speed is less than freeway auto speeds, and it often had to slow down or stop to accommodate other traffic on a single track. The conductor's instructions were confusing at the Oakland stop. What he meant to say was that this was a quick on-off stop, and you couldn't get off to smoke. What one large family heard was that we weren't at their scheduled departure point quite yet. They ended up having to get off at Emeryville. I think it worked out OK, because they needed to catch the BART, which stops at both places.
Price was about one third the cost of flying, and about on fifth the full per mile cost of driving a SOV, for a 600 mile trip.
I didn't realize there were fold out seat extensions to make sleeping easier, until the trip was almost over.
Alan, what were the results of your work on Los Angeles? Or where can I find them?
In my files. Prepared by the "Father of the Expo Line" Darryl Clark.
I wanted to confirm that it was indeed possible to build a large enough rail system to be cohesive (a certain fraction of the population could live car-free) in 3 very different US cities. Only lines that could be justified with the then current price of oil were considered.
I did not want to advocate something that was impossible or unreasonable. I was as much for me as for general interets.
Remind me next week (less busy I hope) and I will try and look it up.
Best Hopes for more Urban Rail,
Alan
Alan this is why although I'm a socal native, I long to be back in the SF area. I've been car-free in Socal, and it was a lot of fun, but the best car-free living I've seen has been up in the Sf area.
SoCal always seemed like the antithesis of fun car-free living, but then I grew up in the Rust Belt and moved to New England. What's your secret?
I liked the part about a circumferential line connecting outer areas with each other, there are many commuters that have to go from one outlying stop to another through a hub station like metro center to go to work. A Metro beltway line that connects the outlying areas would be great.
Circumferential lines are often the final step after about 8 lines (4 lines the go completely through the city center E-W, N-S, SW-NE, etc. or two lines that "Y" usually) are built out from the city center.
The Purple Line extended to Tysons Corner with provide a half circle around DC (perhaps 210 degrees).
An interesting story was that Stalin looked over Moscow subway plans and placed his coffee saucer (which he had slightly over filled) in the center of the map.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Moscow_metro.png
Alan
Maybe I won't sell my Herndon house after all....
With the airline industry beginning its death throes, isn't this a rail line to nowhere? Wouldn't the money be better spent city-to-city?
There are two phases, the first phase builds out through tysons corner and to reston.
Phase two goes through reston, herndon and to dulles airport.
I think phase one is very important as it will get alot of people off the road.
Phase two I concede is probably less necessary if we accept that the airline industry is on its last leg.
Or maybe not to nowhere. Dulles serves the District, the seat of the Federal Government. If necessary, you and I will be shivering in the dark, passing out from the heat, and bicycling in dangerous weather, just to conserve energy for higher Federal officials and their contractors to fly here, there, and everywhere at the most frivolous drop of a hat, just as they do now. If you don't think so, look at what happens even now in poor countries all across the world - for government officials, it's high-end business-as-usual now and forever.
Yu've nailed it. If need be, the USAF will buy the airplanes of the bankrupt airlines at auction and fly them around on a charter basis for FedGov officials as needed.
Good point! Just like in the old USSR, how many commoners do you think got to fly?
Actually, what I heard was that flights in the USSR were accessibly cheap. A little hair-raising, with people taking goats as carry-ons (at least in the sticks), but cheap.
International flights, even if fewer, (or more likely smaller planes like 787s) will be a priority user of remaining oil for quite some time IMHO.
And trains have low market share for more than about 500 miles, even in Japan and the EU with much better and faster trains. Hawaii, Californians, etc. will still be traveling to DC as long as it is the national capital.
IMVHO, shrinking air travel will reduce the need for multiple airports. Keep Dulles with Metro access (and long runways) and develop Reagan National Airport as a very walkable, bikeable mixed community across the river from DC.
Alan
Decommissioned runways would make excellent sites for PV or CSP arrays. Decommissioned airports might also be good locations to up up wind farms.
The airline industry is not in death throes, imho - world. Airlines will have to raise prices somewhat and may loose some customers, but that is it (some shrinkage, consolidation, etc.)
The rich will fly more than ever and will pay anything; the upper and middle lot may cut down a bit, etc.
Air travel in Europe is price competitive with other means of transport on many routes, short or long - tax on gas, car tax, and autoroute (highway) payment, parking costs, not to mention the hassle of driving and work hours lost. Train costs are high for the occasional, individual, traveller. Some itineraries can only be done by plane (the US is overall flat-ish and has roads everywhere.)
Partly, it is because airlines don’t pay tax on aviation fuel, though efforts to change that are long standing, and are ramping up, and the whole issue is horribly complicated, and varies from place to place, there are special taxes here and there. The details which I don't know would take a dedicated expert to sum them up.
Salon has an article: What's the problem with U.S. airlines? The low-price paradox.
salon
GWB Administration takes back with left hand what it gives with right hand
WMATA (DC Metro) must get funding for $489 million in backlog repairs (they are actively repairing when I was there a month ago) to get $900 million in funding for new line.
I am unaware of any road project refused federal funding until the city or state gets all existing roads up to 100% maintenance. Just a special rule for Urban Rail they just made up.
They also must guarantee that there will be no cost overruns. One thinks of the Big Dig and other road projects...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/30/AR200804...
As I feared. So the economic stimulus is delayed.
I wonder what the price of oil will be in 2014 vs. 2012.
Best Hopes for 267 more days,
Alan