The Oil Drum | Performance Governing: Getting Lucky and Staying Lucky

146 comments on Performance Governing: Getting Lucky and Staying Lucky

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Drizzt on July 5, 2008 - 12:30am

Peak oil is like herpes....once you get it, you
always have it.

HA! I hope not!
This site is cool:)

This is my first post.

I have four addictions: caffeine, nicotene, reading science fact & fiction, and reading Peak Oil theory trends.

Peak Oil is addicting because...

1. It is funny! Human suffering is not funny. Human folly IS funny. It is funny because laughing at folly is more satisfying than pure frustration or depression. Part of the folly is that right NOW the technology exists to mitigate and adapt to Peak Oil with a minimum of hardship. The folly is that the optimum strategy(s) will NOT happen because they require rationality, lack of selfishness, planning very long term IE more than 30 years, and cooperation on a global scale...what are the odds of that? Humans will muddle through the problem with some brilliant solutions enacted locally, but without a global rational plan.

2. The worst case scenerio of Peak Oil is global disaster and catastrophic population reduction= big time drama of apocolypse.

3. Peak Oil is one of the BIG trends that will determine the quality of MY life and EVERYONE's life in the short to medium term (5 years to 30 years) IE reading Peak Oil theory is speculation on MY future and humanities future in my lifetime.

4. Could add more. Why do YOU keep up with Peak Oil theory?

There was an earlier thread "Will Wartime Mobilization Solve Peak Oil?" I'll describe fuel efficeincy improvements possible in that type of scenerio.

First I'll gaze into my nonexistant crystal ball and say that gasoline will be $25 per gallon in 2048 not counting inflation. A nice round and BIG number to work with. If you drive 1000 miles per month @ 10 MPG ? My calculation says that would be $2500 dollars per month OR $30,000 per year just for gas for one car. My guess is SUVs ( SUVS as they currently are, not super fuel efficient theoretical future ones) would be very unpopular with anyone who has an income under $250,000 if gas were that price.

How about a car that gets 150 MPG? That is 1/6th the cost...so with the same mileage and gas price you get $5000 per year= aprox $400 per month. $400/month is not chump change, however many people could manage it. And that is for a full 1000 miles per month! Halve your miles and most people could still afford to drive a car that gets 150 MPG. Appologies if I have math errors; I'm figureing in my head. Do you see how increased MPG has a dramatic effect on affordability of using a car?

Why 150 MPG? $30 MPG is the new standard milage for an average car; exludes SUVs, trucks, and sports cars. 50 to 60 is expected for current "super efficeint" cars (HA! HA! that is a laugh:-) There are a few production cars TODAY that get close to 100 MPG...IMO 150 MPG is not a big stretch of the imagination & I will describe why next.

150 MPG car: different options to get there

1. Heard of the Air Car from and only in Europe? If you had that you just plug it in at night most of the time. For long trips? Buy a Honda 1000 watt generator to run compressor on the Air Car. It would take some fiddling to get an exhaust system for the generator if you did this as a permanent setup, but it wouldn't be spendy. I don't know how the overall efficeincy would be with that setup, but my guess is over 75 MPG.

2. Prius is good, but ALL current batteries have a power to weight ratio that limits the practical maximum miles you get on a charge. I read one article on a kinetic energy storage device that sounded awsome: magnetic bearings (I didn't even know that was feasible! ), 100,000 RPM flywheel that would only lose 3% power in a month or two because the magnetic bearings were very low resistance, at that RPM a 300 pound flywheel has monstrous ineria...and thus power storage capability, motor/generator to control flywheel, and last is very strong one inch kevlar external frame because it had LOTS of inertia and thus a faillure would be dangerous. That is one invention that was probably bought by a car or oil company because they seriously disliked it! You hear rumurs about other improvements to fuel efficiency that 'mysteriously' never make it to market. With a "Wartime Mobilization" to improve fuel efficiency of cars IE if the US government said "You are REQUIRED to make 3 million cars per year that get 125 MPG within 2 years" IF the US government said that to the Big Three they would successfully do it because it wouldn't require new technology.

3. What powers a helicopter? Big planes? Tanks? Some trains? The answer is a turbine motor. How many 10s of Billions of dollars have been spent to make turbine motors efficient? Turbine motor is better than 90% efficient VS maby 30% efficiency of Prius engine

Prius gets 50 MPG today...guess how Toyota could make a prius in 2010 that gets 150 MPG? If youre guess was to swap out the Internal Combustion Engine for a small turbine engine...ding! youre right! Some might object that miniturizing a planes turbine engine to fit in a car woould be hard; I say it would cost less than $100,000,000 for R&D plus another $2 Billion to build a factory. That is not cheap from my perspective, however from the perspective of fuel $ savings if 5 million turbine/electric hybrids were made it is an excellant deal.

From my understanding global hydrocarbon liquids (all types ) has been on a plateau since 2005 or so. Being optimistic lets just say the plateu of oil production lasts untill 2014. A simple doubling of fuel efficiency for cars would extend the plateau for another ? years. Triple efficeincy and plateau extends longer. The extension I am talking about is not of the supply of oil but of the economic output and quality of life, and give humanity longer to adapt to Peak Oil. I don't think I was clear; I meant that a doubling or tripling of fuel economy of cars IS feasible and it would make the plateau and downslope of Hubberts Curve less traumatic.

Back to my original thought; solutions ARE feasible but humans will muddle along and continue to be idiotic.
Human Folly will continue to amuse me

Cheers

Question all assumptions. Never be satisfied with easy answers. Buffylives

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ruckrover on July 5, 2008 - 1:31am

Excellent post by Bill James. The way to solve our problems is certainly there.

Sadly Drizzt points out that human selfishness and greed are real obstacles.

By the way a 150mpg SUV is purchasable in the USA today - www.afstrinity.com - if I lived in the USA I'd order one. If the homo sapiens was as wise as his latin name suggests then AFSTrinity's technology would be bought out and shared to all automakers - who would have their gas-guzzlers taxed off the roads.

The AFSTrinity XH (extrem hybrid) SUV has better performance than its internal combustion engine version. It also doesn't need any petrol ever if you just are an inner city commuter. This is an SUV mind you - now if it was the battery/capacitor technology in a small car - maybe 500mpg for intercity driving and longer range for full electric daily commuting.

Get the F***ing Hummers etc (at least the ICE versions) off the road quick!

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Soylent on July 5, 2008 - 10:48pm

By the way a 150mpg SUV is purchasable in the USA today - www.afstrinity.com

Pure marketing BS, it gets ~30 MPG in gasoline mode just like it says in the FAQ.

In all electric mode it gets infinite MPG because a kWh is not gasoline. If you make certain assumptions about driving habits it averages out to 150 MPG and an unspecified amount of miles per kWh which is curiously omitted.

In other words it's an electron-guzzler, with the option of working part time as a gas-guzzler. That's neither amazing new technology nor particularly commendable.

If the homo sapiens was as wise as his latin name suggests then AFSTrinity's technology would be bought out and shared to all automakers - who would have their gas-guzzlers taxed off the roads.

You're certainly doing your part to make sure sapiens is just an empty piece of flattery with this post.

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PriorityX on July 5, 2008 - 3:18am

1. Heard of the Air Car from and only in Europe? If you had that you just plug it in at night most of the time. For long trips? Buy a Honda 1000 watt generator to run compressor on the Air Car.

The air car, excuse the pun, is just hot air. The air pressure it requires is incredibly high. Far higher than a home generator and compressor can provide, even if running all night. Far higher than the compressors used in automotive repair shops could provide.

I own a auto repair shop and know the limits of compressors of the size they typically use. What I did not know, until reading an article on the oildrum.com about the air car, is the magnitude of the difference between what the air car needs for pressure and the pressure that compressors most people are familiar with can provide.

http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3388#more

This is why I like the oildrum.com. It gives me the opportunity to learn the science behind the idea. We all agree time is short. The more facts we share, the more likely we can make personal decisions in our best interest.

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vacosvc on July 5, 2008 - 9:06am

Drizzt: Your ideas for developing a 150 MPG Car are a bit off track.

First, energy storage solutions, be they compressed air, batteries, flywheels, or hydrogen powered fuel cells, do not address the core issue/problem/paradigm shift:

Total BTUs available for use in our economy are going to shrink.

The dilemma in front of us is: how fast, how far, and how evenly distributed, the decline will be.

Second, turbines are not more efficient converters of fuel to mechanical energy. Their advantage in aircraft is light weight and mechanical simplicity (reliability), in electrical power production, reliability and low capital cost / MW (compared with a coal fired or nuclear power plant) are the reason for the growth in natural gas fueled electrical power.

Forrest

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Drizzt on July 5, 2008 - 4:37pm

PriorityX
I checked your link RE the Air Car thinking it would be a three minute 2 or 3 paragraph summary. ACH! It was a whole discussion, and technical...I read it all. Thanks

Vacosvc
1. Drizzt: Your ideas for developing a 150 MPG Car are a bit off track.

2. The dilemma in front of us is: how fast, how far, and how evenly distributed, the decline will be.

Hmmm...I am not a mechanical engineer. I gave examples AND meantioned there are likely OTHER solutions that exist but have been bought & sat on by Oil Cos because increased auto efficiency would reduce Oil Profits. So...I still believe that 150 MPG is feasible in JUST two years.
Regarding your second point; MY point was that a fleet of 5 million cars getting 15o MPG would reduce the speed of the decline and allow more time to adapt with less trauma. A fleet of 100 million if built over time or in multiple countries would extend the decline proportionately more.

3. Second, turbines are not more efficient converters of fuel to mechanical energy. Their advantage in aircraft is light weight and mechanical simplicity (reliability), in electrical power production, reliability and low capital cost / MW (compared with a coal fired or nuclear power plant) are the reason for the growth in natural gas fueled electrical power.

Regarding point 3, please provide a link! I disagree, and will explain why.
A four cylander engine has four cylanders that go UP/stop, then DOWN/stop a total of two times for one compression cycle. Each time the cylander stops it will leach NET energy from the energy to get the cylander to go the opposite direction. A turbine engine has no corrosponding STOP part of its cycle; it is simply ON. This is also why a wankle engine is mechanically more efficient than a cylander engine; Wankle engines don't have a STOP portion of the combustion cycle. Another point is that due to the drastically simpler design of a turbine engine there are less contact points to cause frictional losses.

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Mr-D on July 5, 2008 - 7:57pm

First comment here, but super efficient vehicles already exist and are being sold in Europe.

Has anyone heard of the TWIKE? I would buy one if they were sold in Canada. Top speed is around 55mph (85kmh). It uses electricity and gets the equivalent of 250-500 miles per gallon. This would great for transportation within cities for a tiny fraction of the energy being used now.

It looks like it's really fun to drive and they don't take up much space to park either. You can even get some exercise while driving one (no joke). They just need to produce a lot more of them. The discovery channel show Daily Planet did a good show on this one.

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vacosvc on July 6, 2008 - 10:15am

Here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_specific_fuel_consumption

I'm sure there are other links out in the ether, but this one has information on specific types of engines.

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fordprefect on July 5, 2008 - 1:36pm

fly wheels won't work for cars. They will "precess" like gyroscope, so any attempts to steer (or go over uneven terrain depending on the orientation of the wheel) will result in the vehicle flipping over.

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Drizzt on July 5, 2008 - 4:02pm

While there might be other feasibility issues, pressession was accounted for.
The inventors solution included TWO counter rotateing flywheels...so the net external torque would be zero.

BTW, while as a concept it seems awsome I am suspicious that maby the magnetic bearings need superconductors. That requirement would drastically change the total mechanical efficiency calculation because you would need to account for energy cost of coolant for superconduction.

Also, the article was in Nexus Magazine...which is an entertaining read, but should be read with signifigant skeptical inclination because Nexus is very speculative IMO.

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BillJames on July 5, 2008 - 4:36pm

Flywheels and other forms of power storage are very applicable to storing solar power. We have looked at locating them in the footings for the vertical supports. Long term it looks like ultra-capacitors will become extremely inexpensive.

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