<In the beginning of the fourth quarterThe Oil DrumRevisiting the barrels per rig issue>

70 comments on ANWR, and a midweek open thread

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light299 on November 3, 2005 - 5:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
It is perhaps true that we are finally reaching the peak.
Personally, I do not want the peak to happen, as it will result in particularly hard economic times. Also, I love cars and will probably never have the privelage of owning a V-8 (I would consider buying one in a year or so if gas holds steady, but if the peak occurs I wouldn't touch one). Perhaps one can infer that I am a member of the younger generation. $2.00 gas does not bother me, as I have never known anything much below that. In fact, I buy premium, and consume as much as possible. The simple logic is that millions of people have gotten years of cheap fuel, and I am about to get screwed. Why not burn it while I can still afford it (because life without it is going to suck). Yes, my attitude is bad. However, I am angry. I am angry that the previous generations didn't give a shit about comming up with alternatives. I am angry that GM recalled the EV-1. I am angry few people care. I am angry that no one is still doing anything (Bush's $1 billion went to oil companies to figure out how to get Hydorgen from OIL! (not that hydrogen is feasible anyways)). I have no choice, I do not have alot of money, and what little I have is about to be destroyed. What a great system we have...
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joule on November 3, 2005 - 7:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

As a child of the Sixties, I can appreciate your love of muscle cars. Who would have known that a Hemi-Cuda you could have hardly given away during the first oil crunch of 1973-1974 would now in 2005 be an easy six-figure car in decent shape. Tis sad, but that era is gone and gone forever. Any vestiges of it are more an more going to entail  well-heeled folk splurging on gas to bring their Sixties treasures to one nostalgic car show or the next. These cars are going to be mere icons of a past era, rather than something someone going to seriously use as a daily driver.

If you've got one, you're sitting pretty on a very good investment. If you want one, then you are going to pay and pay and pay. Their price will not be in the least way affected by the price of gas, simply because they have become almost art objects that someone pampers and polishes into extreme old age.

Yet, when you get right down to it, today's high-performance cars are objectively so much better than those grotesque Sixties muscle cars.

However, objective performance is not what it's all about. What it is all about is that certain 'feel' of a large  car with massive amounts of low-rpm torque ripping off the line.  Only a large-displacement, gas-guzzling  V8 engine can
provide that sort of feel.  It's the Beach Boys.

While I fully recognize that Sixties muscle cars are today about as appropriate as dinosaurs, still I'd love to go back to that energy-wasteful era just for a few weeks and tear up a little asphalt.  

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Engineer-Poet on November 4, 2005 - 12:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Do you want performance, or just a particular noise?

If you've been watching the news about batteries lately, you'd note that there have been several announcements of huge advances in lithium-ion technology; both the cycle life and the charge/discharge rate are about to go through the roof.

What does this mean for cars?  It means that any sort of electric car using these batteries and storing a significant amount of energy is going to have enormous amounts of electric power on tap.  If the motor etc. can get it to the wheels, you'll have neck-snapping acceleration just like the old days.

The future of hybrids is going to look like this:

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light299 on November 5, 2005 - 12:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It is true that electric technologies are promising. It is true that electric motors are both more effiecient, weight less than their gasoline counterparts, are easier to maintain...ect ect.. HOWEVER, do the calculations on how many watthours it takes to accelerate even a 2000lb car 1/4mile in 13.5 seconds, and you will see the problem more objectively
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Engineer-Poet on November 5, 2005 - 2:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Assuming constant acceleration (which is pessimistic and thus unassailable for determining feasibility):

d = ½at^2      ->       a = 2d/(t^2)

v = at = 2d/t

E = ½mv^2 = 2 m (d/t)^2

m = 900 kg
d = 1320 ft = 402.3 m
t = 13.5 sec

E = 1.6 MJ = 444 Wh

Expending 444 Wh in 13.5 seconds takes 118 kW.  If you had a 5 kWh battery capable of discharging at 100 C (quoted for a new Li-ion battery), you'd be able to get 500 kW out of it.  I don't see this as a problem.

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light299 on November 7, 2005 - 7:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Wow, I am underinformed. I had not heard of the new 5kw Li batteries. If such things were indeed possible that would be a great step forward. What are the weight/costs/size of these new batteries?
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Engineer-Poet on November 8, 2005 - 12:00am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The nanoparticle cathodes are creating some remarkable improvements in both charge/discharge rate and lifespan of Li-ion; one new announcement is here, and Toshbia and Altair Nano have also announced advances recently.
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wkwillis on November 5, 2005 - 6:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Batteries trade off between power and energy. The energy part of a lead acid battery has no strength, and the strength part of a lead acid battery has no energy. The energy part of a lead acid battery is the lead, the lead oxide, and the sulfuric acid. The strength part is the plastic that supports the weak and fragile lead and lead oxide paste. The more surface area, the more power, but the more surface area, the more plastic to support it and retain the lead and lead oxide, and that plastic does not take part in the electrochemical reaction that provides electricity.
So you can get twice as much power for half as much energy, and you do.
This is a very gross oversimplification, of course.
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davidsmi on November 4, 2005 - 3:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Let me just say that your anger is less than compelling. You're angry because you didn't get to be as blatantly wasteful as your father or grandfather? Poor baby. Maybe you should examine the values that spark such envy. You think you can't have a life worth living in a post-cheap oil world? You think the quality of your life is defined by the power of your  car? Excuse me if I don't have a lot of sympathy. There are billions of people in this world who have never and will never own a car. Put yourselves in their shoes for a minute and then tell me about your anger that you can't afford the gas for a V-8.
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light299 on November 5, 2005 - 12:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
True. However, I am not saying I will committ suicide, I am just saying that in contemporary America, particularly certain areas, it is not only next to impossible to live without a car, but there exists a car culture. I am expressing anger/sadness at both seing that culture dissappear, and at the fact that in some areas of America it is next to impossible to live without a car. In short, I realize it is selfish and wrong to wish to consume an equal amount to those who have gone before me. However, the system in which I was raised (capitalism) encourages constant growth, and at the least requires no growth. In other words, I am angry at the attitude taken by the American public thus far, and the fact such an attitude is still being embraced. (Oh, and not to start a flame, but the notion that I should be content because others have less has no more strength than the argument that I should be discontent because others have more)
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Twilight on November 5, 2005 - 9:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
As a life long car nut, I am gleeful at the prospect of the car culture de-emphasized - I don't really think personal transportation will completely disappear.  We have gone way too far in that direction, and are unable to see all the sacrifices we have made to the automobile.  The impacts on or landscapes and towns, our environment, our health, the huge amount of money we have spent on it, and of course the oil we have consumed.  So many of the problems of overconsumption are linked to the automobile.
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