DrumBeat: October 19, 2006
Posted by threadbot on October 19, 2006 - 9:18am
Happy days are here again: Demand for gasoline surges as prices take a dive
WASHINGTON — Americans are celebrating plunging gasoline prices by hitting the roads.After barely rising during the summer months, gasoline demand rose swiftly in September, the American Petroleum Institute said Wednesday.
Deliveries of gasoline to U.S. service stations, a proxy for demand, rose more than 4% in September from the same month a year ago. That number was boosted by the comparison with September 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita interrupted deliveries.
But even excluding the hurricane effects, gas demand likely was up approximately 2% in September, API economist Ron Planting says. That's about triple the average increase over the prior six months and the biggest gain since August 2005.
"Lower prices are encouraging people to get back out there and drive," says Stephen Brown, director of energy economics at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Southeast Asia's Clean Air Conundrum
Burning of Indonesian forests is causing widespread pollution. But it's done to grow crops for environment-friendly -- and lucrative -- biofuels.
Statoil suspends production at second offshore platform
OSLO (AFP) - Norway's leading oil company Statoil has said it has halted operations at a second platform off the Norwegian coast due to adverse weather conditions in the region, resulting in a 140,000-barrel per day loss in production.
OPEC agrees one million barrell per day output cut
DOHA (AFP) - OPEC has agreed an oil output cut of one million barrels a day but has yet to decide whether it will be based on official quotas or actual production, Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez has said.
Chavez's fate may rest in OPEC's hands: Venezuelan president desperately seeks production cut to drive up crude oil prices.
China plays catch-up in energy game
HONG KONG - The recent announcement that China has begun filling the tanks at the first of four planned sites for strategic oil reserves comes as a reminder that the game is on for the world's energy resources. But China - a latecomer to the contest - has started at a considerable disadvantage.
Regime Change in Timor-Leste, the ousting of Mari Alkatiri
Alkatiri left so as to prevent a genuine crisis and massive loss of life. In the process, East Timor became the most recent casualty of Peak Oil geopolitics. The UN, as Alkatiri might have hoped it would, has provided ample proof.
Motley Fool reviews Twilight in the Desert
Russia’s oil giant, LUKOIL has presented development strategy that extends till 2016 and specifies the double growth in crude and gas equivalent. Of interest is that the gas output will account for a material portion of increase. The attitude of analysts is rather skeptical. They say exactly the gas section of strategy hasn’t been properly elaborated and LUKOIL chiefs just attempt to encourage capitalization growth before the management sells its stake in the company.
More nations clamor for nuclear energy
Vattenfall Proposes Global 100-Year Climate Stabilization Framework
Speaking in Stockholm today at “Pathways to Sustainable European Energy Systems,” the inaugural project conference of the Alliance for Global Sustainability, Vattenfall CEO Lars Josefsson proposed a worldwide, adaptive carbon reduction burden-sharing framework to be implemented over the next 100 years, as part of a path towards a low carbon emitting society.
Saudi Arabia, others invest in refining projects; Power sector reform in Nigeria, the real issues
Georgia questions delayed Azerbaijan gas
Azerbaijan will not be able to supply Georgia this year with the additional gas supplies that the Georgian government is seeking in order to forestall the possibility of an energy crisis. Some experts in Baku believe that Russia’s ongoing diplomatic row with Georgia is influencing Azerbaijani policy decisions.
An Oil Habit America Cannot Break: Americans don't want to undertake the painful steps necessary to fix our energy woes.
West could see gas, oil boom over 20 years
How close is runaway climate change?
Germany Puts Global Warming Prevention Plan in Gear
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned of the unexpectedly fast pace of global warming and said the country needs to follow a unified plan to protect itself from increasing environment change.
Climate change blamed for legionnaires' disease surge
Making fire from ice: a new fuel for the 21st century
Beneath our seas, reserves of frozen methane hold more energy than all other fossil fuels put together. But can we get at them without causing environmental meltdown?
Renewable energy movers, shakers meet to plan future
As it has in the past, the conference — now in its fifth year — will include talk on wind power projects in Vermont and strategies to slow global warming as the world approaches "peak oil," that point from which petroleum production begins to drop.
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But then a few days later (Oct. 16 drumbeat), Leanan linked to a news article about troubles the electricity grid is having now, before the mass use of plug-in hybrids. Does anybody have any comments about the impact that plug-in hybrids would have on the electricity grid? I know you'd have to recharge your car at night - during off-peak hours. But still, this seems like a huge burden to put on an already struggling grid. It also seems like it would require the burning of a lot more coal.
From what I've gathered, the sorry state of our grid system is already stretched and needs improvements. Personally, I am beginning to think deregulation was the worst thing for power, but I'm sure many here will argue. Also you pointed out the other great point. The only way for this to work for the medium/long term is burning the hell out of all the coal. No thank you.
And as was already posted today, most of the EVs will be recharged via onsite renewable energy systems such as wind or Solar. The battery technology is ALREADY here. Were not talking about a few key breakthroughs needed in 5 years time. We only need the investment into the battery production to make them cost effective with gas long term. But honestly, you can find doom even in the brightest of circumstances :P
Why should anybody believe this? As the discussions have shown, most people will plug them in during the night, into the 220 socket in their garages. What sort of PV cells would operate then?
This is like claiming that we can switch from gas clothes dryers to electric, and make the assumption that it will be supplied by roof PV panels.
I live in Arizona, where the sun shines best, and they're slapping up new homes as fast as they can haul in lumber and concrete. And not a one of them has PV panels on the roof. The only PV panels or wind generators belong to a few scattered homesteaders, like myself.
The vast majority of our electricity in S Arizona comes from coal, strip mined in Southern Utah and on the Indian reservations.
So lets' convert all the cars and trucks in Tucson to run on coal from the Red Rock country of southern Utah. COOL!
How is anyone supposed to win this sort of debate when the conditions keep being changed? Obviously if everyone had PV on their roofs we would be in very good shape and thus wouldn't be talking about how to go about solving our problems. The fact that we have problems implies that solutions have not already been adequately implemented.
Also since everyone is worried about the grid. With more PV we could lower demand during the day, and have higher demand during the night. Using EVs and PHEVs along with solar PV would balance power grid usage out by a great deal. Hopefully one day power demanded from power plants would actually be highest at night, rather than during the day as it is now.
See winter in many locations, especially winter weekend nights.
6-7/8 PM is often a secondary or primary peak. And I expect most PHEV & EV owners to come home, plug in and fix dinner (overriding or ignoring any time of day feature, missing on the Telsa BTW). Thereby adding to the Peak & grid stress.
Time will, of course, tell. But the current SUV owners are not likely to become model citizens when they go EV IMHO.
Best Hopes,
Alan
He's talking about if we replace all U.S. cars and trucks with electric vehicles. Not just the ones that exist now.
I'm intrigued. How did you come up with the energy equivalent of 57GW? Does the 220 Million figure includes all cars and trucks including tractor trailers?
The truth is this applies to cars too, and actually you can roll quite fast on even a very slight incline as a result of the car's weight. I think many people are under the assumption that without the engine pushing constantly the car would just stop, but that is not true (if you have a manual it's easy to push the clutch in, it can be impressive sometimes just how far you can roll with no power input whatsoever).
Once a car is actually rolling it doesn't necessarily require that much power to keep it in motion, especially with low rolling resistance tires. On the other hand with AC we have the issue that people are trying to keep their houses well below the ambient outdoor temperatures. When you're trying to keep your house 20-25 degrees below the ambient outdoor temperature you are just going to waste tons and tons of energy. It's kind of like running uphill, you are spending a lot of energy fighting the laws of nature. An AC will be running basically nonstop during the day, whereas on average a car will not be in motion more than a small fraction of the day.
The USA currently uses about 320 million gallons of gasoline in a day. A gallon of gasoline yields around 36.6 KWH, so the heat energy in the gasoline used in one day in the USA is about 12,000 GWH.
According to a Wikipedia article, electric vehicles are about 4 times as energy efficient as gasoline vehicles. If all the cars burning all that gasoline were converted to elctric drive, the efficiency gain would require 3,000 GWH per day. If all vehicles were recharged in a 12-hour off period, this would require an average capacity of 250 GW, or about 25% of the nominal grid capacity.
How do you get 57 GW?
- Current battery recharging and discharging technology is well, technologically backwards. When you recharge a battery, only a fraction of the energy used actually gets stored in the battery. The rest is lost to heat. Dont believe me? Go and recharge your cell phone and then pick it up and feel how 'warm' the back side of it is, where the battery is located. Also, take a look at most laptop batteries and how hot they get. The heat produced by the computer doesnt cause all the heat to be localized in one location...
- The Tesla itself takes only 3 hours to go from completely drained to a full charge. Far less then the 12 hour time period you expect the plugged in cars to drain energy from the grid.
- The new batteries such as the one Toshiba developed take a fraction of the time current batteries take to recharge. These new batteries have the potential to be ~80% recharged in ONE MINUTE. Think about that for a second before you dismiss PEVs outright.
- The ICE you are probably currently driving around only has an efficiency of less then 18%. That means for the 134,000 btu of energy stored in each gallon of gasoline, your only using at most 24,120 btus to move your car. The rest is lost to heat. To prove this to yourself, go and drive about 150 miles, then park and have a seat on your supposedly nice and cool engine cover.
- Electric cars are VASTLY more efficent and using energy then ICEs are. And the ironic thing about EVs, the more powerful the electric motor is, the more efficient it becomes. Thats why vehicles like the Tesla have a 185 hp electric motor when many people point out that you really only need about 50hp to get the job done. It's all about efficiency.
- Obviously, any massive EV scale up would require the usage of 'smart' recharging appliances. These appliances would be able to determine weather or not the energy grid is 'spikeing' due to excessive power drainage, or if energy usage is low and it is safe to recharge the batteries.
- The Tesla and the upcoming 4 door sedan are stated to have a range of about 250 miles per charge. The nationwide AVERAGE miles per day per vehicle is about 30 miles. That means that on average, you will drive around 30 miles a day to do all your shopping, getting to and from work and any other trips you make. That means you technically only need to recharge ~once every 8 days. Lets just place that figure on a nice 1 day a week recharge period for the AVERAGE driver.
----Now what does this all mean? It wont take 257 GHw of electricity every night to recharge the vehicle, it will take ~37 ghw a night, asuming INTELLIGENT recharging with intelligent applications by the consumers. Comments?
So that means you will need more energy in total than just the amount expended in motion. That doesn't help your case.
Charging time doesn't matter. What matters is the amount of energy drawn from the grid. Shorter time = higher current. The energy requirement remains the same.
Again, charge time isn't the issue. A shorter charge time may make it easier for power companies to regulate the smart chargers and prevent grid overload, but it doesn't change the amount of power they will need to provide.
As I said above, the efficiency advantage of electrics over fossil fuelled ICE is well known. The advantage is given as 4:1 by this Wikipedia article. That was factored into my analysis above.
This is a given for preventing grid overload. It doesn't address the total amount of energy needed.
If you maintain the passenger-miles currently driven and just change the energy source, you wind up with the numbers I calculated above. Here you are moving the goalposts by assuming a change in driving habits.
My analysis stands - 250 GW supplied for 12 hours per day is required to replace the transportation capability provided by gasoline engines today. You can cut that energy requirement by changing people's driving habits, but to get it to 57 GW (I assume 37 was a typo?) you'd have to cut the passenger miles by three quarters, or quadruple the efficiency of elctric vehicles or some combination of both.
I still don't see how you got 57 GW.
These new batteries can take a higher voltage of current running th rough them, meaning less energy is lost in conversion. You dont actually use more energy to charge the battery in a shorter period of time, you just charge them more efficiently for less power overall.
I suspect a lot of what you are saying is incorrect. For a start inverters don't convert AC to DC it's the other way around. Transformer rectifiers convert AC to DC. You state new batteries can take higher voltages of current. This is in correct, current is measured in AMPS not voltage and diodes control the direction of current not the amount going through them. I haven't time to look at the grid calculations but if the above is any indication it won't add up
Next, just replace the coal plants with 500 new nukes, and we can meet kyoto.
All we need is to persuade japan/korea/china to ship us 300 million new cars and 500 nukes in exchange for our highly desirable paper... We live on too high a plane to make this stuff ourselves.
I think you are forgeting how current-limited the grid is at the local neighborhood level. Even with intelligent appliances installed everywhere: fast, high amperage battery recharge cycles would still be limited by wiring safety limits. Therefore recharge cycles will take much longer than the theoretical ideal, unless we rewire every neighborhood [not likely]. Therefore, it will just take a certain # of fat-cat PHEVs to shutoff the heat, A/C, and refrigerators for the rest of their neighbors during the overnight battery recharge cycle. They won't be happy campers.
I am no engineer, but battery powered bicycles recharging everywhere would probably not overwhelm the current wiring limits of a neighborhood because the amp-draw is so low. No need for "smart appliances" either--which most people will not be able to afford postPeak anyhow.
But I could be wrong as this is speculation with no supporting facts. I just wanted to point out this potential roadblock to the dream of providing PHEVs for everyone. You might have better facts.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Thxs for responding. Good possibility that your reply might be the best cost-effective response vs rewiring neighborhoods. If the potential energy savings are so high by PHEVs--how come all the delivery trucks are not converting over?--I don't understand why the trucking industry is not spear-heading this conversion now: a massive fleet re-design if the cost savings are so obvious. Do you have an answer?
I am in favor of everything TODer AlanfromBigEasy suggests, but we will still need local delivery vehicles. It seems to me that the international emphasis should be on truck-PHEVs, and not personal PHEVs. Toyota, GMC, MACK, Peterbilt, etc, should be building RIGHT NOW big fleets of Truck-Prius, instead of personal cars IMO, and finalizing the designs for battery powered PHEV trucks. I will gladly pedal a bicycle everywhere as a tradeoff to having food delivered to my local supermarket.
Long haul PHEV truckers could have truck stops where the battery packs are quickly switched out by forklifts to get them back on the road soon. I greatly worry that the trucking industry is not Peakoil Aware--at the very least we should already have PHEV fire-trucks and ambulances.
Attention: TODer Gail the Actuary--I think the insurance industry and other corporations would be frantic for PHEV firetrucks, if they are looking ahead--Do you have any idea why not? Thxs for any reply.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
As always great insight. I know that someone on this board months ago chimed in on this in relation to Volvo's plans. I can't remember what was said, so I won't lead you astray. This was coming from a guy working on the lines. I did a search and found that Magnus Redin is in Sweden, and he is mentioning something to do with Fords investment in their hybrids, but I don't remember if this is similar.
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/7/16/92623/0023/191#191
Thxs for responding. Yeah, truckers are not worried about fast acceleration like a TESLA sports car owner. But the high torque levels of an electric motor is IDEAL when you are hauling 80,000 lbs of cement, watermelon, lumber, beer, or whatever, in a big rig. Regenerative braking could be a big safety PLUS when these monsters have a long, steep downgrade ahead of them too. Much better than the current system of having your air-brakes fail, then the trucker hoping and praying that somehow he can control the rig until he can hit the offroad gravel safety runaway at the bottom of the hill.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I use this trick all the time when going downhill. In a manual you can even turn the car off completely and just bump start the engine when you get to the bottom. Not sure I would try it at 90 MPH, of course...
With an electric motor and battery you could store some of the excess (going 90 MPH is not really all that safe most of the time). Even though you get only a small fraction of the energy through regenerative braking, it's still "free" energy.
So where has that led us too? We have mechanic shops all across the companies and at every dealership: the parts that they used are sold by the same car manufacturers you got the car from in the first place. The price to fix the cars helps increase the car companies margins. And what about the oil servicing industy. On the trip home from work today, I passed 5 different oil changing businesses. Where do the parts and material they use come from?
When you look at the big picture, you can see why the auto industry has been against the EV potential. Why would any sane business produce a car that has less then half the current movable parts and is less prone to breaking down over its lifetime? There's no money in a super efficient EV when your entire business model has been based on the assumption that the cars will utilize the high margin secondary markets!
Thxs for responding. Truckers feel ripped off if the big-rig they purchased doesn't last a million miles with a reasonable amount of repairs/rebuilds. They want reliability and max uptime to earn income; there is not a lot more to be gained in further aerodynamic improvements when hauling large, bulky loads. If truck PHEVs have lower lifetime operating costs, improved safety and uptime improvements, and vastly lower emissions over present day diesel rigs--some manufacturer will get rich by being the first to market these vehicles.
Truckers are log-book limited by Fed law on how many hours they can drive in a day. I think tagteam truckers would gladly welcome one driver working the quiet electric drive while the other got silent, peaceful shuteye in the cabin bunk. Cooling the drivers' cab is nothing compared to the A/C required to keep a forty foot long trailer of ice cream cold.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
As for normal hybrid trucks, I think the reality is the way trucks are driven (primarily on the freeway at more or less constan speeds) limits the impact a hybrid drive can have on efficiency. A gas or diesel engine is most efficient when operating at constant speeds like on the freeway.
You can see this born out in the fuel economy figures of regular cars and hybrids. Much of the increase in hybrid gas mileage is under city driving conditions. On the freeway hybrids get better fuel economy, but most of that is a result of them having a smaller engine (since the electric motor is used to help accelerate when necessary). In reality the electric motor on a hybrid is rarely in operation on the freeway, and a car with a similar engine minus the hybrid components would do just about as well in terms of FEC. The non-hybrid car would not accelerate as well or go uphill as well without the electric assist, however.
A normal hybrid truck would still have some advantage over a non-hybrid, but it would not be that huge under freeway driving conditions. Going back to PHEV trucks, a better option is just to use electrified rail, not that PHEV trucks might not some day be the norm.
Postal & UPS delivery vehicles might be good candidates for hybrid technology (hydraulic storage rather than battery perhaps).
Best Hopes,
Alan
Other issues - One might think that emergency vehicles will be given first dibs on whatever fuel is available. Also, emergency vehicles are driven relatively little, so I would expect would last a long time. A disproportionately large share of their fossil fuel use would go into their manufacture, rather than their day to day use.
http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/
I don't understand the units, but the chart from this site that I posted in my office shows "distributed electricity" at 11.9 and "transportation" at 21.2. Transportation would include airplanes, trucks, etc. But anyway that should get the scales set in the ballpark.
This site, from US DOE, shows the breakdown of all energy flows in the US, in quads, or quadrillion btus of energy.
It shows that total electrical power generation is 38 quads, used 19 quads residentical/commercial, and 19 quads industrial.
transport uses 26.5 quads
(chemicals, etc., use another 6 quads of petrol).
It also shows electricity generation results in lossesof 69% waste energy, and transport fuel at 80% lost energy. (Not that great a difference. Electricity is 31% efficient, petrol 20% efficient...)
If coal is 31% efficient at being turned into electricity, and then, to be usable for EVs, has to go through transmission lines and transformers, and then accept losses becoming battery power, I wonder whether it really IS more efficent than gasoline?
Also, since (realistically), any increase in electrical generation will be coming from coal, that would entail almost a doubling of coal excavation! (20 quads of coal now, plus perhaps another 16 quads to power our EV Hummers).
1 gallon of gas = 130.88 MJ stored energy
130.88 mj ~ 36.35 kw/h equivlant, or about what you stated.
Now here is where it gets tricky. The average consumer car only has a 12% efficiency from gasoline. That means for every gallon of gas, only 12% of the stored energy content is used to propell the vehicle. The most efficient ICE, a diesel, gets about 18.5% efficiency fyi.
36.35 kw/h x .12 = 4.362 kw/h
That is to say that the same energy in electrical power to propell the car is about 4.362 kw/h! Now, you have stated that wiki shows that EV engines are 4x more efficient.
4.362 x .25 = 1.0905 kw/h
Does it take 1.0905 kw/h to power an EV to go the same distance a comparable ICE goes?
210,000,000 x 1.0905 kw/h = 229005000 kw/h
229005000 kw/h =~ 229.005 GW/h
229.005 GW/h / 12 hours = 19.08375 GW/h needed!
Even if you use the same efficiency of 4.362 kw/h, thats still only 76.335 GW/h over the course of one night, ASUMING EVERYONE PLUGS IN THEIR CAR AND RECHARGES OVER THE ENTIRE NIGHT!!! In practice, it will be FAR LESS on the average night.
I bet you didnt think I would do my homework :P
You're making it too hard. If an EV is on average 4 times as efficient as an ICE, then you take the energy content in all the gasoline used by ICEs, divide by 4 and you have the electrical energy you need to replace it. Your 0.12 factor is included in that efficiency ratio.
If yoyu want to replace the existing daily usage of 400 million gallons of gasoline, you need to come up with the electrical energy equivalent of 100 million (10^8) gallons. That's about 36.5*10^8 KWH, or 3.65 billion KWH, which of course is 3,650 GWH per day.
It doesn't matter how long you take to recharge your cars, the system overall needs to deliver 3,650 GWH of energy to vehicles in the USA every day to maintain the same transportation capacity.
Byu the way, here's where that 4:1 ratio comes from, in the Wikipedia article on electric cars:
1.58/0.4 is right about 4:1. As the article imples, better charging technology will boost that somewhat, but that's what we have right now.
First off, you're double counting the inefficiency of the ICE, first by using it to extract your 4.362 KWH, then by dividing that in turn by 4. The 0.12 factoir is included in the 4:1 ratio.
Next, you're calculating the amount of electrical energy it would take to travel the same distance as using only a single gallon of gas.
You need to factor in the number of miles travelled. And not double count the ICE inefficiency.
At a minimum, the required energy is 12% of what you posted it would be.
And think about "using all the energy in a gallon of gas" for a second. Of course you use all the heat energy in a gallon of gas - 12% gets to the road, the rest goes out the tailpipe as wast heat. You still have to count that 7/8 as "used". In the same way you need to count the 50% charging loss in the EV as energy used.
This is why ICE's are so ridiculous in principle! We have been driven to this point by oil interest and parts manufacturers. Imagine how different the world would be today if we stuck with the EV instead of the ICE...peak oil would be a completel non-problem.
Currently the USA vehicle fleet travels about 9.2 billion miles per day. This is derived from the amount of gasoline used (400 million gallons) times the average fleet fuel efficiency (23 mpg).
According to Wikipedia an EV uses about 0.3 to 0.5 KWH per mile. Let's take the lower limit of the range.
9 billion times 0.3 KWH is 2.8 billion KWH. Again we come out with a requirement for about 3 GWH of electricity every day.
Would you accept that this is an accurate calculation?
The 3 GWH above is, of course, 2,800 GWH - virtually identical as the 3,000 GWH per day I derived in my initial calculation.
The mistake made by the other poster (gliderguider) was assuming that the entire energy in gasoline was being used to propel the vehicle. Not true: Only 12% is used (18.5% for a very efficient diesel).
According to Lawrence Livermore Labs, out of 38.2 quads that go into the electrical power sector, only 11.9 quads become distributed electricity. That implies a 31% efficiency rate BEFORE THE ELECTRICITY GOES DOWN THE POWER LINE.
Losses due to transmission and transformers, as well as lost in battery conversion, come later.
How does this impact your calculations?
We currently produce 450 GW/h in power in the US. We have a maximum production of about 1 TW/h, or 1000 GW/h at peak times. Its barely enough to keep up with current demand, but other posters have already demonstrated that this can be scaled up as supply is warranted. I want you all to keep in mind that these figures being used are AFTER the 69% or so energy is lost in the creation of the electricity and subsequent transmission to our homes.
I can't stress this enough: It takes far less electrical energy to move an EV then the POTENTIAL energy of gasoline used to power ICEs. Massive amounts of energy are lost in ICEs in the form of heat, friction, and plain inefficiencies of providing wheel power to move the vehicle forward. I also want to point out that as break recharging systems are improved upon, you can get back MOST of the energy you use to accelerate when you stop the car. This potentially caps at ~75% energy used.
Remember, working EVs have been around for over 100 years. GM had the EV-1 in the mid 90's that was a commercial success from the standpoint of a durable, long lasting, efficient EV. The reason we haven't switched is due to the fact that current car companies base their entire business model on the assumption that your vehicle will BREAK DOWN, and have to be repaired in a manner that benefits them and no one else.
It's going to take a start up company to show the world how things can really be done. What we lack is the political motivation to make it happen.
BTW: Futher proof of my KW/h analysist is show in the fact that it costs on average 1 to 2 cents per mile for the Tesla. Even a 30 mpg car costs ~8 cents per mile at current gas prices! Food for thought :P
EV cars have a couple of weak spots i.e. batteries and power electronics. I know people who have blown inverters on EV cars after only 5 years which cost a fortune ($5000). Plus you will always have the possibility of cell failure espcially with high cell counts (its just the law of statistical averages).
BTW, how much do you suspect you spend on oil replacement over the lifetime of the average vehicle? My quickie math shows:
250,000 mile average usage
3,000 mile oil replacement
$20 cost
or about $1666.67 on just that alone. An EV doesnt have any oil to replace! Thats an entire year of gasoline right there. Just take a step back and look at all the hidden costs associated with ICEs.
The oil change is about the only thing I agree with. However, going off on a bit of tangent, the current business of oil changes is a big scam anyway. You don't need to change it that often and there are ways to clean it and reuse it.
Don't get me wrong I like EV's and plug'ins but some supporters do the promotion of these no favours by making claims that cannot be supported.
You have a very valid point. Based on Lawrence Livermore numbers, the amount of generating capacity would need to triple in order to supply that much electricity to the vehicle. So that means being able to generate around 9,000 GWH per day to power the cars. If you recharge them all over 12 hours, you'll need 750 GW of new generating capapacity, or an addition of 75% to the existing capacity.
When you then factor in transmission & distribution losses of 20% you get a generation requirement of 900 GW. That's getting pretty close to the size of the entire American electrical system.
>>
>> That is to say that the same energy in electrical power
>> to propell the car is about 4.362 kw/h! Now, you have
>> stated that wiki shows that EV engines are 4x more
>> efficient.
>>
>> 4.362 x .25 = 1.0905 kw/h
This is where your math starts to go wrong. That 4.36 kWh (no division there, btw) figure is the energy required to move the vehicle in terms of energy, not electric power. A hypothetical gasoline engine that was 100% efficient would use that much energy, as would a hypothetical electric engine of 100% efficiency. The amount of energy used by a real engine of any design will be higher--you can divide this raw energy number by the efficiency to get that figure. Assuming 50% efficiency for an electric engine:
4.36 kWh / 0.50 = 8.72 kWh
Not 1 kWh. Furthermore, this figure only covers the engine. As you know, battery charging technology is inefficient, wasting more energy as heat than it puts in the battery. And then there's generation and transmission loss to consider too, if we're talking about a society of declining total energy inputs.
Electric vehicles will have a place in the society of the future, but I don't think that place will be in the garages of hundreds of millions of people.
1.0905 kw/h still stands :P
You run the risk of being labelled innumerate here. I've clarified this point a number of times now, but you are resisting any reexamination of your methodology. I assure you, the criticisms of your procedure are correct.
1. The ICEs on average utilize 12% of the energy content of gasoline.
2. EVs are 4x more efficient then ICEs. In simple terms, this means that a gallon of gas could send a hummer 10 miles down the road, while the same energy used in an EV can send the car 40 miles down the road. This means LOGICALLY that if you wanted to only go 10 miles down the road, you would need to use a quarter of the energy that is used in the ICE.
You cant magically multiply my calculations 16x just to make them fit your own. Several people have already agreed with my calculations. While I accept that you have not, you still have done nothing to support your own counter arguement.
EVs are indeed 4 times as efficient as ICEs when you consider the total heat content of the energy fed into them.
As Wikipedia says, an EV uses 0.3 to 0.5 kwh per mile, while an ICE uses about 1.6 kwh. In fact, they say: "The US fleet average of 23 miles per gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 1.58 kilowatt-hours per mile."
The article also says: "Electric vehicles typically cost between two and four cents per mile to operate, while gasoline-powered ICE vehicles currently cost about four to six times as much."
Let's investigate that. At current average US electricity prices of $0.10/kwh and an energy requirement of .3 to .5 kwh per mile the cost comes out to $.03 to 0.05 per mile. Close enough.
On the other side of the equation, ICE powered vehicles consume on average 1/23 of a gallon per mile. At current gas prices of $2.30/gallon that's about $0.10 per mile for fuel. That's more than the EV, though not the 4-6x advantage claimed by the Wikipedia authors. The energy cost of an average ICE is actually 2 to 3.3 times more than an EV.
Now, the extra maintenance required for an ICE (excluding tires) adds about $0.045 per mile. An EV will be less than that, let's say half of that since it doesn't need engine oil. So from this back of the envelope calculation an ICE has an operating cost of $0.145/mile, while an EV has a cost of $0.05 to $0.075 per mile. That's still a differential of 2 or 3 times.
So, I'm prepared to believe that an EV will require 1/2 to 1/3 the operating cost of an ICE (without factoring in tires, insurance, licensing, financing costs etc, all of which could be expected to be roughly similar).
So, if the USA now spends about 1 billion dollars per day on gasoline, I'd expect the energy for an an electric fleet of the same size doing the same amount of driving to cost 330 to 500 million dollars per day. That amount of money pays for 3.3 to 5.0 billion kwh of electricity at $0.10/kwh. That's 3,300 to 5,000 Gwh. per day The same or even a bit more than I've been claiming all along.
Generating 3,300 to 5000 Gwh of electricity over 12 hours (the off-peak cycle) requires the generation of 275 to 400 GW. Just as I've been saying. Givedn this, we will probably never replace all our gassers with electrics. At some point transportation will become too expensive and driving habits will change instead.
Don't get me wrong, I think that EVs are useful vehicles. They are significantly more efficient than ICE vehicles. But their energy supply will be expensive to implement. How expensive? Let's say the EVs are at the high end of the efficiency range (0.3 Kwh/mile), and you can get 50% efficiency out of your generation and distribution system. The required additional capacity is (275*2)=550 GW. At a capital cost of $550,000 per megawatt this represents a capital cost in today's dollars of $300 billion.
Now this does not count transmission line upgrades or fleet replacement costs. Here's where it gets expensive. Let's ignore the transmission line upgrades. Just changing the fleet (200 million vehicles at $20,000 per vehicle) adds 4 trillion dollars to the cost of the project. Now, it's not quite that bad. If you make the change over 20 years, you will spend 15 billion per year building new generating capacity, and 200 billion dollars per year replacing your fleet. Toward the end of that period the excess fleet replacement cost will decline because the gassers would need replacing anyway. Let's say the average fleet replacement cost is 135 billion per year, for an average total cost (fleet+generating capacity) of 150 billion dollars per year.
Is it doable? Financially, yes. The American GDP is 78 times that, and that rate of spending amounts to only about 94 additional days of extra debt per year at today's rate of $1.6 billion of new debt per day. However, can you get the raw materials to build the plants, the fuel to power the plants, the raw materials to build the cars, and the willingness on the part of consumers and politicians to spend the money? There lies the rub, and why IMO it is ridiculous to expect a electrification of more than 10% to 20% of the fleet over that 20 year time period.
Given what we now suspect about oil depletion rates, and given what I expect from human nature (i.e. we don't make changes until we can see the need staring us right in the face), the private automobile is likely to be a museum peice before EVs have penetrated the global market far enough to do us much good at all.
Alan Drake's promotion of electric rail, which has many times the efficiency of electric cars, makes much more sense from a global point of view. In fact ity's the only transportation shift that makes any sense at all. Electric cars are cool toys, but in the face of what's actually needed that's really all they are.
From the DoE:
1 gallon of gasoline is the equivalent of 130.88 MJ
130.88 MJ is the equivalent of 36.35 kw/h
The ICE's utilize 12% of this, or 4.362 kw/h
An EV requires only 1/4th this energy content to go the same distance, or 1.0905 kw/h
We use 320 million gallons of gasoline a day.
We are talking about replacing all 320 million gallons of gasoline with the equivalent electrical energy.
320,000,000 x 1.0905 = 348960000 kw/h
348960000 kw/h = 348.96 GW/h
348.96 GW/h / 12 hour recharge cycle at night = 29.08 GW/h
This replaces every gallon of gasoline we consume a day with its energy equivalent of electricity. There is no other way to do these calculations!! You can overcomplicate the issue with $ per mile basis on maintenance all you want, it doesn't matter. The cold hard math is right there in front of you, you just have to acknowledge it!! Don't delve into miles, delve into the replacement costs:
320,000,000 gallons a day = 7,619,047 barrels of oil a day.
7,619,047 x $59.5 'spot price currently' = $4,533,332,965 a day to support our gasoline habit. Note that we currently import over 12 million barrels a day, so it's reasonable to simply assume the total amount of gasoline is coming from over seas.
348960000 kw/h x $0.10 kw/h = $34,896,000 spent to support our EV habit. This means we would essentially spend 1/129th less to power EVs over ICEs a day.
Would you like to do an analysis of how much we would have to invest a day/month/year/decade into improving our grid to make powering EVs = current waste on ICEs?
My quickie math shows that over a 20 year time span, we would spend 33 TRILLION DOLLARS on gasoline if the price never changes from today, or roughly 3 YEARS GDP!! Would the investment required be even 1/10th of that cost, no matter whose math you're using?
This calculation is again incorrect. You, sir, are innumerate.
- You consider the DoE to be wrong about 1 gallon = 130.88 MJ
- You consider the DoE to be wrong about 130.88 MJ = 36.35 kw/h
- You consider the DoE to be wrong about the average efficiency of a US vehicle to utilize 12% of the energy content of gasoline.
- You consider my calculation that 12% of 36.35 kw/h is 4.362 kw/h is incorrect.
- You consider your own souces about an EV being 4x more efficient then ICE to be incorrect.
- You dont believe that 400% efficiency means you need only 1/4th as much to do the same job.
Please, by all means, explain where my logical analysis is wrong!BTW: I just want to point out that since it seems your only contention is that I'm cutting my production from the gallon-energy equivlant, I wanted to show you exactly how much it would take just to replace the ACTUAL energy content the US fleet utilizes on average:
29.08 GW/h 'my estimate' x 4 'back to gasoline equivlant with no efficiency improvement = 116.32 GW/h addition to off peak capacity.
And thats just to drive around in EV's with the same efficiency as ICEs!!!
Let's look at this statement as the source of our disagreement:
The DOE is, of course, correct. You, however, are using this statistic incorrectly. It has absolutely no significance when one is trying to calulate how much energy it takes to replace the vehicle-miles driven . This is what we are really trying to replace - vehicle-miles, not the energy (from whatever source) it takes to drive them.
Here's a thought experiment. Assume that all the current vehicle-miles in the USA were being driven with diesel engines, which have a recognized 50% higher efficiency. Would this change the amount of electricity it would take to replace them? If so, why? If not, why not?
I contend it would not change the amount of electricity needed, and indeed I demonstrated that in an earlier post. In it I calculated the count of electricity needed to replace the 9 billion vehicle miles per day driven today. If you want to drive 9 billion miles in electric vehicles with an electricity requirement of 0.3 Kwh per mile, you need to use 2.7 billion Kwh, or 2,700 Gwh per day.
For this result it doesn't matter what the original fuel was - it could have been gasoline, diesel, natural gas or wood - or what the efficiency was of the vehicle that consumed that fuel. All that matters is how much energy it takes to drive 9 billion vehicle miles per day using the system under consideration.
Smaller, lighter vehicles will lead to greater gains in the area of both fleet cost and energy per mile, but given real-world load requirements, you won't see vehicles on average much smaller than a current sub-compact gasser, i.e. of the same approximate size as current vehicles. I'd be willing to agree that you will see overall vehicle efficiency ultimately climb by 30% or so, but not much more than that.
That said, it looks like I've been overestimating the number of passenger car vehicle miles per year travelled in the USA. According the the DOT (PDF warning) this was 1.6 trillion in 1994, so a crude extrapolation gives an estimate right around 2 trillion passenger car vehicle miles per year today.
At a current EV energy consumption of of 0.3 kwh per vehicle mile, it would take only 600,000 Gwh/year to replace the whole shebang. Averaged over 8760 hours per year (24 hours pewr day), that's a bit under 70 GW of average capacity, or 140 GW if you provide the required power over 12 hours per day. That 140 GW gives you the capacity to replace all the passenger car vehicle-miles driven today with EVs of today's efficiency. That won't happen any time soon, so 5% per year market penetration of EVs seems quite supportable.
If EV efficiency goes up by 30%, that would drop the generation requirement for full replacement to under 100 GW. Not too bad at all.
Now. When do we get started with saving the planet?
Finally, if you are going to keep posting here, please try to remain civil with others.
I fully agree that even plugging in just a fraction of all cars in the US will require a LOT more than 57 GW of power.
A quick back-of-the-envelop calculation might be illustrative:
Rather than assume a certain number of cars and the amount of gasoline that will be replaced by electrical energy coming off the grid, I did the calculation on the simple basis that plug-ins become widespread enough to displace 1 million barrels per day of gasoline (a number I chose purely for convenience).
With gasoline having a heating value of roughly 120,000 BTU/gallon, or 5 million BTU/bbl, replacing a million bbl/day of gasoline means replacing 5 x 10^12 BTU/day of gasoline energy with electrical energy.
As one kilowatt-hour = 3,140 BTU, this translates into roughly 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours per day of energy.
If that energy is supplied evenly over a 24-hour period, then the amount of power required is about 6.6 x 10^7 kilowatts or 66 gigawatts. However, if that energy is all supplied during a 12-hour off-peak period, the required power would have to double to about 132 gigawatts.
Keep in mind that the 132 gigawatts is for the displacement of just 1 million bbl/day of gasoline. Converting the entire US car fleet to plug-in hybrids would require much more than that.
It should be obvious that the impact of doing so on both our existing eletrical generating capacity plus our existing distribution grid would be hardly insignificant. It would require the investment of probably hundreds of billions of dollars in new generating capacity and upgrades to the grid.
That's 5 times what the esteemed Mr. Hothgor is claiming. I'd like to see him lay out his assumptions and calculations for us.
As Robert Newman says, "THERE IS NO WAY OUT".
It's simpler to just price the batteries to cover both the direct cost of manufacture plus externalities like disposal.
Under plug-in EV's, the price one pays for mobility will be variable depending on the seasonality of electricity prices, right? Perhaps the summer driving season will be replaced by a summer no-driving season.
Also, excluding the battery, is is more expensive to build and maintain an EV vs an ICE, assuming mass production. If not, then one needs to offset those reduced costs vs the extra battery costs.
Looking at this issue the other way around, should be take the cost of the ICE and and all its uniquely associated components and then compute how many kwh we could buy for that price to show the superiority of the EV. Of course not.
But I still don't understand what is this fuss all about. People focus on that the electricity grid is "already overstretched" and again resort to that old "we are doomed" theme. As a technical person I am grossly frustrated by such an attitude. If something does not work - then fix it, damn it! Given the options between upgrading our electricity system (for how much? a hundred billion? that does not make even a half of the Iraqi war) and abandoning all our oil-dependant transportation altogether, what do you think we should choose for the next decades? Argh yes, I forgot we are doomed, better wait for the barbarians.
Coal is going to have to dramatically increase just to cover the coming decline in NG, as well as natural demand -- let alone the 250 GW we've been noting above.
How many mountain tops can we remove before the brakes are put on this despicable practice? Or until we run out of mountains?
(I say this as someone who lives in an old copper mining town, with an abandoned open pit and mile long tailings, with a contaminated ground water plume that is held back by Phelps Dodge at great expense.
At least the copper can be recycled. The coal that comes from strip mining is only burned one. And that energy is usually wasted.)
Luckily for us and probably for our kids, the potential of ramping up coal in this country and worldwide is not that huge.
The technical issues have been pointed out and what it seems to boil down to many issues is money and time. Both of which look to be in shorter supply than we would like. Believe me I would love to fix all the crap, but does it really matter if we keep discussing it when those in charge are the ones who are failing to address this? I think many of us are extremely frustrated and therefore revert to the worst possible position. Considering if we are all wrong, the worst thing that happened is a little discourse.
It's kind of like the conundrum of what to do when the local homeless wino askes you for a buck. The "kind" person gives the money and might encourage them to spend it on food, not wine. The "correct" person doesn't give the money because it fosters dependcy and instead gives them the business card of job bank.
Its not that the second person is bad, but that they have a different value system that leads them to a different conclusion. Same eith "the people in charge" they so strongly believe that the best way to run the world is for them to be powerful and wealthy, that they are unable to see the damage they do. This might be corruption, as you call it. And certainly someone new to this world would go through a series of value changes that we might call corruption. But to my eyes the problem is deeper (and worse), it is that the value systems that are prevalent in the world are what is corrupt, that are the problem.
Still think we are very far apart?
Now, we can discuss whether or not this is as it should be. But it is the issue of who builds and controls the grid and for what purpose that is the issue, not whether or not it is in the shape it could be.
(But I would ask one favor LevinK - could we give up the trite depiction of doomers).
Now methinks that the liberalisation of the market has lead to efficiency decisions that have made the grid quite vulnerable, but this is a whole other topic.
As for the "doomers" line - if you noticed I did not use this qualification. But I do think there is a lot of predetermined naysaying of anything positive that we, humans can come up to handle the post-oil transition.
Let me put it this way - if you hate suburbia, the consumerism or whatever, then it is better to fight those things directly, not to hope that some as unpredictable event as PO will do the job for you.
Here's my take on it. We've had the technical skills and technological ability to build space colonies and mine the asteroids since the 1970's. Why haven't we done so? Because when it comes to what we do and don't do, there are things far more important than technical or technological ability.
So, just as it is a business decision that leaves us with a barely adequate electrical grid. We will not build all these magic bbs people come up with, no matter how clever they are.
So, at least from me, know that when you see skepticism about the value of some technology, it is not the tech per se, it is the social and economic system we have that I am questioning.
I prefer to restrain from pointing fingers, here and there but just think about it: in most cases the problem is just said and left to hang up in the air. There is little will to discuss its solutions, it is just assumed it will be hard to impossible.
We've had the technical skills and technological ability to build space colonies and mine the asteroids since the 1970's
The truth is that here on Earth, nobody needed and very few really desired to do that, given the resources it will take. Simple economics - if you are not willing to pay for a Ferrari, then you don't buy a Ferrari and then probably FIAT will not produce one for you. In contrast everyone I know wants, needs and is willing to pay for transportation, heating etc. etc. So there is a will, we know the ways, we just need to do it.
So, at least from me, know that when you see skepticism about the value of some technology, it is not the tech per se, it is the social and economic system we have that I am questioning.
Well, this is somehow aside from what we were talking about, but I am willing to generally agree with it - we do have a system which sucks in many ways. But, first we don't have anything better at hand and starting from scratch is hardly an option. Second, just like technology societies also evolve and I don't see why it can not happen/will not happen or it should be seen as a negative thing.
The Ferrari comparison is very apt, only someone with money to burn would buy one. Otherwise, people get by on what they can. But because they are just getting by, they will find they have to cut back when things get worse. The Ferrari owner will still be able to get his Ferrari, though
My last paragraph wasn't an aside, it was what I was driving at. What we face is not a technical problem, it is a cultural one. Trying to address it with technical solutions will only make matters worse (thus my own concerns that get me labeled as a doomer). You are right that societies evolve. They also devolve. Which one will we be? If we continue to think this is a technical problem, I'll bet on the later.
IMO technical discussions should be kept aside from political/societal discussions. Technology can be used both in a good and bad ways - see nuclear or even biodiesel. It is up to us to take responsibility for the things we do. If it turns out we are unable not do that, we are going to fail in the long term one way or another, no matter of the technical gadgets we come up with - and here I agree with you. Now, how do we fix ourselves is of course the big problem but (sorry for repeating) I think we should go for it in a different discussion...
To replace 320 million gallons of gasoline you need 3,0000 GWH of electricity. It doesn't matter how often a diver plugs in their car, the USA needs to generate and use that much electricity every day.
The low energy efficiency of ICE has been taken into account in my calculations.
It would take 3,000 GWH of electricity to replace one day of America's gasoline powered transportation with electricity.
I have two answers to the question of upgrading the grid, though. The first is that adding 25% to the electrical generation/consumption capacity of the USA is a monumental undertaking, especially if you add in the requirement to change out the fleet and the limitations to such industrial activity that will be imposed by oil shortages and the resulting rising costs. The USA may not have the spare financial or industrial resources to do it, even if it's phased in over ten years.
The second answer is another question: "Do we really want to maintain Business as Usual"? Given that BAU and increasing technology got us into the mess, how likely is it that the same formula will get us out? If we are not in a "mammalian plague mode" with population collapse a genetically-driven foregone conclusion, then we at least need to drastically alter our species' behaviour to avoid destroying both our finite resource base and our finite waste sinks. That means we have to start doing a lot less. Making a lot less, using a lot less, building a lot less, travelling a lot less, eating a lot less.
Considered from that perspective, building more power plants using different fuels to feed new batteries so we can keep doing approximately the same things as we are doing now looks slightly deranged.
My personal opinion, heretical as it seems to most, is that we should each keep doing pretty much whatever we want. Drive an SUV, ride a bike, buy a McMansion, power down, eat foie gras, grow your own veggies, harangue people about Peak Oil, ignore the whole issue - do whatever makes you happy, at least insofar as it's consistent with keeping your conscience onside.
The reason I take this position is because of what I've read and thought about over the past year. Readings in peak oil, climatology, ecology, anthropology, archeology, politics and especially genetics have solidified my opinion that humanity in an inescapable box. We,to a greater or lesser extent, are trapped into our behaviour by genetics; we are in a condition of ecological overshoot; our population curve looks indistiguishable from a mammalian plague graph; the social institutions we have created are extraordinarily resistant to change; and our growth imperative shows absolutely no sign of abating.
We are about to run into a number of inflection points simultaneously. Oil depletion, climate change and food shortages are the biggies, and they are all going to start biting us within five to ten years. There is no way to deal with them with the human population intact, and I believe it's much too late to do anything toi preventy it - if it was ever possible at all, given the nature of our species.
Despite all that, it's not in our nature to give up in the face of problems, so we will all keep beavering away trying new solutions. And more power to us, if you'll pardon the expression. It's just worth keeping in mind that it was "beavering away" that got us into this mess.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epates.html
between 1994 and 2005 the U.S. increased its electrical generating capacity by 25%. Such growth is not intrinsically impossible or even particularly challenging or difficult. In fact I'll bet we've increased our electrical generation capacity by 25% many times over the course of history.
Replacing the entire fleet with electrical vehicles will probably be the harder part of the job.
But the real point here, the big point, the enormous, humongous, all-encompassing point is this:
If electrical vehicles can substitute for oil powered vehicles, then the entire Peak Oil "doomsday" scenario is false! All that disasturbation, all those survivalists holed up with their arsenals confidentally waiting for society to collapse and man to turn on his fellow man, all have been for nothing.
Sure, there will still be problems. Global warming is a concern some decades in the future. Nuclear power is no panacea. Guess what, the world is not Utopia. But people face and solve problems all the time.
The point remains that the assumptions of the Peak Oil disaster scenarios, that there will be no transportation infrastructure and everything will fall apart because of that, do not apply if electrical power can replace oil for transportation.
And we're on that road (so to speak) already. Hybrids are begetting plug-in hybrids, which will beget battery electric vehicles. Technology is moving fast in this area, with battery improvements and new solar cell technologies announced every week. Read http://www.greencarcongress.com/ - it's a great blog and really keeps up with this stuff. It's amazing how much is happening.
The world's not static, and people don't just sit there when something bad happens. They get out and fix it. That is what we see happening with this conversion to an electrical infrastructure for transportation, as well as the new focus on biofuels, wind and solar power. This is just beginning, and we will likely find ourselves much farther down this path in another ten years. It is this dynamism which is overlooked in the dystopian visions which for some people are such a central part of the Peak Oil concept.
Can I ask for a little more precision here? I don't know what you mean by the "entire Peak Oil "doomsday" scenario. There are many different competing scenarios about what might happen as oil productin peaks. Some or more "doomsday" like than others. It's not as though there is only one scenario being suggested.
Beyond that, if electric cars could replace internal combustion cars, that does not alleviate all negative based scenarios connected to peak oil production. Nor does it negate the deeper problems we have with our growth orientation. Consider that oil is merely the advance wave. There are severe limits on all sorts of resources that we will need to deal with if we continue our growth fetish. Not the least of which will be water. In some ways, "solving" the threat of peak oil with electric cars might just be setting us up for a bigger problem a few years out. I know some get tired of hearing this, but peak oil is not a technical problem.
The growth rate in generating capacity you point to is 2% per year. To double the generating capacity of the USA at this rate would take 35 years. To double it in twenty years would take a growth rate of 3.5%. Remember that the growth rate required to support a switch to EVs has to be added to the existing requirement for growth in other areas of the economy, as represented by the current 2% growth rate. Can we sustain a 4% to 7% pa growth in the electrical supply? Can we rebalance our electrical usage to permit the inclusion of EVs within the current growth profile? At best I'd give you a qualified maybe, mostly because we won't start doing anything about this in advance of the need becoming obvious.
And what happens when you try to extend this model to the rest of the planet?
I agree that man is a problem-solving animal, but a brief look beyond the purely technological arena reduces my confidence that technological problem-solving will provide suitably scaled solutions, especially to the tricorn dilemma of oil depletion, climate change and food shortages. I see that as a species we wait until things become uncomfortable before undertaking solutions. Despite the efforts of some individuals to look ahead and prepare solutions to potential problems, I see precious little evidence that their warnings and preparatory research are ever implemented until the status quo becomes unsupportable. Until now we have been able to scramble through our challenges, to forcibly borrow the necessities for our continued survival from other locations on the planet, from other parts of the biosphere, even from the past at the expense of the future. Is there enough unexploited elsewhere and elsewhen to allow us to perform this sleight of hand again? Many of us are starting to have our doubts.
Don't fool with us yourself. Most of us are statisticians. :)
Interesting. What kind of technology are you refering to? Perhaps a link would be appropriate.
"Toshiba notes that the battery technology has another 'green' characteristic: the fast recharge means that less electricity is lost during the charging process, which in turn means that less electricity is required."
You don't need to keep these batteries plugged in and drawing electricity from the grid for hours at night. For some, it takes only 5 minutes of plugged in time for full charge.
"The Japanese tech giant announced today a new generation lithium-ion battery technology which can be recharged to 80% in one minute, with total recharge taking a few minutes more. That's not all:"
"The excellent recharging characteristics of new battery are not its only performance advantages. The battery has a long life cycle, losing only 1% of capacity after 1,000 cycles of discharging and recharging, and can operate at very low temperatures. At minus 40 degrees centigrade, the battery can discharge 80% of its capacity, against 100% in an ambient temperature of 25 degree centigrade)."
Now couple this fact that the resting temperature for this battery is far higher then the optimum level for standard Li-Ion batteries, and then combine them with the temperature control system devised for the Tesla vehicle, and you get a battery pack that's not only resilient, but can be recharged 10s of thousands of times before having to be replaced.
This is technology that exists TODAY. It's not a pipe dream. It's not some deluded techno-optimist fantasy. This is NOT a star trek solution! Why can't you people get that through your head? You're staring at the technology that powers the automobile of the future. Why are you dragging your feet through the mud of the past!?
Security is also an issue. The technology probably is about 100 years old, but was not commercial available until circa 10 ago. All because problems with security.
Besides, those super batteries isn't new technology. It's improvement on old technological architecture. But who cares as long as the product delivers?
Who? :)
I believe electric transportation is the future, but my questions are 1) how fast can we get there (before oil shortages) and 2) what happens when we get there. The quest is still there for bigger cars and more of them (and even faster recharge rates), so grid problems are inevitable. Cars can be replaced one at a time, but improving the grid requires a large scale, costly, coordinated effort--one that we'll put off until it breaks down.
More efficient air conditioners (Bush rolled back Clinton's 13 SEER minimum to 12 SEER) alone could take enough off of the summer peak to run electric rail.
Electrified freight rail has a hidden "kicker". 50 kV is not enough to run cross-country with. A higher voltage feeder line is required (see Russia et al). That is also a new transmission line. Electrified inter-city rail will strengthen the national grid by adding new high voltage transmission lines !
Best Hopes,
Alan
What I have not found yet discussed, if it has been oops my bad.
Production of the vehicles will take how long? Replace all the 200 million gas guzzling vehicles with Say only one design, ( every company can make the same car, just change the color , for example ). How long can we gear up the tool and die makers to kick out the plants to kick out the cars to get them to the hands of joe public, to get rid of the Internal combustion engine cars?
We are talking in some of these posts about rolling over every car in America. I know that in the real world 1 car replaced with an EV is better than nothing. But the more we replace the better off we are right?
How long will it take to make 200 million cars? Or only 100 million?
I don't know. But we are at the wall now, we need to do something , something more than the slow plodding we seem to be doing. Changing out all the cars will be a vast undertaking. only changing out 100,000 is still a vast undertaking from where we are right now.
We can talk about it all day long, but getting the ball rolling and moving in bigger numbers is what we need.
Thanks for the insight in the things I have only written about it fiction, ( Future Tech novel story, had me starting the replace of all gasoline cars back in 1999, with full trade ins of the old cars for the new improved ION cars (thin film solar outer car skins, Poly-ion batteries ( thin polymers used for battery tech, etc etc.
* It was a great Sci-Fi help the future out of the bind of the past story. ) I had the numbers cruching for total replacement of the US's Auto fleet in something like 10 to 15 years. You can only build them so fast.
In our real world, do we have 10 years?
That nation ?
The United States of America.
1897=1916.
Best Hopes,
Alan
I agree with most of your vision, but you keep bringing this up from time to time. While I don't disagree that it was a feat, you can not discount that the conditions from which that was created is different. There were highly entrenched interests to stop urban rail. K Street AFAIK was not the dominating party in power at the behest of corporations. Don't get me wrong, I know there were monopolies, but at this time there are a lot more struggles to get anything done in gov't when the highest bidder usually wins.
Actually after playing around with a worksheet on the internet, it looks like 50k watts in one hour at 240 volts requires just over a 200 amp circuit.
Can you even do that with single phase current? Jesus man.
The idea is a very simple one and has been discussed many times here.
All the new battery technologies you see mentioned on the web look great. However, I wouldn't believe them until large scale production/usage occurs. I worked in research and I can tell you it is just as open to spin as any other area. It is what they are NOT telling you that matters i.e. limitations or the cost of production.
He told me that the 16 AHr NiMH batteries he had been selling had been pulled, and when he asked the supplier about larger replacements, he found out that the difficulties, at this point, were formidable.
According to him, these units are just NiMH "C" batteries welded together, and if they made larger ones there were problems of safety and reliability. (I wish I had taken notes, because it was an eye opener).
Isn't it true that the Tesla (which I belive costs over $100K) runs on a mass of C or AA batteries, in a huge mass?
Since I live off grid, I would love to run our very modest PV system off NiMH or some comparable battery system. But they don't seem to exist (If they do, please give me a link; I would love to buy it).
And if they don't exist for well heeled homeowners, who don't care about weight issues, how are they going to come into existence for vehicles, to whom weight is all important?
Their web site is a bit murky, as their products are only for sale to corporate and industrial users.
They did have a battery that seemed equivilent to a deep cycle "golf cart" battery; 48 v., 85 Ah (kind of thin on the amps, if you ask me; my L 16's are 6 volts, 370 amps). And if this were available for sale, I'm sure it would cost far more than the $125 my L 16s cost.
They seem designed for battery backup for corporate users, who need a bank of batteries in a high rise, where they cannot risk a buildup of hydrogen gas or acid spills, and where they don't have to do maintenance.
Anyway, here's what their FAQ had to say:
And they have this to say about NiMH for autos.
It looks to me like this will be very exciting when it really gets off the ground, but it looks like it's still in the specialized applications mode right now.
With 30-year financing maybe. According to this article, the sedan will sell for somewhere between $50,000 and $65,000. Given that the US median household income in 2005 was reported to be $43,326, spending that kind of dough on a car would seem to be a bit of a stretch for the average American.
(1) At least one persone gets it
(2) That Toshiba news is amazing. Have they really developed a battery with such a long life-span and such great charging characteristics. I belive that Sharp is doing great work on PV conversion. It may be blocked in the States but PV+Elec car will come to Japan by virtue of necessity. They have negligible fossil fuel reserves are Geographically and militarily disadvantaged. Therefore they must go with alternatives first.
For the others, specially Americans, it will happen only when fossil fuels get substantially more expensive. That could take another 50 years since as Japan, Europe, India, China.. consume less fossil fuels there will be more for US burners. I suppose I always knew at heart why I immigrated here after college. I may go and buy that big vehicle that I have had my eye on, now that they are so cheap :-)
It also seems to me that running out of fossil fuels has a silver lining and the sooner the better:
(i) lower Malthusian population limit is reached if fossil fuels run out early
==> less Malthusian correction and in the end less death, pain and suffering!!!
All of our infrastructure is crumbling. We haven't seriously invested in it since about 1970 (peak oil USA, perhaps not coincidentally).
My point was that the first round of alt energy is easy and uses waste veg oil/ surplus cheap corn/ off peak electric grid. The second and third rounds overwhelm the system.
Bio diesel is also known as "cooking oil" and as we monopolize it, third world people will be priced out. Ditto when grain prices skyrocket due to ethanol production combined with the effects of drought.
If huge numbers of people switch to EV, there will no longer be "off peak" grid, and there will have to be an enormous investment in upgrading the grid, and building a raft of new power plants.
When looking at the sorry state of the grid as it is, we need to ask "Who pays?" as well as "where will the energy come from" Especially since NG will be in decline, and need to be offset somehow.
California provides an excellent example of some of these problems.
Yup, that's true. But I was talking about all our infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewer, water, etc.), not just electricity.
All transportation is solar powered. The low-human effort transport of the horse takes acres of grain, hours of effort to maintain - which ment for the most part only the well off had such. Because they had the land to collect the solar energy.
Plug in electric cars will end up being wind or PV powered...from your local generation. The grid won't matter.
Except for the 99% of the population without access to solar or wind power and without the means to gain access.
I think the "hothgarz" of the world see the whole and not the parts - and therefore do not see how a few failing organs could destroy The Beast. Failure of the weakest links in the world economy will increase and the number of weakest links will also increase until the biopolitical ponzi scheme collapses.
ding You understand. Cars everywhere exist because of cheap energy. When that cheap energy goes away, business reasons for transportation and the well-off will be all that have cars.
Of course, GM buying up public transportation and killing it had something to do with that...
Who's paying for the 'war to keep rich people's building standing and cheap oil flowing' (and whatever other ways you want to look at present events as an expression of the privilage of wealth)?
The 'road maintance' will be part of the general budget, and 'the poor' will be paying part of their cashflow to keep the roads. The peon's will pay...have no doubt.
The alternative becomes roads and cars too expensive to keep. At least at the speeds and comfort levels we now enjoy.
The key is that it's not just rich people. Even the poor drive in the good ol' USA.
Even so, I don't think there will be support for the war in Iraq for much longer.
I think that's quite likely.
And what will be the reaction? The reaction of the 'dis-effect-ed' is what I worry about.
(and how do I get that reaction pointed away from me)
I look forward to the day when it's again considered vulgar to flaunt wealth, but I think as you point out it may become lethal, too.
As for the poor in America driving - and watching Cable, microwaving etc - maybe the "poor in America" are wealthy beyond the dreams of the poor in much of the rest of the world as well as the wealthy of the past?
(Note to self: Torn blue jeans from the 70's to make a come back soon...)
And when they loose the car and cable, how do you think they are going to react?
Of course, depends on what you mean by poor, but there is something to what you suggest. If you are at the average income for american household (just over $43,000) per year, you are in the top 5% for income in the world.
We've just set up a PV system for our house -- very tiny, very complicated, extremely expensive. Now we're looking at a solar array for pumping water, and the same thing. Luckily we have a lot of money, or it would not be feasible.
That's why, here in Southern Arizona, not a single new developement I have seen has PV standard.
One very upscale development in east Tucson is very PV friendly, and they are proud of the solar systems that line their flat roofs. Unfortuntely, their reluctance to mar their yards with clotheslines, combined with the lack of NG, means that everybody there has an electric clothes dryer. In ARIZONA!
Consequently, all that PV power is used to partially offset the use of (to my mind) completely redundant clothes dryers. Electricity for their new EVs will have to come from someplace else.
Yes. It looks like a huge leap becasue that old sunshine was priced cheap.
The expense of a horse kept most people without them. Cars have been CHEAP. Almost free - as far as out of pocket expenses.
Electricity for their new EVs will have to come from someplace else.
EVs will become electric bikes in the low energy future. Unless there is some breakthrough in high temp superconductors, then a new xport system that uses said conductors will have a justification to be built.
As the economy goes into contraction, the insurance business which is deeply tied to the 40% of the 'providing monetary services' will want to stay "on top" - and will raise rates. As rates go up, less of the lower class will be able to afford cars. As the number of cars goes down, the 'bulk' nature of car insurance prices will drop and the price will go up. (repeat circle)
Thus far bike insurance is cheap....
We have an e-GO electric scooter, and it zips along quietly and fast, with great get up and go. We charge it from our PV system, and it goes 20 miles on 500 watt hours. So going a couple miles to the store and back only requires a small amount of solar charging.
The problem is going on roads with monster pick-up trucks going ten miles over the speed limit.
Once these gas hogs start to fade away, electic scooters and other low speed EVs will become the way to go. It's the transition from here to there that will be a problem.
My idea of the ideal would be things like the Dynasty Car, which is a great little car or pickup truck, that zips along at 25 mph, on just a little bit of juice.
If people weren't in such a G-D- hurry, and if there were special lanes for these things, then we could possible solve much of transportation issues.
I'll ignore the accuracy of that 1 paragraph blurb from an unknown magazine.
Lets say this magical superconductor that works a outdoor temperatures (not minus 321 F) is available Jan 1 2010 in mass quantities and very cheap. (and for the recod that will never ever happen)
How long do you think it will take to replace the countiry's electrical grid with that stuff? All the way from the power station to the last mile? How much money do you think that will take?
How about just augmenting the existing grid by 25-50% How long and how much money would that take?
What about social inertia? NIMBY and politics? How are you going to convince people its worth the time and money?
I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm not saying technology won't improve. I'm just saying its going to be a heck of a lot harder than you might think.
And everybody know what a reputable engineering publication they are.
I know, how about you find a 2 year old press release? That'd at least be a step up.
But do I really need to explain to you the shortcommings of a magazine like pop mech?!?
Hothgor, people on this board are for the most part extremely educated and very skeptical. Your input is most welcomed but please try to make it a bit more substantive than a scan from pop mech.
Again, do I really need to explain this?!?
What that picture shows is that the technology to support the increase in load on the grid is already here and is already being put into place. These new wires are more efficient at trasmiting energy over long distances, and use far less raw materials then our current oversized copper wire setup does. Did you know that there has been a lot of talk about 'peak copper' in recent years? Would you care to estimate how many 1000s of tons of copper are used just in our electric power line grid?
That picture shows something thats lacking here: hope. Hope that through constructive technological advances and a more common sense approach to energy generation and utilization that we might just come out of peak oil relatively unscathed. I know that sounds ridiculous to you, but so did a ICE vehicle for every family in America when ford introduced the Model-T.
Why is it that I need to explain this to so many people?
But I do understand the point you are trying to make.
Yes the scan speaks for itself.
However it doesn't stand by itself. Pop Mech is a rag. That 1 paragraph blurb was written by an english major with zero engineering training/experience in high temp semi concutors, electrica engineering, or even manufacturing.
His source was some marketing flack from some bit player trying to make a name for themselves. I bet the engineers in said company would laugh at said 1 paragraph blurb (if they weren't entirely disgusted by it). I know. I'm an engineer and I've read press releases by my company (large and reputable even).
The technology you say is here is NOT here!
- High temperature semi conductors barely exist in the lab.
- Your Toshiba battery was R&D level tech that has completely failed to materialize (note this is very common in R&D)
- The Telsa Roadster is still only a promise. It has yet to be produced. Let alone some magical sedan for less than your yearly salary.
Yet you quote us two year old press releases or blurbs from pop mech. I couldn't even find a press release for the Telsa sedan!Please bear in mind these are not credible sources. They carry no weight at all. A scan from a glossy mag or press release is not "explaining" it to us.
Try linking to an article with sources cited (you'll notice most things are sourced here on TOD). Even better than that try to find a science or engineering journal that's peer reviewed. That would carry a ton of weight here.
The technology is not here. At best its in the lab. I don't know what your background is, but trust me it's very very far from the lab to walmart.
And you still didn't answer my questions about the cost of this even if it was available in the near future.
You are placing your hope in technology that does not exist. And then getting upset because TODers don't share that hope.
One more thing. I WANT TO BELIEVE! I really do. But I'm also skeptical (its my science/engineering background). If you have real evidence of technology that can prevent peak oil I AM ALL EARS!
If not then stop getting upset and insulting people.
For the most part, your entire argument is based on trying to convince people that what I have said and proved mathematically thus far isn't true at all, and you have zero evidence to support your statements other then that you are supposedly involved in the science/engineering background. If technological advancements never came from R&D development, we'd still be a hunter/gatherer species!!
The burden of proof is on you. And you have offered no proof other than a blurb from wired or pop mech.
You keep telling me that technogial advances are currently being implemented and show me a scan from a Pop Mech. I say that technology doesn't exist (but how do I prove that?) and say please show me something more substantive.
I even explained why a blurb from a glossy mag isn't useful and suggested something better for you.
You reply with yet another blurb from a glossy magazine (wired). Mind you this was about a different topic entirely (Tesla sedan vs superconductor grid). Do you have anything to back up you magical superconductor theory yet?
I complained I couldn't even find a press release from Tesla about a sedan (far from substantive mind you) and you reply with a unsourced blurb from Wired (even less substantive than a press release).
Of course technologies come from R&D. It just takes a long time. And just because a technology is in R&D doesn't mean its here now. Its here now when its being produced in factories.
Stop saying its here now. The Tesla roadster isn't even being produced. The Tesla sedan hasn't even been admited to by the company, its just a rumor. But you are waving it around as a fact yelling it will save us all.
And BTW what is with :P? Are you 14 years old?
But, since you like dealing with concrets of how technology is currently be adapted, I sign off tonight with one final link. Some quotes of interest:
"Governor George E. Pataki today announced that a new high-temperature superconducting (HTS) power cable developed by a partnership of companies, including SuperPower, Inc. of Schenectady, has been energized and will be monitored on the local utility grid for the first time anywhere in the world. This live-grid demonstration is an important step in the development of cutting-edge technologies to meet increasing energy demands in large cities. The HTS cable deployed in Albany is able to carry 3 to 5 times more current than conventional power lines of the same thickness."
"Albany County Executive Mike Breslin said, "This project has made our region a model in the development of superconducting power technology. This innovative break-through will make energy delivery more efficient and affordable and will bring tremendous economic opportunity to our community."
"The high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cable technology offers the potential to provide numerous benefits over existing technology. In addition to being able to carry a greater load, the cables are also lighter and easier to install and handle, and will deliver power at lower voltages, reducing the need for step-up and step-down transformers. The cables use liquid nitrogen for cooling, rather than flammable oils, which will help to prevent fires or explosions in the event of a leak or overload. The HTS devices also are more electrically efficient, which can help to reduce line losses and generation demand that can produce greenhouse gas emissions."
And finally!
"The commissioning of the cable marks the world's first demonstration of an underground HTS cable system in a live utility grid, rather than in a lab, or industrial or substation settings. The project also is the first demonstration of a cable-to-cable joint, critical to ensuring that long lengths of cable will be able to be installed."
That last statment sums up my arguements nicely for the evening. This isnt the lab. This isnt technical babble. This isn't a magical Star Trek technolution. This is cold, hard, in your face reality. The scan I showed you demonstrates the kind of cables that will be used to upgrade our electricity grid for future use. Coupled with the Tesla, I hope I have at least outlined the basic 'direction' I see when I think about the 'future'. What do you see?
Let me guess, a US hosted site isnt reliable! No one of credible reputation uses them! Most people on this web site laugh at you for using this!! And so on and so on...
Goodnight. Post what you may, but at least back it up with facts and not debunking statements. Until next time! :P
You keep talking about the sedan.
Is there going to be a sedan? Maybe, I dunno. And unless you are a Tesla in sider I bet you don't know either.
Your link about the high temp semi conductor is the first piece of useful news you have posted yet. Thank you! A technology demonstrator is good news, and much much better than a blurb from Pop mech. Kudos to you.
Next time start out with that.
I'd love to know more about this technology demo. Is it just a political stunt? Is the technology viable? Did it even work? How expensive is it? How far away from mass production is this technology?
Alas aside from the existance of the project this press release tell us really nothing.
One interesting tidbit is
Doesn't really sound like high temp semi conductor technology is here does it :P
Another interesting tid bit is
In other words sometime in the future they hope to do a 30 meter long section.
Doesn't really sound like high temp semi conductor technology is here does it :P
How long will it take to bring this technology to a market? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?
Fusion power has had similiar demonstrations for years. Does that mean we can stake our hopes on fusion power? Does that mean fuion technology is "here"?
This is a step beyond the lab. But a baby one.
I offer you the very press release you gave me as proof that high temp semi conductor technology is not "here".
Look at that, I just proved a negative :-P
I keep writing semiconductor instead of superconductor.
I guess that gives my field away. I am a semiconductor engineer.
<sigh>
Becasue liquid nitrogen cooled superconductor isn't really a "High Temprature Superconductor" that is a large scale workable solution. At 100 deg C, then you have a conductor that is a 'replacement' for copper cable.
High temp superconductors refer to any super conductor at or above the temp of liquid nitrogen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconductor
So technically that is a high temp super conductor.
Its also a far cry from room temp super conductors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_temperature_superconductor
How exactly does this change the need for an expensive infrasturcture with expensive upkeep with such a "high temprature"?
So what if a cable in a nitrogen-bath considered 'high temp'?
How exactly does this change the need for an expensive infrasturcture with expensive upkeep with such a "high temprature"?
It doesn't really. I just thought it clarified things a bit is all.
Wake me up when they have HIGH temp supercunductors. Like 100 deg C.
Excellent point! I think that if Cascadia succeeds in going totally biosolar postPeak [a big IF], that they would want PHEV firetrucks and ambulances. The batts could be recharged by PV, wind, hydro, or tidal-- much faster & more powerful vehicles than using horse-drawn emergency vehicles. Recall my old posting where certain rural areas of Zimbabwe are using oxen-carts to haul the sick & injured to the hospitals. Yikes!
By the way: certain parts of Tanzania [home to Olduvai Gorge] are about to go into total darkness!!!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I travelled through Tanzania 30 years ago. Beautiful country, well intentioned, but really misguided socialist government. The only cloth you could buy was imprinted with the letters of the ruling party. Nobody wore it (everyone wore beautiful fabrics of astonishing variety). But since the government produced it, Gresham's law drove out all the good stuff.
Bad news about no power: no electricity means warm Kimba Beer!
We need to build our communities like we build energy efficient housing. As we build the house and buy the appliances to burn as little energy as possible, communities should be built or rebuilt to require as little transportation as possible and especially transporation in the form of personal mobility as in automobiles.
I have a Prius so I am not criticizing hybrids. However, while we as a society are willing to subsidize and incentivize hybrids , we just tack those vehicles on an already grossly efficient transportation and planning system which encourages us to build farther and farther out with little thought as to the additional miles driven to take advantage of existing infrastructure. We don't need any more suburbs or exurbs; we need to preserve as much open space and farm land as possible so that we can have as much local agriculture and recreation as possible.
Anyone who has read some of the blogs on the Prius will soon realize that there are a lot of people out there who are quite ecstatic that they can now realize their 100 mile commute at a much cheaper price. How wonderful it is to buy an efficient vehicle so we can continue to experience our insane lifestyle and housing patterns.
Attempts to run suburbia or exurbia after peak oil are hopeless unless we can find ways to help people stay put. The American dream is to own your own home, but this dream is sort of a nightmare since it makes it all that more difficult for people to make the kinds of relocations that would encourage a less energy intensive existence.
As for the grid, we can run a lot of PHEVs and EVs just using the existing baseload. Fine. But let's not put all our eggs in that basket.
BTW, is it true that all Wendies in St.Louis have closed due to an economic squeeze in the the fast-food business? Curious PO story?
Most of our suburbs are so spread out, and the places people need to travel to so diverse, that mass transit becomes very problematic. That is why the new systems in LA and Phoenix are so mind numbingly expensive, and don't do much to relieve congestion.
Once LA gave up it's red car system (or rather, once it was killed by GM), it really began to develop in a direction that was a one way road.
I think that one limitation on mass transit in suburbs that will not go away is that you can't have the bus stop by all houses on all streets. I.e., the riders will have to walk or bike (or even drive) a few hundred feet (or even a couple of miles) to get to the bus stop. Better than nothing.
Ridership will increase marginally and at some point, densities will change as those who want to keep their cars will move closer into the cities (if they are one of the first, they will enjoy healthy appreciation) or they will abandon cars for cheaper forms of local transportation and would get to a stop with a bike mostly.
Also the importance of this working has more to do with what type of grid system you setup to criss cross and provide choices to enter the urban rail network. If you could get to a stop within a mile and a half at most, you're looking at a 20 min ride to get on the train. Trains will force us to reevaluate this go go life style IMHO.
All this does is make the user pay. In my hood here, less than half of the households own a car. But they all pay for the roads, that are used mostly by people who live elsewhere, and don't pay a dime for 'our' roads.
A high transit riding habit will offset a medium low density, and vica versa. Post-Peak Oil, EVERYONE"S transit riding habit will increase. The number of viable routes will skyrocket !
Urban Rail is unique in that it can create it's own ridership (not always, the near capacity LA Blue Line has very little TOD. I meant to ask Darryl Clark (father of the Expo Line) about that when he was visiting). I did see condos going up next to Gold Line stops.
IMHO, post-Peak Oil, there will be a rush for TOD
The last exchange Darryl & I had as he got in his Prius to drive onward to Boston & the ASPO conference was his question "How do we transform Los Angeles into a series of walkable neighborhoods like New Orleans ?" My answer was "that was what God made bulldozers for".
Best Hopes,
Alan
Shortly after it happened it was suppose to be re opened under a new holding company, but that never materialized. They are still closed and I'm waiting for a fire sale to break up the best locations. The one downtown(where I'm at) was packed, both lines during the lunch hour. They weren't even open past 6 due to severe flight out of the city past dark (he he). I'm pissed b/c in the winter I loved that chili and those baked potatoes.
The other thing to consider is that even if you could buy plug-In's today it would take at least 10 to 20 years before the current car inventory was turned over and replaced with these. This would give the utilities lots of time to scale up if required. Also don't forget a large amount of the money we were sending to the oil companies would be redirected to the utilities. This would give them extra capital. They could also charge more for this electricity and it would still be cost effective compared to gas (especially in the future once the decline really starts)
There is some useful info on plug-in's here
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/symposium/presentations/presentations.htm
Which is why they use natural gas or diesel for "peaking plants."
At what point do new power plants and heavier wires have to be produced to deal with the new night-time peak load?
There isn't room in the picture for the 25% additional load that a full conversion to plug-in electrics would require. In fact, I'd bet that a 10% load hike would put a lot of strain on the system. I'd bet we could convert maybe a quarter of all vehicles to electrics (given smart chargers with their current draw and time of operation remote controllable by the power company) before the present system fell over.
From the BBC declaring we need a 20 fold increase in nuclear generating plants.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6054986.stm
Also, here's a look at the seriousness of the housing slowdown.
http://www.nysun.com/article/41659?page_no=2
Lastly over at Financial Sense, theres a PO article combined with some investing advice, mostly centered on buying precious metals on dips.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/RConrad/2006/1017.html
Of course, even with the change, if there are very high loan defaults, the funds set aside by the FDIC system will cover only a tiny share of the shortfall. The FDIC funding is set up to handle the default of a few individual banks, not to fully handle the issues associated with very high loan defaults affecting many banks at once. If very high defaults would happen, the federal government would have to step in and support the system in some way - use tax revenue to make good on the bank shortfalls, or just "print money".
This suggests to me The Fed et. al. took a gander into the crystal ball and said, " Hyperinflation it is then...". So Dow 36,000 is a very real possibility.
Our Fiat Dollar standard was fine during the growth phase when the promi'sorry' notes were issued and the promise easily kept. Now a currency linked to a Tangible - or a country (county ??) capable of producing tangibles - will take over from here for a while.
A friend and I were talking on Tuesday about college. He went but didn't graduate. I went and graduated, but did not need loans. We both have young kids and discussed whether or not we would encourage them to attend college. I said I would discourage my kids, and he agreed.
For one, I doubt I will be able to afford covering the costs of college. If they need loans to get through school they're going to be huge loans that will mean, in essence, indentured servitude.
Also, I don't believe the skills they would learn would be worth the money. I believe that as we slide down the other side of the peak, economies of the world are going to need people with skills in the trades. Intensive knowledge in academic areas will not be as important as is now perceived. In fact, I believe we will see more apprenticeships (where youngsters assist skilled workers) replace paid schooling.
I believe in many cases college, and perhaps high school to some degree, is an extension of adolescence. In many fields of employment these days (white collar or blue collar), the real necessary skills are learned by doing the job. Diplomas are a way of distinguishing the classes (castes). Those with diplomas and degrees are welcomed into the club of decent paying jobs. Those without diplomas and degrees are kept in their place of poverty.
Tom A-B
I've got some regrets about the way I did it, namely instead of skipping for half of my senior year(work study b/c I had too many credits) I should have loaded up college courses, but I wanted to relax for my senior year.
I wonder about the CoBe Analysis for the payoff for my education, but once you start you should finish since you'll at least have the piece of paper for the payment you'll be making anyway. I fully believe trades will be future and apprenticeships seem much more financially equitable. I've talked to several recruiters and they flat told me they wont look at me b/c I don't have the piece of paper. All that's left is electives. Their loss.
I get a kick out of people when they tell me in an interview that I don't have the particular program training. My reponse is more to do with they will have to train whoever they choose as to how they want it done, so I'm at no disadvantage due to my incredible ability to learn new programs (which is true). Still haven't found a job though, so maybe I should change my reponse.
...We're still enthralled by energy "independence" even though--as a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations makes clear--it's impossible for "at least several decades." In 1973, President Richard Nixon announced Project Independence, which was to eliminate oil imports by 1980. In 1973, the United States had net oil imports of 6 million barrels a day, 35 percent of our consumption. In 2006, net imports average 12.4 million barrels a day, or 60 percent of use. Nixon's advisers warned him that his goal was unattainable. In the foreseeable future, it still is. Anyone suggesting otherwise is misinformed or dishonest.
...No plausible combination of alternative fuels or "conservation" can soon substitute for all that imported oil. Even if that weren't true, many other countries--most of the world economy to which we are tightly tied--would remain dependent on oil imports. So we'd be hostage indirectly.
...Because Americans want painless salvation, our politicians proffer visions that promise just that: a shift to hydrogen fuel or a surge in ethanol. The first may be futuristic wishful thinking; the second is mainly a costly giveaway to farmers. Both are deceptions, new excuses not to do the "right thing."
Pretty amazing from the mainstream media. Check it out at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15319059/site/newsweek/
Greg in MO
The 2006 World Oil Conference in Boston
1. Randy Udall Invites You & Daniel Yergin to Lunch. (We hope Dan will R.S.V.P. Soon!)
Along with three days of new Peak Oil findings, you'll get two evening receptions, breakfast sessions, and lunch presentations. At Friday's lunch, you'll hear Randy Udall introduce Pollyanna to Peak Oil. He'll discuss Daniel Yergin's CERA Report, the fuzzy figures from EIA and IEA, and the hype on `Gushers in the Gulf.' We've invited Mr. Yergin to share the stage, explain his CERA Report, and take Q & A from the floor. Dan can bring a guest of his own, hopefully his colleague Robert Esser, who recently told Business Week, "Peak Oil theory is garbage as far as we're concerned." CERA's office is near the Conference site, so we'll pick them up in a comfortable hybrid, and pick up the lunch tab too. We hope they'll accept our invitation.
2. Get the new 2006 Oil & Gas Depletion Updates from International Experts
Matthew Simmons will introduce us to "The 51st State - Denial." Matt is Chair of Simmons & Co., Int'l, Chair of the ASPO-USA Advisory Board, and author of the best-selling, "Twilight in the Desert." Jeremy Gilbert, former BP Production Chief, has come from Ireland to ask & answer the question, "Reserves - What Are They?"; Mike Rodgers will present PFC Energy's new Production & Peak Oil Update, the first 5-year study since the company's 2001 Report; and David Hughes from the Canadian Geological Survey will discuss the peaking of N. America's Natural Gas Supply. (We think they'll have some questions for Mr. Yergin.)
http://www.aspo-usa.com/fall2006/
I heard, yesterday on CNBC, one guest analysist make this comment:
Well hell, that's one way to spin it.
Ron Patterson
Ron Patterson
Darwinian - maybe that isn't "spin" ?? Maybe that analcyst (sp?) really thinks like that ??? That might explain the situation we're in currently.
It may have some truth. Having been used to blackboards in India during my school and college days, I find it very tiring for the eyes even in short meetings in the office where we use white boards.
There's also a connection between having lights on at night and myopia.
Given those two factors...I wouldn't be surprised if computers were the culprit, if today's kids are more myopic than their parents. It's a double whammy: more reading, and looking at their computer screens at night, and/or in a darkened room.
But what is the use of 1 mbd spare capacity if you can't pump the oil fast enough to utilize it?
His rather pathetic personal attacks on people he disagrees with, are a rather obvious attempt to hide the fact, that he lacks the skills needed to discredit the methods and numbers, they use to arrive at their results.
So what about it Hothgor. I challenge you to post a response to this post where you show why the peak isn't now.
But of course you can't do that, since you undoubtedly lack the education needed to pop a pimple.
http://www.proparanoid.net/truth.htm
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil
2. Become incredulous and indignant
3. Create rumor mongers
4. Use a straw man
5. Sidetrack opponents w name calling, ridicule
6. Hit and Run
7. Question motives
8. Invoke authority
9. Play Dumb
- Associate opponent charges with old news
- Establish and rely upon fall-back positions
- Enigmas have no solution
- Alice in Wonderland Logic
- Demand complete solutions
- Fit the facts to alternate conclusions
- Vanish evidence and witnesses
- Change the subject
- Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad
- Ignore facts, demand impossible proofs
- False evidence
- Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor
- Manufacture a new truth
- Create bigger distractions
- Silence critics
- Vanish
Goto the link for examples and better definitions/Explanations.There are pro trolls. He may not be one, but they do use the tech. above.
The thinking goes something like this, GDP growth next year will slow, meaning there will be less demand. Supply is almost automatically presumed to continue at present levels or grow. This ignores two very obvious points - why should an increase in GDP result in a decrease in demand (especially with lower energy prices) and why isn't depletion of supply from older reservoirs ever mentioned?
Meanwhile, today the EU has decided to save 20% of the present energy use by 2020 by applying some 75 energy efficiency measures in the coming years, also known as conservation. :-)
http://euobserver.com/9/22678
and this
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/387&format=HTML&aged=0&l anguage=EN&guiLanguage=en
Regards/And1
Gee, looks like they've got a great feedback loop going here. Loss of wetlands increases hurricane damage. Hurricane damage encourages politicians to allow more wetlands to be destroyed. Lather, rinse, repeat.
WTF??? Putting this as the headline is the Iron Triangle at its best, for gods' sake!!
Apart from the air pollution(which is the focus of the environmental guy in the article), how environmental friendly is destroying rainforests, extincting urang-utangs and probably several other species and certainly destroying bio-diversity along the way? To replace it with monoculture?
What is more important, rainforest or this http://www.orangutans-sos.org/gallery/source/images/palmplant.jpg for our thirsty energy habbits?
The measure for the amount of smoke is PSI (Pollutants Standard Index), which is considered unhealthy if it is above the figure of 100. It hit 130 last weekend. It was 102 today morning. I don't know how they calculate this, but a visibility of less than a kilometre is something to chew on.
As usual, some wisecrack here has come out with a new expansion for the acronym PSI - Please Stop Indonesia. Meanwhile, we have no choice but be the largest single group of "second smokers". Ah, such warm-hearted neighbours!
Maybe it's just me, but it sure seems that when gas prices are going up, the media proclaims (lauds?) that it's not keeping us from driving. But now, lower prices are giving us the urge to go out and drive?
For short-term variations in demand, what other drivers (sorry) are there? Weather, certainly (not necessarily hurricanes). But most usage patterns are set by long-term decisions, such as what car to drive and where to live and work. Do the ranks of carpoolers swell and contract with gas prices? This should show up in traffic congestion data.
Or maybe it's just the media's way of singing "Happy Days Are Here Again...".
Think about it. Our population is growing. We need 100,000-200,000 new jobs a month, just to keep all the new people coming into the job market employed. Most of those people will need to drive to work.
People did cut back when gas prices were high. Some may have carpooled or taken public transportation to work, but I suspect most cut back on other driving. No cruising the streets at night for teens. Fewer weekend road trips for college students. Going to a restaurant that's closer to home, even though you prefer one that's farther away. Shorter family vacations. Consolidation of errands.
Wal-Mart said there was a drop in the number of visits to their stores, and they blamed high gas prices.
Slightly off topic, but I heard my first political debate last night wherein the candidates were actually asked what they would do about global warming. Despite all the hoopla over Gore's movie, all we mostly hear is bla bla bla about Iraq, terrorism, and how horrible each candidate is. Of course, the responses were completely superficial. Increase mileage standards and renewable energy magic bullets.
Maybe Lamarkianism lives on in Russia?
=======Wildlife defies Chernobyl radiation
By Stephen Mulvey
BBC News
It contains some of the most contaminated land in the world, yet it has become a haven for wildlife - a nature reserve in all but name.
Przewalski's horses are breeding in the zone (Picture: Sergey Gaschak)
The exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station is teeming with life.
As humans were evacuated from the area 20 years ago, animals moved in. Existing populations multiplied and species not seen for decades, such as the lynx and eagle owl, began to return...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm
See if you can find any recent information on Mayak (near Cheliabinsk in Russia) - it's the most radioactively contaminated place on the face of the Earth. They used to throw high level nuclear waste into the nearest river there. Somewhere I have a report about it written by a Norwegian taskforce in the late 1990s. I'll try and dig it out, but there might be some more up-to-date information available on the web by now.
You'll note that I've defended breeder reactors by mentioning the BN-600 fast neutron reactor there. That's because Mayak is entirely caused by human negligence.
I would like to suggest that TOD open up another thread, namely "Advice to the Next President."
Fast forward to March of 2008, where the new president and the new Congress, dealing with the hangover of defeat in Iraq, are contemplating what to do about Peak Oil and the problems associated with our energy dependence on the Middle East.
What would you recommend to the new President and Congress? Should government stand back and leave it to the markets? Should the next President use his bully pulpit to encourage change, or should the government get more actively involved? Should the government and big business launch a Manhattan Project? And if they did the latter, what should it look like?
Prospective Presidential candidates are mulling over these issues now, and as the next campaign seasons starts up, their ideas will be broadcast across the country. This could be our chance to influence that debate.
So TOD, whad'ya say?
Encourage cities to encourage bicycling. Zoning changes for higher density near transit.
Hard policy steps - Severely limit federal aid for new highways (perhaps some for busways, HOV lanes, but even these are not top priority)
FTA matching funds of 90% for new Urban Rail (same as Interstate Highways)
Higher gas prices phased in. Some offset with payroll taxes.
Carbon taxes also phased in, some offset to other taxes.
Incentives for solar water heaters, geothermal heat pumps (air source heat pumps in Deep South), insulation, better windows.
Raise CAFE steeply
Federal standards are energy efficiency in new construction (see Sweden). 13.5 SEER minimum for new a/c. Higher appliance standards.
Any railroad that electrifies is exempt from property taxes. Any local taxing jurisidction that loses more than 1% of it's tax base, gets compensated by feds for amount over 1% (phased out over 25 years).
No VA loans for new homes in sprawl (existing OK). Federal mortgage companies add 0.5% risk premium for new sprawl homes, 0.25% for those 2 or more years old.
Off the top of my head,
Alan
Number one on my list would be telecommuting mandatory where applicable. Any job that can be performed remotely (from home) should be mandatory.
Benefits:
My .02
-C.
What if you walk to work most days, and take electric Urban Rail on nasty days ? Like a married couple nearby that work in 51 story One Shell Square ? And if their 950 sq ft home (one child) does not have room for two home offices ?
Being together 24 hours/day is not good for some marriages.
You assume that everyone drives a long way to work. Ain't true for a lot (not enough) people.
Best Hopes,
Alan
I do not assume that everyone drives a long way to work. I was merely adding my thoughts on ways we can improve the situation and conserve. And you missed the part where I said "where applicable."
Just a few tidbits from Here
In 2000:
Maybe mandatory is the wrong word, but "strongly encourage" telecommuting with some sort of incentive to those that partake?
I lived in the Chicago Suburbs for 13 years and 48 miles from my office. My job (IT) would not allow me to take the train as I kept odd hours. So, I would get up at 4:30 am just to avoid sitting in traffic for 2 hrs. It would still take me about 1:20 minutes to get to work in the morning and of course I could not avoid the 2 hr commute home every day. Again, I know that's not for everyone but what if we could get to say 20% work from home?
-C.
I liked Jim's post. Its not often positive thinking is encouraged here on TOD.
It feels good to exercise some unused muscles every once in a while.
I often get involved in discussions where we solve all the worlds problems. Funny thing is that we wake up the next morning and those problems are all still there. Understanding why that is so is essential in understanding the difference between being an optimist and being a pollyanna.
Like my above post, a great priority is that we need to work at the city-planning level to make bikes, small mopeds, electric bikes, and scooters, even tiny electric cars safe in the street. That means designated streets for small vehicles. If PO is coming at us faster than we can get ready for it, (and TPTB don't build electric rail in every city across the country fast enough), the only way to continue transportation to and from work affordably, yet retaining the luxury of keeping one's own schedule by being one to a vehicle for that commute, is designated streets for those vehicles. The beauty of it would be that the infrastructure (streets) is already there, and that the idea could be applied to any size city or town (as opposed to other mass transit). I know, some people are already commuting this way (and that number is growing) but many more would if they felt safe. Since the local level seems to be the only level at which something can be accomplished currently to prepare for PO, this is also doable.
And, BTW, I very much agree with #1 as well.
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3143/6678
BTW, I'm a bicycle commuter. I just read this stuff to motivate myself to stay alert.
Perhaps we just implement this idea on residential streets, which usually have less traffic, anyway. Combine this with speed bumps and traffic circles and perhaps the autos would be going so slow that passing would be unnecceary. Retain two way or two lane auto traffic for the busier through streets, but provide for separate elevated bicycle lanes for those streets.
I have some experience riding a bike in Boulder, Colorado and find it quite easy to get around and reach any destination I choose. Boulder combines dedicated bike lanes, elevated lanes on sidewalks, and painted lanes on existing streets. For major , busy roads, the last approach is the most problematical as cars can easily swerve into your lane. The painted in lanes on residential streets work better, of course, because there is far less traffic.
Despite Boulder's relatively superior approach to accomodating the bicyle, there is still a massive and growing amount of auto traffic. Most people won't get out of their cars regardless of how convenient you make alternatives like bicycling.
The city fathers should just tell people that if you don't like the traffic now, wait until next year and the year after that. It is just going to get worse because we don't plan to make it easier for you. People need to know that things will get worse, not better. Gridlock should be encouraged, not improved by building more lanes or more roads.
Ultimately, cars should be something that you park outside the city's boundaries and/or restrict to residents.
Not when science gives us a 10-year window before feedbacks will kick in and provide for runaway change. They can complain all they want that it's so hard to make changes, fact is there is no alternative: either do it now, and drastically, or stop talking about it already.
A point like this:
* No rich country shall have to go through disruptive change.
can be answered with a resounding: OH YES IT DOES!! All rich countries will go through disruptive change in the next 100 years.
Either we do it or it happens to us.
There is a nice irony in the fact that now we are faced with the short term framework that we, and especially our politicians, understand, and all we manage to come up with are long term "solutions".
A 100-year plan is just a different way of saying: we give up.
If we plant fruit trees, it looks like we will need to consider the polination issue in addition to the question of whether, because of climate change, it will be too hot and dry for the trees to produce fruit when the trees reach maturity.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - One Australian farmer commits suicide every four days, defeated by the country's worst drought in 100 years which has left them with dust-bowl paddocks and a mountain of debt, says a national mental health body.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061019/wl_nm/australia_drought_suicide_dc;_ylt=Art3owXUOWBhpJqgdNEa3YZv aA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-
Before industrialization, the earth was at 280 ppm. We are now at 382ppm - higher than at any time in the past. Until recently, it was thought that 550ppm was the highest safe level. Now, it is thought that the safe level is 450ppm or even 400ppm. The article mentions that there is a time lag, so that the level we are seeing now represents the changes from the 1970s.
It seems to me that we are very close to run-away climate change. This is really scary - it is hard to see how we can get CO2 level down, or even stabilize it, given the long time lag underlying the CO2 changes, the magnitude of what would need to be done (no cars or industrialization?), and the unwillingness of people to change. I am wondering, too, whether even 400ppm is safe, given that the ice core studies have shown that the current level is outside of the range seen in all of past history - and there have been some pretty hot periods in the past.
The idea that the effects of CO2 on global warming are delayed makes me wonder if this is a mechanism that Gaia has utilized to "lull" offenders into a sense of complacency until it is too late for the offenders to do anything but become extinct. Think of it as a global immune system tactic to kill off a threatening virus.
In any case, Mother Nature bats last.
Tom A-B
I raised my hand and said, "would you agree that the world we live in has finite limits, particulary resources?" You know, she almost couldnt say yes. She sat there for about 10 secs thinking about it and said, "well, yeah I guess." I knew this wasn't going to go well, but felt like I already started this and maybe my peers might get something out of it. I then asked if she has ever seen the hockey stick graph of the world population. She said she vaguely remember it, so I walked up on drew it on the board for all to see.
Most of the students were stunned. I could tell by their faces. These are almost all econ students. I could tell she was getting aggravated so I ended it with, "you can't always expect increasing growth when you ultimately are constrained by the limits of nature that science can not alter. Whether that's now or a hundred years from now, there will be an end." She got the last word, spoken like a true ivory tower professor, "Well that will be after my lifetime so my grandkids will have to worry about it."
Nice.
This just goes to show that we can't count on our enlightened academics to solve our problems. I agree with your succinct conclusion above about our civilization's prospects.
Tom A-B
should be shot.
And her grandchildren will agree with me.
If they ever live at all.
Ron Patterson
Here is evidence that essentially all human beings are irrational and self-centered.
The mere fact that this person holds the title of "professor" (or college teacher, or whatever) does not immunize her from being irrational and reliant on deep denial and other flights of fantasy.
What is more amazing is that this person is a "statistics" teacher, meaning she should know about math (including exponential functions) and she should know about making "sampled" observations of real world phenomenon (like our Uncle Hubbert did) and she should know how to filter random noise out from her conclusions (like our logistics curve fitters do here at TOD). And yet, with all that cerebral capbility, the final outcome is an emotional evisciration of all facts off of the table and a return to gracious grandmotherly instincts (if anyone's gonna die, it'll be the grand kids, hee ha ha ha).
Gee, an old woman shoving young kids into the inferno. What does that remind you of?
She shot back with well we're finding more and more on offshores drilling. I said that's exactly the point I'm making. We have to go into more dangerous, less secure areas to find more. All the easy stuff is mostly gone and depleting around the world. She said technology would find a way to increase production. I was surprised as an economist she didnt fire off the substitution bullshit.
Somehow we got onto consumption and I told her it's increased roughly every year except the 70's. Then she's like we reduced our usage then and we can do it again. I said you must keep in mind China and India. She said no one is going to drive small cars here. She basically walked out on me telling me that I shouldn't want higher taxes on gasoline to increase mass transit.
I came to the conclusion that many people really don't have an open mind to listen and once people are set in their ways/ideology there's little you can do to inform them since it scares the hell out of them.
It's a survival instinct that has proven to be quite useful, except for the times it proves to be really destructive.
PDF warning.
http://www.princeton.edu/~dominic/2006%20-%20Johnson%20et%20al.%20-%20Overconfidence%20and%20Wargame s.pdf
FABULOUS.
Thanks for doing the extra-credit school work.
What must be remembered is that this person is a SPECIALIST IN ECONOMICS.
To truly understand Peak Oil and its implications, one needs a lot of specialized tutoring; the kind that folk like westexas, kehab, bubba, etc. have been kind enough to share with us here at TOD about how oil is formed and collected in subterrestrial trap zones. Your Econ teacher probably does not have a clue. Don't blame her. This is the beauty of Adam Smith's system! We are each a superb expert in our tiny pigeon hole area of specialization. We ASSUME that all holes are covered and everyone is taking care of his! Technology will provide. The market will provide. Human ingenuity will provide. Be happy, don't worry. LOL!
I have little doubt that the professor is "smart".
She could probably eat me under the table with chi squared and sigma six analysis or what have you (in statistics).
I'm not talking smart when I talk about not having a clue. I'm talking lack of knowledge. I'm talking about being ignorant when it comes to oil and all its technological aspects: geology, exploration, extraction and burn off.
And quite realisticly, you can't fault the eco teacher for not knowing oil science. Nobody knows everything (with exception of sailorman of course).
When you don't know, it's easy to assume that "they" will think of something. "They" will pull another magic rabbit out of the hat. "They" did it with Y2K and surely they can do a repeat performance with this technical something-or-other stuff.
It's only if and when you "know", that PO starts to become a problem.
(1798) Essay on the Principle of Population
Two resources that will not run out: hubiris and stupidity.
It is amazing how many scholars still insist that Malthus was wrong. I'm not sure which ingenius one gets the ultimate Lemming-Insight Prize. You vote:
Contestant #1: Software guy, last comment here:
I get goosebumps just re-reading contestant number 1's entry. We are the world. We are the Universe. Wow.
Contestant #2: A Neo-conic Neo-Malthusism here
Contestant #2= A chip (chimp?) off the old block. Moore's Law overcomes all obstacles. This is inspiring. Give this guy an exponentially growing round of applause.Contestant #3: A Resourceful One here
Contestant #3= A champ off our old blockContestant #4: Just another Economist here
It's the Economy for Bonzo, stupid.Contestant #5: A Holey Roller here
Contestant #5= Let's do ethanol for lunch, eh?Just another clue of how big we've become.
This article (link above) points out that with the drop in price of oil -Chavez is in trouble at home - not as much free money to pass around - and he may be in trouble in the election in seven weeks.
So maybe there was another way to get rid of Chavez after all - drive the oil price down and let the electorate boot hin out.
It's titled End of ze World and it's hilarious! If you don't have speakers on you will need them!
http://funnyjunk.com/pages/world.htm
This link from Yahoo announces:
-----------------------------------
LONDON (Reuters) - The complete evolutionary works of Charles Darwin have gone online, including the stolen notebook he carried in his pocket around the Galapagos Islands.
Tens of thousands of pages of text and pictures and audio files have been made available, including some previously unpublished manuscripts and diaries of the great British scientist.
Among the unique collection is the notebook used during the Beagle voyage which would later forge his scientific arguments. It was stolen in the 1980s, but Darwin's great-great-grandson hopes the publication online, thanks to a transcription from a microfilm copy made two decades earlier, will persuade whoever has it to return it.
"It has huge importance for the history of science," Randal Keynes told the BBC.
--------------------------
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I grew up reading Architectural Digest. Planning my garden around the foods we ate and the things me, and my dad built to keep the garden running smoothly. My father is a craftsman. He grew up working with his hands. All over this house I see his work, used in day to day life, practical things, pretty things. I see some of my artwork, my mom likes to collect it, other people have it in use, and I am sure a lot of it has passed into the ether. I have made things with my limited skills in wood, and I am trying to learn more of the hands-on knowledge that my dad has locked away in the calluses of his hands.
We work well together it is something that I am always glad of, especially considering all my friends who in college who thought my dad was a GURU of some sort in the mechanical world. His place of work Knows he is.
Shaker designs especially in furniture are some of the greatest works of wood crafting known to man. IMHO. Wood held together with wood. Some people have taken years to train under the current masters of the style, to make things as good as the original Shakers. I wish I knew more, I guess it's time to ask dad another set ofquestions.
Army Corps proposes easing Gulf wetlands rule
I guess as far as the USACE is concerned August 2005 has been completely flushed down the memory hole.
Amazing.
Their theme this coming Mardi Gras is "Habitat for Insanity".
Best Hopes,
Alan