DrumBeat: July 1, 2006
Posted by threadbot on July 1, 2006 - 9:35am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Left-leaning MoveOn.org organized a nation-wide protest over gas prices Wednesday, timed for the holiday weekend. The slant: Big Oil's cash is corrupting Congress.
OTTAWA — Abrupt climate change may soon force governments to choose between feeding people and fuelling SUVs, a respected investment firm says in a new study.Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management says global warming is occurring faster than expected and rising demand for so-called green fuel will cut into food supplies.
The investment firm produced a bleak study that also predicts increased regulation and ballooning deficits as governments try to cope with more frequent climate-related disasters while building new infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions. Hyperinflation is seen as a plausible result.
Update [2006-7-1 10:15:37 by Leanan]: Russia's Gazprom aims to become world energy leader
China consumes less energy with faster economic growth rate
China's growth rate of energy consumption dropped to 9.5 percent last year from 15.5 percent in 2004, while the country maintained a 9.9 percent economic growth rate in 2005....So it is "unfair and incomplete" to blame China for high oil prices, said Dr. Gary Dirks, Vice President of BP Group.
Michigan struggles with the issue of funding roads. They want to cut taxes on E85 to encourage to use of ethanol, but don't know how to pay for road and bridge repair without that revenue.
The Washington Post makes the argument for skyscrapers:
Urban expert James Kunstler argues that energy shortages will scare residents away from skyscrapers because no one wants to climb 50 flights of stairs during a brownout, but that should only scare residents away from skyscrapers without backup generators. If anything, energy shortages should scare residents away from their gas-guzzling suburban commutes.If that ever happened, Washington would be well situated to lead the way into a new age of urban sustainability. It has excellent public transit, with plenty of room for denser development along the major routes. Nine percent of its residents already walk to work, the most of any U.S. city, and that figure could easily expand with smarter growth. The height restriction is not the only impediment to that growth, but it would be a lot easier to repeal than the region's car-dependent culture, or the knee-jerk anti-density crusades of urban NIMBYists.
Voltate Forum: an online EV Forum Community
and
EV Photo Album: Our Electric Cars on the Web
here's the search by "type bicycle"
It's interesting to see what the EV enthusiasts are up to.
Here's an idea. Put together an e-moped and carry solar panels. As you park it you set up said solar panels to partially charge the battery pack as you work. More expensive, you could solar-ise a hybrid car the same way. It would take its exposure to the sun as you work before you take off at the end of the day. Not perfect, but it would help. Those solar race cars are such that they are used during the day - exactly when cars are parked. Since cars are used for commuting missions instead of a "rayce" it would actually help a bunch.
In the mean time, I welcome the bit with sugar being used as fuel by making it into booze fuel. That'll get companies to use Splenda to sweeten processed food and it'll cut calories. Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sugar and adds no calories as it's inert as far as metabolism. What the government (or a really rich fuck) could do is buy the Splenda patent and make it open-source like Linux. That way, Splenda will replace sugar in the food all but instantly. That'll help cut down on the obesity problem. Where would you want sugar to be used? In your SUV? Or to make you fat? Put those damn calories in the E85 tank!
Fat is another food item that would be better used as diesel than to make people fatter. Trans-fat would be better used to power a jet plane than used in food. Bio- jet fuel, anyone? Where do you want your trans-fat? In your fried chicken, or to push that RJ140 you are riding in? My prefernce is to put it in the tanks of that RJ140 plane.
The problem is that while making low-calorie food would be great in America, lots of people worldwide NEED those calories lest they starve to death. Given biofuel techniques, it is possible for competition in the market for those calories. While Americans can afford to reduce calorie intake as they pilot those cars around, poor people in Africa (and elsewhere) can't afford to take in less calories. They are already starving!
- Take conventional battery-powered model airplane.
- Tow a sqare meter (or thereabouts) of lightweight but durable photovoltaic material behind the plane.
- Connect the strip (or maybe a few broad ribbons) to the rechargeable battery.
Now, if I can get this to work in a model airplane, why not a real one?In my science fiction novels some planes are electrically powered, while others run on ethanol or refined vegetable oil powering diesel engines and a few jets. Brazil already has quite a number of ethanol fueled small airplanes.
Let the daydreams begin...
The trick is to get enough area exposed at roughly the correct angle to the sun. I think speed will have to be kept low to keep wear on the sail-like solar panels reasonable.
I have a private pilot's license and am planning to take up soaring after I finish Volume 3 of my science fiction series. In Volume 2, gliders are essential for the heroes to defeat the Forces of Evil.
As for poor Africans, isn't one of the problems of peak oil that even with an abundance of food in North America, there is no way to get it to them? For that matter is feeding them really even ethical in the long run? If the population has overshot the carrying capacity of the land, rushing in with food aid only helps to seal the hopeless fate of future generations and causes even more environmental destruction.
Local food production is going to be a key success factor in the future. Very likely it will determine who lives on comfortably and who will be remembered only in references to the "Great Population Collapse"
Sustainable Food, Renewable Energy and Social Unity are going to separate the winners from the losers after we go over the peak. We can shed consumer culture. We won't like it, but we can survive without it.
Our current ethics, as practiced. People starve today, not because there is a shortage of food (we still have 57 days global buffer) but because of a lack of (economic) demand, ie, the starving cannot afford to eat.
It is all good ... the Invisible Hand has a higher purpose which we mortals are incapable of comprehending ... If the Invisible Hand deems it right for some "less fortunate" among us to depart their Free Market existence here on Earth and move on to their exponentially accumulated pension plans in the Spreadsheet Sky ... then so be it.
Who are we to question?
Yes, there are some instances where the Invisible Hand does more good than harm.
There are other instances (ones which economist unapologetically sweep under the rug as "market failures") where the Invisible Hand fails abysmally.
Peak Oil is a huge example of market failure because we, as the minions of the Hand, keep investing more of our scarce resources and limited time into a way of life that is destroying the planet via GW.
I wish for more of it at home where we are stuck with inefficient government organisations in many service businesses.
The problems result from
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4430/1/
(I'd say Moped, but what they sell as 'Mopeds' now never seem to have pedals anyway.) Everytime I look at what kind of combo of small vehicle and electric powering I'd want to design, I end up seeing the bike and bus as the answer to most of my travel and shopping needs.
This guy's design is encouraging, but I think it would make a lot of sense to not be carrying your generating capacity with you. That's just more weight your batts are pushing. I'm sure this is a big benefit of Elec Rail over Elec Cars, since the storage batteries add an incredible amount to the vehicle's mass.
Any desent bike would get you there just as quick!
The scooter has driven 700 miles without pluging-in, my bike has more miles on!
http://www.solartekcorp.com/images/walkaround1.html
I'm currently designing the structural details. I'm showing a 40-50 round trip commute on the power captured by the solar panels in the parking lot (full sun days only, of course).
WHEN we hit a crunch, being able to easily expand (a year or two to buy new rail cars and perhaps extend platforms) will be a major plus for existing Urban Rail systems. I have proposed a "Strategic Railcar Reserve" that can go in service within days or weeks after an emergency happens. Just because Oil is peaking does NOT mean that there is no risk of the "Islamic Republic of Arabia".
=================url: http://www.startribune.com/563/story/524824.html
StarTribune.com
Last update: June 29, 2006 - 9:52 PM
Letter of the day: Hiawatha trains are full; let the line expand
As chair of the Senate Transportation Committee when we finally obtained state funding for the Hiawatha Light Rail Line, I've found it rewarding to watch the line's growing success. May ridership of 841,846 set a new record!
Nearly one out of every seven trips provided by Metro Transit was on light rail last month. Development along the corridor is taking off as developers realize that people from all over the region want to live near this premium transit corridor. A planned parking ramp at the 28th Avenue Station in Bloomington will attract nearly 1,000 more riders -- enough to completely fill three trains.
There's just one problem: The trains are already full. For all practical purposes, peak hour, peak direction trains are at capacity and there are concerns that overcrowded trains are discouraging riders. There is a real need to expand Hiawatha to accommodate THREE-car trains. Lengthening station platforms and adding vehicles should cost less than $50 million. Because no additional operators are needed, operating costs would increase only 10 percent. Unfortunately, the Metropolitan Council recently chose to lend MnDOT $50 million for six years to speed up highway projects.
Met Council Chair Peter Bell has remarked that the Hiawatha LRT line was one of the most successful public works projects in our region in at least 25 years. Surely, increasing the line's capacity by 50 percent for just 7 percent of its original cost would be even more successful. What are we waiting for?
CAROL FLYNN, MINNEAPOLIS; RETIRED STATE SENATOR
Anyway, I got to thinking about luggage. When one is taking the family and all the stuff for a week, how would this be handled? What about changing trians, etc? Obviously we could take less stuff, but even so there would be times when a fair amount of luggage would be involved. This can't be a new problem, of course - how did they do it way back when?
If we had bullet trains for cross-country express routes, given that due to noise limitations, red-eye flights go in one direction only and have other, noise-related constraints, bullet trains traveling 24 hours a day in all directions probably would not be that much slower than jets.
The civil engineering costs are great for high speed travel and one cannot run freight (except mail) on them. Yet few Europeans or Japanese travel much more than 400 km (250 miles) on them.
I have proposed, for the US, a system of "semi-High Speed rail" lines (pax max speed ~110 mph), connecting up a series of large cities within 250 miles or so of each other that also carries freight at top speeds of 100 mph.
For example, south of Washington DC, Richmond-Charlotte-Atlanta and also Charlotte-Savannah-Jacksonville-Orlando-Tampa and Orlando-Ft. Lauderdale-Miami. Use it to haul high value freight that is now trucked or air freighted (fish, fruits, vegetables, packages, just-in-time inventory, etc.)
Even with bullet trains, speed gets to be a problem even without too-sharp turns. That's from aerodynamic friction. The air is pretty thick down here! As you push a vehicle faster, of course, the air friction superceeds the rolling friction. You can see this with your car at freeway speeds. If you are rolling down a hill in a car, it will reach a speed such that air friction (plus rolling friction) will cancel out the propulsion from gravity. Aerodynamic friction is why maglev trains never caught on anywhere. At 100mph air friction is a much bigger thing than rolling friction with all manner of ground-only vehicles.
Pax service at max 110 mph, average 100 mph. (Maybe a little faster) & freight at max 100 mph (special cars copied from Swiss Rail) and average 90 mph, sharing the same line.
It would work and be economic & attractive to large #s of people and freight shippers.
I'm gonna daub myself with glue
Stick some stamps on top of my head
I'm gonna mail myself to you"
-Woody Guthrie
I traveled in Europe, as a GI on the trains, baggage was no problem. Never had trouble on Greyhound going to college; nor on the airlines traveling both national and international with lots of checked and hand baggage.
I just googled for the Broadway Limited; http://prr.railfan.net/documents/BroadwayLtd/. Just to see how it was done back then. They left NYC at 6PM arrived in Chicago downtown at 9AM.
Business center to business center and after a night's sleep. The average speed seems slow, around 65 MPH. However the return trip would start at 5 PM, arrive in NYC at around 9 AM again, probably ready for a day's work.
Compare that to the airline way... out of bed at 0 too early, long commute to the airport, TSA security, no food, cramped seating, and the same hassles at the other end, plus the return trip.
As for tourism, Florida was developed by the RR. Chicken or the egg? Real estate first or travelers?
It's an amusing little thing.
Here's a nice story on the Sparrow:
http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=983
by Amanda Kovattana who has an environmental blog:
http://amandakovattana.blogspot.com/
"A resident of Yucca, Emming organized the Kingman event in conjunction with MoveOn.org, a left-leaning political organization. He said he wanted to make the nation's dependency on fossil fuels and the cost of gasoline at the pump important issues in this year's election."
So, we should mandate lower gasoline prices, and therefore encourage consumption, as a way to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?
IMO, the only thing keeping the US market temporarily supplied are high oil prices, now up close to 25% since December.
I'm too young to really remember the price controls of the 70's, etc., and I think there's a lot to be said for just letting the market handle the situation. On the other hand, we need to realize that what this really means is taking it out of the hides of the poor--gas/etc. doesn't cost nearly enough yet to make the well-off change their behavior.
I don't really see how anyone can monetarily subsidize this sort of behavior among the working poor, except to hope that climbing gas prices will make them change their behavior. However, judging from the items I see in shopping carts at the checkout stand, that's a slim hope. One can make one's shopping dollar go much further by buying beans, rice, and potatoes by the bag; but instead you'll see a lot of sugar cereals, sodas and potato chips -- often paid for with food stamps!