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DrumBeat: July 22, 2006
Posted by threadbot on July 22, 2006 - 9:45am
[Update by Leanan on 07/22/06 at 9:50 AM EDT]
Private Energy Producers Rising in Russia?
An anonymous Moscow-based blogger writing for Ruminations on Russia is making some interesting claims about a report issued last week by UBS, an international investment bank. According to RoR's Thursday July 13 blog post, foreign investors are seriously underestimating how quickly the Russian economy is growing, and therefore how much gas Russia will soon burn at home instead of having available for export. For those of us hoping that Russia can provide the U.S. and Europe with a major alternative to importing more oil and gas form the Middle East, at first glance this sounds like very bad news.
U.S. Energy Secretary Calls on Iraq To Open Oil Sector
India: Panic buying at oil pumps
As pump-owners stopped procuring petrol and diesel from oil companies from Thursday midnight, several outlets in and around the city witnessed panic buying on Friday.If the buying spree remains unchecked, most filling stations will run dry by Saturday, triggering a major crisis.
Zimbabwe: Power Cuts Could Reduce Wheat Yields
Canada: Buy less gas, begs oil exec
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—James Madison, FEDERALIST #57 (1787)
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I have been kicking around the idea of writing an essay on the coal-to-liquids (CTL) dream of Montana governor Brian Schweitzer. However, a story just appeared in the Billings Gazette that emphasizes many of the points I would cover in an essay:
Making oil from coal is bad for Montana
The essay argues that we shouldn't do it, mainly due to global warming and pollution concerns. I agree that we shouldn't do it, but I think we will do it as we become more desperate for energy. However, the cost of a CTL plant is double the cost of a conventional refinery. This means that CTL is still not an economic option, even though the process is viable from a technical standpoint.
The article above claims $6 billion to build one 80,000 bbl/day plant. This is consistent with estimates I have seen, which are even higher than estimates for GTL plants. So, before we turn to CTL, I think we will have to further deplete our conventional oil resources, and then start building GTL plants. At some point prices will be high enough to justify building CTL plants. Of course we may be growing bananas in Greenland by then.
Oh, and if you want to see some opinions that will make you shudder, read some of the comments following the article above. Some of those comments reflect an incredible ignorance of the issues we face. One of the posters is confident that God won't allow us to destroy ourselves. Someone else argued that if we cut back on CO2, plants will start to die. We have a real uphill battle trying to get people to face up to the challenges before us.
As Robert knows, what the energy industry is beginning to experience is that the cost of obtaining new liquid transportation fuels (LTF's) from fossil fuels is growing far faster than the price of LTF's is increasing. In other words, you haven't seen anything yet (price wise).
While commuting is the most obvious thing, those fuel prices as we all know will "trickle down" into climbing FOOD prices among other things. Water will sooner or later start to have its price climb becuse of fuel to pump it. Coal in powerplants that feed electric-engine driven pumping stations will get more expensive as coal is diverted toward liquid fuel to commute with.
Commuting is about the most energy-intensive economic activity I can think of, in terms of value of payload (the pilot) compared to energy used. People take notice when a quarter of their take-home pay goes to that gas pump to get a load of fuel in their car. Already I saw one coworker quit due to gas prices, and another take up car pooling. Both cases are cases of long-range commuters. Sooner or later we all will have to disembark from our cars. Time to consider less energy-intensive methods now for that day that'll come for each of us. The writing is on the wall.
This heat can't be good for "the economy", although I went to Trader Joe's for some meat, leaves, and high end beer, and noticed one guy had a cart stuffed with enough stuff to feed an army for a week. Guess I should have walked around and noted if people are "shopping different" but I just wanted to get my stuff and get it home before it parboiled in the bag.
--much hotter than what MSM will admit to
That said, a lot of people can cut back on gas usage a lot just by adopting better driving habits (if they realize that their habits are causing part of their excess fuel use) and getting smaller cars. There's no reason we can't have very fuel efficient small cars that are pretty cheap (don't even need any hybrid technology, look at the gas mileage the Geo/Cheverolet Metro got), so there's hope there too as people start to wake up.
It's certain that lots of drivers can modify their shopping trips to match their commuting missions. But the problem is that this method of conservation is limited. I have always kept this in mind, but most people so far don't. That's becuse I have always walked before driving and doing so as to minimise Calorie use in terms of general purpose instinct. I merely carried it over to car use.
Some time down the road, I will have to use a bus as a "booster" to get closer to work and use a bicycle as the second stage of the mission to work - if the job remains that is. I hate thinking about it, but that day is liable to come.
He expects oil to hit $100 in the near future, by November as i recall.
I especially like the astrophysicist -- it would appear that nothing that people do really makes any difference. Here is a perfect synchrony of religion and science. Just shut up and drive your SUV. God will take care of everything, and science will explain it to you.
And the wierd thing is that Montana hardly has any population, so it puts the lie to the notion that all our problems would be solved by simply reducing the Earth's human population.
That's like saying that the crowded conditions in Tokyo, Mexico City, NYC, etc. for decades puts the lie to the notion that we can't populate the entire world that densely.
I usually ask them about their background, their education, and what they do for a living. Most of the time I already know, but by having them say that they have an education/work experience in sales/marketing/managment/customer service/interior design/accounting or what ever non-scientific/technical background they basically admit they don't have the ability to argue the information. Then I tell them my background - degree in chemical engineering, work in thermodynamics, worked on the solar race car team, work in computer systems - and they start to understand that I can backup what I am telling them.
They usually try to end the discussion with some wild statement - that somebody/thing will save us - that they will find more oil - that I am just missing something. "It won't really get that bad."
Then I realize that they don't want to know.
I think this is more important than their lack of technical expertise. I'm not an oil geologist or chemical engineer and have a background in the 'soft' social sciences -- but peak oil seem credible to me.
the ultimate of this style of thinking is that pennies are $60/gallon and quarters are $800/gallon. A $10,000 surgery job is 4 barrels of pennies! When thinking about large amounts of money, you can easally imagine a warehouse with drums full of pennies. A million bucks is 400 drums of pennies, 20 to a side in that warehouse. Imagine standing on a mezzanine looking down on the floor with those drums of pennies. There is a website about extreme numbers of pennies. (megapenny.com?)
More so than time, energy is money. What a businessperson calls "time is money" ends up being time * energy = money.
http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/default.asp
a very interesting visualisation, well worth a look.
One of the more interesting tragic-comedies I've witnessed is a group of marketing guys working for a large corporation.
They came up with an idea for new product. Common sense said that building it should be a no-brainer. They went off on their own; raised millions ... spent the $$$ mostly on marketing ... got orders ... then found out there was this ... err ... engineering problem that had not been solved by anyone ever before.
They lost their homes ... lost everything.
Technology did not come to the rescue.
A small high-tech firm I worked for was founded (funded) in 1988 on the certainty that we could couple 1.7 Gbps of digital data onto standard coax for a distance of 30 feet or so. After the equity R&D investment was all spent on "R" with no results, we admited that the low signal to noise ratio had killed us, and there would never be any "D".
Interestingly though, the need to recover from that failure led us to develop the world's first 100 Mbps Ethernet-packet LAN on fiber-optics, several years before the early 100 Mbps standards were developed. That, in turn, led to one of the world's first, and possibly the world's very first, pure-hardware Ethernet switch.
Ultimately marketing problems, competition from the industry's big dogs, and a severe case of management recto-cranial inversion sank the company. But the point is that even failed attempts to push the envelope can have subsequent benefits.
The message for those trying everything they can think of to mitigate a post-Peak Oil energy decline without making other problems worse is obvious. Keep trying, civilization depends on us finding as many alternatives as possible.
I think there is a state of mind that is essential for making that last leap. I think you have to be capable of, and comfortable with, drawing dark inferences from the available data. In other words, you need to be a bit of a pessimist at heart. Scientists can be just as prone to unreasonable optimism as anyone :-/
But I have never seen myself as a pessimist. And I have been tracking the path towards both PO & GW for my adult life. And for both I am trying to do "something".
I don't think that I could idlely sit back and just observe, satisified with my greater knowledge of coming doom.
Better to forward some information, write an eMail to some politicans, write a letter to the editor, and all the other "small" measures.
In Australia we have lots of coal and gas but not much Oil. However the investments to turn coal and gas into Oil have not happened because the bankers keep getting told "Oil prices will soon decrease" and so won't fund projects that make a profit at $60 a barrel.
I wonder how long the forecasters will keep up the Oil will get cheap Real Soon Now? They're holding up the investments we need.
I'll admit to a bias against bidness majors, but I would give them more credit than assuming they are all in the GW, no nothing category.
Also, don't lump economists into the same bag, either. There is such a field as environmental economics ala Herman Daily which is much more sensitive to resource constraints, environmental impacts, and externalities than your typical economist.
The key, I think is having the inclination to expand one's knowledge beyond one's chosen specialization.
When I hear that line I say "I've a master's from MIT. I know technology. Technology won't save us." Sometimes it works.
Good luck saving the world, Robert. I hope you don't get an ulcer (or worse) doing it.
Those responses, as well as my experience in L.A., were pretty depressing. You can just see how this is going to play out. It will be denial until the end, and when the panic comes it is going to carry us all along in the wave. If I could figure out a good way to insulate myself from the societal effects, I would be a bit more optimistic. But, if society is not prepared, I don't think I can do much to prepare.
Cheers,
RR
A perusal of the TxRRC site turned up this chart:
, where, as you can see, things are looking up. <grin>
Or maybe it's that UT department — I looked back at the google page and, sure enough, it's this guy:
I'd say this is the kind of guy who'll tell you whatever you want to hear.
Responding to your comment with a reply not directed at you.
The angst of your trip report to LA combined with the Montana populace responses supports the reason for so-called "Doomers" being so pessimistic.
In other words, if it will be denial to the bitter end, why bother wasting one's precious energy, resources, and time to change minds. All you get in the end is tired, broke, and old. Best to spend one's time protecting oneself from the faceless hordes who wouldn't listen in the first place.
I would not put myself in the Doomer category, but I think I understand where they are coming from. I think you may understand where they are coming from just a bit better now as well.
People are starting to realise that the gas prices are not coming down even though they are not PO-aware. They all know that "somthing's up" but can't yet put their finger on it.
I've always thought it the other way around: the energy content of one litre of gasoline is absolutely astonishing. One litre, or roughly two pints of liquid can easily transport a ton of junk for ten miles, and it takes only a few minutes. Try hauling the same amount of matter for the same distance using only your muscle power, e.g. with a bicycle. It takes the whole day and you have to eat and drink a lot more than one litre to compensate for the work done.
However, you do make an interesting point. If you do everything by bike, you do eat more than you'd eat otherwise. Or, for the average American, you eat about the same but you actually use that excess 1000 kcal or so a day, and (horrors!) lose weight. You do get more of a hunger for decent food, instead of an appitite for junk food. You find yourself hungry for a balance - a meal with meat, starch, and veggies, not just a salad, or a box of donuts, or meat and nothing else. You learn again that water is really good and tasty. And salt is no longer the enemy it was, in fact you need to make sure you get enough of it - hint: a can of V-8 is great for this.
You do find yourself thinking about superfluous weight. 100+ lbs of junk in/out of my car in a day is a nonissue, but if I'm hauling it in a bike trailer, it's more of a job.
You get the idea EXACTLY as I wanted to say it. A gallon of gas has like 30,000 Calories' worth of energy. At 100 Calories a mile, a person running a Marathon gets about 300mpg's worth out of the food eaten before the race. No wonder why people whose jobs are such that they are on their feet all day don't lose weight. Most of the Calories you burn up go toward metabolic heating. When you sweat that sweat represents wasted energy.
"I'm not saying he should have killed her...but I understand"
Prole is correct. And I think the longer you do what you're doing, the more you will find it to be he case.
I think there exists within our minds a certian meme, maybe you could even call it a pre-programmed genetic alogrithim for the role of "hero/savior/he who forewarned the tribe of coming danger." It seems to be a pretty common archetype. It's usually a male but every once in a while a female. The first example to spring to my mind from our culture's version of myths/stories is the Sarah Connor character from the Terminator series. Just take out the word "machines" and insert "high energy prices."
I suspect that many of the men (myself included) got into this issue out of a subconscious desire to fulfill this archetypal role. After all, look at the rewards previous males who fulfilled this role often got. Winston Churchill, as a prominent example, warned the world of Hitler while everybody else had their heads up their ass. Today we revere him for doing so.
The problem here is that THIS problem is not like any other problem. You see, most things we consider "problems" are obstacles towards increasing the amount of energy available to use.
Hitler, as an example, wanted to control resources, trade routes, land, etc. That was a problem because had he succeeded it would have diminshed the resources, trade routes, and land under control of the U.S. and U.K. So the point of eliminating Hitler was because he threatened the ability of the U.S./U.K. to get more energy. (FDR knew about the Holocaust but didn't really give two shits)
Civil rights movement is similar. What was the REAL problem? Well black people weren't being given the opportunity to get their fair share of the country's resouces. MLK sought to change that. And today we revere him for having done so. (And he got LOTS and LOTS of attention from women at the time.)
But Peak Oil is different as there is no way to get more because there simply isn't going to be any more to be gotten. So anybody who is honest with people about this situation is never going to do more than preach to the choir. At best you might get people who were already members of the "modern society/capitalism is f--ked" choir to be a bit more motivated or vocal. Then you'll get some people who will accept oil is peaking but figure some solar panels and double A batteries we'll be fine. But the average person just wants gas at $1.00 and Big Macs at $2.00. so preaching to them is next-to-pointless.
A while back someone, I think on here, somewhere, likened the Civil Rights era to a time when people who had enough to eat wanted to make sure everyone (in the US anyway) got their fair share in the Big Cafeteria. When people have enough, the sharing instinct takes over, and this is what we saw - middle-class and even wealthy types going out of their way, in fact some even died, for the cause of making sure everyone got a full lunch plate. It was noble and beautiful and gives one hope for mankind. However, by about 1975, affluence for the vast majority of US'ians leveled off and then started decreasing. It's been decreasing since. The person said things may be very different when seats at the cafe are not sure for most people.
The great Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s was probably an example of a "gift economy". Gift economies were mostly known and studied among pre-civilized groups until the internet came along, then sociologists found them blooming online. This site is a good example of one - we spent time "gifting" our ideas, insights, etc. to the group because frankly it feels good.
It feels good because in the original hunter-gatherer groups, the gift economy was the norm. The greatest joy in having a talent or skill was sharing it with the group. Gift economies arise spontaneously among groups of people that are at least fairly small and feel some kinship with each other.
Hmm....
This is interesting, gift economies are anti-profitable for the corporations. Why buy a new fridge when your neighbor will give you theirs, or your pal at work will fix yours? Why buy your own car if you have a good carpooling setup because you know 5 people who fit your commuting schedule? Corporations have got to hate this.
Even the terrorism/fear car ala Friedman doesn't seem to be having much of an effect. But then, he's behind a pay wall.
All we can do, really, is wait. Wait for the high prices. Make the necessary investments on a personal level to mitigate the pain. Take some pleasure in having made the right investments so that the effect of high prices and shortages will be minimized.
Forget the hero/savior approach. It ain't gonna happen and you are not going to have any followers.
Other than for purely selfish reasons, what is the point of doing the "right" thing? As you are driving down the street in your Prius or riding down the street in your bicycle and you are being run down by the usual herd of SUVs and trucks, what is the point? What is the programming, genetic or otherwise, that causes some to soldier on, regardless.
Perhaps, as Gore says, there is a moral imperative operating here, or should be. Doing the moral thing is not contingent or everyone else or even most other people, doing the right thing.
On the bright side, if all this is real, taking actions based upon a conviction that there will be serious shortages of oil, will likely make your future a better one.
So, maybe in part you appeal to people's self interest, their selfishness. People owe it to themselves and their family to prepare. If you don't care about your family, then keep driving.
Must the American Dream be to drive around in a car and use up as much energy as possible?
My interpretation of the American Dream is to be free to do what you want with your life to find your own way to happiness. But that is perhaps an old non productified model.
There will be limitless need for work wich should translate into jobs although not highly paid ones. The money should be ok if the rest of society gets more efficient and rationalizes away high paying symbol handling jobs for more manual ones. Could be tough shit for someone like me who is better at thinking then manual labor but it is far from hopeless.
And isent sex something that humans do togeather? Sex should not disappear with lower income levels but you might have to tolerate to overhear other people having sex thru the apartment wall. The horror, they are having fun and I am bored! :-)
I think the outcome depends on basic freedoms still working, the economy being agile enough to create new (low income) jobs, rule by law working and it probably helps a lot if there is some state system for general basic health care and emergency aid so that people dont die from some bad luck or bad times before getting something new going in their lives.
Besides, look at all the junk people own. Look at how overweight most Americans are. The truth is, people in this country can afford to spend 50% of their income on energy and they'll still lead a much better life than the vast majority of the world's population. Now, what that will do to our consumer-oriented economy is another (dire) subject.
The major issue facing us is how quickly the transition will have to be. If we peak and slowly decline, then it will be a hard transition but a managable one (consider that Chinese and other developing countries will keep consuming more even as we decline, so it will be worse than just the decline). If we peak and decline at extremely fast rates then we're in big trouble. We need at least a decade or two to restructure ourselves, and sadly it's just not going to start happening until the shit has already hit the fan.
Long run you're correct, we're all dead. Probably many of us in post-apocalypitc Mad Max style shootouts for a few drops of "the juice."
Short to medium run, however, you are incorrect. As an example, I just read an article about a guy who is going from being a geologist teacher making $40,000 to being a geologist in the field making $80,000. (Numbers not exact but you get the point) That guy will be much better off in the short-to-medium run if he puts that extra money towards preparing or positioining himself in a more advantagous fashion.
I started a small solar outlet to attempt to do something similar.
RR,
If I remember correctly, you're in the oil biz correct? Maybe you can position yourself to be like the geologist in the above described cartoon?
Should take the edge of the depression at the very least.
Concerns about Peak Oil were a major factor in my move from the chemical industry into the oil industry. I figured that oil companies would reap big profits as oil supplies depleted, and this seemed like a profitable place to be. I am using my job to position myself and my family for the short term. My job also provides me with some valuable information on what's happening in the oil industry, which may give me another advantage. In the longer term, if it comes to "Mad Max style shootouts", I am a pretty good shot.
Cheers,
RR
Maybe, maybe. Depends on how things unfold. Sudden-onset global thermo-nuking could put a serious damper on short-term plans. Also, biowarfare, which may even be more likely than irradiating the planet with a dazzling green glow, could also pile up the corpses, and crack the thin film of civilized behavior rather quickly. Panic and opportunism can be profound forces.
These are somewhat extreme scenarios, but aren't out of the question. I suspect that there's the possibility that civilization could unfold very rapidly WTSHTF. Maybe even before the SHTF (depending on how one defines WTSHTF), as things get very dicey and uncertain. Many of us watched on TV the sudden breakdown of law and order in New Orleans post-Katrina. And that hurricane did not directly hammer the entire country. There were plenty of resources available in surrounding areas to help out. Petrocollapse does not offer such a "cushion".
-best (especially considering the dark topic!)
I believe Dieoff is inevitable due to the Overshoot's collective denial. Numerous posts have discussed ecosystem collapse and the increasing extinction rate worldwide. Humans, if wise enough, should be choosing for the concurrent induced collapse of the detritus-driven 'humanimal ecosystem' as a proactive entropic response to optimize the squeeze through the Dieoff Bottleneck. Yes, it will be ugly--but it does not mean that we have to be genetically impelled to resort to worst-case Thermo-Gene scenario of the full-on nuclear gift exchange [as Jay Hanson fears].
Nature's plan is for creatures that can successfully migrate and thrive in supportive habitats to become the genetic winners-- humans should do no less. Foundation planning of predictive collapse and directed decline will spontaneously arise in a haphazard fashion, but can be much more mitigative of entropy if sufficient political will can coalesce to enhance the power of this control system.
This minimum political will for Foundation may only require less than 10% of the global populace, even less when the Topdogs realize it's necessity for the Paradigm Shift.
ASPO's Energy Depletion Protocols offers the ultimate elite power seduction for their continued safety and assertion of total global control. Recall my earlier post: if lions and crocs teamed up for mutual harvesting efficiency. When the postPeak time comes, I think we can expect the MSM [owned by the elites too] to go into overdrive mode to drive this detritus control mechanism to every corner of the planet. Morally, it is sound, yet profound. Entropically, it is mitigative, and can be used to drive polarity among the masses to separate the detritovores from the biosolar, and the creation of distinct habitat modes of living.
We TODers must be mentally prepared for when this time comes. I would argue that most of us already are as we can see the futility of the current paradigm. Michael T. Klare's recent EnergyBulletin article shows the pointlessness of Empire and the 'Nuke their Ass--I want Gas' mindset.
The imposition of ASPO's Protocols will necessarily cause the rise of the Earthmarines for the assertion of resource streamlining and the installation of mitigative feedback loops to drive lifestyle changes in the respective habitats. Nothing postPeak will be more extrasomaticly efficient over time and distance than a $0.20 sniper bullet directly reducing detritovore demand. Carlos 'White Feather' Hathcock's ability to pick off an entire platoon is a good example of this efficiency in action. The creation of Earthmarine 'No man's land' buffer zones in support of biosolar protection has been explained before by me in prior posts as a further feedback enhancement.
The migration of Humans to optimal secession areas [Cascadia, Jefferson, etc] continues as you read, and these people will be the leaders in the Paradigm Shift. Tainterian complexity collapse will be offset by willful directed detritus decline and biosolar powerup. This is no different than wildlife migrating and optimizing new habitats as the old habitats collapse. Yes, they will have problems determining optimum lifeboat seating arrangements, but nothing compared to areas, such as the AZ Asphalt Wonderland, where massive Overshoot of 'musical chairs' will be horrific to watch, much less participate in.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I'm oldish and only getting older, I've decided if it comes to that, I'm the one who stays behind and takes enough of the "other guys" with me so "my people" can get safely over the hill and into the safe valley.
Who knows if things will be that well defined. If they are, I'll be there.
This is what we are up against. Here is a sampling from the comments following the editorial:
Cheers,
RR
Sorry, couldn't stop myself.
To paraphase Reg Morrison, "the degree to which we detest something is simply a sign of the degree to which we are ignorant of its evolutionary advantages."
Fightingn over arable land, water, livestock, etc as they did in millenium past is not much different (evolutionarly speaking) then fighting over oil and water like we do today.
Actually Mother Nature will be quite happy with a dieoff of um, a certain primate species. Come to think of it, Gaia worship has a lot of resonance with me. I think Gaia is pissed and planning a correction.
Near the end of the article are more assertions such as:
Maybe they're right, but how do their asserted know "solutions" about will be "cheaper and faster" to scale up to meaningful quantities? How do they know that planting Eastern Montana in a switchgrass monoculture won't turn it into a "sacrifice zone", just in a different way? How do they know that ethanol plants - coal fired? - will be "pollution free"? How do they know they will have a viable fermentation process in a meaningful time frame, and enough water to support it? All I see are assertions. Some of them are the usual self-serving assertions propounded by the agriculture industry. All of them, taken together, strongly promote the viewpoint that nobody will ever have to accept any unpleasant decisions in these matters - just get them to hop to it, and you can go back to sleep. How do they know that?
It's a newspaper article, so it would be silly to expect a scientific paper. Still, there's not the slightest hint of even the weakest attempt to convince the reader that the assertions even make sense, much less that any of them can be relied upon.
I suppose reporters just aren't trained to dig any more, or are allowed no time to do so. Given that the article seems to promise pie in the sky, I'm not surprised at the difficulties with the comments. Sigh.
It's not profitable to let them do so.
I have commented on this issue before. The problem with all of these projections is that they never take into account that everything gets more expensive as oil prices go up. So, when oil was $25 a barrel, CTL might be economic at an oil price of $40 a barrel. However, when oil is $75 a barrel, suddenly everything else is more expensive and the economics of CTL are pushed out to $90 a barrel. At some point, I am sure that the gap would narrow and CTL would be able to compete with oil, but that price is way out there.
Cheers,
RR
Give "me" the first $80 billion/year for a decade or two and start a crash course of rail building EVERYWHERE.
To be honest, I have difficulty indentifying more than $100 billion in good Urban Raik projects today; but with enough money, and $189 oil, I can find more I am VERY sure.
Add inter-city rail and a good amount can be spent.
One strategy; retrofit solar water heaters thereby freeing up both electricity & NG (depending upon type of water heater).
Use some of the electricity for electric rail, rest for EVs or just use less electricity, freeing up more NG & coal that had been used to generate electricity for heating water.
Use NG freed up to run plumber's truck and UPS delivery van; both "essential" services.
Monetary calculations like this hide the complications which such large scale programs will impose. The obvious limitation would be coal availability. Actually I expect the price of coal to go through the roof even if only 10 plants become operational:
10 plants * 80K bbl * 0.5 tons/bbl * 365 = 146 mln.tons of coal/y,
or a whopping 12% of the current US coal production, which BTW is already falling short for power generation.
If we start going this way I would also expect the "herd effect" to take place - after a couple of plants begin functioning with pretty decent profits, the newcomers will start building new ones exponentially. Considering that it takes 4-5 years to build a single one, by the time they are finished coal will cost some 100$/ton. and these plants will share the destiny of the NG power plants being built now.
The same thing happens now with gasoline and ethanol (with ethanol in a little bit of overshoot here and there because of the mandates).
It should go down after the initial plant. I would also point out that for the oil refinery cost you should include the well and tanker investment for your new oil to be on the same basis. Seeing as how all the existing capacity is taken.
More to the point, since Schweitzer is talking about sequestration, I think this is worthy of support. Otherwise you're likely to see something worse.
Not unless we also want to throw in the price of some of the coal mining capital and transportation into the CTL plant.
More to the point, since Schweitzer is talking about sequestration, I think this is worthy of support.
Two things here. First, nobody has shown large-scale feasilibity of carbon sequestration. Second, you can't sequester the carbon produced when the fuel is burned in vehicles. So, it will worsen greenhouse gas emissions, unless someone figures out a way to sequester carbon coming from everyone's automobiles.
Cheers,
RR
The cost - $6 billion - is only for the CTL plant. The infrastructure around the partial oxidation and Fischer-Tropsch processes required to drive the plant is very expensive. In addition, you have to have a lot of standard refinery equipment to refine the product into fuel.
Cheers,
RR
What is the expected life span on a CTL plant ? Tar sands ? 30 years, even with good maintenance due to technological obsolence ?
And operating costs/barrel (including long cycle maintenance) ?
I think 30 years is a pretty standard equipment lifetime.
As far as operating costs, I don't know those off of the top of my head.
Cheers,
RR
Cheers,
RR
After the CO2 pushes the oil through the rock it is produced along with additional oil. Therefore, old natural gas fields without any liquids are probably the best place to permanently store CO2.
Oil and gas reservoirs are sealed by any formation through which gas and oil will not flow. So the term "cap rock" is a misnomer. Mud and clay work quite well to cap a reservoir, it does not have to be as strong as rock. The Gulf wells are mostly in unconsolidated formations and the same with many wells on land in Texas and Louisiana. That's why the rotary drilling bit was invented-it cuts through mud and clay and soft sands while the cable tool rigs made the holes collapse. Patents on the rotary bit are how Howard Hughes' father made all that money.
Thanks for thinking though. Probably the only thing that will significantly cut in to CO2 is conservation, nuclear and wind and solar. Sequestration is smoke-blowing by the big polluters, just as ethanol is by the farming lobby,IMHO. I'm still not sure if the proponents are misinformed or dishonest.
We could probably become energy independent in liquid fuels if the government would listen to Sandia National Labs and start investing in producing solar energy in the desert and using it to produce liquid fuels from CO2 and water. Fuel production would only be limited by available solar energy and energy conversion costs. All existing technology, no fancy breakthroughs needed. And totally carbon neutral (after the equipment input).
Excess production capability could produce synthetic crude oil and pump it back into our played out oil fields to sequester the carbon but still make it available for emergencies. The natural crude oil lasted millions of years in those reservoirs so the synthetic should do just as well if necessary.
I wonder why this is being ignored by the government (and the oil companies?)? Anyone else see anything else on this anywhere?
All the fuel we need plus put a halt to global warming!
Plus it would make it possible for most of the countries of the world including many countries in the third world to mfg their own fuel. Only down side is that all the oil producing countries would have to find a new source of revenue. Makes you want to cry, doesn't it.
http://www.energybulletin.net/18195.html
Published on 12 Jul 2006 by Green Car Congress. Archived on 14 Jul 2006.
Sandia Labs proposes energy surety model
by Michael Millikin
"Examples that could provide expanded energy storage include solar production of hydrogen for fuel cells, solar-powered conversion of carbon dioxide and water to liquid fuels, and energy storage from solar thermal collectors."
Jon Kutz on Saturday June 10, 2006 at 9:51 AM EST
"And could this supply the large amounts of energy needed to manufacture our needs in liquid fuels? Remember that gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel are just carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms strung together in a specific arrangement. This is chemical engineering (not rocket science or nuclear fusion). And we are VERY good at chemical engineering. Now where could we get large amounts of carbon and hydrogen?
Well, we have an excess of CO2 in the atmosphere that is causing global warming, so lets just take that out of the atmosphere and break the carbon and oxygen atoms apart (the large amount of energy needed part) and lets do the same with the H2O (water) vapor in the atmosphere. Now you have unlimited amounts of carbon and hydrogen to recombine into spark ignition fuel, compression ignition fuel, jet fuel and a wide variety of hydro-carbon feed stocks for industrial manufacturing (everything from plastics to fertilizer).
Large amounts of formerly atmospheric CO2 would now be stored in liquid fuel in vehicle tanks, distribution centers and manufacturing depots. And all of our existing fuel infrastructure can be left in place. "
Jon Kutz on Saturday June 10, 2006 at 2:49 PM EST
I think the chance is much lower then 50% since most of them will be scrapped for their spare part and metal value in favor of new more fuel efficient wehicles closely tailored to the actual transportation need.
That is the reality of the oil peak. Sooner or later, you will disembark from your car and you have driven your last mission. It's sad and it sucks, but that is the reality of the oil peak.
With effort, I could cut back to 2 to 3 gallons/month without improved public transportation (above pre-Katrina levels).
But I see ~1 gallon/month as a close to irreducible minimum. And then there is hurricane evacuation. One tank full every 1.5 years of biodiesel (waste grease).
The coworker whose truck got sunk by gas prices had a commuting mission of 4 gallons. That is, 4 gallons each way. A barrel a week. When talking about commuting missions ask how much gas they use each way by asking "How many gallons away do you live from work?". That'll get the long-range commuters to think twice. Given the Calories used, a mission to work should not be trivialised as just a "commute" but be considered as a full-scale space shot. And you are the astronaut on said mission. It's plenty time that people think in terms of "gallons away" or "litres away" intead of merely "minutes away" as so many suburbanitic people do.
The fun question is if the resulting liquid fuel will be used wisely or not. An example is whether it will be used by trains or pissed away by filling up the airliners. Trains are a lot more fuel-efficient than the best of the airliners after all. My bet would be that it will be used for "business as usual" (obviously unwise) instead of mitigating the oil peak problem.
Last time I calculated (about 2 years ago) Amtrak was ~78 pax-miles per gallon; Southwest ~52 pax-mpg.
The delta on freight is MUCH greater (RRs 8x better trucks and double digit better than air freight).
Amtrak offers lots of room, rolling hotels running diesel electricity (stationary hotels using grid power are MUCH more energy efficient), dining cars (stationary restaurants have them beat for energy efficiency).
I believe that taking a sleeper car cross-country and eating in the dining car will consume more oil products than flying cross-country and using stationary hotels & restaurants.
OTOH, taking the electric train from Philly to DC with just a coach seat will save a LOT of energy vs. driving or flying.
Today, there are some serious tradeoffs. If I take Amtrak from New Orleans to Los Angeles, I take scarce track capacity, slowing freight and forcing more freight onto trucks.
And if I take my hotel & restaurant with me on the rails, I use significantly more oil fuel than if I flew. Moving one's bed & dining table (a la RVs) consumes all of the efficiency gains of rail vs. air and then some. Pushing (SWAG) twelve tonnes of steel (bed + restaurant) on the rails near sea level is not QUITE as efficient as flying 900 lbs of aluminum at 37,000' (fairly close though).
I try to look objectively at these things with data.
you will have to do this while the infrastructure around them is in decline(converting diesel/gasoline powered construction equipment with electric powered construction equipment is basically a snake eating it's own tail. you need the equipment to get more capacity but you need more capacity to run the equipment.)
just to give you a scale. If every car on the road today in the united states was magically converted to electric generated by wind you would need 2 million constantly turning wind turbines to power them.
Of course i am giving you the benefit of the doubt. The numbers here are calculated assuming we use the easiest to build and maintain 1 megawatt turbines.
Fortunately the process yields more snake.
Otherwise you have proven that it were impossible to build our industrial society. And most of it were built at a lower oil extraction rate and reinvestment isent dominating todays oil use. The market price setting mechanisms will probably prioritize investemts in energy production.
also please don't put words in my mouth, i was never trying to prove that only to tell him electricity is not going to be maintainable. not for the amounts needed for his plan to work.
at the best the rich will have the means and the money to get their houses powered also the government will have some as well but your joe blow will have to make due with no electricity or a few sporadic hours a day/week.
the only thing about this all that surprises me is the lack of coverage from many news outlets about why and how a minor temp rise like the recent heat wave can be responsible for blackouts in areas one would think would of been built better.
Using a gross "top down" approach, 100% of US intercity freight currently carried by truck & RR, can be carried by electric freight for a bit over 2% of US electricity (BTW, I need to revisit that calc). Add some semi-HSR to replace shorter air hops and I could see 3%.
Massive Urban Rail could add another 3% to 4% in Phase I (all known projects studied).
Reducing US electricity use by 7% would be quite easy with higher prices > higher efficiency + solar water heaters, space heating.
Coal fired new steel production and electric arc steel recycling. Once "built out" recycling with provide almost all replacement WTs. The annual wind turbine production could be on the rough scale of current auto & truck production. Designs would mature towards longer life and lower resoruce requirements (WT design is still quite young).
I did some rough work on a renewable grid mix of wind + hydro + nuke + other renewable. I posted it at the time. I figured a 20% decline in US electricity use even with more electric transportation & more people. Perhaps a 40 to 50 year project in reality.
And the "dirty little secret" is that the US will repeat what we did after WW II; junk a high % of the existing housing stock and replace it with smaller, more efficient multi-unit housing near electric rail. But the vast majority of housing built in the last ~30 years was nor designed to last anyway.
also you are basing your whole agruement on the current low cost due to low usage that is happening now. you also seem to ignore the costs of the infrastruture needed for you vision. kind of hard to build electric rail ways when plants are having trouble geting enough power to make enough high grade steel. cement factorys which cannot roast limestone due to more eratic natural gas. etc.
on a personal note i would like to point out that while you may have had a positve experence in N.O.(And i am glad at least some people are doing ok down there) that it doesn't mean it can be applyed everywhere. it's like the old saying 'when you only have a hammer all problems look like nails'
Most cement kilns run on coal (in the US, a high % mix in waste motor oil, otherwise hazardous waste. They get the disposal fee + the heat).
New Orleans is NOT "doing OK". We are all struggling with the many effects of disaster. It is just that people can adjust to disaster, as they will deep into post-Peak Oil.
New Orleans is a workable, living model for how many/most US cities could be rebuilt.
You appear, from your "sniping" remarks, to have a large set of assumptions that cannot be violated. And since any solution requires the violation of at least one of those assumptions. So they are not workable solutions.
But your assumptions, by inference, appear to be faulty.
When did I say that ?
Nuke does not produce significant amounts of GW gases, and the fuel can be recycled. With current technology, we can get the roughly 20% of our electricity that we now get from nuke till the 22nd Century. Better than coal or NG IMO.
As I reported earlier, I have difficulty in creating a workable North American grid with 100% renewables. Add ~20% nuke to loads that are about 80% of today's loads and it does "work" with 2/3 wind, more air & hydro pumped storage, some solar, etc..
I disagree. We aren't building significant new infrastructure in this country, and haven't since about 1970. The U.S. oil peak, probably not coincidentally.
We won't be able to afford to do what we did after WWII. That was a different time.
We built houses in the 1600s, in the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s and now the 21st Century. If the average sq ft is reduced by 2/3rds, construction is concentrated rather than dispersed (easier for labor & materials to get too; trolley freight is an option for TOD construction) then more houses/year can be built, and built to a higher standard with fewer materials.
Lumber, for example, is basically a fixed annual production, averaged over the decade.
BTW, I live in an 1890s home that has been cut up into 5 apartments 2.5 blocks from a streetcar line.
I do agree that there will be a lot more people crammed into much smaller living spaces, but that's not the same thing as building new infrastructure. Instead, it's a drop in the standard of living...which I entirely expect.
They have many more sq ft. I have higher quality construction.
They have lawns to care for, I have a VERY beautiful, walkable neighborhood.
They have long commutes, I have a streetcar 2.5 blocks away and most destinations within 2 or so miles.
BTW, our lumber resources are not significantly lower than early post-WW II. In fact, I think that they are higher.
We just S T R E T C H that lumber to build MANY more sq ft.
Steel is also available today in large quantities.
What I propose, building LOTS of Urban Rail but no more highways (limited maintenance) should take the same or fewer resources than current building (slightly different mix). And the real estate market will adjust to the new realities (sky high gas prices, new Urban Rail, high energy costs, lower incomes) and build to suit.
I am fairly confident in my vision of what more Urban Rail would cause post-Peak Oil.
Chuckles not when replaceing one minor coal, natural gas, or small nuclear plant takes hundreds of wind turbines.
If one multiples nameplate by load factor, another poster calculated (I looked at his links) that 40% of new generation this year, 2006, will be wind powered.
With some modest carbon taxes, a goal of 80% of new generation being renewable (mostly wind) certainly seems reasonable in a decade. Phase out most NG and a good chunk of coal. Mostly wind, some nuke and pumped storage.
Adding wind turbines to an existing wind farm can take 12 months from financial decision to commercial operation. About 30 months is "good time" for a green field wind farm (assuming the Kennedy's don't object).
This quick implementation speed is a MAJOR advantage for wind.
THE WORLD'S MOST POPULOUS COUNTRY HARNESSES
WIND TO HELP POWER A BURGEONING ECONOMY
by Gordon Feller
Editor's Note: With 20% of the world's population, China now consumes 10% of the world's energy. This would suggest that just to come up to the international average, China will need to double its energy consumption. With an economy growing at 9% per year, China is on track to do just that, and consequently they are developing every source of energy they possibly can.
It's important to remember the contribution from alternative energy to total world energy production is still minute. In China, a country that consumes 40 quadrillion BTU's of energy per year, less than one percent comes from wind power. But wind-generated power, which is growing worldwide at 30% per year, and which costs 80% less per megawatt than it did 20 years ago, is an important part of China's energy strategy. The world leader in wind energy is the nation of Denmark, whose wind manufacturers have forged strong ties with Chinese partners. Over 50% of the large capacity windmills currently installed in China are manufactured in Denmark.
Wind power, like solar power, is an alternative energy resource of virtually unlimited potential. After years of heavy subsidies, especially in Europe where the will to become energy independent has been unwavering, wind power is now economically competitive with conventional energy sources. This fact, combined with the energy security of windfarms that constitute a renewable domestic energy supply, suggest the Chinese committment to develop wind power is just beginning. - Ed Ring
By the end of 2004, China produced 200,000 off-grid wind turbine generators, ranking it number one in the world.
Chinese enterprises have mastered advanced off-grid wind turbine generator technology through technology transfer from foreign companies.
There are two kinds of utilization which must be discussed in any review of wind power developments: off-grid and in-grid. Off-grid utilization is used primarily as an independent power operation system, often in remote regions. The power generation capacity of a single off-grid generator ranges from 100 watts to 10 kilowatts. In-grid power is integrated within conventional power grids, providing the most economical utilization of wind power. The maximum power generation of a single in-grid wind turbine in 2006 is five megawatts.
Chinas abundant inland and offshore wind energy resources provide potential for large-capacity, in-grid wind farms. By the end of 2005, China had built 59 wind farms with 1,854 wind turbine generators and a 1,266 megawatt in-grid wind power installed capacity, ranking it number ten globally.
Lots more
http://www.ecoworld.com/Home/Articles2.cfm?TID=390
Sow the Wind, Reap the Drag Coefficient
There are a lot of people who like to say that we "can't" do something, but using that sort of logic to support the status quo is not the least bit productive. There is one thing we know we can't keep doing, and that's letting things continue as business as usual.
by the way wind power is useless without a base load to cover the gaps of it's intermediate power generation so to answer your question the turbines would be offline.
The larger problem is the same one that afflicts nuke; production does not follow load. The solution is simple and well proven, hydroelectric pumped storage. Pump water up with surplus 3 AM wind energy, down at peak.
You, and not I, seem to support the status quo.
But it won't matter much on the federal level until we get a new administrton. And if the next prez sez, "We are going to make every federal building energy self-sufficient within 2 years. And we are going to replace the entire federal fleet with ??? in the next 2 years. By executive order. And we will start by finding X billion dollars to build the infrastructure for this; the silicon plants, the panel plants, the windmill plants.... We will find and rehabilitate existing factories and mil;ls to do this".",
we will respond
But we can't do a hell of a lot until we get out of Iraq and tax the richies who have gotten a free ride for the last 6 years.
Rat
PS China built a hospital(I think 1000 beds) in 8 days during a crisis. Can't we beat them? :>)
Sars hospital opens in China Friday May 2, 2003
...The Xiaotangshan hospital in northern Beijing, boasting at least 90 million yuan (£7 million) worth of medical equipment, opened its doors after more than 7,000 builders rushed to erect the temporary facility for Sars victims in eight days.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sars/story/0,,948244,00.html
Do you know if there is a move afoot to allow the lighter-weight trains in use in Europe and Japan on American Railways? The Federal Railway Administration continues to insist on making trains heavy to survive crashes; the Europeans have encouraged lighter-weight trains, and have instead worked to prevent crashes by improving signaling, controls, crossings, and rights-of-way. This means that our American "High Speed" train (Acela) is much heavier (twice as heavy, if I recall correctly) than its European counterpart, which makes it a good deal slower and less energy-efficient. It is another sad example of Americans applying higher gross energy and excess materials to a problem that others are solving through the effective application of intelligence and efficiency.
Allowing lighter-weight trains would mean that the lightweight, high tensile strength structures used in aircraft construction could be used on efficient railways, combining the advantages of both.
After contract was signed, it was discovered that at many places on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, the two tracks were too close together to allow tilting.
The worst President Amtrak ever had (a position with several contenders) George Warrington, is now badly mismanaging New Jersey Transit. He is pushing heavy self propelled diesel instead fo an extension of the Hudson-Bergen electric light rail.
The administration (true of Clinton as well) has zero interest in promoting rail. And they may want to actively discourage it. A caSe can be made that they want less, not more, rail in all forms.
Until a revolution occurs, no hope what-so-ever of light trains from the EU or Japan going into service here.
Of course, if we try to get the H2 from natural gas, we'll be out of NG that much sooner.
Humans: That's OK we have coal-to-liquids.
No mention, even remotely, of the concerns expressed here.
Step #2 complete.
Ethics, in relation to this industrial age, comes down to a simple concept; sustainability.
If the way we act is not sustainable, then it is indefensible. We are responsible for the effect we have on environment from the time we inherit it to the time we leave it for our children. Today we are experiencing an unprecendented period of environmental chaos. Species are becoming extinct. Our climate, the basic rythym of of our planet, is being disrupted.
In the history of earth, there is no generation as culpable as our own.
Sure, Ghandi was a vegetarian. But is you think that not eating meat is somehow a representation of his awareness of a man's responsibility, you are missing 99% of his message.
I also could have shown him my infamous 40 foot tall fire breathing, flaming red eyes, mechanical Jesus that announces, "turn or burn, turn or burn!!!"
M. King Hubbert, decades ago, noted the disconnect between what he called the finite matter/energy world and the infinite financial world. The Fed can increase the money supply from here to the moon, but that will not create a single BTU of energy.
The following Energy Bulletin article fits in with my ELP recommendation, especially the "P" part--produce.
Urban Survival had some plausible numbers regarding American workers: one in seven works for the government; five in seven work in service industries; one in seven produce something tangible. The US economy is in for a profound paradigm shift, as we move from an economy focused on meeting wants to an economy focused on meeting needs.
IMO, the key question that individuals and countries face is the following: what thing of value do you have to offer the food and energy producers, in exchange for food and energy?
In regard to the "P" part of ELP, I think that you should strive, to the extent that you can, to become at least closer to a net producer of food and/or energy.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/echochamber/39284/
A new kind of money
Julian Darley, AlterNet
Summary:
Today's money is based on the belief that it's worth something. Crazy, no? Why not back your dollar in sustainable energy produced in your hometown?
----
The decline in the availability of cheap energy is likely to be accompanied by an equally ominous possibility of world financial meltdown. That we are facing both of these threats now is not an accident: energy and financial stability are intimately linked. I believe the solutions for dealing with these twinned threats are equally linked. To build an environmentally sustainable, monetarily stable world, we need to create an economy in which locally produced energy provides the backing for local currencies.
Let's start with energy first. Energy decline will soon challenge just about every common notion of life that we have developed during the industrial era. Most of what we have built in the globalizing world of the last half century depends on cheap energy, particularly oil and natural gas.
After years of oil-industry financed obfuscation, there is a broad scientific consensus that our profligate use of fossil fuels is producing global warming. And despite similar oil industry denials, there is a growing consensus that we are rapidly approaching Peak Oil, after which world oil output will go into permanent decline. (The United States experienced Peak Oil in 1971.) After global Peak Oil, oil will still be available, but at ever increasing prices.
To lessen the impact of global warming and the inflationary pressures of Peak Oil, we should be moving as rapidly as possible to an energy system based on locally based renewable energy production.
(20 July 2006)
He asked about his business, and I told him it was one of the more secure. Just don't use Arabs as villains. Film & TV are some of our major exports, Hollywood's best year ever was 1938 and those went into production in 1936. Just make money now and invest it properly.
What type of films do you think will do best? Other than porn of course. (controlled by the mafia, not looking to compete with that)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the UK had the kind of hunger and poverty during the time discussed as the US has in the past, and will, under the same conditions of stagnation. Needless to say the UK didn't have the rate of incarceration. I'm pretty anti-China but I may change my mind very quickly if my own countrypeople or myself, become substitutes for 10-cent an hour Chinese slave labor.
There's no way we'll have a UK type decline. There's no way we'll have it that good. We sure don't deserve to.
A goal worth struggling for (although a bit of luck is also needed).
(dear reader, he made it back)
Postwar Britain can , (and has been)often described as 'Managing Decline'. The Great war and WWII bled the UK and it's Empire dry. This is probably the case. Britain's Empire (upon which 'the sun will never set' - note to the USA, all Empires fail), depended almost entirely for it's existance on the USA for the means to feed it's population and wage war during two critial phases: 1917 and 1940-1944.
The price exacted was more than just the capital loaned.
It also included the break up of the British Empire.
I think we finished paying off the capital sum and interest about 5 years ago (if memory serves)
The post war austerity period in Britain continued long after 1945. Coal (principle source of heating) and even basic foodstuffs were rationed into the 1950's.
After WWII we looked increasingly desparate all through until a) Thatcher arrived and decided it did not need to be like this and b)Coincidentally, Oil flowed from the Forties Field, heralding a 30 year period of prosperity.
(give or take).
Our problem now is that the oil bonanza is waining. It created a false sense of 'wealth'. We are importing oil and exporting money / manufacturing jobs / even service jobs. Aside from 'financial services' (aka selling promises), we have little to trade with the world. At present, our greatest export appears to be extremely robust squaddies under control of accomplshed Officers and NCO's. Perhaps we can earn money as Landschnekts or Condittori...
The period 1975 - 2015 will appear as a golden age, compared with what we on this 'sceptered isle' will face.
How long will it last for us ? And the UK ?
Or perhaps he means something else altogether by "backed by". E.g., the existence of renewable energy facilities in a local economy means that it can inspire some confidence that a local currency will hold its value. That is a much weaker sense of "backing", and still leaves the distinction between circular money and one-time energy problematic. How do you know whether the amount of money in circulation is "correct"? If the local currency can be generated as needed via debit-credit transactions, then there is no link between the amount of money and the flow of energy, thus no protection against inflation, thus no big reason for confidence. Besides, the velocity of circulation of the money that is already in the system is independent (on the surface of things) of the energy flow. Of course, in reality, the level of economic activity in a closed system (local and sustainable) is directly linked to the renewable energy inputs, but how is that to be reflected in the monetary system?
Stainless steel coins that can buy 1, 2 or 5 kWh (like a dime, quarter & half dollar today) or pieces of paper good for 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 5000 or 10,000 kWh will also have value.
One can buy food, clothing, rent or buy a house with these pieces of paper. Because the seller needs to pay his monthly electric bill and his taxes.
The value goes up if the local gov't owns a couple of hydroelectric plants but not enough to satisfy prior demand. This currency allocates the scarce power. Fractional kWh coins may be needed for small transactions (a half kilo of potatoes for 1/4 kWh).
I think that they are assuming 100,000 miles for the Prius, and 300,000 miles for the Hummer. I would be interesting to take a look at their other assumptions.
In any case, the auto/housing/finance leg of the "Iron Triagle" does not intend to go quietly into the night. I suppose we will soon hear that it is un-American not to go into debt to maintain the large SUV, long commute, large mortgage lifestyle.
Why sell a large cheap car when you can sell a large expensive hybrid car and thus get some of the future fuel money to flow thru your company instead of the fuel providers?
Why sell macmansions when you can build a factory to mass produce building block apartments and yet again get the money flow thru your factory?
Why work againts the trends while trying to make a profit? It does not make any sense for me, am I thinking in the wrong way?
I think one of the fundamental problems with "powerdown" thinking is the idea that there is some overall direction to life. Darwin, of course, says there is not - that the future is actually made up of the result of countless actions and decisions by living organisms that are based on information available at a given point in time. The future is irrelevant to the organisms making the decisions.
The religious idea is that God has a Plan -- and Darwininian randomness is heresy.
Powerdown is a sort of mixture of the two.
Good book for the weekend-- "The Botany of Desire" Michael Pollan. One of his stories is about Tulipomania -- and how one can look at the phenomenon from the point of view of the Dutch tulip breeders, the tulip or the virus that produced the "breaks" that were so prized. Each "thought" they were maximizing their survival potential
One thing that stuck in my mind was his description of how the potato was the ideal crop for peasants, since it could be hidden in the ground when the soldiers came. Once the top part of the plant is gone, no one knows the potatos are there. The soldiers may take all your other food, but they wouldn't find the potatoes.
Something for doomers to keep in mind... ;-)
Say that a Prius costs $4000 more than a conventional car.
Here are some more costly ways of spending $4000 on a Toyota.
Price of a 4Runner base model =$27,635
Price of a 4Runner Limited V8 =$36,100
Price of a base Camry = $18,445
Price of a LE Camry = $22,780
Large depreciation on Limited and LE features.
Small depreciation on Prius
MSM says Prius is not a good buy.
MSM says Prius is not a good buy.
Waste your money on power locks and V8 engines = smart
Waste your money on a hybrid as oil prices rise = not smart
People don't like change.
When you buy the right model during a time of rising gasoline prices. 2005 Civics are selling used for more than their new price a year ago. In the early 80's I worked with several people who had bought Civics, drove them for three or four years, and then sold them at a profit.
As the car companies continue to (slowly) adjust their product mix to higher and rising gasoline prices, we'll see inefficient vehicles get killed on depreciation and the most efficient ones (particularly the cheaper models, like Scions, non-hybrids Civics, etc.) do extremely well, and possibly appreciate slightly in value.
Eventually the product line will match the gasoline prices and this will level out: the price premium for cheaper, higher MPG cars will disappear, and the only people buying pickup trucks will be those who really need them. Minivans will still sell basically the way they do now--to people who need them. No one buys a van for the fad factor. SUV's will all but disappear in a few years; people who need the cargo utility will buy vans or pickups, and those who need additional people space will turn from full-size SUV's to vans.
The real problem is that magazines like Car & Driver are populated by writers whose interest in cars can be traced back to trivial things like more power-- trivial nonsense that might be justifiable when gas is cheap, but quickly becomes a worthless expense when it starts hitting you in the pocketbook. These are biased, closed-minded people who come into every subject with preconceived notions about what people want and how things are. They will be among the last to change their tunes.
Most likely this "study" is taking into account all sorts of factors relating to the development of the Prius technology, while giving the Hummer a free pass, even though it's also based on technology that was at some point developed.
Honestly, that study really must be crap. The price of scrapping the Prius won't be that much more than the Hummer, even including for disposal of the batteries. The running cost will be less. If the cost of making a Prius was as high as it had to be to make this equation work, then Toyota would be bankrupting themselves. Not to mention, the idea that a GM-built Hummer is going to run for 300,000 miles is utterly laughable. If two cars rolled off a lot at the same time, a Hummer and a Prius, I'd put my money on the Prius to still be operational long after that Hummer has been sent to the scrap yard.
"Power" is a verb, like "money" and "energy." It is nothing if not in action. "Those in power exercise power to remain in power" -- it is tautological. There is no other way
Interesting how the "Guns of August" (book & movie) analogy is spreading. George Ure, at Urban Survival, is predicting a big event in early August, based on their Internet scanning technology. In a world gone mad, who knows? In any case, George suggests that August, 2006 may be analogous to August, 1914.
Some background info off a Q&A site:
The event triggering it (World War One) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The people behind this assassination were a Serbian terrorist group known as, "The Black Hand."
The Archduke was heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, so Austro-Hungarian gave Serbia, who it felt commanded the Black Hand to assassinate the duke, an ultimatem. Austro-Hungary was not satisfied with Serbia's response and on July 28, 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
(The dukes assassination was on June 28, 1914.)
From Amazon:
"Guns of August," The Movie
Plot Outline:
Traces the origins and actions of World War I, from the funeral of Britain's King Edward VII to the Versailles Treaty.
Plot Synopsis:
Using rare archive footage, this documentary tells the story of World War I. The film shows the rivalry between the various royalty in Europe leading up to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the failed attempts to avoid the war that followed. It then goes on to show German attrocities as they invade Belgium and France, and how incompetent leaders on both sides cost the lives of millions of men.
Up in greenhouse gases
Also available on DVD or BitTorrent. Worth a look. The War for Oil in the Middle East was triggered when Churchill decided to power the British Navy with oil instead of coal
good link
a very good illustration of the history of oil.
I think the current Bush administration fits that description in spades.
Story is from the AP wire as quoted in Aljazerra english online edition:
Vegas outlaws feeding the homeless
Saturday 22 July 2006, 1:42 Makka Time, 22:42 GMT
Las Vegas has made it illegal to feed homeless people in city parks after residents complained about the large numbers gathering in the public facilities.
David Riggleman, a spokesman for the city, said: "We're trying to empathise with both camps.
"We're hoping we can improve their lives and improve the lives of people living around the park, some of whom have people urinating and defecating in front of their door."
The law, which went into effect on Thursday, targets mobile soup kitchens. It carries a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.
Riggleman said that by shutting down such soup kitchens, homeless people will be encouraged to go to a centre or a charity that offers services such as mental health evaluations or job placements.
Critics
Gail Sacco, who operates a mobile soup kitchen, said the city does not have adequate homeless services and that she is undeterred by the new law.
"There's no way for people to get out to those services in triple-digit weather," she said, referring to the soaring summer temperatures in the area.
"My plan is to do anything I feel is needed to keep these people alive."
The law defines a homeless person as someone "whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive assistance".
Allen Lichtenstein, a lawyer with the American civil liberties union of Nevada, said the language makes the law unenforceable.
He said: "The ordinance is clearly unconstitutional and nonsensical.
"How are you going to know without a financial statement who's poor and who's not poor?
"It means they can discriminate based on the way people look."
With the extreme heat down there, their brains underwent one meltdown too many giving us Bush and now the "no feed zone" law. If you want Floridian wierdness, try reading Paradise Screwed by Carl Hiaasen. He's the Miami version of a Mike Royko.
thats too broad a definition, it will be struck down by a higher court if we are lucky.
a 'reasonable ordinary person' can be defined to suit anyone they darn well please from your average suburbinite to the richest man in town.
This realistic "tough love" is not being applied because no one's tough/realistic enough so instead the homeless are doing what they're doing largely out of lack of alternatives/anger (and I doubt we'd act any different if we were in the same situation) and now people go to jail for giving 'em a sandwich. The end result is much more cruelty, nastiness, and bodies for the prison-industrial complex.
In other words, a good American solution!
Isn't feeding the homeless like feeding pigeons? Makes more of them hang around the park, they shit everywhere, etc. Maybe they could put those spike strips on the park benches - you know the kind they use on buildings to keep pigeons from roosting. Just a thought. Maybe post peak they could carry packages for beer - like messenger pigeons. We could even put them in a cage and feed them...only without the shreaded newspaper(they like whole sheets) Kinda like prison(actually).
again I'm sorry - I should go back to working on something...anything really.
Now, about the bums, frankly the life of a bum is no treat. Not only does it involve being hungry, cold/hot, having to pee, dirty, etc. a lot of the time, which is enough to keep most of us out of it, but it's living a life with no real meaning. That's the worst thing of all. Thus, no one would want to be a bum if they had an alternative. Thus, those who are bums deserve a break. If they are given some kind of basic place, Spartan, to pee and sleep etc., they at least won't be pissing in your doorway.
We have got to shake ourselves of this Calvinist view of life. It's bad enough being poor, why punish the poor for being poor? Why is it ok to be a useless person if you're rich but be not just left alone, but punished for it if you're poor? Christianity is poisonous, but the Calvinist variety is one of the worst.
The whole idea of the suicide bomber is to avoid prosecution after you blow up the target, or in the postal case, shoot up the place. You pop yourself knowing that you'll end up being "put down" anyways. You get to avoid giving the government that satisfaction. The recent doctor turned suicide bomber is a perfect case of a "go postal" divorce scenario.
Oddly enough, I did predict this with the divorce suicide bomber, only but not quite. My vision was that a divorce-driven suicide bomber would use a car-bomb and like al-Quaeda, smash it into the house of the ex and kids to blow them up in the middle of the night. That M.O. would deprive the ex-wife both the home AND the kids, albeit by murderous means. But by blowing himself up the ex-husband kills himself during the explosion of a quarter-tonne bomb. Nobody can be prosecuted due to the villain offing himself.
In fact something like this is happening in Canada now, not sure about the US. More and more benches found in places like parks and bus stations are being divided up with arm rests in the middle of the seat, thus converting them into 3 or for chairs, but impossible to lie down (sleep) on.
Pretty sure this is targeted against those living on the street.
Yup, they do that here in Blair-land as well. The common tricks are making the benches extra thin so you can't sleep on them, armrests in the middle of the bench like you mentioned, and my favourite, the seats that flip up like cinema seats.
Personally, I found climbing on top of the old middens (about 15ft high brick structures all around London) provided the best you could hope for in terms of shelter and safety.
my sister and I traveled thru china a few years ago. my conclusion, a land of many puppies and few dogs
yum yum get some
All urine from healthy animals, human or otherwise is sterile when produced, though it will support the growth of bacteria after the fact.
I don't understand why cities in europe are able to provide free public washroom facilities in cities wheras North Americans are not....
So who is more in poverty, the people who work 10 or 12 hours a day and commute 2 or three hours in traffic from a stupid job to a MacMansion worried about how the whole thing will collapse if his/her gas bills continue to rise, or the king of the road who lives in a lovely landscaped park with food free for the asking and no dress code?
You hit close to home there, I think for a lot of us. You speak sooth, oily.
An interesting excerpt, from the guy driving the car:
That is a big problem. You can see my essay at:
Kicking the Oil Habit Road Trip
Cheers,
RR
It's really depressing when, as a Democrat, I see leading Democrats like Daschle spew such nonsense. I guess all those years in politics just causes your brain to shrink up to the point where you are just incapable of doing any analysis before you start spouting off b.s. like this man is doing. Yeh, right. Ethanol will show those Arab bastards we mean business.
I can understand political boosterism. But we are talking about critical decisions here which will affect our ability to function as a nation. To bet the farm, so to speak, on ethanol, is an incredibly irresponsible stance to take, since it could ruin our economy and our land for now and far through to the future.
And then we hear the crap about combining PHEVs with ethanol and getting 500 mpg, whatever that means. And this comes from former CIA Chief, Woolsey, an otherwise very intelligent man. I'm glad to see him in the camp of getting off of imported oil. But he acts as if ethanol, and especially cellulosic ethanol, is magic, a total free lunch, no energy inputs required whatsoever. No energy impacts and no global warming, the key to a glorious future of unlimited energy, as long as we quit eating.
Might as well just put water in your tank. That way you get infinite miles per gallon.
Mainly because they asked us if we would help publicize their trip. Instead of publicizing it, I crucified it. I don't mind personally being a lightning rod for criticism from ethanol proponents, but I don't want them to feel like TOD stabbed them in the back.
Cheers,
RR
So don't desparage bio-energy. Recognize it's limits and wrack your brains trying to figure out how to live within their limits.
Within limits, ethanol is a good idea.
Electricity directly via wire or indirectly via battery
Bicycles/tricycles with or without battery assist
Shoe leather
Compressed methane (available from a variety of sources, some bio, also synthesis using sporadic surplus WT energy).
All above better than corn based ethanol.
http://www.harpers.org/SeizingArabOil.html
This quote will give you an idea of the general thrust of the article...
In the 1930s the craven men of Munich displayed not only an almost complacent defeatism, but also a constant need to justify German demands. Similarly, the modern appeasers have constantly tried to justify Arab oil extortion. When OPEC members began accumulating billions of dollars in unearned reserves, we were told that this was merely fair compensation for past "exploitation" -- as if men who for years had been receiving huge royalties (for a product they had neither made nor found) could be said to have been exploited.
I checked the publication date, and no it wasn't 1 April! The other quote that stood out was this:
The Arabs may have more and better missiles, but the Israelis now have smart bombs.
So, thirty years later, have smart bombs solved the problem of keeping angry Arabs quiescent? Anyone care to volunteer an answer?
It'll be easier once we have Iraq
Now read this: http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Recessional.htm
The car as we know it will most likely defeat itself.
We cannot survive the destruction of the very resources that sustain us, and the car as we know it is inextricably involved with just that process of destruction.
Momma likes her van, poppa likes his "High and Mighty" SUV. Everybody loves some car sometime.
It's gonna be tough to push all those cars around Toronto pretty soon, eh? Especially when it gets unseasonably hot and gas is triple the current price.
People may like cars in the future far less than they do today.
With people in California complaining about global warming now, I wonder, too, if Canada will start putting up a fence at their southern border to keep us US citizens from fleeing the heat! LA recorded its highest ever temperature Saturday at 119 degrees!
http://www.weatherunderground.com/US/CA/Los_Angeles.html#PUB
This heat is amazing, it's 2AM, too hot to sleep, and it's been like Phoenix outside all day. Wow. Energy use is hitting a new record each day, as well as lots and lots of people getting out and driving their cars. Tomorrow will be another hot one, and they expect another record in energy use to be set on Monday when the lemmings head off to/from work.
If I had more walking around money on me I'd probably take the train up into the city tomorrow and hang out there to get out of the heat, but I don't so I'll just hang around here. It won't be the first time I've soldered a board with a drop of sweat hanging off my nose!
Hang in there.
Rapaille makes a killing of everything: The reptilian always wins
That does not bode too well for PO "rational" arguments, they are on the NEGATIVE side!
The message of PO should be that it is "uphill" from here on out.
Climbing that hill without gas assist