DrumBeat: September 9, 2006
Posted by threadbot on September 9, 2006 - 9:12am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Shell Says Cost, Lack of Gas Are Slowing Saudi Plans
Royal Dutch Shell Plc said a lack of natural gas and rising construction costs are slowing down the planned expansion of a chemicals plant in Saudi Arabia that it owns with Saudi Basic Industries Corp.[Update by Super G on 09/09/06 at 9:54 AM EDT] Paul Salopek has been freed from prison in the Sudan. He is author of the Chicago Tribune's great series on peak oil.The plans call for expanding the Saudi Arabia Petrochemical Co., or Sadaf, petrochemicals complex in Jubail by adding a second plant for the production of ethylene, a gas derivative commonly used to make chemicals. The project is suffering from a shortage of natural gas in the country, said Robert Weener, the chairman of Shell Companies in Saudi Arabia, yesterday at a London conference.
Gaffes prompt re-examination of BP CEO's record
"People will ask why has BP been able to keep costs so low and to pay so much cash back to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. Has it been at the expense of necessary maintenance?" Hoozemans said.
BP corrosion expert job open year before spill
Problems in the pipeline. Jeremy Leggett asks:
In June Lord Browne tried to persuade the markets that the oil price will come down again to $25 at some point, and he regularly insists that premature peak of production is a fiction. Investors should perhaps ask themselves two things. Would you buy a used refinery from this man? And, if the answer to that one is no, is it wise to believe him on peak oil?
Experts Debate Energy Issues and Outlook
Following Wednesday’s presentation on peak oil by Craig R. Smith, President and CEO of Swiss America Trading Corp. and co-author of Blackgold Stranglehold, the notorious non-believer of the peak oil theory, Dr. Michael Economides of the University of Houston & Texas Energy Center, delivered a presentation on energy and the peak oil debate. Later in the day, both Smith and Economides together participated in a discussion panel. Both addressed a number of important issues.
Massive Oil Find In Gulf of Mexico Brings Gloom to 'Peak Oil' Pranksters
I hate to say "I told you so," but the news of a big new oil discovery by Chevron and two partners in the Gulf of Mexico confirms what I've been saying for years: Oil is not scarce. Big Oil's price manipulators only want us to think it is.
Clarification of the Huge Chevron Gulf Oil Discovery
Non-OPEC production plentiful in next 5 years
Substantial increases in oil production in Africa and the former Soviet Union, along with slowing demand, will put the squeeze on oil cartel OPEC in the next five years, a strategic analyst said on Thursday."There's enough non-OPEC supply to meet demand," said Sarah Emerson, managing director of Energy Security Analysis Inc.
Acoustic Data May Reveal Hidden Gas, Oil Supplies
Bigger IEA Role Needed in Oil Market
The International Energy Agency needs to be more active in releasing crude oil from its stocks to help calm volatile oil markets, as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is doing enough on its part to supply the market, a former OPEC president said Friday.
Can’t see the Future for the Trees
According to Business Week, ethanol is the ‘white-knight fuel’. Recent studies from the University of Minnesota claim biodiesel is even better.I think both contribute to the very problems they seek to address.
Peak oil in Yellow Springs Ohio
ASPO-USA Peak Oil Convention in Boston has extended the early-registraton period
Plug-in hybrids get big push from Calif. utility
LOS ANGELES - California's largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., is asking its 5.1 million customers to petition automakers to speed up development of plug-in electric-gasoline hybrid vehicles.Along with their power and gas bills for September, PG&E customers are getting a request to lobby the automakers.
Shows where prices have been and where they "should be" if they ever get there. No need to worry. Long way to go. Hehe.
It gives different numbers. I don't think it matters. You can take your pick. I didn't use the pink on this one. I'll explain details if you ask.
PS: Don't let the use of the word "asymptotic" fool anyone into thinking I know how to do the math involved. I haven't used those parts of my brain in 20 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote
I was originally interested in knowing when we might hit $4 gasoline, or what gasoline would cost at $100 oil.
Here's the deal - I keep very close track of average gasoline and oil prices(in the US) as most of you know. In fact I make my own averages out of daily prices. So the numbers are cool.
So it's a simple plot with excel. You match a week's oil price with the price of retail gasoline. Two columns. I use raw numbers and moving averages, I can manipulate them any way I want, and I do, and I found there wasn't much difference in this particular case, so I just stuck with my four-week averages. You can see in the one how the pink correlation, which was one shift variation I used doesn't really differ too much from the blue. In fact, I removed the pink trendline in that case because it almost perfectly overlapped the shown blue one. In other words, the dots may be in different places, the trends are not.
Then I let excel draw what it calls a "trendline" through the datapoints. This is the line in the middle.
I then used the drawing function in Excel to copy that line (twice) and moved those copied lines north and south and extended them to form what looks like the barrel of a gun.
I moved those parallel "outriggers" to just about the outer bounds of where the known points lay. I don't know if they hold the key to the future.
I did one graph with data from Jan 2002 to present and one from Jan 2004 to present.
The best part about these two graphs and why they are two of my favorites is the fact that they work for me.
It's and interesting concept to ponder. Eventually reality will step in and give us an answer.
Or should that be fission trip?
CEO - nice charts - I've grabbed both for my TOD folder that now has so much stuff in I can't find anything.
I'm working on a post on demand destruction - so here's the $50,000 question - at what gasoline price do Americans stop driving, start sharing, trade down to SUVs from Hummers. Where is the pain threshold?
And here's the fishing part - how about doing the same for the UK (I can hear you howling).
There is an interesting paradox about the different tax regimes in Europe and the US. In the US you have low tax, burn gas like there is no tomorrow, but when the price of crude goes up you get the full force at the gas pump - I think your blue line shows a 1:1 correlation - did xl really draw that?
In Europe, we have a lot more tax and this acts to de-gear the price rises at the pump - so crude prices will have to go a lot higher before we begin to howl. In other words there may be different demand destruction regimes in the US and Europe.
UK premium "petrol" is around £1 / litre right now - that's $7 / US gallon (this sum has been checked by all members of my family apart from the dogs).
So here'e the potentially clever part. Higher prices in Europe are compensated for by normally smaller more fuel efficient cars. So on average, does it cost the same for Europeans and Americans to drive 100 miles?
And the parking is metered, where lovely Rita, the meter maid checks your ticket, and may often write you one.
The US is mostly sprawled out, where a car is necessary to get from one point to the next. There is not really an efficient transportation infrastructure, much less a good bus system. New Orleans, Chicago, New York City are the ones that come to mind for me, maybe Boston too, where transportation infrastructure excels.
I don't think the US could reburbish a medium sized town in short order to accomodate the infrastructure. esp. a town of 50K or more.
Clearly most of the US population is East Coast, West Coast and Gulf Coast to some extent Florida.
The rest of the nation is really mostly small towns where a railroad comes through or the Interstate Highways pass by. Of course each state has its populated cities, St. louis MO, or Shreveport, LA. Las Vegas NV, Denver, CO etc...
But the rest of the nation is either farming, forests or desert!
in a nutshell.
When my family and my relatives discuss gasoline prices with me, I gotta re-adjust. But that's OK. I just gotta move by about 20 cents. It ain't no big deal. I do this because I have a larger agenda and I can accomodate.
Yes. I have a larger agenda. It's called Peak Oil.
This is an issue some of us deal with here.
What's going on in other areas? What mass transit infrastructure is in the works? or serious planning stages?
Two biggest are Miami and Denver. Miami has local funding (over 25 years) for a total of 103 miles of "Subway in the Sky". 90% of current population within 3 miles of a station, half within 2 miles, many within walking or bicycling distance. In 2004, I saw 15 of 23 building cranes within 3 blocks of a Metro station, so TOD is taking off.
By 2013, Miami should have Phase I finished. Basically a mirror image of the euro sign.
TriRail commuter rail from West Palm Beach to Miami airport just finished double tracking. This allows faster, more reliable, more frequent service (and late trains as well). It will be interesting to see ridership changes.
I have seen Denver's system, which is really nice.
Thanks Alan.
They lowered FTA matching from 80% to 50% for new rail projects; but AFAIK, a city can still get 80% for BRT. The hurdles are MUCH lower if a city opts for BRT instead of rail.
Several cities are recent "drop=outs" for rail. Indianopolis was the latest.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan, as always, I am impressed with your RR & Mass-transit knowledge. You are probably aware of the nominee for Transportation Secretary, Mary Peters, who hails from Arizona. During her time in Az: this was the greatest period of freeway expansion and suburban sprawl in the Asphalt Wonderland. I certainly hope that is not the mindset she will take to our Capital, but a Google search brings up some pessimistic editorials-- see "HIGHWAY TO HELL" at Jerome a Paris's website: dailykos. May I suggest you try to contact/email her before she is overwhelmed by lobbyists? Perhaps, if both of you are in AZ, you could arrange a meeting with her to present your viewpoints, or invite her to speak at the next ASPO-USA conference upcoming in Boston.
http://www.dot.gov/contact.html
Sorry, I sure wish I had the political connections to arrange an formal introduction, or get her to email you her confidential email address. Such is life.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
http://www.musiccitystar.org/news.html
For everyone else's benefit, here's a nice picture of the system when it's completed.
Commuter rail is totally the new Interstate Highway system!
The next leg will be Nashville - Hendersonville - Gallatin, roughly paralelling I-65 Northbound. However, the involved governmental entities (city, county, and state govts, plus the regional transportation commission) are working towards pulling the funds together to pay for the initial long range transportation study for that corridor and county pairing, estimated to run $800,000,as we speak.
The support for the light rail is evident in city and county governments, and the demand for it will only become greater as this first leg shows the rest of the metro area what commuting is all about.
The Nashville Tennnessean Newspaper has been on the side of light rail for at least the last couple of years, and has provided decent coverage of the ins and outs of the project over that last 8 years.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006309060028
The most populous corridor, the Nashville - Brentwood - Franklin - Columbia route, paralleling I-65 Southbound, was stymied by CSX not being willing to share its tracks, claiming that there is no excess capacity.
The Nashville - Hendersonville - Gallatin segment due to be built next is also along CSX tracks, and will become a test case for figuring out how to deal with convincing a recalcitraint CSX to play nice.
Every other city in the world (AFAIK) built commuter rail AFTER building a local urban rail system.
Salt Lake City and Portland are more typical. Both have working Light Rail lines and are about to add commuter rail (diesel on freight lines) to feed existing Light Rail lines.
Miami has an elevated "Rapid rail" system (think subway) and a TriRail commuter rail line that feeds it. NYC and DC have subways at their commuter train stations to move people around.
The question is "How easy is it to get to destinations from the Nashville train station without a circulating light rail system ?"
BTW, I will post differences between commuter rail, light rail, rapid rail and streetcars soon.
You also have free parking at all of the stations outside of downtown, for those who do not live close enough to walk to the stations.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609030502
This is not what I would have designed, but it will be interesting to see what develops. I wonder how many people with go to Nashville, transfer and go to another suburb ?
A streetcar circulator system that serves the State Capital, downtown and the train system would be a useful adjunct.
As for shuttles in the downtown area, Nashville already has a well established trolley bus system in the downtown area. I expect that your ticket for the train will serve as a pass for the trolley.
That said, when I lived in Stamford, my own building set up a shuttle system to Connect to MetroNorth which was beautiful and free. It was their enticement to Manhattan commuters.
However, Nashville has been working against a populace that is clueless on the benefits of or need for light rail, hence the 8 year gestation period for this first leg.
I think the current plan is a start, but not the best solution it could be.
Ideally a transit rail system would follow a spoke and rim layout allowing riders a shorter commute between suburban locations. For instance why would a commuter who lives in Gallitan but works in Lebanon bother with a train ride into and then out of downtown Nashville?
However in its defense, Nashville's development pattern has been to spread out along the spokes of the interstate system which has 3 major interstates (I-24, I-40, I-65) which meet at the downtown core. It has evolved into a TOD style pattern, based around the interstates rather than rail. Most commutes from one spoke to another involves a trip into the downtown area on the interstates, as the congestion of the local streets between the spokes render the interstates a quicker route (unless there is a wreck along the inner loop).
The current plan for the most part parrallels these spokes. I believe the hope is that the spokes will allow the rail system to capture the current commuting along the interstate system.
They are in the budgeting phase of a new light rail line to (finally) connect DT Minneapolis w/ DT St. Paul, and there is a regional commuter route also in final budgeting phase that will run to the northern suburban fringe.
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority has a 6-mile extension to their Gold Line light rail under construction to East Los Angeles, and will break ground on an 8.5 mile light rail line on Exposition Boulevard this year. The county is studying three new rail extensions - The "Subway to the Beach" (a continuation of the Red Line subway along Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica), a second phase of the Exposition line from Culver City to Santa Monica, and an eastward extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena to Montclair. A number of rapid bus and bus rapid transit lines are funded as well.
This is quite a turn around from a few years back, when MTA's rail program was widely ridiculed, and Westside politicians stopped the Wilshire Subway from extending west. The current Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, is a big rail booster and promoter of transit-oriented development, and former foes of the subway like County Supervisor Yaroslavsky and Congressman Waxman are making conciliatory comments about the Wilshire subway.