Peak Oil – Deja Vu?
August 26th, 2008
|
| Share |
Peak Oil Crisis – Prepare to Survive!
The Long Emergency
Peak Oil And The Coming Collapse: Five Rules For Survival
Preparing for the End of the Oil Age
You can Survive Peak Oil
Life After the Oil Crash
Peak Oil Anarchy!
In the Wake – Surviving Past the End of Our Civilization
“Shock in the USA: America Becomes Third-World Country Overnight”
Survive the Post-Petro World: List of Survival Suppliers
The Decline Of American Civilization and The Age After Oil
A few things to consider:
1. The current price of oil is high but this has absolutely nothing to do with production or a lack of supply. It has everything to do with: demand, especially in developing countries, political instability, speculation in commodities and futures and other such factors.
2. Oil cannot run out overnight. It’s impossible. Oil fields are not simply big tanks of oil that it is pumped from until it runs out. Instead there is a limit to the rate of pumping. If it is over pumped it can be replenished from oil in the surrounding rock over time. As an oil field is drawn down the rate at which the oil can be pumped from it is reduced and the energy needed to draw out the oil increases. It does not simply run dry on a given day.
3. The United States has only about 3% of the oil reserves of the world, yet despite this there are an estimated 60 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil reserves (conventional) in the US. Many known reserves have not been tapped due to restrictions. ANWR contains billions of barrels, enough to reduce forign imports by more than 10% and the outer continental shelf has been off limits to drilling since 1981, a time when oil imports were dirt cheap and such production seemed unnecessary.
4. The world has “peaked” its energy sources before. First it was wood which started to become too sparse for fuel in the 1700’s in Europe and in the 1800’s in North America. The world generally transitioned to coal. Whales became over hunted in the mid to late 1800’s making whale oil for lighting, lubrication and other applications less plentiful. Petroleum replaced whale oil. Gas lighting became more popular and then electricity began to replace oil for illumination. In all these cases, civilization transitioned relatively smoothly without any anarchy or killing in the streets.
5. Oil is a hydrocarbon. That’s it. That’s all that it is, aside from other generally undesirable contaminants. Gasoline, diesel, biomass or any other product derived from petroleum can also be made from natural gas, biomass, garbage, sewage sludge, coal, people and anything else organic using simple and well established chemical processes. Refineries have been built by companies like SASOL which can produce hundreds of thousands of barrels of fuel daily from coal, methane or other feedstock reliably and economically. There is only one thing that makes petroleum more desirable as a feedstock: it requires less energy intensive processes to be converted into gasoline. Luckily, however, we have an excellent source of massive amounts of energy.
6. The estimates for when oil will “peak” have varied quite a lot, but it has not happened yet and will likely not happen for decades, especially considering that higher prices cause greater efforts to be mounted in producing oil. Most estimates do not consider non-conventional oil sources like tar sands, which are being developed due to current high prices. The market has even caused domestic production in the US to rise for the first time since the 1980’s.
7. There are already viable alternatives that can dramatically reduce dependence on oil. For example, the ‘plug in hybrid’ concept can allow for vehicles to make local trips (which account for most of the gasoline usage in small vehicles) entirely on battery power, using only existing battery technology. This technology is already being developed for cars like the Chevy Volt, which GM is planning to bring to market in just a few years. Just like electric lights replaced oil and gas because they were better as light sources, not because of energy concerns, the all-electric drive train of these vehicles is superior to that of gasoline vehicles. It provides electrodynamic breaking, four wheel independent power control, nearly instantaneous acceleration and power and better effeciency. This is a step forward, not backward.
8. We’re only five years closer to peak oil than we were five years ago. Sure doesn’t seem like it with all the panic, does it?
Finally, a couple images I’ve seen on “peak oil” websites:
(Apparently everyone suddenly runs out of gas simultaneously while out driving, not having looked at the gauge beforehand I guess? And of course there’s no place to fill up in the above image)
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Good Science, Just LAME, Not Even Wrong, Obfuscation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
August 26th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Warning! Someone right click this page and click View Source. Then search for prozac. Holy crap! Something is seriously wrong with the HTMl!.
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
That HTML could get this site blocked on many school and business internet filters! (The stuff in there might not be there for long if you have trouble finding it)
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Wow. Wait. What the hell
Uh.. I think one of the links that I cut-and-pasted had a bit more attached than I expected!
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
The period we are living in is the culmination of over one hundred years of economic expansion and the creation of a worldwide energy cartel upon which the future of capitalism entirely depends. It is simply inconceivable, nor does it make any kind of economic sense that the big oil companies who also own the distribution networks, right down to the retail outlets would continue behaving the way they are if future supplies of oil were in doubt.
These multinationals are not in the oil business, their in the energy business because as Henry Kissinger said: ‘Control energy and you control nations.’ If there was any possibility that there would be no oil to pump in the near future, they would be building nuclear powerplants, buying uranium mines, now so that they could continue to wield the power they have been for the past hundred years.
–
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
People, people… don’t you know that all the peak oil sites have done ANALYSIS? With NUMBERS?
Numbers never lie.
Except when they do.
Honestly, I don’t get why you don’t all get that the price signal never works, there is obviously no move toward other forms of energy (including wind and solar, despite their flaws), no changes in usage patterns, and no more attention paid toward the issue in general.
It’s just not happening. At all. Except where it is. Therefore, we are all doomed. Oh, and the economists are all wrong no matter what. Nyah nyah nyah.
Really though, it seems to me that no matter what any of the doomtards on the internet say, there is a lot of positive stuff going on in energy in general. While it’s clear that there are issues with many of the “alternatives” (inherent or created), we are far from DOOOOOOOOOMED as so many would have us believe. Worst case scenario is a couple decades of reduced real disposable income and then a nice, emissions-free long-run.
I could imagine much worse.
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
There are plenty of good reasons to limit oil usage or try to move to other alternatives even without the idea that it is running out. It’s a resource that comes from a part of the world that we don’t want to be dependent on. It’s subject to price fluctuation which can be crippling. (Like now, when demand rose quickly. We don’t want to be tied to something that can jump like that). It’s not entirely environmentally benign.
The point is this: If we start falling for this crap that the tap is about to go dry and civilization is on the verge of a complete collapse then that leads to panic and rash decisions which are not going to serve us well in the long run. We’re better off with the mentality that we should “improve our energy balance” than “We need to do something BECAUSE WE’RE ALL GONA DIE!!!!!”
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I have to say that I take the middle ground on this one. The world didn’t come to s screeching halt with Y2K as doomsayers predicted but it is equally false to say that Y2K wasn’t real or it was a non issue. The problem was dealt with because a massive and very expensive effort tackled it and there were real computer glitches that occurred despite the best efforts to prevent them.
The world won’t end with Peak Oil, but it would be equally false to claim it will be all smooth sailing. I think there will be real pain and shock with a likely series of oil crises, but crises we will overcome and the sooner we embrace nuclear power, the better.
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
drbuzz0,
Agreed 100%.
Conservation, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Neither is diversifying your portfolio (anyone with investments will tell you this.) So why all the hubbub about oil?
Because oil is pretty visible in our daily lives. I mean, how many people buy coal anymore? How many people buy uranium? People go to the pump and go, “OMG! Clearly something is WRONG!” And since most of the baby boomers (bless their wasteful souls) lived through the 70s oil shocks, they are stuck in a paradigm where it’s SOMEONE’S FAULT (OPEC, Big Oil, someone else). Never once does it cross people’s minds that we have a stock of technologies available to us that could ease our dependence on oil in little more than a decade or two.
Honestly, I spent about a week thinking peak oil would be a bad thing. Now I think of it as an opportunity masked in a cavalcade of possible problems. But the opportunity is much, much bigger than the problems. Unfortunately, most people are– and this is probably evolutionarily rational– prone toward being pessimistic about decision making under uncertainty. Oh well.
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
It seems that the illusion of Peak Oil is extremely persistent especially on the Left, partly from wishful thinking that it represents the end of unrestrained capitalist growth, partly because it plays into the idea that the problem resides with over-consumption in the rich countries. Hence the associated idea of rationing energy use. How many times do we hear the cry about ‘what happens when the Chinese all have cars and refrigerators?’
Quote Comment
August 26th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
DV82XL said:
My response would be “If you’re smart enough to get in on it you’ll be rich.”
I know someone will say “Well China has more manufacturing capability anyway so they’ll just build them themselves.” That doesn’t matter. Any time there’s economic growth there’s plenty of opportunity to cash in on it directly or indirectly if you’re smart enough and take the initiative. IE: you don’t have to sell them the cars or refrigerators. You could also sell them auto insurance or raw materials or road maps or refrigerator magnets or something. There are tons of niches.
Will the Chinese all just cash in on it domestically? Only if you don’t beat them to it.
Some say don’t bother following a gold rush. I say, go for the gold rush, but don’t dig for gold. Sell shovels.
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Secularists enjoy sneering at born-again Christians who believe in the Rapture and other bizarre forms of millenarianism, so it’s more than a little amusing to notice how prone these otherwise rational critics are to their own doomsday myths. The hilarious part is how smug the secularist are about their own superiority over the religious ones, when in fact thesis of these two delusional systems is practically identical, and just as morally suspect.
Rather than getting to gloat over sinners writhing in agony submerged in a lake of fire, the draw is getting to feel superior to capitalists and consumers as they will surely Get Theirs and starve in their SUVs when the Collapse Comes. Mean while virtuous tree-hugging Birkenstock-wearing, fair-trade coffee drinkers, being in a state of grace with Gaia, will retire to renewable-energy-powered communes and built out of macrame and live on artisanal goat cheese.
They both make me want to puke.
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 1:06 am
I’m a secularist and I believe in no such things.
I do however think it is realistic that there could be an energy crisis possibly with a bad recession tied to it. It happened in the 1970’s and times before. I’m not saying people dying in the streets but just high unemployment, national security issues, crappy times. I don’t know if it will or won’t happen but I’m not convinced the future will be 100% rosey.
If you want to know what I think the greatest risk is its that the green-left will end up pushing the world or certain countries to a general recession by doing things like mandating useless renewable, baring additional oil exploration or mining for other minerals, preventing new power plants and maybe forcing closed old ones without anything to replace them, baring perfectly useful consumer products and stuff like PVC pipe.
I don’t think it’s doomsday, but I think it’s a real possibility. I hope it can be avoided though.
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Why did the Left lose its belief in progress? Stalin for example wasn’t an anti-progress reactionary, but someone who wanted to develop the Soviet Union as rapidly as possible, whatever the cost in lives…
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 4:34 am
How much barrels would we produce when we convert all ecotards in petrol? Let’s start with Greenpeace (using those Dutch subsidies for something useful).
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 5:47 am
George Carty said:
I don’t know, George.
You may wish to critique my hypothesis that upon discovering that leftist economics and social organisation was not as good a vehicle as capitalism for progress, rather than embrace capitalism, they redefined the goal of socialism and started marketing it accordingly, using environmentalism as a justification.
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 8:12 am
DV82XL said:
“It is hard to make a man understand something if his salary depends upon him not understanding it”
Upton Sinclair
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 9:27 am
McGlashan said:
While there is a certain truth to that, oilcos are corporate entities that can afford to buy the truth from any number of experts and a real need to maintain their grip on power. If they thought for a second that they were going to lose that, they would be moving to protect their position.
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 9:42 am
McGlashan said:
What do oil companies have to gain from not understanding peak oil?
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Soylent,
I sometimes wonder if peakniks think that this is how oil companies and nationalized oil concerns function:
Step 1: Oil
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit!
Now, I don’t think that they’re the omnipotent ubercorps that some think they are, either, but stupid? No. They didn’t get there by being stupid.
Quote Comment
August 27th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
UCLAri said:
No, but a lot of the doomers and ecotards are. Sometimes I have the impression they get their knowledge of the energy business from just 2 TV-Shows:
1. “The Simpsons” about nuclear energy
2. “Beverly Hillbillys” about the oil business
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 1:16 am
I think peak oil is real, but I don’t think it’s an insurmountable problem.
We have proven(used for 60+ years technology) in the for of coal to liquid that managed to supply South Africa with very good quality(97 Octane is standard) and fairly cheap petrol. Then there is the possibility of Methane Hydrates, but I don’t want to place any bets on an unproven technology.
Also, plug in hybrids have the potential to seriously reduce the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power is a cheap, well developed technology.
HOWEVER
All these things(Nuclear power plants, coal to liquids plants and related infrastructure) take DECADES to roll out on a large scale. The original SASOL plant took over a decade to build. In China, which builds things crazily fast, it took them 6 years to build one relatively small capacity coal to liquids plant. These things are huge and very complex. In the US it will probably take 16 years. Same for nuclear power plants.
My biggest concern is that several years down the line gas will be 10 bucks a gallon, and ONLY then will the government wake up and try to find a solution., which will take DECADES of economic chaos to implement.
I think that the eventual future is bright, but we are in for some serious **** in our personal lives.
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 7:29 am
DV8, Solyent, UCLAri, et al.
Writing as a former oil industry executive, I think I can add a bit of insider’s perspective here. True, oil companies did not get where they are today by being stupid, but neither did they get there by being particularly clever. Luck has had a great deal to do with the energy hegemony they currently enjoy. While individuals can certainly be irrational and short sighted, joint-stock companies are not immune from similar failings. Were the opposite true, no corporation would ever fail.
Fact is, that chasing the bottom line in pursuit of shareholder value has led to significant shortfalls in investment within the oil industry itself; the infrastructure is creaking. Have a look at this presentation given at the OTC in Houston this spring:
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/OTC%202008.pdf
Doesn’t paint a picture of a far-sighed industry. It paints a picture of an industry struggling to keep its own house in order, let alone invest in some decent alternatives to hydrocarbon exploitation.
Has oil production peaked? Well, I don’t know, and neither do any of you. Has the production of light sweet crude peaked? Undoubtedly yes. It is patently obvious that there are vast reserves of hydrocarbons under the ground and beneath the sea-bed awaiting production. However the geological, geographical, hydrodynamic and political difficulties of extracting these less-than optimum grades of crude cost money, expertise and time to overcome. The oilcos look at these remaining reserves and see opportunities to exploit them, as long as the traded oil price remains high – as long as you and I provide the market conditions to keep that price high. Is it the end of oil? No. Is it the end of cheap oil? Yes.
Writing from a local perspective, we have enjoyed a healthy oil patch here in the North Sea since the mid 1970’s. However, production peaked in 2000/1 and has declined 10-12% y-o-y since. Such is geology – but whither the North Sea industry? What will happen to the expertise and capital built up in my hometown over the last 35 years? When I discuss this with my friends and former colleagues in the industry, they mention no schemes to diversify into other energy sources, rather, they mention the Caspian Sea, Sakhalin Island, The High Arctic, The Falkand Islands, Equatorial Guinea, Angola and the Deepwater Atlantic. All areas of very high cost production. Flow rates can be maintained, probably, over the 15 – 20 year horizon that these companies look to, but at a cost. A financial cost and a political one.
The oil industry knows just fine what those costs are, and what end-user prices will need to be to support those costs. It is therefore against the oilcos interest to invest in the provision of alternatives which will reduce demand for their core product. The run-up in oil prices and its implications for our lives will be like boiling a frog. The stove has been lit.
So, DV8 and Solyent, can you now see why I quoted Upton Sinclair?
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Thank-you McGlashan for taking the time to write such a detailed and informative post. Yes I can see you are probably correct in your analysis, however the loss of cheap oil, as you pointed out, is not the end of oil itself, and this is what the peak oil doomsayers are trying to make the world to believe.
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 11:03 am
McGlashan said:
You’re absolutely right that a big successful corporation is not immune from being extremely boneheaded. In some cases, the value is placed on the short-term in order to appease the fickle stock market and investors. Also, executives can be a lot like politicians in that they are more concerned with how things are in the immediate future when they still have their job on the line and don’t care so much about the distant future when they won’t be accountable for where the company goes.
I don’t know that oil has peaked and I believe it has not. Has easy to get to oil peaked? Has light sweet crude peaked? It very likely has. But it’s a complicated situation. I mean for one thing lets consider that oil production in the lower 48 US states has gone UP in the past couple of years. This was not supposed to happen because production was supposed to have peaked in the 1980’s but the high price has encouraged development of non-conventional oil sources and deeper drilling.
I think this will be similar to how things will go around the world. Oil will become harder and harder to get at, but it won’t simply be plentiful one day and then all of a sudden and without warning it’ll be gone.
But lets consider some things: we’re already transitioning in some ways. SASOL is building synthetic refineries in China. Canada has managed to dramatically improve non-conventional oil extraction from the tar sands and in Alberta better hydrogenation and cracking is leading to better yields.
Hybrid cars are already here and an increasing number of models are avaliable as hybrids. Hybrids that allow for plug-in mode are now becoming avaliable. GM and other car manufacturers are committed to the electric drivetrain with extended range all-electric operation. Boeing and Airbus are building the most fuel effecient aircraft in history.
My own belief is that in ten years or so we’ll start to come to the point where oil supplies are actually starting to get a bit limited. I also think that in ten years we’ll have a much larger deployment of electric-based transportation, non-conventional oil and so on.
I don’t deny that oil supplies could cause some economic problems or be in a bit of a crunch. They certainly could and it’s not unrealistic to think that it could happen in the foreseeable future.
What I do find totally off-base is the whole idea of gasoline being more expensive than gold, people rioting in the streets, the fall of all the major industrial nations, cars rusting in a post-apocalyptic world where tribes of survivors live off the land…
That’s not going to happen
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 11:44 am
DV82XL said:
Hi DV8, and thanks. I agree that the doomsayers that Doc links to at the top of the post are somewhat frothy in their pontifications. This clearly helps no-one, and, indeed inspires the ire of otherwise level-headed commentators, with the inevitable result of polarizing the debate. As with most things, however, the truth is complex and rarely apprehended at first glance, particularly when a variety of factors are at play.
The loss of cheap oil versus the loss of oil itself… is there any difference? The implications for us in the parts of the west where we live under the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism are uncomfortable in either case.
We have run down our savings at national and personal levels in favour of credit based upon confidence in the future confidence in the consumption of products yet to be manufactured in economies which operate under different models.
I fear that, in the future competition for capital (for infrastructure projects), our economies have left themselves in a poor position when compared to economies which have much higher savings rates and capital reserves. Anglo-Saxon debt deflation is underway. We may not be able to compete for the energy supplies and reserves (from whatever source) which we will need.
Am I a doomer? Dunno… I’m a jaded cynic. I have no faith in corporations or governments, nor indeed in currencies. Can anyone restore my faith?
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
McGlashan said:
Well you and I both know that extraction technologies for oil shale and tar sand production are on the front end of the development slope, and we can expect that demand will drive improvement, after all lateral drilling was a pipe dream not so long ago and is now fairly standard.
Also transportation fuel can be produced from coal using well understood engineering, and again it wouldn’t take long to have enough production from that source on line to drive the price down.
Of course even if these weren’t available nuclear could and would more in to fill the gap.
The issue to me is do we take the opportunity of high oil prices to move away from an energy economy with a carbon backbone, or do we ride out the price bump until new production come on line.
We survived the 70’s oil crunch; we’ll survive this one, at least in terms of supply – the CO2 issue is a separate matter.
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
McGlashan said:
Well, I’ll go back to the idea that it’s not overnight. The way I see it, our oil supplies, even if they end up being much less than they are now, will have to fulfill certain rolls in the foreseeable future. The lions share of oil end use is ground transportation – this is an area where it is technically feasible to dramatically reduce its use (and we are already seeing the very beginning of this and I think we’ll see more of it in the coming years). There are other places it is used like for heating where it can be reduces relatively easily as well.
However, I think we’ll always (at least for a long time) need hydrocarbon fuels for certain applications where their high energy density and ease of storage and use are important. These include: Aviation, marine propulsion, heavy construction (especially located away from electrical systems), backup and redundant power generators, certain heavy ground transport rolls..
In any case, these areas where there really is not a viable alternative for petroleum only account for a small portion of end use. If we can move to alternatives in areas that use the most petroleum I think our supplies will be more than adequate to cover the remaining where there isn’t really much else that can be done.
Besides that, many alternatives to petroleum have other benefits anyway. I’d see a move to other methods of ground transport as being less of an emergency last-ditch effort to avoid an oil disaster and more as a natural step toward something better in general. Electric lights didn’t replace kerosene and whale oil because those didn’t work or because they were running out (although whale oil was), but it replaced it because electric lights are just better – safer, easier to turn on and off, brighter, higher quality light, less maintenance.
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Hi Doc,
We’re on the same page here. But lets all try to make sure that we’re not the frog being boiled. Some interesting observations which echo your final point are made here:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46411
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’m actually planning on making a post soon about the concept of an electric drivetrain vehicle. Basically this is an electric vehicle which is electrically driven entirely from batteries onboard and usually carries a small gasoline motor as an APU/Rang Extender. This would only be used at all for trips over maybe 40-50 miles. It is different than today’s “parallel hybrids” because those use the gasoline motor most of the time and use electric propulsion to provide extra power especially power captured from breaking but they can’t perform very well on the electric motors alone.
The disadvantage of the fully electrified drivetrain is a modest loss of effeciency in highway driving, although newer generators and systems make this less and less compared to a normal automatic transaxyl system.
The thing is that I think that this system can stand on its own based on the numerous advantages it has over a standard system, even aside from the fact that it is vastly more effecient in city driving and also can travel locally without using an ounce of gasoline.
Electric drivetrains have some enormous advantages. For one thing, it’s possible to use variable shunted electric motors to drive all the wheels directly without any gearbox and thus reduce one of the most mechanically complex parts of the car. Some motor configurations can provide both high torque and high speed and effeciency without sacrifice through control interfaces and variable amperage and voltage regulation. In effect the same vehicle can be geared for torque and for speed.
Electric motors have almost immediate response and can provide extreme acceleration and performance. Actually, unrestrained hub-mounted electric motors have been known to snap axles in drag races!
Having independent motors per wheel or even per front and back axles provides more precise four-wheel power control than even the best current four-wheel systems. It can precicely control motor power even to improve turning control. Electrodynamic breaking is also an amazing advantage. Not only does this recover energy, but it means that break pads can last damn near forever and ABS can be improved to have extreme precision of control.
I really think that the electrified drivetrain is the future of cars and trucks. It is an improvement even discounting the fuel advantages. GM is betting on it bigtime and Toyota is already hoping to bring it to market in the next couple years. It doesn’t just mean cleaner driving, but better too!
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
DV82XL said:
No one in the Peak Oil movement says that Oil is going to abruptly Run Out. What is going to happen is the loss of, as you yourself pointed out, CHEAP OIL. Here in North America, the entire economy and social system has been built upon the premise of Cheap Oil for the last 60 years. And I mean EVERYTHING.
Let’s say oil hits $200/bbl in 2010(a highly optimistic assumtion, it will probably be much sooner). Huge swathes of suburbs become unaffordable to live in. Yeah plug in hybrids are just coming in, but remember it will take decades to replace the 100s of millions of cars on the road, even if people can afford to pay for them, which is doubtful in a collapsing economy. Not to mention the fact that the allready collapsing electric grid will have to add lots of new capacity somehow. Where are those 10s of millions of Suburban refugees going to go?
This applies to every other aspect of life from heating to the price of food(them tractors ain’t gonna be hybrids folks). Just as an example, this year(which is going to be a really cold one, the Snows on the mountains melted 5 weeks late, and now they are back on the mountains in August FFS, which is about 6 weeks early), with Oil at even $120/bbl many, many, many people in North America will have to choose between food and medicine or the heating Oil. Even if they decide to burn wood, they need a big pickup truck, a chainsaw and the skills and strength to cut down the trees(around where I live, people can cut down pine beetle and fire killed trees, many other places aren’t so fortunate) for firewood , cut them up, put them on the truck and then go home and chop them. Most people can’t do that. Not to mention having to build the furnace and the heating system. There’s going to be lots of suffering this year, even in Canada with a much better social support system. I dread to think what will happen in places like Vermont and Montana.
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Here in Britain I’ve never encountered any hybrid vehicles, but many larger cars are diesel engined. The price of diesel is now considerably higher than petrol/gasoline here, because higher oil prices have encouraged car buyers to go for the more thermodynamically efficient diesels and refining capacity hasn’t caught up. Are diesel cars uncommon in North America? (I remember reading somewhere that North American diesel is more polluting than European…)
How long before we see diesel hybrid cars?
And by the way America, can you not fix that stupid loophole in your tax code that encourages white-collar yuppies to buy monster SUVs?
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
George Carty said:
There are diesel cars in the US, Mercadies makes some that are sold here and I think Volkswagen does too, but they’re pretty rare. I’ve only seen them occasionally. Diesel is used by some larger light trucks, like contractor pickups, tow trucks and that kind of thing. It’s really primarily used by heavy trucking, tractor-trailers and such a lot more than it is with any cars.
As for pollution I don’t know. I do know that some heavy deisel engines can be pretty dirty in terms of smog and everything but there are a few states and localities that have enacted some tight legislation on the levels of sulfur in diesel fuel and on emissions in general.
One issue is that if you’re traveling away from highways and such then you may have trouble always being able to find a place to get diesel as not all service stations are going to carry it and you may occasionally have to go through three or four before finding one.
Beats me.
“Can” or “Will”?
Anyways, monster SUV’s are nice when you have wide roads. Plenty of room to stretch out and all. At least… they were before the whole petroleum price thing.
I actually bought a new (well, new to me but a couple years old) car recently that gets a lower gas mileage than the car I had previously. The car I have now averages at about 26mpg on the highway and the car previous was about 34. Yes, I pay more for gas and it’s worth every penny, especially when the top is down on a nice balmy summer late afternoon, the tunes are cranked, the sun is setting and the stars are starting to come out and the road is open and stretches as far as the eye can see.
And yes, I do realize that most people in other parts of the world will think “What? A less effecient car? Are you crazy? What on earth is the attraction to just driving? That’s just how you get place to place!”
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
metatron said:
Look, winning oil from places like the North Sea were impossible fifty years ago. Hibernia was impossible thirty years ago. Jeveron’s Paradox will cut in again for oil as it did for coal. And in the end, Suburbanites will change their cars and go on, or jobs will relocate. In other words we will accommodate to change as we always have BECAUSE it will not happen overnight. Doom and Gloom end-of-(cheap) oil scenarios will not happen.
Both my kids are in their early Twenties, and live farther away from the city center than I do and work in town. Yet nether of them have drivers permits, let alone cars, because the public transit system is very good here, and they claim to have better things to spend their money on than an expensive toy.
People are more flexible than you think.
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Are you trolling your own board? I remember you writing a couple of months back that you were going to buy a more efficient vehicle. What happened to that? The pantechnicons here get better fuel economy than your new car.
Quote Comment
August 28th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
McGlashan said:
Did I? I don’t remember saying that. I mean, all things being equal I would.
But it’s not. I went from a four cylender 2000 Saturn (gah.. Saturn.. it’ll never live up to the rocket’s great legacy) to a 2003 Chrysler Sebring Convertible Limited – The limited is the one with the auto-stick and the premium leather and in-dash CD changer. It has a nice 2.7 liter 6-cylender. Yeah, I know it’s not the sportiest thing around but it’s fairly practicle for a convertible – it has a full sized back seat, front wheel drive and a good sized trunk.
I got it for two reasons: I can’t afford to have a car that is only for weekends and stuff and I wouldn’t want to have the fun car only be for sunday driving and because… why the hell would anyone want to drive in a vehicle where you’re confined inside the cab and can’t experience the smells of the area you pass, the feeling of the wind in your hair, the stars at night and the sun in the day on your back..
Quote Comment
August 29th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Man, do I wish I lived somewhere with worthwhile public transportation.
Quote Comment
August 29th, 2008 at 5:54 am
drbuzz0 said:
Hiya Doc,
I can’t find the comment you made – we were discussing with relation to full-cost accounting whether it was better to trade-in your old, polluting vehicle sooner rather than later in favour of a less polluting model.
As you predicted, yes, I’m struggling to bridge the cultural gap – the attraction you have to “just driving”. You write about “a car only for the weekends” and “a fun car for sunday driving”. Here, we call that “binge motoring” – you know, like “compulsive gambling” or “problem drinking”.
If all you want is “the smells of the area you pass, the feeling of the wind in your hair, the stars at night and the sun in the day on your back” get a bike. Here’s a good one for mixed terrain – gets you off the pavement:
http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLqrymode.a4p?f%5FProductID=9794&f%5FSupersetQRY=C106&f%5FSortOrderID=1&f%5Fbct=c003155c002909
And here’s what I ride in town:
http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLqrymode.a4p?f%5FProductID=7835&f%5FFullProductVersion=1&f%5FSupersetQRY=Kcourier&f%5FSortOrderID=%2D1&f%5Fbct=
Quote Comment
August 29th, 2008 at 7:32 am
DV82XL said:
This is what I meant by “boiling a frog”. Yes, we will adapt as energy becomes more and more expensive, yes, like your kids, (and like us Europeans) we will look increasingly upon motoring as a frivolity. But, like the poor amphibian, at some point, the “water” will become too hot…
A slowly unfolding crisis which we can get used to may be worse for our long term prospects than might a sudden discontinuity. A sudden discontinuity would produce the political will (and public acceptance) to make the policy changes we all agree are required. A slow-motion change gives us time to adapt to what we all see as an undesirable scenario (higher energy prices), and allows vested interests to continue to pursue business-as-usual policies, as I outlined above in relation to the oil industry.
Quote Comment
September 6th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Doc, I’m sorry your Saturn didn’t work out for you. I recently retired my 2000 Saturn SL2 after seven great years of driving it. It was a fun little car to work on and it got me back and forth across the country when I moved away for grad school. I used to drive it from Iowa to Houston to see my family at holidays, and it was a great way to stop in and visit friends who lived along the way. Too many people just don’t understand the enjoyment of road trips.
I guess the saying is true, that in America a hundred years is a long time and in Europe a hundred miles is a long way. When I’m in Texas with my family we can drive 45 miles to see friends “across town” and not be in traffic the entire time. I also have a flat in Belgium (my husband is in graduate school at Leuven) and the idea of going that far seems like a major project to our friends and neighbours. I hardly think anything of going up to Holland for the afternoon, it’s only an hour and a half by train after all! I can read on the train, the view is really nice and it’s actually quite cheap, but to some people that is just too far to go for a pleasant afternoon looking at medieval architecture. To each their own I suppose. (Actually, most people on the train seem to be going for the shopping, and more power to them.)
Anyway I’m glad you’re enjoying the Chrysler! If you ever come out to the Bay Area, you should rent a convertible and go tooling through the mountains along Skyline Drive, it’s so pretty up there and the roads are an interesting challenge if you like that kind of thing.
Quote Comment
September 6th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
The Saturn worked fine. It just wasn’t this: http://depletedcranium.com/myride.jpg
Quote Comment
September 6th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Belgium is a small country, as you’ll have remarked by this time. We’re just not used to great distances.
Quote Comment
September 6th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Vjatcheslav said:
Yes, but you’re reasonably close to the Autobahn, which I’ve always wanted to drive on. It’s somewhat hard for me as an American to fathom that it does not have a speed limit though. I’d figure it would be really not that interesting to use my current car on the Autobahn, I mean what is the point? The car actually has a governor on it that will start to cut back the power after you get past 110 mph and won’t let you go above 120mph. However, it can be removed relatively easily.
Even so, the maximum theoretical speed is well under 150 without the governor. I’ve heard of the car being taken as high as ~135 on a flat track. With a supercharger you can bolt on enough horsepower to possibly break 150. But really, it’s not designed to be a race car.
But the thing is the autobahn has NO speedlimit, so it seems like it really is pointless to even bother with a standard car if you want the real experience. Even a dodge Viper on a good straight shot is going to struggle to keep over 200 mph. A McLaren F1 can supposedly do 240, but still if there’s a headwind or something it’s going to be hard to get that high and forget about 250.
If you want to do the autobahn (which I really do) I figure you’d have to do it right and go a lot faster than that. The problem is that axle driven vehicles top out at about 300mph. I’m wondering if it is legal to take an afterburning turbojet on the autobahn (Because it has no speedlimit. That’s unfathomable… how can you not see that as an invitation to go as fast as possible)
Something like the J79 off of an F-104 would be ideal. They used that, IIRC in one of the more resent land speed record attempts. It seems like the autobahn would be the logical place to try to break the land speed record. If you throw out the fact that guiness requires you to complete it two times in a given amount of time in the same vehicle, then you might even do better with solid rockets. That’d be cheaper too. a vehicle with some surplus solid rocket motors should be able to go supersonic at a reasonable price.
Quote Comment
September 7th, 2008 at 12:59 am
I understand completely and I feel the same way. If you are going to drive on a highway without an speed limit it seems like it’s really not experiencing what it should be if you just drive an ordinary car. I mean, it’s not even that much faster than you can reasonably travel in a car anyway with a speed limit. Three or four times faster? If there’s no speed limit then you’d be really not be using that potential and that kind of an invitation with a conventional automobile. Imagine a road that challenges you to go as fast as your means and ingenuity will allow and NOT taking that and just driving at a normal speed. No, that would be unacceptable.
Your vehicle would need to approach the physical limit of how fast you can get a land vehicle to go within the space and layout avaliable. You’d have to get at least close to the speed of sound to feel you had really experienced the road. It’s a given that a regular wheel-driven car would not do. You need something better like a ramjet, a solid fueled rocket, a liquid fueled rocket or pulsed-nuclear-detonation.
Quote Comment
September 7th, 2008 at 3:51 am
I think you would also need to clear the Autobahn before you get to the speeds you’d like, because otherwise you’re going to get into an accident. And that is not legal, I fear.
Quote Comment
September 7th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I thought the autobahn was known for being pretty low in accidents? I’ve heard that the accidents they do have are occasionally spectacular when you get a really fast going car hit something and get obliterated or go flying, but I’ve always heard that the high speeds are supposed to result in drivers being more alert and taking things more seriously and that makes for an accident rate of 20% or more less than equivelent highways with speed limits like in other countries.
So wouldn’t it make sense that if fast means less accidents REALLY FAST makes even less and CRAZY FAST makes for nearly none?
Quote Comment
September 7th, 2008 at 9:48 am
No – the function of accident danger against speed is not monotonic…
Quote Comment
September 7th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Q said:
I think this is true, but mostly because (1) such vehicles are build (or built?) with stringent safety and quality requirements, (2) they tend to be used in places which don’t have much circulation (such as the sky) and (3) the pilots have to be well trained before they are entrusted with such a money eating thing.
Quote Comment
September 8th, 2008 at 2:15 am
I am pretty sure you can get ticketed for speeding on the autobahn. Even if the roadway does not have a formal set speed limit, there are other less direct infractions like ‘driving too fast for conditions’ or ‘reckless driving’ or something like that pertaining to just being irresponsible with your speed. I would have to think that going anywhere near the speed of sound would be unfit for any conditions even if it were completly dry and clear. I think that reckless driving or some other similar charge can be applied to any circumstance where your driving is a clear hazard and I guess you could call it a judgement thing but I think almost everyone would agree that if you are going faster than most airplanes that is not safe in general or for other motorists.
Also, I don’t know how you’d expect to maintain control. The autobahn is not perfectly straight it has curves and the curves are easily made at a normal speed, but staying on a road that is not dead straight and which also has other vehicles becomes much more difficult when you are in the area of land speed record speeds.
Quote Comment