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With little doubt, the United States is being confronted with a crisis of major proportions. Experts agree that world oil production is at near peak today and could well fall off dramatically within the next decade. Yet world oil demand keeps growing as China, India, and many other developing countries dramatically increase their oil consumption. In addition, oil supplies are being curtailed or threatened by political and terrorist activities in many foreign oil producing countries such as Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Put together, these events portend a major increase in petroleum costs with serious economic repercussions throughout the U.S. It is a crisis that must be addressed immediately. To delay is to invite disaster.
This country today consumes about 21 million barrels of crude oil per day, about 14 of which are used for transportation. The remaining 7 million are used for heating and the manufacture of chemicals and plastics. The distressing fact is that more than 13.4 million barrels per day are imported.
To confront the situation we must be realistic. We must be open minded and address the problem with an unbiased viewpoint. The bottom line is that there is no simple solution, no magic bullet, no single remedy. The only way to solve the problem is to address BOTH the supply side and the consumption side of our oil dilemma without any preconceived biases or prejudices.
Increasing Supply
On the supply side there are several avenues that could relieve the situation. The first avenue, of course is to increase our domestic oil supply. Such increase, however, will first need to offset the ever declining oil production in the lower United States before any positive growth can be realized. All things considered it is a fact that any substantial increase in our domestic supply will depend upon how successful we are in finding new oil deposits offshore and/or in previously unexplored land areas, and on how soon we can develop a practical means of producing substitute fuels.
In the short term, there are few other supply solutions that we can deploy now to meet our needs. Hydrogen is often mentioned as a solution but in reality this is technology whose practical application is likely two or more decades away. Then there is the hope that liquid petroleum can be domestically produced from coal, or from oil shale at reasonable cost and without damage to the environment.
This leaves mainly biofuels, i.e., ethanol and biodiesel. While wide attention is now being given to these fuels as petroleum substitutes, most experts agree that they have serious shortcomings. Currently a NET average of about 0.15 million barrels/day is being supplied by biofuels (about 55 million barrels/year). The NET is calculated by subtracting the amount of liquid fuel that is required to produce a given amount of biofuel from the total amount of fuel produced (corn ethanol currently returns less than 2 gallons of fuel for each gallon of fuel consumed). Further, ethanol produces less than 70% of the energy that gasoline does. This means we must produce about 1.4 gallons of ethanol to displace 1 gallon of gasoline. There is hope that ethanol produced from a variety of cellulosic feed stocks, such as switchgrass, will provide about five times better return than corn but the technology to accomplish this is still several years away. There is also a pilot project underway in Colorado aimed at converting algae into biodiesel that shows considerable promise. All things considered though, even if we increased biofuels production more than 20 times, this would supplant little more than 20% of our current transportation petroleum needs within the next 15 years.
Reducing Consumption
The bottom line is if we are to make a significant impact (say enough to reduce our oil imports to zero) - even with a dramatic rise in biofuel production and with a substantial increase in domestic oil production - we would have to reduce our petroleum usage by about 9 million barrels per day, no small accomplishment.
It is true that our commercial airlines, trains, buses, freight trucks, and farm machinery consume large quantities of jet fuel and diesel fuel. Furthermore the amount of oil necessary to heat buildings and produce petroleum-based products such as plastics, fertilizers, and chemicals is enormous. However, in deference to rising crude oil prices over the last several years, most private companies and homeowners are already beginning to take steps to reduce their consumption on their own. This leaves private auto transportation fuels as the principal target for further reducing consumption.
In my estimation, the best way to reduce oil consumption to the level needed is to launch an "Apollo" size federal program aimed at increasing the average mpg of our 235+ million car/light truck fleet over the next fifteen years from the current average of 21 mpg to 36 mpg. The ideal goal would be to phase in new high-efficiency vehicles to replace all low-efficiency vehicles as they are removed from service over the period. To accomplish this, our federal government would have to launch a massive public relations campaign, along with an innovative financial incentive program, to convince car owners that it is in not only in their own best interest, but in the national interest as well, to change their automobile preferences from SUVs, minivans, and light trucks to smaller, more efficient vehicles. In addition, higher and higher fuel efficiency (CAFÉ) standards for cars, as well as light trucks, should be gradually imposed on car manufacturers for implementation over the next decades. Further, special rebates should be given to car buyers to purchase hybrid cars and, better yet, "plug-in" hybrid cars once they become commercially available. The rebates should also apply to electric vehicles (EVs) once they become price competitive and even to diesel autos that meet certain fuel efficiency standards.
PATH TO FOREIGN OIL INDEPENDENCE
If we are to relieve our oil independence in the near future (say 15 years) we must act NOW. All things considered, the only realistic solution is to take every acceptable measure to reduce our oil consumption and to increase domestic oil (or substitute fuel) production as is necessary. To reach total independence in this time frame we would have to achieve the following:
First, and FOREMOST, we would need to drastically reduce our transportation oil consumption by almost 44% or some 6 million barrels/day. This means an upping of CAFÉ standards by government edict to an average of no less than 36mg. This will require a mass manufacture and sale of highly fuel-efficient vehicles with a subsequent change in our life style habits. We can no longer lavish ourselves with large gas guzzling vehicles. We need to replace them with fuel efficient cars and trucks such as hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and possibly EVs and fuel efficient diesel autos.
Second, we would have to increase our domestic oil production from the current level of 7.5 million barrels/day to about 9 million barrels/day. This is a 21% increase and will certainly mean substantially more offshore deep well drilling, possibly some discrete drilling in unexplored lands, and, if it can become economical and environmentally acceptable, the production of oil via natural gas liquids (NGL), coal liquefaction and/or extraction from oil shale. This is a very ambitious goal and its realization depends largely how fast coal liquefaction and oil shale technologies can come on line.
Third, we would need to produce more and more biofuels, hopefully as much as a NET 4.3 million barrels/day, which will displace approximately 3 million barrels/day of petroleum. This assumes that practical methods of producing ethanol from cellulosic feed stocks and from algae will be developed within the next five years and that they will be the predominant methods of producing ethanol over the following ten years. It also assumes that there will be a major increase in biodiesel production.
Fourth, we would have to reduce the amount of jet fuel, diesel and all other oil derivatives used for air and rail transportation, for busing, for trucking, for heating and, to a large extent, for the manufacturer of chemicals, plastics and other products. We need to reduce this consumption by some 23%, or about 2 million barrels/day.
Fifth, we must learn to economize on our travel in every way we can (car pools, fewer road trips, shorter commutes, greater use of public transportation). More mass transportation systems need to be built in large metropolitan areas. State and local governments should pass new zoning laws and create incentives for better urban planning of all new real estate developments to ensure less travel between home, stores and places of employment. These actions could enable us to reduce our oil consumption by about 1 million barrels/day.
Voila! This adds up to the magic number of 21 million barrels/day, which is the total level of oil consumption in the United States today.
These may appear to be near impossible goals, and maybe they are. But we must strive to achieve them as best we can. If we fall short we will still be far ahead of our current business as usual scenario and will reduce our oil imports appreciably. If we do nothing, we will be doomed.
For information on purchasing reprints of this article, contact Tim Tobeck ttobeck@energycentral.com. Copyright 2010 CyberTech, Inc.
I think it is interesting that America (and the rest of the world) is facing a "crisis of major proportions", yet one of the remedy's is a call for higher CAFE standards. Why? Because a gas tax would be too hard politically to get passed. If we really are in a crisis, perhaps we should act like it for once and do the right things, not the poltically acceptable ones.
Todd McKissick 4.24.07
Jim, I'm surprised you would rather take money from the auto 'industry' and let the ineffectual government decide how best to put it to use. That would only get a 50% ROI and we'd have a bunch of politicians deciding where it was spent. With across the board limits (if done equally), the money at least stays available for R&D.
So many of the suggestions mentioned in the article don't take into account the lifestyle of the average american. We cling to our personal vehicles because it's very inconvenient and still more expensive to take mass transit for anything other than our daily work commute. Taking a train for any trip triples the time spent and costs more. Many other reasons, but I think people would adopt mass transit if it could get us to both endpoints more than 5% of the time. The US is simply to spread out to do that so I don't see it happening.
This doesn't even take into account the downfall of the best mass transit we do have in place. Airline travel rules have become more of a hassle than it's worth since 9/11. Also, we can't take a 2x4 or rototiller home on the train so we still need access to a hauling vehicle.
With all this in consideration, I think the first part of the solution we should work on is promoting the use of a separate vehicle for commuting and another one for utility. This way the commuter car can cheaply be optomized for PHEV / BEV / IC operation. During my commute, 60% of vehicles I see probably get 11 MPG and 15% probably get around 6 MPG and nearly all of them have one occupant. We need to incentivize those people to leave their 4x4 dually long box extended cab at home unless they're hauling something. The best way to do this is to just start building them so economies of scale can kick in.
Kenneth Kok 4.24.07
Paul, you have presented an interesting list of ideas but I don't know how workable they would be. I agree with Todd that the availability and use of a PHEV that could get around 100 miles based on an over night recharge would eliminate most of the fuel I use and I expect it would do the same for many others. I also expect it would take more then 15 years to turn over the fleet.
We know the technology to manufacture liquid fuels from coal but there will be little or no commercial investment in the process until the real price of petroleum is such that the investment can be guarenteed to make a profit. Bio fuels are making it today only because of subsidies which tend to skew the market.
Electrification of rail transport is another possibility but the investment is huge and I don't know if we have the type of electic grid we need to support it.
Mass transit sounds nice and I know when I travel to Europe, for example, I use it all the time but there the populations are much more compact. There is no way I can walk to a supermarket or even a resturant from where I live. There is no public transportation so I use my vehicle. There is no other way to move from place to place.
Len Gould 4.24.07
It also might make sense to start getting creative with the personal transport vehicle system. I hear there's problems with the cost of advanced PHEV's relative to std. IC drivetrains, and we all need vehicles for a broad variety of uses. OK. How about vehicle pooling, or even short-term rental, eg. 1 hr at a time. If drivable personal transport vehicle systems worked like the taxi system, except everyone were their own taxi drivers, we could theoretically get simple access to a broader variety of functionallities, and afford to spend significantly more on each pool vehicle to implement advanced features. Commuters would keep a tiny single-passenger electric in the garage (think electric pocket-bike, or similar 4-wheel), and trade in for a pool vehicle at the nearest service station for whatever were more suitable for their days work. Pool vehicles would be dropped off at the local service station at night and the small elect. taken home. Pool computer systems could also arrange much more complex systems, eg. pool vehicles kept in homeowner's driveways and pool members needing that type could exchange it for their tiny suburban-electric if authorized by the computer.
Much more is also possible.
Todd McKissick 4.24.07
That reminds me of a concept brought out one crazy night long ago. It was initially dismissed but now seems to have 'some' possible merit. What if commuter lanes had a pair of power rails on the side, below or above in which an electric auto could derive running power? A car could use it's charged power to get from home to the main road which was equiped as such, could attach to this charging rail by a couple of current carrying rollers, could follow this road under auto speed and steering control while charging the batteries, and then could detach for the end trip down off streets. With today's technology, this would make BEVs capable of reaching any location withing 20 miles of such infrastructure at the same time as reducing the onboard battery requirements. Two dead birds for the cost of one rock.
Ryan Ferris 4.24.07
Well...an interesting if not novel article. There are technically mainy solutions to peak oil. I think we should concentrate on those that decentralize energy production...but that's just my political preference.
However, this late in the game of peak oil, I think we should discuss what is happening and what is likely to happen and how we will adapt to it. In Bellingham, WA we are at $3.29 per gallon for regular. One of the most expensive places in the nation, unless you drive twenty miles and cross the Canadian border, where you can find petrol priced at $1.21 per litre! Prius and Honda Civic Hybrids are lined up on our dealer lots. By all accounts, they are selling like hotcakes. There are so many Prius in town, I can't drive cross town without seeing at least five of them, despite the fact that my Prius mileage is lackluster compared to my 2000 Honda Insight. (It does carry my child, wife, stroller, groceries simultaneously at 40 mpg...)
Anyway, we have a fine cheap, clean bus fleet supported by sales tax, cheap (.75 per trip), efficient, underutilized....you know the story. Lots of local family farms, I can walk or bike (with some risk) to almost everything I need to live and prosper...But let's pretend:
(1) Tommorrow Bushco nukes Iran. Crude goes to $200 per barrel overnight and stays there. For a long time. Shortages ensue world wide. (2) In late May, a "super typhoon" style Hurricane wipes out 30% of the gulf's oil and gas capacity. Gas and oil shortages become commonplace. Nat Gas goes to $4 - $8 therm if available.
What happens then? How will any of your suggestions play out in a general worldwide economic collapse?
Graham Cowan 4.28.07
If the per-barrel price rises to $200, wouldn't that discourage enough driving, plus cause enough drivers to avoid high speeds, that gasoline retailers would continue to have stock available the usual 99-plus percent of the time? Why would there be a price rise like that and also shortages?
Notari says,
... the best way to reduce oil consumption to the level needed is to launch an "Apollo" size federal program aimed at increasing the average mpg of our 235+ million car/light truck fleet over the next fifteen years from the current average of 21 mpg to 36 mpg.
The US federal government taxes gasoline at a rate of 18.4 cents per gallon, thus deriving a guaranteed profit, in both good years and bad, of roughly $25 billion. Not much in federal budgetary terms, but still, he would be expecting the biggest gasoline profiteer to lead the populace it takes the profit from in using less. This doesn't happen.
Wouldn't this be better? (1) Zero that tax. (2) Give police the power to confiscate and destroy vehicles they see being operated in an unsafe manner.
Speeds in excess of posted speed limits are, no doubt about it, unsafe. Isn't it true that with these two rule changes in effect, the fraction of vehicles that would be speeding at any given moment would be less than 0.00001? People would be very careful.
If the 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax were reduced, not just to zero, but a little below zero -- if a 1-cent-a-gallon subsidy were enacted -- police would be very vigilant, because wasteful driving would be taking extra pennies in subsidy from the very public exchequer from which their salaries come. Does Notari disagree?
Graham, Thanks for the best laugh I've heard in a long time. "Give the police the power" "Confiscate and destroy" "Speeds in excess of posted speed limits are, no doubt about it, unsafe." Where do you come up with these things? The date I agree with any of those statements will be etched in a stone marking my existence on this planet.
If you want to affect the public's day to day choices, how about making it easier to conserve rather than harder. It has been estimated that more than half of today's jobs can be done via telecommuting. People live in rural areas and commute to big cities for one reason - the good jobs aren't where the good housing is. Corporate greed, coupled with undervalued resource costs, leads to a throw-away society. Bureauocratic channels and the lack of accountability lead to overly complex processes requiring redundant redundancy. (Just look at the spelling of 'Bureauocratic'!) Even the fact that we just transitioned from needing one wage earner to two per household in the last 50 years is, without question, a doubling of a large energy segment.
Do you really think that saving a couple percent of fuel on the longer trips (wind resistance isn't near as important on a 35 mph drive) warrants allowing bureauocratic henchmen the power to take away private property? ...especially since you don't suggest any limits on the number of legal trips taken.
Fast forward to the point in the future where we have accepted the additional cost of a form of mobile transport which has no societal downsides to it's unlimited use. Surely you can find a better solution toward that goal than martial law.
Dr. Daniel Meneley 5.1.07
Gentlemen: How about placing nuclear units next to coal fields, generating hydrogen for use in oil liquefaction, and thereby turning those coal fields into oil fields? This may not solve all of the world's problems but it could certainly make a difference.
Paul Stevens 5.1.07
When you look at vehicles in many foreign (developing) countries, owned and driven by people with much lower incomes than any of us have, there is no doubt that economical, inexpensive alternatives for personal trasportation are available. The problem becomes meeting current western federally mandated crash resistance/safety requirements.
I would quickly buy a additional vehicle, as Len has suggested, if I could achieve 75-100 mpg, and if it was available for $10K, as I know it could be. I currently spend $80-100 per week on gasoline, commuting to work, from a location that has no nearby co-workers. It takes me over an hour each way, and stopping to pick up car pool buddies along the way would only add aother 20 minutes to my driving time every day. Pay back would be very fast.
Telecommuting is the other great possible solution. Fully 60% of my job could be accomplished from home, with email, fax and phone. I would only really need to attend work 2 days a week, so a 50% reduction in my gasoline use (leaving some discretionary for personal use) is immediately available. If my corporation could pick up some kind of carbon credit for my non travel, that might be an incentive.
Has anyone calculated the actual cost per traveller, to the government in road maintenance, policing, licensing, beaurocratic oversight etc. Are us drivers a net profit center, or a cost? Is it to the Gov's benefit that we drive or stay home?
I suspect a 10% reduction in gasoline use would not be difficult to accomplish. I also suspect that eliminating the need for foreign adventures to protect fuel supply, and/or removing the threat of fuel shortages from harming the economy would easily equal the cost of federal incentives to promote telecommuting, improved mass transit and ramped up research for PHEV.
Randy Park 5.1.07
- No "Apollo" program is needed. Vehicles available right now get 36 mpg - they're just not the ones Americans want to buy. CAFE standards would help, but take a decade for an impact. - Gas tax revenue >> public transit. Simple formula, in place in Europe for many years. - Higher gas tax would cause re-think of development. Sorry suburbs. - "There is hope that ethanol produced from a variety of cellulosic feed stocks, such as switchgrass, will provide about five times better return than corn but the technology to accomplish this is still several years away." This is twice the volume that Bush proposed, and Bush's plan would take all the U.S. corn production. Oh, sorry - switch grass grows on its own and walks to the plant by itself. Pipe dream.
Sorry about the cynicism, but I've been studying peak oil for a long time. There is no way North America will be able to continue its love affair with personal gas fuelled transportation in the future. If we're smart, we'll do some of the sensible things to reduce consumption so the peak occurs later and the down slope is slower, allowing us to transition more gently. I hope we're smart enough.
Randy Park www.EnergyPredicament.com
Gordon Combs 5.1.07
From the May 2007 issue of Hydrocarbon Processing magazine:
Oil 'myths' debunked in new analysis. Aiming to illuminate "the true nature of the oil market and dispel the falsehoods" prevalent in policymakers' thoughts, the Washington, DC-based Cato Institute has released new research on the dynamics within the energy industry. Acknowledging that the oil market is complex and subject to internal and external disruptions, the report stresses that "market forces, modified by the cartel behavior of OPEC, determine most of the key factors that affect oil supply and prices." Those cautioning of dwindling oil reserves are wrong, according to this analysis. Due to improved technology and the rise in oil prices, reserves that were once too difficult or costly to tap have become profitable. Rebutting another myth, the report authors argue that China's much-hyped purchase agreements with oil producers will not preclude US access to oil, but "merely change the pattern of the global oil trade."
The bottom line is that we are not running out of oil, we are just running out of cheap oil. However, if we would just open up the Alaskan north slope, eastern Gulf of Mexico, US Pacific coast and US Atlantic coasts to oil and gas exploration, we would have an abundant supply of economic, if not cheap, oil for decades to come.
The price of oil is not based upon what it costs to produce and refine it, the price of oil is based upon what it costs to produce and refine its alternatives (such as coal, shale and bitumen).
Len Gould 5.1.07
Gordon: Then what should be done after the "decades to come"? Our societies have only a fixed amount of capital to invest in a solution to the inevitable decline in total oil and gas production, and to the much nearer time when world demand outstrips world production (any year now). Should we place that capital into payments to offshore producers, into coal substitution when we know supplies of coal will also certainly decline (some estimates say less than 50 years if coal is required to substitute for oil and gas), or into a long-term solution such as fission, fusion and solar?
Ferdinand E. Banks 5.2.07
Interesting, Mr Combs. An interesting starting point for almost all the lectures I gave in my recent course on oil and gas in Thailand, only I put it as follows:
"Market forces, modified by the logical behavior of OPEC, and with geology as a constraint, determine the oil supply". Put in algebraic form this really looks nice on a blackboard.
But regardless of how it looks, on or off a blackboard, it is not good news for those of us on the buy side of the market, unless you believe that opening the Alaskan North, Eastern Gulf.... etc, etc will enable us to find oil that the good people in the executive suites of Big Oil do not believe exists, as least in sufficiently large quantities. Frankly, I think that for the time being we would be better off if we accept what the scholars at the Cato Institute call oil "myths", and forget about technology and oil price rises bailing us out of what could turn out to be a very dangerous situation.
Randy Park 5.2.07
Gordon: Curious as I am about any counter argument to Peak Oil (though I spend much of my time raising awareness in corporations about energy decline, I would be very happy to discover it is not true), I looked up the article you referenced.
I'm not sure the article, written by Eugene Gholz - assistant professor of public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and Daryl G. Press - associate professor of government at Dartmouth University adds much insight into oil supply. (Not to mention that the Cato institute is financially supported by Exxon-Mobil, the largest Peak Oil denier.) The main point of their essay is "The United States does not need to be militarily active or confrontational to allow the oil market to function, to allow oil to get to consumers, or to ensure access in coming decades." I would agree with that.
They do admit that "Those arguments do not mean that the United States can ignore energy concerns. Global demand for energy is soaring and shows no sign of relenting. Furthermore, oil supplies, though currently abundant, will eventually begin to run low, and the world will eventually need to develop other energy sources." Sounds like Peak Oil to me.
Basically, the authors "simplify" the arguments around oil production to make their point about politics: "The amount of oil that can actually be “produced” at any given time, that is, extracted from the ground, transported to refineries, refined, and then transported in various forms to end users, depends on how much money oil companies have invested in a given field."
So where is Exxon-Mobil investing? Here is Rex Tillerson (Chairman and CEO) in March, 2006: "Return on capital employed, in our view, continues to be the best overall measure of financial performance, given the long-term and capital-intensive nature of our industry.... We have continued our superior performance with a five-year average return on capital employed of 21-and-a-half percent. ...
Before we leave ROCE you might be wondering, why is ExxonMobil allowing the extra cash on our balance sheet to effectively lower near term ROCE? ... We’re going to continue to take a disciplined approach to how we manage cash and ensure we maintain the financial strength and the flexibility at all stages of the cycle to pursue any attractive opportunity, particularly those of significant size and scale. ...
In 2005, we generated record cash flow of over $48 billion from operating activities. Our current cash use rate is ... $45 billion per year when you do the sums on our current Capex of about $18 billion a year, our dividend pay out of $7 billion a year, and the current level of share buy back at $5 billion per quarter. "
So they've invested $18 billion a year in capital expenditures, and $20 billion a year in share repurchases. It seems that for Exxon-Mobil, there are few reserves that used to be difficult or costly to tap that have now become profitable.
Randy Park www.EnergyPredicament.com
Xuguang Leng 5.2.07
The author has proposed five nice solutions. The major problem with these solutions is that they can't be implemented at the speed required, besides being hugely expensive.
If you look at descending curve of countries that had experienced an oil product peak, the slope is quite steep. If worldwide descending curve after peak has the same shape, the five solutions here won’t have the speed to catch up with the descent.
First, to replace US vehicle fleet with a more efficient one would take decades if we starts now. With the speed Congress acts, the starting point is a decade away.
Second, to increase production at the scale of doubling current US production, if it can be done, would take decades.
Third, practical methods of producing ethanol from cellulosic feed stocks and from algae will be developed within the next five years is highly optimistic, on the border of unrealistic.
Forth and fifth, lifestyle changes take time in tune of decades.
All considered, oil will reach $200 a barrel before the five solutions can be implemented.
Ferdinand E. Banks 5.2.07
An article on the global oil supply by an assistant professor of public affairs and an associate professor of government. It's apparently getting harder every year to find scholars willing to have a crack at exploding the 'peak oil myth'. It's only a matter of time before we will be asked to suffer the wisdom of rappers and meringue dancers.
Why not face the facts of life. There may never be a peak - as ExxonMobil and OPEC seem to believe - but traditional logic tells most observers that we've only got about a decade to get on the ball, if that.
Peter Boisen 5.5.07
Sensible article and interesting feedback. Three comments:
When comparing different types of energy used for transportation one should look at the primary energy required to supply the propulsion power. To deliver 1 kWh of electric power into a plug in hybrid, or a battery operated vehicle, you would probably need to consume more than 3 kWh of primary energy.
When comparing possibilities to maximize transportation fuel output from biomass resources one should look at fuel output, by-products such as district heating or electric power, and energy consumed for the complete production process. 100kWh of energy contents in cellulosic biomass would via a gasification and methanation process produce 70kWh of methane, 20 kWh of district heating, and 10 % energy consumption in the process (similar results if going for hydrogen, but unfortunately no access yet to reasonably priced vehicles). Does anyone dare to suggest equally low energy consumption, and equally high fuel output for any liquid biofuels? Gaseous fuels might reduce Big Oil opportunities for continued market control, but should we allow this be a reason to desist from efficiency improvements?
Proponents of coal based fuels always discard the CO2 problems with the promise of sequestration, but where are the practical examples? If we are to take the Stern review seriously we cannot afford to continue (much less increase) the present worldwide use of fossil fuels. The whole idea of finding more fossil fuel resources is crazy. Our only choices are reduced fuel consumption, and optimized use of renewable resources. Electric power is only a viable option if based on renewables, and if providing higher efficiency (comparing apples to apples) than fuels based on renewable energy. Hybridisation provides excellent savings in stop and go traffic, regardless of fuel used, but the value of electric energy via the wall socket is questionable - it depends on the source of the electric energy, and the overall system efficiency.
Peter Boisen
Ferdinand E. Banks 5.6.07
Thanks for giving me the opportunity for an aside on the Stern review, Peter. Professor Stern is an outstanding theoretical economist, but his review was actually the work of - I believe - 23 foot soldiers, in addition to himself. I would very seriously doubt if 'outstanding' is a word that could be used about most of the magnificent twenty-three.
We have a copy of the review in our library at Uppsala, and eventually I suppose that someone will appear in a seminar room for the purpose of making its wisdom known to the unwashed. I wouldn't like to be in his or her place.
Dave Pittinger 5.8.07
Some of your comments are interesting. However, if you remember we were faced with an equally dire problem back in the late 70's and early 80's. During that, time consumers all lined up their automobiles for gasoline at the gasoline stations that were flying a green flag. Once the gasoline ran out the red flag replaced the green flag and the gasoline pumps shut down regardless of the number of cars in line seeking to purchase gasoline. Some consumers became so desperate that they even followed gasoline tanker trucks to a gasoline station where he was delivering gasoline to get in line waiting for the green flag.
That oil shortage caused a flurry of new government sponsored programs to be implemented including odd/even purchase of gasoline and others. There were even programs instituted to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Since both democrat and republican government administrations from that point in time forward did not seam to have the same emphasis on the problem after the oil started to flow again, most of the programs were set aside and we returned to normal business as usual.
Well here we are again only now it is becoming more severe. Back in the 70's and 80's we complained about gasoline reaching $1.00/gal. Today the national average is around the $3.00/gal mark and we are still buying more gas this year than we did last year when it was cheaper.
It seams the only thing we Americans really respond to is supply and demand price pressure to reduce gasoline consumption. When the price exceeds some remarkable price per gallon (determined by each consumer) we continue with business as usual and change nothing. Small car survivability and their occupants have feel they have a fighting chance in an accident with a larger vehicle (pick-up truck, SUV, Hummer, etc) before small car purchasers will feel confident enough to take the plunge and trade down from the SUV/Pick-up Truck/SUV/Hummer to the smaller gasoline efficient or electric powered vehicle.
Development and production of alternate fuels will help alleviate the current short fall but that is a stopgap measure. We really need a more efficient way for the population to get about from point to point. The hydrogen car still has infrastructure issues as well as economical commercial choices for vehicle choices. The hybrid gasoline/electric car is a minor improvement in fleet MPG. Then there is the electric car, which appears to have the most promise.
The electric car appears interesting but there are a few longer term issues that need to be resolved including: initial and replacement battery cost, weight/power needs, battery power duration, max trip distance before re-charge is needed and overall battery life before replacement are required. If all of these factors could be solved the electric vehicle could have some success in the US and reduce oil consumption for local city driving. The added benefit of the use of electric vehicles would also be a serious reduction of smog in the cities.
The electric vehicles could be re-charged via plug from the electric power system at home or other plug in locations. If re-charging were performed at night after normal business was over, the electric consumption would be in the off-peak hours thereby consuming cheaper electricity to charge the vehicle battery system.
I agree that in order for any new technology to become commercialized, there needs to be some early government inducements like tax breaks to the consumers and grants to the developers of the new technology to encourage development and purchase. If a project developer can show a serious design, which solves many of the issues I am sure there could be independent investors willing to back projects and ventures provided they can see a reasonable return on their investment.
Len Gould 5.8.07
Dave: I agree with much except the last.
"If a project developer can show a serious design, which solves many of the issues I am sure there could be independent investors willing to back projects and ventures provided they can see a reasonable return on their investment. "
Estimation is that at minimum the word "reasonable" is substituted with "guaranteed a priori"
