Well, did you listen to the interview?  What did he have to say?  Why does he think gas will be $7/gal by the 4th of July?

I was unable to hear it. I thought he was going to be on the Eddie and Tracy Jones show but the Reds game was on.

Efficiency and conversion to electric vehicles is a good start, but probably insufficient to retain our car-centered culture.  We still have too many lane-miles of roadway to maintain.  With city budgets drowning (and the State of Ohio about to dramatically cut payments to cities), we better get used to lots of potholes.

 

Keep in mind the second-order effects of that increased efficiency and conversion to more readily available and flexibly-sourced energy for transportation.  In real terms, that progress will leave the country wealthier than it is today, possibly enough to free up enough money to maintain a lot more lane-mileage than would be realistic within our current resource constraints.  I emphasize "possibly;" obviously, hundreds of other factors come into play--entitlement spending and ongoing military expenditures at the federal level in particular, since those are far and away the largest drains on our public treasury.  Transportation infrastructure spending is a significant item, large enough to warrant serious attention (contra, e.g., inconsequential drops in the bucket like NPR funding), but nevertheless dwarfed by any one (let alone all) of the major entitlement programs and by the Pentagon.  The fate of those programs will largely determine how much the budget for other items is strained, unless there is a reordering of priorities (i.e., it becomes more politically feasible to cut any of the above in order to free up infrastructure funds rather than vice versa).

As Canadian Oil Moves South, Americans Push Back

by Martin Kaste

 

March 29, 2011

 

(Part 1 of a two-part series on the impact of Canadian oil in the U.S.)

 

The oil sands of Alberta, Canada, constitute one of the biggest proven oil reserves in the world. Today, Canada is the single biggest foreign source of oil for the U.S., and industry analysts project that 20 years from now, it may be supplying one-fourth of all U.S. oil needs.

 

But getting all that oil across the border requires heavy-duty infrastructure, and some new projects are causing cross-border tensions.

Read more at: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134928228/as-canadian-oil-moves-south-americans-push-back

Oil Shock and Aw, Shucks

John D. Boyd | Mar 23, 2011 2:33PM GMT

 

When you pump gasoline (or diesel) into your vehicle these days -- whether personal car or commercial truck -- do you comfort yourself by saying it's still not as bad as the worst days of 2008? No?

 

Well then, do you rationalize away the impact by figuring that your extra fuel cost so far this year is still just a tiny percentage of your overall income? Still no?

 

How about feeling good that the government gave you a hard-to-notice payroll tax cut in January, which absorbs the spike in motor fuel prices? Never mind that you effectively transferred some Social Security revenue to oil companies or foreign countries. It still must feel good knowing that tax cut covered your higher gas costs, right?

 

Yeah, right. We're going through an oil shock in 2011 and the government's response -- as so often in the past -- is aw, shucks. President Obama says he knows there is pain at the pump, but does not act like it. He said the payroll tax cut more than offsets it, but if anything that makes things worse. Not only do you see a sharply higher pump price, but you just lost that small paycheck bump

Read more at: http://www.joc.com/oil-shock-and-aw-shucks

Two-thirds of oil and gas leases in Gulf inactive, report says Published: Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 1:18 PM    Updated: Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 2:46 PM

By Associated Press business staff The Plain Dealer

 

WASHINGTON -- More than two-thirds of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico are sitting idle, neither producing oil and gas, nor being actively explored by the companies who hold the leases, according to a Department of Interior report to be released Tuesday.

 

Those inactive swaths of the Gulf could potentially hold more than 11 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, Interior said in the report obtained by The Associated Press.

 

President Barack Obama ordered the report earlier this month amid pressure to curb a spike in gasoline prices following instability in the oil-rich Middle East. The White House said Obama would outline his plans for America's energy security in a speech in Washington Wednesday.

 

Read more at: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/03/two-thirds_of_oil_and_gas_leas.html

Also from that article:

 

The oil and gas industry promptly disputed the administration findings.

 

"The majority of these leases are always turned back because we can't find resource in commercial quantities," said Jack Gerard, the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute. "To suggest that we're sitting on our hands is a pure distraction."

 

I find that generally credible--at least, I find it far more credible than any implied or intimated conspiracy theory that the American oil industry is somehow trying to act like its own little OPEC and hold down supplies to increase prices.  Heck, even OPEC has lost much of its ability to hold down supplies to increase prices.  I don't think that any major American player is deliberately sitting on massive reserves economically recoverable at today's prices.  (Also, if they actually were doing that, I'd say it was an open question whether that move was underhanded or foresighted: there's no law that says we need to drain every drop we have within reach as quickly as we can physically reach it.)

Editorial

Mr. Obama’s Energy VisionPublished: March 31, 2011

The New York Times

 

It was instructive and depressing this week to watch President Obama and Congressional Republicans marching in completely different directions on energy policy. Mr. Obama reminded us that charting a clean energy future is not a pipe dream and that America can reduce its dependence on foreign oil. The Republicans reminded us how hard it will be to get there.

 

The outcome depends in no small measure on how hard Mr. Obama is willing to battle for his policies. As he showed again in a speech on Wednesday, he has no trouble articulating energy-related issues. What remains in doubt has been his willingness to see the fight through. This time must be different.

 

Beset by rising gas prices and Middle Eastern turmoil, Mr. Obama, like other presidents, decried the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. He also said there were no quick fixes and that a nation with only 2 percent of the world’s reserves cannot drill its way to self-sufficiency.

 

Read full editorial at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/opinion/01fri1.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

Kunstler's response to the above.......

 

 

Blowing Green Smoke

By James Howard Kunstler

on April 4, 2011 9:43 AM

 

    "We also have Secretary Steven Chu, my Energy Secretary. Where is Steven? There he is over there."

 

          - President Obama at Georgetown U last week

 

 

      Blame Steven Chu, then, because when it comes to America's energy predicament, the president has been woefully misinformed. Mr. Obama pawned off a roster of notions and proposals already product-tested in the public meme-o-sphere. Almost everyone of these ideas is inconsistent with reality, based on faulty premises, or represents some kind of magical thinking. What they have in common is that they're ideas the public wants to hear, whether they are truthful or not, because we don't want to change the way we live.

 

    The central idea in Mr. Obama's speech is that we will reduce our oil imports by one-third in a decade. This is a gross distortion of reality.  The truth is that our oil imports will be reduced automatically, whether we like it or not. The process is already underway. The nations that export oil to us are using much more of their own oil even while their supplies have passed peak production and entered depletion. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico have some of the highest population growth-rates in the world. They sell gasoline to their own people for less than a dollar a gallon. At the same time China and India are driving more cars and importing a lot more of the world's declining supply. (China has perhaps the equivalent of a four-year supply of its own oil in the ground, and India has next-to-zero oil of its own).

 

    One meme circulating around the Web these days is that the USA has the equivalent of "three Saudi Arabias" in the shale oil fields of North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. That is not true. A lot of this magical thinking focuses on the Bakken fields of Dakota. We're currently producing less than 400,000 barrels a day out of Bakken and the projected maximum ten years from now is around 800,000. We use 20 million barrels a day in the US running suburbia, Wal Mart, and the US military. By the way, Bakken shale oil requires extensive rock fracturing operations - "fracking" - which means a lot of horizontal drilling, which means a lot of steel pipe. It is not just a matter of sticking a steel straw in the ground like we did in Texas in 1932.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/04/blowing-green-smoke.html

I look forward to the day in some future year when Kunstler, on a day other than April 1, acknowledges that he was wrong about everything and that it should have been obvious to him from the outset.  I hope that he has the decency to make that announcement from in front of a Wal-Mart, too, given the particularly focused obsession he seems to have with that company from someone whose self-appointed purview is at least facially much more all-encompassing.

 

We're not looking at a future of 10 million electric cars.  We're looking at a future of closer to 250 million, or 400 million.  Granted, that won't come tomorrow, but economics speaks more loudly than hackneyed punditry.  Kunstler is exhibiting the same kind of technological imprevision that characterized those who failed to see the potential in the PC based on the price-performance ratio of the Apple I in 1976.

 

Kunstler also doesn't posit any numbers that could be fact-checked for just how much energy he thinks we could save through more walkable neighborhoods and expanded public transit.  Those things save energy, yes, but I'd be surprised if they saved that much energy in the final analysis.

Three things can be counted on:  Death, taxes and Gramarye following one of my posts with one of his own.

"We're looking at a future of closer to 250 million electric cars."

 

  Dreaming of a future maybe, but looking at it?

 

    You seem awfully confident of future electric car technology.

 

    Electric cars have been with us for over 100 years. Henry Ford's own wife drove an electric car, because she prefered the quiet ride. Electric car technology is very well developed; we have electric golf carts, electric locomotives, and even some mass-produced electric cars. We even had an electric car on the moon.

 

    The fact is that, after 100 years, electric cars are not cost-competitive with conventional cars. What makes you think that this will suddenly change? Note that average number of miles driven in this country, both in absolute and per-capita terms, has already began declining. If there was an economic demand for it, don't you think that drivers would be buying electric cars now?

 

   

"We're looking at a future of closer to 250 million electric cars."

 

  Dreaming of a future maybe, but looking at it?

 

    You seem awfully confident of future electric car technology.

 

    Electric cars have been with us for over 100 years. Henry Ford's own wife drove an electric car, because she prefered the quiet ride. Electric car technology is very well developed; we have electric golf carts, electric locomotives, and even some mass-produced electric cars. We even had an electric car on the moon.

 

    The fact is that, after 100 years, electric cars are not cost-competitive with conventional cars. What makes you think that this will suddenly change? Note that average number of miles driven in this country, both in absolute and per-capita terms, has already began declining. If there was an economic demand for it, don't you think that drivers would be buying electric cars now?

 

   

 

Rising gas prices, and perhaps in another 20-30 years, severe shortages and rationing of traditional gasoline will do it. Already, fuel efficient cars are flying off the lots. 30mph is not enough; gasoline will still become uneconomical within the lifetime of someone born today. As long as gas prices rise slowly enough, I'm 50/50 confident we can make a transition without severe hardship (like serious foodshortages and violence). I don't consider myself an alarmist usually, but I do not see how modern society can continue without a relatively rapid transition away from the massive waste of our non-renewable natural resources on things like the personal transportation for 25% of the world's population. Think two generations ahead to your grandchildren. What will be left for them?

The fact is that, after 100 years, electric cars are not cost-competitive with conventional cars. What makes you think that this will suddenly change? Note that average number of miles driven in this country, both in absolute and per-capita terms, has already began declining. If there was an economic demand for it, don't you think that drivers would be buying electric cars now? 

 

The cost of batteries is coming down drastically.  The capacity and efficiency of those batteries is also greatly improving.  The first thing that needs to happen is to increase the range of the electric vehicles to the point that they can compete with combustion engines for daily driving demands (~50 miles).  That's already happened for the most part.  The second thing that needs to happen is that the cost curves of electric and gasoline vehicles need to intersect.  This will happen as the cost of gasoline increases and the cost of producing electric vehicles decrease (economies of scale).  When this will happen is unknown, but it will happen.

 

The only major hurdle I see for electric vehicles in the future is long distance transportation demands.  They'll need to come up with a quick charging system or a battery swap system to make long distance driving possible in electric vehicles.  This shouldn't be a huge challenge if the industry would actually focus on it, but they will need to come up with some kind of industry standard to make the solution economical.  I foresee a battery swap system where you pull your electric car into a "gas station" and the attendant takes out your battery and replaces it with a fully charged batter pack.  You pay the service fee and continue on with your trip.  Of course this will take some engineering work to design a standard "battery pack" for vehicles and the equipment.  It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

"We're looking at a future of closer to 250 million electric cars."

 

  Dreaming of a future maybe, but looking at it?

 

    You seem awfully confident of future electric car technology.

 

Indeed I am.

 

Electric cars have been with us for over 100 years. Henry Ford's own wife drove an electric car, because she prefered the quiet ride. Electric car technology is very well developed; we have electric golf carts, electric locomotives, and even some mass-produced electric cars. We even had an electric car on the moon.

 

    The fact is that, after 100 years, electric cars are not cost-competitive with conventional cars. What makes you think that this will suddenly change? Note that average number of miles driven in this country, both in absolute and per-capita terms, has already began declining. If there was an economic demand for it, don't you think that drivers would be buying electric cars now?

 

Nope.  Not while, for a very long time, gasoline was cheaper than water and batteries cost almost their weight in gold.  Henry Ford's wife could afford to drive an EV.  She was married to Henry Ford.  Most of Henry Ford's customers were not married to Henry Ford.  They drove Model T's.

 

If you want to get technical, we've had computers for over 100 years now, too, but they didn't start becoming ubiquitous among consumers until the 1980s, or possibly even the 1990s, depending on how you look at it.  Now they're not only everywhere, but they're metamorphosing beyond their original parameters, too: the smartphone, the tablet PC, and so on have more computing power than even mainframes of several generations ago.

 

Therefore, the answers to your question of what makes me think this will suddenly change are the following:

 

(1) Gas will get more expensive, and we will reach hard limits on the amount of fuel efficiency that can be obtained from regular unleaded gasoline.

 

(2) Battery technology will get better and become less expensive.  I have posted many links on this topic on many threads on these boards showing that this is already happening.

 

(3) Market changes often are sudden, or at least they seem that way to people who aren't paying attention to technological and business developments behind the scenes.  The smartphone market barely existed before the iPhone.  Borders and Barnes & Noble were solid companies before Amazon.  Blockbuster was a solid company before Netflix.  Social networking barely existed before mySpace and Friendster, and soon thereafter, Facebook.  Heck, 30 years ago, the entire IT sector barely existed.  In investing parlance, we talk about the huge winners being the "disruptive innovators."  All it will take is one successful EV to change the automotive market forever.  In ten years beyond the initial introduction of whatever product that might be, from whatever source, domestic or foreign, from an established player or an upstart (who would likely get bought out quickly), electric cars will be everywhere and gasoline-powered car factories will either get converted to making EVs or will go the way of Blockbuster and Borders.

The fact is that, after 100 years, electric cars are not cost-competitive with conventional cars. What makes you think that this will suddenly change? Note that average number of miles driven in this country, both in absolute and per-capita terms, has already began declining. If there was an economic demand for it, don't you think that drivers would be buying electric cars now? 

 

The cost of batteries is coming down drastically.  The capacity and efficiency of those batteries is also greatly improving.  The first thing that needs to happen is to increase the range of the electric vehicles to the point that they can compete with combustion engines for daily driving demands (~50 miles).  That's already happened for the most part.  The second thing that needs to happen is that the cost curves of electric and gasoline vehicles need to intersect.  This will happen as the cost of gasoline increases and the cost of producing electric vehicles decrease (economies of scale).  When this will happen is unknown, but it will happen.

 

The only major hurdle I see for electric vehicles in the future is long distance transportation demands.  They'll need to come up with a quick charging system or a battery swap system to make long distance driving possible in electric vehicles.  This shouldn't be a huge challenge if the industry would actually focus on it, but they will need to come up with some kind of industry standard to make the solution economical.  I foresee a battery swap system where you pull your electric car into a "gas station" and the attendant takes out your battery and replaces it with a fully charged batter pack.  You pay the service fee and continue on with your trip.  Of course this will take some engineering work to design a standard "battery pack" for vehicles and the equipment.  It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

 

I actually think we'll move in the direction of your other option, fast-charging batteries: http://www.kurzweilai.net/nano-electrodes-may-lead-to-phones-that-charge-in-seconds-electric-cars-in-minutes

 

My best guess is that the main brake on electric car mass production is going to be the core chemical composition of the batteries, particularly lithium.  While it's a universally abundant element, it's so widely dispersed that it's not concentrated enough in very many places to allow easy recovery, and of course, our existing production is already barely enough to keep up demand with the portable electronics sector.  I'm hoping that we find a better storage medium, but lithium has the natural advantages of being a simple element and incredibly lightweight.

EV's aren't gonna happen. Extended range hybrid's, natural gas, and non-petrol diesel are all much more likely than EV's. Batteries require entirely too much rare earth metals to be produced effectively in the kind of numbers needed for the transportation network.

I think batteries will continue to come down in size, energy density, and price.  Research is already underway on batteries that don't require rare materials.  Electric vehicles will be on the road in large numbers in 20 years. 

 

A problem that we are not yet prepared to address, however, is the electrical energy generation.  Our current electrical generation system is not large enough to supply our needs if we convert all existing cars to electric. 

 

Another problem is the energy required to build and maintain roadways.

 

Given these problems, I don't think the current system can be maintained just by converting to electric vehicles.  We really need to improve the efficiency of our transportation system, and personal-mobility vehicles do not use energy that efficiently.  If we assume that we can continue to live in the same way, and just switch to electric vehicles, we will be in worse shape if that doesn't work out than if we planned for a different, more efficient system. 

 

To me, that means higher density living, on the order of Washington, DC or Paris, rail-based mass transit, and passenger rail should replace car-dependent sprawl, bus transit, and intracontinental airlines.  As China and India demand more and more of the world's oil, Europe is much-better positioned than the US.

A problem that we are not yet prepared to address, however, is the electrical energy generation.  Our current electrical generation system is not large enough to supply our needs if we convert all existing cars to electric.

 

True, but I'd rather deal with Peak Electrons than peak oil.  There are a lot of electrons out there. :-P

 

More importantly, electric vehicles are functionally flex fuel; they will run on whatever the cheapest means of generating electrical power available at any given time is for generations to come.  Coal will eventually become scarce.  Nuclear may get more expensive, too; uranium is the ultimate nonrenewable resource (produced only in the hearts of dying stars), and thorium reactors may have their day in the limelight and go away as well.  The sun will be there for as long as we need it, but the availability and price of different materials used in panel construction will vary.  However, no one can promise a problem-free world.  Flexibility, however, gives one options as to which set of problems one chooses to face.  That's a positive step.

 

(1) Gas will get more expensive.

 

Yes, but gas getting more expensive does NOT make alternatives get less expensive; in fact, it is more likely to do the opposite.  Nearly every good in our economy has a petroleum component in it's production. As petroleum becomes less affordable, nearly every good will also become less affordable, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electrical components, etc.

 

(2) Battery technology will get better and become less expensive.

 

It may get better, but may not get less expensive. See (1).

 

(3) Market changes are often sudden.

 

Yes, but they can go in either direction. There are numerous examples of one product or technology putting the previous one out of business. That doesn't necessarily mean that the new one is better, though.

 

 

(1) Gas will get more expensive.

 

Yes, but gas getting more expensive does NOT make alternatives get less expensive; in fact, it is more likely to do the opposite.  Nearly every good in our economy has a petroleum component in it's production. As petroleum becomes less affordable, nearly every good will also become less affordable, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electrical components, etc.

 

That phenomenon still does not affect anything, as the increased price-performance of computer chips indicates.  Some things will get more expensive, yes, but items indirectly exposed to the price of oil will still not rise as fast as things more directly dependent on oil prices--and some things may well even get cheaper.

 

(2) Battery technology will get better and become less expensive.

 

It may get better, but may not get less expensive. See (1).

 

It may get both.  See (1).

 

(3) Market changes are often sudden.

 

Yes, but they can go in either direction. There are numerous examples of one product or technology putting the previous one out of business. That doesn't necessarily mean that the new one is better, though.

 

It usually does, and in the case of electric cars, I see no reason to believe that they would be any exception.

Except nearly everything we make and do relies on cheap oil.  It's not just about cars and driving around, but also shipping every single item we consume.  Ships run on oil, so do planes, barges, trucks, and most freight railroads.  Asphalt for paving, synthetic rubber for tires, these also come from oil.  Plastics and paints and glues are made from oil as well, as are synthetic fibers for clothing and upholstery.  Food production relies hugely on cheap oil.  It's not just to transport it to market and to power the harvesters, but also the large amount of fertilizer and pesticides that are made from oil.  There aren't direct substitutes for most of these things.  Sure you can move vehicles by other means, and you could synthesize some of these chemicals in other ways, but not in nearly the quantities we do now and at the prices we're used to.  We really don't have anywhere to go, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

 

Eighth and State makes a good point that most people miss, that alternatives become more competitive not so much because they get cheaper, but because what they're competing against gets more expensive.  Driving is already the most expensive way to travel, but most people do it for convenience.  As it gets more expensive though, which cascades through every single layer of our economy, we're going to see a shift in travel and purchasing patterns.  Electric vehicles won't solve the issue of expensive inputs that are still derived from oil, making the cars more expensive to buy in the first place.  Food will still be expensive when the fertilizer and pesticides are harder to get, and expensive plastics will have huge ramifications across nearly every product line in the world.  Maybe we'll just use corn to synthesize new plastics?  Well how do we grow and harvest that corn?  What dwindling energy resources do we use to process it into plastics?  Is that the best use of one of our staple food crops, and could it cause even bigger spikes in food costs?  The fact that we don't do that now illustrates that the performance and/or the price of such plastics aren't competitive with our current oil-based ones.  When oil gets more expensive, then corn plastic will become competitive with it, but the end result is that we're still paying more for a less capable product. 

 

    "The increased price-performance of computer chips indicates..."

 

    Computer chip performance is measured in calculations per second, or some variation thereof. Improvement in computer chips is fundamentally a game of minimizing size and thus minimizing the distance that electrons have to travel, in order to get more performance out of the same energy and material input.  A recent computer is thousands of times more useful than one of 20 years ago, even if it was made with the same energy and material inputs.

 

    Automobiles do not become more useful by becoming smaller. Despite a hundred years of technology improvement, automobiles are essentially the same size and get only slightly better gas mileage as those built 100 years ago.

 

    "I see no reason to believe that electric cars would be any exception."

 

    I do. Many technologies require MORE energy, material, and labor inputs than the previous technology that they replaced. This has been permitted by the ever growing amount of energy, material, and labor available in the economy.  If projections hold true, sometime in the future the amount of energy available in the economy will be declining.

 

 

   

More good news just this morning:

 

http://www.kurzweilai.net/artificial-leaf-could-power-a-home-mit-scientist

 

‘Artificial leaf’ could power a home: MIT scientist

 

Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy — development of the first practical “artificial leaf.” Speaking at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics photosynthesis.

 

“A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades,” said MIT chemist Daniel Nocera, Ph.D., who led the research team. “We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station,” he said. “One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology.”

 

***

 

The key to this breakthrough is Nocera’s recent discovery of several powerful new, inexpensive catalysts, made of nickel and cobalt, that are capable of efficiently splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, under simple conditions. Right now, Nocera’s leaf is about 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf. However, he is optimistic that he can boost the efficiency of the artificial leaf much higher in the future.

 

================

 

Onward, upward, forward.

I rather have a  cure for cancer, but i will take it.

 

  If the artificial leaf is true, then yes, it would be a breakthrough. The article didn't say how much it costs to produce, though. If it costs more to produce and operate over its life cycle than currently available technology, then it is a step down, not up.

 

    I wonder why the article says it would be affordable for India and Africa? Are they implying that it's not affordable for the United States or Europe?  :?  (There may be something to that as Africa and India get more sun.)

It's a cool idea, but not a new idea. And nickel and cobalt? Talk about two metals that have been in chronic shortages for many, many years. Nickel has been in shortage for 40 years and a few years ago when I was researching the development of a refinery that would convert natural gas to a gasoline equivalent. It required a cobalt catalyzer, and I found that there are only three places on the planet where cobalt is mined. It also is a natural resource in tight supply.

 

The point being, neither nickel or cobalt are in abundance to meet CURRENT needs, let alone a significant increase to replace the decline of a once-abundant, cheap energy source. Perhaps more nickel and cobalt sources can be found. But not yet.

It doesn't say just exactly how much it costs to produce or how much Ni and Co would be necessary in each "leaf;" it simply states that the catalysts are inexpensive.  Maybe that would not be sustainable if demand increased for mass production of such leaves.  However, it (and the bevy of other technologies I've noted in development over the years on these forum and elsewhere) represents a much more viable alternative than reducing energy consumption in absolute terms, which seems to be where KJP wants to drag the country (by systematically reflexively attacking every positive potential development that would allow us to maintain our standard of living and the rate of growth in our standard of living).

 

I'm going to keep posting links about all the different potential ways the future can be brighter until KJP abandons his declinism and his sackcloth-and-ashes vision for America for a day.  I have a feeling I'll be posting for a very long time.

 

Researchers at Wake Forest recently announced a polymer solar-thermal device that uses both heat and light, not just light, from the sun to produce energy:

 

http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-polymer-solar-thermal-device-heats-home-saves-money.

 

Tests so far have shown 30% efficiency--a significant improvement over current traditional solar cells at the economical end of the spectrum (i.e., the ones without significant rare earth metals in construction).

 

Researchers at Arizona State are currently testing ways to improve the efficiency of solar power plants using graphite nanoparticles:

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/aiop-nis040411.php

 

To further increase the efficiency of solar collectors, Taylor and his colleagues have mixed nanoparticles—particles a billionth of a meter in size—into the heat-transfer oils normally used in solar thermal power plants. The researchers chose graphite nanoparticles, in part because they are black and therefore absorb light very well, making them efficient heat collectors. In laboratory tests with small dish collectors, Taylor and his colleagues found that nanoparticles increased heat-collection efficiency by up to 10 percent. "We estimate that this could mean up to $3.5 million dollars per year more revenue for a 100 megawatt solar power plant," he says.

 

What's more, Taylor adds, graphite nanoparticles "are cheap"—less than $1 per gram—but with 100 grams of nanoparticles providing the same heat-collecting surface area as an entire football field. "It might also be possible to filter out nanoparticles of soot, which have similar absorbing potential, from coal power plants for use in solar systems," he says. "I think that idea is particularly attractive: using a pollutant to harvest clean, green solar energy."

 

Graphite, of course is a form of carbon.  I presume that we will not run out of that anytime soon.

 

On other fronts than solar, new designs for nuclear reactors that would likely be able to withstand even the tsunami/earthquake combination that caused the rupture at the 40-year-old Fukushima Daiichi reactor in Japan are in development.  Thus far, it's hard to say whether the reactionary political backlash from the Japan crisis will short-circuit future development of nuclear power, but at least so far, it seems that work on next-generation reactors has proceeded relatively uninterrupted.  Perhaps there has been something of a balance or offset between those who think that the lesson of Fukushima Daiichi is that we need to abandon nuclear power entirely and those who think that we need to improve our reactor designs even more quickly.  In either event:

 

http://www.popsci.com/node/52785/

 

I've got more, but I'll wait until KJP unloads his standard load of negativity and naysayery on these before proceeding to the next batch.

Go grab any single copy of Popular Science from the '50s and count up what percentage of the technologies featured turned out exactly as planned.

So you're saying that because the future of technology is uncertain, that we should surrender to a restrictionist regulatory regime in which a bad future is certain?

 

If not, what's your point?  We don't need all of those technologies to ever go mainstream.  We only need a few.  We have multiple ways to win.

^ and lose.

Is a "bad" future, or one that doesn't result in all of today's excesses? By extension, is any kind of scaled back use of machinery in everyday life is a "loss", since continuing its use is "winning"? Only a small part of our happiness comes from all these machines that we've got whirring away at all times; the lack of misery brought on by improvements in medical devices is responsible for most of that.

 

 

So you're saying that because the future of technology is uncertain, that we should surrender to a restrictionist regulatory regime in which a bad future is certain?

 

If not, what's your point?  We don't need all of those technologies to ever go mainstream.  We only need a few.  We have multiple ways to win.

 

Indeed.  But another way to "win" is to find ways to use less energy and to use energy more efficiently.  We need to plan for a future where we use less energy and use energy more efficiently based on the technology we now have -- few people are advocating a return to 18th century technology or lifestyle. 

 

If some new technology comes along that proves to be a game-changer, that's great.  But continuing business-as-usual until that new technology comes along could create some large problems in the meantime.  Planning for reduced energy usage now will have benefits whether new technology comes along or not.  That's why we should create incentives (and mandates where necessary) for improved energy usage and efficiency.

I'm going to keep posting links about all the different potential ways the future can be brighter until KJP abandons his declinism and his sackcloth-and-ashes vision for America for a day.  I have a feeling I'll be posting for a very long time.

 

 

Yes, you will be posting for a very long time (you got that part right) but only because you have me all wrong. To me, the suicidal person is driving toward a cliff without having invented yet the technology that will allow him to keep moving forward at the same speed, same vehicle, same destination, same lifestyle, same everything. I'd rather be in a car that's willing to change speed and course until a technology, or mix of technologies, exists to allow us to keep going as we have been. I don't see it yet, and until I do, I believe the smart move is to change our lifestyles in more responsible ways that acknowledge the limits with which we must now contend. To me, the declinist is the person denying the existence of the cliff and is declining to change to avoid going over it.

 

All of technology's horses and all of technology's men can't put back post-war America back together again. Maybe it will someday. You will know if does or doesn't by the answers to these questions....

 

What's the trend in the price of gasoline?

Are U.S. driving rates (vehicle-miles traveled) still growing, flat or declining?

Is the physical size of U.S. metro areas growing as fast as before?

How are road pavement conditions lately?

How is transit usage these days?

How is Amtrak ridership and operating cost ratios these days?

What is rail freight traffic like these days?

 

BTW, I don't see these as negative trends -- just indicators of structural changes to American lifestyles. We need to acknowledge them and account for them in our public policies instead of being afraid of them while longing for the days of Ozzie & Harriet, having two/three/four cars in every garage and the ever-elusive promise of suburban nirvana that exists in the next farmland to be paved over.

 

The ironic thing is, I seem to recall you are already living a low-mileage lifestyle. So you have already slowed down/turned away from the cliff, even if you don't believe in its existence. That's cool. You don't have to believe in it. Your actions are what's important to keep the cliff at a distance.

A few comments based on what I'm seeing here in the last several posts.  I see some false assumptions. First, some appear to think that reducing energy usage = reduction in both quality of life and economic activity.  This is quite false.  The largest and both easiest and fastest to deploy source of energy we have at our disposal is efficiency.  Amory Lovins is correct when he says it's cheaper to save energy than it is to buy it and has laid out a case that even if oil were $25/bbl, there is plenty of energy efficiency to that makes economic sense. Many populations throughout the world report a greater "happiness index" than America, even though they consume far less energy and resources than we do. 

 

I also see an assumption that just because there is technology available or in the pipeline, that we have nothing to be concerned about.  Technology does not equal energy and technologies require energy to produce.  The energy guzzling machinery required to mine raw materials for many technologies to the energy they require to turn into alternative energy devices is a very important part of the equation to consider.  This doesn't mean that we should not or will not pursue new technologies, but rather we need to be realistic about what we think they can do for us.  And, being realistic, does NOT equate to embracing declinism and doomerism. 

 

We also have to consider where we are on the Fossil Fuel Era timeline.  The best evidence out there indicates that all forms of fossil fuel will reach production declines before mid-century.  For those who have been following this closely, the International Energy Agency, various defense departments, and an increasing number of corporate players and governments have been moving closer and closer in their viewpoints to what many in peak oil circles have been saying for more than a decade now.  Likewise, the apocalyptic, doomer segment of the peak oil crowd has become a smaller and smaller segment of that crowd (more on this segment later). 

 

Another important thing to remember is that the economic problems begin well before the downside of the peaks really get started as energy prices become more and more volatile well before then.  We're already at the beginning of that for oil.  It will happen with coal and gas too. 

 

The US has no serious energy policy, but a patchwork of supposed energy laws that are meant to please various business constituencies first and foremost and the real, long-term energy security of the nation second.  This distorts some of the important price signals that the market needs to respond effectively and in time to make the transition a smooth one.  Perhaps the best example of this is the US government's insistence on subsidizing nuclear power when the private sector simply isn't interested even with 100% loan guarantees for plant construction and generous production subsidies already on the table.  Worldwide, the only serious purchasers of nuclear power have been government planners.  Of course, another side of the problem is the generous subsidies and tax loopholes for the fossil fuel industry that make fossil fuels artificially cheap.  But I'm digressing a bit.  The point is that without clear energy policy for the nation, the market cannot respond in an effective manner.  Now, I know there are some market purists here who think markets can solve every problem without any government policy at all.  All I can say is that markets simply are not perfect on everything.  Markets don't account well when it comes to long term resource issues.  If they did, they would have recognized some time ago, for example, that we have been overfishing the entire globe at the industry's own peril, but they haven't.  Likewise, the market won't recognize the gradual lowering of the pH of the oceans that is going on because of all the CO2 we're pumping into the global ecosystem until the pH reaches the point that sea species can no longer make their shells.  But, I'm digressing.

 

As for the apocalyptic/doomer segment of the peak oil crowd, anyone who has been following this closely for the past several years would see that the this segment has quieted down quite a bit. They haven not joined the techno-utopian crowd, but rather have come to realize that there is no shortage of low-energy solutions to our energy predicament that won't adversely affect our quality of life, and in many ways will actually enhance it.  I won't get into the details, but the solutions do require changes in our current assumptions about energy, how we view the economy and how people engage with the economy, but in a lot of ways, the solutions they are discussing these days actually give people more control over economy. 

 

Long story short, there is no reason to be a doomer and insufficient evidence that the techno-utopian view is completely viable.  As with just about everything, the answer is somewhere in between.

So you're saying that because the future of technology is uncertain, that we should surrender to a restrictionist regulatory regime in which a bad future is certain?

 

If not, what's your point?  We don't need all of those technologies to ever go mainstream.  We only need a few.  We have multiple ways to win.

 

Indeed.  But another way to "win" is to find ways to use less energy and to use energy more efficiently.  We need to plan for a future where we use less energy and use energy more efficiently based on the technology we now have -- few people are advocating a return to 18th century technology or lifestyle. 

 

If some new technology comes along that proves to be a game-changer, that's great.  But continuing business-as-usual until that new technology comes along could create some large problems in the meantime.  Planning for reduced energy usage now will have benefits whether new technology comes along or not.  That's why we should create incentives (and mandates where necessary) for improved energy usage and efficiency.

 

You're misreading the likely consequences of increasing energy efficiency.  You're underestimating the amount that people will change their behavior in response to increases in energy efficiency.  I am a very strong cheerleader for advances in energy efficiency.  The issue is that the whole point of that is to enable more energy use, not less.

 

Suppose someone invented a car that got 300 MPG (and that wasn't the size of a moped).  That would be an incredible advance for efficiency.  Would it lead to decreased energy use?  Hardly.  It would most likely lead to increased energy use as people suddenly drove more, since one of the impediments to driving would suddenly be removed.

 

Suppose someone invented a solar rooftop panel priced at $0.01/W.  What would be the implications?  One likely implication is that suburban McMansions whose energy use patterns and levels really aren't sustainable with current technology would then be a lot more sustainable than they are today--not completely, but significantly more than today.  For the moment, our land usage has leapt ahead of our ability to support that use, but the whole point of technological innovation is that it makes things possible that weren't before.

The ironic thing is, I seem to recall you are already living a low-mileage lifestyle. So you have already slowed down/turned away from the cliff, even if you don't believe in its existence. That's cool. You don't have to believe in it. Your actions are what's important to keep the cliff at a distance.

 

You're absolutely right, I am.  And it was nothing like your doom-and-gloom lectures that made me make this lifestyle decision, and I never sell the negative side of the case for urban living at the office (where most of my colleagues live in Fairlawn, Bath Township, Hudson, Solon, Shaker, etc.).  The most I do to note the negative (i.e., anti-suburb rather than pro-city) side of the case for urban living is sometimes give an over-exaggerated smile when someone mentions the price of gasoline, so they invited that point themselves.  Instead, I invite my colleagues and business associates to happy hour and shrug when they have to leave early.  I invite them out on the bike trail; even the ones who can't come often admit that they wish that they could.  I let them know when the farmer's market will be in town.  I let them know places I've discovered when they're in the mood to go someplace different for lunch and ask me.

 

That's how you make the case for urban living to people in the higher income brackets who can, if they choose, absorb the cost of driving an SUV to downtown Akron to work each day from Solon or Green or wherever you please, even at $5 or even $8 gas and even if highway subsidies were reduced and the funding stream for the highways transitioned to a VMT or similar user-fee-based system.  It also keeps me from coming off as a judgmental, sanctimonious prick to people who still have legitimate concerns about the urban public school system, since most of the people in my office, even the young professionals, have children.  Moreover, the pitch I make is wholly independent of energy prices, meaning that if it turns out that one or more of the energy-saving (and therefore suburb-saving) technologies that I've outlined above (and in the rest of my years of posting here) comes to fruition, the predicate of my pitch for urban living does not collapse.

 

You catch more flies with sugar ...

Flies? Yeech!

You're misreading the likely consequences of increasing energy efficiency.  You're underestimating the amount that people will change their behavior in response to increases in energy efficiency.  I am a very strong cheerleader for advances in energy efficiency.  The issue is that the whole point of that is to enable more energy use, not less.

 

Suppose someone invented a car that got 300 MPG (and that wasn't the size of a moped).  That would be an incredible advance for efficiency.  Would it lead to decreased energy use?  Hardly.  It would most likely lead to increased energy use as people suddenly drove more, since one of the impediments to driving would suddenly be removed.

 

Suppose someone invented a solar rooftop panel priced at $0.01/W.  What would be the implications?  One likely implication is that suburban McMansions whose energy use patterns and levels really aren't sustainable with current technology would then be a lot more sustainable than they are today--not completely, but significantly more than today.  For the moment, our land usage has leapt ahead of our ability to support that use, but the whole point of technological innovation is that it makes things possible that weren't before.

 

I don't deny that increased efficiency can lead to increased use of a device if the energy costs for the new more-efficient mode are less than the energy costs for the old mode. If energy prices stayed low, sure, we might have more 300mpg cars on the road than we currently have.  With China adding 40million cars to their roads each year, I would be very surprised to see gas prices stay low.  If gases prices rise quickly, I'm not convinced that the average Joe would spend a greater total amount of money for the lower quantity of gas needed to fill up a 300-mpg car. 

 

My point was that we can do a lot without waiting for future technology to develop and reach the market.  The 300-mpg car that isn't the size of a moped is not yet commercially practical.  You appear to disagree with me that we should encourage energy efficiency in the meantime.

 

Let's assume that the amount of oil we have available to use in any given year is finite, and China and India and Brazil consume higher and higher percentages of the available oil every year, such that the price of gasoline rises every year at a rate higher than inflation.  Let's call that Peak Oil, or if you're concerned that that might be confused with some other concept called Peak Oil, let's call it Bananas.

 

So now we have a situation where there is less oil in the US for mining, chemicals, roadways, cars, trucks, trains, buses, fertilizer, tractors, electric generators, etc.  And what is available is more expensive.  If Bananas are in our future, I argue that we ought to start doing what we can do right now to improve efficiency so that each industry can continue to be productive.  More efficient use of more expensive oil means less impact on your business and our economy from the price increases.  And we should do that while we wait for new technology that enables us to use even less oil.

 

For example, technology exists to build cars that use energy more efficiently (such as petroleum-electric hybrid powertrains).  Increasing energy efficiency for cars in this example frees up available fuel for mining machinery to continue mining ore, or for making cement or asphalt for the roadway, or for powering the trucks and trains that bring products to our door, or for making fertilizer to grow our food.  Pursuing efficiency gains now will lesson the pain for everyone if gas prices rise quickly.

 

I do hope someone comes up with the 300mpg car that isn't the size of a moped, but we shouldn't encourage everyone not to worry about rising gas prices because that car will be available some day in the future.  [fixed]

300mph?  :-D

 

As I said earlier, I have nothing against energy efficiency in the abstract.  Indeed, I think that the natural, gradual rise in the price of oil and petroleum products will naturally encourage increased development and deployment of energy-saving technologies.

 

Maybe I disagree with you, maybe I don't; it depends on what you mean by "encourage" ("we should encourage energy efficiency in the meantime" ... "we shouldn't encourage everyone not to worry about rising gas prices because that car will be available some day in the future"), and to a lesser extent, what you mean be "we," particularly when "we" start talking about potentially massive government interventions in the economy.

 

Peak oil certainly justifies more fuel-efficient cars, heavy machinery, fertilizer, generators, etc.  (Of course, those would be justified even if peak oil were a complete myth, just not quite as strongly justified.)  I trust the market to find the right balance on those fronts between efficiency investments and actually using technology that we've already produced.  (At some point, after all, we have to actually generate electricity today even if we might have a more efficient generator next year, just like you will almost certainly be able to buy a better computer next year than this year, but that doesn't mean you can wait forever.)  However, when politics starts getting involved, the dynamics change, and that's my main concern about the ills that could flow from overhyping the dangers of peak oil.  Most of the people pounding the peak oil war drums seem to want more than just to see companies invest in efficiency enhancements; after all, companies are constantly doing that, so the people pounding the war drums wouldn't have much reason to be doing so if that were all they wanted.

Post-petroleum transport for the 'burbs:

 

I see Indiana hasn't changed much in 49 years! :-D

Most of the people pounding the peak oil war drums seem to want more than just to see companies invest in efficiency enhancements; after all, companies are constantly doing that, so the people pounding the war drums wouldn't have much reason to be doing so if that were all they wanted.

 

Not nearly as many companies as you think.  Granted, the trend is accelerating, but I get to see a few dozen different companies every year and I see a lot that's right under their noses that they don't recognize-- and I'm not even an expert in this area.  It's quite surprising how much people don't see when it comes to energy efficiency. 

Post-petroleum transport for the 'burbs:

 

 

Is that the Indiana People Moooover?

 

 

Is that the Indiana People Moooover?

 

Oh. My. God.

Think of the pluses. A cow can keep your lawn trimmed without generating lawnmower exhaust fumes and recycle the clippings into organic fertilizer on site. She can provide milk for drinking, cooking, and making cheese and butter in sufficient quantity that you'll likely have some to sell. She can reproduce, giving you progeny you can sell, raise for additions to your herd, or eat. All that in addition to providing petroleum-free transportation.

 

  ^Yes, but the cow might eat your neighbor's flowers. They propably won't like that.  :-D

^for small yards, you can get a female goat and get the same results, except that goats will eat broad leaf weeds first before trimming your lawn.  just make sure you have a fence...

I also heard that a big reason we are experiencing global climate change is due to all the methane produced from cow farts

I've heard that too, but can we get back to peak oil, please?