LMAO at Rob's quote!

 

I agree noozer...I keep telling myself that I'm going to quit posting there, then somone touts the Abiotic Oil Theory and they puuuuuuuull me back in!  It's just a shame that we're outnumbered by the morons.  I think you should have to pass a test before you're allowed to vote. 

From a recent e-mail of...

 

 

GreenCityBlueLake update

May 15, 2006

 

A regional energy strategy: In a looming world of peak oil and climate change, one of the most important things we can do in Northeast Ohio is plan for a very different energy future. Read how the planning is beginning:

 

http://www.gcbl.org/energy/regional-agenda

Noozer, Brewmaster: I just read the thread on columbusgasprices.com and sent a message in support of you two. Ignorance is one thing, but rude behaviour is inexcusable!! I won't go there again. What morons...especially one in particular!!!

But I hate watching pigs drown in their own slop. Call me a softy.

 

As a one-time and hopefully never-again hog farmer (phew!), I need to clarify something.

 

The foul-smelling semi-liquid excrement that pigs produce in copious volume is simply pig sh*t, like most of what's posted on columbusgasprices.com.

 

Hog slop is feed. We added water to a ground grain-based feed mixture and poured it into troughs. The hogs gulped it ravenously, the way SUVs consume petroleum, and it increased their feed and water intake and accelerated their gain to market weight. "Slopping the hogs" is feeding pigs, sort of like pumping gas for suburbanites who will make unnecessary trips driving fast in gas guzzlers. Only thing is, after all that petroleum, the suburbanites end up broke and in poor health and their vehicles end up in the junkyard. Neither fulfills for any useful purpose.

I was just looking again at the columbusgasprices.com message string...and their responses to what Noozer and I had to say shows a lot of ignorance. Better to forget 'em!

Oil is Not Scarce -- The Oil Industry Continues to Play Us For Fools

 

Wooohooo! Is that ever good news! :clap:

 

I'm gonna hurry out and buy me one o' them marked-down big Hummers before the word gets around and they raise the prices back to where they was. Then, when the gummint wises up to them A-rabs and oil-baron guys and makes 'em quit cheatin' us, and gas comes back down to $.85 a gallon, I'll be sittin' pretty and all them tree-huggers and urbanists in their puny Jap rice-burners can eat their bleedin' hearts out! :roll:

 

And Canada's got all them there tar sands. I'm gonna' go right down and enlist for when we invade 'em! :shoot:

 

  1.2 Trillon barrels is an almost incomprehendible number. That's one estimate of how much recoverable petroleum there is in the ground.

 

    But 80 million barrels PER DAY, today's global consumption of oil, is also an almost incomprehendible number.

 

  A simple division, based on unchanging current rates, give you 1.2 Trillion barrels/ 80 million barrels per day = 15,000 days, or only 41 years!  :-o

 

    "A child born in 1970 will see 80% of the world's petroleum consumed in his lifetime." - M. King Hubbert

 

   

http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=319

 

A Personal Peak Oil Discovery Process, Part I

 

A retired nuclear physicist traces his discovery of peak oil theory.

By John Rawlins

May. 26, 2006

 

Special Report: Peak Oil

(Ed. Note: This is Part I of a two-part series. Part I chronicles the process by which John Rawlins discovered the scale and extent of the coming peak oil crisis. Part II will detail the steps he has taken to prepare for a world of diminishing oil resources.)

 

I recall reading a Scientific American article in 1998 about world oil supply, titled The End of Cheap Oil [ http://dieoff.org/page140.htm ]. Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère predicted that the world oil extraction rate would increase until around 2005-2010, then peak and quickly enter decline, with decline rates of a few percent per year.

 

That seemed interesting but not all that worrying to a 58 year old semi-retired nuclear physicist teaching astronomy and physics in a community college in northwest Washington state. I posted their graphs on my office door and occasionally discussed the topic with students, but I didn't really get it. Just having less gasoline for transportation seemed the least of our worries.

Rosa Brooks: Bush's $15-a-barrel blunder

Foolish foreign policies are helping jack up gas prices.

May 26, 2006

Los Angeles Times Column

 

 

WITH GAS prices higher than they've been since the 1979 oil crisis, consumers and politicians from both parties are desperately seeking someone to blame.

 

It's tempting to go after big oil companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil. After all, they're chortling over their quarterly profit figures while the rest of us are miserably tightening our belts.

 

  But righteous indignation over windfall oil company profits shouldn't blind us to the real scandal. The current high gas prices have more to do with foolhardy Bush administration policies than with greedy oil companies.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-brooks26may26,1,860260.column?coll=la-news-columns&ctrack=1&cset=true

I'm no fan of the Bush Administration, but this article seems to single him out for the rising gas prices. True, he hasn't done anything to start us on a decades-long detox program and instead has only made things worse. But every administration since at least FDR has had a similar hand in making Americans the oil gluttons we are.

Agreed.  It wouldn't be hard to argue that Clinton, the elder Bush, and Reagan did far more damage to this nations future energy situation than the current administration.  The low prices of the 80's and 90's, would have been the perfect time to increase the gas tax to something closer to Europe's.  It would've taken a visionary with big onions in the office, but we'd be much better off right now!

 

Bush is saddled with a very tough battle right now, and he doesn't have the popularity to pull off something drastic.  At least not with the American public's knowledge of the topic.  Pessimistic, but true.

^-----  Carter's energy policy would have kept us independent of foreign oil, but wow, what a method! He proposed that oil imports be made illegal! Give him credit for trying, but that didn't go over really well. It makes me think that presidents really don't have that much control over it.

 

    If you think about it, there is only a fixed amount of oil in the world, and somebody's got to get it. The United States consumes 20% of the world's oil. If we would consume less, would that just mean another country would consume more? Is that in our interest?

 

    I wonder if Bush will be remembered somewhat like Hoover. Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression, but since he was unfortunate enough to be president at that time, he was blamed for it. Chances are that the peak oil date will fall under W's term.

 

   

 

 

^-----  Carter's energy policy would have kept us independent of foreign oil, but wow, what a method! He proposed that oil imports be made illegal! Give him credit for trying, but that didn't go over really well. It makes me think that presidents really don't have that much control over it.

 

Of course not.  If he did, he wouldn't be called president, he would of been called dictator.  It's congress that does the lawmaking.

 

    If you think about it, there is only a fixed amount of oil in the world, and somebody's got to get it. The United States consumes 20% of the world's oil. If we would consume less, would that just mean another country would consume more? Is that in our interest?

 

So.  The suggestion by 3-4 members here is that we cut back on our consumtion of oil and be done with it.  If someone else uses it up, so be it.  This idea that we have to consume oil so no one else can use it is off-kilter at best.

 

    I wonder if Bush will be remembered somewhat like Hoover. Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression, but since he was unfortunate enough to be president at that time, he was blamed for it. Chances are that the peak oil date will fall under W's term.

 

If Democrats get their way, W won't be remember like Hoover, he'll be remembered like Nixon and Harding.

Love affair with the automobile is hurting our health, welfare

Monday, June 05, 2006

ROBYN BLUMNER

 

 

I dedicate this column to an unsung heroine in New York City: the first woman to put on running shoes with her business suit.

 

The day she decided to throw convention, fashion and good taste to the wind in exchange for a little comfort was a day almost as momentously liberating as when a group of patriots decided to dump tea into Boston Harbor.

 

During the years I lived in New York City and endeavored in a variety of law-related jobs, I would don my matching jacket and skirt, tie my scarf in a bow, put my black pumps in my oversized purse and lace up my Nikes for the 2-mile hike to work.

 

http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/06/05/20060605-A7-02.html

The earlier article about rental car agencies trying to give free upgrades totally hit home.  I frequently rent cars and it keeps happening that they try to give me an SUV....almost pressuring me and acting like I am stupid for not wanting it.  In Las Vegas recently the woman actually suggested that if I wanted to look cool in Vegas, it could only be accomlished by driving a bigger car.  What a loser I am for driving a compact car.  It also happened right here in the city a few weeks ago too.  I firmly said no to the SUV....and stupid me ended up with a Passat.

At risk of digressing, I think the rental car companies give their employees extensive training in bamboozling customers. I can't count the times that I've gone to the rental counter at my destination, having made a reservation for a compact car far in advance, and they've been "unable to find my paperwork" and then tried some confusing line of doubletalk to try to push something else off on me and scare/persuade me into paying for extras I don't need.

 

An ex-bf taught me how to deal with that. Get to the counter as quickly as you can after your flight arrives, so that there are a lot of people in line behind you. Then, when they start to pull the snow job, make a loud, unpleasant scene and tell them to quit trying to bullshit you and tie everything up so that the other customers get impatient and the employees get frustrated. It's amazing how quickly they can find the "lost" paperwork and get you in the car you reserved.

 

They count on most people not wanting to be confrontational or make a fuss.

 

Antarctica is on a tectonic plate...I bet theres a lot of oil underneath those miles of snow. If only they could extract it cheap enough and build the infrastructure required.

 

So with all of our advanced technology our most viable alternatives are ethanol and hydrogen?

    "Oil executives tend to deride the notion of peak oil..."

 

    I think they are well aware of it, or at least the people familiar with the geology / extraction / reserves aspect of the industry.

 

  I believe that mining is forbidden in Antarctica by treaty. Even if it wasn't forbidden, it is a very hostile environment to work in. We still are not certain of the boundary of the land mass under the ice. And, in the end, even if we do extract petroleum from Antartica, how long will it be until that source peaks as well?

 

    "So with all of our advanced technology our most viable alternatives are ethanol and hydrogen?"

 

    I think we've gone through this before, but ethanol and hydrogen are not really viable alternatives because they use more energy to produce than they are worth. That is not to say that some may be produced on a smaller scale due to the convenience factor. For example, flashlight batteries cost on the order of $80 per kilowatt-hour in terms of energy, while your electric outlet in your house costs on the order of $0.10 per kilowatt-hour. You COULD replace your house electric with flashlight batteries, but it is not economical to do so, and at present all the flashlight batteries in the world wouldn't be enough to power one large city.

 

    The so-called alternatives are similar. You could, in fact, use nuclear or hydroelectric power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and store the hydrogen for use in automobiles. It can be done in the lab. However, hydrogen costs more than gasoline, and we don't have enough nuclear or hydroelectric power to replace the current consumption of petroleum, which is about 20 million barrels per day in the United States.

 

    Ethanol is produced from corn. Again, it takes more industrial energy in the form of tractor fuel, fertilizers, and transportation and production costs than it is worth. In addition, we do not have enough farm land in the United States to make up for the present comsumption of petroleum.

 

    So, what are the alternatives? I have to say that I don't think there are any.

So with all of our advanced technology our most viable alternatives are ethanol and hydrogen?

 

Hydrogen is just an energy carrier.  You need to put energy into making it from water, then you get that energy right back when you combust it (turn it back into water).  There are also some losses along the way thanks to the laws of thermodynamics. 

 

Hydrogen can also be generated from hydrocarbon sources (coal, oil, etc...), but in that case, the hydrocarbon fuel is your "energy source", not hydrogen.

 

Our most viable alternatives are probably a combination of coal (to electricity and transportation liquids), nuclear (fission and in the future, hopefully fusion), natural gas, wind, hydro (mostly tapped out), solar, cellulosic ethanol, biomass combustion, and geothermal. 

 

Eventually we'll also run out of coal, uranium, and natural gas, so those aren't sustainable.  You'll notice that many things on that list are electicity generators, and I assume you're talking about transportation fuels.  Well, electricity can be used to get hydrogen from water and "carry" the energy to the transportation sector.

And don't forget rail transportation can be and already is powered by electricity in many parts of the world. Most of Europe's rail system is heavily electrified, including the mainline railroads. Some segments of the U.S. rail system are electrically powered (mainly in the northeast), but long sections of freight railroads were once powered by electricity in the Northwest mountains (the Milwaukee Road), Mid-Atlantic region (Virginia Railway) and additional mileage in the Northeast but were since deactivated. I guess they figured $15 per barrel oil would be with us forever (Europe wasn't so optimistic!)....

^ Very true.  I guess I didn't consider that wires are a much more efficient carrier of energy than hydrogen via water electrolysis.

And don't forget rail transportation can be and already is powered by electricity in many parts of the world.

 

Switzerland was a pioneer in railway electrification, and I read somewhere that it was a geopolitical situation that provided the impetus. Like everyone else, the Swiss used steam locomotives; the coal they burned came from Germany. The Nazis cut off coal exports and reserved their coal for their own wartime industries and railroads.

 

The Swiss had abundant hydroelectric power, and topography that lent itself to even more of that, so they electrified their railroads. I've seen a couple of interesting photos showing an improvisation they made because they still needed the brute power of their steam locomotives to move their heaviest trains on severe mountain grades; they put pantographs on top of the locomotives and put huge electric heating elements inside the boilers, effectively converting them to oversized electric water heaters. It was terribly inefficient, but the electricity was abundant and relatively cheap, and it worked.

^--- I've seen a photo of that - a steam locomotive with a pantograph running on overhead wires! How bizarre!

 

    It is projected that in the next 50 or so years, oil use will decline but coal use will increase; no one knows how all of this will play out. Could we see more overhead wires, battery-powered vehicles, or even the return of coal powered steam locomotives? I don't know. Keep in mind, though, that those technologies are available now; in fact, they have been available for a hundred years. The fact that streetcar systems and steam locomotives are virtually extinct in this country while gasoline powered internal combustion engines thrive tells you something. Automobiles are hard to beat, and a return to past technologies may be seen as a step backwards.

 

    Eventually, though, even coal will have to peak.

 

The steam locomotive could return, but it probably wouldn't be in the form of the smoke-belching, piston-driven machines that older folks remember, often fondly.

 

Uh-oh! I feel a lecture coming on!

 

< :speech: >The last mainline steam locomotives in the U.S. were built within a few years after the end of World War II, and although China continued to build them until just a few years ago, their technology wasn't different from the locomotives built in the 1940s.

 

Spurred by the oil shortages and price spikes of the late 1970s, a consortium of railroads, coal companies and other interested parties ran some tests using a conventional steam locomotive enhanced with sensors and microprocessors to determine whether the efficiency and environmental impact of coal-burning steam power could be improved significantly. Early test results were fairly promising, but the easing of the oil crisis led to major sponsors withdrawing from the consortium, and the project ended.

 

Coal-hauler Norfolk & Western (now Norfolk Southern) was the last of the major U.S. railroads to build new steam locomotives and to finally give up on steam. In the 1950s they built and tested a coal-fired steam turbine locomotive. It was largely successful, with some problems that probably could have been worked out with more development, but because of fairly cheap diesel fuel and proven diesel locomotive technology, the railroad couldn't justify spending more time and money on it.

 

A steam locomotive of the future, if it is ever built, might involve one or more steam turbines driving generators to provide power for traction motors mounted on the axles, much as modern locomotives use diesel engines to drive generators. The boiler would probably be very high pressure, compared with the 250 psi or thereabouts that was common in the later series of piston-engine locomotives.

 

The boiler might be heated by burning pulverized coal along with pulverized limestone in a fluidized-bed firebox, where the limestone would capture and bind sulfur and other acidic products of combustion to reduce toxic and corrosive emissions. The supply of fuel and air to the firebox probably would be controlled by sensors and microprocessors to assure sustained maximum efficiency for load conditions and to almost completely eliminate smoke from the exhaust.

 

Water probably would be recovered by passing the turbines' exhaust steam through a condenser, enabling the locomotive to travel for long distances without the water-replenishing stops required by traditional steam locomotives every 100-150 miles.

 

Modern metallurgy and microprocessor technology could be used to create a coal-burning steam locomotive to compete strongly against modern oil-burning diesels. Still, I think the best power source for modern high-volume mainlines would be ordinary electrification via catenary and/or third rail, with power supplied from stationary power plants that can use a variety of energy sources, realize economies of scale, and implement emission control systems too cumbersome to use on a mobile piece of equipment. </ :speech:>

 

Sorry 'bout that  :-P

 

 

Oh man you guys got Rob started!

Modern metallurgy and microprocessor technology could be used to create a coal-burning steam locomotive to compete strongly against modern oil-burning diesels. Still, I think the best power source for modern high-volume mainlines would be ordinary electrification via catenary and/or third rail, with power supplied from stationary power plants that can use a variety of energy sources, realize economies of scale, and implement emission control systems too cumbersome to use on a mobile piece of equipment.

 

I agree.  To bring a coal fired locamotive to within current emissions regulations would be rediculously costly.  It would probably need to consist of many cars of pollution control equipment behind the main locamotive.  The best way to do it is to let the big boys handle it and put the juice out on the rails or overhead lines.

 

-or-

 

Build coal to liquids plants to make coal-derived diesel fuel.  This could power the existing fleet on a domestic energy source.  Of course, it would shrink that 250 year coal reserve significantly.

There was actually a project back in the 1980's called the ACE 3000 ... "The Ultimate Steam Locomotive".  Here's a link to a paper on the subject.

 

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ace.html

 

Engineer's drawings:

 

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ace_det.html

 

As I recall, the project died for both lack of funding and the (at the time) more economical use of newer generation diesel locomotives.  Too bad.  It would interesting to revive this project in today's economic climate.

 

 

^--- I think all of this goes to show that the internal combustion engine, whether gasoline powered or diesel, is really hard to beat in terms of convenience, flexibility, and purchase cost. You could use the old economist's argument that if there was a better way, someone would be doing it.

 

    They say that we have 300 years of coal at current rates of use. They also say that coal consumption is expected to quadruple in the next 25 years. Ok, 300 / 4 is 75 years, right? As Hubbert said, it's unethical to calculate a duration based on current rates and then propose an increased rate of use. Incidently, Hubbert said that coal would peak around 2100.

 

    So, without regard for the long term future, in the short term, say the next 30 years, we can expect coal use to increase while oil use declines. What happens next is anyone's guess. If I were a betting man, though, I would guess that automobile use will decline, and no comparable alternative will be found. People will simply drive less. Whether they will move back to cities, consolidate into lots of villiages, ride motor scooters, golf cars, or bicycles, or simply stay home more remains to be seen. Maybe they will continue to drive SUV's, but fewer of them. Replacing the current fleet of cars with hybrids, electric cars, hydrogen, etc., is probably not feasible. We may or may not see new steam locomotives (and steam boats!) or more electric vehicles. The airlines have no alternatives to oil, and that industry is going to decline dramatically.

 

 

 

. . .

(and steam boats!) . . .

 

Or sailing ships? Bulk cargo might be moved satisfactorily using wind power on water, with auxiliary steam, diesel or electric power as an alternative when the wind dies, and for maneuvering in and out of ports more easily than the old-time sailing ships. As in other transport modes, sensors and microprocessors could be used to maintain the most efficient trim on sails for best speeds.

 

However it plays out, the decline in oil carries the potential for chaos and conflict. People have used oil to build and sustain population levels far beyond the pre- and post-oil carrying capacity of the planet, and one way or another there probably will be large declines in population levels that may not come through ordinary attrition. Some people now living may encounter the four horsemen of the apocalypse (conquest, war, famine and death).

^--- I thought I read somewhere that Saudi Arabia was predicted to be the last nation to peak, which would happen around 2012. Still, only 6 years away....

 

  "Or sailing ships?"

 

    One of the coolest new technologies that I have come across was a sailboat with an electric motor and prop, connected to an electronic monitouring device. With no wind, the electric motor pushes the ship. With moderate wind, the sails push the ship, and the electric motor turns the prop at exactly the speed to reduce drag. In a heavy wind, the sails push the ship AND drag the prop through the water; the prop turns the motor, which now functions as a generator, and recharges the batteries. So, in a way, the sailboat becomes a wind powered generator. Even so, it is much easier just to rev your diesel motor up and go. This motor-sailboat thing is fascinating, but it's unaffordable compared to a gasoline or diesel engine, and still depends on the wind.

   

 

    "And one way or another there probably will be large declines in population levels..."

 

    You are opening a can of worms by bringing population into the discussion. As I said, it would still be possible to drive SUV's while oil production declines if we drive fewer of them. Birth rates are dropping across the board worldwide, especially in developed countries. Would fewer people mean fewer cars, all the while using less oil but maintaining current lifestyles? I don't know. I guess it depends on the rate of population loss compared to the rate of oil decline. If oil declines REALLY FAST, chances are good that there will be wars. Oh wait a minute, we already have wars.

 

    By the way, if you want to see something really scary, go look up the population pyramids for Saudi Arabia.

 

   

 

   

 

 

 

  Hubbert proposed an energy rationing system also. With any rationing system, the rich simply buy the ration cards, or otherwise buy the resource from those willing to sell. I haven't experienced this firsthand, but there are reports that food stamps trade for cash at the ratio of 2:1. This has been reduced since they went with digital food stamps.

 

  "Tougher fuel economy standards on new cars and trucks..."

 

  Sorry, but fuel economy has no part in the peak oil equation. That is, better gas mileage does not save fuel; it just allows more miles. As an example, fuel economy nearly doubled during the 1970's. Do we use half the gasoline? No! We bought more cars and drove more miles.

 

  "Some have argued that the suburbs are dead."

 

  Ever been to a newer subdivision on a school day? Both parents work, and the kids are in school. Where are the people?

KJP -

 

Thanks for continuously posting good articles in this thread.  I've become extremely interested in peak oil once I found out about it.  I just finished "Twilight in the Desert" by Matthew Simmons.  Great peice of work.  Very technical (right up my alley), and very informative.  I especially liked his final chapter about how he thinks things will play out.  I think he's right on the mark about the importance of telecommuting, mass transit, and living closer to work.

 

Do you, or anyone else, have any other suggested reading?  I was thinking about "The Party's Over" by Heinberg, or "The Coming Economic Collapse" by Leeb.

    "The first (proposal) is that we fund Social Security and Medicare with a tax on energy consumption, especially at the gas pump."

 

    Interesting. Isn't this approximately what some socialist European countries do? Gas prices are on the order of $6.00 a gallon there, with about $4.00 of that being tax. On the other hand, pensions and health benefits are generous. On a personal level, you would spend more for gas but less for health care. Isn't this just shifting money around, or does he really think that a higher price would discourage gas use?

 

    "The second proposal is that we electrify our freight railroads and encourage freight to go by rail instead of truck."

 

    This sounds good on the surface, but unfortunately it's not that easy. Most of the long-haul freight already goes by rail, not by truck. A study of the I-75 corridor between Cincinnati and Dayton, for example, showed that most of the truck traffic was travelling between two points within the Cincinnati/Dayton metro areas. A point-to-point trip by truck is more efficient than the same trip with a railroad leg, assuming that the railroad leg is relatively short. Remember, most traffic occurs within cities rather than between cities; trucks are more competitive within cities, and railroads are more competitive between cities.

 

    I would echo the thanks to KJP for posting peak oil articles.

 

    I would suggest reading "M King Hubbert on the nature of growth," 1974. It has been posted online, and will take a few hours to read. It can be found here.

 

    http://www.technocracy.org/?p=/documents/articles/

 

 

More wishful thinking from the United State of Cornucopia...

 

ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION

 

EIA Reports

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

WASHINGTON DC 20585

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JUNE 20, 2006

 

Strong Growth in World Energy Demand is Projected Through 2030

Worldwide marketed energy consumption is projected to grow by 71 percent between 2003 and 2030, according to the reference case projection from the International Energy Outlook 2006 (IEO2006) released today by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The IEO2006 shows the strongest energy consumption growth in developing countries outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), especially non-OECD Asia (including China and India), where robust economic growth drives the increase in energy use. Energy use in non-OECD Asia nearly triples over the projection period (Figure 1).

 

Projected reference case world oil prices are 35 percent higher in 2025 than in last year’s IEO, reflecting a more pessimistic view of the willingness of oil-rich countries to expand production capacity as aggressively as previously envisioned. The higher prices dampen expected growth in world oil demand, which is 8 million barrels per day lower in 2025 than in last year’s reference case. As a result, oil’s share of total energy use is projected to fall from 38 percent in 2003 to 33 percent in 2030, whereas natural gas and coal both gain in their share of total energy (Figure 2). Petroleum consumption is still expected to grow strongly, however, reaching 118 million barrels per day in 2030. The United States, China, and India together account for 51 percent of the projected growth in world oil use.

 

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are expected to increase their supply of oil by 14.6 million barrels per day between 2003 and 2030. Higher oil prices contribute to a substantial increase in projected non-OPEC supply, which rises by 23.7 million barrels per day, including 8.1million barrels per day of unconventional production, over the same period. World unconventional production (including oil sands, bitumen, biofuels, coal-to-liquids, and gas-to-liquids) increases by 9.7 million barrels per day between 2003 and 2030, representing 25 percent of the total world liquids supply increase.

 

Other report highlights include:

 

Coal use grows at an average annual rate of 2.5 percent between 2003 and 2030 in the IEO2006 reference case projection, while demand for natural gas grows by 2.4 percent per year. The higher oil prices used in IEO2006 increase the competitiveness of these fuels. Rising fossil fuel prices also allow renewable energy sources to compete more effectively in the electric power sector. Consumption of hydroelectricity and other grid-connected renewable energy sources expands by 2.4 percent per year.

Higher fossil fuel prices and concerns about security of energy supplies are expected to improve prospects for nuclear power capacity over the projection period, and many countries are expected to build new nuclear power plants. World nuclear capacity is projected to rise from 361 gigawatts in 2003 to 438 gigawatts in 2030, with significant declines in capacity projected only for Europe, where several countries have either plans or mandates to phase out nuclear power, or where old reactors are expected to be retired and not replaced.

In the IEO2006 reference case, which does not include specific policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are projected to rise from 25.0 billion metric tons in 2003 to 33.7 billion metric tons in 2015 and 43.7 billion metric tons in 2030. Much of the projected increase in emissions is expected to occur in the non-OECD regions of the world, accompanying large increases fossil fuel use. Non-OECD countries accounts for three-fourths of the projected growth in emissions between 2003 and 2030 (Figure 3).

The full report can be found on EIA’s web site at:

 

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html

Gas prices aren't even that high. In the late seventies and early eighties the prices were very comparable to what it is today.

Peak oil is a Zionist scam!!!!

 

 

*runs*

^ Actually, it is true. We Zionists scammed ourselves by binge-drinking oil.

 

Also, there is a second oil region in Alaska that is approximately equivalent to ANWR that was supposed to be reserved for the navy.  

 

You're right.  When I was at SOHIO, that was a sore point among oil company's

What is this Alaska ssecond oil region business you speak of?

I'm not opposed to some of the ethanol production facilities that have been proposed or areoperating or being built, but as I've stated before in this forum, I think people's expectations of ethanol as the savior of their cars and suburbs are wildly over-inflated.

 

Among the plans that have been floated, this one is one of the better-sounding ones. E3 BioSolution has come up with a plan for closed-loop systems co-located with concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Distillers' grains byproducts can be fed directly to animals at the site, eliminating the need for the expensive centrifuge used to dry grains for storage and shipment and reducing energy consumption. The animal waste (manure) is fed into aerobic digesters that produce methane to fuel the ethanol production process; the methane production process eliminates/controls the odors commonly associated with large CAFOs, and after being used in the methane generators, the manure can be returned to the fields as fertilizer.

There is an ethanol operation exactly like what you describe being built near Cadiz in Harrison County.

 

  "The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 23 million-acre area that stretches across the western part of Alaska's north slope, was set aside as a US Navy oil stockpile in 1923. The US Geological Survey has estimated the reserve could hold anywhere from 820 mm to 5.4 bn barrels of oil."

 

http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn70401.htm

 

    To give you an idea how much oil this is, if extracted at the present rate of conumption of 20 million barrels a day, 5.4 billion barrels would last the United States about 275 days.  :-o

Anyone catch Thomas Friedman's (NY Times Reporter) hour long special called "Addicted to Oil", on the Discovery Channel?  It mostly focused on alternative energy sources and didn't really look at the negative aspects of each.  It also didn't even mention land use or alternative transportation as a means for progress.

Yes, I taped it. But after I watched it, I don't plan on keeping. I was pretty disappointed at it. Friedman assumed our high-mileage lifestyles would/should continue as sacrosanct, and that we must find technological solutions to preserve that lifestyle. Assuming we can find the technologies to sustain it, how much driving would people do if they had 500 mpg cars? What would traffic and sprawl look like if that mpg was possible? I guess when the price of your addiction rises to unaffordable levels, the "most reasonable solution" is to find another cheaper option to stay addicted. And, oil isn't the addiction. It's our high-mileage lifestyles...

Friedman never mentions rail, mass transit or any other non-highway form of transportation in his columns.  I have written to him about it as well.  One would think he would recognize that the most fuel-efficient way to move large amounts goods or numbers of people is by rail and that investing in the rail infrastructure would have clear benefits in terms of reducing oil consumption.

http://www.augustafreepress.com/stories/storyReader$40031

 

Energy literacy - what you don't know can hurt you

Published 06-26-06

 

Ecology and You

Erik Curren

[email protected]

 

It seems that everybody's got an opinion these days about how to fight high gas prices. Punish price gougers. Tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Drill in protected areas in Alaska or off the Atlantic coast.

 

And then there's the chain e-mail urging a consumer boycott of one brand of gas station at a time until each company cries "uncle" and agrees to lower its price to, say, $1.59 a gallon.

 

...

 

On the Web

 

- Energy Star Program: www.energystar.gov

- American Council for Energy Efficiency: www.aceee.org

- Energy Literacy Project: www.energy-literacy.org

- National Environmental Education and Training Foundation: www.neetf.org

- U.S. Energy Information Administration: www.eia.doe.gov

- Energy Center of Wisconsin: www.ecw.org

- Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Boston University: http://www.bu.edu/cees/

  "The U.S. is said to have a 250-year supply at current usage rates."

 

    That's the first time I have read the 250 number in a mainstream media article. I have been accustomed to 300.

 

    "Current rates" is the key. It has also been said that rates are expected to quadruple. Then, we won't have 250 years left anymore.

 

    Applying the Hubbert Curve method to coal shows that coal will peak around 2100.

 

  "The sad truth is that Americans know much less about energy than we think."

 

    The more I know, the more I find out I don't know. I don't think there's anyone that knows it all.

^ I've seen 250 years used many more times than I've seen 300.  Of course, if Fisher-Tropsch comes back after peak oil, this number could shrink considerably.

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/business/1150716680265450.xml?bxdia&coll=2

 

Group to talk about energy topics

 

The future of oil and other energy-related topics will be the focus of a book discussion group that will meet the last Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m., beginning June 27, at the Borders bookstore, 17200 Royalton Rd., Strongsville. Norm Ezzie, a blogger and creator of www.storminnorm.com, is organizing the public discussion group as a way to promote public awareness of energy issues facing the nation. The first book to be discussed will be "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler.

Stormin' Norm is an interesting fellow... Not sure if it's worth a drive out to McMansionland. Which begs the question -- why have a book discussion about peak oil that requires a long drive into suburbia? I don't understand that one!