September 15, 2006
Tom Whipple comments
Tom Whipple, the editor of Peak Oil Review and member of the advisory board of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil - USA http://www.aspo-usa.com/index.php made the keynote presentation at the Richard Alsina Fulton Conference on Sustainability and the Environment at Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA. He started with some statistics:
* The world average petroleum consumption is 190 gallons per capita per year (gpcy)
* US petroleum consumption is 1000 gpcy
* Western Europe consumes about 500 gpcy; eastern Europe somewhat less
A few other numbers:
* It takes about 10 calories of energy to put one calorie of food on our plate
* The world uses 85 million barrels of oil a day, and 31 billion barrels a year
* The world is using 30 barrels for every 4 barrels newly discovered
Whipple predicts that between 2008 and 2012 the US will experience a sufficiently large supply perturbation to impose a significant impact on our economy (and our habits).
The greatest impact, of course, will be on our transportation choices. We will have to drive less. All other areas of our lives will be affected, since petroleum is pervasive in our society.
It is not too soon to be thinking about the far-reaching impact of decreasing petroleum availability. More to the point, petroleum will become increasingly expensive, and therefore less 'available' for many of its current uses. Personal transportation is relatively easy to envision (remember air transport -- it won't take too great a rise in fuel cost to put most of the airlines out of business). Then there is the transportation of our 'stuff'. All of the things we buy, which come from great distance via supply chains fueled by cheap petroleum. Stuff will become more expensive, since the subsidy of cheap oil will decrease.
Our infrastructure will deteriorate, because it will become increasingly costly to maintain. Highways and bridges, water and sewer lines, electric power distribution systems. These systems are already degraded. It will get worse. I am most concerned for the electric power system. The blackout of August 2003 was aggravated by maintenance lapses over the years since deregulation.
Posted by aquacura.com at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2006
Can you say 'dissonance'?
Check this link: http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=37637 GM, Beemer, and Daimler Chrysler plan to put a lot of money into hybrid research and development. So far, so good.
Scroll down the article and see into which models GM plans to introduce a hybrid option: the Tahoe and the Yukon in 2007(aren't those great names? Fill up your Yukon on oil wrenched from the Alaskan wilderness). And Daimler Chrysler plans on outfitting the Durango with a hybrid drive by 2008.
Hey! Dummies! What about something a little smaller?
Do they even think mega-SUV buyers would be interested?
Posted by aquacura.com at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2006
Cost of gasoline
A recent study by Sperling's Best Places presents the cost of gasoline for a number of metropolitan areas in the U.S. And the winner is...Atlanta. Big surprise.
The study (see this link: http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/gasstudy.aspx)suggests that a family with two commuters would use 3.3 gallons of gasoline per day. At May 2006 prices, the annual cost of gasoline would be $5700. Other metropolitan areas:
*Birmingham - $5464
*Orlando - $5404
*Jacksonville - $5360
*Pensacola - $5173
*Raleigh-Durham - $5066
*Nashville - $5033
*Los Angeles - $4890
*Cape Coral, FL - $4890
*San Diego - $4739
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)
Yet more on biofuels
In a recent press release, Lester Brown offered some observations regarding competition between humans and automobiles for food resources. See http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update55.htm
I share his concern. American society might be expected to opt for biofuel production instead of food production, but the situation becomes separated from this kind of choice when investors get involved. Instead of a cars vs food decision, there is an impersonal decision to invest in a biofuel facility. The investor, if he or she even thinks about the ramifications, probably feels kind of good about doing something that seems to be sustainable. But the business created with the investor's money simply bids in the grain market for feedstock, driving up the cost of food.
The immense disconnect here is that people probably think biofuels can replace gasoline gallon-for-gallon. No way can that happen. Increased fuel economy has to be part of the solution, and -- get ready for the really bad part -- we have to drive less.
Grist Magazine -- you must subscribe! -- has a pair of articles today: http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2006/07/18/#2
Scroll down to the first one, which tells the woeful tale of fuel (dis)economy in automobiles sold in the U.S. A little farther down is an article about the threat to the Amazon rain forest posed by soy farmers selling to Cargill.
Posted by aquacura.com at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2006
More on biofuels
This link to the PA DEP Daily Update offers an interesting summary of some of the ethanol and soybean-derived diesel issues:
http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/news/cwp/view.asp?Q=509435&A=3
I am standing by my guess that we need to reduce our driving by something like 90% if we want biofuels to meet our personal transportation desires.
It's interesting to see a research group assigning a positive energy benefit to ethanol - we have probably all heard that ethanol's energy balance sheet is negative. But we shouldn't get too excited about a 25% energy dividend. Note that much of it comes from assuming the spent corn mash would be used as animal feed. And how eco-logical is it to feed animals corn anyways? And what about the water demanded by the feeding operations that use this corn mash. And on and on.
But the important points of the article are that biofuels are not going to do much to reduce greenhouse gas generation. Driving a lot less will reduce greenhouse gas generation, but our society hasn't gotten there yet.
Finally, cellulose-fed ethanol production remains to be perfected (and the energy balance of producing ethanol from cellulose remains to be defined), and then we have to figure out how to harvest the feedstock. It's easy to say 'switchgrass'. Even W has figured out how to say that. And it's easy to say that we can harvest said switchgrass from otherwise marginal lands. Marginal to whom and what? And what does harvesting entail, and what does it cost?
Which gets back to driving less. Damn!
Posted by aquacura.com at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2006
BFEO home electric loads
One of many things we have to think through as we plan for a post-petroleum economy is the amount of electric power our houses will use. The past several years - particularly the years since home internet connections have become common - have seen large increases in electric power loads in American residences. A builder friend tells me that 400 amp services are not too unusual anymore (200 amp seemed like as much as any home could possibly need in the predigital age.
Here's the scenario: centralized electric power becomes less reliable as increasingly costly liquid fuel disrupts preventive maintenance programs for power distribution. Our BFEO houses have been either equipped with rooftop photovoltaic panels, or they have been made for simple retrofitting.
Now for an excursion. If I install PV panels in pre-BFEO days, I will do so to offset the power I draw from the centralized system, or to sell power to the system if I am not using all that I generate. More on this later, as I believe it will be cost-effective in only a few more years.
But post-BFEO, I am going to want to power essential loads in my house with power that I can generate (or power that I have stored in batteries). (Another excursion: I'm not crazy about batteries. I wonder if and when there will be a practical hydrogen storage system; perhaps a chemical salt to which hydrogen could be attached and disattached. I sure don't want to handle hydrogen gas in my home. The hydrogen, of course, would be used to generate electric power in a fuel cell)
OK, back to today's question. What are our essential electric loads in a BFEO home? I put the refrigerator at the top of the list, and I would like to be able to power my computer. Some essential lights, of course. What else? A related question is, "How are we going to heat the house?" Making hot water, for instance, will not do us much good if we cannot power the pump to move the hot water through the heating system.
Speaking of heating, a heat pump would seem to be impractical in the BFEO home, but I sure do like ground source, boosted by solar hot water, in pre-BFEO times. OTOH, the ground source heat pump could run when we have central electric power - which is likely to be most of the time. I want to be able to get along for a few days on self-generated or stored electric power. Not forever.
So my list is the refrigerator, maybe 50 watts of lights (high efficiency fluorescents), whatever load my computer draws, my hot water circulation pump. Speaking of pumps, I also want to be able to treat rainwater captured on my roof for drinking, so I need a pump for the cistern and a point-of-use disinfection device - say an ultraviolet unit. These are available today.
Another related question is, "How are we going to cook?" Electric stoves would seem to be impractical during the central power system outage - they would rapidly exhaust the power we could store from a home PV system. But natural gas might be costly and prone to disruption, too.
Back to the question of electric loads during the power outage. Do we wire the house with two distribution systems, and then turn the nonessential system off when the power goes down? Or do we shed loads with a controller, and is such a controller available today?
One final excursion. When we discuss renewable electric energy, we need to factor in significantly lower power demands than we see in modern American homes. We've all seen the "good news" assertions of new wind energy projects: "Enough electricity to power 5000 homes!" That's good, for now, but we need to move toward that same amount of electric power serving the needs of 25,000 homes. Just as we need to move toward using 1/10 the liquid fuel we use today to move around, I think we need to aim at 1/5 the electric power.
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2006
Ethanol efficiency concession
I guess blogs are intended to allow us to drag out discussions forever, so I'll kick the sleeping dog and add another caveat to the point I made a few months ago (that point being the limit to the amount of arable land and agricultural effort we can afford to put into biofuel feedstock production)
Today's news included an article on the mileage efficiency concession (relative to gasoline) that seems to come along with ethanol use.
E85 (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) use in flexible fuel vehicles seems to result in as much as 25% decline in mileage efficiency. This effect is admitted by GM, which is hitching its wagon to flex fuel vehicles.
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2006
BFEO debut
Last Saturday, I presented my first seminar on Building for the End of Oil at a Wellness Through Healthy Living conference at the Harrisburg Area Community College. It's a work in progress, but I am beginning to define some of the details of the way we should build and equip our homes. Here is a link to the presentation.
As you can see, I am pretty much convinced that global society (forget about U.S. society) is not going to be diverted on its beeline for the edge of the cliff, and that petroleum depletion and climate change are not going to slow down or be turned back.
So it is time to adapt. I believe we need to expend our intellectual energy on preparing for the adverse impacts of these two factors, which will alter our way of life more significantly than anything that has happened in several generations.
I am in the planning stage for my first development - 12 affordable, green housing units on a 1-1/3 acre site in Carlisle, PA. I plan to incorporate many of the features I discuss in this blog into those units, and will describe my thinking as the project takes shape.
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2006
Oil for food
My organic farmer friend, Evan, sent me this link: http://www.alternet.org/story/34073, which offers some interesting statistics. The comment from AndyF is a little sarcastic (why can't we all just get along?) but it does touch on a central element of the community I am working to define in my blog ramblings.
Our current economy, including our food economy, is powered by petroleum. This fact of life does serve some good purposes. For instance, it allows distant farmers to provide gainful employment to produce food that U.S. consumers want to buy. I believe the days when we can enjoy Chilean fruit (or even California fruit) at the low prices we see today are numbered. But we might as well accept the fruits that the system offers, while they are affordable.
In the meantime, we need to organize our communities to transition to local food, as I believe we will have to move back to local food economies in the not too distant future.
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2006
Cycle back to biofuels
The last couple of months have seen several biodiesel operations start up in central PA. I saw an item from PA DEP that as many as 11 such operations would be in place during 2006. I believe all of the biodiesel producers in central PA are blending soybean oil with diesel to produce a 15:85 (soybean oil:diesel) blend. This blend would seem to imply something around 15% better mileage for the petroleum part of the fuel, which will do something positive in stretching out petroleum supplies. All good.
A few entries back I guessed that we might be able to produce enough biofuel (biodiesel and ethanol) to support something like half of our current liquid fuel use. I might have been too optimistic, if comments of Bob Schildgen (who does a Mr. Green article in Sierra Magazine) are accurate.
In answering a reader's question about biodiesel, Schildgen asserts that all of the waste oil and grease from all of our restaurants would support about 2 percent of our current liquid fuel use. He also offers a statistic of 50 gallons of soybean oil per acre as a reasonable yield from U.S. agricultural land. He then states that, if all of the land in the lower 48 (I think he is referring to all land, not just arable land) were planted in soybeans, we would still find ourselves 20 billion gallons short of the 110 billion gallons of liquid fuel that we Americans use in a year. So reduce the planted area to the arable land that we can afford to give over to fuel production (remembering that we have to eat, too) and you get, let's see...carry the one...a whole lot less liquid fuel than we use today.
I'm going to modify my 1/2 guess to something like 1/10. An order of magnitude. Ninety percent less. Then go back to my reasoning of a couple of months ago:
The military gets first dybs. It's probably safe to say that petroleum fuel will continue to be directed toward the military, and the civilian sector will have to find ways to live with steadily decreasing petroleum liquid fuel supplies.
Airlines and surface transport will need to have priority access to the civilian sector liquid fuel.
Which leaves us civilians with enough fuel to support...what? I'm going to guess maybe 1/10 of the fuel we use today.
Posted by aquacura.com at 06:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 30, 2005
Continuing with agriculture
A couple of months ago, I met with a friend who manages an organic farm for a nonprofit organization in the Pittsburgh area to learn about community supported agriculture (CSA). He and his wife operate a CSA enterprise that they call Cherry Valley Organics (see http://www.cherryvalleyorganics.com/). They produce vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers for a group of subscribers. I found that the CSA community is quite a bit more extensive than I had imagined.
Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education offers a link to a state-by-state database of CSAs. Use this link: http://wsare.usu.edu/pub/index.cfm?sub=csa I count 68 CSA listings in Pennsylvania; a quick study indicates that few areas of the state are not within a CSA's reach. One of the larger ones in this part of PA, Spiral Path Farm (http://www.spiralpathfarm.com/) serves the counties around Harrisburg as well as Philadelphia, about two hours away.
Another incorrect impression about CSA was that they provide fruits and vegetables, but my Pittsburgh-area friend pointed me to meat producers who work in much the same way: serving a group of subscribing customers. Heritage Foods (http://http://www.heritagefoodsusa.com/) seems to have broad coverage. Slow Food Pittsburgh (http://www.slowfoodpgh.com/) offers a service that they call Laptop Butcher Shop, which allows consumers to place orders with producers of beef, pork, turkey, and lamb.
So the point is that an infrastructure has already been established for food production and distribution on a local scale. I believe it will be very important to preserve this infrastructure, and to encourage the growth of consumer demand, which should draw more small farmers into the market. Local agriculture is far less dependent on liquid fuel than big agriculture, so the cost of local food should increase less quickly than the cost of food brought from a distance. Local food producers will also constitute a very important element of a food security strategy. Petroleum and natural gas price increases will affect big agriculture by at least raising costs, and the price of food at the grocery store. Serious disruption of petroleum or natural gas supplies may make food delivery less certain.
Local food also means decentralized production and processing. Decentralized activities will be far less appealing to bioterrorists than the large processing plants that distribute throughout the country.
Posted by aquacura.com at 04:58 PM | Comments (2)
December 10, 2005
Starting on agriculture
I have been procrastinating because I feel inadequate to address this aspect of petroleum depletion effectively. But food security is an essential part of life after petroleum, so I will give it a try and hope readers will help me to shape up my thoughts.
First, I have gotten another data point on how much liquid biofuel we might be able to produce along with adequate food for the US population. I met Stan Sersen, founder of the Environmental Design and Resource Center in Jessup, MD http://www.enviro-center.com last week. He is involved in another enterprise, MidAtlantic Biodiesel, which is building a plant in Delaware to produce biodiesel from soybeans, animal fats, and waste vegetable oil.
I asked Stan what portion of today's liquid petroleum use in the US he thought could be met by biofuels. He cited some research, which I will try to locate, and suggested that 20 percent would be a valid number. Let's be generous and double that number, assuming we will master efficient biofuel production from cellulose, producing both ethanol and biodiesel. So somewhat less than half of the amount of liquid fuel we use in the US.
Now to growing food. Petroleum and natural gas are fundamental to food production and distribution in the US today. Farm machinery, of course, runs on liquid fuel. Natural gas is the feedstock for synthetic fertilizer. I'm not certain whether petroleum is a feedstock for pesticides and would welcome guidance on this question. Growing the food is only the beginning. Our grocery stores are supplied from great distance. It's probably safe to say that very little of the food in the grocery store is grown locally. More accurately, whatever portion of the food is grown locally has probably travelled long distances to a processing plant and then back to the local grocery store. This movement, of course, depends utterly on liquid fuel.
This dependence on liquid fuel pertains to meats and dairy products as well as produce.
So food production as we know it in the US will become increasingly expensive as the cost of liquid fuel increases. And probably less reliably available.
My next entry will go into local agriculture. I'll tell you that I am surprised at how well developed the local food market is.
Posted by aquacura.com at 10:26 PM | Comments (2)
October 23, 2005
Biofuels: Two opinions
I am choosing to present the opinions of two well-known energy professionals regarding the prospect of biofuels -- which I will define as liquid fuels derived from organic material -- replacing liquid fuels derived from petroleum.
On the optimistic end of the spectrum is Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Pretty far in the other direction is Vaclav Smil at the University of Manitoba.
The RMI article, from the Fall 2005 newsletter, is actually authored by Nathan Glasgow and Lena Hansen, but it presents points that Dr. Lovins has made over the years. The authors suggest that cellulosic feedstocks could be derived from waste streams, and that crops that can be fermented directly to produce ethanol can be grown on marginal land not suited for food production, or on some of the 17 million acres of Conservation Reserve Program land that is currently not cultivated.
Dr. Smil suggests a more pessimistic situation in his recent Energy at the Crossroads, stating pretty firmly that the U.S. does not have sufficient land to grow food and liquid fuel feedstock.
I believe the RMI assertions might be a little too optimistic, for several reasons. First, although I believe we will eventually develop commercially viable processes to break down cellulose for ethanol fermentation, the processes that are currently used do not seem to be scalable economically. And I believe the simple assertion that marginal land or currently reserved, arable land could be committed to ethanol feedstock (or, for that matter, to oil seed production for biodiesel) is too facile. Marginal lands are marginal because they are steeply sloped, prone to erosion, wet, etc. We would have to be thoughtful about turning these lands to crop production. And we may need the 17 million acres of arable land to grow food if synthetic fertilizer becomes scarce or costly due to petroleum depletion.
I also think Smil's findings (which do not seem to be better supported by analysis than the RMI assertions) might be too grim.
So, once again, we come to what seems to be a reasonable conclusion: we will figure out how to produce liquid fuel from organic feedstocks, but we will not be able to supply such alternate fuels at the rate our society currently consumes liquid petroleum fuel. That is my point: not that we will have to abandon internal combustion engines, jet engines, etc, but that we will have to cut back significantly on the miles travelled with such engines.
Posted by aquacura.com at 07:23 PM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2005
Electric power, Part 1
Now that I've proffered my opinions of the changes that will occur in the transportation sector as petroleum-based liquid fuel becomes increasingly scarce (and I've heard only a few comments, so I must be right), we come to the second topic: electric power.
I'll warn you right now that I am not well-versed on this topic. But I told you that wouldn't stop me. I am going to offer some opinions, and would like feedback, with the objective of identifying the provisions a homeowner (or home builder) might make to deal with the transition.
So how will declining supplies of petroleum fuels affect electric power generation and distribution? Let me count the ways:
1. Declining natural gas supplies will affect the generation of power using gas-fired turbines. I believe these units are used to meet peak power demands. We should note that natural gas may deplete less quickly than liquid petroleum (but gas from off-shore sources will be transported by ships that presumably use liquid petroleum fuel).
2. Coal-fired and nuclear power generation will not be affected directly by depleting petroleum (and, of course, hydro). But every part of our society and economy depends on petroleum. Obviously, the trains that haul the coal are pulled by diesel-fueled locomotives, so declining oil will affect this kind of power -- at least by raising the cost of generating it. Nuclear and hydro depend on liquid-fueled equipment for maintenance. Here, the effect is likely to be less, but costs will increase.
3. Distribution is the element of our electric power infrastructure that seems to be most vulnerable to depleting petroleum. The distribution system is maintained by workers who depend utterly on liquid-fueled vehicles and equipment. Even if depleting fuel supplies are allocated to the power industry (or if alternative liquid fuels are allocated) the cost of maintaining the distribution system will increase, I think a great deal.
In addition to cost pressure on the generation and distribution elements, which will raise the cost to the electric power consumer, I believe that disruptions are inevitable. As I have noted before (see my entries on transportation), I do not expect the U.S. to transition smoothly into an alternative liquid fuel economy. There will be a few years -- maybe as many as ten -- during which the nation scrambles to catch up with declining petroleum supplies (while our society continues to believe that high costs do not denote decreasing supplies). The confusion and misallocation of liquid fuel that will accompany this period will certainly degrade the reliability of the electric power delivery system in the U.S.
Degraded reliability will vary among locations, but in ways that might not be predictable. The vulnerability of the northeastern distribution system was made painfully evident by the August 2003 blackout. On the local scale, some areas of a distribution system are subject to more frequent disruption today, and those areas are likely to experience longer outages as maintenance crews find themselves pinched by fuel supplies.
So here is my scenario:
1. As oil is depleted (but before our society admits it) electric power will become increasingly expensive, pretty much tracking the rise in liquid fuel prices.
2. As liquid petroleum fuel becomes increasingly scarce (but before the federal government decides to allocate the depleting resource) electric power disruptions will increase (both local and regional). Power distribution system owners will be responding to failures, rather than doing preventive maintenance.
3. Centralized power generation facilities will become less reliable, due to difficulties in receiving fuel (coal-fired plants) and in performing preventive maintenance.
4. Gradually, the electric power industry will move back toward pre-transition levels of reliability, but demand will be much lower, because of high prices, as well as the societal and economic changes that will occur, particularly during the transition.
This last point is perhaps the most important. Our society will emerge from the transition living much "smaller". Price will have something to do with this change, but the greater influence will be the period of serious reliability problems that our society will have endured. When power outages in the centralized system are frequent and unpredictable, society will adjust by adopting practices that demand much less power. And when conditions settle down after the transition, price will keep our society from regressing to its previous electric power consumption habits.
Enough for now. Next I will explore how a homeowner or a home builder might prepare for the electric power future.
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 12, 2005
Transportation, Part Trois
I've been waiting politely for comments on the questions I posed regarding how we will transport ourselves and our stuff as oil declines. Paul cited an NRDC study that suggests that liquid fuel could be derived from low-value organics (high cellulose) if the US were to pay some attention to research in this area. I accept this premise, and offer the caveat that we will probably not be able to produce enough liquid fuel to replace our current use of petroleum-based liquid fuels.
I suggest the process will go something like this:
• US society will persist for several years in the belief that petroleum is plentiful, and that the reason for rising prices is rapacious oil companies, rapacious OPEC members, lack of refinery capacity, other countries – China and India, for instance – also wanting oil (imagine!). During this time, corn-derived ethanol will be boosted shamelessly by cornbelt legislators to control cost at the pump, with little effect other than to funnel more corporate welfare to agribusiness. Liquid fuels from cellulose material will have no more funding than it currently enjoys, and research will be limited to the laboratory.
• Eventually, the price of gasoline, heating oil, and natural gas will convince some portion of US society that this is the real thing, and a program to develop economically feasible processes to produce liquid fuels will be funded. This program will take a few years, but say in 5 years there will be enough liquid fuel production capacity to begin to offset some of the decline in petroleum supplies. So maybe consumer prices stabilize. And fuel conservation will probably gain some momentum.
• As petroleum availability continues to decrease, alternate liquid fuels will take up some of the slack, but it will become evident that the US will have to get along with some fraction of the liquid fuel it had been using in the oil age. I have done no research on this, but I am going to WAG that the fraction will be something like ½.
So as it dawns on the nation that we will never again have sufficient liquid fuel to sustain our consumption habits, we have a period of significant social and economic turmoil that might look like this:
• The military sector will be satisfied first. It would seem likely that, at least for a while, liquid fuel will be allocated to sustain the military’s historical use of petroleum. This is likely to be a pretty big chunk (if not all) of the remaining petroleum supplies available to the US, meaning the rest of society may need to divvy up the alternate liquid fuel.
• Airplanes cannot fly without liquid fuel, so the airline industry will get whatever portion of the petroleum supplies left by the military, plus a portion of alternate liquid fuel. It is hard to imagine that the airline industry will be able to survive at anything but a tiny fraction of its current size. Leisure travel by air is likely to become infrequent, and available only to fairly wealthy people.
• The system that transports our stuff – trucks and trains in the continental US and transport ships to bring the toasters and t-shirts from China – works mostly on liquid fuel. A little bit of the country’s rail system is electrified, but most of it relies on diesel. So how much of the rest of the liquid fuel supply do we allocate to moving our stuff? I expect this is the big question that our society will have to answer, because it would seem that stuff transportation and personal transportation are going to have to work this out.
• So what about the fraction of alternate liquid fuel allocated to personal transportation? I suggest that, as the situation sinks in, society will demand a rationing program for personal vehicle use.
Now, let's imagine petroleum becoming increasingly scarce. The military will probably transition toward less fuel demand (and less "projection capability", which means less ability to invade other countries). Airlines might be squeezed more, if that is even possible. And society will have to continue to allocate to stuff transport and personal transport. Somewhere in this period, stuff transport will become very much less -- I mean, a whole lot less -- of our economic system. The global supply lines over which we have gushed for the past couple of decades will cease to exist for toasters and t-shirts.
So how does this translate for individuals and small societal units (SSUs)? Obviously, we should do what we can to conserve liquid fuel now, and we might begin to think and ask about adapting the vehicle we are considering to buy for an alternate liquid fuel (go with ethanol, as corn is used for that, and it will probably be the outcome of future cellulose-based conversion processes). For now, hybrid would seem to be a good choice (the high mileage hybrid, that is).
Also, cut back on trips (change habits), and envision how you will make yourself close to your job as the transition occurs. If you are living at a distance from work now, start thinking of how you will either move yourself closer to work or work closer to you.
As we move deeper into the transition, shared vehicles would probably be a good idea. Shared, of course, within your SSU, where members live in close proximity. You might also have a range of vehicles available for shared use, including one to transport stuff (locally). Like building supplies. But maybe not from Home Depot.
OK, that's enough for now. I look forward to your thoughts. Please don't be shy.
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August 29, 2005
Transportation, Part Two -- Individual choices
In my prior entry on this subject, I posed a question about personal choices in selecting liquid-fueled vehicles. This question implied that liquid fuel would still be available, so to paraphrase, "What impact would an individual's action to conserve liquid fuel have in the near and medium term?"
I finished reading James Kuntzler's Long Emergency this weekend, and I am part way through Matthew Simmons' Twilight in the Desert. The ramifications of the decline and end of petroleum seem pretty clear, but I suspect I had not been willing to envision them before reading these books. If global oil production has peaked, and if we are in the beginning stage of the steady divergence of supplies and demand, what difference does an individual's actions to conserve make?
I am not endorsing a carefree attitude. There is certainly a personal economic reason to conserve: saving personal money. But if oil has peaked (or if the peak is in the near future) we are only buying time before reaching the same point by conserving now.
My pessimism is based on the demonstrated fecklessness of our federal government. I won't get started, but has anyone seen any signs of leadership lately? And can we say Congress is anything but a reflection of our U.S. society? (I guess I will get started) Jimmy Carter talked frankly to the U.S. He told us that we needed to conserve energy. He was laughed out of office. So I guess it's our society that is feckless.
Back to the question, then. Does it make any difference if we conserve liquid fuel now? (Put aside the climate change issue). Perhaps, when it becomes apparent that oil supplies are really not going to increase to keep up with demand, our federal government will recognize that we should treat the remaining supplies as strategic materials. Ration liquid fuels to residents and support freight transport? What freight transport? Goods made in China delivered to WalMarts? Should commercial airlines be allocated liquid fuel rations? For business travelers? Leisure travelers? (How long would Las Vegas survive economically if leisure travelers could not get there by air?)
Can we really visualize today's U.S. society making these kinds of decisions? I can visualize one last, grand lobbying orgy, before our current system of government fades away.
My guess is that, when it happens, we will ride the declining curve down, paying steadily higher prices for depleting petro products (that's the free market), with consumers dropping off as they reach the price level that, for them, is untenable. And then, one day, it will be gone.
So the question becomes, what should an individual or SSU do during this ride? In terms of transportation choices, it would seem logical to drive a fuel-efficient vehicle and to get serious about decreasing the number of trips. A mileage budget?
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August 23, 2005
Transportation
This is the first category for our end of oil discussion. Of course, many (or all) of the categories will overlap, particularly with transportation, since it is not likely that any part of our lives today are not touched by liquid fueled transportation.
First, how do we propose to transport our personal selves in the declining days of oil? Presumably, we would gradually opt for vehicles that use petroleum more efficiently, such as the high mileage hybrids (as opposed to the conventional mileage hybrids). We are only able to buy the vehicles that the manufacturers build for the marketplace. Is "voting with our pocketbooks" by purchasing high mileage vehicles all we can do? My decision in 2002 to buy a Toyota Prius was strongly influenced by my desire to demonstrate to Toyota that people are willing to buy their car.
Next, what about mass transportation for people -- by ground and by air?
Whew! I don't know much about alternative fuels for aircraft. Are we bound to liquid fuels? As opposed to gaseous -- I think we can rule out solid fuels (Boeing introduces a new coal-burner). What about hydrogen, setting aside the likely discomfort of the travelling public related to the Hindenburg zeppelin.
So if its liquid fuels, can they be derived from sources other than petroleum? Solid hydrocarbon (coal)? Does biomass fit here? Ethanol? Biodiesel?
Now, what about our actions, as individuals and small societal units? (I'm going to dub them SSUs, since we'll be using the term extensively in our discussions) We could do less long distance travelling. Long distance travelling has become pretty much a part of our work and leisure. I suppose secondary effects, like our professional and trade organizations reshaping their meeting programs, will take shape based on the cost of air transportation. For now, what can individuals and SSUs do?
What about long distance surface transport? First, people. It would seem logical to maintain at least some toehold in intercity rail passenger transport. If the rails continue to exist (for freight, at least) will that be enough to allow us to re-opt for passenger rail transport?
How about trucks and buses? Would biodiesel work? Can we envision enough vegetable oil to offset petroleum? Will coal-derived liquids have a place?
I am looking forward to our discussion.
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August 19, 2005
The end of petroleum, Part 1
OK, here we go. I need to reiterate my standing as a green building professional, not an energy expert. But yesterday I attended a lecture by Dan Desmond, Deputy Secretary for Energy and Technology Development at PA DEP, where my feeling of urgency was turned up a couple of notches. Dan explored the question, Is World Oil Production Peaking? as part of the Rachel Carson Forum on the Future of the Environment.
The short version is: The sky is not falling, but we should have started serious planning for the end of petroleum last week.
For future lectures in the Rachel Carson series, contact Penn Future at info@pennfuture.org
Yesterday's (8/21/05) NYT Magazine had a cover article on the oil peaking question, specifically related to Saudi Arabia. See this link for the article (you might have to sign in)http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/index.html
The plot thickens! In today's (8/23/05) NYT, columnist John Tierney reports on a wager he has made with Matthew Simmons, author of a current book in which he speculates that Saudi Arabia has passed, or is near, its peak oil production. See this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/opinion/23tierney.html
First, we are not going to fall off a cliff. When global petroleum extraction peaks, the downward trajectory will take some time. The problem is, we cannot know whether production has peaked until some time after the peak has occurred. And we can only dream of being able to predict the peak, if only because many oil-producing nations do not provide reliable information regarding their reserves.
The US and Britain have already recognized and admitted to their peaks. Indonesia seems to have peaked, and is now a net importer of petroleum. The huge question marks are the middle eastern oil fields where reserves are simply unknowable. However, circumstantial evidence offers a discomforting view that production in this part of the world might be peaking.
Opinions of experts vary across the map. Some say we are on the downward side of the global peak, while others lay claim to the next couple of generations. One book, Twilight in the Desert by Matthew Simmons describes the author's experience when he served on a task force commissioned by the CIA to define the range of possible conditions of oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. He presents a plausible argument that the Saudis have pressed extraction so hard that they may have seen the peak from their fields.
Another piece of circumstantial evidence is the increasing gap between global demand and global production. In 2000 and 2001, the world consumed 1 million barrels more each day than was produced. Last year, the gap had grown to 2 million barrels a day, and the projection for next year is 4 million barrels a day. This steadily increasing difference could mean that neither technology nor high oil prices are going to get us out of this dilemma. Further, annual oil production has exceeded additional reserves identified (bear in mind the huge uncertainty of reserve estimates) for the past 15 years.
The deficit seems to be resistant to both technology and to high prices.
We may very well be drawing from principle.
I hope this dissertation provides a reasonable basis for the discussion in which I want to engage: what can we do to prepare for the end of petroleum. It's not an academic exercise. It is possible that my generation might face it; my children's generation is more likely to face it; and my grandchildren (already five of them) are pretty certain to have to deal with it.
So let's consider this a practice run.
As I noted in an earlier entry, I will be offering thoughts in a number of areas, including:
Transportation
Electric power
Food for consumption
Stuff
Heating
Agriculture
I am interested in sharing ideas about what our society needs to do, but I am most keenly interested in what we might do as individuals or small societal units. Moving to the mountains with heavy weaponry is not an option; we are a gentle people. So as amusing as Mad Max is on the big screen, we cannot opt for that life.
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