[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('0mar', '
')
We're the ones delusional?

The IEA says we will need 130mbd by 2020.

These forecasts don't look like a global economy weaning itself off oil. Oil has a damn monopoly on transportation; close to 95% of all vehicles use oil to be powered. If we use the definination of fossil fuels, 99% use fossil fuels of some sort to be powered. We consume 84 mbd and there hasn't been a single year, outside the 70s, in which demand declined. Demand is only increasing and the entire global economy is dependant on oil.

[clv101]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BiGG', 'I')ts not me lacking “qualitative” skills at all, I think some of you are lacking a basic understanding of the “Logistics”, “Macroeconomics”, & "Marketing" involved for changes like this but they are coming rapidly as oil is nasty, dirty, cancer causing, environmentally very unfriendly, and everything replacing it is good for all of US, it just takes a little time putting it in place.

[thorn]

Hybrids go back a long time.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ast May, Caltech Archivist Judith Goodstein interviewed Victor Wouk in New York. In that oral history, he described, among other things (including his grad school days at Caltech), the hybrid car he built in the early ’70s, a quarter of a century before hybrids finally rolled onto American roads.

[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', '"')........... in the absence of all that cheap oil is just wishful thinking, the data doesn't support it.

[nth]

Bigg, I think you need to clarify yourself.
It sounds like you are advocating for solutions. Your solutions may or may not work, but what is important to make clear is that you are not stating that the current US lifestyle is sustainable. From what I read of yoru posts, you believed we will survive the PO, but we will be living a very different lifestyle. A lifestyle that is using very efficient use of energy and a lot less oil than we use today.

You are basically saying you see a soft landing.
There are many of us who believed in soft landing and then there are many of us who think soft landing is possible, but will require political action and we see no evidence of that action required to make it a soft landing.

I am in the second group. I think if people are willing to change lifestyles early on, we will have soft landing. If they wait for economics to make them change, then it will be a hard landing.

[RiverRat]

Another consideration is the fact that FFV's (E85) have an approx 20% lower mpg rating than traditional gasoline vehicles.

mpg comparison

[clv101]

BiGG, so how does all that mitigate the troubles caused by the loss of <$50 oil and expensive oil declining from 84 million barrels per day at 3-7% per year imminently and an economic system based on growth?

Many of your posts highlight good things - but nothing I've seen has looked like an energy source or behaviour that will allow us to avoid the mother of all crashes.

And even if peak oil can be mitigated... what about the 40% of global agriculture supported by irrigation from fossil aquifers? What about the global population growth? What about the increased CO2 concentration from burning the other half of the oil/gas and any more coal?

P.S. In all your ethanol threads it would be much clearer if you spoke in terms of millions of barrels per day rather than gallons per year, it would save having to divide all your figures by 15,330!

[0mar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BiGG', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', '"')........... in the absence of all that cheap oil is just wishful thinking, the data doesn't support it.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')razil 3.98 billion + United States 3.53 billion + China 964 million + India 462 million + France 219 million + Russia 110 million + South Africa 110 million + United Kingdom 106 million + Saudi Arabia 79 million + Spain 79 million + Thailand 74 million + Germany 71 million + Ukraine 66 million + Canada 61 million + Poland 53 million Indonesia 44 + Argentina 42 million + Italy 40 million + Australia 33 million + Japan 31 million + Pakistan 26 million + Sweden 26 million + Philippines 22 million + South Korea 22 million + Guatemala 17 million +Cuba 16 million + Ecuador 12 million + Mexico 9 million + Nicaragua 8 million + Mauritius 6 million + Zimbabwe 6 million Kenya 3 million + Swaziland 3 million + All others not listed 338 million!

[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nth', 'B')igg, I think you need to clarify yourself.
It sounds like you are advocating for solutions. Your solutions may or may not work, but what is important to make clear is that you are not stating that the current US lifestyle is sustainable. From what I read of yoru posts, you believed we will survive the PO, but we will be living a very different lifestyle. A lifestyle that is using very efficient use of energy and a lot less oil than we use today.

You are basically saying you see a soft landing.
There are many of us who believed in soft landing and then there are many of us who think soft landing is possible, but will require political action and we see no evidence of that action required to make it a soft landing.

I am in the second group. I think if people are willing to change lifestyles early on, we will have soft landing. If they wait for economics to make them change, then it will be a hard landing.

[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RiverRat', 'A')nother consideration is the fact that FFV's (E85) have an approx 20% lower mpg rating than traditional gasoline vehicles.

mpg comparison

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')hhhh … the simplicity of this. Why did no one think of this sooner?

I live in a rural/suburban area in Appalachia (steel and coal rust belt). The only public transportation is a very limited bus schedule route (operating only from 7:30am to 6:00pm).

No jobs available in the steel mill that I can walk to. There are no jobs available in the coal mines. The block plant I can see from my house isn’t hiring either. I’m forced to commute 50 miles to the outskirts of a large city to have game full employment.

The US of A is massive and spread out. The town I live in has aprox 1,500 people in it. The nearest grocery and hardware store is 9 miles away.

It's rather easy to say … ‘hey take the tram silly’… But in reality it isn’t that easy to do.

I’m just a byproduct of many years of poor community planning.

[eastbay]

There are approximately 350 000 hybrid cars on the road in the world today, out of a total of approximately 750 million cars. That's less than 0,05%. Not one percent. Not half a percent. But half of a hundredth of a percent.

Maybe someone already mentioned this, but actually it's a half of a 'tenth' of a percent. Just setting the record straight here.

EastBay

[BitterSweetCrude]

Enough about ethanol.

Scientists have already conducted peer-reviewed studies that conclude six units of energy is required to get one unit worth of energy in ethanol

http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/0305/patzek.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..

"Limiting yourself to the energy balance, and within that balance, just the fossil fuel used, is just scraping the surface of the problem," he says. "Corn is not 'free energy.'"

Recently, Patzek published a fifty-page study on the subject in the journal Critical Reviews in Plant Science. This time, he factored in the myriad energy inputs required by industrial agriculture, from the amount of fuel used to produce fertilizers and corn seeds to the transportation and wastewater disposal costs. All told, he believes that the cumulative energy consumed in corn farming and ethanol production is six times greater than what the end product provides your car engine in terms of power.

Patzek is also concerned about the sustainability of industrial farming in developing nations where surgarcane and trees are grown as feedstock for ethanol and other biofuels. Using United Nations data, he examined the production cycles of plantations hundreds of billions of tons of raw material.

...

[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', 'B')iGG, so how does all that mitigate the troubles caused by the loss of <$50 oil and expensive oil declining from 84 million barrels per day at 3-7% per year imminently and an economic system based on growth?

Many of your posts highlight good things - but nothing I've seen has looked like an energy source or behaviour that will allow us to avoid the mother of all crashes.

And even if peak oil can be mitigated... what about the 40% of global agriculture supported by irrigation from fossil aquifers? What about the global population growth? What about the increased CO2 concentration from burning the other half of the oil/gas and any more coal?

P.S. In all your ethanol threads it would be much clearer if you spoke in terms of millions of barrels per day rather than gallons per year, it would save having to divide all your figures by 15,330!

[RiverRat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BiGG', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RiverRat', 'A')nother consideration is the fact that FFV's (E85) have an approx 20% lower mpg rating than traditional gasoline vehicles.

mpg comparison

[RiverRat]

Starvid...$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ure, for some people there are no alternative to cars. But for most there is. More than 50 % of the global population is urban, and that level is even higher in the industrialized countries. No one who lives in a city needs a car if proper arrangements have been made. And if they haven't been made already, they will when fuel gets expensive.

[BiGG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BitterSweetCrude', 'E')nough about ethanol.

Scientists have already conducted peer-reviewed studies that conclude six units of energy is required to get one unit worth of energy in ethanol

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RiverRat', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')’m obviously in the bottom 50 percentile because I do not have the ability to access public transit on a whim.

[nth]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BitterSweetCrude', 'E')nough about ethanol.

Scientists have already conducted peer-reviewed studies that conclude six units of energy is required to get one unit worth of energy in ethanol

http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/0305/patzek.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..

"Limiting yourself to the energy balance, and within that balance, just the fossil fuel used, is just scraping the surface of the problem," he says. "Corn is not 'free energy.'"

Recently, Patzek published a fifty-page study on the subject in the journal Critical Reviews in Plant Science. This time, he factored in the myriad energy inputs required by industrial agriculture, from the amount of fuel used to produce fertilizers and corn seeds to the transportation and wastewater disposal costs. All told, he believes that the cumulative energy consumed in corn farming and ethanol production is six times greater than what the end product provides your car engine in terms of power.

Patzek is also concerned about the sustainability of industrial farming in developing nations where surgarcane and trees are grown as feedstock for ethanol and other biofuels. Using United Nations data, he examined the production cycles of plantations hundreds of billions of tons of raw material.

...