[alecifel]

The best way to sum up is look at the cost.

Cost is the total of all inputs of materials, equipment, energy and labor plus overhead and profit. The more intensive a project is, the more it costs.

One mile of new railroad track (modern Class I standards for heavy freight and high-speed passenger service) is $7 million per mile.

One mile of 4-lane divided asphalt highway: $11 million per mile.

Maintenance on railway trackage is $15k per mile per year.

I don't know the figures on highway maintenance, but I know the work is nearly nonstop.

Once you factor in the significant efficiency gains, rail is the only way to go.

[frankthetank]

Yee haw! We're driving less...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a sign that Americans are curbing their driving in the face of record-high gasoline prices, data released on Friday showed highway miles driven in March fell 4.3 percent from a year earlier, the first March decline since the last major oil shock in the late 1970s.

According to the Department of Transportation, Americans drove 11 billion miles less in March 2008 than a year earlier, the first time estimated travel on public roads fell in March since 1979.

The data marks the sharpest year-on-year drop for any month in the history of the agency's reporting, which dates back to 1942.

[vision-master]

City diving during the day is a zoo. Why can't a have a nice peaceful cycle ride during working hours. It's nutz. Don't matter what street, cars, cars, cars! Can't these ppl stay home.

[Heineken]

There is only limited room for mileage to decline before this segues into the greatest economic depression the world has ever known.

[frankthetank]

Yup. I notice the same thing. Some might be to local road work, but i've noticed a lot of heavy traffic lately in town. This must include semi traffic too? I'm guessing thats way down with $5 diesel?

[joeltrout]

Am I the only one here that truly believes demand destruction will postpone peak oil a little while longer.

This is only the beginning of demand destruction. Wait till the subsidies are pulled in Asia.

joeltrout

[Heineken]

Demand destruction can and will happen, at a terrible cost.

But the peak as formally defined appears to be here.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joeltrout', 'A')m I the only one here that truly believes demand destruction will postpone peak oil a little while longer.

This is only the beginning of demand destruction. Wait till the subsidies are pulled in Asia.

joeltrout

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joeltrout', 'A')m I the only one here that truly believes demand destruction will postpone peak oil a little while longer.

This is only the beginning of demand destruction. Wait till the subsidies are pulled in Asia.

joeltrout

[pup55]

The EIA says there was a decrease in gasoline supplied from 376288 thousand gallons per day in 2007 to 363214 in 2008, which is a decrease of only about 3.5%.

So that means that if there was a 4.5% decrease in miles, and a 3.5% decrease in fuel, the fleet became less efficient during that period.

The feds have not posted a lot of the March data in their spreadsheets yet so I cannot get into this in more detail.

Also, this might come down to issues like weather variability from year to year, or differences in the number of weekend days which would cause less commuting. Example: There were 22 commuting days in March 2007 compared to 21 commuting days in March 2008.

That's about a 4.5% decrease in the amount of commuting.

[jlw61]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'T')he EIA says there was a decrease in gasoline supplied from 376288 thousand gallons per day in 2007 to 363214 in 2008, which is a decrease of only about 3.5%.

So that means that if there was a 4.5% decrease in miles, and a 3.5% decrease in fuel, the fleet became less efficient during that period.

[joeltrout]

Think about all the things that could easily be stopped and add a lot of fuel to our markets.


Summer Boating: Thousands of boats pack the oceans, rivers, and lakes for "leisure" boating. I don't know the MPG of boats but it can't be good.

Afternoon/Weekend Drives: Many Americans enjoyed driving out in the country, along the coast, or out to eat. That is not going to happen with $4 gas.

Driving Fast and/or Large Vehicles: People are going to stop driving fast which wastes a lot of gas. Also we know people are downsizing in vehicles.

Vacation Traveling: People are staying close to home and not traveling buy car or air like they have historically. I think the numbers will surprise many after memorial weekend.

These are just a few off the top of my head that could save a lot of fuel.

joeltrout

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joeltrout', 'A')m I the only one here that truly believes demand destruction will postpone peak oil a little while longer.

This is only the beginning of demand destruction. Wait till the subsidies are pulled in Asia.

joeltrout

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joeltrout', 'T')hink about all the things that could easily be stopped and add a lot of fuel to our markets.


Summer Boating: Thousands of boats pack the oceans, rivers, and lakes for "leisure" boating. I don't know the MPG of boats but it can't be good.

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '
')
I can tell you first hand that boat traffic has fallen off the map.

Last weekend we had beautiful weather. The sea was like glass and the sun was shining. Normally on days like this people go out on their boats.

And yet...my dad and I were practically the only people in all of Boston Harbor.

It didn't surprise me in the slightest. A boat like ours (32 foot Searay Sundancer) burns 20 gallons per hour at high speed.

[LittleBoPeak]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joeltrout', '
')Driving Fast and/or Large Vehicles: People are going to stop driving fast which wastes a lot of gas. Also we know people are downsizing in vehicles.
joeltrout

[TheDude]

Trim away enough VMT and we'd save millions of barrels of oil, sure. It'll play hell with the economy, though. I'm always wondering which will win. There's so many businesses that are dependent on people hopping in their cars to drive over and spend some cash - Kunster's big theme.

Have you read Kunstler, joel? He rubs a lot of people the wrong way but his fundamental message about the layout of suburbia and our dependence on cheap fuel is irrefutable, unless you're fixated on various technofix/free market fairies.

Even (especially?) with jumbo demand destruction I still expect PO to be undeniably evident, and a gallows set up in Congress by infuriated voters who are going to be doubleplus pissed that nothing was done to prevent this.

[dohboi]

For every example of demand destruction, I'm afraid there is a much more powerful feedback pushing the other direction:

--Speculation as the market realizes there will be ever-less oil available for ever

--hoarding as the same PO awareness sets in

--oil-rich countries deciding to leave their crude in the ground, since it will inevitably be worth more tomorrow than today

--exporting countries deciding they will use their increasingly precious fluids at home rather than shipping it off to other countries

--increasingly acidic heavy sour crude wreaking havoc with pipelines and refinery infrastructure--ever more ruptures, explosions, shut-downs (see related thread)

--low- and high-grade wars and terrorism

--vandalism and theft
.
.
.

Any one of these, short term, would raise (and has raised) the price of oil significantly. We will see all of these and more with greater and greater frequency on the way down the slope (or more like the cliff).

Maybe demand destruction will cut into this some times for short intervals, but not by much and not for long. You're still assuming that the mechanisms that worked fairly well on the up-slope will work post-peak, but they probably won't.

We've gone from $10/bbl to $135 in eight years in a roughly exponential curve. At every turn, every mainstream (that is PO-unaware) analyst insisted that it would not go much higher or would fall back a good bit because of demand destruction. But the price just kept on going up, with only rare and increasingly temporary dips and pauses.

We're on the other side of the looking glass. Demand destruction can only really lower price in any meaningful. long-term sense if there is supply waiting at the other end. But supply is always shrinking now, for ever.

If some brave and powerful leader could convince all of our sorry asses to really treat this as if we were in a state of all-out war, slashing vehicle use by 95% as they did during WWII in England, then yes, we would get ahead of the curve for a while. But do you see that happening?

Not with a bunch of dizzy economists constantly clamoring that the government needn't ever do anything because the magic of the market will fix all perfectly every time.

By the way, saying demand destruction will postpone collapse, is really saying, "Someone else's collapse will postpone my collapse." Let's try to speak more honestly about these brutal realities.

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '
')Have you read Kunstler, joel? He rubs a lot of people the wrong way but his fundamental message about the layout of suburbia and our dependence on cheap fuel is irrefutable, unless you're fixated on various technofix/free market fairies.

[NeoPeasant]

I predicted this three years ago. Conventional wisdom is running 3:1 that I'm an idiot.

My Longbet