by TonyPrep » Tue 08 Jan 2008, 05:21:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', '
')Nice chart Aaron. Really drives home how profoundly oil-dependent the US really is.
Very amusing, JD. You yourself posted figures on total energy use (not just electricity), of which oil was something between 35% and 37%, for the US, depending on which figures one uses.
By the way, I don't acknowledge your reprimand in the other thread, since you quoted my reply selectively. I didn't say that I hadn't done research, only that I didn't have the figures to hand. I actually don't have time to trawl through reams of information and haven't been keeping notes on what I've learned, as you seem to have done. Sure, you often post links to what you believe backs you up but not all of those do, as you quote selectively (as in the DOE report on the capability of the grid in supporting EVs) or don't post updated opinions (as in Stuart Staniford's articles).
On the question of scale, if you don't think scale is an issue, then why begin a thread that attempts to examine that very issue?
From the very figures that you have posted, we see that fossil fuels generate about 400 quads of the world's 462 quads of consumed energy. Clearly, scale is an issue that any alternatives should address.
So far, I think you've tried to portray the current energy situation and assumed that oil will decline at 3% in the early years of decline, that coal, natural gas and nuclear can easily take up that slack, provided there is a significant move to EVs, assuming that enough EVs are available and that people will be able to afford them. I don't think any of these assumptions are necessarily valid.
Coal may have already peaked in the US, in terms of energy content. As I showed from EIA figures, the energy derived from coal has been on a plateau in the US, for at least the last 10 years and the quantity of coal produced declined in the first 11 months of 2007, compared to the first 11 months of 2006. Others have pointed out that north American gas is near a plateau and we've read stories about Russia finding it difficult to honour their contracts without importing themselves. Nuclear can't just be ramped up in months or even a few years.
EVs may suffer from not having the production facilities to build as many as would be required and the take up may suffer from potential buyers not being able to offload their old ICE vehicles. In the early years of decline, the grid may be able to cope with an increase in EVs, but only if almost all of them were charged in off peak periods, though the DOE report showed concern that the grid could not take 24x7 heavy loading.
My question, in the other thread, about how long it would take for you to address the issue of scale was not to discourage you from doing so but to have you acknowledge that you have never addressed scale when debunking what peak oil theorists think of the effects of peak oil. You've acknowledged that indirectly, though never directly. And, by the way, I am not the only poster who called you on scale issue avoidance, before you started these threads.
