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Ending a Century of Oil Addiction


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ultimately, we can shoot it into space, back to the sun, i suppose

I don't think rockets would be cheap or reliable enough to allow that. However, a space elevator would be a different matter:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

 

It occurs to me that the space elevator project would be so monumental a breakthrough in transport that it would make a brilliant "for all Mankind" international collaboration to stop the emerging superpowers from otherwise wasting away the decades bickering over dwindling fossil reserves. The space elevator would be as great a breakthrough as long distance steam ships or safe air travel (actually, probably even more radical). We could send solar panels up and import vast quantities of electric power down to an Earth Grid. Of all the "alternative technologies", it's the only one of mesmerisingly vast ambition. That is, it would activate people onto a higher plane of existence than just taking the pay check and adding to shareholder value. Much like the Apollo programme.

 

By the time it's possibilities are appreciated, it will probably be too late.

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Imaginative thinking- that Space-elevator.

 

But i wouldnt want the cable rising over my roof. NIMBY's will have a field day with this idea

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THE BIKE will come back,

they were saying on this weekend's Big Picture, on Financial Sense (about 53 minutes in)

 

Curious isnt it?

10 years ago, the Chinese were on bikes, and Americans in cars.

In 10 years more, will it be the other way around?

 

The bike has been coming back since Richard's Bicycle Book in 1975. It's always about to come back. The reasons for it to come back are stronger than the reasons to cut people from smoking, but it still doesn't happen. Cycling levels have either stagated or fallen in every country in Europe in the last 15 years. In the UK we had something called the National Cycling Strategy established in 1996 to double cycle use by 2002 and double it again by 2012. The government has abandoned these targets, obviously. Cycling UK is lower now than it was in 1996.

 

Why does it never happen? Because cycling is not competently perceived by anyone - not by officialdom, not by doctors, not even by cyclists. The obsession with "danger" is everywhere. That obsession has absolutely no foundation in fact. Cyclists bear the same sort of (low) long term risks as drivers, and much reduced health risks. See here for a good paper:

 

http://www.networks.nhs.uk/uploads/06/09/wardlaw.pdf

 

Yet studies like these have had no effect at all on the popular caricature or official bigotry. Until that changes, cycling will never make a come back. There are too many little vanities and busybodies riding the "danger" bandwagon for their own agendas to allow it to happen. If cyclists themselves woke up to their self-inflicted situation, that would radically change the picture. I see no sign at all of it happening.

 

You notice that even with recognition of problems with oil supplies, there is no real effort made to exploit the potential of the bicycle for local transport. No one is brave enough to face down prevailing attitudes.

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The other problem is, America's military power will fade away slowly, as its economic power fades. Remember the fate of the Soviet Union?

 

You need go no further that Britain for an example of what not being able to economically sustain your military capability does to an empire.

 

Britain (with the exception of recent mistakes) also sets a good example of post imperial international relations, where power is interpreted as influence, rather than force.

 

You cannot lead those who will not follow you. Push and people reflexively push back. It's human nature. Even if you can subdue a population by force, you can never stop them planning your downfall.

 

Making people like you is a far wiser and more secure strategy, but it won't close too many Hollywood action sequences, so no-one in the White House understands it.

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You notice that even with recognition of problems with oil supplies, there is no real effort made to exploit the potential of the bicycle for local transport. No one is brave enough to face down prevailing attitudes.

 

I disagree. there are rare positive examples.

 

Friborg in Germany seems to be building some of its tranport around bicycles,

with multistory bicycle parking ares next to railway stations- an intelligent idea

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Making people like you is a far wiser and more secure strategy, but it won't close too many Hollywood action sequences, so no-one in the White House understands it.

 

that is a bit harsh.

Accurate about some members of the Bush adminstration maybe.

But not accurate with all politicians. The next president is bound to be more effective than Bush,

since he has set such a very low standard- worst President in living memory, and maybe ever.

There should be a ban on second generation presidents

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Ending the Oil Addiction: What will it take?

Abstract: World energy use is projected to increase by nearly 60% in the next 20 years. Oil currently supplies nearly 40% of the worlds energy yet most experts agree that the peak in oil production world wide will occur within the next 25 years (some say the peak occurred last year and we haven’t yet noticed!). Although oil will continue to flow for many years after the peak in production it is clear that new energy sources will need to be found to replace dwindling oil (and other fossil fuel) reserves. Leaving economics aside, this talk investigates this problem from a physical perspective, examining the possible sources and trade offs which will have to be made to insure a secure energy future for the world.

 

The talk (Power Point): Energy.ppt

 

A little bit longer talk with more graphs: EnergyT.ppt

 

@: http://physics.ius.edu/~kyle/K/Energy/Energy.html

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  • 1 month later...

US demand is not what has driven the Oil Price higher. It must be China and India, etc.

 

rcooke_oilreces_g1.gif

 

Thus, on a per capita and on a per household basis, oil consumption has been relatively inelastic since 1986. (For a discussion of elasticity see “The Elasticity of Oil Production and Consumption” . At this point in history, it will take a significant recession, an incredible shift of consumption to alternative fuels, or a deep transformation of lifestyle to bring down oil consumption.

 

The relationship between oil consumption, expenditures and recessions has been graphed in the chart below. Significant increases in the amount of money America spends on oil (1973, 1979, 1990 and 2000) have been followed by a recession. Yes. Other factors contributed to the decline in GDP that characterized these recessions. However, one can not escape a nagging fear that sharp increases in oil expenditures may cause a subsequent recession. The huge increases that occurred in 2004 and 2005 suggest the possibility of a coming recession in the 2007/2008 timeframe.

 

...more: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1275

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Dr B, you have been caught out in a schoolboy error. The charts show oil consumption per household, not overall. In fact the consumption of US oil has increased enormously over the last ten years, with increases in population and households. By comparison, even China and India together are (almost) modest.

 

I have read various interpretations of why the oil price has gone up. You could argue that it was rising demand, but you can also argue it was failing supply, such as the collapse in North Sea production, or the steady further decline of US production. Many countries peaked and went into decline between 1995 and 2005. I wish I could find the charts showing all this, they have all been posted at The Oil Drum over the last few years. There are so many things going on on both demand and supply side that it is hard to blame one thing. Why should a Chinaman buying his first car be any more to blame than an American scaling up to an SUV from a saloon?

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Dr B, you have been caught out in a schoolboy error. The charts show oil consumption per household, not overall. In fact the consumption of US oil has increased enormously over the last ten years, with increases in population and households. By comparison, even China and India together are (almost) modest.

 

 

Have you got the figures to back that up?

While in HK, i have seen figures suggesting huge growth in Chinese oil demnad.

Sure, the base is small, but with the rapid growth, it is usrely becoming meaningful.

 

For instance, China now has the world's second largest market for new automobiles,

behind the USA, but ahead of Japan. This was much much smaller 5 or 10 years ago

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Have you got the figures to back that up?

While in HK, i have seen figures suggesting huge growth in Chinese oil demnad.

Sure, the base is small, but with the rapid growth, it is usrely becoming meaningful.

 

For instance, China now has the world's second largest market for new automobiles,

behind the USA, but ahead of Japan. This was much much smaller 5 or 10 years ago

 

Yes, please follow this link to the EIA:

 

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mttupus2a.htm

 

As you can see, US consumption has increased by 15-20% over the last ten years. These data are I think more properly crude oil equivalent barrels per day. The US does not physically use 21 mb/d; much of it comes in as refined product or else natural gas liquids. I don't know how they levelise it all into crude oil equivalent.

 

Note that consumption fell by 20% between 1979 and 1984. The consumption of the late '70s was not seen again until after years of very cheap oil in the 1990s it got back up in 1997.

 

What this masks is the increase in US imports as domestic production has declined since the Hubbert Peak of 1971. At that time the US only imported about 1.5 mb/d. Today it imports the equivalent of 12mb/d. The increase just in the last ten years has been around 5 mb/d, which exceeds the combined increased imports of China and India (actually, Indian oil consumption is trivial).

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