The Energy Bulletin - Transport
ODAC Newsletter - Nov 18
US oil prices rose this week on news that the glut of crude stocks at Cushing Oklahoma, which has depressed the benchmark WTI contract for months, may soon be drained. Enbridge is to buy the Seaway pipeline which runs from the Houston area to Cushing, and plans to reverse its flow.
From Totnes with love
The ambition of this volume is the aspiration that motivates the whole Transition movement: nothing less than to remake industrial civilization from the bottom up and from the local level.
Changing streets - Nov 16
-A farewell to pavements
-WikiLane - How citizens built their own bicycle network
-Local Economic Implications of Urban Bicycle Networks
Triple-Digit Oil Prices Block Growth & Investments Before "Petro-collapse"
Today's show features two guests who were at last week's Truth in Energy conference of the US chapter of ASPO, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, in Washington, DC. Jeff Rubin, is former Chief Economist at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and the author of Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. He explains why the price of oil the US media report is $25 too low, why today's triple-digit oil prices show that the days of low unemployment and 3% economic growth are over, and warns that 30-year US Treasury bonds are not as safe an investment as many people think. Jan Lundberg went from being an oil-industry analyst at Lundberg Survey to a self-described "eco-warrior" fighting petroleum pollution, car culture and sprawl development. He writes at Culture Change and promotes sail transport of freight.
Review: Songs of Petroleum by Jan Lundberg and Diamonds in my Pocket by Amanda Kovattana
At first glance, Jan Lundberg and Amanda Kovattana seem like unlikely kindred spirits. He’s a former oil analyst turned whistleblower and rock musician, while she’s a British-educated Thai émigré who makes her living helping people become organized. Yet their similarities run deep, beginning with a profound concern for the planet and a flair for writing. Indeed, both are indispensable contributors to one of the top news sites on energy and the environment, Energy Bulletin. Both also happen to be accomplished memoirists, and their memoirs offer rare insights into family relationships, the vicissitudes of wealth and the quandary of being an environmentalist in an environmentally apathetic age.
The peak oil crisis: the energy trap
The idea of the "energy trap" is that an increasing number of Americans are caught between the cost of gasoline and a systemic inability to stop driving their cars. In the last 60 years America has become a "motorized society" in which most of our citizens have become totally dependent on daily travel by car for their existence. Take away our cars and most of us would be hard pressed to reorganize our lives to provide for the essentials of life - earn an income, and provide food, shelter, and education for ourselves and our families.
Solutions & responses - Oct 22
- Video of modern dance piece inspired by John Michael Greer's The Long Descent
- Design for an amphibious house enables occupants to cope with rising water levels in Thailand
- Drive a Car in the City? Time to Embrace Bike Infrastructure
- Design with the Other 90%: Cities
Lessons from a surprise bike town
It came as a surprise to many when Bicycling magazine last year named Minneapolis, Minnesota as America’s “#1 Bike City,” (unseating Portland, Oregon, which had claimed the honor for many years). Shock that the heartland could outperform cities on the coasts was matched by widespread disbelief that biking was even possible in a state famous for its ferocious winters.
“Slow Travel” can provide a more enjoyable and sustainable ride
Long-haul trains provide Americans with at least one other option to the frenzied and frustrating tangle of our airports and freeways. And, passengers can witness the fantastic landscapes of our country unavailable to them when they fly 500 miles per hour at 30,000 feet or drive 70 on the superhighways. "Slow Travel” is as aesthetically pleasing and romantic as the Slow Food movement has been because it encourages people to notice and savor the landscape.
The Hubbert hurdle: revisiting the Fermi Paradox
We have a well known problem called the "Fermi Paradox". If all those extra-terrestrial civilizations exist, then could they develop interstellar travel? If there are so many of them, why aren't they here?
Tim O'Reilly may have been the first to note, in 2008, that the Hubbert curve may be relevant for the Fermi paradox. Because of the non linearity of the curve, no matter what resources are being used, a civilization literally "flares up" and then subsides, being able to maintain the highest level of energy production only for a very short time. This phenomenon that we might call "The Hubbert Hurdle" may be very general and make industrial civilizations in the galaxy to be very short-lived.
Transition & solutions - Oct 2
- The Transition movement: Today Totnes... tomorrow the world ( UK Independent)
- The Rise of Urban Biking (The Nation)
- The Resilient Library
- Feeding the world requires "a new paradigm” (Swiss ag conference)
The peak oil crisis: Adaptive technology
Significant technological advances rarely make eye-catching headlines as they come from many small advances involving numerous scientific disciplines. However, every now and again it becomes clear that progress is being made.
Two wheels good - Sept 7
- NYC: Getting a ticket for not riding in the bike lane (video)
- The Economist: America is no place for cyclists
- Perception vs. reality in ‘bike-friendly’ San Francisco
From crushing distance to opening space - a meditation on speed and local consciousness
We do not really cease being drivers when we step from our vehicles. Like television, automobile travel strengthens some of the more pernicious habits of the egoic mind. Bottom line: motor travel is addictive, and the effects of the addiction are likely to persist even if we can no longer afford to drive.
The peak oil crisis: a billion vehicles
Last month Wards Auto published a story pointing out that the world's motor vehicle count was now over 1 billion. This milestone is a good opportunity to ponder just where transportation is going in the next 25 years and beyond. There are of course many unknowns to this question, but trends are already in place.
Review: Life Without Oil by Steve Hallett With John Wright
“Imagining a world without oil” describes in stark detail what might happen if one day the world decided to decommission all its oil tankers, rigs, pipelines and strategic reserves. The authors, environmental scientist Steve Hallett and journalist John Wright, expect that we’d initially see sky-high prices and long lines at pumps. After a few weeks, fuel wouldn’t be had at any price and even first-world citizens would struggle to stay fed and out of the elements. This is no Hollywood doomsday scenario—it’s a levelheaded extrapolation from current trends in the fast deteriorating world energy situation. [An essay prefiguring the book originally appeared in The Washington Post.]
MPG for Electric Cars?
A typical efficient car in the U.S. market gets about 40 MPG (miles per gallon) running on gasoline. A hybrid car like the Prius typically gets 50–55 MPG. In a previous post, we looked at the physics that determines these numbers. As we see more and more plug-in hybrid or pure electric cars on the market, how do we characterize their mileage performance in comparison to gasoline cars? Do they get 100 MPG? Can they get to 200? What does it even mean to speak of MPG, when the "G" stands for gallons and a purely electric car does not ingest gallons? This post addresses these questions.
ODAC Newsletter - Aug 26
The war in Libya entered the endgame this week: fighting continues, and fierce pockets of resistance remain, but oil companies are already queuing up to get back into action. Estimates vary on how quickly, and indeed whether Libya can return to its 2010 production capacity.
Gas from the Past: Biogas 101
Most people who follow renewable energy have heard of biogas by now, yet the origins and uses of biogas remain mysterious to many.
South Pacific islanders revive sail power with traditional fleet on tour
"We are a group of Pacific Islanders who have come together from many nations, sailing as one across the Pacific Ocean. We are voyaging to strengthen our ties with the sea, renew our commitment to healthy ecosystems for future generations, and to honour our ancestors who have sailed before us."