Peak Oil and the Great Recession

[amused]

America is a big country. We had relatives from England who wanted to come over, visit the Statue of Liberty one morning, see the Grand Canyon that afternoon, and the Golden Gate Bridge that evening. Um....no.

Because of the size, and the very low cost of gas up until the 1970s, we spread out. Suburban developments were easy and cheap. As transportation costs rise (both in terms of dollars and time) we see re-development of high density living spaces in the inner cities. That type of development alone can also reduce our dependency on all forms of energy.

I'm past the child-rearing age, so I just don't need or want a yard. I'm planning a move to DC, and Crystal City is the ideal setup, for me. High rise apartments over a subterranean mall with grocery stores and whatnot, and its own Metro station that can take me lots of places, including downtown. The cost to live there is higher by about the same factor as the cost of owning a car, so the economics are working 'correctly' too.

The technology to reduce our energy dependence also includes the technology of the built environment. But I'm an architect, so I would say that.

[Warren Dew]

I suppose one can do the math and figure out exactly what the energy budget is to move one pound of cargo from New York to Los Angeles at any reasonable overall efficiency to see how much energy we will need no matter what. There are practical limits to how efficient transportation can be while remaining practical after all.

From a theoretical standpoint, you could dig a tunnel straight through the earth from New York to Los Angeles, evacuate it, use superconducting magnetic suspension, and a load dropped in one end would come out the other in less than an hour, with zero energy cost, just using earth's gravity.

From a practical perspective, we can't dig such tunnels yet, and current superconducting magnets require active refrigeration. However, as technology advances, we should be able to get closer and closer to that ideal.

If we manage to come up with storage batteries that are as energy-dense and quickly recharged as diesel and a fuel tank, electric vehicles might become viable. I don't see that happening any time soon, and even if there is a breakthrough, we still have to PROVIDE the recharging power, and the infrastructure to serve a fleet of electric vehicles, which is going to be a huge cost to build and/or upgrade our present generating/distribution systems.

Long haul vehicles will require a lot of infrastructure and fully electric ones will be at least a decade down the line in the U.S. Fleet vehicles will be the quickest to convert, and fully electric vehicles are starting to make some inroads here. Commuting vehicles are somewhere in between, though for those with enough money, the Tesla roadster is available now.

Converting one form of energy to electricity stored in batteries is inherently wasteful. In Australia most electricity is generated by burning coal. People who think electric cars are more environmentally friendly than similar sized petrol powered ones are deluded.

We're not deluded, we just happen to know the facts.

The fact is, electrical power plants operate at close to their optimal efficiency all the time, just generating electricity constantly. In contrast, engines in motor vehicles generally operate at much lower than their optimal efficiency because they must be able to adjust to a range of different conditions.

A modern combined cycle gas plant can operate at a thermal efficiency of 60%; even a coal plant operates at 35-40%. You lose a few more percentage points due to the conversions you mention in an electric vehicle, but the overall efficiency is still in the range of 30-50%.

In contrast, a motor vehicle, under normal operating conditions, has a thermal efficiency of less than 20%, often less than 15%. A fully electric car is twice as efficient, even after the conversions.

That's not counting the fact that both hybrids and fully electric vehicles can use regenerative braking, which can recover up to 90% of the energy used for acceleration.

The bicycle is quite efficient. Within the short distances that comprise towns and most cities there is no need for motorised transport beyond emergency services and certain larger deliveries. Try telling a car driver that you'd think their balls are being cut off?

Actually motor scooters are probably more fuel efficient than the human beings powering the bicycles. The main reason automobiles are so inefficient relative to bicycling is because the autos weigh 20 times as much as their typical payloads.

I'm planning a move to DC, and Crystal City is the ideal setup, for me. High rise apartments over a subterranean mall with grocery stores and whatnot, and its own Metro station that can take me lots of places, including downtown. The cost to live there is higher by about the same factor as the cost of owning a car, so the economics are working 'correctly' too.

Crystal city must be quite a bit cheaper than it used to be, relative to, say, Alexandria.

[Hermit]

Converting one form of energy to electricity stored in batteries is inherently wasteful. In Australia most electricity is generated by burning coal. People who think electric cars are more environmentally friendly than similar sized petrol powered ones are deluded.

We're not deluded, we just happen to know the facts.

The fact is, electrical power plants operate at close to their optimal efficiency all the time, just generating electricity constantly. In contrast, engines in motor vehicles generally operate at much lower than their optimal efficiency because they must be able to adjust to a range of different conditions.

A modern combined cycle gas plant can operate at a thermal efficiency of 60%; even a coal plant operates at 35-40%. You lose a few more percentage points due to the conversions you mention in an electric vehicle, but the overall efficiency is still in the range of 30-50%.

In contrast, a motor vehicle, under normal operating conditions, has a thermal efficiency of less than 20%, often less than 15%. A fully electric car is twice as efficient, even after the conversions.

That's not counting the fact that both hybrids and fully electric vehicles can use regenerative braking, which can recover up to 90% of the energy used for acceleration.

I'd love to be proven wrong on the matter, and unfortunately I can't find the links to my assertion, but from what I read, the carbon footprint of moving a particular mass is larger for electric vehicles than those powered by reciprocal combustion engines. Not only is the chain of conversions from coal to electricity in the grid to battery stored electricity to movement more wasteful than from crude oil to movement (the complete "well to wheel" progression), but batteries need to be replaced altogether with new ones a lot more frequently than combustion engines.