Alternative oil in pictures

NB! There are no confidence intervals for those figures. If one was forced to make a guess based on best available data, the greenhouse reduction potential of ethanols would be greatly reduced. This all depends on production technology (how much oil, which ethanol source, where is cellulose shipped from, etc).

Further, reduction in greenhouse gases do not solve the problems that:

1. Many ethanols are energy losers (take in more fuel energy to make than give when burnt)
2. They do not scale to meet the rising liquid fuel demand (and the drop in oil production)

The Rape of the World

Tracy Chapman, over a video collage of our coming challenges (song from 1995, video from 2001).

Lyrics:

Mother of us all
Place of our birth
How can we stand aside
And watch the rape of the wold
This the beginning of the end
This the most heinous of crimes
This the deadliest of sins
The greatest violation of all time
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
We all are witness
To the rape of the world

You've seen her stripped mined
You've heard of bombs exploded - underground
You know the sun shines
Hotter than ever before
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
We all are witness
To the rape of the world

Some claim to have crowned her
A queen
With cities of concrete and steel
But there is no glory no honor
In what results
From the rape of the world
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
We all are witness
To the rape of the world

She has been clear-cut
She has been dumped on
She has been poisoned and beaten up
And we have been witness
To the rape of the world
Mother of us all
Place of our birth
How can we stand aside
And watch the rape of the world

If you look you'll see it with your own eyes
If you listen you will hear her cries
If you care you will stand and testify
And stop the rape of the world
Stop the rape of the world
Mother of us all
Mother of us all
Mother of us all
Mother of us all

A great song and a powerful performance, even if one doesn't agree with the message or the outlook.

The Death of the SUVs is only the beginning

Mike "Mish" Shedlock of the Mish's Global Economic Analysis blog fame has good commentary on the Boston Globe article about the death of SUVs. Finally American drivers are starting to see the light and are switching to more fuel efficient vehicles. This does not bode well for the already gasping American automakers, which can die for all we care. It's evolve or die. They have fought evolution for so many decades it was only fair if they went belly up. But of course they are politically too big to fail, but change their must and that change is going to be painful for them. They will have to dig up their old engineering books and start building aerodynamic, light, small, fuel efficient, low emission and safe cars. That will take some time, as after more than 50 years of reckless abandon in car design, they have probably not learned as much useful things as Toyota has forgotten about building good cars for the 21st century.

Now that American's are slowly starting to abandon the Stupid Useless Vehicle (aka SUV), will it change things in a material way?

The answer is a firm No.

US personal car fleet replacement rate is c. 2% per annum. The fastest car maker in the world (Toyota) has a product cycle of 7 years (from concept to production). Those slow down things a lot. The market share of hybrids is a paltry 3% of all cars sold in the US.

There are 300 million wasteful internal combustion cars in the USA. Changing 2% of USA car fleet to hybrids would cut oil consumption 1%, assuming all new cars sold were best-of breed hybrids and the old cars would actually be decommissioned from use and not sold as second hand cars, thus keeping within the car fleet pool (neither of which is going to happen, even if it's legislated as mandatory).

The worldwide oil depletion will be anything from 4-8% per annum once the final decline starts after the peak.

You do the math.

We are looking at death of more than just the SUVs.

If you drive a car, it's time you started preparing yourself mentally for the inevitable.

And no, no amount of hydrogen/biodiesel/electric/compressed air cars is going to change that equation on the mass scale. Yes, they will offer some local, temporal & small scale alternatives to some, but the world of driving is going to be a lot less congested in the 21st century.

Energy in pictures: Fossil vs Alternative energies

A sobering image from Vaclav Smil's article '21st Century Energy: Some sobering throughts' in OECD Observer 12/2006.

And another one about power density from the same source:

Screw Food, We need Oil!

Financial Times had an interesting piece about IEA warning that OECD countries should not
back off on biofuels:

"Biofuel production is critical to meeting current and future fuel demand in spite of its possible role in driving up food prices, the west's energy watchdog has warned.

The warning comes as the backlash from rocketing food prices has increased pressure on the European Union and the US to review their support of fuel made from crops.

The views of the IEA carry significant weight in Europe and the US and policymakers have warned that the debate about biofuels should take into account its implications for energy markets and climate change. The issue has been put on the agenda for the next G8 summit in July."

So, there you have it. Screw you guys, we need this food for our cars.