Energy shortsightedness

[billvon 3,131]

Two stories appearing today:
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Gas jumps 8 cents, back near record high

Surge in crude oil pushes pump prices up to average $2.21 a gallon; more increases may be coming.

June 26, 2005: 4:21 PM EDT

ATLANTA (CNN) - Gasoline prices are back on the rise, reversing a two-month decline, according to a survey released Sunday.

The average of price of a gallon of self-serve regular jumped eight cents to $2.21 a gallon -- just 7 cents below the all-time high that was set on April 8, the Lundberg Survey found.

Publisher Trilby Lundberg said the biggest reason was the rising price of crude oil, which set an all-time high on Friday -- the same day gasoline prices were surveyed at about 7,000 stations nationwide.

. . . .

She said world oil demand is behind the rise in oil prices. Supply is plentiful. Even with the rising prices, U.S. demand for gasoline has surged.


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'Tough conference' ahead for energy bill
Senate set to pass bill next week

Friday, June 24, 2005; Posted: 1:07 p.m. EDT (17:07 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate neared completion of a sweeping national energy agenda late Thursday that would promote conservation and environmentally friendly fuels. But senators rejected a last-minute bid to substantially raise automobile fuel economy over the next decade.

. . .

Late Thursday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, tried to put into the bill a provision that would require a nearly 50 percent increase in automobile fuel economy to a fleet average of 40 miles per gallon over the next decade.

. . .

But Durbin's proposal failed 67-28. Instead, the Senate passed an industry-friendly fuel economy amendment that does not call for any new federal standards.

[Rookie120 0]

I think people buying fuel efficient cars will shift auto makers to build them faster than Congress passing another bill. I know that I myself will be looking at fuel economy when I buy a new car probably in the next year or so. I get descent mileage now but there is stuff out there that get a lot better. I just dont know how a family can stand to pay to fill up a Suburban 2-3 times a week. I feel sorry for them! I thought my little Ranger was bad.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[billvon 3,131]

>I think people buying fuel efficient cars will shift auto makers to
>build them faster than Congress passing another bill.

CAFE works; cars have gotten more efficient over the years. Demand doesn't; the average fuel economy has been going down over the past twenty years since there's an SUV loophole that exempts them from the same efficiency and safety standards that cars meet.

>I just dont know how a family can stand to pay to fill up a
>Suburban 2-3 times a week.

If they can afford to buy a Suburban generally they will have less trouble paying for gas.

[quade 4]

It's difficult for me to respond to this without asking myself a question similar to, "Which came first; the chicken or the egg?"

I find it difficult to ask myself that question because it means that we have people in our government that are either contributing to the issue, are outright causing the issue or simply too stupid to recognise the issue.

When I see the elected leader of our country actually holding hands with a person that is simultaneously a leader of the country who's citizens attacked us on September 11, 2001 and one of the most important oil producing countries of the world, I have to question what I'm seeing.

But I suppose it's a family thing. His father did it too.

I am not surprised at the increase in oil prices.

I am surprised that most of the country is apathetic about it.

To all the folks that voted for GWB the first time, I guess I can forgive you because you probably didn't really understand what you where doing.

To all those same folks that voted for him the second time; are you freekin' happy now?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Rookie120 0]

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CAFE works; cars have gotten more efficient over the years. Demand doesn't; the average fuel economy has been going down over the past twenty years since there's an SUV loophole that exempts them from the same efficiency and safety standards that cars meet.

Yeah but gas was .95 a gallon or right around $1. I think $2.25 a gallon has got a lot of people checking there priorities. I know when I bought my F-150 Supercrew I didnt give a damn about gas mileage. 11mpg if I was lucky by the way. But now thats one of the first things I'm looking at when I go to the dealership.

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If they can afford to buy a Suburban generally they will have less trouble paying for gas.

Good point. If you can afford a $50,000 car $60 to fill it up might not be that much of a concern. I know if I still had my Supercrew I would be a pissed off puppy everytime I had to shove $60 to fill it up.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[billvon 3,131]

> I know when I bought my F-150 Supercrew I didnt give a damn
> about gas mileage. 11mpg if I was lucky by the way. But now thats
> one of the first things I'm looking at when I go to the dealership.

Yes; that's the way it's supposed to work. But what I'm worried about is the basic math. Our oil usage is increasing exponentially and our supply is running out. If it follows our production rates it will look like a bell curve, with a peak and a tail as wells begin to run dry. If we rely on nothing but capitalism to balance supply and demand, we may see spikes that make the spikes now look like nothing - on the order of $10 a gallon for gas.

Now, if that happens over 20 years, no problem. Within 10 years there will be cheap cars that get 120mpg, and within another 10 you will almost certainly buy another car that gets great mileage. Same thing for the other transportation industries like airlines, rail, trucking etc. There are a lot of ways to improve efficiencies in all those areas.

But if you plot an exponential curve on top of a bell curve (i.e. demand over supply) the problem is they almost match for a while. Then they start to diverge. And very quickly, the difference increases even faster than an exponential curve. That means, for capitalist forces alone to work, gas has to become so expensive that most people can't afford it. That will destroy our economy, and that's where (I fear) we are headed now.

An even worse spectre is the idea that the government will get involved. Can't you see it now? "Gas is $5 a gallon! I can't get my family to the in-laws! When is government going to DO SOMETHING about the greedy gouging fill-up stations? There ougtha be a law against that." And 1970's-era price caps will be implemented, which will rapidly result in almost no one having any gas. It's one thing to have to spend $5 a gallon to get to work; quite another to not be able to get gas at any price.

To avoid all this, I think we have to start working very hard on energy efficiency. To make this work via capitalism, we could tax gas very heavily, then reduce taxes as it becomes more expensive to 'smooth out' the peak. No politician will ever support this.

Another option is CAFE, which puts the requirement on the car companies to average a certain MPG. If they aren't meeting it, either they have to sell more-efficient SUV's at competitive prices (and eat the difference) or they have to sell their super-efficient small cars more cheaply (again, eating the difference.) This raises the price on the rest of their cars slightly to offset the difference. So the cheapest cars get cheaper and the most wasteful cars get more expensive. This flies politically, because some cars actually get cheaper, and it accomplishes the goal without direct taxes.

[kallend 2,175]

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CAFE works; cars have gotten more efficient over the years. Demand doesn't; the average fuel economy has been going down over the past twenty years since there's an SUV loophole that exempts them from the same efficiency and safety standards that cars meet.

Yeah but gas was .95 a gallon or right around $1. I think $2.25 a gallon has got a lot of people checking there priorities. I know when I bought my F-150 Supercrew I didnt give a damn about gas mileage. 11mpg if I was lucky by the way. But now thats one of the first things I'm looking at when I go to the dealership.

.

Well, that's a major part of the problem, isn't it. An inefficient vehicle may look fine when gas is $0.95/gal, BUT that car may last 15 years after the purchase had been made without ever considering the long term fuel situation. The time scale of fuel cost fluctuations is so out of line with vehicle lifetimes that rational decision making by consumers can't be expected. CAFE standards are of great benefit here.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Rookie120 0]

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and our supply is running out.

I have to disagree with this one. I have an uncle who works for----Lets just say he works for a pretty large oil company and from what he has told me since I usually gripe at him all the time about his job is there are so many place they know where oil can be drilled but they cant touch it. Places like th Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and a bunch of other places I have never heard of. I have no doubt that we are in deep stuff with this problem but I think economy and cafe standard alone is not the solution, a great start but not a firm solution.

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Same thing for the other transportation industries like airlines, rail, trucking etc. There are a lot of ways to improve efficiencies in all those areas.

I work in the airline industry and when it comes down to jet engines and fuel efficiency I do believe the engineers at GE and Pratt&Whitney have pretty much wrung everything they can out of a jet. If people actually knew how much jet-A an airliner sucks there would be an uproar across the nation. It's pretty sick when I think about it.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[justinb138 0]

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I work in the airline industry and when it comes down to jet engines and fuel efficiency I do believe the engineers at GE and Pratt&Whitney have pretty much wrung everything they can out of a jet. If people actually knew how much jet-A an airliner sucks there would be an uproar across the nation. It's pretty sick when I think about it.

True, but from the Airbus website:

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The A380’s high level of weight-saving composite materials helps make it a highly fuel-efficient aircraft – it burns 12 percent less fuel than its competitor, reducing exhaust emissions. Indeed, the A380 will be the first long-haul aircraft to consume less than three litres of fuel per passenger over 100 km, a rate comparable to an economical family car.

[kallend 2,175]

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I work in the airline industry and when it comes down to jet engines and fuel efficiency I do believe the engineers at GE and Pratt&Whitney have pretty much wrung everything they can out of a jet.

What exactly are your engineering qualifications to make such a bold statement?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 3,131]

>I have to disagree with this one.

No one in the industry questions that we will run out. It's just not a sane thing to say. No new oil is being made, and we are using it at astronomical rates. It's like driving 200 miles on a tank of gas, and then concluding "if we haven't run out after 200 miles we never will!"

Estimates vary from 2 to 25 years to the Hubbert Peak, which is the point at which production starts declining no matter what we do. We already had one here in the US. Production rose and is now declining. It will never rise again. Not because there are no new reserves, but because the big ones are running out so fast that even drilling all the known reserves won't cancel out the decline in the big ones.


>I work in the airline industry and when it comes down to jet engines
> and fuel efficiency I do believe the engineers at GE and
> Pratt&Whitney have pretty much wrung everything they can out of
>a jet.

I would disagree with that. One of the primary limitations in the efficiency of a jet engine is what sort of temperatures the turbine blades and combustion chambers can handle. As materials improve, so will jet engine efficiencies.

But there are far more ways to increase efficiency than just making more efficient jet engines. Aircraft designs continue to become more efficient. Materials become lighter. Computers become better at optimizing in-flight efficiency. The more fuel costs, the more aggressive they will be with developing these new technologies.

Heck, we could, today, make a jet engine powered by a small nuclear core. It would likely look like a DC-10, with one tail-mounted heavily shielded nuclear engine and two smaller jet engine for takeoff and emergency thrust. The engine would carry around 200 lbs of isotopes and would run without new fuel for 10 years or so.

Would we ever do that? Probably not, primarily for proliferation reasons. But the option are there if we want to pursue them. It is best to pursue them now while we have the money, rather than later after fuel costs have ruined the economy. Then there will be no money for such "extravagant wastes" as air travel.

[Rookie120 0]

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The A380’s high level of weight-saving composite materials helps make it a highly fuel-efficient aircraft – it burns 12 percent less fuel than its competitor, reducing exhaust emissions. Indeed, the A380 will be the first long-haul aircraft to consume less than three litres of fuel per passenger over 100 km, a rate comparable to an economical family car.

Very true, I was talking about the engine itself. The airframe's are lighter which in turn engines dont have to work as hard unless the plane in loaded with cargo and grossed out on weight.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[Rookie120 0]

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What exactly are your engineering qualifications to make such a bold statement?

When I asked one of the R&D on engineers for the CF-34 who was in our hanger last month. Thats what he told me about a lot of there engines at this time.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[Rookie120 0]

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Heck, we could, today, make a jet engine powered by a small nuclear core. It would likely look like a DC-10, with one tail-mounted heavily shielded nuclear engine and two smaller jet engine for takeoff and emergency thrust. The engine would carry around 200 lbs of isotopes and would run without new fuel for 10 years or so.

That would be neat to see, kinda scary because you know one of them are gonna crash and I hate to see the fallout from that one.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[jkm2500 0]

Why aren't we pursuing ethanol production as a strong alternative to gas. It makes more sense to use a renewable resource, and it won't put the gas companies out of business considering that most ethanol is denatured. SO why not run 75% gasohol? That provides jobs for people right here in the US, keeps the money here in the US, Doesn't it make sense?

The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

[Rookie120 0]

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Why aren't we pursuing ethanol production as a strong alternative to gas.

I just read an article that congress was about to pass a bill requiring 10% ethanol by 2010. I think thats kick ass. should make the farmers really happy. I hope it passes. I wonder what it will do to the price of gas a gallon.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[jkm2500 0]

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I just read an article that congress was about to pass a bill requiring 10% ethanol by 2010.

I think that 10% is way too little too late. But I dont know enough about it yet. Ethanol producers in the US can double production at any given moment, and that is just the beginning. We should be pushing for way more than 10% by 2010.

GM is working on the hydrogen angle of things. How is that a viable alternative? I dont know of an economical way to produce hydrogen, but I dont claim to be an expert either.

The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

[billvon 3,131]

>Why aren't we pursuing ethanol production as a strong alternative
>to gas.

Mainly because we don't have enough. We'd need to convert a significant part of the US (like on the order of 20-25% of the total amount of land area) to cropland to make enough fuel even if you're very, very optimistic about how efficient the process can be. And we don't have enough water or fertilizer (which is made with natural gas) to grow that much corn/sugar beet/rapeseed. It is a good alternative though, one that could make a dent in oil consumption if we pushed hard.

>SO why not run 75% gasohol?

I run my car on 40-50% ethanol now and it seems to work fine. I'd be all for a law that required new vehicles to be FFV's (i.e. run on any gas/alcohol mix up to 85% alcohol.) Like I said, it wouldn't solve the problem, but would give us one additional option to postpone the inevitable.

[jkm2500 0]

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I run my car on 40-50% ethanol now and it seems to work fine. I'd be all for a law that required new vehicles to be FFV's (i.e. run on any gas/alcohol mix up to 85% alcohol.) Like I said, it wouldn't solve the problem, but would give us one additional option to postpone the inevitable.

What kind of fuel economy do you get when you run this mixture?
Where is this amount available?
What is the cost?

I know that in the long run it would be cheaper for the individual to convert to ethanol. But I dont know what the cost is right now.

Here is a crazy idea: We have pipelines to run oil, why not pipe water in from the oceans to produce the agriculture? We wouldnt be producing the crops to be consumed, just processed. Ok next: It has been said(and I could take a while to find a link) that corn can be used twice in the production of ethanol. Once in the distilling process, then it is viable as feed for livestock. Which is turned into manure, which could be used as fertilizer.

Feasible?

efficient?

economical?

The primary purpose of the Armed Forces is to prepare for and to prevail in combat should the need arise.

[diverborg 0]

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I know that in the long run it would be cheaper for the individual to convert to ethanol. But I dont know what the cost is right now.

Actually, ethanol is quite a bit more expensive than gasoline right now. The only reason its cheaper at the pump is because of government subsidization. I personally think we need another solution besides ethanol. For the amount of corn needed to produce ethanol and the cost of corn it would be quite the longshot for ethanol to ever be economical. Kelloggs will give a lot more money for that corn than we would be willing to spend to have it at the pump. Also ethanol is shit fuel. It burns hotter, and doesn't produce near the power of gasoline. It's only benefit is that it burns cleaner. We could never afford even 50% ethonal without government involvement. So we need to boycott Kelloggs, General Mills, and Quaker corn products and only eat cereal made from wheat or oats. This is the best way to bring the price of corn down so we can afford ethanol. OHH shit, I forgot our farmers will go bankrupt and won't even be able to afford to produce corn. Guess that won't work either.
Hmm, how about hydrogen? Anyone got any info on that?

[kallend 2,175]

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What exactly are your engineering qualifications to make such a bold statement?

When I asked one of the R&D on engineers for the CF-34 who was in our hanger last month. Thats what he told me about a lot of there engines at this time.

Choose a better engineer next time.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[IanHarrop 43]

I don't question that ethanol is more expensive in North America at this time but Brazil figured something out, so maybe we in North America should too.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1692361#1692361

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

[Gawain 0]

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>I think people buying fuel efficient cars will shift auto makers to
>build them faster than Congress passing another bill.

CAFE works; cars have gotten more efficient over the years. Demand doesn't; the average fuel economy has been going down over the past twenty years since there's an SUV loophole that exempts them from the same efficiency and safety standards that cars meet.

I have to disagree there. Toyota and Honda cannot build their hybrids fast enough. Ford has a viable hybrid Escape-SUV. Japan established and kept its foothold in the US market during the oil embargo in the 70s. American companies still don't get it. GM has no viable eco plan. Ford needs to be more agressive. DiamlerChrysler looks as though it will be concentrating on Diesel, a bad move in my opinion.

Market demand can drive private enterprise.

What is also shortsighted is this country's refusal to build more refineries. Jeez I wish people would wake up.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[Jimbo 0]

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What is also shortsighted is this country's refusal to build more refineries.

And why is it that we haven't built any new refineries?

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[billvon 3,131]

>I have to disagree there. Toyota and Honda cannot build their
>hybrids fast enough. Ford has a viable hybrid Escape-SUV. Japan
>established and kept its foothold in the US market during the oil
>embargo in the 70s.

Right - it took massive and sudden increases in gas prices to make that happen. After that period, car fuel economy started to go up as a result of CAFE requirements. But pretty quickly overall fuel economy went DOWN because SUV's were exempt from CAFE requirements.

Hybrids are great. But if everyone still buys Expeditions that get 17mpg, that will dominate the fuel efficiency picture.

>Market demand can drive private enterprise.

That's the primary driver. Market demand does not, however, take into account what's best in the long run. It just takes into account what's best right now, and the two are not generally the same.

>What is also shortsighted is this country's refusal to build more
>refineries. Jeez I wish people would wake up.

Why? The amount of oil there will be to process WILL go down. Why build more capacity? Would you add lanes to a highway near a military base that was being torn down in a few years, even if there were currently traffic jams?