Peak Oil Ponderings, Part I
07/15/08 18:59 Filed in: Peak Oil
Peak oil is one of the main
reasons Cycle 9 exists.
How could peak oil create a bike shop, one might wonder? And for that matter, what is peak oil?
Let’s start with what peak oil is not. Some media use hyperbole to make it sound like peak oil claims “we are running out of oil.” We are not running out of oil, there is still a lot of oil left.
What peak oil claims is that we will run out of easy to get oil, which implies we will run out of cheap oil.
Sounds like no big deal, we just pay a bit more and drive a bit less?
The problem comes from the structural dependency of our economy on cheap oil. Our food is transported mostly by truck, not by train. Our food is produced using large amounts of oil. Our cities are configured for automobile use, with far-flung suburbs and exurbs. Our cities are not structured for rail, biking, and walking (some of them used to be, but more recent extensions don’t take these into account). For example, in our “progressive” town of Carrboro, North Carolina, there are many places with no sidewalk whatsoever - just road. To walk means either walking in the roadway, or walking on the uneven lawn/gutter next to the road. The city is designed for cars, not for people. As are most american cities.
So, some people say, big deal, soon we’ll all drive electric cars. Well, that’s great, but there are hundreds of millions of cars right now that burn fossil fuel. Producing hundreds of millions of cars and getting them into people’s hands is no small task, especially as energy prices soar. Harder still is the question of where the energy in the electric grid will come from. The US car and truck fleet uses over 1 billion kilowatt hours per day (e.g. see here). That is the equivalent of 80 new 1 GW power plants, dumping power into an already strained grid (see stories about power outages and this article). This is a massive build-out of plants that usually take 10-15 years once regulatory hurdles are cleared. And if we’re talking nuclear, there will be major political hurdles. As for coal, too, because of greenhouse gas concerns. This is not making a political judgement, just saying that getting these kinds of projects approved will not be easy or quick, unless we are in an emergency situation, and then it is already very late in the game.
Lately we’ve heard a lot about the idea that oil is a “bubble” or that it is all due to “speculation”. While it is nice to blame the nameless/evil speculators, there is little evidence for that. On the contrary, there is one single chart that explains very simply why oil prices have gone so high:
This chart is all about oil exports from exporting countries. So, even though oil production has inched up a tiny bit over the last few years, exports are down. Why? Very simply, the big producing countries are using more and more of that oil themselves. In fact, Mexico, a major oil exporter to the US, is on track to reach zero exports to us as soon as 2010. Many other countries, including oil-rich Saudi Arabia, are consuming an ever greater fraction of the oil they produce, meaning less is available for export.
This at a time that India and China are growing rapidly and importing more.
Less supply, more demand - a simple equation that, in the absence of government intervention, leads to higher prices. And, what if government intervenes?
I’ll address that in Part II next week.
How could peak oil create a bike shop, one might wonder? And for that matter, what is peak oil?
Let’s start with what peak oil is not. Some media use hyperbole to make it sound like peak oil claims “we are running out of oil.” We are not running out of oil, there is still a lot of oil left.
What peak oil claims is that we will run out of easy to get oil, which implies we will run out of cheap oil.
Sounds like no big deal, we just pay a bit more and drive a bit less?
The problem comes from the structural dependency of our economy on cheap oil. Our food is transported mostly by truck, not by train. Our food is produced using large amounts of oil. Our cities are configured for automobile use, with far-flung suburbs and exurbs. Our cities are not structured for rail, biking, and walking (some of them used to be, but more recent extensions don’t take these into account). For example, in our “progressive” town of Carrboro, North Carolina, there are many places with no sidewalk whatsoever - just road. To walk means either walking in the roadway, or walking on the uneven lawn/gutter next to the road. The city is designed for cars, not for people. As are most american cities.
So, some people say, big deal, soon we’ll all drive electric cars. Well, that’s great, but there are hundreds of millions of cars right now that burn fossil fuel. Producing hundreds of millions of cars and getting them into people’s hands is no small task, especially as energy prices soar. Harder still is the question of where the energy in the electric grid will come from. The US car and truck fleet uses over 1 billion kilowatt hours per day (e.g. see here). That is the equivalent of 80 new 1 GW power plants, dumping power into an already strained grid (see stories about power outages and this article). This is a massive build-out of plants that usually take 10-15 years once regulatory hurdles are cleared. And if we’re talking nuclear, there will be major political hurdles. As for coal, too, because of greenhouse gas concerns. This is not making a political judgement, just saying that getting these kinds of projects approved will not be easy or quick, unless we are in an emergency situation, and then it is already very late in the game.
Lately we’ve heard a lot about the idea that oil is a “bubble” or that it is all due to “speculation”. While it is nice to blame the nameless/evil speculators, there is little evidence for that. On the contrary, there is one single chart that explains very simply why oil prices have gone so high:
This chart is all about oil exports from exporting countries. So, even though oil production has inched up a tiny bit over the last few years, exports are down. Why? Very simply, the big producing countries are using more and more of that oil themselves. In fact, Mexico, a major oil exporter to the US, is on track to reach zero exports to us as soon as 2010. Many other countries, including oil-rich Saudi Arabia, are consuming an ever greater fraction of the oil they produce, meaning less is available for export.
This at a time that India and China are growing rapidly and importing more.
Less supply, more demand - a simple equation that, in the absence of government intervention, leads to higher prices. And, what if government intervenes?
I’ll address that in Part II next week.
Taking the train
06/09/08 09:39 Filed in: Environment
Here I am in Montana near Glacier National Park,
riding on one of the more fuel-efficient modes of
transportation: the train. While gliding along and
looking at the spectacular scenery, I couldn't help
but run some numbers through my head about the
efficiency of this mode of transit.
This train is carrying 340 +/- 20 people from Chicago to Seattle, Portland, and points between. So due to my compulsive quantitative bent, I had to figure out how many miles per gallon per person this represents.
My estimate of the fuel usage is about 2,000 gallons, plus or minus 1,000. I got that estimate because I found out the Diesel tanks in the engine are 2,500 gallons, and they topped them off once for the trip (but they certainly weren't empty). Since the train travels a total of about 2,000 miles on its journey, this represents approximately 1 gallon per mile (or mile per gallon for those who like it like that!). After I calculated that number, I talked to one of the personnel, and he said that sounded about right for fuel efficiency.
Ok, so let's say we're in the ballpark. In fact, let's imagine that the fuel usage is twice what I estimated, just to be safe. If the train uses 2 gallons per mile, the math is easy. That means it gets 170 miles per gallon per passenger.
Let's figure out how else we could get that kind of mileage. A bicycle would do it, but then, pedaling from Chicago to Washington state takes a while - a lot longer than the train. But the cool thing is, I have my bike with me (a folding bike that I can just carry onto the train free of charge). So I can be fuel efficient for the whole trip.
What about a Prius, the gold standard for green transportation? There are only two ways a Prius could match that mileage. One: drive really slow, like 40 miles per hour, so that the Prius gets 50-60 mpg, and carry 3 passengers and their gear. Well, you could do that, but it would take a lot longer than the train, and be a whole lot less comfortable. The other way is to carry more passengers and drive faster. Driving the prius 70 mph, a loaded prius with bikes on the roof gets at best 35 mpg (I owned one and did cross country trips with it). So, it would require carrying 5 passengers and their gear. Nope, no folding bikes are going to fit in that prius.
Well, for an airplane, fuel efficiency is right out the door. I've seen various estimates, but 30 MPG per passenger would be generous.
Why don't more people use the train in the USA? Well, a couple reasons. The first is that people don't know about it. I told several people that my family and I were doing a train trip who had no idea that there was a train to take a trip in. I guess Amtrak doesn't advertise much.
The second is the train is perceived as slow. Well, it is slower than an airplane. But it is a whole lot more comfortable, you get to see a lot of great scenery, and enjoy the travel. But the real issue is that the US has not invested in high-speed rail like many other countries. If we had a 200mph bullet train like Europe and Japan, it would be possible to go from coast to coast within 12 hours. I've seen people on the internet claim that the US is too spread out for useful train service, except population dense centers. I don't buy that. There are many large cities spread out throughout the US. If connected by high speed rail, these corridors would be used. If we just had three major east-west routes (North, middle, south) and 4-5 North-South routes, it would cover a large portion of the US, with busses acting as the local links to these stops.
While I still use airplane travel for many business trips, if practical train service were available to get me to the destination, I would use that. I like the comfort, the scenery, the ability to relax, and the fuel efficiency of the train. I just wish the US would get its act together and start building a real, large-scale rail system that shows we can once again be leaders in transportation and innovation.d
This train is carrying 340 +/- 20 people from Chicago to Seattle, Portland, and points between. So due to my compulsive quantitative bent, I had to figure out how many miles per gallon per person this represents.
My estimate of the fuel usage is about 2,000 gallons, plus or minus 1,000. I got that estimate because I found out the Diesel tanks in the engine are 2,500 gallons, and they topped them off once for the trip (but they certainly weren't empty). Since the train travels a total of about 2,000 miles on its journey, this represents approximately 1 gallon per mile (or mile per gallon for those who like it like that!). After I calculated that number, I talked to one of the personnel, and he said that sounded about right for fuel efficiency.
Ok, so let's say we're in the ballpark. In fact, let's imagine that the fuel usage is twice what I estimated, just to be safe. If the train uses 2 gallons per mile, the math is easy. That means it gets 170 miles per gallon per passenger.
Let's figure out how else we could get that kind of mileage. A bicycle would do it, but then, pedaling from Chicago to Washington state takes a while - a lot longer than the train. But the cool thing is, I have my bike with me (a folding bike that I can just carry onto the train free of charge). So I can be fuel efficient for the whole trip.
What about a Prius, the gold standard for green transportation? There are only two ways a Prius could match that mileage. One: drive really slow, like 40 miles per hour, so that the Prius gets 50-60 mpg, and carry 3 passengers and their gear. Well, you could do that, but it would take a lot longer than the train, and be a whole lot less comfortable. The other way is to carry more passengers and drive faster. Driving the prius 70 mph, a loaded prius with bikes on the roof gets at best 35 mpg (I owned one and did cross country trips with it). So, it would require carrying 5 passengers and their gear. Nope, no folding bikes are going to fit in that prius.
Well, for an airplane, fuel efficiency is right out the door. I've seen various estimates, but 30 MPG per passenger would be generous.
Why don't more people use the train in the USA? Well, a couple reasons. The first is that people don't know about it. I told several people that my family and I were doing a train trip who had no idea that there was a train to take a trip in. I guess Amtrak doesn't advertise much.
The second is the train is perceived as slow. Well, it is slower than an airplane. But it is a whole lot more comfortable, you get to see a lot of great scenery, and enjoy the travel. But the real issue is that the US has not invested in high-speed rail like many other countries. If we had a 200mph bullet train like Europe and Japan, it would be possible to go from coast to coast within 12 hours. I've seen people on the internet claim that the US is too spread out for useful train service, except population dense centers. I don't buy that. There are many large cities spread out throughout the US. If connected by high speed rail, these corridors would be used. If we just had three major east-west routes (North, middle, south) and 4-5 North-South routes, it would cover a large portion of the US, with busses acting as the local links to these stops.
While I still use airplane travel for many business trips, if practical train service were available to get me to the destination, I would use that. I like the comfort, the scenery, the ability to relax, and the fuel efficiency of the train. I just wish the US would get its act together and start building a real, large-scale rail system that shows we can once again be leaders in transportation and innovation.d
Surly Big Dummy
05/28/08 21:06 Filed in: Cargo Bikes
In
other news: The Big Dummy is a new
frame from Surly that is designed from the ground
up as a sports utility bike.
While the
Xtracycle is a conversion for an existing bike,
the Big Dummy is fine tuned and purpose built. It
accepts all the cool Xtracycle gear, like the
V-racks, freeloaders, leg-powered blender, and
more. Everyone I know who owns one thinks it is
the best bike they have ever owned, and some of
these folks own a bunch of bikes. Sadly, the Big
Dummy rapidly sold out everywhere after the first
container arrived in the US. That was before Cycle
9 was off the ground, so we missed out on it that
time. But, Surly is working to get more of them
here. We hear rumors of August. If the last time
was any indicator, they could sell out rapidly.
This time,
Cycle 9
will be working
hard to get some of the Surly Big Dummy frames into
the store when the next shipment arrives. Our goal is
to have at least one demo model for people to test
ride before they buy.
So, if you want one, drop us a line, we can put you
on the waiting list, and the top names on that list
will be the first ones called when the frames arrive.
We are also happy to spec out a custom package of
components to go with the frame (Shimano or Sram),
and as a fellow enthusiast, we'll treat you well.
The Big Dummy is not inexpensive, it retails for
about $900 for frame only. So a built out Big Dummy
will retail for anywhere from ~$1450-$1900 depending
on the quality of components used. The Yuba is a
great lower cost alternative (at <$900 for the
complete bike), but will not be nearly as custom
tailored to the individual rider.
News from China
04/28/08 11:18
So I'm in China. Bicycles are everywhere here,
still a lot of people use them for transportation.
Last night I saw a guy riding his bike with 3
mattresses on his back! It was an amazing
balancing act, and a testament to the determinedness
of the people.
But car use is on the rise. Here there are many car ads, and cars are seen as a wealth and status symbol - a sign of the good life.
Every society seems to go through an evolution with cars - in the first phase with cars being a luxury item only for the rich, in the second phase cars being something the middle class aspires to have to show wealth and status, in the third phase, society reaching saturation where the number of cars is so large that it puts strains on the system, causing health problems, air pollution, and traffic congestion. There also appears to be a fourth stage, where countries realize the detrimental aspects of cars, and work to reduce their usage, replacing them with age old solutions like bikes, public transport, and walking. My perception is that China is still in stage 2 - the broad middle class acquiring cars as part of the rapid growth of wealth here. But already traffic problems are great - and so are pollution problems. In Bejing, it is gridlock during rush hour - and that with only 1 in 3 people owning cars. Also, there is an almost constant a haze over the city, which during my stay, only broke after some heavy rain.
But car use is on the rise. Here there are many car ads, and cars are seen as a wealth and status symbol - a sign of the good life.
Every society seems to go through an evolution with cars - in the first phase with cars being a luxury item only for the rich, in the second phase cars being something the middle class aspires to have to show wealth and status, in the third phase, society reaching saturation where the number of cars is so large that it puts strains on the system, causing health problems, air pollution, and traffic congestion. There also appears to be a fourth stage, where countries realize the detrimental aspects of cars, and work to reduce their usage, replacing them with age old solutions like bikes, public transport, and walking. My perception is that China is still in stage 2 - the broad middle class acquiring cars as part of the rapid growth of wealth here. But already traffic problems are great - and so are pollution problems. In Bejing, it is gridlock during rush hour - and that with only 1 in 3 people owning cars. Also, there is an almost constant a haze over the city, which during my stay, only broke after some heavy rain.
When I was in the city of
Shenzhen, I inquired with several locals about
bicycle rental. I love to see new cities by
bicycle, because I can see more on bike than on foot,
yet it is still much more intimate than in a car.
It is also good exercise, to offset the extra
eating I tend to do when visiting new places.
However, when I inquired with one of the young
students, she said, "Why would you want to bike?
Shenzhen is a modern city!" The implication was
that in a "modern city" nobody would bike. She
seemed dumfounded that anyone would prefer to ride a
bike, especially a "rich westerner". She viewed bikes
as a contrivance only for the poor.
Ultimately, countries like China will continue the
evolution to more and more cars, until the problems
start becoming so apparent that there is a push to go
back to other modes of transportation for the masses.
If oil prices continue to rise, this may happen
sooner rather than later.
Morgan
Replacing two car trips per week....
01/15/08 09:56 Filed in: Environment
Recently I saw a discussion on another website about
peak oil. Someone there was deriding the
"environmentalists" who want us "to all use bikes".
He was saying "that is not a realistic solution".
Perhaps there is no single solution to our current
mess of oil dependency. Perhaps, however, if we
combine solutions, we will make a dent in this thing.
I came up with the charts below to show what would happen if 1/3 of the USA population replaced only 2 car trips per week with a bike trip using an electric assist bike. The bottom line is that this would save 5.5 billion gallons of gas, prevent the release of 59 million tons of CO2 and save $17 billion dollars, keeping them in American's pockets rather than sending them overseas.
Maybe this is just a drop in the bucket, but 5.5 billions of gas is a mighty big drop. Could 100 million Americans bike an average of 30 miles per week? It doesn't seem like a stretch.
Here is the table on which the calculations are based:
Bike-vs-car-trips (PDF)
I came up with the charts below to show what would happen if 1/3 of the USA population replaced only 2 car trips per week with a bike trip using an electric assist bike. The bottom line is that this would save 5.5 billion gallons of gas, prevent the release of 59 million tons of CO2 and save $17 billion dollars, keeping them in American's pockets rather than sending them overseas.
Maybe this is just a drop in the bucket, but 5.5 billions of gas is a mighty big drop. Could 100 million Americans bike an average of 30 miles per week? It doesn't seem like a stretch.
Here is the table on which the calculations are based:
Bike-vs-car-trips (PDF)