What does Peak Oil look like?

Here's my page on oil/gasoline: http://www.darelldd.com/ev/emissions.htm
There is at least one link to peak oil info.

I'm actually a bit ticked off that the Prius - a *gasoline* vehicle - is the best choice we have available on the new car market. Really we have no need or excuse to be burning gasoline for most of our vehicle trips. I'm fortunate enough to have a battery EV as my main vehicle... the Prius is only used occassionally - for long trips, and in the rare times that my wife and I both need a vehicle.

 

The power of the Prius is that it has opened the door to change. It starts the public in the direction to non-gasoline powered vehicles.

And face it. For some an all electric vehicle, the ones currently available to the public, are not practical for their needs. And some of the more desirable alternatives (like hydrogen) just aren't available yet.

The Prius gets us started. And when even better alternatives become available, some will pioneer in that direction while more people buy hybrids that never would have before. Those that scoff at hybrids now will be buying those when those with Prii now are buying all electric or hydrogen or something else. Its a gradual shift.

BTW I took some Junior High Students on a field trip in my Prius. They loved it and were very taken with the technology. (One asked if BMW had one. I told him...they will by the time he gets his license and can afford to buy one.)

 

I know that we're mostly on the same page here... that we only differ in the details. Still, I can't resist commenting. It should be obvious that I do NOT pretend to have all the answers. I do have plenty of practical, hands-on experience and opinion, however!

We started that change with EVs. The first and only REAL change away from fossil fuels. With the Prius, we've come *back* to gasoline.

The implication that I'm somehow not "facing" something is a bitter pill. What we need to face is reality. There are NO production EVs currenlty "available for the public" - so the practicality of a vehicle that does not exist is a tough one to contest or support. Regarding the cars that are alreayd on the road - the ones designed in the late 80's/early 90's and built in the early 90's - there's still nothing I need to "face." I totally agree, and have written countless times on these forums that there is no perfect vehicle or energy type for every application. The part that sucks is we have no BEV option today. No choice. Nothing "available." And one little nit - all the production EVs in existence were designed, under duress, in the late 80's/early 90's! And many folks love to compare THAT technology to what a FCV might be 20 years into the future. Sounds like a fair fight! Remember what your computer was like in 1990?

And I really have to take exception to the "more desirable" alternative of hydrogen. Where do you get the idea that a hydrogen vehicle will be desirable if these pesky BEVs are so impractical for the driving public? A BEV TODAY can do everything a mythical H2 FCV can do at some un-specified time in the future... cheaper, more efficiently and better. I'd like to hear one thing that makes a FCV "more desirable." I've driven both cars. The devil is in the details - not in the press.

The Prius takes us back from our start in EVs.

It was available. About ten years ago. Now we're back to gasoline-only vehilces with mild EV assist. My goal is to get is to the pioneering point yesterday. Not ten MORE years down the line.

I'm sure you're right. It just sucks that we COULD have had the options to buy fantastic BEVs today, to get that glacially-slow shift sharted sooner than later. If notobody pushes for me (me, in my annoying way, for example) then when does it happen? How long are we happy about waiting for "them" to make it happen?

I've got a kid here who cries when I tell her we have to take what she calls "the stinky gas car."

 

Does she *actually* cry ?

 

Peak oil. The sooner we get there the sooner we can start depending on renewables. Necessity is the mother of invention and as soon as we burn the last drop of oil(metaphorically speaking), we'll embrace EVs. The details of whether the EV batteries are lithium, nickel, hydrogen, or whatever is a detail that the market forces will tease out.

The best thing that could happen to a crack addict is if the crack ran out.

 

Indeed yes she has in the past. She's up the the point of just frowning and suffering in silence at the ripe age of five though. She was thrilled when I told her that the Prius can drive on electricity, but then got all confused as to why we still had to fill it up with gas.

 

Darelldd,

I'm with Godiva on this one. I agree that one can look at the Prius as a step back from the pure EV in that the Prius still uses gasoline. But I daresay that industry was moving away from the EV and seemed to be abandoning it.

With the Prius, electricity is making a comeback. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't hybrids now selling as many models per month, than all EVs ever sold?

And with the voume comes efficiency and more research. The battery in the Prius III is much smaller, cheaper and more powerful than the one in the Prius I.

At this rate, I fully expect my next Prius to be a plug in. And my Prius after that to have had the gasoline engine pulled for lack of need. And my Prius after that will have a solar panel on the roof and we'll all be bragging on how far we can go without needing to plug into the grid.

My point is -- and I think Godiva would agree -- is that the Prius helped that happen as opposed to interfered with it happening.

 

Yeah... I agree mostly. The concept is logical, but a bit too simple. The transition would be SO much less painless if we could use some of this amazingly cheap oil energy to create the alternatives. What energy do we use to build the alternatives if oil is insanely expensive by the time we get a good start? Do we wait for the economy to go all to hell before we get seroius? Do we wait until we invade a few countries for the last bit of cheap oil? Simple concept of curing our addition by running out. But our society depends on this stuff! Our society exists because of it. If we "run out" before we have real options, we're screwed.

Of course we'll never "run out." We will just reach a point where it won't be economically viable to retrieve any more of it.

 

I doubt it. Repub FUD aside, the economy strikes me as quite able to tolerate $100/barrel equivalent.

Think coal
Think tar sands

So long as society tolerates the pollution and global warming, the fossil fuel economy will chug-chug along.

 

Actually, I think the $100 per barrel price will be reached in just a few years and it will keep on increasing.

Alternative energy and changes in our life styles will be necessary and possibly forced on us.

The following websites are 2 of the ones I have been reading very frequently.
Transition Culture - http://transitionculture.org/
The Energy Bulletin - http://www.energybulletin.net/index.php

I think our addiction to oil will change when the amount of oil to keep our military running is more than we can actually acquire. At the present time they are the largest single user of fuel oil in the world.

This is why Peak Oil and Climate Change concern me more than any terroristism.

 

Darrell,

I completely understand your perspective of going backwards to a Prius -- You have.

But both the RAVev and EV1 were expensive prototypes never meant to be large scale production models. Neither manufacturer had the ability then to do so, and they do not have the ability now.

OTOH, the RAVev paid off handsomely for Toyota, in teaching them enough to make HSD. In the next few years as plug-ins come to market, we will have a product that anyone can buy in-lieu of a gas-only car, and it will consume a factor of magnitude less petrol.

The plug-in car, and battery technolog will eventually drive each other.

So yes, you own the one of the first baby steps into widespread consumer use of electricity for personal transport. But I think it highly likely you put your money where it will do the most good.

Cheers

 

"What energy do we use to build the alternatives if oil is insanely expensive by the time we get a good start? "

Well, there are giant corporations that are ready to scale up wind and solar production if the profit is there. For example, GE does wind and solar. Shell, BP and a ton of Japanese companies can ramp up solar. Flexible companies survive, inflexible companies pull a GM and Ford. I'm sure you know it's not government and politics that dictact what we use for energy. It's corporations that do. And when oil causes the bottom line for the conglomerates to run in the red, they'll abandon oil as fast as a fat pig on fire.

Plus in a pinch we could always resort to nuclear energy, but the "nimby" attitude(specifically on both coasts) would probably push us preferably to the renewables.

"Do we wait for the economy to go all to hell before we get seroius? Do we wait until we invade a few countries for the last bit of cheap oil?"

That's something that could happen, and we(as humans) would deserve the feared chaos(war, famine, more war)it if it did, but humans generally are too innovative to let something like the last drop of oil burn off before turning to alternative solutions(especially if the alternative already exist).

"Simple concept of curing our addiction by running out. But our society depends on this stuff! Our society exists because of it. If we "run out" before we have real options, we're screwed."

The process of running out of oil will be the pressure needed to come up with a cure. Of course our society depends on oil, but "really" it depends on energy. Just like the Irish survived the potato famine(not in a pretty way mind you), so will humans survive "peak oil, and post peak oil."

"Of course we'll never "run out." We will just reach a point where it won't be economically viable to retrieve any more of it."

The "Peak Oil" armageddon is so Y2K. I thought we were going to invade Iran, but the lessons of Iraq is showing us that invading oil countries is not a viable strategy to procure oil. There will be missteps along the way to renewables, there will be crises and conflicts, but what else is new with humans?

 

This is EXACTLY why I'm buying a hybrid. I don't mind putting premium hybrid dollars into a technology that is developing into future technologies that will allow us to be less dependent on oil.

I would never buy an American car(though granted they are now seeing the light and are starting to build hybrids), cause dollars spent on Mr. Micro penis SUV/TRUCK does not put dollars into developing innovative technology to dercrease oil dependence. Now that their SUV/Truck cash cow is coming to an end they are sowing what they've reaped, bankruptcy, while honda and toyota stocks are nearing all time highs.

 

From the gist of your post I suspect you are saying that the "peak oil" concern won't cause armageddon just like the Y2K hysteria didn't cause the armageddon that some had predicted.

But are you aware that billions of dollars were spent to prevent Y2K chaos? Many computer scientists contend that the spending of those billions was the reason Y2K did not cause chaos, NOT because of some kind of foolish overreaction.

 

I saw a 1960 edition of Popular Science over the weekend where they were talking about the renaissance of electric cars. They showed one that was to be built here in San Diego. It would've been nice.

 

Yes I know lots of money was spent to prevent Y2K glitches. And fixing them probably helped to prevent many minor and major inconveniences. Nonetheless the fact that survival Y2K kits were being sold at a record clip was just ridiculous. It's human nature(especially american) to seek and predict the 'end of days.' Fear and apocalypse is more interesting than boring and safe and bottom line is more profitable for commercial media.

 

I can still remember technical support staff running around putting 'y2k safe' stickers on anything plugged into a socket. Toasters included.

I didn't have the heart to ask what testing was done to preauthorize the toaster as 'safe'.

 

The more expensive oil gets, the less expensive (by comparison) all other forms of energy become. And if the other forms don't carry the baggage of oil... the hope is that we will NOT tolerate oil when it has all these detractions (the only one of which it does NOT have right now is the price).

 

Oil will effectively run out, energy will be scarce and expensive, our way of life will change drastically. There is no possible alternative. The sooner we accept that and prepare for it, the easier the transition will be. Will it be the end if life as we know it? Of course not.

Darell's little girl will grow up and grow old shaking her head. She will probably have a sore neck.

Allan de