Coal
The hard energy news of the moment: The price of coal threatens to reach $300 a ton this week. That’s a sudden tripling in the price of the stuff (see EB 2/4) . For those depending on cheap coal to solve future energy problems, put that in your stack and smoke it.

Oil
Financier Matthew Simmons told the Minnesota Legislature that demand for oil is rising but production is not, and that reserve stocks are at this point quite low and steadily falling. Prepare to run out of fuel, he told them. Shell Oil holds similar views.

Peak Oil
The Register-Guard recently published a guest column by a pair of graduate students at The Duck Club, i.e. the University of Oregon. Doggone if their piece didn’t make it to the Energy Bulletin on 2/5 under the title “Peak Oil: Will we see it coming?” They investigated the possibility of predicting peak oil. They concluded given necessary but privileged and not released information it was not possible to predict peak oil. Kenneth Deffeyes would not agree, but let’s not go there. Deffeyes did predict a date, but it will take time to prove him right or wrong, at least five years after the event is commonly supposed. And really, what does it matter?

The question should be — to anyone interested in the transportation system – the entire system which pervades all segments of our lives – is what will become of transportation, with the near future of particular interest. That rests less on gross production figures and a lot more on where traders can find oil to buy, which is a very different thing. And since the traders, like producers, hold on to information like it was their checkbook we only find out about it after the event. What it boils down to is how much does fuel cost and am I gonna get mine when I want it.

I have a go at prognostication occasionally, but quickly give up on the grounds that I don’t have much faith in speculation. I am therefore relieved to report that Tom Whipple, whom I regard as the Al Gore of peak oil, has launched a series of articles titled “The Oil Crisis: The Future of Cars” in the Falls Church, VA News-Press, copied onto www.energybulletin.net, Tom’s pieces began on 12/24 and is so far appearing on Thursdays. You want to read them, search under Tom’s name or by the title.

In future I shall assume that, what with the Chairmen of General Motors and Shell Oil saying that the gasoline powered automobile will shortly disappear, and that deniers are in full retreat, that you wouldn’t be reading this if you needed further convincing.

But I will continue to speak of something fundamental that needs addressing right now. We cannot depend on liquid fuels to provide for our transportation any longer. We need another system, how soon depends entirely upon the availability of fuel to put in our tanks (and the tanks of trucks stocking the places we shop). The alternate system is inevitably necessary, it may become so very, very quickly due to international upheavals or a shortage of liquid stocks. A pair of storms, Katrina and Rita, gave the U.S. system a good whack a couple years ago. That was a regional problem and far worse can happen. Anytime.

What alternate system? Tom Whipple and an ever increasing number of writers point to the obvious – electric. Some, like Tom, worry about finding the juice. I do not regard that as the immediate problem. I see altogether encouraging technological developments. Those solar panels generated from printing presses are at the top of my list. They’re produced by a start-up company, which has one utility size unit as a display model and in addition they’ve sold only one panel so far, price undisclosed (it was sold at auction. Germany bought it.) But they’ve an awfully big brother standing right behind them with very deep pockets, and they are enlarging their facilities as quickly as can be done, with no apparent road-blocks to hold them back (Their entire production for this year is sold, I suspect to big brother.). I mean, a flock of printing press running full time – how many miles a day of solar panel does that indicate?

Oh Dear, what is to be done?
The problem is one of will. Yours and mine are important as a spur to our elected officials. Particularly on putting up cash for a project; they tend to wait until pressure upon them begins to bear. They need to hear from us. They need to be asked “How long to bring an electrified transportation system for goods and for people into being, and what are you doing to get ready for that obviously required alternative? How many years will it take? Have you started engineering studies? When do you propose to start?”

We’ve pointed out before that governments own graded roadbed. Electrified rail technology doesn’t need to be invented, it need only be applied. This writer does not believe private enterprise is up to the job. Where do you see new electrified rail lines going in, particularly for passengers? Okay, there is one. Just one in the entire U.S., running between Boston and Washington, and it’s not private. The people who live on that line can count on a certain availability of transportation. But if they need to get to Chicago? Los Angeles?

The gas powered auto will die, perhaps within the decade according to General Motors. But there will be electrics and unless you are really old you will probably get one. But when the gas fired auto goes, there went the airline business. Electric 767s? Now there’s a stretch of the imagination. Ohhhhh, the batteries required to get from L.A. to NYC!!!! Propeller driven, of course. Squirting electrons out the rear probably wouldn’t move the ship very far. So what are you going to do, drive your electric to Chicago? To Boston? How about a bullet train that’ll get you there during the daylight hours of a single day? Downtown to downtown. No one hour or longer check-in to contend with, no security people to bug you, delay you, interfere. Be at the station on time, arrive at your destination on time. Common practice elsewhere in the world. How come North American can’t do that? Lack of public demand, political response.

Will existing railroads keep Safeway and Wal-Mart shelves full? Their freight schedules are already crowded nearly or absolutely to capacity. They’re talking over four billion for a new road bridge over the Columbia to handle all the big rigs they see coming down the road in a few years. That’s in addition to what’s out there now. When our flivvers go, they go. How is all that freight to move? Electric big rigs? I dunno – they can handle a huge load of batteries better than a 767, but still that would seem to detract from cargo space and tonnage. I am talking, of course, of public ownership of a new transportation system. The systems I admire (Europe and Asia) are publicly owned. They are more than good enough for me. I am not a right wing ideologue. Public ownership works for me (like I said, our governments already own graded roadbed).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 9:15 am and is filed under Economy, Energy Future, Environment, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.