Opinion

I recently posted in a thread on The Oil Drum about fuel efficiency standards legislation:

"In 2002 the National Academy of Sciences did a study which I think concluded that a 25% increase in fuel economy was possible using then current tech."

I'm driving a '95 Prizm. Typically this car gets 25mpg in my mixed high/city use. Simply by driving more conservatively (max 45-50mph, slow starts at lights) I can bump the mileage up by 20%. With aggressive conservation I can get 33mpg.

Thus I question the idea that it would take technology changes to make a great impact on our fuel consumption. The weakest link in automotive efficiency is the nut behind the steering wheel.

Electric utilities have discovered that immediate feedback on consumption very quickly results in voluntary individual conservation. Perhaps what is needed is not technology changes to the cars, but instrumentation changes.

Many BMW's (and other cars as well I imagine) have a button on the console that puts the vehicle into 'sport' mode where the computer adjusts shift points and fuel mixture for maximum performance. Perhaps new vehicles should be required to have a software option that places strong performance limits to assist the driver's natural impulse to drive aggressivly. This could be as simple as a 'conservation' button, much like the 'sport' button on the BMW.

Along with this would be a consumption rate meter in a conspicuous location. Perhaps as a head-up display of some sort, so that drivers are aware of it during acceleration, when their attention is typically on the traffic around them. This would help them to understand which driving behaviors consume the most fuel. The indicator would provide both a quantitative measure (cc/s) and qualitative measure (e.g., green or red light of varying intensity).

These ideas do not require any changes to the technology in the vehicles and can provide a 25 to 35 percent increase in fuel economy, driver willing. Once a driver has learned the driving habits of conservation the gains extend to other vehicles he drives as well.

So, future legislation might pick the low-hanging fruit by requiring car makers to include a performance-limiting dash switch that limits the fuel consumption of the vehicle at the users option and a short-period moving average fuel consumption rate indicator. This allows car makers to very cheaply encourage conservative behavior without requiring them to invent new technology or to significantly reduce the performance characteristics of their offerings.

As an extension auto makers might include a very simple short range wireless communication module that would allow vehicles to share their consumption information. Each vehicle would compare it's own consumption rate with that of the vehicles around it and then display to the driver his ranking. This would be designed to encourage competitive conservation. (Some people would cheat by broadcasting false signals of course, but if widely deployed cheaters would have minimal impact)

Forcing people to do things is bad mojo. Much better to coerce them.

Where's It All Come From?

A few weeks ago I posted links to an artists images representative of the vast quantities of things that America consumes in various time periods, cell phones per year, water bottles per day, etc. The vast scale of this stream of waste is incredible, but once comprehended one must ask the question, where does all that stuff come from? There must be factories full of robotic assembly lines that manufacture this stuff at a blinding rate!



Not quite. There are massive factories, but no robots. Those incredible streams of stuff are made by Chinese factor workers in mind-bogglingly large factories. An endless stream of cheap human labor produces all the fine goods we turn into trash at an ever-increasing rate.







Endless Assembly Lines and Giant Cafeterias; Inside China's Vast Factories

Global Climate Change Reductionism

This video by a very well spoken guy who certainly watches Zefrank has made the rounds on the intarweb recently:

Interesting Argument About Global Warming - Watch more free videos





While he presents very well and I agree with the conclusion, his reasoning, in it's simplified form, isn't any better than Pascal's in his famous wager. He does note that the presentation is simplified and that you should definitely expand the grid to include as many dimensions and probabilities as you can handle, because what you will find is that the conclusion works out the same regardless.



That conclusion is that failing to appreciate and act on the impact of our Western lifestyle risks destruction of this civilization in our immediate future and potentially any future human civilization of any significant technological sophistication.



On the flip side, there is the idea that the shift in economic policy that is necessary to move current human civilization into an environmentally sustainable position is walking a tightrope over economic catastrophe, the result of which could very well be as bad as and lead directly to human-caused environmental catastrophe.



Think of it this way:

	Inaction	Action
No GW	Joy	Potential Destruction
GW	Certain Destruction	Potential Destruction

There. Now, you cannot control which row we are in, either there is global climate change or there is not, we cannot know for certain, and we cannot choose. In principle we can choose action or in action. The potential for destruction in the Action column depends on how skillfully we can remake our civilization. If we screw it up we might ruin everything anyway.



In practice action or inaction is difficult to choose because we, as a group, are currently selfish and self-absorbed, more interested in making sure that we will remain comfortable and well-fed than in taking action to avoid a potential certainty of destruction.



This is why I believe we are screwed. Think local, because in the future you won't have any other options.

3000lbs of CO2 Please, Medium Well

Do you care to reduce your environmental footprint? Really? How much do you care? Enough to reduce your consumption of meant?  Yeah, I didn't think so. You wouldn't want to actually work at saving the planet, like everything else in this paradise of easy living you figure that any goal worth having should be as easy as driving through the local fast food joint and picking up a greasy half pound of cowburger. Might as well widen your ass while you engage in two of the most CO2 intensive activities known to Americans, driving and meat consumption.

an official with the UK’s Environment Agency has acknowledged that
humans can significantly help stop global warming by adopting a
vegetarian diet.





Of course, the science could not be more clear. When U.N. scientists
looked at all the evidence, they declared in a 408-page report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow
that raising animals for food is responsible for more greenhouse gases
than all vehicles in the world combined. And scientists at the
University of Chicago showed that a typical American meat-eater is
responsible for nearly 1.5 tons more carbon dioxide a year than a vegan.

But you wouldn't want to have to actually change what you are doing. No, it is your birthright to do what is easy, to do what you have always done, to waste without thought to the cost to the environment and the future and to expect Somebody Else to come up with a solution that lets you continue to do these things. And you expect that solution to be cheaper too.

Indeed, study after study has shown that animal agriculture contributes
to global warming and environmental destruction, yet instead of urging
people to go vegetarian, most U.S. politicians and environmental
spokespeople just continue to hype hybrid cars, recycling, and
fluorescent light bulbs as solutions to our spiraling environmental
problems.



This is just not good enough. Vegetarians in Hummers do more for the
planet than do meat-eaters who cruise around in hybrids or collect
recyclable soda cans.

Well, you know what? It's not going to happen. Without you changing your lifestyle, getting rid of the car, eating and buying locally, cutting the animal products out of your life and turning off the lights, TV and clothing dryer, it just isn't going to happen.

Is your life really so good that it is worth it to piss on the future?



Dissident Voice : The Warming Globe and Us

Food & agriculture - June 21 | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Midwestern Gasoline Shortage

I did not hear about this in the news:

Last weekend across southern South Dakota the pumps went dry. Gas
terminals from Sioux Falls to Yankton to Sioux City were empty. “There
is simply not enough fuel coming down the pipeline into the delivery
system” said a BP station owner. Eventually the tankers were sent to
Nebraska to find gas. (read more)

Evidently there was a shortage of fuel a bit north of here. Very interesting, particularly when US refineries are down to 87% capacity, gasoline stores are low, and the summer 'driving season' is set to begin.



Yesterday I ended the first of several experiments in driving behavior with my aging 1995 Geo Prism with 195,000 miles. On 9.4 gallons of 10% ethanol gasoline I drove 308 miles for a total of 32.7MPG. Normally the car gets about 25MPG so my change in driving behavior increased my mileage by 30%. I drove for about 4 and a half weeks on the one tank of gas which cost me about 29 bucks.



For this phase I tried to be as extreme in conservation as possible, given that there were other cars on the road. First, I drive after peak traffic times, so I will have more freedom to depart from the usual driving patterns (and piss of fewer people). I reduced acceleration to a minimum, I take my time accelerating away from a stop, taking as long as 30-45 seconds to go from zero to 45mph (taking into consideration traffic). I observe the timing on traffic lights and attempt to time my arrival to eliminate stops and starts. I avoid taking unnecessarily hilly routes. When stopped anywhere that I will have more than a 30 second wait I turn off the car. Anywhere the car is headed downhill and can coast for more than about 20 seconds I drop into neutral and turn off the engine, then restart when speed drops below about 45 (this kills the power steering, but it is not difficult to compensate as long as you are aware of the restriction. Brakes remain powered on the residual vacuum). When coasting with the car off I have to be careful to leave the ignition in the 'on' position so that the odometer continues functioning, otherwise the fuel-free miles traveled are not recorded.



For the next phase I'll stop turning off the car and just coast in neutral. I'm not sure how much fuel the car uses when idling, but I'm curious to see how much of an impact turning it off has on mileage. For this tank I'll be driving in the same conservative way and just leaving it idling in an attempt to determine how much that impacts the efficiency. My prediction is that I'll see about 29mpg on this tank, as I've done this before.



I wonder how hard it would be to modify a car with an electric motor large enough to do the work of moving the car away from stops. Car dealerships often use little battery powered pushers to move cars around the lot at up to 3mph. It seems, without doing the calculations, that three car batteries could provide a commutes-worth of low speed operation of a smallish car, allowing one to save the gasoline engine for high speed operation.

It heats. It powers. Is it the future of home energy?

Micro-combined-heat-and-power. A box that consumes natural gas to heat water and air and produces electric power for the home.



It heats. It powers. Is it the future of home energy? | csmonitor.com



Sounds pretty cool, I wonder how difficult it would be to get it to run on producer gas so that it could be powered by a simple biomass gasifier.

They're not just looking at scooters, they're buying them.

Chris Carr is used to people coming into his showroom and kicking the tires of the highmileage scooters he has for sale.

But this year's customers at Fresno Motorsports are different, he said.

They're not just looking at scooters, they're buying them.

"They say, 'Gas prices are killing me, and I have to do something right now,'" he said.

Modbee.com | The Modesto Bee :: Higher gas prices fueling the demand for scooters

Summing it up

Wait, what is this "peak oil" stuff, in a nutshell?



Let me 'splain... No, there is too much, Let me sum up:

The False Hope of a BioFuel "Free Lunch"

Following my previous post describing why biofuels cannot save us without drastic conservation:



The false hope of a biofuel free lunch

Go Electric

It may be time to upgrade the bicycle to an electric assist. Complete conversion kits based on brushless hub motor wheels are available for around $450, about what I spend on gasoline in a year driving to work. This particular kit:



BL-36 2007 Electric Conversion Kit



provides a 25 mile range at about 20MPH before pedal assist.

You Already Know Oil is a Problem

You already know that our high consumption of oil is problem, we use lots, and it is a finite, nonrenewable resource, it doesn't take much brain-power to see that it will eventually be very difficult to obtain and that that situation will make it very difficult to do things like get groceries to the store and to get to the store to buy them.



What you don't realize is that the proposed solutions that you think will save the world, biofuels, coal, wind and wave power, etc, won't work as suggested. It's like a solar powered Prius, you can leave it sitting in the sun all day and it will collect enough power to drive nearly 10 miles, if you are careful. The fact is that we use (and waste) way more energy than we can practically extract from the environment without fossil fuels.



The official story: A lesson in how to undermine it



After you read the article, click on the links on the left side of the Energy Bulletin page to investigate the energy sources and learn why they can't do what you think they can do.

Peak Oil vs. Global Warming

Why is it that peak oil gets less attention than global climate change? Energy Bulletin posted a short but interesting piece examining the disparity.



Why is peak oil politically incorrect?





As far as I'm concerned they are, as the article says, similar issues. One of the consequences of our over-consumption is climate change. If climate change and ecological destruction concerns you, why not shift focus to the cause of the problem, over-consumption of energy, and it's poster-child, peak oil?

An Example

What is wrong with Americans; an example:



Beauty and the plastic beast



Gardens are good for the environment, right? They are green, and they let me offset a bit of the food that would otherwise have had to have been shipped to me. So to make a garden I rip out some sod, fire up the gasoline powered tiller and mix 5 big plastic bags of Miracle Grow into the soil. I drive the SUV to the garden center and buy a dozen plastic pots for potted plants, 10 flats of vegetable seedlings in flimsy plastic trays and a half dozen plastic bottles of chemical pesticides (the horticultural equivalent of a thermonookular hand grenade). I plant all this stuff in the Miracle soil (feeds for up to three months!) then pitch all the packaging in the trash (its all non-standard, dirty or contaminated with chemicals which makes it next to impossible to recycle). Then I spend the next three months avoiding the garden with the riding mower, applying pesticides, keeping the bunnies out and irrigating daily with 50 gallons of perfectly clean city drinking water from the hose.



And this is all 'green' and environmentally friendly, mostly because it makes people who can't be bothered to think through the consequences of what they are doing and where their stuff comes from feel like they are doing something worthwhile. In fact they've just done considerably more damage because they are so goal oriented (grow some big juicy red tomatoes) that they don't understand that they've bought so deeply into the consumption machine that they can't even see it when they are trying not to. Even when they think they don't want to consume, the only thing they know how to do is consume more.

What's the Big Deal, I'll Just Drive Less.

So what if we've got fuel supply problems, we'll just drive less right?



No so.



Diesel shortage could hinder Kansas wheat harvest



Weather and maintenance issues at refineries and terminals that service western Kansas have restricted diesel fuel supplies in the area. Problems in eastern Colorado have sent producers there into Kansas looking for fuel, placing more demand on the remaining fuel supplies.



This year's wheat crop is one of the biggest in a decade, close to 400 million bushels. It'll take a lot of combine, tractor and truck fuel to get it in. Producers are dealing with the increased price of having to truck the fuel from suppliers 4 hours away, which drives up the fuel prices by as much as 9 cents a gallon.



Right now terminals in the area pumping over a million gallons of fuel per day, and they are already running short, resulting in long lines. This is not yet harvest season when fuel consumption spikes. Harvest equipment sitting around waiting for fuel so our food can be harvested is a really bad thing.



How far does your food travel before it gets to you? Sure, you can drive less if fuel is more expensive, but how much less can you eat?

A Government Science Advisor Who Gets It

Today I read an article about a British government science adviser who actually 'gets it'. That our civilization has been partaking in a fossil fuel frenzy for the past 100 years with a collective lack of restraint that makes Paris, Lindsey and Brittney look like blue-hairs. Now that the end of the party is in sight (for those of us willing to look) it is obvious that we can't just go find an afterparty and keep on going.



I've shamelessly ripped off the bulk of the text below from the article, linked at the end:



Roland Clift, a senior science advisor to the British government, will tell a seminar of the Royal Academy of Engineering that the
plan to promote bioethanol and biodiesel produced from plants is a “scam” and is likely to result in increases in greenhouse gas emissions.
Clift will also condemn plans to produce British biodiesel from rapeseed,
pointing to research showing the crop generates copious amounts of nitrous
oxide – an even more powerful global warming gas than CO2.



Clift points out that the surging global interest in biofuels derives
from a “false belief” among politicians that there must be a technical
solution to climate change.



”Underlying all this is the assumption that we have to preserve the
mobility and freedom to travel that we now enjoy at all costs.

“However, when you look at the science of climate change it is clear there are
no such simple solutions. Humanity has to accept that.”

Top scientist says biofuels are scam

Why Ethanol is a Bad Idea

Today The Oil Drum published a very good article explaining why corn-based ethanol is a bad idea.



The Oil Drum | Corn-Based Ethanol: Is This a Solution?



It looks to me like ethanol was pushed by our government reps for one reason; money. Government subsidies for ethanol production mean that corn producing states get ethanol plants which, while they don't benefit the environment or reduce dependency on foreign oil (in fact, as explained in the article, they may harm the environment and increase dependency on foreign oil), they do bring in more money to the state allowing use to create more jobs.



These jobs employ more people, allowing us to consume ever-more crap. Since the goal of American life (Bush's "nonnegotiable American lifestyle") is to consume as much crap as humanly possible, ethanol could be considered a successful endeavor.



You might object that corn ethanol is just a temporary step allowing us to set up the infrastructure for cellulosic ethanol, the product that will save the world and allow us to continue to drive as far as we want and ever-farther every year. That would be a silly objection. Cellulosic ethanol requires feedstock. Powering a country with it requires vast mountains of feedstock. Currently this feedstock is supposed to come out of the vast mountains of 'farm waste' produced by the nations farmers. Things like inedible corn and wheat stalks. Currently this 'waste' is just thoughtlessly plowed back into the soil, serving no better purpose than maintaining soil fertility. Instead, we can collect it all, load it on trucks and drive it hundreds of miles to an ethanol plant to turn it into fuel.



What's that you say? What about soil maintenance? Don't worry about that, we'll just put more fertilizer on it and hope that future generations can figure out what to do about the erosion before they run out of natural gas to produce fertilizer. Maybe they can replace it with soylent green.

Terra Preta Primer

Learn about Terra Preta and how it can help your garden or crops and save the world, all at the same time.



Bioenergy pact between Europe and Africa

Successful Biochar Trials

I have been investigating the option of enhancing my garden soil with charcoal in order to reproduce a terra preta-like soil. Still learning, but along the way I've discovered that 'biochar' is becoming a very popular topic in the global climate change arena.

New research confirms the huge and revolutionary potential of soils to
reduce greenhouse gases on a large scale, increase agricultural
production while at the same time delivering carbon-negative
biofuels based on feedstocks that require less fertilizer and water.
Trials at Australia's New South Wales Department of Primary Industries’
(DPI) Wollongbar Agricultural Institute show that crops grown on agrichar-improved soils received a major boost. The findings come at a time when carbon-negative bioenergy is becoming one of the most widely debated topics in the renewable energy and climate change community.



The Australian trials of 'agrichar' or 'biochar' have doubled and, in one case, tripled
crop growth when applied at the rate of 10 tonnes per hectare. The
technique of storing agrichar in soils is now seen as a potential
saviour to restore fertility to depleted or nutrient-poor soils
(especially in the tropics), and as a revolutionary technique to
mitigate climate change. Moreover, agrichar storage in soils is a
low-tech practise, meaning it can be implemented on a vast scale in the
developing world, relatively quickly. Read More