fossil fuels

[nibot]

Supposing that we have already passed the time of peak oil production, my question for you is this: in what year will we see fewer cars on California roads than in the previous year?

At what point will the Interstate Highways be fossil roads, abandoned relics, like the decaying steel towns of Pennsylvania, like the Erie Canal?

When will Phoenix be Detroit?

Or will someone invent the coal-powered car and doom us all? (The plug-in Prius actually burns coal.)

Comments

[ephermata.livejournal.com]

We will switch to electric, ethanol, or some other source of power for cars before giving up cars altogether. There may still be a year over year drop in the number of cars at some point, but I don't see the interstates becoming fossils for that reason. Goods need to move from point A to point B, and rails don't do it for a lot of the country.

A general economic crash, on the other hand...well, that could do it.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Ironically, I think electric cars will be our undoing. Electric cars could effectively burn coal.

[surpheon.livejournal.com]

Gas cars can effectively burn coal. Production of a liquid fuel from coal is pretty straightforward, and wikipedia suggests is economical around $30 / barrel (China's building plants as we speak). If you care about climate change, oil is not really a concern - it's a small chunk of the potential CO2 emissions compared to coal (and be realistic, we're burning oil down to the last drop regardless of the political posturing).

[nibot.livejournal.com]

It depends on how fast the oil runs out, I guess. The world currently consumes 84 million barrels a day. My guess is that it would be totally impossible to satisfy that demand with biodiesel even if all agriculture were devoted to it.

If the oil decline is gradual, sure, gas-burning cars will be replaced gradually with electric cars (powered by coal or nuclear), bio-diesel, and ethanol. And people's lifestyles will adapt gradually too, moving closer to their jobs, changing their diets to eat more local foods, etc.

But if the decline is sufficiently steep, cars will stop in their tracks.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

The Phoenix / Detroit comparison is also deliciously ironic: Detroit's boom-bust cycle was also due to the automobile.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking that as I re-read this post this morning. It's too bad that Phoenix doesn't have a similar signature industry. (Semiconductors is the only thing that comes to mind, but I'm sure that's only a relatively tiny fraction of its economy.)

Las Vegas

[nibot.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by your post about Las Vegas (http://easwaran.livejournal.com/461460.html).

[nibot.livejournal.com]

I think it could happen very soon. I don't know enough about "peak oil" to evaluate it for myself, but the spectrum of opinions is that peak oil has already occurred, occurred in 2007, or will happen at the latest in ~2030. If oil production drops off while demand is still increasing, the price will skyrocket. I wish I knew how to model this. I think the explosion in the price of oil could happen very quickly.

I told this to my parents last night and they thought I was crazy.

My other question is: how can we make money off of this?

[joneshead.livejournal.com]

IMO the internal combustion engine shouldve gone out of style with the kerosene lantern.
Where are our sugar powered fuel cell cars?

I also think that this crisis could be abated if oil prices went up to $50 a gal, and automobiles could successfully utilize 90% of the energy content of gasoline. i.e. 200mpg's +


On the road I oft find myself thinking of the interstates in much the manner that you mentioned;
Derelict, forlorn, and abounding with wildlife.

[surpheon.livejournal.com]

and automobiles could successfully utilize 90% of the energy content of gasoline. i.e. 200mpg's +

That would be awesome, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal (I know it is with a heat engine). Anyone with more recent thermo lessons care to chime in?

200mpg+ is not too out of hand if you're talking a 400 kg car, which Amory Lovins has been flogging for over a decade and Toyota recently achieved as a hybrid concept car (the 1/X). Reduced weight is a great way to get efficiency, and carbon fiber allows you to maintain safety as weight drops.

Oh, and our sugar powered normal cars are prevented by the $0.56 per gallon tariff on imported ethanol from Brazil to protect our precious farmers.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

I imagine them plowed up and planted as farmland, rural rivers through dead cities.

[onhava.livejournal.com]

The plug-in Prius actually burns coal.

But! Its fuel efficiency is so much higher than an internal combustion engine that it emits significantly less carbon dioxide per mile than cars running on gasoline.

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

also, depends on what part of the country you live in. In some places, the grid is mostly pulling hydro.

[cassiusdio.livejournal.com]

It's simple. We need to finally develop practical fusion power, which will then provide electricity to convert water to hydrogen for use in cars like Honda's latest (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/automobiles/autoreviews/09HONDA.html?ex=1213160400&en=dda3348f43743e4a&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=AU-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M008-ROS-1207-PH&WT.mc_ev=click&mkt=AU-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M008-ROS-1207-PH), which is ready for production and will be released in SoCal next summer.

Until then, nuclear fission is still awfully safe and completely carbon free....

fusion

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Too bad Congress zeroed out the U.S. contributions to ITER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER).

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Fusion is, of course, the ideal source of power. We could burn the oceans.

But I suspect that "limitless energy" would bring problems of its own.

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

What do you think of Bussard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Bussard#Appeal_for_Funding)'s reactor? Do you think he was full of crap?

[surpheon.livejournal.com]

Intersates will probably never be abandoned relics. The large, relatively direct right of ways they provide will be valuable for some form of transport as long as we have a civilization (barring teleporters or some other impossible tech appearing).

Now, when the 30 min commute disappears is a bit more fun to guess at. I give it 15 years before the current driving society paradigm collapses. I see it being replaced to a great extent by telecommuting. Not little-screen telecommuting, but a room with a couple full wall screens and HD camera that acts as a real cubicle. It'd be always on and you could 'walk by' other people's cube and pop in for quick comments or even just to toss a hi in the 'door.' This is a logical extension of current video, bandwidth and camera tech curves.

[metamouse.livejournal.com]

Nanosolar's new thin-film solar panels can produce energy more cheaply than coal. Maybe we'll make it through this... maybe...

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

or, even without that, we could design cities where people could walk to the office.

[janviere.livejournal.com]

The Roman roads are still around.

If we don't have enough energy to drive ourselves around in the future, I'm pretty sure that we're going to have difficulty powering server farms.

My bet is that the first life-altering crisis will happen with food, when the real cost of trucking everything we eat across the country starts to show.

I have no concept of "when", though.

[ansitron.livejournal.com]

This seems to be some fantasy world where "I told you so" would be applicable. The only reason we still use our current oil-based infrastructures is because it's easy and relatively cheap. If it came down to NEED, we'd be running either hydrogen-electric cars based off of power plants in outer space or some shit like that. If the highways become abandoned, it will be because most people prefer flying cars.

I always wonder how much extra carbon emissions are produced from creating extra parts and upgraded interior knick-knacks (produced in high pollution/cheap labor economies).. I especially get a kick out of how most hybrid driving hippie "activists", who love scoffing at people who drive SUVs, are also the same smug hippies who are more likely to get in a jet plane and fly places just for leisure.

[chris-acheson.livejournal.com]

The scenario Tobin describes could occur if it ends up being more economical to localize production than to switch to a new fuel source. This seems likely for any currently available fuel other than coal.