patrick.net

Hey, Fluffy Pumpkin wants to know about a car that runs on cat poop! :)

Bap33,

Couldn't agree with you more that driving style has a big effect on energy efficiency. Some of the worst offenders are realtwhores hurrying between their many important appointments in their big-ass leased Esca-Lexus machines. I just hate it when I see people driving like complete idiots from an energy perspective, accelerating like madmen from one red light to the other, as if it saves them time.

That being said, we should all strive to use small and efficient vehicles, not just have big ones that we drive efficiently.

Goober, it is indeed awful that so many car companies have perverted the concept of an efficient hybrid car into a muscle car. For god's sakes, the 2007 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid just won the green car of the year award. Talk about having your head way up your ass to vote for something like that.

Here's the rub: The only way to get insipid boomer Americans (and their devil spawn) to stop wasting oil is to hit them in the only god-damn fucking place they care about, which is their pocketbook. It's the only thing that works. I can talk until I get blue in the face about saving scarce resources for future generations, but nobody gives jack shit unless it costs them MONEY (apologies to surfer-X for the not-so-good imitation).

Here's to $6/gallon gas. At the rate we're burning it, it will arrive sooner rather than later.

If it were purely utilitarian, only a fool would choose the former over the latter.

Well, therein lies the rub. Folks pay for participating in the "Starbucks Culture" with the price of a latte, but in the end, what does it get you? 2nd rate coffee and an illusion of being in a hip world? I'll take the utilitarian choice any day.

Wouldn't say the same for a beer at a pub, though...

skibum says: Well, therein lies the rub. Folks pay for participating in the “Starbucks Culture” with the price of a latte, but in the end, what does it get you? 2nd rate coffee and an illusion of being in a hip world? I’ll take the utilitarian choice any day.

If I recall, there is a Mrs. Skibum? This limits the utility of a place where you can come into casual contact with eligible young women. :o

What does any social pseudo-mating ritual get you? A chance at mating. Considering how much people spend on cars, clothes, electronics, haircuts, perfume, shoes, houses, furniture, cutlery, china and other possessions in order to impress potential mates, I declare the cost of a latte to be absolutely insignificant. If one enjoys a brief flirt with faux hip culture in a cookie-cutter "unique" setting, so be it. The suburbanites have spoken.

Wouldn’t say the same for a beer at a pub, though…

Context is subjective to personal tastes. It's still a social ritual. :P But I'm sure that Peter P can produce a more insightful observation on such behaviors...

My comment is awaiting moderation. :(

Every oil field has a finite supply and its output reaches a peak and then declines. It is sensible to believe that the collective supply of all the world’s oil fields would do the same. Of course, new oil discoveries change the calculation. But, it is impossible to know how much oil remains undiscovered.

All my life I have been hearing about the end of oil. In the 1970s the prediction was that we would run out of oil around the turn of the century. So, we should be freezing in the dark by now, with our useless vehicles all abandoned. But, with each new oil field discovery that day of reckoning keeps getting pushed back.

Is the end upon us? Here is a quote that provides an interesting perspective on the timing of this crisis:

“The question of the possible exhaustion of the world’s oil supply deserves the gravest consideration. There is every indication that we are face to face with this possibility.” - Scientific American, 1913

It seems that the end has been near for a very long time.

Bap33,

Life without oil will be nasty, brutish and short, to misquote Thomas Hobbes. Preserving oil for as long as we practically can will buy us time to develop alternative energy sources. And we really need all the time we can get.

Our whole civilization is built upon the assumption of plentyful oil, and it will collapse like a house of cards if oil suddenly disappears (not that it will, instead it looks like it will be a long and very painful process).

If it is your grandchildrenes lives that will be be nasty, brutish and short because of lack of oil, are you still willing to let market forces rule? I think regulation of mileage standards and high taxation of wasteful vehicles and practices is the way to go.

Oil -- they aren't making any more of it.

Zephyr,

Certainly there is undiscovered oil out there. It just isn't easy to get to. And yes, a simple application of the principle of conservation of mass is that there must be a finite amount of already existing oil out there.

Sure, new oil can be made if a large swath of a forested area of the planet sinks into the sea (polar icecap meltdown, anyone?). But it will take a few thousand years to make oil out of it. In the meanwhile, it will be a cold day in hell :-).

Just checked on Wikipedia; Saudi Arabia's proven reserves will run out in 66 years.

Brand said:
The same could be said of a pint of beer at your local pub

Not really. The drunks at the pub are at least fun to hang out with. The hipster-doofi that I see at SBUX seem to be very different - and not in a good way.

justme said:
For god’s sakes, the 2007 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid just won the green car of the year award.

"The Truth About The Green Car of the Year"
http://tinyurl.com/ytvbtx

Check out the huge drop (and partial recovery) in the stock price of FNM and FRE this morning. It is getting very bad for the mortgage lenders and guarantors, even the non-jumbo ones.

"Everything matters"

Yes it does. While it may not be practical check your tire pressure prior to every day's commute here's one thing we can all do (and it doesn't cost a dime!)

Try to pretend like you've done this before. Make every attempt to act like this isn't your first day on the job. Given that you drive an identical route approx. 480 times a year try not to let on that your memory slate is wiped clean each time the clock strikes 7:00am or 5:00pm.

When approaching the same hill you climb 5 times a week try to ANTICIPATE this daily event by building speed to an appropriate level so as not to cause those behind you to downshift and rev. up to 7,000 RPM? (Gosh you mean that burns extra fuel?)

Considering today's technology driven workplace, driving TO work is probably the most challenging thing you'll do all day! We are much more likely to become injured during the commute than at work. Humor the rest of us by acting like it might actually be important. Oh, and just because we didn't actually "trade paint" doesn't mean "it's all good"... you dipsh!t.

If I recall, there is a Mrs. Skibum? This limits the utility of a place where you can come into casual contact with eligible young women.

True, true.

DinOR,

Your example is a specific case of what I would call an adaptive/predictive driving style. There are several aspects of it:

--learning from experience
--adapting to the driving conditions
--predicting slowdowns (and speedups) so as to smooth out the speed variations

From my own earlier example, racing towards a read light is incredibly stupid. You will get past the light no sooner by getting there early, and you just burned lots of oil for no good reason. Except maybe someone needed to look cool and manly.

Of course, if you just stopped at Starbucks on the way, you can now sit at the red light and drink your overpriced coffee.

General principle: At low to moderate speeds (city driving), a large fraction of the energy loss is associated with acceleration and deceleration, rather than wind resistance, rolling resistance or changes in potential energy (elevation, as in the hill example). At high speed (unimpeded freeway driving), wind resistance is the biggest loss. During stop-and-go freeway driving, the stop and the go again are the biggest loss mechanism.

justme,

More excellent points. OR's seem to have some difficulty with that "adapting" part? Even the best of drivers can encounter surprises, but other than objects that were launched out the unsecured bed of a pick-up (trust me) that same pothole will be here tomorrow. And the next day.

After 15 years of driving basically the same route I was amazed at how little most people seemed to be able to retain from one day to the next? Look at how many commuters seem to "almost miss their exit" EVERY MORNING! If we can't get the basics down I think we can safely dismiss the finer points of bap33's best practices.

Brand said:
a place where you can come into casual contact with eligible young women. :o

Eligible? Maybe. Interesting? Okay, I will even go that far. But Desirable? Only if you're into trendy, neurotic, suburban, 'i am bored lets go to the mall' types.

justme said:
racing towards a read light is incredibly stupid.

What's worse is a lead-footed neanderthal in a 'sport sedan' attempting to out-drag a GSX-R from a light. Yes, I am looking at _you_ Mr. Infinity-G35-on-Lawrence-Expwy yesterday night. What the heck?

In ways, that's almost preferable. For someone to "throw down the gauntlet" it at least implies some level of awareness of their surroundings. Anyone THAT into their car is likely less a danger than the avg. oblivious commuter. Well, I can't say for sure (maybe Mr. Infinity shaves on the way into work..?)

What's surprising is the "T-Crurves" (Terwilliger on I-5 South) almost ALWAYS 'knot up'. It doesn't even have to be close to rush hour so can we please not act shocked when brake lights come on? Hmm?

I really believe in bap33's mileage tips and for the most part try to live them but now after leaving the commute behind, I'd just as soon not drive at all. You have only two extremes left out there. Boomers (that have taken a sudden interest in longevity) and a younger crowd that doesn't seem to mind putting others in danger. IMHO.

Bap33,

>then and only then will a different go-juice be found by a free market capitalists (American).

I had to laugh when I saw this one. It reminded me of a friend of mine. She thought that energy shortage would be abated by applying brain power and "inventing new energy sources", "such as hydrogen".

Energy cannot be invented, It just *is*. What can be invented is new methods for extracting/converting energy from known sources. Or we can just use known methods to convert energy from one form to another, e.g. manufacturing hydrogen using nuclear power as the energy source. I don't know how palatable this is going to be. Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to sell us on turning California Interstate 5 into a "hydrogen superhighway". In reality, what he is trying to do (*) is to soften up the public opinion on nuclear power. I5 will have to become a nuclear superhighway before it becomes a hydrogen superhighway. There is no other way, unless one thinks it practical to pave the central valley over with solar cell panels.

(*) Actually, I don't even know whether Schwarzenegger is bright enough to understand that hydrogen is just a proxy for nuclear power. Maybe it is just his handlers or pollsters telling him that hydrogen is cool. Arnold may have had a little too much of his own special type of go-juice in his younger days and too little training of his analytical thinking skills to understand the finer details. I don't know.

SP,

Yeah, I just saw a dim-witted Corvette owner yesterday that seemed hell-bent on achieving liftoff speed between each red light. And there weren't even any babes watching. For some people, showing off their oil-burning proficiency seems to be second nature, even when there is nobody watching.

Brand,

Just saw your comment that came out of moderation. Yes, an enormous amount of waste of resources (energy and otherwise) stem from men trying to get laid, and the women who are impressed by same display of waste.

There is no other way, unless one thinks it practical to pave the central valley over with solar cell panels.

Actually, we could be only one invention away from a clean electrical source, which could be used to make hydrogen or recharge an advanced battery. If someone would just invent a room temperature superconductor, we could have hydroelectric plants in Canada, Scania, and Russia power the whole norther hemishere. Of course, this would imply efficiencies in use of that power other than lossless transport, such as LED lighting or direct on wheel drive electric cars (16 horsepower). The room temp superconductor would also allow lossless transport from solar panel farms and less loss from the grid in general.

So, someone be a hero and invent that superconductor.

Headset,

Low-T superconductors would be great, but how much would we gain?

Per wikipedia the estimated energy loss in electrical transmission is 7.4% in the US, and 4000 mile lines are technically feasible. I think the real limit is the amount of buildable hydropower sources, and the related environmental impact (not just displaced chinese villagers, but also climate changes and other *real* problems from large dams and water diversions).

My overall point about energy is that we MUST ACT NOW to conserve, rather than engage in hopeful thinking about what we may or may not able extract of alternative energy sources in the future.

Wow...Fannie and Freddie are getting *spanked* today!

"MUST ACT NOW to conserve"

Our elec. bill in the summer avgs. around $50 and $120 in winter. The remarkable thing is that we heat w/ elec. and in emergencies use a kerosene htr. We have a SunHeat "infra-red" htr. and it uses half the electricity of other elec. units. I work at home and my "new" office is about 1 block away. We are working at getting my wife out of the workforce so she will be one less commuter.

I am hardly an environmentalist. In ways (I couldn't care less) so to me it's about waste. Get ready for a big screen TV in every American home burning 2 to 3 times what older sets used. Now THAT'S "progress"!

DinOR,

My hat is off to you. Those numbers are not bad at all. Myself, I clock in at $22/summer and $45/winter, but that is down here in California in a smallish dwelling.

What gets me are the folks that complain about the price of electricity and their $800/month McMansion A/C bill.

justme,

I fully agree on the conserve part. I'm am just hopeful that a a new invention, whether superconductor or something else, will become a feasable alternative when coupled to a more efficent use of energy.

Conservation is probrably a necessity for alternative forms of energy to work.

Headset,

Thank you. I know your heart is in the right place (subjective, I know, :-))

I think there is still hope that printable solar cells, low-T superconductors and other technologies will eventually become feasible and practical, but we cannot hold our breath or stick our head in the Saudi desert sand while we wait for these technologies to arrive.

As you said, conservation is key, even with new technologies arriving. Not many alternative energy forms have the concentrated energy density and practical usage model of petroleum/oil.

Wow, $22 in the summer! That's fantastic. I have to keep in mind the actual kw consumption. Remember though, I do work at home so fax machines, computer and Bloomberg do take some power.

The real test comes when my elec. bill does/doesn't go down by the amt. I use at my new 182 s/f office! At our last HOA mtg. sec. lighting came up and I suggested just having the courtyard lights come on intermittently. Thiefs know that their victims are creatures of habit. If the lights are "on" all the time, no one worries about thefts? There's nothing a good thief likes more than predictability. To me, it's about anything to throw a would be thief off balance.

DinOR,

>I have to keep in mind the actual kw consumption.

Good point, I am myself guilty of using dollar amounts as a proxy for energy usage/waste.

Home office energy use:

If your desktop PC is less than 2-3 years old, it is very likely to have power saving modes that can cut the CPU clock frequency in half (roughly) when you are idling or just lightly loading the CPU (evening, nighttime, on the phone,...). You just need to figure out how to enable it. In Intel procecessors, I think it is called SpeedStep, and in AMD processors it is called PowerNow.

Oh, half the frequency means half the power consumption, pretty much exactly.

“The Truth About The Green Car of the Year”
As much as I like bashing the "mild hybrids", riddle me this Batman. Who will save more gallons of fuel per year: the guy who trades in his monster Tahoe for the hybrid Tahoe or Dilbert driving his Civic hybrid instead of the regular version?

I'm trying to get in the habit of logging off for good at say 5:00pm (like anyone that worked in an office setting would be expected to do) and only logging back on in the event of an important client call.

Easier said than done. I would also like to have our condo go into basically a shut down mode when we are asleep. I had a few drinks on a Friday and left the stereo on (volume all the way down) overnight and it raised the temp. on top of the unit to over 90 deg!

How many L.E.D clocks/night lights does an ADULT need!? I'm thinking about having everything hooked up to a power strip or just even throwing the breaker or having everything on a timer? Also the wireless modem and a lot of other stuff that's hard/inconvenient to reach. It might make a neat experiment. If it pays off (in terms of less consumption) then it may be worth it.

All my life I have been hearing about the end of oil. In the 1970s the prediction was that we would run out of oil around the turn of the century. So, we should be freezing in the dark by now, with our useless vehicles all abandoned.

Once again, Zephyr Von Knowitall charges in to Make His Point and... gets his facts completely wrong.

Peak Oil theory is not about SUDDENLY running out of oil all at once --it's about oil production (extraction) hitting a peak, then slowly going into decline. A decline over a matter of DECADES, not all at once. It's not about never finding *any* new oil deposits anywhere in the world, it's about those deposits becoming fewer and further between (which has been happening since the 1960s), and the new oil fields that we *do* find tending to be smaller, deeper/more difficult to drill, and generally requiring more energy to extract the oil (EROEI ratio not as good as older fields).

M. King Hubbert predicted --back in the 1950's I might add-- that U.S. production would peak and decline in the early 1970s --precisely as it did. He also predicted worldwide production would peak around 2000. Many geologists today believe we actually hit that peak in 2005 or 2006 and are now "see-sawing" on a rough plateau before the inevitable (slow, gradual) decline.

Being off by only 5-6 years for a prediction made in the 1950s using 1950s data and 1950s technology? Not too frackin' bad in my book.

SP says on SBUX: Eligible? Maybe. Interesting? Okay, I will even go that far. But Desirable? Only if you’re into trendy, neurotic, suburban, ‘i am bored lets go to the mall’ types.

Uninspired, perhaps, but many of those girls are otherwise of good quality. They come from stable families, keep in shape, are relatively sensible and have mundane tastes (particularly in what is perceived to be "luxury").

I have often pondered which is more likely: to find a cute, adventurous, sophisticated girl who isn't already taken, or to find a stable, smart but relatively boring girl and help her to break out of her shell. Having come from a relatively modest lower-middle class family, I think you can always "train up". It's mostly a factor of exposure to the world and an education in its trivialities. Most people never regress from that experience. The uninitiated simply trudge forward, naively believing that a MEW Lexus and perigraniteel are the pinnacle of middle class fulfilment.

I might also add that, despite some extreme doomster hand-wringing to the contrary-- Peak Oil does not require an inevitable economic/societal collapse, "Mad Max" style. As justme pointed out, its about successfully TRANSITIONING to the *next* major energy source BEFORE things get so dire countries are going to war over gas.

The world has enough uranium to last us at least 2-300 years, even with current technology. We have enought thorium for several hundred more. We also have wind, solar, geothermal, wave, etc. While not scalable and/or reliable enough to replace all our energy needs, non-nuclear can supplement a significant %, and when combined with conservation, stretch us even further. If we develop a viable, EROEI-positive form of fusion, then we will have enough energy to last us until the earth is burned out cinder 5 billion years from now.

DinOR,

If by logging out you mean powering down, that works great. But if you are hard core about this (and I think you are!), consider also the automatic CPU power save modes that I mentioned. It is great during daytime, or if you forget to turn the PC off
Automation always helps. Look also for hard-drive spin-downs and the like.

As for the LED/nightlight/router whatnot thingamajigs, I wouldn't worry too much about them. It is the big items that count: heating, light, cooling(refrigerator) and computers and TVs.

The little stuff that runs off tiny power bricks and such is generally only a few watts. It all becomes heat eventually, so turning them off will not do much for you, especially in the winter since you are using electrical heating anyway. If you had an alternative heat source (like a heat pump), it would indeed pay off to go after the smaller items.

Oil and its derivatives are awesome because they're portable, relatively stable, and fairly easy to extract in liquid form.

We'll have options to replace oil, but none will be as nice as oil, and when the premium for using, say, nuclear power to generate hydrogen cells is less than the premium for getting oil out of the ground, we'll switch over.

The problem with passing the peak of oil production is it means energy is going to get more expensive for awhile. Once whatever we switch over to is streamlined, prices will drop, but never as low as it was using oil in the pre-peak periods.

I think it's much more likely that wars will break out over the collapse of the credit bubble (or future bubbles) than the collapse of oil-fields. Credit collapse will have few opportunities for profit, while oil production dropping allows many chances at profit in the new energy sources.

I would worry more about power shifts in the Middle East after Peak Oil. But of course that's why Dubai is diligently investing its oil money into technology, infrastructure, banking, global businesses and other diversified interests. The UAE has gotten the memo.

printable solar cells

Not quite printable cells yet, but I am playing with a solar-powered 43-inch fiberglass catamaran. The donor was an old toy, the large deck area between the hulls is ideal for a bunch of Sunmate solar panel. Ugly and s.l.o.w. for now, but I am more interested in getting data for upscaling the thing to a one or two person craft...

By the way, that last post was in reply to justme's comment about printable solar cells as an alternative to fossil-fuel based power sources. I stripped out too much of the context by mistake...