lpolist : Messages : 632-642 of 642

!!th-hour reminder!

There is a meeting of the Louisville Peak Oil Group Saturday 12/12 at our usual location -- the main branch of the Library, 9:00-11:00

#641

From: Burwell Marshall <cherokeekeith@...>
Date: Fri Dec 4, 2009 10:10 pm
Subject: Feynman on Scientific Integrity

cherokeekeith

Offline

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is FORCE; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
George Washington (1732)

letter in WSJ 12-3

"In contemplating the purloined University of East Anglia emails (L. Gordon Crovitz's 'The Web Discloses Inconvenient Climate Truths,' Information Age, Nov. 30), an illuminating and contrasting backdrop is this description of scientific conduct, given in 1974 by that scientist's scientist, Nobel laureate physicist Richard P. Feynman: 'There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in 'cargo cult science.' ...It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked...Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them....If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it."

[signed] Peter Pearson

Aptos, Calif.

[posted by Burwell Marshall, Louisville]

#640

From: Burwell Marshall <cherokeekeith@...>
Date: Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:15 pm
Subject: article in 11-20 issue of Science

cherokeekeith

Offline

To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
From: lcrowell@...
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:31:22 -0700
Subject: RE: [energyresources] Re: Physics people, some numbers...

This is appears in the 11/20 issue of Science. The AAAS is finally starting
to take notice.

Lawrence B. Crowell

OIL RESOURCES:

Splitting the Difference Between Oil Pessimists and Optimists

Richard A. Kerr

World production of conventional oil is likely to peak before 2030 and could
reach its limits before 2020, a major report from a new voice in the debate
over oil depletion warns. The report from the UK Energy Research Centre
(UKERC) steers a middle course between oil pessimists-many of whom think
production has already topped out-and optimists, who hold that oil supply
will continue to meet demand well beyond 2030. In view of the daunting task
of weaning the world's transportation off oil, the risk of a peak before
2030 "needs to be given serious consideration," the report says.

Not ever upward. A new report falls midway between pessimistic (left) and
optimistic (right) forecasts of oil production.

SOURCE: UK ENERGY RESEARCH CENTRE (OCTOBER 2009)

[Larger version of this image]

Many experts agree, although their reasons vary. The report's prospect of an
uncomfortably close peak in easily extracted oil makes sense, says petroleum
geologist Lucia van Geuns of the Clingendael International Energy Programme
in The Hague, the Netherlands. The report, she says, reinforces the
increasingly concerned tone of annual reports from the International Energy
Agency (IEA), the most recent of which came out last week with a warning
that time is short for action.

The authors of the UKERC report aspired to produce an "independent,
thorough, and systematic review of the evidence and arguments in the 'peak
oil' debate," as its press release put it. UKERC, an umbrella organization
of energy researchers at U.K. universities, was founded 5 years ago and is
funded by Research Councils UK. For UKERC's Global Oil Depletion report
(http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/Global%20Oil%20Depletion) released last
month, five researchers headed by energy analyst Steven Sorrell of the
University of Sussex commissioned researchers in and out of UKERC to scour
the oil depletion literature, both peer-reviewed and not. Synthesizing more
than 500 publications, the authors compared 14 forecasts of world production
of conventional oil-the sort that will flow up a drill pipe on its own, not
the oil locked up in oil sands or shale. After standardizing the forecasts,
the authors rated their plausibility in light of the world's past production
performance.

In the end, the UKERC report finds fault with both optimistic and
pessimistic oil forecasts. Pessimistic forecasts that yield a world
production peak today or within a few years often depend upon some estimate
of the total amount of oil in the world that will ever be produced, the
ultimate recoverable resource (URR). Some forecasters emulate the late
geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who in 1956 accurately predicted that
production in the continental United States would peak in 1970. They combine
their favored URR with Hubbert's rule of thumb that production peaks when
half the URR has been consumed. Such "peakists" tend to favor a URR of a
little over 2000 billion barrels; the world has consumed 1228 billion
barrels, so we're peaking about now, they conclude.

The UKERC report sees a number of problems with the classic Hubbert
approach. "We come out quite critical of the pessimists, in part because
their methods underestimate the URR," says lead author Sorrell. In 2000, the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that URR is 3345 billion barrels-a
47% increase over their previous figure. Peakists pooh-pooh the USGS
estimate as wildly optimistic, but the UKERC report finds that "large
resources of conventional oil may be available." Among other evidence, it
says, the amount of oil still being discovered in and around known fields
supports the USGS estimate. The peakists' unwarranted low URRs have
"contributed to excessively pessimistic forecasts of future supply," the
report concludes.

On the other hand, the UKERC report finds forecasts that have global oil
production rising more or less steadily out to 2030 to be overly optimistic.
These forecasts from IEA, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, OPEC,
and Exxon typically start by predicting how much oil will be required each
year, including the expected added demand from growing populations and
growing economies. Then forecasters allot the required production to
oil-producing countries in proportion to the amount of oil they still hold.

Such demand-driven forecasts, the report says, require world oil production
to outperform its already stunning record of doubling every decade for a
century. That's unlikely, it finds, because industry is discovering fewer
and fewer of the giant, highly productive fields that made such growth
possible. "We consider that forecasts that delay the peak until after 2030
rest upon several assumptions that are at best optimistic and at worst
implausible," the authors write. The IEA forecast, for example, implies that
newly discovered fields will produce oil at rates that "greatly exceed
historical experience," says Sorrell. "That may be possible, but the
forecasters certainly haven't justified it."

An avowed moderate pessimist-Beijing-based petroleum analyst Michael Rodgers
of consulting company PFC Energy-says the UKERC report gets things about
right. The report reminds readers that "there are some real subsurface
constraints" on production, he says. "You have to find a lot of new fields
to offset declining ones and build production, [but] there's no way you can
be that optimistic."

Van Geuns agrees that the increasing difficulty in finding and extracting
oil will lead to a conventional peak before 2030, but she still sees an
optimistic side. As the increasing scarcity of conventional oil pushes up
prices, exploitation of more expensive unconventional fuels such as oil
sands (see p. 1052) will expand, she says. Higher-cost oil will also make
pricey oil in extremely deep waters or in the offshore Arctic more
attractive. If unconventional oil can be developed fast enough, she notes,
any looming peak in conventional oil could be blunted. The catch, the UKERC
report notes, is that the conventional oil peak will not give a clear
warning of its approach; studies like this one will likely have to spur
early, strong action by themselves.

~~~~~~~~~EnergyResources Moderator Comment ~~~~~~~~

Once again, anyone ever heard of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) which regarding oil probably peaked some time ago. But we don't really know.

~~~~~~ EnergyResources Moderator Tom Robertson ~~~~~~

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#639

From: George Perkins <gg_perk@...>
Date: Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:35 pm
Subject: Correction: Searching for a Miracle

ggperk01

Offline

http://www.postcarbon.org/report/44377-searching-for-a-miracle

Thanks for posting this, Terrell. Unfortunately the link in the message was apparently untested and bad, because of embedded spaces.

The thesis of this report is the central "inconvenient (and generally unrecognized) truth" of our energy dilemma. The title of the press release below tells it all. There is no realistic substitute for oil that will allow us to continue our current rate of energy consumption. It is the high net energy return of petroleum, in comparison with any known alternative, that makes it so. In order to make the decisions necessary to shape our future, we all need to clearly understand the concept of net energy and its implications.

If the full 75-page report is "more than you wnat to know", there is a 2-page overview at the linked web site or the even shorter press release below.

For Release Nov 13 2009

Tod Brilliant

POST CARBON INSTITUTE

tod@...

707-823-8700 x105

ARRESTING NEW THINK TANK STUDY CONCLUDES: NO COMBINATION OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SYSTEMS CAN REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS

Santa Rosa, CA (13. November 2009)

An alarming new study jointly released by two prominent California-based environmental/economic think tanks, concludes that unrelenting energy limits, even among alternative energy systems, will make it impossible for the industrial system to continue operating at its present scale, beyond the next few decades. The report finds that the current race by industries and governments to develop new sustainable energy technologies that can replace ecologically harmful and rapidly depleting fossil fuel and nuclear technologies, will not prove sufficient, and that this will require substantial adjustments in many operating assumptions of modern society.

The new study (“Searching for a Miracle: Net Energy Limits & the Fate of Industrial Society”) is the first major analysis to utilize the new research tools of “full life cycle assessment” and “net energy ratios” (Energy Returned on Energy Invested, EROEI), to compare all currently proposed future scenarios for how industrial society can face its long term future.

The report analyzes 18 of the most viable power production alternatives, from traditional fossil fuels and nuclear, through wind, solar, wave, geothermal, biomass, et. al. to identify their “net energy” ratios—the amount of energy that must be invested in them vs. the amount of energy they will be able to produce---as well as their environmental, social and geopolitical impacts. It also considers such important factors as resource and materials supply, resource location, transportation, waste disposal issues, and others to create a full life cycle picture of each technology’s impacts.

“Searching for a Miracle” was published by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG). The content was largely provided by the Post Carbon Institute, a think tank that works toward a transition to a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable world.

The principal author of the report is Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute, and the best-selling author of such books as “The Party’s Over”, ““Peak Everything”, and “Blackout”. The editor of the project--part of the IFG’s False Solutions program--is San Francisco author Jerry Mander, who is Founder and Distinguished Fellow of IFG. His previous popular books on economics and technology include: “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television”, “The Case Against the Global Economy”, and “Alternatives to Globalization”.

Following are a few of the main conclusions of this report:

✦ As the world’s higher-quality fossil fuel reserves rapidly deplete, no combination of alternative energy sources is likely to be sufficient to sustain industrial society at its present scale. Energy supply problems, perhaps severe, are likely during the coming decade, worsening as primary fuels become scarce and costly. Major adjustments will be required in industrial production and personal consumption; attention will need to be paid to stabilizing and reducing population levels over the long term.

✦ Fossil fuels and high-quality uranium ores are depleting rapidly; world oil production may already have peaked. Present expectations for new technological replacements are probably overly optimistic with regard to ecological sustainability, potential scale of development, and levels of “net energy” gain—i.e., the amount of energy actually yielded once energy inputs for the production process have been subtracted. Technologies such as “carbon capture and sequestration” and “4th generation” nuclear power remain largely hypothetical and may never be deployed on a large scale, while the prospects for oil shale, tar sands, and shale gas have been overstated to varying degrees.

✦ Certain energy production systems suffer from low or negative net energy gain; these include most biofuels, hydrogen systems, oil shale, tar sands, and biomass, some of which also present unacceptable environmental problems (as is also true of conventional fossil fuels and nuclear power). So far, the best prospects for large-scale production and net-energy performance remain wind energy and certain forms of solar, but these still face important limitations due to intermittency of supply, remoteness of the best resources, materials needed for large-scale deployment, and scale potential. Tidal and geothermal power—which can have high net-energy yield but suffer from a low potential energy production capacity—will prove marginally useful in a diverse future energy supply mix.

✦ Limits to future energy supply are more dramatic if environmental impacts are considered— including accelerating climate change, fresh water scarcity, destruction of food-growing lands, shortages of minerals, and threats to wildlife habitat.

✦ Given the above, it is necessary to prepare societies for dramatic shifts in consumption and lifestyle expectations. It will also be necessary to promote a new ethic of conservation throughout the industrial world. A sharp reversal of today’s globalization of commercial activity—inherently wasteful for its transport energy needs—must be anticipated and facilitated, and government leaders must encourage a rapid evolution toward economies based on localism especially for essential needs such as food and energy. The study remarks that this is not necessarily a negative prospect, as some research shows that, once basic human needs are met, high material consumption levels do not correlate with high quality of life.

✦ The emphasis by policy makers on growth as the central goal and measure of modern economies is no longer practical or viable, as growth will be limited by both energy shortages and by society’s inability to continue venting energy production and consumption wastes (principally, carbon dioxide) into the environment without catastrophic consequences. Standards for economic success must shift from gross metrics of economic activity, to more direct assessments of human well-being, equity, and the health of the natural world.

✦ With energy supplies diminishing, raw material resources similarly depleting, and crises such as climate change rapidly advancing, the long-term goal of satisfying the needs of the world’s poorest peoples—in their attempts to recover from centuries of colonialism, resource exploitation, and removal from traditional lands and economies—becomes ever more daunting. Efforts at relieving poverty, both domestically and internationally, will require more equitable reallocation of existing real wealth.

✦ These factors must all be taken very seriously by policy makers in all countries, and by global institutions that have thus far failed to be realistic about what will be required to avoid future social and economic breakdowns and geopolitical crises, as countries and peoples compete for dwindling energy resources, raw materials, and agricultural space. While it is not yet too late to change course, the opportunities to avoid catastrophic economic, environmental, social, and political impacts are few and quickly dwindling.

For further information, or additional copies of the report, please contact the organizations below:

POST CARBON INSTITUTE

500 N. Main St., Suite 100

Sebastopol, CA 95472 USA

Tel: +1.707.823.8700 • Fax: +1.866.797.5820

http://www.postcarbon.org • media@...

THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON GLOBALIZATION

1009 General Kennedy Avenue, Suite 2

San Francisco, California 94129 USA

T: +1.415.561.7650 • F: +1.415.561.7651

http://www.ifg.org • ifg@...

ABOUT POST CARBON INSTITUTE

Post Carbon Institute provides individuals, communities, businesses, and governments with the resources needed to understand and respond to the interrelated economic, energy, and environmental crises that define the 21st century. PCI envisions a world of resilient communities and re-localized economies that thrive within ecological bounds.

In addition to Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg, PCI Fellows include Bill McKibben, Majora Carter, Wes Jackson, David Orr and 23 others. Full list of PCI Fellows.

--- On Sat, 11/14/09, Terrell <foofaraw@...> wrote:

From: Terrell <foofaraw@...>
Subject: [LPOlist] Searching for a Miracle
To: lpolist@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, November 14, 2009, 4:56 PM

Just released by Post Carbon Institute:

SEARCHING FOR A MIRACLE

`Net Energy' Limits & the Fate
of Industrial Society"

[The Conservation Imperative]

http://www.postcarb on.org/report/ 44377-searching- for-a-miracle

#638

From: Burwell Marshall <cherokeekeith@...>
Date: Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:37 am
Subject: Japan eyes solar station in space

cherokeekeith

Offline

Lawrence Crowell is a physicist in California.

To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
From: lcrowell@...
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:25:56 -0700
Subject: RE: [energyresources] Japan eyes solar station in space

-----Original Message-----
From: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:energyresources@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Lawrence B. Crowell
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 1:56 PM
To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [energyresources] Japan eyes solar station in space

-----Original Message-----
From: energyresources@ <mailto:energyresources%40yahoogroups.com>
yahoogroups.com
[mailto:energyresources@ <mailto:energyresources%40yahoogroups.com>
yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
talkaboutalternativeenergy
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 5:18 PM
To: energyresources@ <mailto:energyresources%40yahoogroups.com>
yahoogroups.com
Subject: [energyresources] Japan eyes solar station in space

It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan's space agency is dead
serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it
down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.
The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of
researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar
dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.

Next informations Klik Here! <http://energy-
<http://energy- <http://energy-for-future.blogspot.com/>
for-future.blogspot.com/> for-future.blogspot.com/>

This is potentially viable. Remember that the one space application which
works involves sending back a massless commodity, information. In this case
we might be able to send concentrated solar energy back from solar power
satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Lawrence B. Crowell

~~~~~~~~~EnergyResources Moderator Comment ~~~~~~~~

And what happens when some big airplane flies through that high energy beam?

~~~~~~ EnergyResources Moderator Tom Robertson ~~~~~~

I think that is a manageable problem, it is called air traffic control.
Some care has to be given to electromagnetic scatter at receivers,
positioning these away from human populations or migratory bird paths and so
forth. Yet solar power satellites might in the end prove to be preferable
to nuclear power stations, or at least large numbers of them. I think we
should move to an energy basis that is as renewable as possible. Yet wind
and solar (here ground based solar) have down times, and there will be a
need for stable power sources to make up the short falls which occur in
regions. Another source of energy we might consider is tethered submersible
turbines in the ocean conveyer, such as the Gulf Stream. The future energy
picture will best be a matrix of various sources.

Lawrence B. Crowell

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#637

From: "Terrell" <foofaraw@...>
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:56 pm
Subject: Searching for a Miracle

skippert002

Offline

Just released by Post Carbon Institute:

SEARCHING FOR A MIRACLE

`Net Energy' Limits & the Fate
of Industrial Society"

[The Conservation Imperative]

http://www.postcarbon.org/report/44377-searching-for-a-miracle

#636

From: "Terrell" <foofaraw@...>
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:32 pm
Subject: Re: IEA's World Energy Outlook

skippert002

Offline

From the article:

"The payoff from conserving oil could soon outstrip that of drilling for it."

What a concept...

From Al Bartlett's "Arithmetic, Population and Energy"

http://albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_transcript_engl\
ish.html:

"Again from Time magazine: "Energy industries agree that to achieve some form of
energy self-sufficiency, the US must mine all the coal that it can." Now think
about that for just a moment. Let me paraphrase it: the more rapidly we consume
our resources, the more self-sufficient we'll be. Isn't that what it says?"


--- In lpolist@yahoogroups.com, Burwell Marshall <cherokeekeith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
> From: cherokeekeith@...
> Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:35:51 +0000
> Subject: [energyresources] IEA's World Energy Outlook
>
>
>
>
>
> commentary in London Financial Times, 11-11
>
> "It was barely 10 years ago that a well-reasoned cover story in The Economist
told us we were 'drowning in oil' and that its price could drop by more than
half to $5 a barrel. As everybody now knows, prices rose tenfold before peaking
last summer. There are just so many moving parts to the energy market that
making forecasts is a mug's game. If exhaustive detail is a measure of
credibility, though, few sources equal the International Energy Agency's World
Energy Outlook, published yesterday.
>
> "Coinciding with the first time since 1981 that global energy use has
declined, 2009's report is not complacent about future energy supply and
environmental challenges. Like many forecasts, though, it makes the mistake of
extrapolating recent trends too freely. For example, the IEA expects global oil
production to rise from last year's 85m barrels to 105m by 2030 while
acknowledging that about two-thirds of this will come from fields yet to be
found or developed. But at what cost ?
>
> "In just the past decade, exploration spending has nearly tripled in order to
maintain a similar rate of supply growth. Leaving aside arguments that the IEA's
forecast skirts the edge of what is geologically feasible, incremental barrels
are getting pricier to find and, once out of the ground, are more coveted. The
IEA expects real oil prices to hit $87 a barrel by 2015 and $115 by 2030 to make
this all possible. What about the possibility that supply will falter and that a
far higher clearing price will instead do the trick ? Living with $300 crude is
no more outlandish than suggesting a decade ago that $80 would be the new
normal. The payoff from conserving oil could soon outstrip that of drilling for
it.
>
> "Just as forecasters failed to appreciate the market's reaction to low prices
a decade ago, they may be underestimating how we will react to increasingly
expensive oil tomorrow."
>
> posted by
>
> Burwell Marshall
> Louisville
>
> ~~~~~~~~~EnergyResources Moderator Comment ~~~~~~~~
>
> Folks, I looked into getting the above document, but they want a lot of money
for it, like 120 Euros for a PDF file. The thing does have a lot of pages (696)
but that is still a lot of money for a public document.
>
> See for yourself at:
>
> http://www.iea.org/w/bookshop/add.aspx?id=388
>
> ~~~~~~ EnergyResources Moderator Tom Robertson ~~~~~~
>

#635

From: Burwell Marshall <cherokeekeith@...>
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:39 pm
Subject: IEA's World Energy Outlook

cherokeekeith

Offline

To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
From: cherokeekeith@...
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:35:51 +0000
Subject: [energyresources] IEA's World Energy Outlook

commentary in London Financial Times, 11-11

"It was barely 10 years ago that a well-reasoned cover story in The Economist told us we were 'drowning in oil' and that its price could drop by more than half to $5 a barrel. As everybody now knows, prices rose tenfold before peaking last summer. There are just so many moving parts to the energy market that making forecasts is a mug's game. If exhaustive detail is a measure of credibility, though, few sources equal the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook, published yesterday.

"Coinciding with the first time since 1981 that global energy use has declined, 2009's report is not complacent about future energy supply and environmental challenges. Like many forecasts, though, it makes the mistake of extrapolating recent trends too freely. For example, the IEA expects global oil production to rise from last year's 85m barrels to 105m by 2030 while acknowledging that about two-thirds of this will come from fields yet to be found or developed. But at what cost ?

"In just the past decade, exploration spending has nearly tripled in order to maintain a similar rate of supply growth. Leaving aside arguments that the IEA's forecast skirts the edge of what is geologically feasible, incremental barrels are getting pricier to find and, once out of the ground, are more coveted. The IEA expects real oil prices to hit $87 a barrel by 2015 and $115 by 2030 to make this all possible. What about the possibility that supply will falter and that a far higher clearing price will instead do the trick ? Living with $300 crude is no more outlandish than suggesting a decade ago that $80 would be the new normal. The payoff from conserving oil could soon outstrip that of drilling for it.

"Just as forecasters failed to appreciate the market's reaction to low prices a decade ago, they may be underestimating how we will react to increasingly expensive oil tomorrow."

posted by

Burwell Marshall
Louisville

~~~~~~~~~EnergyResources Moderator Comment ~~~~~~~~

Folks, I looked into getting the above document, but they want a lot of money for it, like 120 Euros for a PDF file. The thing does have a lot of pages (696) but that is still a lot of money for a public document.

See for yourself at:

http://www.iea.org/w/bookshop/add.aspx?id=388

~~~~~~ EnergyResources Moderator Tom Robertson ~~~~~~

#634

From: "Terrell" <foofaraw@...>
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:36 am
Subject: Re: Interesting study on pollution generated by various types of car fuels

skippert002

Offline

Thanks for the link David.  Good article.   I followed links back to the source
paper and it's a pretty meaty report.

Whole "Hidden Costs of Energy" report here ==>

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12794

Also browsing around StreetsBlog I noticed the featured story today was about
Louisville's ranking in pedestrian safety and walkability.  I'm sure you saw
that one.  Followed that story back to Louisville bloggers at "Broken
Sidewalks."  I like the "BS" moniker.

http://brokensidewalk.com/

T

--- In lpolist@yahoogroups.com, David Morse <dcmorse@...> wrote:
>
> George,
> I imagine APCD is already aware of this new study, that puts a $56b hidden
> health cost on the pollution caused by motor vehicles - on the order of 1-2
> cents/mile:
>
> http://dc.streetsblog.org/2009/10/19/hidden-health-cost/
>
> Here's the Peak-Oil-list relevant section:
>
> Damages per vehicle mile traveled were remarkably similar among various
> combinations of fuels and technologies -- the range was 1.2 cents to about
> 1.7 cents per mile traveled -- and it is important to be cautious in
> interpreting small differences, the report says.  Nonclimate-related damages
> for corn grain ethanol were similar to or slightly worse than gasoline,
> because of the energy needed to produce the corn and convert it to fuel.  In
> contrast, ethanol made from herbaceous plants or corn stover -- which are
> not yet commercially available -- had lower damages than most other options.
>
>
>
> Electric vehicles and grid-dependent (plug-in) hybrid vehicles showed
> somewhat higher nonclimate damages than many other technologies for both
> 2005 and 2030.  Operating these vehicles produces few or no emissions, but
> producing the electricity to power them currently relies heavily on fossil
> fuels; also, energy used in creating the battery and electric motor adds up
> to 20 percent to the manufacturing part of life-cycle damages.
>
>
> ...
>
>
> Both for 2005 and 2030, vehicles using gasoline made from oil extracted from
> tar sands and those using diesel derived from the Fischer-Tropsch process --
> which converts coal, methane, or biomass to liquid fuel -- had the highest
> life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions.  Vehicles using ethanol made from corn
> stover or herbaceous feedstock such as switchgrass had some of the lowest
> greenhouse gas emissions, as did those powered by compressed natural gas.
>
>
> --
> cartky.org - transportation news from outside the box
>

#633

From: David Morse <dcmorse@...>
Date: Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:55 pm
Subject: Interesting study on pollution generated by various types of car fuels

svref

Offline

George,
I imagine APCD is already aware of this new study, that puts a $56b hidden health cost on the pollution caused by motor vehicles - on the order of 1-2 cents/mile:

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2009/10/19/hidden-health-cost/

Here's the Peak-Oil-list relevant section:

Damages per vehicle mile traveled were remarkably similar among various combinations of fuels and technologies -- the range was 1.2 cents to about 1.7 cents per mile traveled -- and it is important to be cautious in interpreting small differences, the report says.� Nonclimate-related damages for corn grain ethanol were similar to or slightly worse than gasoline, because of the energy needed to produce the corn and convert it to fuel.� In contrast, ethanol made from herbaceous plants or corn stover -- which are not yet commercially available -- had lower damages than most other options.�

Electric vehicles and grid-dependent (plug-in) hybrid vehicles showed somewhat higher nonclimate damages than many other technologies for both 2005 and 2030.� Operating these vehicles produces few or no emissions, but producing the electricity to power them currently relies heavily on fossil fuels; also, energy used in creating the battery and electric motor adds up to 20 percent to the manufacturing part of life-cycle damages.�

...

Both for 2005 and 2030, vehicles using gasoline made from oil extracted from tar sands and those using diesel derived from the Fischer-Tropsch process -- which converts coal, methane, or biomass to liquid fuel -- had the highest life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions.� Vehicles using ethanol made from corn stover or herbaceous feedstock such as switchgrass had some of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, as did those powered by compressed natural gas.�

--
cartky.org - transportation news from outside the box

#632

From: Burwell Marshall <cherokeekeith@...>
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2009 2:03 pm
Subject: Whistleblower at the IEA gives the game away.

cherokeekeith

Offline

To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com; AlasBabylon@yahoogroups.com; the_dieoff_QA@yahoogroups.com
From: ryder@...
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 23:27:59 +0100
Subject: [energyresources] Whistleblower at the IEA gives the game away.

Worth a read, from today's Guardian in the UK. Apparently it is all
America's fault...

<Quote>

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates
admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency
who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage
for fear of triggering panic buying.
<Unquote>

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

~~~~~~~~~EnergyResources Moderator Comment ~~~~~~~~

Of course, all the numbers in the above article are for gross production, nothing is said about the net productivity of our energy production systems, which have been declining at an accelerating rate probably since the early 1990s.

(And no one is really looking at those numbers. At the same time, the financial system is generating money at unprecedented rates and with increasingly less energy to do the work all that money represents.

~~~~~~ EnergyResources Moderator Tom Robertson ~~~~~~