I read this on The Oil Drum.

"... fossil fuels are qualitatively superior on the matrix categories..."

It all depends on what qualities one cherishes. I cherish clean, quiet, powerful. My matrix I suppose would differ from the Oil Drum author's. In fact, I set forth such a matrix years ago: Scoreboard.

One day, the notion of burning fuels to move things will seem as primitive as cooking a meal in Manhattan at a campfire on the floor in the kitchen. Yes, fossil fuels are compact, but not as compact as electricity delivered by wire. Fuels are explosive too, whether fossil or bio, and it is absurd to have these dangerous substances held in conveyances being hurdled along at highway speed. Now please don't be confused; I'm not advocating EVs with batteries – yet another primitive notion for the urban landscape.

Teams around the world are designing transportation systems based on solar energy, with PV panels directly overhead to meet 100% of the systems' energy demand (on average, net-metered). Teams are designing these systems to place small, on-demand vehicles above the street, where they won't run into people, pets or deer. This is not a pipe dream. 

"... and that transportation without fossil fuels will be hard..."

Maybe that's true in the USA, but not in Europe. Really, how hard can it get?! When was the last time you looked at a freeway cloverleaf? That's what's hard: accommodating a free-wheelin' half-drunk cowboy in a 3-ton behemoth with a wide margin for error – 12' per lane?! – plus a shoulder or barricade. Tons of steel and concrete can be eliminated by greatly streamlining the urban transit system using this emerging technology, with 200 kg podcars on switched computerized networks above the streets. One day we will be jackhammering the streets to turn them into parks where kids can play again, in their village, without getting run over by the above-mentioned cowboy or a choo-choo train cleaving the community in half.

We can do better. Come on, it's time to roll up our sleeves and stop kicking the can down the road for our children's children to figure out what to do. It is obvious: the age of fossil fuels is moribund, and it's time we stopped killing over a million people a year (globally in traffic) with a transport system design that's completely out of step with peak oil realities – and the reality of 21st century technology that is 10X better in so many dimensions: 10X less weight, 10X less energy, 10X greater safety.

 Join the solarevolution!

Reducing global CO2 emissions could soon become a lot easier. Our fossil fuel supplies are in rapid decline, and since humanity is doing so little to address this decline, in more graphic terms, we might call this "sticking our heads in the tar sand."

Climate change activists wring their hands about increased emissions:

What Will the U.S. Energy Mix Look Like in 2050 If We Cut CO2 Emissions 80%?

As if we have a choice! Reducing carbon emissions 80% is a given if total energy consumption worldwide drops 80% due simply to depletion (and not just in the USA; we’re all in this together). With aggregate oil, gas and coal depletion from existing fields already reaching 5% or more per year, this isn’t a flippant scenario. Resource depletion has hardly been mentioned in the climate activist community, but depletion is as real as climate change. 

Market penetration of renewables in 2050 may well be close to 100%. But that may not be such a happy picture, as 100% of then could be more like the 20% of now.

In 2050 our descendants are likely to be using a lot less energy, period. Will they be happy about that? Not necessarily. Between now and then, fossil water aquifers will also be severely depleted; exhausted fuel supplies will not likely be on hand to pump these exhausted water sources from the deep. Since producing meat is so much more energy intensive than vegetables, it may come down to a choice between meat for the few or veggies for the many. Think about it.

I fret about humanity's ability and desire to find alternatives to fossil fuels while there's still enough fuel left to build a robust civilization equipped to survive beyond the age of oil. It won't happen if we continue to invest in fossil-fuel-dependent infrastructure, hoping that a long term solution will magically land in our children's laps in 2050. 

Humanity has been kicking the can down the road for decades, in the USA since Carter. If we want our children and their children in turn to thrive, we in our time must begin figuring out ways to do a lot more with a lot less. I call that notion 10X. We are seeing solutions that use 10X less energy for specific energy services (light, mobility, …). These will actually bring us a better quality of life … if, and that’s a big if, we actually get busy to transform our society from oil to ingenuity. 

 Of course, it is just the opposite for energy-empoverished countries like Nigeria (with 12 watts average electric power per capita) or Afghanistan (with 1 watt per capita). These impoverished countries will have a better quality of life when energy use is 10X greater than it is today. Where energy use now is 100X to 1,000X less than in the OECD countries, an increase in supply of 10X would greatly help to create a higher quality of life.

The President of the United States has been duped. Last night he told the nation that the USA now has 100 years of natural gas reserves, thanks to new technology.  

No doubt his rhetoric was based on recent enthusiastic reports claiming that indeed the US has 100 years of natural gas. But did anyone in the White House notice who wrote those reports? Is it possible the authors hold investments in natural gas? What do they have to say about the consistently low yields of new natural gas wells?  Where does objectivity come into play? If it's true, why then is the USA still importing natural gas from Canada?

President Obama made 100 years sound like a long time. If he's right, what will America's grandchildren do 101 years from now if it's all used up by then?

Is the USA a hundred year flash-in-the-pan natural-gas-powered civilization? If not, it's time to panic! The USA needs to find an alternative to burning up all its natural gas in a couple more generations. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If it's not true and there's less natural gas than advertised, then Americans must be even more conservative and really panic!

Either way, whether the nation may run out of gas in 10 years or 100 years, it's time to slam on the brakes and find viable alternatives to natural gas now, and not keep kicking the can down the road.

I learned a new phrase a few days ago, "drop-in fuels." Leave the fuel-hogging devices all the same -- ask no questions about efficiency -- and concoct a new fuel to keep feeding the hogs. (On small islands in ancient Polynesia, it was discovered that hogs were competing for the same food as humans, and they were exterminated. Oh, that we could learn such lessons from our ancestors.)

The military is looking for a way to fuel jets, tanks, personnel carriers, etc., without oil, and the politicians are providing the rhetoric to suspend the laws of physics until they get re-elected.

Just as with the flawed notion of "shovel ready," we have institutionalized business-as-usual (BAU) remedies which have no future. Rebuilding America, fixing our infrastructure, etc., is all about constructing stranded assets -- artifacts of the age of oil which will last 50-100-200 years longer than the fuel that is needed to operate them. Pity. 

What is the alternative?

• Simultaneously with putting solar panels on our roofs, we must swap out our incandescent bulbs and put in LEDs that use 10% as much energy. The same goes for the efficiency of refrigerators and washing machines. We can do better.
  
• In the haste to convert our cars to electric propulsion...
  • Did anyone notice that the car itself is only about 1% efficient? (Most of the fuel is used to move metal. We use a ton of metal to move a person!)
    
  • With help from other 2 & 4 wheeled contraptions, the car kills a million people worldwide every year and maimes countless others.
  • The electric vehicle uses as much in materials as a conventional car -- or more. There are no savings in materials.
    
  We did not speed up the horse by feeding it on the newly discovered fuel, kerosene. We created the horseless carriage. As the horseless carriage scaled up, we didn't notice its limitations. We now know how to achieve mobility without oil, and we can solve the other flaws of our transportation system at the same time. Getting off oil is liberating, not confining.

If we do all these things and more, we won't be needing the over-powered military machinery which is being used mostly to protect our sources of oil. 

We have a unique opportunity in the context of peak oil to redesign our infrastructure, to transform personal transport to 100% renewables -- and while we are at it, eliminate the fundamental flaws in our present system.

First principles:

• grade separation (put fast-moving vehicles above pedestrians and bicyclists with podcars or below with subways),
  
• automated on fixed guideways,
  
• dispatchable at will, not scheduled,
  
• solar powered,
  
• light weight, aerodynamic,
  
• consuming less than 100 watt-hours per vehicle-km.

You don't know how to do that? If you jettison the oil, you will be able to figure it out. Don't leave it to future generations to struggle in an oil-depleted world. It is time for our generation to become responsible. Let's not kick the can down the road to the next generation.