[frankthetank]

A missing piece is cost. Who pays? and what are the implications of people who can not afford this? NG? this should really be used mainly for HEATING! NOT transportation. Coal will be a major player, along with nuclear, both being used for electricity production mainly, neither one of them solving the problem of fueling my 2 cars parked in the driveway

Do you recommend everyone scrap there personal transportation and borrow more money from the Chinese to buy a LIthiumIon powered car (if these batteries are is crappy as what powers my notebook computer, were in trouble!).

Horses, Bikes, and walking...thats the future

[heyhoser]

....Locomotives and ships can run on coal, no problem.

....Taxi fleets and buses run on natural gas throughout the world.

...Nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and the French train system show how nuclear can be used to move people/things around.

...particularly in backwaters like the U.S. which are behind the times. But the main point stands: we're not running out of transport fuel any time soon.
But what about the private automobile and private motoring? Well... my thinking is that we should just take it out back like the sick horse it is, and put a bullet in its head.

Yeah. We won't have any problem whatsoever just cutting off private tranist means due to oil shortages. Nope. We can just switch to LNG (even though places like India, which have only STARTED to use LNG auto fuel are already entering a supply shortage:
Green Car Congress).
Of course, once those pipelines open up, they'll be flushed with LNG again for ever and ever.
Nor is it likely that LNG will be peaking anytime soon, except according to some fringe lunatic people, one of them you can read about here (Energy Bulletein). So, we don't have to worry about shooting the horse in the head after all.
Or...Okay, maybe we do.

But at least, it's a good thing, like you replied to my post in another thread, that private transportation is a LUXURY and not a necessity. Whew. Good. We Americans can just hop on one of the busses at the corner of our streets to take us 30 miles to work. Of course, if THAT doesn't work out (for some liberal, American-hating reasons), then our economy will simply stop. But that won't affect the rest of the world at all. Yep.

JohnDenver, I think you have a BiGG misconception of the BiGG picture.
The phrase 'misplaced optimisim' comes to mind.

[DriveElectric]

John, you are essentially correct on this one. BUT there is a whole lot of cars in operation, many of them used to transport people from home to work. How are going to solve that one?

That is the easy part. Most people drive less than 30 miles per day. Nuclear could easily fill that requirement with electric powered small vehicles or electric scooters (Vectrix).

Plug-in hybrids which get the first 30-40 miles from battery, before switching over to a biofuel. Most people would refill their biofuel tank perhaps 2 or 3 times per year.

Also, how are you going to deal with the lorries/trucks used to transport all sorts of merchandise?

Mercedes/Chrysler has a small truck plug-in hybrid in testing called the Sprinter. This is essentially a nuclear/coal/wind/solar/hydro powered truck.

http://www.epri.com/highlights.asp?objid=295753

A rechargeable battery provides the electric power for the hybrid drive train. It can be charged through a standard 110- or 220-volt outlet. Running on electricity alone, the Dodge Sprinter will travel up to 20 miles before the engine is needed. The 20-mile range represents 50 percent of all daily travel driven by Americans, who drive on average 12,000 miles annually, EPRI reports.

“These EPRI-led studies have shown that plugging in each night at home would save the consumer 50 – 75% on operating costs,” said Ed Kjaer, director of Electric Transportation at Southern California Edison.

[heyhoser]

That is the easy part. Most people drive less than 30 miles per day. Nuclear could easily fill that requirement with electric powered small vehicles or electric scooters (Vectrix).....

Mercedes/Chrysler has a small truck plug-in hybrid in testing called the Sprinter. This is essentially a nuclear/coal/wind/solar/hydro powered truck....

Another BiGG optimist. We won't see a new nuclear reactor for ten or fifteen years. You just don't build them overnight. Plus, our first priority will be to take over the gap left in the depleting natural gas that fuels our electricity (estimates that range from 10 to 40 years). So, say we do build enough reactors to supply our energy grid and power our vehicles.
How are we going to afford to buy millions of hybrid cars and trucks? Is the government going to make a law that says, 'Bring in your old oil-guzzler and get a more expensive hybrid absolutely free'?

Derh?

[DriveElectric]

Another BiGG optimist. We won't see a new nuclear reactor for ten or fifteen years. You just don't build them overnight. Plus, our first priority will be to take over the gap left in the depleting natural gas that fuels our electricity (estimates that range from 10 to 40 years).

Another dead end Doomer. The natural gas gap is likely going to be met by Wind power, which is the fastest growing power source for electricity.. Natural Gas makes up about 20% of our electricity. That is approximately what Wind power can achieve before intermittency issues.

So, say we do build enough reactors to supply our energy grid and power our vehicles.
How are we going to afford to buy millions of hybrid cars and trucks? Is the government going to make a law that says, 'Bring in your old oil-guzzler and get a more expensive hybrid absolutely free'?

Why are you expecting the government to solve all of your problems? Oil doesnt disappear on day one of Peak Oil. The decline is over the course of years. The replacement of petro transportation for hybrid/biofuel transportation will occur over the course of 20 years.

Nobody is promising you a smooth ride, but there are solutions available to every silly issue that doomers refuse to look beyond.

Try not to be a bit more open minded. If you narrow your vision to only the worst, that is all you will ever find.

[heyhoser]

Agreed and conceeded.
I don't have an education in economics, so I don't think I could carry this out any further.

[ArimoDave]

Move closer to work, transport goods to ralheads and move less of them about IE Globalisation in reverse.

Why do most people seem to get this backwards? You don't move closer to work;
you create or choose work which is closer to where you live. It may not pay as
well as some other job, but IMO, one's choice of where they live should be based
on where you feel most at home not on where you work.

The car has allowed many of us to have a bit of both worlds -- a good
place to live, and a good place to work.

Personal transportation will change, and it is likely easier to do than
many believe, but there also needs to be implementable alternatives to
trucking and shipping. Gone, I think, will be the "just in time"
manufacturing of today. We will need to go back to larger inventory
stocks.

ArimoDave

[johnmarkos]

John. The real optimists in the forums are talking about gardens, chickens and goats. About buying land, or tearing out asphalt and backyard fences and learning about self sufficiency.

Some of us optimists (resilient realists) are trying to live sustainably in the city, too. Urban life has a future. It's the suburbs and exurbs that are in real trouble.

[rockdoc123]

What a load of crap....don't need vehicles? I don't buy that. We are no longer living in 50's North America where all the food in the grocery store was supplied by Mom and Pops farm just outside the city limits. Fact is we are living in a global community more and more every day. Take a look at the preserved food products in stores....where do you think they come from ...Santa Claus? no they come from overseas somewhere or at the very least many counties or states away. If the shit hits the fan one day tell me there is going to be enough food crops grown in rural America to feed all of the cities? Oh well then go live on a farm....yeah and how do you get grain, fertilizer etc. to the farm and better yet where are all the people going to get enough land to farm. Bottom line is nothing will be the same....there will have to be less people, less populated cities, more agriculture.
Fuel of some sort is needed to transport goods. Nucleur.....give me a break......perhaps we will convert all the nuke subs to storage containers? Or perhaps suddenly someone will invent cars that can run safely off of a small nuclear reactor that would be impervious to terrorist attack? perhaps Pons and Fleishman will announce they were right after all on cold fusion....Or maybe pigs will fly out of my arse as well...
Natural gas...good in theory but how do you get it out of the ground and to the right places without energy input and worse yet....perhaps you missed it but natural gas is a finite resource and it is dwindling very rapidly in case you haven't looked. Coal.....ever see a picture of London in the fifites?.....the climate change and eco-folks would put a coal shovel up your backside if you seriously suggested this one. Coal gas....hey works great in San Juan basin where the US gov't provided huge tax incentives early on...ie. it ain't generally economic and again is a very limited resource.
Nope I think your only solution will be to own a Fred Flintstone car...hand tooled from wood and stones....just have to build up the callouses on your feet.

[highlander]

The last place I want to be when shortages occur in a city. The riots of the 60's will look mild compared to the unrest when people can't get food when they want. I guess you pick your poison. Rather than live in the cities and depend on others or the gov't taking care of me, I'll live on the outside and continue my evil commuting lifestyle.

[rockdoc123]

Another dead end Doomer. The natural gas gap is likely going to be met by Wind power, which is the fastest growing power source for electricity

Yeah right.....I've heard this one before. Perhaps you are missing the fact that the reason people haven't gone to wide scale wind schemes is ...guess what?...it isn't windy all the time everywhere. In fact in Canada a number of wind companies have installed turbines but are hardly making any dough....why? simply because they cannot commit to meet delivery contracts because they actually don't know if it will be windy enough on the day that the demand for their power is there. Wind power is a nice addon to gas electric but will not work on its own until such time as someone comes up with a means for mass storage of electricity.
Also maybe one day you should take a drive down the valley from San Bernadino (I think that's where I saw it)....wind farms are not pretty sights and take up a huge amount of land space.

[DriveElectric]

Wind power is a nice addon to gas electric but will not work on its own until such time as someone comes up with a means for mass storage of electricity.

http://www.dukepower.com/aboutus/plants/pumpedstorage/

http://www.electricitystorage.org/tech/ ... dhydro.htm

http://www.dom.com/about/stations/hydro ... torage.wmv

[rockdoc123]

Drive Electric I believe you are confused. Exactly how are you going to store electricity from wind? The pumped storage thing with dams is not the same. I don't see how this could work with wind. Currently wind can be used to slow down consumption of gas or water generated electricity but cannot be standalone. No one would argue that water is a good source but when the shit hits the fan the Canadians will damn up all the rivers before they reach the US!

[Wildwell]

You can store electricity made from wind a number of ways: Compressed air, fuel cells, pumped storage, battery banks. Usually the wind farms are placed sufficiently far apart for intermittent generation not to be an issue in any case. You still need a lot of them though.

[rockdoc123]

Usually the wind farms are placed sufficiently far apart for intermittent generation not to be an issue in any case.

I think you are wrong on this one. I note you are from the UK ....offshore wind farms in the North Sea work like a dang....could not think of a place that has a more consistent steady "breeze". Oil companies are using them to power their offshore facilities although I think the enviro types are getting a little cheezed off with that lately. Onshore in North America a continous wind source isn't the case. If you need a power source for industry it has to be consistent and steady unless of course you have a dependable large quantity storage method.

BTW I have read about the possibility of storing electrical energy but as far as I know it is all vaporware currently, you speak of it as if it is common technology and being applied so perhaps I am out of date. Battery storage has been talked about for years but my understanding is there is a size issue ie. you can easily run a car for a 100 miles or so on a battery charge but how many of these batteries or what size would you need to generate enough electricity to fill a city grid of a million people or so?

[nero]

BTW I have read about the possibility of storing electrical energy but as far as I know it is all vaporware currently.

Pumped storage is quite real. I often wonder about the economics of it but since it is already used by the big utilities it must make economic sense.

[Devilboy]

What a load of crap....don't need vehicles? I don't buy that. We are no longer living in 50's North America where all the food in the grocery store was supplied by Mom and Pops farm just outside the city limits.

I agree that in this regard the USA is screwed. That does not mean everyone else in the world is too - many european countries do just fine with very few people owning their own cars. Same can be said for many 3rd world countries.

Nucleur.....give me a break......perhaps we will convert all the nuke subs to storage containers? Or perhaps suddenly someone will invent cars that can run safely off of a small nuclear reactor that would be impervious to terrorist attack?

Dude nuclear reactors make electricity that can be used to power trains, trams or if stored in batteries even cars. Don't be stupid.

[0mar]

You guys are forgetting one thing.

The multi-trillion dollar global economy can not be changed overnight.

Any move to alternatives is at least 20-50 years in the making. Even at the low end of this estimate, we will be running up against peak oil. With the infrastructure in place today, which is dependant on market forces, there will be no sizeable move to alternative energies, not while fossil fuels are abundant and cheap. Insofar as alternatives remain just that, alternatives, we are fucked. Wind, solar, biomass etc etc are expensive, not readily scalable and the infrastructure is simply lacking. If you are looking for a cheap way out of peak oil, even in theory, you are wrong. Peak oil's effects can not be dodged now. You can theorize all you want about what we should do and how we should go about doing it, but the fact remains that every change takes time. Hell, building a single nuclear reactor takes about a decade. Changes don't happen as soon as you type them out.

Mr. (Dr.?) Hirsch reported in one of ASPO's newsletters a detailed summary about our current situation. The measures we are talking about now should have been in effect during the 60s and 70s. I suggest everyone who proposes an alternate style of the way things are run to read this and digest it.