Peak Oil News and Message Boards

pstarr - "...oil-industry flacks...". That's oil-industry "shill" to you, mister. LOL.

When did you get out of prison?

We can't be sure that sweetblago is Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but if it is him he may have an interesting viewpoint.

We can't be sure that Cog isn't really Mark Foley?

Wow great amount of response here, wasn't expecting it! Thanks all.

I am just trying to get more involved. Additional viewpoints in various areas always helps. My primary business involves helping companies convert their transportation from trucking to rail shipping, and a big a big motivator is the sustainability and environmental benefits it provides.

sweetblago wrote:Wow great amount of response here, wasn't expecting it! Thanks all.

I am just trying to get more involved. Additional viewpoints in various areas always helps.

You are quite correct, additional viewpoints always help. Except under certain circumstances, those circumstances being that you have already made up your mind on some topic or another, and are just looking for more information with which to rationalize your position.

An example...lets say you are a doomer, someone who believes the human race is doomed. You have already decided this, and are just looking for an excuse to build a bunker, or architectural designs on how to build a bunker, or need to convince your significant other that you need to build a bunker. In this case you need do no investigating or thinking or seeking out new viewpoints, you just need the rationalization, or excuse, to begin building or explaining why you are building this bunker, to yourself, your friends, or your significant other.

In this case, you only need to know a few key phrases, EROEI, Hubbert, bell shaped curve, half is gone, and you'll have all the information you need to succeed in your quest.

But if you are here to LEARN, well, that is something else altogether. Then you have a substantial task before you.

But rest assured, in either case, you'll find folks on both sides of the equation. The main suggestion I would venture, in either case, is look for those who pull their conclusions from news articles, as opposed to scientific publications, bloggers rather than peer reviewed science, always check the previous claims of any given source, and then investigate the contrary position, and the qualifications of the people making those claims as well.

Approached as an intellectual exercise, and with even a basic understanding of math and the sciences and perhaps a dash of economics, you'll sort things out for yourself quick enough I imagine.

sweetblago wrote: My primary business involves helping companies convert their transportation from trucking to rail shipping, and a big a big motivator is the sustainability and environmental benefits it provides.

Another big motivator, possibly the biggest, is cost savings. Do you have any work that might help educate us regular posters on how you have calculated the actual cost savings of converting from trucking to rail? Or is the goal of your exercise to provide same/same costs, and sell the idea on sustainability (whatever that might mean in an inherently unsustainable system) and environmental benefits instead? Or does sustainability and environment benefit cost more, and you have a high hurdle indeed to sell to the companies you represent?

Don't listen to PStarr. He's already admitted he's just "here for the yuks". What he doesn't know is that the yuks are mostly on him.

sweetblago wrote:Another big motivator, possibly the biggest, is cost savings. Do you have any work that might help educate us regular posters on how you have calculated the actual cost savings of converting from trucking to rail? Or is the goal of your exercise to provide same/same costs, and sell the idea on sustainability (whatever that might mean in an inherently unsustainable system) and environmental benefits instead? Or does sustainability and environment benefit cost more, and you have a high hurdle indeed to sell to the companies you represent?

I have some things, let me do some digging and find a good piece of work. You are right about cost savings. That's definitely the biggest motivator. They are substantial in the right conditions. Any logistics provider that is trying to sell rail/intermodal services is going to talk about the cost benefits first, assuming they've figured that conditions are right for the shipper to be able to utilize the rails.

For example, shipping a container from Northern New Jersey to Los Angeles costs about 35-40 percent less when it's put on a train.

There are situations where a shipper may choose rail, even when the cost is the same or slightly more than trucking. But it is mostly related to capacity. With the truck driver shortage that we are facing, the railroads have more consistent capacity. It may be easier than searching for a truck and worrying that the freight may not make it off the dock today. The productivity gain, and better customer service they are able to provide to their customer may offset the cost.

Going back to the driver shortage, I almost find it comical whenever I think about it. Trucking companies now have two customers. Their shippers, and their drivers. It seems that many carriers are putting the same, if not more of their marketing efforts towards recruiting drivers.

Welcome aboard, don't mind the bitter far left and right cheerleaders. After the election in November they will mostly tone it back down to resemble reality a little more.

Mostly being the key word here.

Cog wrote:Mostly being the key word here.

Shh Cog, I am trying to not frighten the newbie away

Hi Everybody.

I am new to all this. I have a friend who tells me its peak oil and the end of the world and he just won't shut up about it! I say no way. He says I should check it out for myself so I google peak oil discussion and up comes peakoil.com and I figure this is probably as good a place as any right? So hopefully there is some good info here so I can prove him wrong once and for all.

Whats a good thread to start with?

A good place to start is with the basics, read this first.

http://peakoil.com/what-is-peak-oil

And welcome aboard!

Welcome back from your last banned user name.

Cog is known here for three things: he is very shrewd, extremely tactful, and loves Putin.

He didn't ask whether you were recently from prison, which means that you somehow managed to make a very good impression upon him.

Sum - Before you start digging here take a few minutes and reflect on what you've seen in the world for at least the last 10 years. Or even 30 if you're old enough. Think about the thousands killed and $trillions spent in military conflicts in various ME oil exporting countries. For instance do you buy the "exporting democracy" theme tossed out by various govts?

And then there's my worn out pitch: the actual date of global peak oil is of little relevance. Try looking at the entire oil dynamic. What some nut refers to as the "POD"...Peak Oil Dynamic. The POD encompasses high/low prices, high/low rig counts, increasing/decreasing oil production rates, etc.

Despite what you've seen in the mainstream news media the energy situation can't begin to be understood via bumper sticker phrases. Some of which, unfortunately, you run into on sites like this. There are no short and simple answers about the POD. Be patient and always ask quesdtions whenever in doubt.

Sum, this site has an abundance of info on peak oil. Rockman is very knowledgeable and his reference to a peak oil dynamic is totally true. Remember that Oil and the broader Economy are inextricably linked given that Oil is so fundamental to most economic processes and activity. So what you can observe now in hindsight and going forward is much pulling and pushing or reaction, counter reaction. Thus you had an oil price that went very high in 2008 and since then descended quite dramatically. It can be called demand destruction as in the Economy cannot remain viable above a certain oil price. So, enjoy your time here.