Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Frank wrote:I'd be curious to find out who funds CNW Marketing Research Inc. !!

From their website:

"Founded in 1984, CNW Marketing/Research began as Coastal NW Publishing Company. Through the years, clients and subscribers have spread from the Great Northwest to include every state of the union (except Alabama), Australia, Europe, Asia and Canada. Clients include major automobile manufacturers, banks and lending institutions, Wall Street brokerage firms and consultants. Besides publishing LTR/8+ (America's most quoted source of leasing information), CNW publishes new and used vehicle industry reference guides and study summaries, a monthly Retail Automotive Summary of sales and trends, as well as our online research distribution center, CNW by WEB."

Wanna bet that this was funded by someone who doesn't make a hybrid??

Their numbers are not reasonable at all.

I just interviewed Art Spinella, the president of CNW Marketing Research, for my podcast. You can download the interview from this page (the interview is a 9MB file).



Here's some more info about this study:
1. The study includes the energy put into research and development, which Art said is much higher for the hybrid than it is for the ICE. I'd like to see these numbers though. There is still research and development work going into the ICE.
2. The study uses expected lifetime mileage of the vehicles. Hybrids are only expected to live for 100,000 miles, but trucks are expected to live for 250,000 miles. This influences the $/mile significantly. If a hybrid could be driven 250,000 miles, it would be much more favorable compared to other vehicles.
3. The study will be repeated every few years and Art thinks that hybrids will look much better in a few years as they become more simplified.
4. The full report will be available to the public for free, perhaps by May 1 (I don't know if that's when it will be available to the public or to the subscribers though).

As for going for the miles, it has been reported that a Prius taxi had gone over 200,000 miles before Toyota bought back the car from the fella to check it out.

On the other hand, the same thread mentions that there are some Honda's going on for over a million miles.

Here's the Google cache copy.

Perhaps I might decide to keep my 9-year-old EK3 Civic after all

The rule of the thumb here seems to be that technology will not save us, we will all decend into a medieval type society until our extinction.

Some of this nanotechnology looks rather promising though, the new lithion ion batteries may just be the start. Of course life will still get very hard for many but mabey there is some silver lining. Assuming the technolgy can still move forward.

I'd like to see diesel electric hybrids and regular diesles become more available here in the US.

Just ponder the fact that car fuel economy in Europe, the US and Japan have increased 100% since 1975. There's no reason to assume that for the next 25 years things will be different. In fact, we will see a higher increase, simply because of the fact that the speed at which technological advances progress, increases over time.

Let's take an average European passenger car, today making 40mpg.

So let's assume an average car in 2020/30 will be 150% more efficient than today. And say it takes 10 years to replace cars. So by 2030/2040 our car now gets: 100mpg

Impressive, isn't it?

Now add the fact that the car of the future is probably a "bio-flex plug-in hybrid", which takes off anywhere between 25 to 50% off of liquid fuel consumption. This is very likely as battery technologies are moving extremely fast.

It's even very likely that in 2030, the average car will consume no oil at all. (In the case a car is a pure plug-in biohybrid).

Our car in 2030 gets anywhere between 125 to 150 mpg, with no drop of oil in its tank, but a gallon of biofuel instead.



Now factor this in into the Peak Oil scenario, and you see that there's not really a problem with liquid fuels. Not even if demand for cars keeps increasing at the current pace.

By the way, the guys of the X-Prize foundation, which got a layman into space, are now launching a similar prize: build a commercial, production ready, sexy and attractive passenger car that gets 250mpg.

It's a good idea, and I'm convinced a team will win the prize before the year 2010.

The next X-Prize: How about a 250 m.p.g. car?

I really liked the possibilites of the gm sequel I think its called, the digital car. With the wheels being the only moving part it would make an extremely efficient electric car, I dont know if it will see the light of day though.

Of course even if there are huge increases in efficiency the rising cost and decreasing availibilty of fuel will make it having a car hugely cost prohibitive for most..

tmazanec1 wrote:http://www.accelerating.org/articles/phevfuture.html

Oops, I see the article says 200mpg cars can be made today. So my 150mpg was conservative.

Let's quickly do the accounting: 10 million barrels a day for gasoline in the US, for an average of 28mpg cars. A 200mpg car is 7 times more fuel efficient, so if all American cars were 200mpg cars, the US would only need 1.4 million barrels a day.

Impressive. This would delay peak oil several decades.

lorenzo wrote:

tmazanec1 wrote:http://www.accelerating.org/articles/phevfuture.html

Oops, I see the article says 200mpg cars can be made today. So my 150mpg was conservative.

Yes, there are even rockets capable of sending robotic payloads to distant planets like Mars. But is such a project commercially viable? Not on your life. Until these "if/then" statements get revised to match the reality of mass consumer-driven markets, I consider them nothing more than hype.

emersonbiggins wrote:

lorenzo wrote:

tmazanec1 wrote:http://www.accelerating.org/articles/phevfuture.html

Oops, I see the article says 200mpg cars can be made today. So my 150mpg was conservative.

Yes, there are even rockets capable of sending robotic payloads to distant planets like Mars. But is such a project commercially viable? Not on your life. Until these "if/then" statements get revised to match the reality of mass consumer-driven markets, I consider them nothing more than hype.

But isn't Peak Oil entirely based on this "if/then" thing?

There are at least 10 "if/then" Peak Oil books whose "if/then" date has been proved wrong.

The difference between Peak Oil people and others is that the former just have to write a new book with a new "if/then" date, because the previous one was wrong, while the latter have to work to achieve their "if/then". Peak Oilers are fundamentally lazy people, the others are not.

lorenzo wrote:

emersonbiggins wrote:

lorenzo wrote:

tmazanec1 wrote:http://www.accelerating.org/articles/phevfuture.html

Oops, I see the article says 200mpg cars can be made today. So my 150mpg was conservative.

Yes, there are even rockets capable of sending robotic payloads to distant planets like Mars. But is such a project commercially viable? Not on your life. Until these "if/then" statements get revised to match the reality of mass consumer-driven markets, I consider them nothing more than hype.

But isn't Peak Oil entirely based on this "if/then" thing?

There are at least 10 "if/then" Peak Oil books whose "if/then" date has been proved wrong.

The difference between Peak Oil people and others is that the former just have to write a new book with a new "if/then" date, because the previous one was wrong, while the latter have to work to achieve their "if/then". Peak Oilers are fundamentally lazy people, the others are not.

One man's laziness is another man's appeal to reason, I suppose.

...anyways...

Concerning if/then statements, let me address a couple, one to set a baseline, another to set my thoughts on 200 MPG cars:

If oil is a finite resource, then there must occur a peak point in production. (a given)

Another: if a 200 MPG car can be made commercially viable on the open market before a massive, lengthened recession and/or depression sets in, then a few commuters will enjoy a greatly reduced fuel expenditure while having to negotiate a defunct highway system.

It probably sounds as absurd to you as what I consider the ultimate cornucopian if/then:

If man can walk on the moon, then the problem with peaking of cheap energy supplies can be mitigated successfully.

lorenzo wrote:Just ponder the fact that car fuel economy in Europe, the US and Japan have increased 100% since 1975.

I don't think that this is the case in the USA. Remember the 50 mpg Honda Civics that got better fuel mileage than the diesel VW Rabbits? Now you have to spend extra on hybrid technology to get that kind of fuel efficiency in a gasoline burning car in the USA. The highly touted new Honda Fit is only rated at 38mpg hiway.

WisJim wrote:

lorenzo wrote:Just ponder the fact that car fuel economy in Europe, the US and Japan have increased 100% since 1975.

I don't think that this is the case in the USA. Remember the 50 mpg Honda Civics that got better fuel mileage than the diesel VW Rabbits? Now you have to spend extra on hybrid technology to get that kind of fuel efficiency in a gasoline burning car in the USA. The highly touted new Honda Fit is only rated at 38mpg hiway.

Not only that, but if the US fuel economy for cars indeed has doubled since 1975, this figure conveniently omits the trend of the market towards SUVs and large trucks, which immediately negate the savings in the efficiencies of autos, and perceived efficiencies overall. And let's not forget the upward trend of vehicle-miles-traveled, clearly negating efficiencies as well.

emersonbiggins wrote:
Not only that, but if the US fuel economy for cars indeed has doubled since 1975, this figure conveniently omits the trend of the market towards SUVs and large trucks, which immediately negate the savings in the efficiencies of autos, and perceived efficiencies overall. And let's not forget the upward trend of vehicle-miles-traveled, clearly negating efficiencies as well.

...and here is exhibit 'A'


Here we see that fuel economy improved and the public simply consumed those benefits by driving more. I would argue that the fleet replacement not only permitted more driving, but the rise in VMT helped accelerate the fleet replacement. If VMT were to be flat over that period, less cars would have been sold and the average MPG improvement would have been less.

emersonbiggins wrote:

lorenzo wrote:

emersonbiggins wrote:

lorenzo wrote:

tmazanec1 wrote:http://www.accelerating.org/articles/phevfuture.html

Oops, I see the article says 200mpg cars can be made today. So my 150mpg was conservative.

Yes, there are even rockets capable of sending robotic payloads to distant planets like Mars. But is such a project commercially viable? Not on your life. Until these "if/then" statements get revised to match the reality of mass consumer-driven markets, I consider them nothing more than hype.

But isn't Peak Oil entirely based on this "if/then" thing?

There are at least 10 "if/then" Peak Oil books whose "if/then" date has been proved wrong.

The difference between Peak Oil people and others is that the former just have to write a new book with a new "if/then" date, because the previous one was wrong, while the latter have to work to achieve their "if/then". Peak Oilers are fundamentally lazy people, the others are not.

One man's laziness is another man's appeal to reason, I suppose.

...anyways...

Concerning if/then statements, let me address a couple, one to set a baseline, another to set my thoughts on 200 MPG cars:

If oil is a finite resource, then there must occur a peak point in production. (a given)

So far we agree, but the possibility exists that the "peak" you are referring to is not that sharp, and that the cliff behind that peak isn't that steep at all. Only if you assume that we're facing a high peak and a steep fall, the doomer scenario works. And that's what the peak oil discourse is entirely based on. The idea of a very weak, plateau-like "peak" is totally taboo here.

emersonbiggins wrote:Another: if a 200 MPG car can be made commercially viable on the open market before a massive, lengthened recession and/or depression sets in, then a few commuters will enjoy a greatly reduced fuel expenditure while having to negotiate a defunct highway system.

But if the peak is more like a plateau that shows a very very gradual, almost imperceptible decline, then there won't be a problem at all with introducing highly efficient vehicles and the masses will enjoy them and be able to afford them.

What's more, if the hyper-efficient cars can be made commercially viable on the open market today and people buy them en masse, then the "peak" which you so fear, automatically becomes the "plateau" which I predict.

Your "given" is absolutely not my "given".

dub_scratch wrote:

emersonbiggins wrote:
Not only that, but if the US fuel economy for cars indeed has doubled since 1975, this figure conveniently omits the trend of the market towards SUVs and large trucks, which immediately negate the savings in the efficiencies of autos, and perceived efficiencies overall. And let's not forget the upward trend of vehicle-miles-traveled, clearly negating efficiencies as well.

...and here is exhibit 'A'


Here we see that fuel economy improved and the public simply consumed those benefits by driving more. I would argue that the fleet replacement not only permitted more driving, but the rise in VMT helped accelerate the fleet replacement. If VMT were to be flat over that period, less cars would have been sold and the average MPG improvement would have been less.

Exhibit A proves my point: Notice that per capita fuel consumption has gone down suddenly and rapidly with the oil shock of 1978-79. fuel consumption went down far more radically than miles traveled.
Now look at 1980 and 1981: oil prices kept pushing up, fuel consumption kept going down, but miles traveled were already UP again.
After that, fuel consumption kept floating for a decade and a half at more or less the same level, it did not increase (1982-1996), even though oil became much cheaper again.
During the 1990s, with oil at historic lows, fuel consumption did not go up, but miles did spectacularly.

In short, fuel efficiency becomes extremely important in times of crises. In such times, greater efficiency allows people to travel as much as they do normally (holidays included). That's why efficiency increases ALONE are enough to mitigate oil crises. With today's price crisis, we see the same.

And since Peak Oil is essentially a "crisis" discourse, this very graph negates the doomer argument entirely. Prices may go up and up, it won't affect people fundamentally, since MERE increases in efficiency mitigate the crisis.

Thx for proving my point.



The year is 2015:

-John D: Sir, I want to buy a new car. This car, my old one, gets 25mpg. But you know, with Peak Oil and all that and with oil at US$ 200 a barrel, will I even be able to commute to work every day with this new car that you're showing me?

-Salesperson: Ah, don't worry, sir, this flexy car gets you 150 mpg on Bush-diesel, that is 120mpg on the much cheaper Obama-ethanol. Forget Peak Oil and high prices. You'll be able to go to work, enjoy the driving season, and visit your granny in Canada, all the while saving money compared to what your old car gave you back *in 2005*, remember, when oil was so cheap at US$ 75.

-John D: WTF sir, 150mpg? Are you sure, this ain't no sales trick or something? And you sure it works on Obama-ethanol? I have been dreaming of owning a car that works on that ultra-cheap stuff... You ain't joking?

-Salesperson: No sir, of course not, 150mpg is the minimum standard mandated by law. President Clinton introduced it in 2008, remember? The minimum.
The Obama-ethanol is not mandated, but everyone wants it.
Now shall we have a look at the 250mpg car? That's 250mpg on dirty old Bush-diesel, 200mpg on the dirt-cheap Obama-ethanol. They come in at a few thousand dollars more.

-John D [broad grin on his face]: Hell yea sir, those doomers really had me for a second... 200mpg on Obama-ethanol, me likes it. Hell yea sir. I'm buyin.

lorenzo wrote:
What's more, if the hyper-efficient cars can be made commercially viable on the open market today and people buy them en masse, then the "peak" which you so fear, automatically becomes the "plateau" which I predict.

Your "given" is absolutely not my "given".

First of all, hyper-efficient cars are not being made available on the open market today except for a relatively small portion of hybrids to go along with a much larger standard/status quo fleet. Second, there are no plans to quickly change this, and even if there were it would take the auto industry 3 years to retool at the very least. Then of course the public would have to buy these vehicles, and if their current poor-MPG car is still in good enough condition, they are going to either keep it or sell it to someone else who will drive it. Vehicle replacement cycles are inherently slow, even under best economic conditions. Yet, if fuel prices stay cheap because we are in a plateau, neither the auto industry nor the public show signs that they will change their practices under these circumstances.

In the end your very plausible plateau scenario does not serve the rapid MPG improvement cause, unless that plateau is pretty far away and we see some major shifts in the auto industry and buying public.

The plateau scenario you predict is still going to force end our addiction to autos. The public is going to go from solo SUV driving to bicycle riding and car sharing. This won't be doom for civilization, just doom for the car culture as we know it today.

dub_scratch wrote:

lorenzo wrote:
What's more, if the hyper-efficient cars can be made commercially viable on the open market today and people buy them en masse, then the "peak" which you so fear, automatically becomes the "plateau" which I predict.

Your "given" is absolutely not my "given".

First of all, hyper-efficient cars are not being made available on the open market today except for a relatively small portion of hybrids to go along with a much larger standard/status quo fleet. Second, there are no plans to quickly change this, and even if there were it would take the auto industry 3 years to retool at the very least. Then of course the public would have to buy these vehicles, and if their current poor-MPG car is still in good enough condition, they are going to either keep it or sell it to someone else who will drive it. Vehicle replacement cycles are inherently slow, even under best economic conditions. Yet, if fuel prices stay cheap because we are in a plateau, neither the auto industry nor the public show signs that they will change their practices under these circumstances.

In the end your very plausible plateau scenario does not serve the rapid MPG improvement cause, unless that plateau is pretty far away and we see some major shifts in the auto industry and buying public.

The plateau scenario you predict is still going to force end our addiction to autos. The public is going to go from solo SUV driving to bicycle riding and car sharing. This won't be doom for civilization, just doom for the car culture as we know it today.

But you're missing once crucial point here: the 10-trillion dollar automotive sector (is there any bigger industrial sector on the planet? I don't think so). Do you think they'll let themselves go bust one day to the next? Never.
They can produce 150mpg cars today. They're not putting them on the market simply because fuel is dirt-cheap and people will buy an ordinary car (for the manufacturers, the opportunity cost of the investment of putting out a hyper-efficient car is too high, and that's because fuel's dirt cheap and demand not affected). They will do so when they think the time is right. (After all, they know when the time's ripe, they have the world's Phd's working on this.)

Another point you forget is the razor-sharp competition in the industry. When one company decides to offer a 50mpg car tomorrow, ALL the others have to follow all at once and instantly. (This is what's happening with the flex-fuel cars and with hybrids - all manufacturers got one nowadays).

The automotive industry is both so huge, and so hyper-competitive that in a "business as usual" scenario, they remain ultra-conservative, but in a "crisis" scenario, they become hyper-progressive and they leap. The industry hinges on these two extreme ends of the spectrum.

So major leaps in increased efficiency are to be expected when fuel is expensive (not the case today) and demand responds in a significant way.

This doesn't do away the slow rotation and replacement ratios, and I agree that this could pose a temporary, minor problem.