Reaching the Threshold
It seems that we have reached the threshold in America where the price of gasoline has risen to the point where the general populace is beginning to become angry.
I know this when a woman on the nightly news is practically bawling about how she has had to start buying "off-brand" groceries because of the cost of fuel! I know the world of consumerism is beginning to collapse when that happens. Not a fast collapse, but small bits are beginning to crumble.
The thing that frightens me, however, is that most average citizens (or "consumers" as we are called, because it is our economic duty to consume) haven't a damn clue about the energy industry itself, the basic principles behind energy and thermodynamics, the "peak oil" phenomenon, ecology and biogeochemistry, and the limits of natural resource extraction. All of these play a major role in how we can operate our consumerism-driven society.
But how can I blame anyone, as we've been continuously told to "Shop Till Ya' Drop!" and consume like there's no tomorrow! It would seem that the Earth is an endless cornucopia of natural resources just waiting for us to extract, convert into most often useless "consumer goods", then deposit into the nearest solid waste landfill after six months of use.
The high oil and commodity prices we are seeing today are frustrating for many people, but at the same time they are exciting. We are finally arriving at the point where economics are beginning to run the energy and consumption issues through our minds.
The same wave of thought swept through the world in the 1970s, but this time, the human race is beginning to butt against physical limits, rather than the purely geopolitical ones which were at work in the '70s.
We should have been implementing energy-efficient practices and sustainable, locally-produced energy and lifestyles since 1973, but we has this rosy idea that economics and big industry would solve all of those problems without a hitch, and that as long as oil was cheap we wouldn't give a rat's ass about any of it. Well, here we are, fossil fuels are expensive (monetarily, socially, and environmentally) and only getting more expensive, and we have done little to reduce our gluttonous waste and consumption of energy and dependence upon fossil fuels. Now it's time to get to work, with no excuses!
I don't see a dark age ahead, I see a world which downsizes its economic engines, where goods and services are produced and provided on a close-to-home basis, people live together in actual communities rather than dead expanses of look-a-like houses, and energy is available for use from all types of renewable resources.
Transportation will likely be one of the first aspects of our lives to see change, due to its direct reliance on petroleum. I do see the automobile greatly losing significance, as internal combustion cars are incredibly inefficient machines. Electric cars will certainly be available, but their range is limited (charge is not "instant" ) and therefore their use will be relegated to commuter, short trip, and errand-running vehicles. If you want to visit your family members two states away, get a train ticket, go to your local rail terminal, and hop aboard a high-speed train pulled by an electric locomotive, with electricity supplied by renewable sources and stationary cogeneration plants. Airplanes may be available as well, but due to their requirement for liquid hydrocarbon fuels, they will likely be an expensive luxury rather than a practical everyday mode of transportation. Car rental services will likely be very prosperous, and they will have combustion vehicles available in the event that someone needs one.
I firmly feel that rail is the future of transportation. Water transport is likely to see a boost as well, as it is even more efficient than rail. I would not be surprised to see the development of vessels for carrying small (truck-sized) loads on rivers which we consider to be non-navigable today.
Change is coming. NO, not lower oil prices or reversion to SUV and shopaholic heaven, but to a more sustainable and enjoyable lifestyle which is not based upon the accumulation (and subsequent disposal) of material goods/wealth.
Some good articles I have read in the past few days...
- Stranded in Suburbia - NYT
- The Suburban Question - Open the Future
- Water: world crisis - Energy Bulletin
- To teens in the first decade of the 21st century - Energy Bulletin
The Entropy Problem
The "energy crisis" and other energy-related problems, along with the battle over what energy sources we will use really has little to with energy, and a whole lot to do with entropy - the concept that energy becomes more and more dilute and unavailable for use over time, and that energy has "quality" (e.g. electricity and mechanical power are among the highest-quality forms of energy, while dilute light and heat are less usable and of lower quality.)
Entropy is the reason that "just-in-time" solar energy is "expensive" compared with super-concentrated fossil fuels that have been made and stored by natural processes over millions of years. It is the reason that people don't succeed in "sticking it to the man" by inductively coupling power lines to get free electricity or putting up antennas to harness the energy in radio waves.
The Sun sends 1.74 * 1017 watts to Earth on a continuous basis, which ends up being the equivalent of all of the world's conventional oil reserves, past and present, every 30 hours of so. But how much does solar currently contribute to our industrial energy system? It's all about availability. Now it is beginning to be a lot about greed as well.
We don't need more coal-fired power plants, we just need to use energy better by taking advantage of the billions of watts of waste heat thrown off by power plants. One of the most sad facts about our situation now is that we are fighting over what energy sources we will use to meet our future needs - coal vs. wind, etc. Many people in the world want to increase the combustion of coal, despite the whole greenhouse effect situation, and the fact that the waste heat thrown away at American coal-fired power plants is more energy (in pure energy terms, not considering entropy) than is used in all of Japan.
I estimate that it is about 4 PWh/year thrown away by American coal burners (that's four times ten to the power of 15 watt-hours) based on the fact that all U.S. electricity production is about 3 PWh/year and coal accounts for half of that, and coal-fired power plants are 30-40% efficient at converting heat into electrical energy.
So instead of burning all of this valuable gas in forced-air furnaces and converting all of that clean-burning methane into 72°F warm air, let's get some electrical energy out of it first, then use it to heat our homes, and shut down the coal burners!
Entropy is the problem, not energy. Rocky Mountain News.
GM Limping Toward Recovery with IC engine technology
Apparently General Motors is having a rough time in the North American market: GM Limps Toward Recovery
I think that, just maybe, if they wouldn't have helped to kill the electric car, they would not be in this situation. In order to survive long-term, a corporation must change its business model with the times. GM's business model of technological stagnation with the IC engine, and promotion of the idea of the automobile being a fashion-statement consumer commodity have led it to where it is today.
From the film "Who Killed The Electric Car?"
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"GM made a commitment to the Hummer, because they could see that the Hummer would make them money."
The engineers of vehicles have done a good job of making the engine more efficient at converting gasoline-derived heat into mechanical power, but those gains were used to make the cars bigger and more powerful rather than to increase the fuel efficiency.
One of the misunderstandings people have about electric vehicles is that they are not powerful enough to handle situations they may encounter while driving. For example, today it is snowing where I live...
"But electric cars aren't very good in the snow!"
Electric motors can output their full torque across their entire operating speed range. A combustion engine needs to be "revved" up to speed before it will begin to produce an appreciable amount of torque. There is not a problem with the motors being underpowered; an electric motor will provide adequate power for any weather situation. The motors in the EV1 ran up to 100,000 watts, which is the equivalent of 134 horsepower. That's 134 horsepower available as soon as the accelerator pedal is pushed to the floor.
What most of the electric cars ever made are not are 3-ton weights flying down the highway at a mile a minute. They can go a mile a minute, but they don't weigh 3 tons. The more the vehicle weighs, the more energy must be expended in doing its job of transporting passengers and related cargo from one point to another.