nerfer

26 Comments

    • ON: Fri Aug 8th 11:21 AM
      Commented on:
      The Electric Car Battery Battle
      The latest I've heard is that Toyota hasn't narrowed their options yet for batteries in a PHEV. bike45, how do you come up with 1/4 of 1%? Hybrids are now 3% of new car sales (more if they could make more batteries, it's supply limited). Hybrids in general are getting about 40% better mileage than fleet average (high-efficiency hybrids sell the most), so my math shows 1.2% improvement in overall consumption from all new cars sold today. As hybrid sales go up, so does this number.
      Yes, it's a small start. But we simply cannot continue the status quo - we absolutely need to switch to hybrids and BEVs and public transportation or we'll be faced with only being able to afford bikes.
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    • ON: Fri Aug 8th 11:11 AM
      Commented on:
      The Electric Car Battery Battle
      Also Chevron, via their part ownership of Cobasys, has long blocked the use of NiMH for pure electric vehicles, using their NiMH patents they bought up to block the large-format NiMH batteries needed for that type of application, even for companies like Toyota that get their NiMH batteries elsewhere.
      Cobasys is apparently for sale though (and having $ problems), see: www.courthousenews.com....
      Gee, maybe if they supplied BEVs they would be making more money?? Even a 50-mile range in a reduced-price car would be sufficient for a whole lot of people (I know I'd strongly consider buying such a car), but they think they need the full range of a gas car before anybody will buy it for their commuting needs.
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    • ON: Thu Jun 19th 11:22 AM
      Commented on:
      Reasons to Love 3-Digit Oil
      sharksm, I agree with your basic points (We shouldn't mandate XOM, BP, etc. to do or not do certain things, though they may do it on their own, and we should invest in alt. energy R&D and production).
      But we can't drill our way out of this problem. We simply don't have enough oil in our control (ANWR, off-shore, etc) to raise production enough to lower prices. I'm sure eventually we'll drill there anyway., but let's save it for the real crisis yet to come.
      And your original post suggested electric cars are expensive & unrealistic, which I disagree with. We are going to see an explosion of new cars (finally!) in the next 4 years - hybrids, PHEVs, BEVs, due to market forces. CARB, PNGV and other government mandates tried to lead companies here proactively, but it took market reaction to get real movement. Unfortunately American companies were slower to react than others.
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    • ON: Wed Jun 18th 12:48 PM
      Commented on:
      Reasons to Love 3-Digit Oil
      Stockpikr has a point. Fuel cells in particular are not a magic bullet. But electric cars are more efficient than ICE, they haven't been used because of entrenched beliefs and perception about battery needs. We need to make rational changes when faced with a coming crisis (it isn't here yet, folks!). Electric cars are part of the solution, but not the only part. Unfortunately, Brahm might be more correct than we want to think.
      PaulK, even if abiotic oil is true (definitely not a mainstream idea), it would be so hard to find and so far to drill to these ultra-deep sources that oil prices wouldn't be any lower than they are today. Read the above story about Brazil's ultra-deep wells.
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    • ON: Wed Jun 18th 12:41 PM
      Commented on:
      Reasons to Love 3-Digit Oil
      Sharksm, the energy companies (XOM, CVN, etc) are in the energy business. Their oil supplies are drying up or being taken over by nationalized corporations. They need to come up with new energy sources to stay in business, BP is not promoting itself as 'Beyond Petroleum' for nothing. Get informed.
      Electric cars do not need to cost $45K, with mass production they will be equivalent to cars on the market, with a lot less maintenance and repair needed. They can be powered by unused electric capacity at night, with a very minimal increase in CO2 - saving CO2 by reducing (by attrition) the number of inefficient gas guzzlers on the road. An existing ICE vehicle is <30% efficient (converting fuel to motion), electric vehicles are about 90% efficient.
      Last point - our own oil supplies will be fully tapped, I'm sure, but why not wait until we need the oil to keep our farms running, no reason to use our own oil now just to keep John Doe driving to the grocery store in his Chevy Tahoe. We don't have enough to keep ourselves powered for long at all, or we would already have done this in the oil embargo of '79.
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    • ON: Tue May 27th 17:30 PM
      Commented on:
      Oil Manipulations Exposed
      Brian Pursley - The first article trusts the middle east numbers for their oil reserves, even though there is good evidence those are politically manipulated (their country quotas are based on that) and there is no verification of any of those numbers. The last two articles don't argue for abiotic production, but do say there are large, biological sources of oil deeper down. If that is the case, they are feeding the higher sources sporadically or only in certain locations, since most sources of oil have not shown any signs of recovery, in fact many have post-peak production declines sharper than expected (North Sea, Mexico). Certainly not a 'renewable, infinite' resource as you say, and I'm hanging onto my '06 Prius for many more years.

      T Stephens - good post, even with the typos. If the hedge funds/futures market were suddenly the cause for the run-up in prices like the author is saying, why not the other commodity markets, and why not ten years ago also? I'm not going to say there is no manipulation or deceit at all in the market place, but that's not the cause of our current high prices. We're hitting peak oil production, and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can create real solutions.
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    • ON: Tue May 27th 11:55 AM
      Commented on:
      The Self-Defeating Oil Surge
      For geothermal - don't forget the major player in the U.S, Ormat (ORA). This is an overlooked field I think.

      But don't confuse solar and wind (or geothermal) as an immediate replacement for oil - transportation sector will first need electric vehicles, since most alternative energies don't produce gasoline or gas replacements. (And fuel cells are off in the distant future with nuclear fusion).
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    • ON: Tue May 27th 11:51 AM
      Commented on:
      The Self-Defeating Oil Surge
      Goldman Sachs predictions are a lot more accurate than the government's own EIA dept. This is same and different from the 1970's. In the 70's we suddenly depended on rising imports from OPEC which was taxing their infrastructure improvements, so we depended on them and they saw an easy way to bring us to our knees. But that time it was politically motivated. This time fields are depleting and new fields being brought online are just replacing the declining production from existing fields. For the first time, supply doesn't meet demand, so price rapidly increases (it's not linear when people will pay whatever they need to in order to get to work - called 'inelastic' demand in macroeconomics 101). Doesn't take 50% increase in demand for 50% increase in price.

      Iraq's reserves don't mean squat if they can't keep pipelines to the ports open. OPECs reserves in general are suspect since they were used to determine nation's quotas and were artificially generated. There's oil still out there, but it's not the easy, safe oil anymore in the volumes we need. We're more and more dependent on unstable leaders and inhospitable drilling environments as the best sources are being depleted.

      Oil prices might decline to the $90 level before resuming their upward march, but we will never ever see $35-$50 oil again in our lifetime.
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    • ON: Tue May 27th 11:28 AM
      Commented on:
      Oil Manipulations Exposed
      Brian - Not sure about your post. Oil is not infinite, even if you buy into the fringe abiotic hypothesis (mostly championed by Russia, which is now in production decline). We didn't take Iraq's oil in 1990, Bush Sr. knew there was no exit strategy if we took out their government, we just kicked them out of Kuwait (which would substantially increase their oil reserves and shipping access for oil, so yes, it was about oil, intelalum).
      Timsinoil - price of crude has risen more often than not lately, why single out 2000's election? You could look at the terror alerts in the 2004 election for easier political manipulations.
      Mikey - if this is a bubble (and it could easily be froth on top of a fundamental increase) it will hurt us at the pump, then at the grocery store, then in the unemployment line, and that's bad for everybody. That's why this is important, even if you personally can make short-term profits in trading.

      We can't drill our way out of this. It can help marginally, but it's not a major piece of the solution. It's things we can do - driving the speed limit, with tires at proper pressure, will reduce our gasoline consumption 10%. Efficient , reasonably sized vehicles will save another 25%-50%. Electric vehicles and living close to work will be a part of our future.
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    • ON: Tue May 27th 11:11 AM
      Commented on:
      Oil Manipulations Exposed
      Interesting article. But the Nymex trading mechanisms haven't changed dramatically in the last four years that I know of, so why is that the cause of the higher prices?

      Peak oil is hitting, the demand and supply curves are separating, global demand has increased despite the author's statement otherwise, and supply is peaking and will go down. I am not an oil "apologist" to use the author's biased terms, I am a realist. I've read about the petroleum supply for years. I know Mexico's supply has peaked, the North Sea has peaked, Prudhoe Bay has peaked. Saudi Arabia's king has stated they won't increase production after next year, and give reasons for only minor increases now, indicating they are really peaking but not admitting it. We can definitely drill more here in the states, but it is a drop in the bucket, we peaked a long time ago. What we need is a presidential administration that will support real answers like conservation, cellulosic ethanol and electric vehicles. Efficiency = productivity, it's a good thing for business and the home.
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    • ON: Fri May 23rd 14:15 PM
      Commented on:
      The Oil Shortage, and Other Fairy Tales
      A lot of bluster here. I'm not sure what problem Mr. Davis has with Pickens. He's an oil man, not a greenie. His predictions have been good in the past, and he puts his money where his mouth is. That should be disclosed on news reports, but so should a lot of other things.

      As far as the EIA chart on non-OPEC oil growth goes, EIA is known as having their head in their a$$ when it comes to oil predictions. Russia is apparently past peak production, yet this chart shows a big surge in oil production for them in 2009. Want to bet if that gets revised next year? We are at (very near one way or another) the peak in oil production right now. There will be choppiness in the energy market as people grapple with what the true numbers are (can't trust official OPEC reserves at all, but the fact is they could make a lot of money selling more oil right now, the incentive to cheat on their quotas, as they typically have done, is extremely high). The general trend is up, and will continue that way until a real recession takes away our energy demand. In the far future, conservation, electric vehicles and alternative energy will also reduce our demand.

      I can't speak to the 2 mbpd consumption over production, since I haven't heard that bandied about before and don't know the full context. Obviously that can't be sustained without big changes in inventory, but neither side is giving numbers here to prove their argument.

      If we want to avoid a repeat of the effects of the 70's oil embargoes, we shouldn't be wasting gas in SUVs while importing 60% of our oil (the biggest single item in our trade deficit) which also funds terrorists indirectly. It is certainly unAmerican to drive a big wasteful vehicle in these times!
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    • ON: Thu Apr 17th 16:05 PM
      Commented on:
      VeraSun Energy and the Ethanol Debate
      Oops, I computed 5% of corn acreage, not 20% - should be 18 million acres. Last point: jumping 25% in corn production in a few years time is very unlikely - first that it would work for all corn field climates, second the logistics alone of disseminating these new miracle varieties so widely.
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    • ON: Thu Apr 17th 15:54 PM
      Commented on:
      VeraSun Energy and the Ethanol Debate
      Oh yeah, I agree 100% that we need to eat less meat - both for concern over livestock conditions and human health, and for the fact it uses 50% of our corn output - drop that number and there's a lot of corn for other uses.
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    • ON: Thu Apr 17th 15:50 PM
      Commented on:
      VeraSun Energy and the Ethanol Debate
      Important points have been discussed, this is a good forum. I do have some disagreements with Mr. Gibbon however. If 20% of 90 million acres (approx. corn acreage) is used for ethanol production, this is 4.5 million acres of top-quality farmland that is not used for other food production, so it is not unreasonable for some blame of higher food prices to be put on ethanol. However, corn or wheat only makes a small part of the price of bread or tacos, as he stated. I remember farmers some years back selling loaves of bread at the MN capitol for 5 cents/loaf to bring home the point how much money the farmer gets out of the finished product.

      But corn is the worst candidate for ethanol production - it takes high-quality cropland, it takes large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides (both made from fossil fuels), often has large irrigation needs - it is not environmentally friendly. Import sugarcane ethanol, nothing wrong with sharing the wealth with S. Am. neighbors (or Florida farmers).

      The ethanol plants themselves use large amounts of water that is not recovered and many counties are starting to refuse permits for building ethanol plants for fear of damage to their aquifers. All this for a very arguable increase in net energy?

      It is okay to justify some corn ethanol as a substitute for MTBE, but not for energy independence. For that we need real answers - conservation, usable public transportation & bike lanes, and of course, cellulosic ethanol. Biodiesel, butanol, electric vehicles - we'll need some of all these answers, and hopefully in the marketplace in a few years. As pointed out, peak oil production is happening now, or close enough to now that the real date is academic. Oil production will continue indefinitely, but at ever increasing costs.
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    • ON: Thu Apr 10th 17:20 PM
      Commented on:
      It's Now 'Official': Ethanol Is a Scam
      Trader T - nuclear is not cheap. Without government subsidies to build them, they would not be profitable. Uranium mining is hardly green. There are no simple easy answers, but making cellulosic ethanol profitable is a very important part of the solution.
      User141585 - Get a Trek bike from Wisconsin or another U.S. bike company, they're scattered around (I like the range rider recumbent trike from Montana). Vegetable gardens are local, what grows in Cuba won't grow here. Maybe someday our lawns can be used for cellulosic ethanol, and be an energy source, not an energy sink.
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