Random Notes  

Its a holiday here today and I'm feeling lazy after spending a lot of time out in the heat and in the water, so just a brief roundup tonight (34 degrees here today, 11 above average - couldn't possibly be due to global warming of course).

Alan Kohler had some comments on ethanol in a recent spot on "Inside Business". He echoes the sentiments of most people who look closely at ethanol - its not the answer to dwindling oil supplies (and it sounds like Asutralian ethanol has an EROEI as low as anywhere in the world).

"I must be missing something with ethanol. This week, the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, put Australia's oil companies in a room and wouldn't let them out until they agreed that his target of 350 megalitres of ethanol production by 2010 was achievable. They didn't commit to it but they agreed it could be done.

"Most ethanol in Australia is made from starch, which in turn comes from wheat. In other words, this is a plan to run our cars on food when half the world is starving. Ethanol costs more to make than petrol, so it needs subsidies from the Government estimated at $118 million a year.

"The wheat is brought to Nowra from western NSW by trucks that burn diesel. It's then put through an eight-stage process that uses steam at each stage. The steam is generated by burning coal.

"The report of the government task force on biofuels is equivocal, to say the least, about the environmental and cost benefits of ethanol. It says the principal benefit of the policy is regional development - not just a benefit but the main one. That's because a new plant has to be built, providing 648 jobs. It will use grain and molasses as feed stock - more food in the fuel tank.

"Not mentioned in the report is the name Dick Honan, the main beneficiary of this policy. His company, Manildra, produces all the ethanol in Nowra and will make millions from increasing output to 350 megalitres a year. He also seems to be a prime ministerial friend and a big donor to the Liberal Party. Maybe that's what I'm missing."

The Age has a good little introductory article on peak oil called "All's not well when the oil runs dry" - its very much on the optimistic side of peak theory (saying a peak could be as far away as 2020) but at least it will raise awareness. Good to see the guys at Energy Bulletin got a mention as well. The Age also has an editorial on the need to seek alternative fuels.

With global oil reserves set to run out within decades, governments must act now to avoid an energy crisis of indescribable proportions, writes Claire Miller.

It was a party that had to end. Even the optimists predict that by 2030, the global oil supply will no longer match demand. The International Energy Agency's prediction is a sobering one. For price, quality and the security of supply, the hangover is already setting in.

So much for the optimists. According to respected pessimists such as the UK-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, production will peak within the next decade and then fall away. It says even the most conservative independent analysis, based on optimistic assessments of oil reserves, estimate production will peak by 2020.

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article looking at the need to redesign cities to make them more agriculture friendly in a post oil future. Its of the back-to-1900 genre which I don't find particularly appealing, but the core point that it is more fuel efficient to grow food close to where it is consumed is a good one, even if I don't think anyone in my apartment block will be making soap in the next few decades.

Acres of chard and lettuce in Golden Gate Park? The Marina Green with community gardens? Wind turbines on top of the Bank of America Building?

Welcome to the post-oil future.

Depending on which expert you believe, we have already reached or will reach in the next few years the point when worldwide oil demand starts to exceed supply -- and gas prices really go through the roof. If cities like San Francisco are to survive as viable places to live, they will have to redesign themselves in ways barely imaginable now.

It's hard to overstate the impact the looming oil squeeze is going to have. A lot of people are going to be left stranded in the suburbs, and a lot of grocery store shelves are going to go empty as supply lines collapse due to rising fuel costs. Many folks are going to lose their jobs as our oil-dependent economy withers. But there will be a greater need for farmworkers, as petroleum-fueled factory farms give way to smaller, labor-intensive operations. In general, human energy will replace machine energy, and there will be an increased demand for craftspeople with time-honored skills: shoemakers, soapmakers, glassblowers, seamstresses.

The always informative "Energy Blog" has a post looking at the prospects of recycling nuclear waste (Jim seems to prefer coal to nuclear, and is much more pessimistic about prospects for renewables to provide the majority of our energy needs than I am) along with one on a thermal solar power plant planned for southern California.

Hugo Chavez is talking about starting research into peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

TreeHugger reports that Ford has killed off its monstrous gas guzzling "land boat" Excursion model as small car sales rapidly increase, while elsewhere bicycle sales are exploding.

n the past year, more bicycles than cars have been sold in the US. That hasn't happened since the 1973 oil crisis! "Bicycle sales are near an all-time high with 19 million sold last year [worth five to six billion dollars] -- close to the 20 million sold during the oil embargo in the early 1970s," said Tim Blumenthal, executive director of Bikes Belong, an association based in Boulder, Colorado. "Some 87 million people [in the US] have climbed on a bike in the past 12 months," he adds.

In case you think things are starting to move in the right direction, TreeHugger also points out that things like this hideously energy wasteful leaf blower are still appearing.



Japan is reported to be considering being the first country to mandate fuel efficiency standards for large trucks and buses. Elsewhere at WorldChanging there is a piece on the potential for hydrokinetic power in Scotland.

Although hydrokinetic power -- energy generated from the tides, currents and waves -- has a great deal of potential as a primary source of power generation around much of the world, it doesn't have the visibility of technologies such as solar and wind power. This is due, in large part, to the relative scarcity of real-world implementations of marine energy. Many of the existing examples are test-beds, small-scale efforts to demonstrate that the concept is viable. But the demonstration efforts have been well-received, and Portugal will be opening the first commercial wave farm next year, and South Korea will be opening a tidal power project in 2009.

But Scotland is also near the forefront of adoption of this potentially transformative technology. Last year, the first wave farm connected to the grid opened off Orkney, a demonstration system generating about 750kw. Ultimately, Scotland could get 10% of its energy production from ocean power -- and intends to do so, according to Renewable Energy Access.

WorldChanging also has a post on new developments in integrated solar power.

One of the ideas underlying the Bright Green Future is the greater use of radically distributed energy generation. Although this has the most visible manifestation in the development of (for example) micro-wind turbines and gas-optional hybrids as mobile power sources, one of the more intriguing applications will be the greater integration of energy generation materials into the construction of objects and buildings. Although there will undoubtedly be a variety of intrinsic power generation technologies (such as the suspended-load power backpack), the most commonplace form will be integrated photovoltaics.

Widespread adoption of integrated solar power is still a few years off, but this last week saw a two developments bringing that day much closer.

Konarka, a pioneer in polymer photovoltaics (solar cells made of flexible plastics instead of silicon sheets and glass), has teamed up with Textronics, a company specializing in "electronic textiles" to begin the production of photovoltaic cloth. This material could be used in bags and upholstery, but is said to be soft end flexible enough to go into clothing, as well. The companies argue that this pv-embedded textile would be easily used for charging portable electronic devices, but it seems to me that another obvious application would be in making the bags or jackets themselves "smart," able to (for example) sense the air and display air quality reports, keep an electronic eye out for open WiFi networks (with a tag that glows brighter as the signal gets stronger), even intercept incoming phone calls or text messages and display relevant information about the message.

Potentially more radical is the work by researchers at the Technical University at Delft's Sustainable Energy program concerning spray-on solar. We've talked about spray-on solar before; the idea that any material object could have a photovoltaic layer is an exciting one, as it opens up the possibility of being able to reuse existing products rather than having to make entirely new objects.

Finally, Billmon has yet another post detailing our "progress" in securing Iraq's oil supplies. Its hard to tell what is going to happen with this ongoing fiasco - TomDispatch thinks the momentum for a withdrawal of the occupation forces is "unstoppable", but keeping my peak oil lenses on I simply can't see how any US administration will do this - it would seem to be tantamount to giving up on middle east oil just as we hit the peak (unless they think they can step in after a civil war and somehow keep the Iranians from doing so first). If the US (along with us and the British) had started a crash subsititution / conservation programme it might be conceivable, but given our current unpreparedness on this front I suspect an invasion of Syria is more likely than a withdrawal from Iraq (although I don't think thats particularly likely either - and all prospects of an invasion of Iran seem to have disappeared now). If I'm right, it probably means a lot more people (especially reporters) will be sacrificed on the altar of our thirst for oil.

The picture that emerges is of an occupation force that has its hands full trying to keep the roads open to its forward operating bases, while leaving the rest of the province to Iraqi police or military units, or to the insurgents -- who, of course, are often the same people:

Hendricks taught a sniper's training course to a select group of Iraqi soldiers, but stuck to marksmanship.

"I haven't taught them tactics because they're infiltrated," Hendricks said. "It's like going to a party where you don't know anybody, but somebody in the room -- you don't know who -- wants to kill you."

But the infiltrators are also probably the cream of the new Iraqi defense forces. At least they're not stoned out of their gourds:

Sgt. Hunter Sabin has spent a fair amount of time near the Iraqi troops, and said that while they were getting better, they were still far from ready.

"I was up in a guard tower outside the FOB (base) and a group of IP (Iraqi police) came up and offered us hash and whiskey," said Sabin, a 26-year-old sniper from Richmond, Va., who was in a Ranger special operations unit during the 2003 invasion. "That's who's protecting the people.

This, then, is what life is like in one of the "secure" areas of Iraq.

And to close, here's a "joke" about wasting energy from Past Peak:

In an announcement today President Bush said all federal workers should travel less to save fuel. He decided on this in Texas, right before he flew to Colorado then back to Washington to prepare for tomorrow's trip back to Texas. — Jay Leno