Serious oil price problems from 2012

[flintlock]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Excellent graph thanks!

So it seems that transportation is the primary place to find room for improvement. How much is air travel of this? I ask because all the talk of "bullet trains, etc" would have some impact on air travel. Are there big efficiency gains by replacing some air miles with fast train miles? I remember talking to a RR executive years ago who was hired as a consultant to do a feasibility study on this. His conclusion was that it would not pay. Of course that was at least 10 years ago. Oil prices are higher.

[touchring]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Excellent graph thanks!

So it seems that transportation is the primary place to find room for improvement. How much is air travel of this? I ask because all the talk of "bullet trains, etc" would have some impact on air travel. Are there big efficiency gains by replacing some air miles with fast train miles? I remember talking to a RR executive years ago who was hired as a consultant to do a feasibility study on this. His conclusion was that it would not pay. Of course that was at least 10 years ago. Oil prices are higher.

When the Chinese plan bullet trains, they are looking 30 years down the road.

The Chinese is now making 15 million cars a year, which will probably rise to 25 million in 10 years. There's gona to be more cars in China than the US in less than 10 years. At this rate, I don't think there will be much oil left in the ground by then. And whatever oil left will be so expensive, like in the range of 1000 dollars a barrel in today's money, that they can only be used to make plastics.

I find it incredible that consultants in the US don't consider how much oil China will consume in the near future.

[rabot10]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Fred good point lol.

[zoog]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Excellent graph thanks!

So it seems that transportation is the primary place to find room for improvement. How much is air travel of this? I ask because all the talk of "bullet trains, etc" would have some impact on air travel. Are there big efficiency gains by replacing some air miles with fast train miles? I remember talking to a RR executive years ago who was hired as a consultant to do a feasibility study on this. His conclusion was that it would not pay. Of course that was at least 10 years ago. Oil prices are higher.

Using 2009 data, our total daily consumption of petroleum is about 18,800,000 barrels (the lowest reported number since 1997, by the way). Out of that, ~1,400,000 barrels of jet fuel, vs. ~9,000,000 barrels of motor gasoline, ~3,600,000 barrels of distillate fuel oil, ~2,000,000 barrels of liquefied petroleum gases (propane, butane, etc) and even ~2,000,000 of "other products".

eia link

[lektrode]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Excellent graph thanks!

So it seems that transportation is the primary place to find room for improvement. How much is air travel of this? I ask because all the talk of "bullet trains, etc" would have some impact on air travel. Are there big efficiency gains by replacing some air miles with fast train miles? I remember talking to a RR executive years ago who was hired as a consultant to do a feasibility study on this. His conclusion was that it would not pay. Of course that was at least 10 years ago. Oil prices are higher.

methinks it would certainly pay in the 'long run' for the heavy-traffic routes in the megalopolis along the coasts as its already time/cost effective to take the trains tween BOS, NYC, PHL, DC - since if one is traveling downtown to downtown its almost nuts to fly, when one considers the time it takes to get out to the airports (vs trainstations right under downtown) the BS hassles of 'security', then having to go back into downtown, rinse, lather, repeat

with the added benefits of the train: larger, more comfy seats, THE CLUB CAR with tables, elect outlets, celtel/broadband service and 'refreshments' after a long day

several years ago i went from BOS to ALB, then NYC to Raleigh, then down to Ft Lauderdale via amtrak - it was quite enjoyable from NYC down to richmond - blasting along at 100mph beside i95 while crusing the web via celtel with a V&T next to my mouse - try that on a plane....

but from richmond on south?

would hitchhike b4 i'd do that again - altho the food was the best on the Silver Meteor? i think it was.

and there's nothing quite like going from DC to CHI to DEN thru the rockies to OAK to get a sense of just how big the USA is (and just how immense the issues facing us have become)

but with the exception of the DEN to OAK scenery being the best reason to take the train?
on a coast to coast hop, "nothing goes to weather like a 767"

but even with that considered, i think we should be working on a mag-lev tube train that would honk along at hundreds of MPH, undergound where nec, because over the 'long run' jet fuel will get quite simply too dear to waste on recreational travel (will need it for emergency/defense use) - and we really must get going on an upgrade our whole infrastucture, since most of what we've got now is 60-100 years old and the status quo aint cuttin it.

[zmas28]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

This is what many people have said for more than a decade.
Gasoline will be sky high, paralyzing the US economy, which will at best be no growth. The only way is to outrun the problem by drastically improving efficiency.

From WikiLeaks cables:
Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices
US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world's biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...ated-wikileaks

Steve Chu wants to get the cost of photovoltaics down by 75% by 2020, but I think that might be a little late.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011...paign=top_news

LEDs are FINALLY showing up on Amazon, but I would still just by only one to try out. They are rapidly getting better, more energy efficient, and cheaper.

Anyone in the know care to comment on the viability of shale oil? Shale gas is a reality today and has driven the price of natural gas down. Shale oil is tougher and perhaps a few years off.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110209/...us_shale_oil_3

[c1ue]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

The problem with bullet trains is 'spokes'.

If airlines could only serve the most profitable cities - like Southwest does - then they'd all be far more profitable. Of course one consequence of this is forcing an even greater concentration into existing urban areas with corresponding negative effects on the countryside. Think China's migrant worker issue.

Similarly bullet trains only make sense with respect to a few large metropolitan areas. But what about all the 'flyover' 'bullet-past' country in between?

You can't stop regularly on bullet trains because this kills the transit time, plus the speed up/slow down aspect is not ideal much as airplanes spend most of their fuel taking off and landing.

[lektrode]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

The problem with bullet trains is 'spokes'.

If airlines could only serve the most profitable cities - like Southwest does - then they'd all be far more profitable. Of course one consequence of this is forcing an even greater concentration into existing urban areas with corresponding negative effects on the countryside. Think China's migrant worker issue.

Similarly bullet trains only make sense with respect to a few large metropolitan areas. But what about all the 'flyover' 'bullet-past' country in between?

You can't stop regularly on bullet trains because this kills the transit time, plus the speed up/slow down aspect is not ideal much as airplanes spend most of their fuel taking off and landing.

but norfolk southern sez they do a 100 tons of freight per mile/gal of diesel?

[touchring]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Electric passenger trains are designed to stop over a station every 5 to 10 minutes and acceleration and deacceleration is usually pretty fast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan%E...-Speed_Railway

Take for example, the Wuhan-Guangzhou bullet line has 18 stations over 600 miles. That's one station every 33 miles. The entire journey takes about 3 hours which means the train stops every 10 minutes. High speed rails stations are usually built side-by-side with bus terminals that connect to towns and villages.

On the other hand, the aircraft can only stop over a place every 1 hour - about 300 miles, and each stop over will mean another 40 minutes on the ground. Add to that the time required to check in, go through security, wait for your baggage at the destination airport.

If you have realized it, the advantage of a bullet train over other means of transporation is even more obvious over shorter distances, for example 150 miles, a distance that a bullet train can cover in about 45 minutes, many times much quicker than any bus or car, especially over an urban area with traffic congestion. Even a helicopter will take an hour to travel that distance.

Americans are in denial of the fact that oil is running out.

The problem with bullet trains is 'spokes'.

If airlines could only serve the most profitable cities - like Southwest does - then they'd all be far more profitable. Of course one consequence of this is forcing an even greater concentration into existing urban areas with corresponding negative effects on the countryside. Think China's migrant worker issue.

Similarly bullet trains only make sense with respect to a few large metropolitan areas. But what about all the 'flyover' 'bullet-past' country in between?

You can't stop regularly on bullet trains because this kills the transit time, plus the speed up/slow down aspect is not ideal much as airplanes spend most of their fuel taking off and landing.

[mooncliff]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Electric passenger trains are designed to stop over a station every 5 to 10 minutes and acceleration and deacceleration is usually pretty fast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan%E...-Speed_Railway

Take for example, the Wuhan-Guangzhou bullet line has 18 stations over 600 miles. That's one station every 33 miles. The entire journey takes about 3 hours which means the train stops every 10 minutes. High speed rails stations are usually built side-by-side with bus terminals that connect to towns and villages.

On the other hand, the aircraft can only stop over a place every 1 hour - about 300 miles, and each stop over will mean another 40 minutes on the ground. Add to that the time required to check in, go through security, wait for your baggage at the destination airport.

If you have realized it, the advantage of a bullet train over other means of transporation is even more obvious over shorter distances, for example 150 miles, a distance that a bullet train can cover in about 45 minutes, many times much quicker than any bus or car, especially over an urban area with traffic congestion. Even a helicopter will take an hour to travel that distance.

In Japan, there are 3 classes of Shinkansen running on the same track: Superexpress stops every 150 miles or so, the expresses stop about every 50 miles, and the locals stop about every 10 miles. Paralleling and radiating from those stations are unbelievably extensive train and bus lines. Suppose you were going from Tokyo to eastern Hiroshima Prefecture. You would take the Nozomi 700 from Tokyo to say Fukuyama, and then transfer to a local Kodama train which stops at every Shinkansen station. In other words, a Nozomi 700 superexpress from Tokyo to Kagoshima, a distance of about 800 miles, would in general only stop at
Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Himeji, Hiroshima, Shimonoseki, Hakata, Kumamoto, Nagasaki, and Kagoshima.
You stay on the superexpress as far as you can, then switch to a local.
The superexpress leaves Tokyo 6 times an hour from around 5AM to late in the evening.
The energy used is about 1/15th the energy that would be used traveling by car, at maximum speed of 190 mph. Since the start of Shinkansen service in 1964, it has carried about 10 billion passengers. There has been only one fatality, when a passenger tried to stick his hand into a closing door and got his sleeve caught.
I much prefer the Shinkansen to flying since the stations are in the middle of towns and you do not have to waste time going to and from airports.
A Japan rail pass for tourists will let you ride unlimited for a few weeks at very reasonable cost.
For nontourists, who do not qualify for the pass, a real advantage is that you can get on and off as many times as you want, say visiting Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji, and Hiroshima at no added cost, as long as you continue to travel in one direction.

[c1ue]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

but norfolk southern sez they do a 100 tons of freight per mile/gal of diesel?

I'm sure that's correct, but Norfolk Southern doesn't deliver to Wal-Mart. They go from one large loading/unloading station to another.

Given that no one actually lives or shops at these central stations, the next step is generally to load onto a lowboy truck. And I guarantee after this the average isn't 100 tons of freight per mile/gal of diesel.

Take for example, the Wuhan-Guangzhou bullet line has 18 stations over 600 miles. That's one station every 33 miles. The entire journey takes about 3 hours which means the train stops every 10 minutes. High speed rails stations are usually built side-by-side with bus terminals that connect to towns and villages.

On the other hand, the aircraft can only stop over a place every 1 hour - about 300 miles, and each stop over will mean another 40 minutes on the ground. Add to that the time required to check in, go through security, wait for your baggage at the destination airport.

600 miles divided by 3 hours equals 200 mph. I guarantee that the 3 hour time does NOT include 18 stops.

Secondly 600 miles divided by 18 stations = 33.33 miles between stations, on average.

That's a damn long way to walk.

In Japan, there are 3 classes of Shinkansen running on the same track: Superexpress stops every 150 miles or so, the expresses stop about every 50 miles, and the locals stop about every 10 miles. Paralleling and radiating from those stations are unbelievably extensive train and bus lines.

Yes, that is exactly my point. Building a super fast train itself doesn't fix anything.

A gigantic infrastructure is necessary, and the lower the population density the higher the cost.

As an example: a direct train from Tokyo to Osaka (Nozomi) takes 155 minutes. The 4 stop train (Hikari) (including 2 in Tokyo) takes 175 minutes. The Kodama (all stops) train takes 4 hours.

However, every single stop has a fairly extensive local network around it; in the countryside it is still too far to really go without alternative transportation (car/bike) unless you're right beside it.

As for planes - the point is identical: nothing stops a plane from landing and taking off.

It is just that the cost is too high - both in money due to fuel and in time due to air traffic control and/or security screening.