Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:57:39 GMT | no comments
For those of you wondering what is in my eVolvo, here are the specs:
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:59:44 GMT | no comments
What are the top 5 countries that the US imports its oil from?
Most people would probably guess that Saudi Arabia is on the list, but they might also think that Russia is on it too, which it isn’t. (Russia is at number 14.)
Surprisingly, Canada is at the top of the list with 1.9 million barrels per day (mbd) and Canada exports more oil to the US than it uses itself. It gets about half of its oil from tar sands, and while there is a lot of oil locked up in tar sands it takes so much natural gas and water to get the oil out that it is unlikely that the daily production can be increased much more.
Saudi Arabia is second on the list and while it exports a total of about 9 mbd, the US gets only 1.5 mbd of this.
Mexico is third at 1.2 mbd which represents 80% of their exports, but their production is falling. The Cantarell field was the second largest producing oil field in the world before it peaked in 2004, and since then its output has fallen by an ominous 50%.
Would you guess that Nigeria is the 4th largest importer to the US at 1.1 mbd? It is, however Nigeria is a very unstable country and militant attacks routinely cause production to fall below its maximum potential.
Lastly, at number 5 is our friendly South American neighbor Venezuela at 1.0 mbd.
This list often surprises people. Most wouldn’t know that Canada is the top provider of our imported oil and that Nigeria is close behind at number 4.
References:
- EIA: ‘Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries’
- Will Canadian Oil Sands Save Us?
- ODAC: Output slumps at Mexico’s Cantarell superfield
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:15:18 GMT | 7 comments
According to the accounting firm Ernst and Young, in 2007 the average manufacturing company made 8.9 cents per dollar of sales. The U.S. oil industry did slightly worse at 8.3 cents per dollar of sales, even though this was a record year for them. Contrast that to beverage and cigarette companies that earned 19.1 cents and drugmakers that earned 18.4 cents. So even though oil prices have skyrocketing, are oil companies really making too much money?
(Source: Forbes June 2, 2008 Page 30 Shooting Ourselves in the Foot)
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:33:43 GMT | no comments
With all this talk about fuel cells, I have been wondering if it is possible to actually buy one. Here is one I stumbled across a reformed methanol fuel cell that puts out 25 watts. With the standard 12 oz cartridge of methanol, it will produce power for about 7 hours. One drawback is that it takes between 12 and 30 minutes to start-up, not very convenient if you need to get someplace quick. However the real kicker is the price – $5,000! If you wanted enough of these to power a car which takes about 15,000 watts, it would cost over $3 million! Or course this is a methane fuel cell and not a hydrogen one, but it provides another reason to believe that fuel cells are not the answer to the future of transportation.
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:06:37 GMT | no comments
ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future
by Vijay Vaitheeswaran
I wanted to like this book – I really did. With a name like "Zoom" and the promise to show the car of the future, I was excited to read it. But in the end, the book turned out to be at best a dud, and at worst misleading and harmful to the future of transportation.
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles, Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:24:48 GMT | no comments
Sometimes you will hear that electric vehicles produce more CO2 than gas vehicles, however, this isn’t true. Let’s look at an easy CO2 calculation to see why.
Burning a gallon of gas creates 20 lbs of CO2. So a car that gets an average of 20 MPG produces 1 lb of CO2 per mile. Ok so far?
Electric cars get an average of 3 miles per kWh and 1 kWh creates an average of 1.3 lbs of CO2. So an electric car produces about 0.4 lbs of CO2 per mile. So electric cars produce only about 40% as much CO2 as gas cars. Easy, right?
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles, Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:18:08 GMT | 1 comment
I finally did it – I got an electric car!
We had been considering a Miles NEV, but were concerned that even after tweaking it to go 35 MPH (rather than the 25 MPH it is supposed to go) that we would still get run over when driving on streets where the speed limit was 40 MPH or higher. The Miles also would have cost close to $20,000, and even then it was pretty minimal – vinyl seats, manual crank windows and no air-conditioning. So when a converted 1995 Volvo 850 came up for sale nearby for $14,000 we jumped on it!
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:38:31 GMT | 1 comment
There is a lot of talk floating around that if the US would just end the ban on drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, we would find plenty of oil and prices would go down. Let’s look at this more closely to see if it is true.
Read more...
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:06:32 GMT | no comments
Some countries tax gasoline heavily, others subsidize it. Here is a chart that shows how much people pay for gas around the world:
(Source: The Economist – Crude measures)
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:00:37 GMT | no comments
One question that is often asked is that if we start to have a lot of electric vehicles, won’t this strain our electric system and require us to build a lot of new electric power plants?
The answer is no – at least at first. The reason is that electric usage goes down considerably at night. By simply charging at off-peak times, then we can use electricity from the plants that would have otherwise been idle.
Let’s look at the math. An electric vehicle consumes 1 kWh from the wall socket for every 2-4 miles driven. The average car is driven about 30 miles per day – so the average
daily energy needed per car is only 10 kWh. If these vehicles are charged over 10 off-peak hours, the average power consumption per car is 1 kW. Since California has 25 GW of spare off-peak electric capacity, this can power 25 million electric cars in California alone.
This is just a rough calculation, but the same conclusion was reached in a detailed analysis which found that 84% of all cars in the US could be powered by the existing electricity infrastructure.
Posted in Electric Vehicles