Eschew Obfuscation: Category Peak Oil

Oil Price Increase Due to Dollar Devaluation?

Max Dunn — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:49:00 -0700

It is commonly thought that a large part of the increase in the price of oil is due to the devaluation of the dollar. For instance, since the the euro is now 60% higher than the dollar it seems to make sense that 60% of increase in the price of oil is due to this devaluation of the dollar. However when you look more closely at the economics behind oil pricing, you will find that this is not the case at all. Actually, it doesn’t make any difference what currency oil is priced in because the price would still be the same.

Price Elasticity of Oil - Short Term and Long Term

Max Dunn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:17:00 -0700

When the price of something goes up, it makes sense that demand for it should go down and production should go up. But in the case of oil, that doesn’t seem to be true. Oil prices have gone up 400% over the last 5 years while consumption has been flat in the US and global oil production has been relatively flat for the last 3 years.

Proven Oil Reserves - Fact or Fiction?

Max Dunn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:33:00 -0700

When people attempt to prove that the world has plenty of oil left, they often quote oil reserve numbers. But can we really trust these numbers?

Here is a graph of the commonly accepted ‘proven’ oil reserves:

Will Increased Shipping Costs Decrease Globalization?

Max Dunn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:09:00 -0700

There is speculation that the increased cost of shipping due to rising oil prices will reduce globalization since it will be cheaper to make products locally than ship them all over the world. For some bulk items where shipping is a major component of the price, this could be true. But for many high-value items, manufacturing them in low-cost countries and then shipping them by boat will still be more economical than making them locally.

Top 5 US Oil Importing Countries

Max Dunn — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:59:00 -0700

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:

Do Oil Companies Make Too Much Money?

Max Dunn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:08:00 -0700

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)

Is the Solution to High Oil Prices to Open Up More Drilling in the US?

Max Dunn — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:07:00 -0700

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.

Gas Prices Around the World

Max Dunn — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:04:00 -0700

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)

3rd Generation PV

Max Dunn — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:42:00 -0700

There was an interesting talk at the Woods Energy Seminar at Stanford yesterday by Dr. Gavin Conibeer about 3rd generation photovoltaic (PV) devices.

The 1st generation are the PV cells we have now that cost around $6/watt and are around 20% efficient. The 2nd generation are the thin film cells which cost around $1/watt but are only about 12% efficient. The 3rd generation cells will use quantum dot technology created using thin-film manufacturing methods, so they will be a lot less expensive than 1st generation devices but will also use a variety of techniques to boost efficiencies up to 65% which will drive the cost down to $0.20/watt.

This sounds pretty great! However, the catch is that when asked when these 3rd generation PV cells would start going into production, his answer was “It is still a long ways away.”

Following are the notes I took during his talk:

Clouds and Gusts = Regulation Problems

Max Dunn — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:26:00 -0700

All of the major electricity generating systems in use today have a fairly steady output. Whether they are powered by nuclear, coal, hydro or natural gas, the electricity output will be fairly constant unless there is a malfunction. However, solar and wind systems aren’t consistent – clouds can dramatically affect the output of solar systems, and lulls and gusts can affect wind systems.

In our electrical grid, it is important that the supply of electricity consistently matches its demand. This will become more challenging once solar and wind systems are producing a larger percentage of the total electrical power, and there are currently no good ways to smooth out these fast fluctuations. Spreading the solar and wind units far apart helps so that clouds and gusts won’t affect all the units at the same time. Also pumped hydro (where water can be pumped up into a dam using electricity as well as letting it out to produce electricity) can help smooth things out as well as using natural gas spinning reserves.

However, we will still need more regulation that is much faster than these, and this is where Vehicle-to-Grid can help. If we can reach a level where a significant amount of electric vehicles are hooked up to the grid with fast command communication, they will be able to quickly smooth out the electrical surges and lulls from solar and wind systems. Otherwise, we will likely run into severe regulations problems with these systems due to clouds and gusts.

Gas at $100 per Gallon

Max Dunn — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:59:00 -0700

Here is an interesting thought experiment: how would our lives change if gas cost $100 per gallon?

Slippery Slope: Cantarell Leading the Way?

Max Dunn — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:10:00 -0700

Once everyeone realizes that oil production has peaked, the main factor on whether the world can make an orderly transition to renewable energy depends mainly on how fast production falls. If oil production falls slowly, we will be able to build up our alternative energy infrastructure with only major inconveniences. However, if it falls rapidly, dire consequences could result including recession, famine and war.

The best way to tell whether the decline will be fast or slow is to look at existing large oil fields that are in decline. If we base this on Cantarell, the news is not good.

Cantarell was the second largest producing oil field in the world. It peaked in 2004 and production fell 31% in the following 3 years. This year, it will likely decline by 18%. At this rate, production from Cantarell will drop by 80% in just 5 years.

Let’s hope that Cantarell is not indicative of the other super-giant oil fields, or the world would be in for severe trouble.

Friedman: Our Political Brownout on Energy Policy

Max Dunn — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:40:00 -0700

Thomas Friedman, author of ‘The World is Flat just wrote a very intelligent op-ed piece for the New York Times titled: ‘Dumb as We Wanna Be’. Here are some edited excerpts:

Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy – this is money laundering. The idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.
Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.
The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

NanoSolar: The Company That Might Save the World

Max Dunn — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:44:00 -0700

Yesterday, I shook the hand of the man whose company might just save the world.

He is Martin Roscheisen, CEO of NanoSolar. He alluded that they are producing solar panels at about $1 per watt with a complete system cost of $2 watt when installed in municipal scale of 1MW to 50MW. This is about the same cost as a coal-fired power plant!

Furthermore, their panels can be installed at the rate of 1MW per day, and need 5 acres per MW, which means a municipal sized system of 50MW can be installed in about two months. This contrasts with coal-fired plants that can take 4 years or more to build.

Drawbacks? Their German plant is producing only about 420 MW of solar capacity per year and their San Jose plant which will open in 2009 will produce about the same. While this is very high by normal PV standards, it would help the world greatly if this went up by several orders of magnitude.

Just think – instead of building more coal plants we can start building clean solar power systems at about the same cost!

Feed-in Tariffs

Max Dunn — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:27:00 -0700

Wind power can now produce energy as cheaply as coal, about 5c per kilowatt hour (kWh). Solar power is almost to the point where it can produce energy at the marginal electrical rate of about 10c kWh. So with oil prices over $100 barrel, natural gas prices doubling, and all the concern about CO2 and other noxious emissions from coal plants, why aren’t more wind and solar projects being built?

GreenVolts Seminar

Max Dunn — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:59:00 -0700

Last night I attended a seminar put on by the Going Green! meetup group and the speaker was Craig Lewis who is VP Government Relations with GreenVolts. GreenVolt’s goal is to “deliver power to utility companies at fossil fuel costs”.

Craig talked a little about the GreenVolts product, which is a concentrating solar collector system with advanced tracking and is designed to be interconnected at the 12kv distribution level in sizes ranging from 1 to 20 mega-watts (MW). However, his main topic was “Accelerating the Transition to Smart Energy.” His conclusion was that to make alternative energy sources take off, the government needs to shift the subsidies paid to oil companies into long-term feed-in tariffs, i.e. requiring the electric companies to buy power at a set price for the next 10 to 15 years. This would allow alternative energy projects to have a guaranteed return and thus enable them to get long-term financing.

While Craig wouldn’t divulge the cost of their system, he did say it was about half of a typical flat-panel installation, so I am guessing that the cost is about $4 per watt, which would mean they could produce power at less than 9.5c per kilowatt, which is the rate they would be selling it to the utilities.

He also threw out some other interesting numbers:

Their system requires 3 acres per MW or 100 MW per square mile, which is a higher power density than other systems
Oil imports comprise more than half of the U.S. deficit
Oil companies received about $17 billion last year in subsidies while solar industry only got $200 million.

Here are the complete notes:

Cost of a Solar Nation

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:36:00 -0700

How much would it cost to build a solar nation? Here are some interesting numbers:

The IEA estimates that it will take a worldwide investment of $5.4 trillion dollars in oil exploration and development in order to meet the demand for oil in 2030, if oil usage continues to grow at its current rate. Since the U.S. uses about 25% of the worlds oil, our cost would be about $1.35 trillion.

Scientific American estimates that if we provide less than a third of this amount as a subsidy – $420 billion – then we can build a solar collection, storage and distribution system that would provide 69% of America’s electricity and 35% of it’s total energy by 2050.

So, can anyone say that building a solar nation is too expensive?

Solar Concentrators Below $1/watt

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:58:00 -0700

Today I went to an interesting Energy Seminar at Stanford. The speaker was Scott Elrod who works for Parc and studied Applied Physics at Stanford. He was talking about a product they are working on called the SolFocus which is a concentrating solar collector and their hope is to get this down to $1/watt. Here are the notes from the talk:

Cost Breakdown of a Gallon of Gas

Max Dunn — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:49:00 -0700

With gas prices spiking up, it is interesting to look at the breakdown of the cost of a gallon of gasoline.

A barrel of oil holds 42 gallons. So if oil is at $100 per barrel, a gallon would cost about $2.40. Refining the oil adds another $0.35 and taxes about $0.65 (in California). Add another $0.10 for distribution, marketing and profits, and you have a gallon of gas costing $3.50.

Using these same numbers, if oil goes to $200/barrel, a gallon of gas will cost almost $6!

Only Locally Grown Food After Peak Oil?

Max Dunn — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:33:00 -0800

Many peak oil people envision that after oil becomes scarce, civilization will revert back to the way it was 100 years ago. In particular, they feel that large, centralized farms will not be viable and that only locally grown food will be available. I believe otherwise. I think that centralized farming is much more energy efficient than a multitude of local farms and will continue to supply the bulk of our food.

This was reinforced by some statistics I saw that showed that out of the total energy needed to produce and prepare food, only 14% was related to transportation of that food. Since this is a small percentage of the total energy usage, and electric vehicles could make this even more efficient, you can’t make an argument that transporting food is going to be the main problem after peak oil

(From University of Michigan: Food Fact Sheet)

Farting Along With Air Cars

Max Dunn — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:32:00 -0800

I was trying to explain to my wife how an air car worked, and with a smile on her face she said “So it farts as it moves forward?” Well maybe that sums it up nicely.

But do air cars really make sense? The information from the manufacturers seem like they are the solution to our energy crisis, and to everything else too [1]. But there are several fundamental problems with air cars.

Will Canadian Oil Sands Save Us?

Max Dunn — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:04:00 -0800

There is a lot of oil in Canadian oil sands. So it is easy to believe that even when OPEC’s production starts to fall, Canadian oil sands can make up the difference. However, the problem is not the amount of oil – the problem is separating the oil from the sand which is a slow and resource intensive process.

According to the Master’s thesis of Bengt Söderbergh [1], natural gas availability is likely to limit oil sands production in the long term to about 3.6 million barrels per day (mbd).

David Hughes, a geologist with Natural Resources Canada, believes that the peak will never exceed 2.5 mbd due to natural gas, water, diluent and infrastructure constraints. [2]

For comparison, the U.S. uses 22 mbd and worldwide demand is 86 mbd. So it is unlikely the Canadian oil sands will be able to ever provide a significant amount of the world’s oil.

Saudi's Admit Peak Production?

Max Dunn — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:02:00 -0800

Last weekend, the Saudi Oil Minister, Ali al-Naimi said, “From now there’s a line below which prices won’t fall.” Further, he added that the Saudis have no plans to expand oil production beyond the 12.5 million barrels per day it hopes to have by 2009.

This statement could be the first real admission by the Saudis that they can’t pump as much extra oil as they previously claimed, and a real sign that they have reached, or are close to, peak production.

Bike Riding for Errands

Max Dunn — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:30:00 -0800

I should ride my bike more. It is good exercise and saves the environment. However, I don’t like to ride my bike on everyday errands.

I was reminded of this today when I got new tires for our car. Like usual, I threw my bike in the back and rode home after dropping off the car. It isn’t far, about 2.5 miles, but I was hot and sweaty when I got home. I was smart this time and brought a piece of string to wrap around my pant leg. Usually I forget this and wind up getting chain oil on my pant leg.

When the car was ready, I rode back to the shop to pick it up, and I was a bit tired.

So it certainly worked out fine to ride my bike, but it isn’t something that I would normally do. Also, for the same reasons, I don’t think we can expect many Americans to forgo their cars and start doing a lot more bike riding either. Good thing I have my electric scooter to scoot around on!

Cantarell Field Decline

Max Dunn — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:10:00 -0800

Back in 2004, there were four oil fields in the world which produced over one million barrels per day. Ghawar, which produced 4.5 million barrels per day (bpd), Cantarell in Mexico, which produced nearly 2 million bpd, Burgan in Kuwait which produced 1 million bpd and Da Qing in China which produced 1 million bpd [1].

However, Contarell hit its peak in 2004 and has been in decline ever since. In 2008, it is expected to produce about 1.4 million bpd [3] and continue to decline at a rate of about 14% [2].

The Cantarell field provides 60 percent of Mexico’s total production. Mexico is the second largest supplier of oil to the U.S. [3].

This is another indication that the world-wide supply of oil will soon fall below demand.

References:

[1] Trouble in the World’s Largest Oil Field-Ghawar
[2] Cantarell Field
[3] Peak Oil is Now Official

Oil Depletion Levels in Ghawar

Max Dunn — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:24:00 -0800

The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia is by far the largest oil field in the world accounting for more than one-half of all oil production in Saudi Arabia. It was discovered in 1948 and has been producing 5 million barrels of oil per day for the last 10 years [1]. However, many believe that Ghawar has passed its peak [2][3][4].

Here is another detailed and technical analysis of the oil depletion levels of Ghawar by Stuart Saniford [5]:

Depletion Levels in Ghawar

While much of this information is very technical and difficult to browse through, the pictures that show how much of Ghawar is now filled with water graphically illustrates the problem. Saniford shows:

“The northern half of Ghawar is quite depleted.”

and

“In particular, Saudi oil production has been falling with increasing speeed since summer 2005, and overall, since mid 2004, about 2 million barrels of oil per day in production has gone missing. That’s 2.5% of world production.”

Are Buses Bad for the Environment?

Max Dunn — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:05:00 -0800

It is common knowledge that buses are energy efficient, right? I mean shouldn’t we all ride the bus rather than drive a car? Well a study looked at this more closely and found out something interesting. Here are some figures for passenger miles per gallon (PMPG) for various forms of transportation:

Light rail – 120 PMPG
Trolley bus – 104 PMPG
Commuter rail – 86 PMPG
Intercity rail – 66 PMPG
Car, average trip – 44 PMPG
Transit bus – 33 PMPG

Wow, look at that: city buses only get about 33 PMPG – this is even less than a normal car with 2 people which gets 44 PMPG! I guess to be more green, we should all avoid the bus and drive our cars instead. :-)

Reference: Comparison of Energy Use & CO2 Emissions From Different Transportation Modes

Which Alternate Energy Vehicle is the Most Efficient?

Max Dunn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:33:00 -0800

There are several better energy alternatives to power cars than using gas. The top ones are hydrogen, air or battery. However, it turns out that there are big differences in the efficiencies of these technologies. For 100MJ of input electricity, this is how far each of these cars could go: [18]

133 km: Lithium-ion battery vehicle
46 km: Compressed air car
42 km: Fuel cell vehicle

So it turns out that battery electric vehicles are 3 times more efficient than either compressed air or fuel cell vehicles!

Can Battery Backups Make Money?

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:12:00 -0800

I don’t have a lot of confidence in PG&E. It seems that every time we have a big storm, our power goes out. Once, it took 3 days for them to get the power back on! So I have been considering installing a battery backup system for my house to get through these power outages.

If I install a battery backup system, I was wondering if it would be profitable to charge up the batteries at night when electricity costs are low, at $0.05/kWh, and then use it during the day when electricity costs are high, at $0.11/kWh to $0.29/kWh [9]?

Oil Usage

Max Dunn — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:29:00 -0800

What do we use all our oil on? Here is a breakdown from the year 2000:

From: DETAILED BREAKDOWN OF U.S. PETROLEUM USE

In summary, cars use about 41%, trucks 13% and planes 7%. So if we want to reduce the amount of oil we use, then reducing our transportation usage will be effective, since transportation comprises about 60% of all oil usage.

Strangely, Power Company Rebates Make Sense

Max Dunn — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:17:00 -0800

It seems awfully strange that a company that sells power would subsidize compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) that use less energy, and give rebates for energy efficient appliances. This would be like Starbucks giving awards to people who cut down on their coffee drinking! But even though this seems strange, power companies trying to cut power consumption actually makes sense.

Hot Tub Energy: Electric vs Gas

Max Dunn — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:38:00 -0800

Nowadays, if you are looking to install a hot tub, your only option is likely to be a hot tub that heats with electricity. The salesman will tell you that they are very well insulated (which they are) and that it will only cost about $30 per month of electricity to heat it (which is possible but optimistic.) Let’s look at the math and physics behind this.

The Trouble with Lithium

Max Dunn — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 11:39:00 -0800

It turns out that lithium is not very abundant or easy to mine, and that the price is going up. In this paper, the author even argues that there is not enough lithium available in the world to convert all cars over to plug-in hybrid (PHEV) if we expect to use lithium batteries in them:

The Trouble with Lithium – Implications of Future PHEV Production for Lithium Demand

Lithium Silicon Nanowire Battery - 10 Times As Much Energy!

Max Dunn — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:16:00 -0800

An revolutionary new technology is being developed by Stanford researcher Yi Cui that could could generate 10 times more energy from lithium-ion batteries. The trick is that instead of using carbon anodes, they use silicon nanowires because silicon can hold large amounts of lithium atoms. The nanowire technology allows these small wires to swell to four times their normal size without breaking. [1]

When Cui’s paper was originally submitted six months ago, they had only achieved 30 charge-discharge cycles. Since that time however, Cui’s team has pushed the battery through 1000 cycles. [2]

Ultimately, these batteries should be cheap to build. However, they are probably 5 years away from being commercialized. [3]

In reality though, the “10 times more energy” figure is just the theoretical charge capacity increase in the silicon anode, so a real production battery won’t see that much improvement. But even if it improves the overall energy density of a lithium ion battery by 2 or 3 times, that would still be very significant.

[1] Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery

[2] New Nanowire Battery Life Reaches From iPods to Electric Cars

[3] GM-Volt.com: Interview with Dr. Cui, Inventor of Silicon Nanowire Lithium-ion Battery Breakthrough

Food versus Fuel - Which Wins?

Max Dunn — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:04:00 -0800

Here is a very long and detailed analysis of food-based biofuel production and how it could cause problems with the food supply:

Fermenting the Food Supply

The scary point about this article is that it illustrates how profitable it is to make biofuel when oil prices are high and how this could lead to devastating consequences if we have a bidding war between the gas tanks of the roughly one billion middle class people on the planet, and the dinner tables of the poor.

Cheap Solar Panels to Save the World

Max Dunn — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:22:00 -0800

Nanosolar announced that is is starting to ship its thin-film solar panels that cost less than $1 per watt! Could these panels save the world?

Maybe, but Nanosolar is being very tight about information, citing patent concerns:

“Technical Data Sheet? We presently share product data sheets only under Non-Disclosure Agreement with qualified volume customers. This is so we can extend the period of protection for certain proprietary features we have developed.”

Their first 12 months of production is already sold out and is going to commercial installations, so maybe it isn’t efficient enough to put on a house. But there was one tidbit where Nanosolar’s CEO said they could produce about as much energy as the a silicon wafer.

It also received Popular Science’s Green Tech product of the Year award

Solar vs Coal: Who Wins?

Max Dunn — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:09:00 -0800

A new solar power plant just opened up at Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada [1]. Currently it is the largest solar photovoltaic system in North America with a capability of 14 megawatts (mW) of peak power, and producing about 25 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year [2].

However, it cost $100 million to build, which is about $7,000 per kilowatt (kW). This is a lot more than a coal-powered plants which costs about $3,000 per kW to build [3]. But since the sun is free and coal-powered plants have to pay for the coal, shouldn’t this make up for the additional cost of solar systems?

It turns out, that it doesn’t. To see why, let’s look at the numbers.

Electric Vehicles Produce a Lot Less CO2

Max Dunn — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:35:00 -0800

When I talk about how clean electric vehicles are, people sometimes ask if they really do reduce greenhouse gases since burning coal to produce electricity creates a lot of CO2. My standard answer to this question is that even in the worst case, electric cars are twice as clean as gas powered cars. However, while reading an article in Forbes about vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems. I realized that in general, electric cars are much cleaner than even this.

This article had an interesting chart that said electric cars produce about 1.1 tons of greenhouse gases a year while gas powered cars produce 6.3 tons – over 6 times more! Let’s see if we can verify these numbers.

The average car is driven 15,000 miles per year and electric vehicles normally get 4 miles per kWh, so it takes about 3,750 kWh of electricity a year to power an electric car. In California, the mix of electricity production produces about 0.6 lbs of greenhouse gases per kWh so this would produce 2,250 pounds, or 1.1 tons of greenhouse gases – right on the money with the Forbes chart.

A gas car, on the other hand, produces about 1 lb of CO2 for every mile driven (based on producing 20 lbs per gallon and getting 20 mpg). So 15,000 miles would produce 15,000 lbs of greenhouse gases, or about 7.5 tons – which is more than the Forbes estimate of 6.3 tons (maybe they are using a higher mpg).

So electric cars are even cleaner than I had thought, producing about one sixth as much greenhouse gases as a gas car.

War in the 21st Century

Max Dunn — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:53:00 -0800

War in the 21st century is going to be all about oil – including what wars will be fought over as well as determining the ability to wage war.

Analysis: China’s fuel oil reserves

Peak Oil Prediction

Max Dunn — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:34:00 -0800

I haven’t written in my blog yet about peak oil, although my friends and family have certainly gotten an earful. I will be writing more about it in the future, but for now I wanted to put a stake in the ground and publish my prediction of worldwide peak oil. Here it is.

I believe that worldwide our demand for oil is now passing our total possible production which will lead to sporadic shortages and continuing price increases. (Of course there will be ups and downs along the way, but this will be the overall trend.) In concrete terms, I believe that sometime before the end of 2011 oil will hit $200 a barrel, gas will cost $7 a gallon and there will be times when we won’t be able to get gas to fill our cars.

There it is, my peak oil prediction has now been published.

When to Buy an Electric Car?

Max Dunn — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:09:00 -0800

That is the question – whether to buy a low-speed electric vehicle now, or wait for a high-speed electric vehicle later? Here are the factors I am looking at:

What type of transportation do I need?
When will high-speed electric vehicles really arrive?
How much will they actually cost?
When will the severe oil shortages start?
Will there be subsidies for electric vehicles?

The short answer is that I am going to buy a low-speed NEV now and wait for later to buy a freeway capable electric car. Here is the long answer: