Sums it up

And these guys are the optimists! These are gross production estimates -- not accounting for increased domestic usage by exporters or the increased energy cost of extracting the tougher-to-get oil. Image via Wikipedia

Jeffrey (Westexas) Brown notes (at about 1:30 p.m. in today's Drumbeat comments):

Peak Oil is like a commercial airliner doing a gradual descent for landing. Peak Exports is more akin to an airliner doing a near vertical dive into the ground.

Meanwhile, let's talk about the new third auto bridge for Salem!

A try to get Congress to set priorities for transportation

The ODOT building: Where billions are committed to making it impossible to get around without a car. Image by OregonDOT via Flickr

Hi-

As you read this, Congress is working on the new transportation bill, released just two days ago. It's a good start, but as the bill stands today, it leaves out something crucial: Clear national priorities.

There’s no way to be sure billions of dollars in transportation spending will deliver clean, safe and smart transportation without accountability measures built-in.

I just called my member of Congress about the need for real reform. Can you call too?

1. Call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak to your representative’s office.
   
   
2. Tell the staff member answering the phone where you're calling from, and that you'd like to urge the representative to support the National Transportation Objectives Act of 2009 (H.R. 2724). You can add:
   
   
   • You are a constituent and a supporter of the Transportation for America coalition.
     
     
   • You want to make sure the billions spent on transportation help us cut down on emissions, give us real energy security, and provide you with more affordable options for getting from A to B.

Tell Congress that we need reform first, money later.

Your car: Powerful enough to tow the continent southward

Enjoy it while it lasts. Image by pete4ducks via Flickr

Good article from Alan Bates on the change in climate in Tennessee and the repercussions for growing food.

Here in the verdant Willamette Valley, a food lover's paradise, we are seeing a surge of wineries as we become the "next Napa Valley" -- but think about what that means. In the time since the Napa Valley was a little-known place and then THE chi-chi spot for wine snobs, much of what made Napa Napa has moved north, to be replaced by even hotter consistent weather.

It's like your car was capable of towing the continent southward, bringing Salem into the climate that once prevailed in Napa.

Sounds sweet, right?

Except for one thing -- we've still got a few more decades of warming coming even if all the carbon emissions stop today. It's built in, thanks to the lag time for climate response to greenhouse gas emissions. (And that's presuming that we don't trip one of the natural features that amplify climate instability, like massive permafrost melting or thermal-induced release of the methane hydrates on the sea floor.)

So while it might be nice to grow wine near Salem today we need to recognize that, as we tow North America towards the sweltering Equator with our every gallon of gas burnt, we don't have any good way to stop. We're only going to enjoy this period for a short while before the Skagit Valley becomes "The Next Napa" and Salem wine grapes die off from excessive heat. And what else will we lose? Will we still be able to produce cherries in The Cherry City?

The "Export Land Model" in English: NET is what matters, not gross

The most significant graph you're likely to see all year. Image via Wikipedia

A commenter to the prior post mentioned Jeffrey (Westexas) Brown's "Export Land Model," which is a very, very important concept that I think everyone needs to be familiar with.

It's actually quite easy to understand, although I think the terms used are off-putting and confusing.

In a nutshell, the ELM says that, when it comes to oil exports, the only thing that matters is NET exports (the oil that crosses the borders, rather than the oil that comes out of the ground).

As people who live in a valley with no fossil fuels in a state with no fossil fuels in a country that is rapidly exhausting its fossil fuel endowment (particularly of oil), that's pretty easy for us to understand. It's like the old investment ads touting tax-free bonds: "It's not how much you make that counts, it's how much you keep," only here it would be "It's not how much you pump, it's how much you export that counts."

In the imagination of most people, oil exporting countries are lightly populated and use little of their own oil. Reality is quite different: fueled by the wealth garnered from oil, populations are exploding in the oil-producing nations. Moreover, the per-capita oil consumption is climbing as these countries seek to attain the same comforts and conveniences of the rich, oil-importing countries.

In other words, the difference between what they pump and what they use for their own needs (the amount they can export to people like us) keeps shrinking, and it shrinks much faster than new fields can be brought on (in those few countries that still have not already peaked and entered the decline in total production).

CORRECTED PARAGRAPH:
Post-Carbon Oregon has a nice post on a related phenomenon with graphics, taken from The Oil Drum, the indispensable site for those who want to understand the major force propelling history right now. Both the declining yield curve (less oil out for each unit of energy/oil invested) and the ELM mean that we are going to be able to access a lot less oil than a straight reserves divided by annual use rates might suggest. As many people have noted over the years, peak oil is a RATE problem.

As for me, I wish the "Export Land Model" (you can Google that and Jeffrey Brown to learn how that obscure name came to be) was better understood, particularly by those in jobs where an absence of leadership has serious consequences (elected officials, planners, etc.).

I think we need a grabby name that explains the concept in the name itself: I propose that, instead of referring to the "export land model," we talk about either the

• Oil Producers' Export Contraction curve ("the OPEC curve"), or, if you prefer, the
• Oil Exports' Continuous Decline curve ("the OECD curve")

(where OPEC is, of course, the acronym for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries -- the ones who are exporting a smaller and smaller share of a smaller and smaller total production each year -- and OECD are the initials of the group of rich countries that are going to be hammered by this inexorable process, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.) Both terms make the point that, on the whole, the amount of oil flowing from the first group (exporters) to the second (importers) is going to decline even faster than the decline in the amount coming out of the ground.

And, given the centrality of oil to our lives, this means that a "return to a growth economy" is probably a fantasy from here out. What we can expect significant growth in is in the number of economic charlatans and fakirs who pretend that growth can continue without growing oil imports -- but, like Wily E. Coyote -- these characters can only suspend the laws of physics for a brief moment before they fall to the floor of the canyon far below.

An interesting experiment

When this station was built in Salem in 1918, we were near "peak trains." Would they have sent you to the State Hospital if you told them that, within a generation, the expensive new building would be a relic? Image via Wikipedia

A commenter over at The Oil Drum writes:

This past Friday I took the day off to take care of accumulated errands. Since I was driving through 8 towns that day I decided – out of curiosity - to stop by their town halls- er, I mean, “municipal offices” and ask what their funding plans were if the economy didn’t recover.

To maintain credibility I will not repeat the answers I heard.... But I will recommend that everyone try this at least once.

Another replied:

Let me guess; none even considered the option that the economy will not recover.

How would Salem fare on this minimal governmental alertness test? I listened to a city official this weekend discuss some rather unpleasant budget projections for the upcoming years, although he referred to "the recovery" in his talk. What are the plans down in City Hall if this IS as recovered as it gets, and it only gets worse from here?

You may not think that likely, and it may or not be desirable that "growth" be only something seen in history. But it's hard to argue that planners who don't consider scenarios other than "the future will be like the past" are anything but a giant waste of money.

Speaking of obtuse "planning," there was a meeting of an "Advisory Committee" connected to the third bridge boondoggle today, ably captained by a young woman from the high-priced global consulting firm CH2M-Hill. Her job, as she explained repeatedly (in not so many words), was to prevent the committee from actually advising about the core issue (whether it makes any sense at all for Salem to blow more than $0.5 billion of borrowed money on a new auto bridge over the Willamette to solve "peak hour congestion" that lasts for no more than one hour and causes the average West Salem commuter to spend a full TWENTY MINUTES commuting in his or her car, alone).

Instead of grappling with that issue --- which must surely be considered central to the question of alternatives --- the group was repeatedly cautioned that they were to consider the new bridge a foregone conclusion and to develop ideas for making it less bad.

In other words, the group, although called an "alternatives" steering committee, is actually only about keeping the weirdo bicycling and transit types busy on a harmless gerbil wheel while the real work of ramming through the new auto bridge gets done. The real work of interest to the highway lobby proceeds apace, without any delay to incorporate any insight that the "alternatives" group might produce. This is normal as the highway lobby, and their servant agency known as ODOT, has zero interest in anything other than pouring concrete.

That is, the whackos who think about bikes and pedestrians and transit are free to debate and discuss ways to improve the boondoggle, so long as they don't question the boondoggle itself (or point out that, by definition, a gigantic new auto span will make the city much more hostile to pedestrians and bicycles everywhere).

Moreover, all discussions were in reference to a "Trip Demand Model" run for the year 2031 --- a model which includes

• (a) nothing about the price of gasoline;
• (b) nothing about Peak Oil;
• (c) nothing about Oregon's supposed greenhouse gas emissions goals;
• (d) nothing about the last two years first-in-history decline in annual vehicle miled-driven; or
• (e) the collapse of the US credit markets and auto industry.

to name just a few factors that make the "Trip Demand Model" nothing but an Ouija board where the answers to all the questions are known in advance.

So even as oil starts making its summer sojourn back towards $100/bbl, we've got roomsful of planners who scrupulously avoid any data that might lead to an act of actual planning occurring, because the data isn't in their model (and thus doesn't exist) and they don't update their model or get a better one because then it wouldn't produce the answer desired.

Building a new auto bridge in Salem (or anywhere else in North America) is a lot like ordering a stateroom on the Titanic after hearing about the iceberg collision.

(Timely: Kurt Cobb has a great piece on infrastructure collapse, which is only accelerated by trying to build more than you can maintain. Oregon and Salem already complain about being overwhelmed by a maintenance backlog; apparently, when it comes to roads, when you find yourself in a deep hole, the only solution is to dig yourself in deeper, faster.)

Big chunks of great article on the need for Transition

Still one of the more accessible introductions ot the topic out there. Cover via Amazon

Cheer Up, It's Going to Get Worse

Transition communities gear up for society's collapse with a shovel and a smile

By Alastair Bland

Three years ago, David Fridley purchased two and a half acres of land in rural Sonoma County. He planted drought-resistant blue Zuni corn, fruit trees and basic vegetables while leaving a full acre of extant forest for firewood collection. Today, Fridley and several friends and family subsist almost entirely off this small plot of land, with the surplus going to public charity.

But Fridley is hardly a homegrown hippie who spends his leisure time gardening. He spent 12 years consulting for the oil industry in Asia. He is now a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a fellow of the Post Carbon Institute in Sebastopol, where members discuss the problems inherent to fossil-fuel dependency.

Fridley has his doubts about renewable energies, and he has grave doubts about the future of crude oil. In fact, he believes to a certainty that society is literally running out of gas and that, perhaps within years, the trucks will stop rolling into Safeway and the only reliable food available will be that grown in our backyards.

Fridley, like a few other thinkers, activists and pessimists, could talk all night about "peak oil." This catch phrase describes a scenario, perhaps already unfurling, in which the easy days of oil-based society are over, a scenario in which global oil production has peaked and in which every barrel of crude oil drawn from the earth from that point forth is more difficult to extract than the barrel before it. According to peak oil theory, the time is approaching when the effort and cost of extraction will no longer be worth the oil itself, leaving us without the fuel to power our transportation, factories, farms, society and the very essence of our oil-dependent lives. Fridley believes the change will be very unpleasant for many people.

"If you are a typical American and have expectations of increasing income, cheap food, nondiscretionary spending, leisure time and vacations in Hawaii, then the change we expect soon could be what you would consider 'doom,'" he says soberly, "because your life is going to fall apart." . . .

Fridley says too many Americans believe in solutions to all problems, but peak oil is a terrible anomaly among crises, he explains, because there is no solution. Fridley doesn't even see any hope in solar, wind, water and other renewable energy sources. Even nuclear power creates only electricity, while crude oil is the basis for thousands of synthetic products.

"There is nothing that can replace oil and allow us to maintain life at the pace we've been living," he says. "Crude oil is hundreds of millions of years of stored sunlight, and we're using it all up in a few generations. It's like living off of a savings account, whereas solar energy is like working and living off your daily wages."

The sheer cost-efficiency of oil eclipses all supposed alternatives. Removed from the ground and burned, oil makes things move almost miraculously. A tank of gasoline in a sedan holds enough energy to equal approximately five years of one person's rigorous manual labor.

Historically, too, oil has been very easy to get since the world's first well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859; for each barrel's worth of energy invested in the process of accessing crude oil, 30 barrels are produced, says Fridley. By contrast, ethanol is a paltry substitute; each barrel's worth of ethanol invested in ethanol production produces a mere 1.2 barrels of raw product. Other renewables offer similarly poor returns. "The thermodynamics just don't add up," Fridley says. . . .

Fridley does not see peak oil as doomsday, though he predicts that there might be "die-off," just as marine algae bloom and crash periodically. In fact, Fridley views Transition as a process of world improvement. The environment around us has been falling apart for decades due to our excessive lifestyles, he notes. In our oceans and wildlands, doomsday has already arrived with deforestation, water pollution, fisheries collapse, extinction and other plagues. Peak oil presents an urgent cause to rethink and reshape our lives and theworld for the better, he says. . . .

Forever Growth?

Fridley has seen peak oil coming for years. From his small Sonoma farm, he may be prepared to feed himself, but our world's dependence on oil goes far beyond food production. Even electric machines need crude oil byproduct.

"Every single machine in the nation runs on lubrication," Fridley says. "If that lube isn't there, then what?"

In theory, the world freezes up. A person may first digest this concept as an abstract, distant nebula, like climate change, extinctions, water pollution and other newspaper headlines. However, when the reality of peak oil hits—when it hits a person so that his or her personal life is deeply affected—it hits hard.

"It's hard to internalize," says Miller, who has seen many people react in many ways to being told that the world in which they have grown so comfortable is about to end. "One tendency is for people to believe that there is a solution, that technology will fix it or that the powers that be will fix it."

But technology and the powers that be run on oil. Santa Rosa author Richard Heinberg, a senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute, described peak oil in his much lauded 2003 book aptly titled The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, and indeed, most experts on the matter now agree that the party is over. Transitionists are readying for the new era with open arms while struggling to convince others of the severity of the matter.

In Santa Cruz, several city figures, including councilman Don Lane and the city's climate action coordinator Ross Clark, have stepped up and proven themselves allies of the Transition movement, attending multiple community meetings. San Francisco, too, has acknowledged peak oil, and a city-appointed task force recently submitted to the supervisors a 120-page report detailing the city's vulnerabilities to the crisis.

Savinar has been trying for years to invite government participation in peak oil preparation. In 2005, he sent a letter of warning to each member of the Santa Rosa City Council, advising that they begin aggressively readying the community for peak oil and its aftermath. The letter was articulate and "lawyerly," he says, and included a copy of Heinberg's Party's Over in each package, yet not one councilperson
responded.

"And I guarantee that if I was a car manufacturer and I scribbled out a letter with crayons, they would have answered me," he says with a short laugh.

Fridley also believes assistance will not come from the world's leaders. Transition can only be a grass-roots revolution. He points out that Secretary of Energy Steven Chu was previously the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where Fridley has done much of his thinking about peak oil and Transition.

"[Chu] was my boss," Fridley says. "He knows all about peak oil, but he can't talk about it. If the government announced that peak oil was threatening our economy, Wall Street would crash. He just can't say anything about it."

Thus, world leaders would like to have the populace believe that this oil-age feeding frenzy will continue forever, that the economy will continue to expand and grow. At the 2008 G-8 Summit on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, for example, our leaders declared a resolution to resume economic growth. Fridley says such a goal is impossible, yet no one wants to face the fact.

"Ask scientists if something can grow forever exponentially, and they'll say, 'No.' Then ask how our economy can keep on growing, and they'll say, 'Well, it has to.'"

Elsewhere, many politicians and leaders have been reluctant to address peak oil, and full governmental leadership may never arrive. Levy believes that politicians locally and nationally will be even more reluctant to discuss peak oil than they've been to address climate change.

"Transition is probably going to grow from the ground up before the government comes onboard," he predicts.

Nice

Change SF to Salem O and it's the same story

Image by Alex Mahan via Flickr

A little slowly dawning recognition but mainly deep denial that our way of living (and certainly our caloric abundance) depends entirely on abundant cheap energy . . . the kind that is not going to be around much more.

Report says peak oil could cause food shortages in S.F.

In May, an obscure city advisory group released the results of a 15-month study of San Francisco's vulnerabilities to peak oil, a scenario that assumes the global supply of oil will run thin in the near future and that the world could go the way of Mad Max. Produced by the now-disbanded Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force, seven volunteers appointed in part by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi in late 2007, the 120-page report warns that San Francisco [and Salem too] is looking at a grim future if public policymakers and city residents don't start preparing for the post-oil apocalypse right away.

Jason Mark, a local author and urban farmer who sat on the task force, says serious food shortages could be a reality. He recommended in the report that residents be allowed to graze goats in their yards, keep more than four chickens per property, and raise and eat their own rabbits and hogs as supplemental protein sources. He says these tactics — currently prohibited by the health department — would help alleviate pressure on outlying Bay Area farmlands while building agricultural self-sufficiency within the limits of San Francisco. He would also like public golf courses to be converted into productive urban farmland and have the city plant fruit and nut trees along sidewalks.

The lengthy report further warns that if San Francisco [--or Salem]'s leaders don't take peak oil seriously, we can expect "violent fluctuations in energy prices," extreme gentrification, and poverty. But Supervisor Sean Elsbernd believes the city has more important problems to address. He points to the deficit, which he predicts will hit $1 billion in two years: "And they're worried about farming chickens in backyards and planting nut farms? We've got enough nuts in this city already." He calls it "ridiculous" to ask the Board of Supervisors to tackle such global issues as peak oil. [And who does he expect to tackle local preparedness if not local governments?]

Mirkarimi, though, believes this is one matter that must be addressed at city level. "This conversation has to take place soon, but we can't compel the federal or state governments to do anything," the Green Party member says.

Oil supplies, the task force's report states, are fated for "an inexorable decline," and natural gas supplies will careen into an "unstoppable descent." If we don't brace ourselves now, it warns, adjusting to life in San Francisco [-- or Salem] after the energy crash will be "enormously difficult, painful, and expensive. There is no time to lose." . . .

Powering the Future

Image by mattlemmon via Flickr

This is a short version of a talk that Dr. Lewis has been giving for some time. Worth your time.

For an older, fuller version, find the talk here.

See also "Out of Gas" by Dr. David Goodstein, Provost at CalTech.

Like to watch things circle the drain?

Better take your bike with you, because the buses will stop so early (7 p.m.) that you're likely to be stranded otherwise. Image via Wikipedia

If you can ignore the infuriating passive voice ("service reduction is needed," "a system redesign is being proposed"), you can notice that there's still a few days left to weigh in on the service amputations that will render our already anemic bus system even scrawnier and less able to support the community.

For the Salem-Keizer Transit Board Meeting of June 25, 2009 Agenda Item #F.4

You can contact all the Transit Board Members use board@cherriots.org

An overall service reduction is needed by September 2009 in order for the cost of service provided by the Salem Area Mass Transit District to be covered by annual revenues received and to stay within budget. As a result a system redesign is being proposed to not only address the budget issue also long-term ongoing issues with inefficiencies in the current system

Salem Area Mass Transit District
Bus Routes Redesign – Information for our Customers

The following information is for use with customers who have questions about the bus system redesign or specific questions about their routes.

Questions & Answers

When will the final decision on the bus routes redesign be made?

• No decision has been made yet.
  
  
• The Board of Directors will make a final decision at their Thursday, June 25 meeting (6:30 PM, Senator Hearing Room, Courthouse Square, 555 Court Street NE.)
  
  
• Everyone is welcome to come to this meeting
  
  
• No formal public testimony on the bus routes redesign will be taken at this meeting.
  
  
• The meeting can also be watched on CCTV Channel 21 or by video streaming on their website at www.cctvsalem.org at 6:30 PM
  

Where can I get more information?

• The Board agenda packet with information about the bus routes redesign will be available on our website by Friday, June 19: www.cherriots.org.
  
  
• Maps showing bus routes redesign scenarios can be seen on our website: www.cherriots.org. Go to the Current Updates section to view a redesign presentation.
  

How can I talk with Cherriots staff or board members about the bus routes redesign process?

Appointments to talk or meet with staff can be made. A representative from the Transportation Development Division will contact customers to make appointments. (Get the caller/visitors contact information.)

• Name: ________________________________________
  
  
• Phone number and/or email address: ___________________

• Best time to call them back: _________________________
  

Customers can email Board or staff directly with their opinions, questions or concerns: Staff email: skt@cherriots.org
Board of Directors email: board@cherriots.org

How will I be informed of the new bus system routes?

The Salem Area Mass Transit District Board will make a decision about the bus system redesign on June 25. Information will be:

• Posted on our website www.cherriots.org
• Available on the buses and at bus stops
• Mailed to customers
• Available at the Transit Mall Customer Service Center

Important Upcoming Dates for the Bus Routes Redesign to be aware of:

• June 19 -- Board meeting agenda packet with information about bus routes redesign options available on our website: www.cherriots.org.

• June 25 -- Board picks a bus routes scenario.

• July–August Information distributed to public about new routes.

• September 4 Last day of bus service on existing routes.

• September 8 First day of new bus service with new routes and frequencies.