The New York Times Business Section had a long and interesting article a few weeks ago on oil consumption in the US. The Oil Uproar That Isn’t
A few interesting quotes:
The most visible element of this new equation is that relative to demand, oil is no longer in plentiful supply. The time when we could count on cheap oil and even cheaper natural gas is clearly ending. — David J. O’Reilly, CEO of Chevron.
Furthermore, Mr O’Reilly stated that it took 125 years to consume a trillion barrels of oil; the next trillion is likely to be consumed in the just 35 years.
On our dependence on foreign sources (who may not always behave according to the laws of economics…):
Crude oil imports have doubled over the last three decades and now account for nearly two-thirds of the oil Americans burn… In the same three decade period, oil demand in the US has grown by 18 percent while domestic production has continued on a slow and probably irrevocable path of decline.
The basic approach to energy policy in this country, according to the nation’s first Energy Secretary, James Schlesinger, is “only two modes–complacency and panic.”
21 responses to “More on Peak Oil”
I see a REX is still trying to justify Metro’s policy of making Portland into a replica of paradise, Los Angeles style.
This time with the “save energy by giving up your car.” mantra , without admitting that our standard of living is dependant, among other things, on the efficient use of our time due to the automobile. It also allows us to get a better job (on average), by widening the range of available jobs within a certain commuting time.
REX, look at TriMt’s own energy consumption figure for TriMet Bus: 3,792 BTUs per passenger mile. (Mary Fetch posting to this blog on July 20, 2005)
Now compare this with real automobile energy consumption based on actual nation fuel and national passenger miles: 3,581 BTUs per passenger mile. (Table2,12 of Transportation Energy Data Book, Edition 24) If you scan down the columns of car and bus you will see that transit bus used about 1/3 the energy of a car in the 70s and has been getting worse ever since to the point where transit bus is now slightly inferior to the car.
As you can see mass transit, in the form of bus, DOES NOT SAVE ENERGY. (I am still waiting for more data from Trimet on rail. See the trimet thread.)
TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK: EDITION 24 ORNL-6973 can be downloaded from: http://cta.ornl.gov/data/download24.shtml
Thanks
JK
REX, I just went to your reference to read the article. Here is what I found:
Purchase Single Article — $3.95
BTW, you don’t even get the charts and photos at that price.
Please provide a checkable reference.
JK
JK, thanks for making the case for light rail (electric overhead lines) and hybrid diesel/electric buses that get 50 percent(?) better MPG and cut particle output by even a higher degree. Even some bus lines could use overhead lines (Seattle has plenty of these main bus lines) for electric motors.
All of your issues have solutions. Before you start forming your response, power for MAX can come from wind farms, tidal farms, and solar farms that don’t require fossil fuels. Peak Oil is just the reality that there were only so many dinosaurs 70 Million years ago.
And are you not for local jobs and local control?
[Portions of this comment removed for violations of Rule #1.]
I bought a high efficency vehicle five years ago. I moved into a house within walking distant of a MAX stop. I will not be locked into one form of transportation. I do, like you, want to get to work somehow.
Right now, I have a long commute. Hopefully, that will change with more 21st Century businesses using the industrial land coming on line in Multnomah and Clackamas County. I was born in the middle of the 20th Century but I refuse to stay in that mindset.
I’ll be totally honest with you, JK. Nothing in this post is personal toward you as a human. I have not called you anything rude. If you/Steve/anyone else generalizes or tries to peg me as un-American, I/we will know that you have an issue with me personnally and I for one will not go down that road.
Ray
Ray, you may not have intended to be rude, but questioning people’s motivation is still a violation of the rules.
Jim, the non-checkability of the link is my fault, not Rex’. The Times makes articles available free for a fixed period of time. I held onto Rex’ post too long before working it into the editorial calendar.
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: All of your issues have solutions. Before you start forming your response, power for MAX can come from wind farms,
JK: OK, but what runs the toy trains on calm days?
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: tidal farms,
JK: Not practical in most places – there just isn’t that much energy in tides, except a couple places where they have 20-30ft tides.
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: solar farms
JK: Extremely expensive compared to wind, fossil or nuke. What runs the toy trains at night or on overcast days?
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: Peak Oil is just the reality that there were only so many dinosaurs 70 Million years ago.
JK: You don’t rally believe that dinosaurs stuff do you? The reality is that no one knows where oil comes from. I think it is intriguing to hear that one planet has huge quantities of methane. Could oil be as natural as dirt, juts a little deeper?
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: And are you not for local jobs and local control?
JK: Only if it increases our standard of living. I am not for local smithies making $100,000 cars by hand that are the same as mass produced cars at $5,000. That is why we need large national/international corporations, like the ones that make Vera’s toy trains.
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: I bought a high efficency vehicle five years ago.
JK: Did you have any net savings in money, or would you have been better off buying more energy, so you would have more money left over for recreation, your family or hobby?
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: I moved into a house within walking distant of a MAX stop. I will not be locked into one form of transportation. I do, like you, want to get to work somehow.
JK: That, of course is a reason to avoid MAX, its unreliability – a single incident can shut down a whole line, where a bus would just drive around the incident. And, of course, you are three times more likely to get killed by MAX than by bus (national data, per passenger mile – I don’t have a link, but I’m sure Fetch&Co. can dig up trimet bus vs. MAX safety on a per passenger mile basis )
BTW: It’s about time for another MAX fatal accident, hasn’t it been over a year now?
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: Right now, I have a long commute. Hopefully, that will change with more 21st Century businesses using the industrial land coming on line in Multnomah and Clackamas County.
JK: Too bad we didn’t have that land unlocked from Metro’s vault years ago, we might not have lost so many jobs right here. That delay just shows how bad government is at planning.
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: I was born in the middle of the 20th Century but I refuse to stay in that mindset.
JK: Me too, I recognized a long time ago that mass transit was made obsolete by the private car – more convenient, more flexible, door to door, uses less energy than bus and cheaper that either bus or rail. And you don’t get mugged or panhandeled. Its only main purpose appears to be a losing attempt to maintain an obsolete urban form – the high density urban core.
Ray July 23, 2005 04:43 PM: I’ll be totally honest with you, JK. Nothing in this post is personal toward you as a human. I have not called you anything rude. If you/Steve/anyone else generalizes or tries to peg me as un-American, I/we will know that you have an issue with me personnally
JK: No, I just ask that you not try to force you green lifestyle on others, just like, I’m sure, you don’t want Bush to force his Christian lifestyle on you.
Thanks
JK
Jim, if you believe that oil is not in fact a fossil fuel but may be “as natural as dirt”, how do you explain the downward curve in discoveries of new reserves over time?
If it’s really there, wouldn’t the current rising costs be incenting the oil companies to explore more and find what’s down there?
Chris Smith July 23, 2005 09:59 PM: Jim, if you believe that oil is not in fact a fossil fuel but may be “as natural as dirt”,
JK: I was just raising the possibility. Let me elaborate:
1) I think we all know that oil doesn’t really come from dinosaurs.
2) I have not looked in depth, but I get the impression that there is a lack of consensus on oil’s origin.
3) I have seen reports that some polar cap on some planet was frozen methane, also did I hear that some planet is thought to be a gas giant with a lot of methane.
4) Once you find methane outside of life processes, then you have a basis to speculate that:
. A. Earth also got its share of methane when it was formed, instead of solely as a result of living processes.
. B. Some of those methane molecules got together and made heavier hydrocarbons, including oil.
This is not totally far out as at least one scientist got funding to drill a very deep hole to test this theory. (I think it was dry.)
Chris Smith July 23, 2005 09:59 PM: how do you explain the downward curve in discoveries of new reserves over time?
JK: I heave read stuff that claims that is not the case, instead it is a result of the way the data was presented. See The New Pessimism about Petroleum Resources: Debunking the Hubbert Model (and Hubbert Modelers) by Michael C. Lynch from: http://www.energyseer.com/NewPessimism.pdf
Another: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/running_out_oil.pdf
Chris Smith July 23, 2005 09:59 PM: If it’s really there, wouldn’t the current rising costs be incenting the oil companies to explore more and find what’s down there?
JK: I assume they are opening old wells, ramping up shale/tar sands and exploring like crazy, but probably not much looking into the above speculation as it is just speculation.
Thanks
JK
JK: OK, but what runs the toy trains on calm days?
JK: What runs the toy trains at night or on overcast days?
JK: That is why we need large national/international corporations, like the ones that make Vera’s toy trains.
Why, JK, do you mean to imply that you don’t take MAX seriously?
Just curious, how many people a day would MAX have to carry, in your esteemed opinion, before it was no longer a “toy train”?
How little subsidy would MAX, or public transportation in general, need to receive for you not to consider it a drain on the economy? (Or would the subsidy have to be zero, meaning you see no economic benefit to transit at all?)
JK: It’s about time for another MAX fatal accident, hasn’t it been over a year now?
What? A Toy Train that kills? Yikes! You should take that up with the Consumer Product Safety Commission at once!
– Bob R.
Bob R. July 24, 2005 12:18 AM:
JK: OK, but what runs the toy trains on calm days?
JK: What runs the toy trains at night or on overcast days?
JK: That is why we need large national/international corporations, like the ones that make Vera’s toy trains.
Why, JK, do you mean to imply that you don’t take MAX seriously?
JK:
MAX costs too much, does too little.
End JK
Just curious, how many people a day would MAX have to carry, in your esteemed opinion, before it was no longer a “toy train”?
How little subsidy would MAX, or public transportation in general, need to receive for you not to consider it a drain on the economy? (Or would the subsidy have to be zero, meaning you see no economic benefit to transit at all?)
JK:
Why are we subsidizing middle and upper income people with money that includes taxes from low income people? Why not let everyone pay their own cost AND give welfare to the needy, not to everyone?
We also need true choices, like jitneys in our transit mix.
End JK
JK: It’s about time for another MAX fatal accident, hasn’t it been over a year now?
What? A Toy Train that kills? Yikes! You should take that up with the Consumer Product Safety Commission at once!
JK:
Unfortunately, its not a consumer product. Did I mention that it even kills more people than automobiles (per passenger-mile)?
End JK
Whether, or not we run out of oil, we are ignoring the fact that many people do without adequate transportation services because of the system we now have. Portland consumes only a small portion of the world’s daily usage, so if the population of this area reduces its daily consumption by 100% and the rest of the world does nothing what have we achieved?
However I think there is an opportunity to make some big changes in the transportation system by opening it up to other providers some of whom might possibly decide that a smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle is the way to go. At the same time such an action might just improve the lives of some members of the region and generate some new ideas that others might build upon.
The classic example of what can be done is Curitiba, Brazil where the system is made up of ten or more private companies and is unsubsidized.
The average Curitiban spend about 10% of their annual income on transportation whereas the average American spends about 18%, but of course if you live in a particular area your insurance rates will be higher and if you are younger that will cause them to go up even more. Young people who are just starting familes probably pay more than average, but have less access to mass transit just when they need it.
From my persective we have a closed system that is expensive to operate, does not develop new ideas, and does little to address the needs of the most needy. We need some new ideas and that is not happening presently.
Comments please.
M.Wilson
One of the most compelling reasons for high capacity transit is its ability to carry a lot of people in a small right of way. Max may not carry huge numbers of trips out of all the trips taken in a day but it carries about 30% of commuters in the corridors it serves (less on the North/Yellow line but that’s because politics has kept it from a logical extension to Vancouver).
To get those 30% of commuters through the same corridor by car would entail widening the Banfield and Sunset Highways by two additional lanes each direction (that’s 4 new lanes). At an average of $100 Million a lane mile for urban freeways. This cost should be SUBTRACTED from the capital cost of light rail to give a true idea of the cost/benefit of transportation options. In addition, there is the bigger question of whether we should ask people and businesses that would lose their property to such an expansion to give up their quality of life and be displaced to serve the transportation/home location decisions of commuters who choose to live out on the fringe and drive to/through town.
In an earlier post, the report “Driven to Spend” was quoted showing that residents of the Portland Metro area spend 15% of their income on transportation compared to the national average of 19%, clearly showing the benefit to individuals of investment in transportation options and a tight urban growth boundary.
I would add also that focusing on the Cadillac of the options to the automobile, light rail, is just as misleading as talking about Hummers as if they represented all cars. It is the MIX of many choices that result in a more efficient urban form– sidewalks, local grocery stores, bike lanes, 4 story apartment buildings, protected industrial land near neighborhoods, etc.–that make getting what you need when you need it possible. And, the more communities are self-contained, the less travel is necessary and the richer we will all become.
JK: And, of course, you are three times more likely to get killed by MAX than by bus (national data, per passenger mile – I don’t have a link, but I’m sure Fetch&Co. can dig up trimet bus vs. MAX safety on a per passenger mile basis )
OK, JK, I’ll look it up… How about this reference?
(1997 is the most recent year available online as a PDF.)
Scroll down to page 87 of the report.
It shows class “LR” (Light Rail) as having 0.29 fatalities per 100,000,000 passenger miles.
Classes “LMB”, “MMB”, and “SMB” (Large Motor Bus, Medium Motor Bus, Small Motor Bus), respectively, come in at 0.59, 0.64, and 0.79 fatalities per 100,000,000 passenger miles, over twice the number of fatalities per passenger mile as Light Rail.
Incidentally, “HR” (Heavy Rail) does a bit better than Light Rail, at 0.24.
Now, one might be inclined to question the methodology… did it include people NOT on board the trains? Passengers crossing tracks in station facilities, etc?
Well, right below the graph on that page is our answer:
And here’s an interesting tidbit from Page 78 of the report (85 of the pdf):
That means, at least for the accident graph on that page, the light rail accident statistics are doubled for a single two-car train over what they are for a single bus.
This may explain why light rail “accident” rates on that graph are comparable with MMB (Medium Motor Bus), but the fatality rate is much lower per passenger-mile for light rail. Even so, however, Light Rail comes in at less than half the accident rate of “Large Motor Bus”.
– Bob R.
July 24, 2005 12:10 PM
Bob R. Says:
JK: And, of course, you are three times more likely to get killed by MAX than by bus (national data, per passenger mile – I don’t have a link, but I’m sure Fetch&Co. can dig up trimet bus vs. MAX safety on a per passenger mile basis )
OK, JK, I’ll look it up… How about this reference?
http://transit-safety.volpe.dot.gov/Publications/Safety/SAMIS/SAMIS97/samis97.pdf
It shows class “LR” (Light Rail) as having 0.29 fatalities per 100,000,000 passenger miles.
JK:
Interesting. Trimet’s data gives a fatality rate of 1.4 fatalities per passenger mile, close to that given by Wendel Cox. I’ll let you dwell on this while I look at your reference.
Here is how I got this number. Email from Trimet (I removed other columns for formatting reasons):
From”Callas, Steve”
DateWed, 5 Jun 2002 072120 -0700
FYPassenger/
Miles
90…38,270,941
91…40,895,614
92…41,292,221
93…43,142,869
94…46,418,361
95…40,458,570
96…47,866,023
97…54,727,726
98…63,299,139
99…128,491,830
00…140,859,890
01…144,023,605
Steve Callas
Coordinator, Service & Performance Analysis
Tri-Met
Portland, Oregon
Add those years and you get 829,746,789
Fill in missing years 86-89 with data from 90
Fill in missing year 02 with data from 01
Add these in and you get: 1,126,854,158 passenger miles
There were 16 fatalities.
Do the division: 16 / 11.26 = 1.4
This number is consistent with that I got from http://www.publicpurpose.com at the time I looked at these numbers.
Their transit bus number is close to yours.
So I suspect there is something wrong with your rail number, or else TriMet is killing people at far above the nation average.
More later
JK
JK –
Can you point me to a listing of those 16 fatalities?
– Bob R.
July 24, 2005 04:45 PM Bob R. Says:
Can you point me to a listing of those 16 fatalities?
– Bob R.
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Status:
Jim – Here’s some MAX/bus safety information as requested by you.
In the nearly 17 years MAX has been running there have been 16 fatalities,
the vast majority of which were people trespassing in the right of way in
restricted areas. There were also two suicides.
Since 1988, which is as far back as we have bus fatality records, 24 people
have been killed in accidents.
Thanks,
Bruce Solberg
Public Information Officer
July 24, 2005 04:45 PM Bob R. Says:
Can you point me to a listing of those 16 fatalities?
– Bob R.
PS: Presumably the bus numbers also include people trespassing in the right of way in restricted areas and suicides.
I take difference with “vast majority of which”. Majority mabe, but not vast majoity.
Thanks
JK
JK –
Thanks for posting what you have on the fatalities.
I don’t know about “vast majority” either, but knowing the nature of these actual fatalities can help us zero on on the real safety issues related to MAX.
I do happen to remember the news coverage of Fatality #1, back when it happened.
It was right when MAX started operating, or perhaps a bit earlier.
A man’s car broke down along I-84, and climbed over a barrier and was walking around on the MAX tracks (according to a witness (his spouse?), he was looking for a cotter pin to fix his car), when he was eventually struck by a train.
Now, should this death be attributed primarily to Light Rail, or to crossing a barrier and walking around on railroad tracks in a no-tresspassing area?
(Conversely, if someone stands in the middle of a rural interstate at night, looking for a cotter pin, and they are struck by a car, is this the fault of automobile travel being unsafe, or of the pedestrian being unwise?)
I am amazed every time I hear of someone (anywhere in the country) struck by any kind of train because they were standing on the tracks… would these same people walk down the middle lane of an empty freeway so casually?
– Bob R.
Mr. Burkholder writes: “One of the most compelling reasons for high capacity transit is its ability to carry a lot of people in a small right of way. Max may not carry huge numbers of trips out of all the trips taken in a day but it carries about 30% of commuters in the corridors it serves (less on the North/Yellow line but that’s because politics has kept it from a logical extension to Vancouver).”
A couple of questions Rex. How do most of the people riding MAX get to the stations?
And how many are receiving subsidized tickets from their employers?
I do notice that when there is a holiday such as Columbus Day and the government and other downtown offices are closed the trains are quite empty.
None of this helps those of us working outside of downtown who are paying a tax, or maybe I should say whose companies pay a tax based on their wages and get limited or no services.
M. Wilson
” how many are receiving subsidized tickets from their employers?”
I think we need to realize many employers provide free parking – a subsidy that is far more expensive than providing a bus pass. And if they don’t provide free parking, to stay competitive they have to pay their employees more so the employees can pay for their own.
“None of this helps those of us working outside of downtown who are paying a tax,”
Maybe. But the idea that taxes will provide direct benefit is unrealistic. There are benefits from having a good transit system available even for a business that locates where there is no direct transit service.
rex burkholder July 24, 2005 11:48 AM : One of the most compelling reasons for high capacity transit is its ability to carry a lot of people in a small right of way. Max may not carry huge numbers of trips out of all the trips taken in a day but it carries about 30% of commuters in the corridors it serves (less on the North/Yellow line but that’s because politics has kept it from a logical extension to Vancouver).
rex burkholder July 24, 2005 11:48 AM : To get those 30% of commuters through the same corridor by car would entail widening the Banfield and Sunset Highways by two additional lanes each direction (that’s 4 new lanes).
JK: Huh?? Banfield is 3 lanes. 30% of 3 is about ONE not TWO as you claim. So, to get 30% more, you have to add ONE LANE, NOT TWO in each direction.
But you are also forgetting that 2/3 of MAX passengers would be riding the bus if MAX was not available, so there would only be 1/3 of the 30%, or about 10% (of the total corridor transport) auto increase if MAX were shut down, paved over and turned into BUS/HOT lanes. This extra lane would easily sop up that extra 10% (if it was real, but that is another discussion). That would really help congestion, unlike toy trains.
I’ll bet that, when paving over MAX, one could get another pair of lanes by removing the, now unneeded, separation between MAX and I84. Could also use some of the separation between the rail line and freeway (depending on rail right of way.) I-84 could become five lanes in each direction, solving that part of our congestion probably for years to come. Like I205 did for 20 years or so. (Or at least until Metro puts more housing in the east county and more jobs in Hillsboro. Smart move Metro)
(A little background:
I read that Trimet did a survey of MAX passengers shortly after MAX opened and found that 2/3 were former bus riders. Those people would still be on the bus if that space being wasted on MAX had been used to expand I84 to 4 lanes each way. Additional evidence for the claim that a majority of riders would be on the bus if toy trains are not built comes from the studies done by the I-5 trade partnership study a couple years ago.)
End JK:
rex burkholder July 24, 2005 11:48 AM : At an average of $100 Million a lane mile for urban freeways. This cost should be SUBTRACTED from the capital cost of light rail to give a true idea of the cost/benefit of transportation options.
JK: We did that in the Vancouver loop cost study: ONE BILLION additional for the rail option compared to the bus option for a few extra riders. Came out to around $300,000 rail construction costs for every rider that would not have ridden the bus. It would be cheaper to buy these folks condos in the Pearl. Or buy the LEXUS in perpetuity. Might even be cheaper to buy them helicopter rides forever.
rex burkholder July 24, 2005 11:48 AM : In addition, there is the bigger question of whether we should ask people and businesses that would lose their property to such an expansion to give up their quality of life and be displaced to serve the transportation/home location decisions of commuters who choose to live out on the fringe and drive to/through town.
JK: Yes, I agree that was sad to see on Interstate ave.
Oh, you are taking about some other line! I hope that you are remembering that each light rail track occupies the same space as a freeway lane and carries fewer people. It just costs a bunch more. You would improve the overall system if that space were dual use: bus + car. 10% of the lane capacity is the busses that carry 2/3 of what rail would. The rest can be used by cars.
That would reduce congestion. But that was never the goal was it? It is rally about filling Portland with high density housing that is not economically viable without the tax welfare for the corporations that build them.
End JK:
rex burkholder July 24, 2005 11:48 AM : In an earlier post, the report “Driven to Spend” was quoted showing that residents of the Portland Metro area spend 15% of their income on transportation compared to the national average of 19%, clearly showing the benefit to individuals of investment in transportation options and a tight urban growth boundary.
JK: Of course the group that published that report is blatantly pro mass transit. Do you really believe their stuff? I think they are even funded by rail construction companies and consultants.
rex burkholder July 24, 2005 11:48 AM : I would add also that focusing on the Cadillac of the options to the automobile, light rail, is just as misleading as talking about Hummers as if they represented all cars. It is the MIX of many choices that result in a more efficient urban form– sidewalks, local grocery stores, bike lanes, 4 story apartment buildings, protected industrial land near neighborhoods, etc.–that make getting what you need when you need it possible. And, the more communities are self-contained, the less travel is necessary and the richer we will all become.
JK: Of course the sad part is that you, and others, really believe that it is possible to reshape society to conform to your religious vision of an idyllic deep green world.
JK: BTW Are one of those that believe we should re-establish the wildlands by moving all people (except a few farmers) into high density cities.
Thanks
JK
I just found a nice article on GM & the demise of the Street car:
http://www.lava.net/cslater/TQOrigin.pdf
Thanks
JK