I really love digging this stuff up – from 2006. Seems like yesterday.
Have a read of “Fuel for thought” by Jonathan Hawley , SMH, Thursday March 2 2006. Jonathan says that “Car makers at the Geneva motor show looked at different ways of helping the environment.” Which is to say they still want to make lots of cars but look greener when doing it.
Point one – let’s remember that cars have an inherent cost – the basic raw materials must be dug up, transported and transformed – all energy-expensive actions – before assembled and sold to be driven. Before you even get some petrol or diesel into that new car you have already expended maybe 35-55% of the energy (and pollution) budget of that elaborately transformed good. It depends how big it is and how long you keep it, but you get my drift. Just making it stuffs up the planet. Make enough of them (or other individually expensive manufactured goods) and you will kill the planet. Jonathan clearly digs deep into his subject and doesn’t just accept car manufacturers at their word. For example he goes on to say, “Until a viable alternative to fossil fuels is found – and the smart money is on hydrogen-powered fuel cells – the chase is on to eke the last joule of energy from crude oil.” Hmmm – smart money on hydrogen, eh – I’d like to see the evidence for that one! Fuel cells look good conceptually, sure – but hydrogen in our tanks? Pumped out at gas stations on street corners? Nice throw-away line that falls into line with car-makers spin, but little evidence that it will come to pass. What we do see is lots more hybrids and better burning petrol and diesel engines. And lots more alcohol/petrol mixes.
The real question is why can’t car-mad automotive journos actually look beyond the spin and do some investigation of the real impact of their beloved cars. Heck, I have 3 of the darned things but they are all 4 cylinders, the smallest a 1.5l and the largest just under 2.0litres. We could all improve our national fuel consumption and lower our pollution-footprint by (a) keeping our cars longer, (b) driving them less, and (c) driving slower. Yes, newer cars are better at fuel efficiency and crash protection but they also tend to be larger, heavier and more complex.
We can’t claim to be angels when we save a penny here and spend (or perhaps add) a pound everywhere else.
I really love digging this stuff up – from 2006. Seems like yesterday.
Have a read of “Fuel for thought” by Jonathan Hawley , SMH, Thursday March 2 2006. Jonathan says that “Car makers at the Geneva motor show looked at different ways of helping the environment.” Which is to say they still want to make lots of cars but look greener when doing it.
Point one – let’s remember that cars have an inherent cost – the basic raw materials must be dug up, transported and transformed – all energy-expensive actions – before assembled and sold to be driven. Before you even get some petrol or diesel into that new car you have already expended maybe 35-55% of the energy (and pollution) budget of that elaborately transformed good. It depends how big it is and how long you keep it, but you get my drift. Just making it stuffs up the planet. Make enough of them (or other individually expensive manufactured goods) and you will kill the planet. Jonathan clearly digs deep into his subject and doesn’t just accept car manufacturers at their word. For example he goes on to say, “Until a viable alternative to fossil fuels is found – and the smart money is on hydrogen-powered fuel cells – the chase is on to eke the last joule of energy from crude oil.” Hmmm – smart money on hydrogen, eh – I’d like to see the evidence for that one! Fuel cells look good conceptually, sure – but hydrogen in our tanks? Pumped out at gas stations on street corners? Nice throw-away line that falls into line with car-makers spin, but little evidence that it will come to pass. What we do see is lots more hybrids and better burning petrol and diesel engines. And lots more alcohol/petrol mixes.
The real question is why can’t car-mad automotive journos actually look beyond the spin and do some investigation of the real impact of their beloved cars. Heck, I have 3 of the darned things but they are all 4 cylinders, the smallest a 1.5l and the largest just under 2.0litres. We could all improve our national fuel consumption and lower our pollution-footprint by (a) keeping our cars longer, (b) driving them less, and (c) driving slower. Yes, newer cars are better at fuel efficiency and crash protection but they also tend to be larger, heavier and more complex.
We can’t claim to be angels when we save a penny here and spend (or perhaps add) a pound everywhere else.
Just found this (from a couple of years back) and thought I’d re-post. We’ve had the GFC, isn’t it about time for another oil price shock?
Into the time machine we go…
At last an Aussie newspaper wakes up and realises that whilst personal car use is subsidised we will continue to over-use petrol and over-invest in vehicular infrastructure, effectively running down public transport at the same time. You can’t have it both ways as the SMH says. Excellent. About time.
Make note – this is not the “Drive” section! It’s in “Business“. Can’t have such logical thoughts expressed in the motoring section, can we?
In a nutshell, we have as a community, indeed as a global community, undervalued and underpriced petrol. Whilst we generally leave the market to decide pricing, in fact by providing community-owned infrastructure (roads, for example) at cost or below and by propping up car manufacturers with subsidies we have chosen short-term growth and employment over long-term sustainability. It’s a distorted market because the true cost of using oil is not addressed in the price paid – the community carries the can on much of the infrastructure and the ‘clean up’ of health and environmental impacts.
Since the ‘oil shock’ of 1973 we have steadily increased the price by means of taxes as well as producer cartel activity, however consumers have protested politically and driven the cost down when it should be going much higher. We have even gone to war over the damned stuff in order to keep Joe Public happy with the end user price. In my opinion, anyway!
Filed under cars, future, petrol by Rob.
Just found this (from a couple of years back) and thought I’d re-post. We’ve had the GFC, isn’t it about time for another oil price shock?
Into the time machine we go…
At last an Aussie newspaper wakes up and realises that whilst personal car use is subsidised we will continue to over-use petrol and over-invest in vehicular infrastructure, effectively running down public transport at the same time. You can’t have it both ways as the SMH says. Excellent. About time.
Make note – this is not the “Drive” section! It’s in “Business“. Can’t have such logical thoughts expressed in the motoring section, can we?
In a nutshell, we have as a community, indeed as a global community, undervalued and underpriced petrol. Whilst we generally leave the market to decide pricing, in fact by providing community-owned infrastructure (roads, for example) at cost or below and by propping up car manufacturers with subsidies we have chosen short-term growth and employment over long-term sustainability. It’s a distorted market because the true cost of using oil is not addressed in the price paid – the community carries the can on much of the infrastructure and the ‘clean up’ of health and environmental impacts.
Since the ‘oil shock’ of 1973 we have steadily increased the price by means of taxes as well as producer cartel activity, however consumers have protested politically and driven the cost down when it should be going much higher. We have even gone to war over the damned stuff in order to keep Joe Public happy with the end user price. In my opinion, anyway!
Filed under cars, future, petrol by Rob.
Big ambitions, but there’s a lot at stake. This article in Forbes mag caught my eye: Amyris’ technology harnesses a modified yeast that essentially “eats” the crushed sugarcane and spits out a hydrocarbon-like renewable fuel. The technology came from research at the lab of Jay Keasling, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Now if it’s a goer and can scale up then it solves a few problems. If, I said, if.
Let me list a few of these problems and the claimed advantages of this solution:
- Biofuels generally take land away from food-generation and give it over to fuel production, although it may be that this idea has less of a footprint in that regard
- Biofuels also need energy to be expended in manufacture and distribution, but whereas some biofuels are incompatible with existing petroleum fuels and their infrastructure, this one can use the same pipes end-to-end without raising concerns about solvency, impurities and corrosion. Although it seems unlikely that major oil pipelines serendipitously pass by sugar refineries, at least we can envisage building some short spur lines to wherever we do the bio-processing, and we can assume cheap water transport is nearby to sugar refineries as well
- Given that ethanol requires more extensive trucking, this idea could sink the aggressively expanding ethanol industry pretty quickly (probably a good thing, but not everyone would agree!)
- But it still robs us of a food source and valuable agricultural land, although in this case it’s sugar cane rather than corn (somewhat preferable I guess as rich western nations need to reduce their sugar intake anyway!)
- And it still needs energy in manufacture, although there may be less of it required (don’t know the actuals here, do we? What energy is expended in growing the microbes, or in encouraging them to feast on the cane?)
- And as a bonus the biotech involved can be used elsewhere: Keasling and his former post-doctoral students started Amyris to develop a synthetic anti-malarial drug. But the process of modifying either yeast or bacteria to churn out specific byproducts is general enough that they could make products as varied as drugs or fuels.
- So in a nutshell this particular idea potentially uses much more of the existing oil distribution infrastucture, saving the expense and carbon-cost of building new pipelines or trucks to get the product to market, resolving a big minus of the ethanol alternative.
The big bet here is that oil will run out sooner rather than later and that prices will stay high. It’s possible however that there’s more cheap oil yet to be found, or that the big exporters have kept a supply “for their children”. So they could kill off this competition by short-term overproduction (driving down prices), although that’s a dangerous play. Also, alternatives like ethanol, solar, wind, geothermal and tidal generation – perhaps even nuclear power – may ramp up quicker than expected and drive down costs again, but that seems unlikely for now. But in 20 years, who knows?
Assuming just such a 20 year window, these biofuel ideas, including ethanol to some extent, may embed themselves and come to wield considerable power, both as a method of stretching out current oil supplies and as a means to keep prices down, forcing the alternatives to remain a mere slice of the overall market. Unless they get a leg up by legislation or subsidy, of course.
Big ambitions, but there’s a lot at stake. This article in Forbes mag caught my eye: Amyris’ technology harnesses a modified yeast that essentially “eats” the crushed sugarcane and spits out a hydrocarbon-like renewable fuel. The technology came from research at the lab of Jay Keasling, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Now if it’s a goer and can scale up then it solves a few problems. If, I said, if.
Let me list a few of these problems and the claimed advantages of this solution:
- Biofuels generally take land away from food-generation and give it over to fuel production, although it may be that this idea has less of a footprint in that regard
- Biofuels also need energy to be expended in manufacture and distribution, but whereas some biofuels are incompatible with existing petroleum fuels and their infrastructure, this one can use the same pipes end-to-end without raising concerns about solvency, impurities and corrosion. Although it seems unlikely that major oil pipelines serendipitously pass by sugar refineries, at least we can envisage building some short spur lines to wherever we do the bio-processing, and we can assume cheap water transport is nearby to sugar refineries as well
- Given that ethanol requires more extensive trucking, this idea could sink the aggressively expanding ethanol industry pretty quickly (probably a good thing, but not everyone would agree!)
- But it still robs us of a food source and valuable agricultural land, although in this case it’s sugar cane rather than corn (somewhat preferable I guess as rich western nations need to reduce their sugar intake anyway!)
- And it still needs energy in manufacture, although there may be less of it required (don’t know the actuals here, do we? What energy is expended in growing the microbes, or in encouraging them to feast on the cane?)
- And as a bonus the biotech involved can be used elsewhere: Keasling and his former post-doctoral students started Amyris to develop a synthetic anti-malarial drug. But the process of modifying either yeast or bacteria to churn out specific byproducts is general enough that they could make products as varied as drugs or fuels.
- So in a nutshell this particular idea potentially uses much more of the existing oil distribution infrastucture, saving the expense and carbon-cost of building new pipelines or trucks to get the product to market, resolving a big minus of the ethanol alternative.
The big bet here is that oil will run out sooner rather than later and that prices will stay high. It’s possible however that there’s more cheap oil yet to be found, or that the big exporters have kept a supply “for their children”. So they could kill off this competition by short-term overproduction (driving down prices), although that’s a dangerous play. Also, alternatives like ethanol, solar, wind, geothermal and tidal generation – perhaps even nuclear power – may ramp up quicker than expected and drive down costs again, but that seems unlikely for now. But in 20 years, who knows?
Assuming just such a 20 year window, these biofuel ideas, including ethanol to some extent, may embed themselves and come to wield considerable power, both as a method of stretching out current oil supplies and as a means to keep prices down, forcing the alternatives to remain a mere slice of the overall market. Unless they get a leg up by legislation or subsidy, of course.
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