The Oil Drum: Europe

It's election time in New Zealand and Finance Minister Michael Cullen has mentioned Peak Oil in a campaign speech he gave on Wednesday, decrying the state of funding for rail transport and declaring "a new era in the rail industry".

Given the energy challenge we face in coming years, the so-called black hole of rail funding looks more like a pot-hole that urgently needs filling.

In 1908 our predecessors built the North Island Main Trunk line because they had a vision for a much more populous New Zealand and for opening up the North Island to settlement and economic development. The Main Trunk justified the faith of the settlers for more than 50 years, before the rise of road and air transport – helped by cheap oil prices – diminished its role as a carrier of both freight and passengers.

Today we have to come to terms with a new set of circumstances – the emerging reality of Peak Oil and the impact rising fuel prices have on our economy. Rail's energy efficiency has a new relevance and a new importance.

This is a guest post from Community Action for Sustainable Transport Inc

Reducing the fuel excise and Federal investment in roads will not make travel affordable.

This is the message coming from a coalition of more than 20 transport and environmental groups who have signed off on an open letter to PM Kevin Rudd (see below), urging the Federal government to invest heavily in public transport to reduce the impacts of rising petrol prices.

“The Federal government’s urban transport priority must be to create a public transport system that takes people where they need to go, when they need to be there. More than anything else we need better alternatives to the car,” said Tristan Peach, spokesperson for Community Action for Sustainable Transport QLD (CAST).

The SMH had an interesting piece on the possible demise of the "Long Paddock" - land reserves for stockmen to move livestock around the country on foot. While it is rarely used nowadays, the land reserved for this use has a lot of environmental value - and (for those of a reversalist bent) they could possibly be revived one day if moving stock around by foot becomes the most energy efficient means of transportation to the markets - something the Queensland government seems to believe (it also maintains a website tracking rural climate issues using this name).

This is the first in a series of posts co-authored with Phoenix and Matt Mushalik. In my previous post I took a high-level look at solutions for Australia. This post starts the process of iterating down from the high-level view. It assumes that we will not be able to instantly convert to sustainable solutions - we need to get there in steps. This article is co-authored with Phoenix, a qualified mechanical engineer who has been working in the infrastructure construction industry for over 28 years. He has held senior manangement positions with a number of organisations delivering projects to key energy providers. These projects have included oil refineries, power stations, LNG plants and gas processing facilities. He currently works as the National Manager – Power Generation for a major Australian construction group.

Action Plan

1.0 INTRODUCTION: THE IMPORTANCE OF TRANSPORT

Transport is critical to the functioning of our society. If Australia’s transportation stopped tomorrow, then most of us would be starving in the dark a few weeks later.

Yet this is exactly the scenario that is emerging. The vast majority of transport in Australia is fuelled by oil. Without oil, transport stops. And we are being warned from every direction that our oil supplies are no longer secure.

This scenario will be the most serious threat experienced by our society since the Second World War. This is the first in a series of discussions that look at ways to secure Australia’s oil based energy security into the future. Over the next few weeks we will look at short and long term goals for personal and industrial transport.

The latest campaign from the very effective GetUp! crew is on transport and fuel prices:

This is a guest post by Kiashu, advocating an alternative to hypermiling.

Recently there have been a few articles on hypermiling - driving your car to make the most efficient use of fuel. They mention taking junk out of your car so it has less weight in it, not hitting the accelerator hard, and so on. What's remarkable is that none of these articles suggested, "don't drive". Not even "don't drive so much." So that is my immodest proposal: "Don't drive, or at least not so much." I realise that this is insane radicalism, but there you go.
"But I need to drive! I have no options!"
"Perhaps. But do you need to drive so much? Is every kilometre you drive essential?"

The ABC's "7:30 Report" last night had a look at the large amount of optimism that many people have regarding Australia's natural gas reserves - "As world oil prices skyrocket, experts warn Australia must find an alternative source of fuel. Some argue a cheaper, greener solution is right under the nation's nose: natural gas."

Both the APPEA and new Energy Minister Martin Ferguson have been arguing this for some time - though its far from clear how long we can continue to expand LNG exports, expand gas fired power generation (as part of the APPEA's "transition to lower carbon emissions" strategy), contemplate building GTL plants and use CNG for most or all of our transport as suggested in this report (not to mention supplying the usual industrial and domestic uses of gas) especially when one major potential source of supply (from PNG via the now abandoned pipeline project) has been removed from the equation.

SMH - Oil Search reports drop in profit

Oil Search is following an interesting strategy:

Mr Hartley said exploration expenditure in 2008 would be lower, following a disappointing run of dry holes in PNG and the Middle East.

"Capital expenditure this year will be just under $US400 million ($A438.21 million), similar to 2007/08, with more emphasis on production drilling," he said.

ABC - Govt defends 'hand-me-down' transport ticketing system

The 15-year-old ticket readers from Brisbane are being bought to replace Tcard machines, which were being trialed on buses in Sydney's south.

The machines had to be replaced because the Government cancelled the company developing the Tcard integrated transport system's contract.

In part 2 of "what the rest of the world could learn from Bogota, Colombia", here is a good video that gives an overview of how their bus rapid transit system works. In part 1 we looked Ciclovia, a weekly auto-free Sunday on main streets and boulevards opens them to cycling, skating and all sorts of public events. (much more discussion under the fold...)

Update: I received responses to my follow up questions from Louis - see the end of the Q&A section.

In the wake of my last post on The Air Car (The Air Car - A Breath Of Fresh Air Or A Waste Of Breath ?), IT-MDI's Louis Arnoux made a lengthy comment at the tail end of the commenting period, arguing that we had been overly harsh in questioning the practicality of the vehicle(s).

It’s great to feel the excitement, interest and intrigue about the MDI “air car” as posted on The Oil Drum – Australia and New Zealand. However, a large number of those comments are in my view mistaken and made without the required knowledge and expertise. In this posting I wish to clarify a few matters.

To call the MDI vehicles an “air car” is a misnomer. It is no more an “air car” than a “gasoline car”, or a “diesel car” or an “ethanol car” or a “rapeseed oil car” or a “what-have-you car.” The point being that the MDI engines (there is a whole series of them) are being designed to accept a very wide range of primary energy inputs including fossil fuels, bio fuels, waste heat recycling from other processes and thermal solar energy. Transport is only on aspect of the applications of the MDI technology. Power generation at the point of use, on customer premises is another. Power generation applications are at least as important as the transport applications.

“Is it for real?” many people ask. ...

As few people were likely to be following the comments at that point, I asked Louis if he would like to do an interview to answer some of the questions we had about the MDI technology.