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the tyee
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Feb
27
Oil Doomsters Despair
February 27, 2006 |
Peak Oil porn and the William Kunstler school of suburban doom blowhards are in for a bit of a shock:
German Loremo AG will introduce their ultra Efficient Car at the Motor Show 2006 (site) in Geneva next week.
The car start-up developed a light-weight passenger car with outstanding aerodynamics. The Loremo LS is powered by a 2 cylinder Turbo Diesel engine with 20 hp and 160km/h top speed. The amazing thing is that the Loremo only needs 1.5l per 100km. This is approx. 157MPG!
14U news
What is intriguing about this car is that it really does only one thing to achieve the claimed gas milage: it weighs 450kg. Call it 1000 pounds. Combine that with good aerodynamics and an efficient deisel and you triple the fuel efficiency achieved by a hybrid Prius.
This is the leading edge of a revolution in car transportation. The SmartCar, and assorted hybrids, technological innovation is going to radically change the options available for personal transport.
This is a market in action. If the price of gasoline goes up there are going to be increasing incentives for cars which use that gasoline more efficiently. No magic or carbon tax needed. Just the right price signal.
Unfortunately, the world auto industry and its American end has been fairly slow in adapting to higher oil prices and what they imply. One of the happier consequences of Hurricane Katrina was a temporary bump in gas prices and, for a few months, an unwillingness on the part of consumers to buy SUVs. That, of course, is a signal even GM could have understood. But it did not last long enough.
During the seventies oil shock American car manufacturers lost huge market share to foreign competition. One would think they would have learned something. As more people begin to demand radically increased gas mileage the demand will be created for lightweight, high efficiency, cars. And, as consumers demonstrated in the 70’s oil shock, they will not much care if the car is built in North America or in India.
From a larger perspective, a gradual replacement of 30MPG cars with 150MPG cars will reduce demand for oil rather radically. Which, in turn, will ensure that price rises are gradual - over the long run. But for this demand to be created there have to be real products available. It will take a while. But the uptake of the Prius - which is not all that fuel efficient - suggest there is a huge potential market.
Comments
14 Comments so far
Great idea, but I wonder how well it holds up in a crash.
Who wants to be the first to ride a paper car on the 401 amidst blowing snow?
Matt and Jimbo you both bring up an interesting problem: the current situation drives SUV sales on the basis that I would rather not be in the Miata when the Navigator hits it.
However, if fuel prices rise the attractions of driving a Navigator are going to pale - fast.
I also suspect that as more sophisticated carbon fibre and kevlar technology goes into these cars they are going to be safer to drive than things which rely on sheet metal and mass for protection.
Finally, I’ve driven the 401 in a Honda Civic in blowing snow: the car is not the problem….it is the big honking trucks blasting by at 120k pushing enough air to lift your wheels. Short of a sea anchor, I can’t see much to do about this other than to segregate the traffic by weight.
Well that’s just super! Still runs on petroleum based fuels! WTF is the “market action” here?
And on what will airplanes be running? Supertankers? How easily you gloss over /ignore the “other” transportation modes.
Reality is that within our lifetimes, the world will be forced to live on less energy. Doesn’t matter how pretty the cars you cant afford are. Doesn’t matter how much clueless cheerleading about energy sink “solutions” like ethanol gets, the point - and pardon the reciprocated arrogance here - is that the world is running out of fossil fuels. Full freaking stop.
You have the arrogance and stupidity to proclaim this tired, backwards device as a solution to a complex, deeply rooted behaviour?
I’m sure your kids will have a good laugh at how stupid and short sighted you truly are. Then again, your home schooling them, so its safe to suppose you’ll just grind out a few more idiots like yourself.
I’m not too worried. Small cars get into fewer accidents. Either their drivers are more careful, or they have a lower centre of gravity, or they’re a smaller target to hit.
Since you saw fit to delete an earlier comment by me, I can only surmise you dont want too many facts thrown your way or you’ll get all angry and maybe shut down your blog. You haven’t responded on how *exactly* this vehicle solves the issue of air travel or freight transport. Show us a supertanker that runs on solar panels or an airplane that runs on “something” other than fossil fuels and then perhaps you can shoot your mouth off with some legitimacy.
If your too intellectually stunted to answer legitimate questions on this issue - and it appears you are, you’ve inadvertently ended up just another mouth piece spewing garbage that you “heard somewhere”.
Now the question is, are you a member of the coalition of the willing when it comes to having your prepositions questioned, or are you simply a windy gasbag tossing out factual stinkbombs because they dont jive with your narrow minded view of the world?
Gutless or not?
Jeff, rude as you are, I tend not to “delete” comments. I do moderate them however and I keep odd hours.
There is absolutely no reason to assume that oils tankers or airplanes will run on anything but fossil fuels for the next, say, twenty years. So what? If we can find a technological way of extending the range of cars and, ideally, trucks by a factor of three there is no shortage of fossil fuel.
Repeating the Kunstnerian mantra - “no more oil” - over and over does not eliminate the tar sands and entirely fails to recognize that as price rises the attractiveness of substitution increases.
Oil doomsters like yourself James simply do not want to hear this. Your investment in the happy sight of rusting SUVs and empty suburbs is just too big. So, when someone points to an encouraging development you haul out what, I suppose, you think are the rhetorical heavy guns.
Phrases such as “clueless cheerleading”, “arrogance and stupidity”, “stupid and short sighted”, “idiots like yourself” suggest an inability to cope with positions contrary to your own.
(By the way I never mentioned ethonol because, a) I don’t think we need it, b) I am pretty convinced that from an energy perspective it is a scam, c) the cute little car above runs on standard diesel (though I suspect you could mod it to use lots of other fuels.))
This will give you some overall idea of the situation:
http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/02flow.php
I suppose you can look up other years’ results if you wish.
Hope is *not* a plan.
Tell your kids that.
And,Jeff, cliche is no substitute for thought.
Jay sez… “There is absolutely no reason to assume that oils tankers or airplanes will run on anything but fossil fuels for the next, say, twenty years. So what?”
Well tell your kids what it was like to take cheap air flights, because they sure as s*** won’t be able to afford it - that’s “so what”. Tell your kids not to bother looking for a career in the tourism industry, thats “so what”. Forget about overnight packages from London, that’s “so what”. We’ve just effectively priced out ten of billions of dollars in industry from most peoples pocketbooks - but hey - no biggie, right jay?
“If we can find a technological way of extending the range of cars and, ideally, trucks…”
This comment is so lacking in intelligence, I can only assume you’re joking.
Cars and trucks? Is that what modern life is?
Did you know that most fertilizers (almost all actually) are created via the Haber Bosch process? Do you know that the energy source for the Haber Bosch process is fossil fuel based? Same goes for many pesticides- they too are largely fossil fuel based. Hey no biggie there right? So what if the foundational mechanism responsible for cheap food is based on fossil fuels! Who cares if food prices skyrocket right Jay? - just look at that cool car that goes vroomm!
“So, when someone points to an encouraging development …”
What’s truly hilarious here is that you probably *believe* this. You seem to think the modern world boils down to a lightweight car. Your kids will be flabberghasted that even their “pa” was so myopic.
Your whole “tar sands” bullshit resonates with ignorance as well. Do you have any clue at all how much energy it takes to “create’ a barrel of actual useable oil from shale? Hint: it takes more f***ing energy to “create’ that barrel (over 3 times!) then you actually get! So - like ethanol - you end up spending MORE energy than you get in return!
Does that sound “smart” to you? If it does, please send me $1000 right now and I’ll send you back around $300, okay? That’s the math your tar sands presents pal. It will NEVER recover more energy than what was used to extract it Jay. NEVER.
And I won’t even mention the environemental degradation that will take place should this event (tar sand extraction) take place. For a clue - consider a “sludge” lake over 200 km long - because that’s what MUST occur for your vaunted oil sands to pan out.
I think it would be best frankly, based on the limited factual evidence you have, for you to simply let this issue slide and not even mention it. Because if the best you can muster against the quite evident facts of fossil fuel delpletion is a lightweight car running on diesel…. well, Mr. Currie…. you’re just blowing air.
The ignorance you’re displaying is truly astonishing.
I think I’m done with you.
Good luck bullshitting your kids.
Gee, Jeff, just when you were beginning to get into the spirit of the thing.
I am, of course well aware of the energy costs involved in extracting oil from oil shales; however I was not talking about oil shales, I was talking about oil sands.
If you stick around you might be able to find out that there is a difference between oil shale and oil sands. but I will make a note to make sure my kids are made aware of what that difference is so that they will be less inclined to make a public display of their touchingly “Americans know America” ignorance. And I will remind them that it is indeed a big world with many wonders indeed.
LOL.
I know the difference quite well.
I love how you’ve demolished the facts I ‘ve imparted to you. Incidentally, you’re welcome.
Good luck with the home schoolin’. You could do worse than reading them Candide, as you’ve got the whole Pangloss thing down.
Well, once you have got past the fact that oil sands take rather less than 3x energy recovered to extract then there are few facts left to demolish. Especially as the extraction technology is improving and is likely to continue to improve.
Candide will certainly be on the list. Dr. Pangloss is a delightful and rather provoking character. Remember, Pangloss was a caricature of determinism : as things went from bad to worse, Pangloss explained how this could only be a good thing as it was the only possible outcome. (Which seems to be your position rather than my own.)
I am far from being a determinist or a pessimist. My own view is that we are just begining to explore the world where oil is a valuable commodity. It is going to cause massive shifts and those shifts are going to lead to a radical increase in economic activity. It will also lead to radically greater efficiencies which, in their turn, will have significant and positive enviornmental consequences.