The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

Gasoline prices give a a clear measure of consequences of making oil the lifeblood of our economy. As our economic lifeblood, oil is giving us:

1. Heart attacks, unstable price spikes in this plateau of Peak Oil
2. Leukemia, undermining our planets ability to support us with Global Warming

Facing the facts and acting to resolve them can defeat peak Oil and Global Warming, both civilization killers. A primary fact is that our current infrastructure is the cause of these killers. We built the infrastructure. We can build better. The purpose of this essay is a call to action to defeat these civilization killers by changing the way we govern infrastructure from specifying HOW to build it, to stating WHAT is needed and allowing a free market to find the rare individuals with lucky breakthroughs that can build sustainable infrastructure. We must get lucky and discover the energy equivalents of lasers, personal computers, cell phones, the Internet, etc....

Crikey has a series of articles on "oil, the future and you", with the first installment featuring Adam Grubb of Energy Bulletin (which has the full text for non-Crikey subscribers).

The high price of petrol today is causing discomfort among motorists. So much so that our federal politicians have spent almost a week haggling over whose scheme is best suited to knocking a few cents per litre from the pump price.

But in a world where oil is increasingly scarce, where the security of supply remains a problem, and where the environmental cost of using fossil fuels to power your car is soon to be factored into the pump price, is that the right response? What are the long terms solutions to our oil dependence? And is this the beginning of a new era of high-priced oil?

Crikey asked a panel of experts to answer questions on the good old days of cheap oil, what the politicians should really be arguing about, and how our economy will look when petrol costs many dollars per litre.

Today, Adam Grubb, the Australian editor of Energy Bulletin, answers Crikey’s questions.

It was interesting to see today's editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald (the link will succumb to linkrot shortly I'm afraid - I'm not sure what permalink scheme they have for editorials) mentioning "the threat of peak oil clouding the future of motoring" as one of the reasons for giving up on trying to widen sections of traffic clogged Victoria Road and instead commence building the proposed Sydney metro line.

Dedicated members of the TOD audience and public transport fans may be interested to hear the call for papers from UITP, the International Association of Public Transport, for a conference to be held in Vienna in June 2009. The theme for the 58th World Congress and Mobility & City Transport Exhibition is Public transport: making the right mobility choices.

This is a guest post by Garry Glazebrook. Garry is a senior lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Technology, Sydney, and has 30 years' experience in transport and urban planning consulting, and in government policy. He gets occasionally obesessed about peak oil, climate change, and sustainable transport (but then dont we all?). He is a member of ASPO Sydney and UITP (International Union of Public Transport). Professor Peter Newman heads Murdoch University's Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy and is an internationally known expert on transport and sustainability in cities.

Public Transport, Peak Oil and Global Warming

Public transport is a big issue in Australia. As a result of rising oil and petrol prices and rapidly rising road congestion, patronage has risen 20% on Melbourne's trains, 18% on Brisbane's buses, and 12% in Perth in the last two years.

Sydney's rail and bus systems are now overcrowded, as are those in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Adelaide is now facing a major decision about whether to electrify and extend its rail system. The quality, reliability and availability of public transport affects millions of citizens on a daily basis – as evidenced by headlines such as the Sun Herald front page in Melbourne on Monday 18 June.

Continuing population growth and a trend back to urban living make public transport vital for our future. But the likelihood of world oil production peaking makes this an issue for the present. The recent International Energy Agency Medium – Term Oil Market Report (July 2007) warned of increasing tightness in oil markets beyond 2010, as a result of strengthening demand and weakening oil supply.

Roger Bezdek, an expert on peak oil, highlighted in his recent Australian tour the need to take oil seriously in the planning of cities and regions. His key message is that there is likely to be increasing competition for oil and gasoline from China just at the time when global oil production reaches its maximum. There will also be a problem with peaking of gas production in the near future, while options like coal to liquids are not likely to be viable because of CO2 emissions.

Carbon trading is just a few years away. This will have to be extended to all fossil fuels – oil included – and will further add to oil and petrol prices. Those countries and cities without strong public transport systems will face an uncertain future.

Here is another guest post from Austin, Texas for TOD:LOCAL from Colin Clark.

Holding local elected officials accountable for their words and deeds can be a frustrating experience. One day they are standing up denouncing the Federal government for making the wrong investments in our future and not tackling global warming or our addiction to oil by signing the Mayor's Climate Change Agreement. The next day they announce the latest in highway funding touting new roads, less traffic, more jobs.

As we consider the collision course of peak oil and global warming, we should start look around our own communities and see if our transportation plans, policies, and construction projects are anticipating higher gas prices and a future with reduced vehicle miles traveled by automobile or stuck in the "building our way out of congestion" mindset.

With motorized transportation using 40% of US oil consumption, it's important to examine what we are doing on a local and regional level with transportation plans, funding, and construction. Are we digging ourselves deeper into the hole of oil dependency for mobility?

This is a guest vision by friend of The Oil Drum, Alan S. Drake.

After an extended period of bewildering, painful and rewarding transition, the people of the USA finally feel that they have found their feet underneath them, with a clear and hopeful path to the future. Oil consumption is down to 6.6 million barrels/day, 30% of our 2007 peak oil use, and CO2 emissions are 26% of their 2011 peak, a matter of pride for most Americans.

Rapid reductions in world carbon emissions (almost as great as US reductions), plus some negative feedback loops, have kept Global Warming effects manageable. Persistent and prolonged droughts in the American Southwest have been the largest effect so far in the USA.

At long last the goal of “Not One Drop” of oil is being burned to transport people and freight over the nations railroads. All of the main and secondary lines are electrified with battery locomotives for some short spurs.

BruceMcF introduced us to various local transport modes as potential 'recruiters' for high-speed rail. Pursuing most of these is worth on its own, for local traffic. This diary expands on one of these: local rail. As the Recruiters diary indicated, local rail is just one alternative, but it should be the backbone of any decent public transport system.

Public transport near Budapest's Keleti pályaudvar (East Terminal): express and local rail (black), subway (thick red), light rail (thinner red), trolley bus (dashed red), bus (blue) all linked up. Blaha L. t. to the West is again a hub.

Below, I first want to chart distinct categories of local rail: describe their specialities, their differing best uses, and some newer developments. In the real world, however, the boundaries of those categories are rather blurred, what's more, different locales use a bewildering array of rail terminology. But there are also some ingenious ideas mixing the 'basic categories', some of them will be described below, too.

This diary can also be viewed as a general guide as to what kind of projects local initiatives could aim for, and tries to give examples around the world that can be used as model for supporters and argument against opponents.

What's the meltdown price for uranium?

Add another certainty to death and taxes: Barring some sort of nuclear catastrophe or an instant, massive influx of new supply, the price of uranium oxide is going to continue its shocking rise for now.

The question for the fissile metal's producers, and for investors seeking to cash in on the gains, is how high can it get before its key nuclear power plant consumers defer plans to add reactors, or try to cut consumption at existing plants, as they wait for much delayed new mine supplies to come on stream and bring the price back down?

Since bottoming out at just $7 (U.S.) a pound in December, 2001, the "yellowcake" spot price has climbed almost exponentially, hitting $40 a pound about a year ago and a startling $120 a pound last month. This means it is very close to shattering the record high of $43 it hit back in 1979, which, adjusted for inflation, is the equivalent of $122.42 today. Already, some producers are predicting it could rise to $250 some time next year.

The good folks at NYC's PlaNYC 2030 sustainability office have just released a series of short powerpoint presentations establishing a baseline on a variety of sustainability metrics and their analysis on future trends.

It paints a somewhat troubling picture of where we are now and where we are headed. Moreover, only some of this is within our own control. Because Global Warming is by definition not locally controlled, NYC might do everything in its power and still face major consequences of rising sea levels along with many other global port cities. In many senses though the point is not that NYC will be the decisive place where carbon reductions are found and the battle is won. Rather it's to show that NYC is doing more part in the fight against global warming and can continue to make great strides in reducing it's contribution. My hope is that NYC can be a shining light in the fight to reduce greenhouse gases, a showcase city proving that reductions in Greenhouse gases are not just possible, but economically efficient and increase quality of life. And when I say NYC, I'm really talking mostly about the infrastructure built in the 19th Century (dense, walkable, mixed use land use) and early 20th Century (extensive mass transit system complete with subways, regional train system and trolleys).