Last week, I was sad to read in my local paper that an airport shuttle service was closing down after 35 years in the business.  In the Asbury Park Press, you can read the story entitled “Olympic Airporter succumbs to sour economy”.

They will stop operating this Friday (June 19, 2009).  It is a real shame to learn that this inexpensive alternative to taxis or parking at the airport will no longer be available.  Look at some of the many benefits of their service:

• Convenience
• Save gasoline
• Reduce traffic
• Provide good employment
• Help local economy

They currently run 19 trips per day utilizing a fleet of 90 vehicles to service about 16,500 passengers a month.  That is over 500 people a day or almost 200,000 a year.

Now what are their clients options?  They can try other limo companies, but will probably pay more.  They can drive themselves, adding to traffic and paying almost $20 a day to park at the airport.  Or they could share rides.  If all the people that utilized this service got together on a ride sharing web site, they could help each other.  At least something good could come out of this bad situation.

Finally, my heart goes out to the 128 full and part-time employees at Olympic Airporter.  I wish them the best in finding new employment with these difficult economic conditions.

photo credit: Joi

There has been a lot of debate lately over several proposed bills in Congress.  These bills, known as “Cash for Clunkers” aim to stimulate new car sales while retiring older vehicles.  The basic idea behind these bills sounds good, get older cars off the road and replace them with more fuel efficient vehicles.

This seems logical and makes sense on the surface, but let’s dig deeper.  First, I have been arguing for fewer cars on the roads.  This plan will not reduce traffic in any way and will encourage more car sales instead of increased alternative transportation.

Second, it rewards drivers of gas guzzlers.  This does not offer anything to the drivers who have already made the right decision and bought a more fuel efficient car.  So everyone that already cares about the planet, you’re out of luck.

Third, what about the waste from junking all of these “clunkers”?  They will try to set up a program to strip and salvage many of the parts from these retired vehicles, but it still seems like this will create a large amount of waste.

Fourth, more fuel efficient cars will encourage more driving.  So, many drivers that will now be “saving” gas will have even less incentive to reduce the miles they travel.

Fifth, there is a stipulation to buy American to qualify for the cash.  Does this violate free trade agreements?  I’m sure foreign auto makers will be angry and potentially retaliate by not importing American goods.

Sixth, this seems to benefit the auto makers more than the public.  Is this just another way for the government to give aid to the failing auto industry?

We desperately need to move away from our current car model and reduce traffic, not buy more cars while building additional roads.  That’s what we have been doing for the last 50 years and look where it has gotten us.

To me, this is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titantic.  The ship is still sinking and we need to make much bigger changes than just trading in one car for another.

photo credit: mtneer_man

Fast Company has an interesting story in their April issue entitled “10 Ways To Jump-Start the Auto Business”.  The on-line version has been expanded to 25 ways, so I guess there are a lot of opinions out there for our auto industry.  This is a thought provoking article that highlights many of the current problems and offers some potential solutions.

Some of the issues they address include:

• Higher gas tax
• Car design
• Advertising
• Social networks
• Alternative fuels
• Monorail technology
• Hybrid vehicles
• Buy American
• Sell your car

All of these ideas to get the auto business moving again are well intentioned and very valid if you agree with the premise of the article.  My problem is that I think the last thing we need is more cars.  We already have plenty of cars, we just need to make more efficient use of the existing “fleet”.

So instead of trying to improve a broken system, I believe we should go in a new direction.  We have to explore a broad strategy to get people out of their cars.  Increased ride share, car share, mass transit, biking and walking are the future.

photo credit: vieux bandit

I saw this story on The Oil Drum last week and found it very disturbing.  The story is entitled “The 88,000,000,000 barrel debt”.  They use some very simple graphs to illustrate this powerful message.  I highly recommend clicking on this link so you can see the graphs.

The first graph shows how US Energy Production has been almost constant for the past 30 years.  The second graph illustrates how our Energy Consumption has grown over that same period of time.  In the third and final graph, they show the ever rising debt.

So while the US Oil Production has declined over the years, we have compensated by producing more coal and natural gas.  Even with these changes, we have still consumed well beyond our capacity.  After studying the numbers, I put together this chart:

Do you see a shocking pattern in these numbers?  While it took us 12 years to accumulate a debt of 22 billion barrels of oil in the 80’s, we are now averaging a debt of 5.5 billion barrels a year.  At this rate, we will hit 100 billion by the end of 2010.  So much for Energy Independence.

I think that this just further illustrates that increased production of alternative energy will only help so much.  The real answer lies in reduced consumption.  Passenger Energy is one tool that could help close this huge gap between production and consumption.

On Wednesday, Australia suffered one of the area’s biggest environmental disasters when a cargo ship leaked tons of fuel oil into the ocean.  A massive clean-up is now underway along nearly 40 miles of east coast beach.

Initially the crew reported the spill was only 5,000 – 8,000 gallons, but later corrected their estimate to be ten times more, closer to 60,000 gallons.  The freighter was struggling in rough seas when some cargo came loose and punctured the fuel tanks.  The massive oil spill is bad enough, but the cargo causing the damage is reported to be 31 containers of ammonium nitrate.  It is believed that the 620 tons of chemicals in the containers have sunk to the ocean floor and pose another threat to the wildlife if not recovered soon.

As bad as this spill is, it does not come close to The Worst Major Oil Spills in History.  When are we going to learn?  This is just another example of the costs to our environment associated with the import of foreign oil.

I truly feel bad for the people of Australia and wish them the best in their clean-up.  We all need to seek clean alternative energy and continue to improve our conservation efforts.

You can find the song Gasoline on Sheryl Crow’s latest cd Detours.  I have always liked her music and I got to see her play live back in the mid 90’s, opening for John Hiatt at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park.  She has certainly come a long way since then.

I picked this song to feature this week since it accurately represents many of the problems we face with our current oil imports.  She picks a date in the future to show how foolish we may look when we review the incredible dependence we have today on gasoline.  In her clever lyrics, she touches on climate change, peak oil and the mistakes made by our government.

Give this song a listen and let me know what you think.  There are also several interesting live versions of this song on YouTube where she nicely segues into “Gimme Shelter”.

Way back in the year of 2017
The sun was growing hotter
And oil was way beyond its peak
When crazy Hector Johnson broke into a refinery
And the black gold started flowing
Just like Boston tea

It was the summer of the riots
And London sat in sweltering heat
And the gangs of Mini Coopers
Took the battle to the streets
But when the creed was handed down
For no more trucks and no more cars
They threw cans of petrol through the windows at Scotland Yard

Gasoline
Will be free, will be free
Gasoline
Will be free, will be free

There is a great article and running discussion on “The Economics of Volatile Oil Prices” at TheOilDrum.com.  The author, Phil Hart, does a very nice job breaking down the change in oil prices over the last few years.  He explains how the basic rules of supply and demand have had a powerful impact on the wild price fluctuations.

In the first comment, a reader points to the YouTube video below called “Gas Prices, Gas Gouging, Peak Oil, Elasticity, Supply Demand”.  This video simply demonstrates how the supply and demand curves have moved to cause the price spike and then recession:

As I read this article and watched the video, I gained a better understanding of the events of the last 3 years.  I also see how this cycle will definitely repeat itself in the next few years.  Once demand returns, prices will spike again.  It seems like we have a window of opportunity now to change our consumption habits before the next spike, but will we do it?

Last week I wrote a post entitled “Putting the Brakes on Offshore Drilling”.  In this post, there is a video from GreenPeace comparing our oil usage to drug addiction.  This is a very powerful metaphor that illustrates our urgent need for energy independence.

This week’s song is “Royal Oil” from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.  I’ve read in a few places that the song is about drug use and how it can ruin your future.  As you listen to the song, I think you will agree it could easily be about our current oil addiction.

Royal Oil, come on bubble and boil.
Stabs like a dagger, makes you stagger on the hot tin foil.
Mind your mind or it will surely spoil, then you sleep down in the soil.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil.

When you smoke or poke the poison you lose the chance to be tomorrow.
Look out on the horizon and see the sadness, the pain and sorrow.
I can’t say enough about the stuff or what it has in store.
When you smoke or poke the poison you can’t be anymore.

Royal Oil, come on bubble and boil.
Stabs like a dagger, make you stagger on the hot tin foil.
Mind your mind or it will surely spoil, then you sleep down in the soil.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil.

Royal Oil has cut many down to size.
Spikes gonna strike the weak and strong alike.
And then forever, and ever close those eyes.
Make up your mind to keep your mind up and to your life be loyal.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil.

Royal Oil, big trouble brewing.
Long lonely road, long road to ruin.
Wrong path to take, great big mistake.
And then you sleep down in the soil.
Nothing comes from nothing, come on Royal Oil

Last week I wrote a post entitled “Putting the Brakes on Offshore Drilling” that looked at the government’s plan for longer review of offshore drilling.  I also discussed the many dangers associated with ocean drilling and why we need to proceed cautiously.

We should not toy around with ocean drilling

Well today, TreeHugger has an excellent piece called “Offshore Drilling: Worth the Oil, or False Hope?”.  They offer comprehensive coverage of this topic, including background information and answers to the following questions:

1. How much oil do we get from offshore drilling today?
2. How much might we potentially recover?
3. What offshore drilling is currently banned?
4. What are the environmental risks?
5. Does offshore drilling offer false hope of plentiful cheap oil?

I talked last week about the dangers, but I was under the flawed impression that it may be worth the risks.  According to this story, lifting the ban on offshore drilling would not have a significant impact for at least 10 years and even then it would only save us pennies on a gallon of gasoline.

We need to accept the fact that oil is a finite commodity.  No matter how much we increase exploration; there will always be a limited supply.  We need to look past these false promises and focus on true oil alternatives.

photo credit: dierk schaefer

Well, you think our traffic is bad?  According to TreeHugger.com, “1,466 New Cars Added to Beijing Streets Every Day”.  At this rate, they will add well over 100,000 cars in the first 3 months of this year.  Yikes!

While reading the story on  TreeHugger, I found the original source for this information is Reuters.  In their piece about Congested Beijing, they mention an interesting tactic that has been implemented.  To reduce congestion, they introduced rules based on the license plate numbers to remove a fifth of the cars each day on the roads.

Now, at first this seems a little crazy, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  We may someday have to resort to a conservation scheme based on license plate numbers.  Do you remember odd-even gas rationing of 1979?  I do, that was the year I got my driver’s license and it was not pretty.

The Beijing plan is interesting in that they target only a fifth of the cars each day.  So if you figure a 5 day working week, then you would only have to leave your car home just one day each week.  Could you get a ride, use mass transit or work from home that one day?  If everyone could follow this simple rule, we would immediately reduce our daily traffic and gas consumption by 20%.

We need to explore simple ideas like this while we still can.  If we wait, then we will be forced to take more drastic measures in the future.  The time to act is now, are you ready?

photo credit: poeloq