Fuel-Efficient-Vehicles.org

Almost 70% of the world's oil is used as transportation fuel: cars, trucks, boats, planes. The key to protecting the environment and disconnecting ourselves from this, rapidly diminshing, fossil fuel is to find an alternate mobile energy source.

When the Bush Oil Administration was in control

$6 or $7 by next summer? What if it is "only" $5/gal.? At less than $4/gal businesses are already closing, airlines are cutting back, others have stopped hiring, we did not need surveys to tell us that the average family wouldn't travel on vacations as far as they used to - they don't even travel about town as much as they used to!
Only the very rich have gotten richer, (see "400 richest Americans` incomes doubled under Bush" ) all the rest of us have gotten poorer. The rich, politicians, (especially Bush and Cheney) may think high oil prices are good for their oil friends and, it will be if we only start averaging 35+ mpg in our vehicles. Prices won't drop, just rise a little  slower. Only if we "cut the chord" and go electric, will we recover... from this un-democratic, "royal" sell-out by politicians to the coorporate giants.

"World oil consumption continues to grow despite 7 consecutive years of rising prices. Preliminary data indicate that world oil consumption during the first half of 2008 rose by roughly 520,000 bbl/d compared with year-earlier levels. Compared to year-ago levels, this increase reflects a 170,000-bbl/d gain in the first quarter, followed by an 870,000-bbl/d increase in the second quarter. A 760,000-bbl/d decline in consumption in OECD countries during the first half of 2008, mainly concentrated in the United States, was more than offset by a 1.3-million-bbl/d increase in consumption in non-OECD nations led by China and the Middle East."

[Therefore, despite EIA claims of flat gasoline prices around $4.15/gal for now through 2010, the price of gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and therefore food, clothing, plane fares, etc., etc. will continue to go up (and companies will coninue to fold, putting more people out of work!) ... unless we and the other "OECD" countries cut our consumption by more than double or triple the current rate, knowing the "non-OECD" are already "ramping up" to incerase their demand even more than the current accelerating rate.] McCain's dream of more drilling to produce more oil 5 to 10 years from now is a nightmare! It will be too little too late. Poor countries will have riots in the streets and economies will have divided further into the extreme rich and the extreme poor.

We should not have to come this close to committing environmental suicide before realizing that in destroying our planet we destroy ourselves.

Europe may restrict oil exports to the US.
see article


3-11-2006
Princeton University emeritus professor and renowned oil analyst Ken Deffeyes thinks that the all-time production peak for petroleum, or "peak oil," will occur on or around this Thanksgiving.
see article

May 28th, 2007

Peak Oil Has Arrived
The 3 Largest Oil Fields in the world have peaked!

#2. Burgan, Kuwait - in decline
It is incredible revelation that the second largest oil field in the world is exhausted and past its peak output. Yet that is what the Kuwait Oil Company revealed about its Burgan field.

#3. Cantarell, Mexico - in decline
Cantarell has actually begun to decline. The most recent Upstream (May 11, 2007) quotes Jesus Reyes Heroles, the Pemex leader as saying that Cantarell would produce only 1.5 million barrels per day in 2007. This is compared with over 2 million in 2004.

see article
footnote: "investors are also increasingly concerned about falling oil production in Russia and Mexico, which are major oil producers" - JOHN WILEN, AP Business Writer, May 6, 2008

May 28th, 2009

Peak Oil Has Arrived
The worlds 10 Largest Oil Fields have peaked!

many oil statistics

May 28th, 2007:
It is important to know that America has two largely unconnected oil worlds - the five west coast states (California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Arizona) and the rest of the country. The West Coast gets its imported gasoline supplies by tanker across the Pacific. The rest of the country gets its imports from tankers across the Atlantic." In summary, US gasoline stocks are low, the refineries are stretched and imports are minimal.

In the US, the average piece of food is transported almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. In Canada, the average piece of food is transported 5,000 miles from where it is produced to where it is consumed.

More Oil Refineries?

Not if they are unwilling to protect human health!

Posted: March 31, 2006
by: Winona LaDuke

There haven't been any new oil refineries built in the United States for the past 30 years (1976; and some [smaller ones] have closed), for some pretty good reasons. First, the United States doesn't have that much oil; it imports 60 percent of its fuel. Then there are the vast environmental problems with oil refineries.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency's profiles of the refining industry, the average refinery generates more than 10,000 gallons of waste a day; and the industry in total releases and transfers more than 600 toxic chemicals, as well as generating significant toxic wastes. Among the list of chemicals are many associated with chronic illnesses, leukemia, neuro-toxicity and reproductive toxicity. In 1995, the EPA estimated that 4.5 million individuals living within 30 miles of oil refineries were exposed to benzene at concentrations that posed cancer risks 180 times higher than the acceptable risk level. Oil refineries today also emit up to 35 million pounds of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that has a global warming potential of 2l times that of carbon dioxide.

from: www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412739

They can build "clean" refineries
but, the record shows that they won't.

US: Chevron donates to Schwarzenegger, gets removal of restrictions on oil refineries in California

by Tom Chorneau, Associated Press
Friday, September 03, 2004 - SACRAMENTO

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious plan to reorganize almost every aspect of state government was influenced significantly by oil and gas giant ChevronTexaco Corp., which managed to shape such key recommendations as the removal of restrictions on oil refineries.

Many corporations and interest groups participated in the governor's reform plan - known as the California Performance Review - but state records and interviews with the participants show Chevron enjoyed immense success in influencing the report through its array of lobbyists, attorneys and trade organizations.

And few corporations have spent so much political cash on the governor, either.
Since Schwarzenegger's election last October, the San Ramon company has contributed more than $200,000 to his committees and $500,000 to the California Republican Party.

Chevron, whose officials acknowledge they lobbied hard to get their ideas in the report, is one of about 20 companies that paid to send the governor and his staff to this week's Republican National Convention in New York. On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger attended a closed-door meeting in New York with representatives of those companies, including Chevron. And just three weeks after the governor's office released the 2,700-page reorganization report, the company gave $100,000 to a Schwarzenegger-controlled political fund.

Environmental watchdogs and local agencies that regulate some of Chevron's operations complain that they had no such access, and that their counter-proposals appear nowhere in the massive report.

No to New Oil Refineries

Dennis Kucinich speaking from the Floor of the House

April 20, 2005

On April 20, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of H.R. 6, the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Speaking in support of the Solis amendment to strike the refinery revitalization provisions in H.R. 6, Congressman Kucinich said:

"Mr. Chairman, I enter my statement in the Record in support of the Solis amendment.

"Mr. Chairman, no one wants an oil refinery in their neighborhood. So in order to force one open, this bill encourages them to be established in neighborhoods with high unemployment or recent layoffs.

"The University of Texas and the Houston Chronicle studied the air near refineries in the Houston area. The paper wrote that they 'found the air ... so laden with toxic chemicals that it was dangerous to breathe.' Houston is not alone. (Texas: where then Gov. Bush changed the environmental laws to make them "voluntary". It is going to take years to undo the damage he has done as Gov. and as President.)

"Multiple penalties of hundreds of thousands of dollars for environmental violations have been handed to refineries so far this year. And we surely have not forgotten last month's BP refinery explosion that killed 15 people.

"Let's employ the unemployed but not at the expense of their families' health and wellbeing. That is kicking them when they're down."

World's Cleanest Coal Fired Power Plants? (choke!)

February 14, 2008

Republicans in the Kansas legislature

Last year, Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Roderick Bremby, denied permits for the plants because of concerns about the effect of carbon dioxide emissions. If built, the plants would emit 11 million tons of carbon dioxide a year (!) making it one of the cleanest coal-burning plants in the nation ! Ouch! "They are that bad!"

The plants are opposed by numerous environmental groups, the attorneys general of eight states, and the Lawrence City Commission (near where one would be built).

Nov 15th 2007
NO UTILITY with any respect for its shareholders' money, says Michael Morris, the boss of the biggest one in America, AEP, would build a heavily polluting coal-burning power station in America these days, for fear that it would become a liability if the government moved to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Europe already has a cap on emissions, which is designed precisely to discourage dirty fuels such as coal. So why is it that utilities in both places are running their coal-fired plants at full throttle, have several new ones under construction and would like to build even more?

Energy lore has it that in China a new coal-burning plant is fired up every week. What is certain is that China has become a net importer of coal for the first time this year. India's imports have been growing steadily for the past 20 years. The International Energy Agency, an energy watchdog for rich countries, projects that demand for coal will grow by 2.2% a year until 2030 - faster than demand for oil or natural gas. Coal-mining firms in Indonesia and Australia, the biggest exporters, are digging as fast as they can but are still struggling to cope with the surge in orders. Freighters are literally queuing up off Newcastle, Australia, the world's busiest coal port.

But poor and fast-growing places are not the only ones with a hunger for coal. In America, more coal-fired generation is being built than at any time in the past seven years, despite the threat of emissions caps, according to the Department of Energy. In Europe, several power companies are building new coal-fired plants, even though every tonne of carbon dioxide that they emit will require an expensive permit. For example, RWE, a German utility, plans to spend $9.1 billion on three new coal-fired plants by 2012. One of them is already under construction.

All this has helped to push the price of coal steadily upwards in the past few years. Nonetheless, it has risen less quickly than that of oil or natural gas. Coal is now by far the cheapest of the common fuels for power stations relative to the amount of heat it generates when burnt (see chart). At the very least that is encouraging utilities to run their existing coal-fired plants flat out. But it is also prompting some to convert oil-fired plants to run on coal instead. Enel, Italy's former electricity monopoly, has already performed one such refurbishment, and has two more under way, at a cost of ?3.8 billion. Leonardo Arrighi, who supervises the firm's investments in generation, says it would like to build "more and more" coal-fired plants.

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10145492

" Engineers of Hitachi Magnetics Corp. of California have stated that a motor run solely by magnets is feasible and logical but the politics of the matter make it impossible for them to pursue developing a magnet motor or any device that would compete with the energy cartels.

"So the ultimate source for our electrically powered automobile would be to have an electric motor that required no outside source of power. Sounds impossible but, it has been invented and H.R. Johnson has been issued a patent No. 4,151,431 on April 24, 1979 on such a device.

"This new design although originally suggested by Nikola Tesla in 1905, is a permanent magnet motor. Mr. Johnson has arranged a series of permanent magnets on the rotor and a corresponding series - with different spacing - on the stator. One simply has to move the stator into position and rotation of the rotor begins immediately."

from keelynet.com / energy / tesla fe1 & fe2

When half the oil in a field is extracted it is at its "peak":
The cost of each barrel past peak is increasingly
higher as artificial means are employed to extract it.

Case studies Some recent cases make the point. In 1991 the largest discovery in the Western Hemisphere since the 1970's, was found at Cruz Beana in Columbia. But its production went from 500,000 barrels a day to 200,000 barrels in 2002. In the mid-1980's the Forty Field in North Sea produced 500,000 barrels a day. Today it yields 50,000 barrels. One of the largest discoveries of the past 40 years, Prudhoe Bay, produced some 1.5 million barrels a day for almost 12 years. In 1989 it peaked, and today gives only 350,000 barrels daily. The giant Russian Samotlor field produced a peak of 3,500,000 barrels a day. It has now dropped to 325,000 a day. In each of these fields, production has been kept up by spending more and more to inject gas or water to maintain field pressures, or other means to pump the quantity of oil. The world's largest oil field, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, produces near 60% of all Saudi oil, some 4.5 million barrels per day. To achieve this, geologists report that the Saudis must inject 7 million barrels a day of salt water to keep up oil well pressure, an alarming signal of near collapse of output in the world's largest oil kingdom.

"The DoE in January 2001 estimated 1028 billion barrels as the global petroleum reserves. "A figure commonly cited these days is about one trillion barrels of oil in the ground.(2004)"   Page 61 of their report provided the estimate that global consumption was 75.3 million barrels per day, or 27.5 billion per year. Simple long division indicates that global oil reserves would be entirely depleted by 2038." ... However,
"The US energy information agency has admitted that the government's figures have been fudged: it has based its projections for oil supply on the projections for oil demand" (the US gov. is an ostrich?!)

2003: Over the past 20 years despite investment of hundreds of billions dollars by major oil companies, results have been alarmingly disappointing.

The world's major oil companies - Exxon-Mobil, Shell, ChevronTexaco, BP, ElfTotal and others - have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in finding enough oil to replace the existing oil supply sources. Between 1996 and 1999, some 145 companies spent $410 billion to find enough oil only to keep their daily production stable at 30 million barrels a day. From 1999 to 2002, the five largest companies spent another $150 billion and their production grew only from 16 million barrels a day to 16.6 million barrels, a tiny increase.

What Cheney knew in 1999

In a speech to the International Petroleum Institute in London in late 1999, Dick Cheney, then chairman of the world's largest oil services company, Halliburton, presented the picture of world oil supply and demand to industry insiders. 'By some estimates,' Cheney stated, 'there will be an average of two percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three percent natural decline in production from existing reserves.'

In the decade from 1990 to 2000, a total of 42 billion barrels of new oil reserves were discovered worldwide. In the same period, the world consumed 250 billion barrels. In the past two decades only three giant fields with more than one billion barrels each have been discovered. One in Norway, in Columbia and Brazil. None of these produce more than 200,000 barrels a day. This is far from 50 million barrels a day which the world will need - when the economy recovers.

Two-thirds of global crude oil reserves are concentrated in five countries bordering the Persian Gulf.' 3

The five major producers of the Middle East, namely Abu Dhabi, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (including the Neutral Zone), have about half the world's remaining oil

These five countries - Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE - through circumstances of geology, contain the oil and gas reserves vital to the future economic growth of the world. In an article in the January 7, 2002 issue of Oil and Gas Journal by A. S. Bakhtiari of the National Iranian Oil Company, noted, 'The Middle East (is) simultaneously the most geostrategic area on the globe and the ultimate energy prize: Two-thirds of global crude oil reserves are concentrated in five countries bordering the Persian Gulf.'

Furthermore, our consumption is increasing:
"Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil"
msnbc.msn.com/id/4287300
Oil is used to make gasoline obviously, but also home heating oil, diesel fuel, 90 percent of all the organic chemicals that we use. That includes pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, plastics, fabrics and so on. Many are petrochemicals, meaning many of them originate as oil.

"High oil prices mean high food prices: much of the world's growing population will go hungry. These problems will be exacerbated by the direct connection between the price of oil and the rate of unemployment. The last five recessions in the US were all preceded by a rise in the oil price.

see the NEWS page for more.