At the beginning of 2007, as I was preparing to move to Scotland, I made a number of resolutions:
My Energy Resolutions for 2007
I updated the story once in Walking the Talk.
Time to look back and see how I did.
1). I resolve to get the most fuel-efficient car I can find in Scotland.
While I could have found a more efficient car, I got a Nissan Micra which gets very good fuel efficiency. The cars that were more fuel efficient would not have fared well on my drive to work.
2). I resolve to search for a house that allows me to take public transport or my bike to work.
I consistently considered the public transport options as I looked for a house, but my work location made this difficult. I ended up getting a house not too far from work (4 miles) but there is no public transport available (unless I want to spend an hour and 2 bus changes getting to work). As far as being able to ride my bike to work, 4 miles would be a piece of cake most places. But on the winding, narrow country road I live on, it would have been a death wish. Most parts of Scotland are unfortunately not conducive to getting around by bike.
3). I resolve to place a very high priority on energy efficiency as I search for a new house.
Done. I rented a house with sky lights, a lot of natural lighting throughout, and a lot of southern exposure. During daylight hours, we never have to turn lights on in the house. Our gas and electric usage have both been very low since moving into our house.
4). I resolve to reduce the meat in my diet (it takes much more energy to produce meat than to produce vegetables).
Done. I have almost cut beef completely out of my diet (much to my father’s chagrin, since he raises cattle). I eat a fair amount of fish and chicken, but I probably eat three times as many vegetables as I did a year ago.
5). I resolve to support local farmers’ markets.
While I think there are some farmers’ markets in the downtown part of Aberdeen, I live in the country. So I never did encounter any farmers’ markets this year.
6). I resolve to continue instilling the importance of energy conservation into my family.
This has been a challenge. My daughter proclaims that she is an environmentalist, and then leaves lights, televisions, etc. on all the time and takes 20 minute showers. (She has been learning a lesson while we are on vacation in Oklahoma, because the hot water only lasts 10 minutes). I point out her energy usage, and ask her – tongue in cheek – why she hates the environment so much. It’s an uphill battle with kids (or adults, for that matter) who just can’t connect the dots of their energy usage to the big picture. But I persevere. I did get into composting this year, and I was able to get the kids involved in that. I think they understand the energy savings from doing this.
7). I resolve to get completely out of debt (easy, since my only debt is a mortgage).
Done. No debt at all.
8). I resolve to talk to at least 1 person a month about Peak Oil and/or the importance of living sustainably.
Done. High oil prices have made it very easy to talk with people about Peak Oil. This is especially true for someone working for an oil company, because oil and gas prices are one of the first things people ask me about. I have had Peak Oil conversations this year in the airport, on a bus, in Walmart, in a restaurant, at work (including one with a member of senior management), and sitting around the Christmas tree.
9). I resolve to preach conservation as something each one of us can do to stretch energy supplies and better prepare for Peak Oil.
Done. This resolution goes hand in hand with the previous resolution. Once people hear about Peak Oil, the first thing they ask is what can be done. I explain that the best thing you personally can do is to get out of debt and tailor your lifestyle toward using less energy. That way, if gas prices go to $5 or $10 a gallon, your budget will be less susceptible to these increases (acknowledging that it is impossible to completely inoculate yourself against escalating prices).
10). Not energy related, but I resolve to read at least 40 books in 2007. I read 48 in 2005 and 34 in 2006.
I fell way short on this one. Between my blog, The Oil Drum, starting a new job, an international relocation, and various other projects, something had to give. It was my reading time. I still managed to read 21, but that was far short of my goal. The five best books I read in 2007 were Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon,
Final grade? I give myself a B+. I would give myself an A if I had found a location that would allow me to bike to work. I know it’s only 4 miles, but I chose to live instead.
For 2008, big changes are in store. More on this during Q1 of 2008.
RR-
I resolve in 2008 to get a car that runs on reclaimed vegetable oil. Not so hard–I rent space to a fellow who converts old diesel cars (VWs, Mercedes and some others) to run on reclaimed vegetable oil from restaurants. A heater is installed to keep the oil running. He has put 100k on his diesel truck (old Dodge something, so I guess it works. I wish I could convert my 1986 Isuzu Trooper, but it runs on gasoline.
Getting out of debt? I have huge mortgage…but beyond that, I think I can do it. Wipe out credit card debts etc.
Keep this website up — it is a beacon of light in a world deeply confused about energy.
Very good. You’re doing far better than most people. I’ve converted all but 7 fixtures to compact fluorescent lights. Two are table lamps that can’t convert because the lampshade support systems. One is a chandelier and would need a new switch (eliminating the dimmer) and a whole new light fixture. And two are bedside lamps with 7 1/2 watt bulbs in them. Compact fluorescent lights do not go that dim.
As for public transport, I’m not at all surprised. If I may give you a small “I told you so” (at least I think it was you), public transportation is designed to waste your time. For most people, the question boils down to “would I rather spend a couple hours a day being sort of green or would I rather spend that time doing something else like, reading books, being with my family or going to school?”
If you really want to use energy conserving transportation, for about half to three quarters of the year, you can ride on two wheels (with appropriate safety gear) and cut your gasoline consumption by almost half. If it’s close enough you can use an electric scooter, you drop consumption even more. It turns out that with electric scooters, two wheeled transportation is both cheaper and faster than public transportation.
Yes, two wheels is more risky than traveling in a car but for anyone over 30, the accident rate is about twice to three times that of cars. If memory serves, in the UK, because of the basic Rider course and public education, it’s now a tossup as to who has a higher accident rate, motorcycles, or bicycles. Anyway, point being that you can change energy consumption profile by changing what you use for transportation.
Best of luck in the new year
Dimmable CFLs with chandelier (small) bases:
http://tinyurl.com/2y7bcs
Can’t vouch for them as I haven’t tried them myself.
Can you explain what getting out of debt has to do with energy?
I recognize that the construction of the suburbs was financed by debt and that that has been a huge waste of energy. But, holding my choice of where to live constant, how does being in debt affect my energy consumption?
More practically: Suppose someone is considering taking out a home equity loan, which would increase their amount of debt, to perform efficiency upgrades to their home (e.g. solar PV) – would you say that a net win or loss?
RR wrote: “I explain that the best thing you personally can do is to get out of debt and tailor your lifestyle toward using less energy. That way, if gas prices go to $5 or $10 a gallon, your budget will be less susceptible to these increases…”
I suspect better to pay cash for energy efficiency upgrades than to go into debt.
I second Benny’s comments. Keep this blog going, even if you aren’t able to post as much.
I resolve in 2008 to get a car that runs on reclaimed vegetable oil. Not so hard–I rent space to a fellow who converts old diesel cars (VWs, Mercedes and some others) to run on reclaimed vegetable oil from restaurants.
This is one area where the EU is worse than the USA: if they catch you doing this in the EU, they charge you with tax evation, for not paying the ridiculous tax on each liter of fuel. Talk about a self-defeating policy.
I see oil has quietly crept up to ~$96/bbl – seems like the $1000 bet has not been settled yet! Ah, the suspense…
I have enabled comment moderation for now, as Dave Mathews is once again trolling.
Dave, you long ago lost the right to ask me any questions. I would happily answer the same questions from anyone else, but you threw that opportunity away long ago. As I have said, nothing you ever write will be allowed to stand here. Not even “Have a nice day.”
RR
run on reclaimed vegetable oil from restaurants.
This is one area where the EU is worse than the USA: if they catch you doing this in the EU, they charge you with tax evation
They go after individuals for fuel tax evasion in the US too.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/599471.html
I read somewhere else about a woman who tried to comply and pay the tax, but there was no legal mechanism for her to do so.
“Can you explain what getting out of debt has to do with energy?”
That is actually more of a Peak Oil precaution. If things start to really turn south, I want to be debt-free so I can use more of my income for things that I really need.
Excellent, I think. On trying to teach kids about conserving energy, you are in exactly the same situation as I am. If I had a dime for every time I shut off an unneeded light…
I must agree with anon 6:08, public transport is terrible unless you live and work in a major city like New York, DC, etc. I ride an electric scooter as much as possible, gets me where I need to go just as quickly as an auto, using no gas. Happy New Year, RR!
Cutting one’s own energy use is a nice hobby. But conservation is absolutely, positively NOT going to help address the real problem.
The real problem for the human race is that somewhere between 2 & 4 Billion human beings alive today do not have enough energy to provide for basic human dignity. Those poor people are never going to conserve their way to a decent life — and westerners are never going to cut their energy use enough to supply their growing demand. (Even the guy who chooses to ride a bike still rides it along a road constructed & maintained with huge energy inputs).
Global energy is a supply-side issue. We need to develop the technology to expand global energy production many times. Talk to as many people as you can about that.
Excellent ideas. I recently switched jobs so I now take the train instead of driving to work. The getting out of debt part is a great idea in case things really get bad. However, I have found it very hard to do . . .
Wow, Clee!
That is a story loaded with contradictions and misconceptions.
1. The guy paid $1,200 for the privilege of burning a fuel that costs him 30% more. Dumb economics.
2. The guy is burning food (soy oil). Instead of Goodbye, OPEC, OPEC must be laughing their heads off at this level of stupidity. You can almost hear them chant: Keep burning your food America. We are ready to sell you oil AND food.
Of course, if he chose to burn waste cooking oil, everything is different. But it seems Mr. VIP would rather burn food.
3. To legally use veggie oil, state officials told him, he would have to first post a $2,500 bond. Sometimes laws are just dumber than rocks!
4. But officials say they’ll keep pursuing taxes on all fuels used in highway vehicles. With its 29.9-cent a gallon gas tax, the state collects $1.2 billion each year to pay for road construction. Are these guys for real? Wonder what the cost: benefit ratio is for all the pursuing is? All alt fuel users put together can’t cost them more than 5% of the total.
5. As recreational vehicles streamed in for race week, revenue investigators were checking fuel tanks of diesel RVs for illegal fuel. Illegal fuel? What the …? This is the type of story that would convince people there really is a Big Oil-Government conspiracy.
6. Teixeira says revenue officials are just doing their jobs. But he thinks it’s unfair that he was lumped with people who purposely try to avoid fuel taxes. Please explain, Mr. Smart Guy, what the difference is.
The real problem for the human race is that somewhere between 2 & 4 Billion human beings alive today do not have enough energy to provide for basic human dignity.
Fair enough, affordable energy is one of the poor’s many problems. But if you think cheap energy will solve all their problems, you are sadly mistaken.
They are going to have to work their way out of poverty, the way China and India are doing right now. Good leadership and less corruption would certainly help. Cheap energy is not a priority, IMHO.
I think expensive energy brings more benefits (competitive alternatives, conservation, efficiency) than problems. I also see $100/bbl as a sign of a strong world economy.
Crude at ~$97.50/bbl! RR, are you watching? I guess the unforeseen trouble in Pakistan is making matters worse.
A great time to buy puts. One year out.
People have a mistaken idea that fossil oil use is “soaring.”
It was was up, globally, 0.7 percent in 2006. Almost surely less in 2007. And 2008? I predict it will decline.
US gasoline consumption, in four-week periods, now flat to last year’s. Finally.
$4 gasoline coming to USA.
China and India expending massive amounts to avoid growing fossil oil consumption in future. They are importers too.
The bad news? Thug states control the world’s oil. Hard to invest in thugland.
Just to add some UK based facts to the debate, HM customs & revenue now allow private consumption of veg oil for on road use up to something like 2000 litres/year per car tax free.
You have to register first but other than that, there is no tax to pay.
Seeing as you can purchase veg oil in bulk at they large supermarkets for about 38p/litre, this would explain why I’ve seen trolleys full of empty oil containers in two supermarket car parks this year.
Normally diesel is £1.03/litre.
Andy
“I think expensive energy brings more benefits (competitive alternatives, conservation, efficiency) than problems.”
No disagreement there. But the issue is not just price — it is AVAILABILITY, at any price.
For sure, the poor of this world (many of whom live in India & China) are going to have to work their way out of poverty. As they do so, their demand for energy will inevitably increase — a supply-side issue.
Well-meaning westerners making marginal cuts in their existing total energy demand are simply not going to free up enough supplies to meeting the growing demand from human beings in developing countries. We have a supply-side issue.
The good news is that we have the technology today to meet a lot of that incipient demand. Why won’t we use it? What is the point of being personally careful about our energy use if we don’t also face the huge need to expand global energy supplies?
Enjoy:
Vinod Khosla blows his credibility dissing plug-ins
Used veggie oil from Los Angeles restaurants is free, though it must be strained and heated to be usable. There are not enough diesels in CA to use it all up (diesels have not sold here for years).
I advise anyone in the American Southwest (home of greasy restaurants) to consider the switch. You read that straight veggie oil will not work. In warm climates, I see that it does. The cars are used (no new energy consumption to make). It seems like an eco win-win, and good for the pocketbook too. There are not enough diesels in America yet to result in demand for used restaurant grease.
A very good carry-over until that day PHEVs are commonly available.
Benny,
Are you going to be using the dual tank system, with a heater in the grease tank? In that case, cold weather concerns go away.
If you are just going to be putting grease in your diesel tank, I’d call you… brave…
Umm. I don’t really know. The guy doing conversions sets up cars with rather large tanks, filters and heating elements. I have never done this myself. But he drives coast-to-coast all the time, and seems to have no trouble with his Dodge van, which looks about 20 years old, and which smells like popcorn.
i guess restaurants actually pay to have their grease taken away, although that will probably change in time.
Like I said, probably this is a short-term freebie, a few more years, then on to PHEVs or whatever.
I note that large bottles of veggie oil at Costco are not that much more expensive than gasoline. Five gallon bottles. I find this interesting.
Robert Rapier, I’ve read your comments and I like your blog. Unfortunately, a lot of people have gotten into “incendiary commenting”. This is pretty unfortunate, as the typical misinformation and thinly-veiled insults and pithy false pronouncements last longer in one’s mental wheelhouse than the “good stuff”. A lot of us are really scratching our heads at the odious incivility. Better than bullets, to be sure. Once again, keep up the good, interesting work!
Any comments on this story?
Analysts said the big drop in U.S. crude stocks, which was the 20th in 25 weeks, may not prove as price supportive as it appears in the longer term, and is in a big part due to companies in Gulf Coast states trying to lessen taxes on end-of-year inventory.
“This time of year you tend to see Gulf Coast inventories draw down as much as possible as companies try to minimize their exposure to tax,” said John Duff, an analyst with the DOE’s Energy Information Administration in Washington. “I suspect we’ll start to see inventories rebuild at the start of 2008.”
Oil companies are taxed on their inventories at the end of the year, based on what they paid for oil. This means that with oil prices up more than 50% so far this year, companies want to reduce any additions to stockpiles they had made. Gulf Coast states such as Texas and Louisiana have higher taxes on inventory than many other states.
I just had a peverse thought.
Debt (at current interest rates) will actually become attractive in an era of Peak Oil driven inflation.
Inflation (if very severe) will wipe out a significant proportion of the value of your debt (just as it will erase the value of any savings you have).
So… borrow money and buy gold?
LOL
Benny,
That sounds like the dual tank system. Do you get a button on the dash to switch between “normal” diesel (after starting and before shutting down) and grease?
benny cole writes
i guess restaurants actually pay to have their grease taken away, although that will probably change in time.
It’s already changing in San Francisco, where the city will haul away the used kitchen grease for free in an attempt to avoid having the grease poured into sewers.
http://www.SFGreasecycle.org/
Clee,
That’s a separate issue. The reason why grease is vailable in the first place, is that you are not allowed to pour it down the drain. This means you have to pay somebody to take it.
Of course, if you think that costs too much, you may still quietly pour it down the drain.
Some cities are accepting the grease and feeding it into the anaerobic digesters at their wastewater treatment plants, where it tends to supercharge the process: you get better solids destruction as well as much better gas production.
Robert, how many miles have you flown this year? Your international relocation and trips home (and back) would have cancelled out all the other improvements you’ve made to your lifestyle many times over.
This is not a criticism, just an observation. We are all in denial about air travel.
Clee-
With gasoline headed for $4 a gallon, I wonder how long until restaurant grease is valued. Can’t be much longer. A few years, maybe more in the Southwest US were there are few diesels and an abundance of greasy restaurants.
Meanwhile, you have “free” gasoline in Los Angeles. Well, you have to pick it up and store it. Messy.
I’ll have you know that I restrained myself about air miles. But since Carbonsink mentioned it – if it was me I’d keep a log for 2008, maybe even with an estimate of craft-occupancy.
Your international relocation and trips home (and back) would have cancelled out all the other improvements you’ve made to your lifestyle many times over.
Not true. I don’t fly that much. While in Scotland, we will make 1 trip home a year. But I have plugged all of our usage into the carbon footprint calculators, and we still come in far below average.
Furthermore, those calculators don’t take into account things like composting, or getting other people to make changes. For instance, my parents have burned their trash for my entire life. Over the holidays, I am building my Mom a composter. People have written to me and said that my writing had influenced their energy usage. So, all in all, my airline travel – which is limited to start with – doesn’t offset the other changes I have made.
Cheers, RR
Robert
On number 4.
If you buy the excellent Scottish, grass fed beef that is available, from local farmers, you are doing no worse for the environment (and perhaps better) than vegetarians who eat ready-made meals, or ingredients sourced from hundreds or thousands of miles away.
You are almost certainly doing more for the environment than eating any fish, except a Scottish-caught salmon.
Meat eating, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It’s the production chain by which we source meat (feedlots, slaughterhouses etc.) which is wrong.
Can’t fault you on anything else and sorry that your child doesn’t instantly ‘get’ it. It’s hard for people who are not technically trained, to think in a logical fashion.
As always, your thoughts and posts this year are much valued and my sincerest thanks for them, and best wishes in the New Year.
Sincerely
Valuethinker
As I understand it, best-case air miles are basically equal in CO2 production to best-case (Prius etc.) car miles.
So you can look at miles (in full planes) as additive to your total miles driving.
I’ve driven my Prius at the rate of 33K miles / 2.5 years or 13K miles/yr which is pretty much average.
‘course I don’t need to add any air miles, or even count my compost pile 😉
odograph: The airlines like to compare CO2 emissions per passenger mile with those of cars. What they never mention is cars can usually carry 4-5 people and don’t deliver a cocktail of greenhouse gases (CO2, NOx, water vapour etc) into the upper atmosphere where its greenhouse impact is far more damaging.
RR: I don’t doubt you are doing far better than the average affluent westerner, but its probably well short of what we all need to do to mitigate climate change and peak oil.
Your lifestyle *without* the flying across the Atlantic would be closer to the carbon footprint we all need to achieve.
Your lifestyle *without* the flying across the Atlantic would be closer to the carbon footprint we all need to achieve.
Transatlantic flight is not going away, at worst the pool of people who can afford it may shrink a lot.
The challenge then is to make transatlantic flight as green as possible.
Also, what does the carbon footprint we all need to achieve look like?
Also, what does the carbon footprint we all need to achieve look like?
Oh about a 90% reduction (according to Monbiot anyway)
Consider that the world needs a 60% reduction by mid-century, and it appears very unlikely carbon caps will be imposed on developing countries (China, India etc). That means the developed world will need to cut much deeper, 70, 80 or even 90%.
I agree that trans-Atlantic flight won’t go away, it will just become very, very expensive and probably slower. I forsee a big return of propeller aircraft flying slower and at lower altititude.