Category Archives: Energy

The Petroleum Gap

The latest EPRI* Journal (PDF) has an interesting article about the future of hybrid vehicles and the benefits of new plug-in technology, which has led to the ungainly name of PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles). New York, Kansas City and LA are apparently testing a Dodge Sprinter PHEV and seeing some pretty amazing results.

At current U.S. energy prices — that is with the cost of gasoline at $3 per gallon and the national average cost of electricity at 8.5c per kilowatthour — a PHEV runs on an equivalent of 75c per gallon. And given that half the cars on U.S. roads are driven 25 miles a day or less, a plug-in with even a 20-mile-range battery could reduce petroleum fuel consumption by about 60%.

A PHEV passenger car is said to be able to recharge in three to four hours on a regular 120V (well, regular for the US) outlet, and ideally would be charged at the end of the day when “40% of the generating capacity in the United States sits idle or operates at reduced load overnight.”

I hate to ask but will the diesel version of the Sprinter (based on the Mercedes engine) have a PHEV option? The electric-city/biodiesel-highway vehicle seems like the perfect high-performance low-cost solution to help drive the US economy and military away from the impending petroleum disaster.

* Electric Power Research Institute

Here is one of the graphs from the report, which actually mentions increasing security risks due to petroleum-based energy:


EPRI chart of the US Petroleum Gap

The Hertfordshire oil depot investigation

The BBC report about this massive catastrophe starts off rather ominously:

The man in charge of investigating the massive fires at a Hertfordshire oil depot on Sunday says the flames may have destroyed all clues to the cause.

Further along it adds a bit more hope:

A police investigation into the incident has begun, including investigations by anti-terrorist police.
But Chief Con Whiteley said there was “nothing to suggest anything other than an accident”.

In a classic risk matrix the volatility and demand for petroleum is going to continue to add significant security costs. The value of the fuel has skyrocketed, the threats are clearly higher, and therefore the vulnerabilities must be addressed. In this case the vulnerability involved “20 petrol tanks…each said to hold three million gallons of fuel”. Even if you use the American fuel average price of US$2.50/gal that means US$150 million in fuel assets exposed, let alone the equipment value or the cost to the economy when the fuel supply is disrupted and the sky filled with toxic thick smoke.

Compare that to the almost inert properties of stored bio-diesel. Unlike many other forms of stored energy, the pollutive and combustive values of bio-diesel are incredibly low, which makes it a far safer fuel. My sense is that the military is already exploring this for obvious reasons (an ex-SF recently explained to me that the Humvees running bio-diesel are nowhere near as explosive since their fuel tanks can not be “weaponized” by IEDs). From a civilian market standpoint I have to wonder whether the petroleum companies will be able to find a way to reassure their respective governments that they are capable of resolving the inherent national security deficiencies of their industry. Will their record profits be spent on reducing the asset value (lowering the price), reducing the vulnerabilities (lower volatility, build giant fortresses around tanks), or can they help reduce the threats (ban smoking, help stabilize democracies, fund education)? How many people will face serious health risks from the burning petroleum?

We’re reaching a moment similar to when the mid-range systems started to steal cycles away from the highly profitable but totally unflexible mainframe, later to be replaced themselves with personal/distributed computing. Fuel production is ripe for the same sort of reorganization, with more widely distributed cells of production at lesser individual capacity providing a system more aligned with popular values….

The M1 is closed down

Edited to add:

    The BBC also reports that “The Buncefield depot is said to supply a third of the fuel for Heathrow. Some aircraft are only being allowed 40% of the fuel they would normally take on board and airport company BAA said restrictions could last some weeks.”

End of the line for London’s Buses

I find it quite sad that the historic “Routemaster” red double-deckers are being put out to pasture, instead of updated and maintained as part of London’s heritage and gift to the world of transportation.

Something about the trust model of an open back entry space always intrigued me, as well as the fact that the driver was in a completely different role than the ticket-taker (similar to a train). I have known several people who spent their early years serving in either or both roles (rural routes often only employed a driver) and they shared many funny anecdotes about the security system used to keep passengers honest. In some sense the group of passengers themselves provided a baseline of behavior and could intervene if someone was out of line. I suspect it is the opposite today, with a driver relying on a surveillance system and virtual law enforcement techniques to protect the passengers from themselves.

There are some legitimate issue with the 50-year old design, which probably could have been improved. Similar to historic buildings that are updated and retrofitted to modern standards, at least some of these buses deserve to continue their services rather than be deprecated and wholly replaced by a series of economically driven short-term visions of the future. Fortunately, it appears a group is working on just that kind of mission, which they call the Heritage route.

Incidentally, London is scheduled to host an international transport security conference in central London, November 13-15, 2005. I wonder if anyone will cover the issue of domestic and secure fuel sources? With all the greasy fish-and-chip shops, one would think England’s public fuel supply-chain could be dramatically improved.

Bio-Diesel and the Military

I just ran across a report by Wired, published on September 28th, called “Green Berets Prefer Biodiesel“. I am thus happy to correct myself and say my earlier post on this subject, as well as the follow-up, were a bit hasty. Wired says that the military has been steadily increasing bio-diesel use for several years now.

This is great news for several reasons. The military move towards diesel motorcycles may quickly prove the viability of a robust yet small consumer engine. In addition, the fact that the Army, Navy, US Postal Service, Department of Agriculture, and NASA are all looking at bio-diesel means a more acceptable alternative to petroleum-based fuels could be on the precipice of mass adoption in a country that has been virtually blind to the importance of alternative fuels.

“That’s important to the military’s role as a public citizen, says [fleet manager for Marine Corps vehicles in Camp Pendleton] Funk. ‘We operate our vehicles on the public highways,’ he says. ‘Biodiesel sends a signal to the American public that we’re working to keep the air clean, and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.'”

Admittedly, while it is nice to hear fleet managers give a kinder-gentler environmental message, the realist/security practitioner in me says bio-diesel is a more secure and sustainable fuel for domestic as well as foreign troop deployments. The article even mentions that waste oil from the mess halls is now used to fuel the transport vehicles. No matter how you slice it, bio-diesel is the fuel that just keeps giving — engines run longer (better lubricity) as well as cleaner (less smoke) and can take just about any fat/oil you can scrounge up, which leads to far less vulnerability in storage and transit. It stands to reason, therefore, that special forces would go this route given the obvious reduction in vulnerabilities compared to traditional petroleum supply-chain and storage.

Just imagine if consumer-grade Diesel engines today had half as much development and innovation effort put into them as other engines (like the new Corvette Z06 powerplant). I look forward to a diesel-hybrid in the (near?) future for the ultimate in efficiency and performance without the inherent security risks of petroleum.