The Growing Need for Fuel Substitution, Efficiency, and Conservation
Stacy Feldman of solveclimate.com wrote a prescient post today about the coming clash between growing car demand and peak oil. Basically, there will be so many new cars added to the road in the next ten years (think China, India) that global petroleum usage will increase overall, even with drastic fuel efficiency increases. Add to that the eventual economic depletion of oil, and we have a a bit of a situation on our hands:
(1) The number of cars on the road globally will hit 1 billion by 2011.
(2) The world’s oil will peak by 2015, according to the CEO of Shell.
Better fuel efficiency + more cars = more oil burned.
Mull this over and America’s new CAFE standards of 35 mpg seem rather impotent. What’s needed is a multi-pronged approached to energy independence, based on three primary concepts:
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- » See also: Whistleblower: World Running Out of Oil Faster Than IEA Says
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Conservation: Improving public transportation and increasing average fuel efficiency above 35 mpg.
- Substitution: Increasing biofuel use to at least 35% by 2020 (see previous announcements 1 and 2).
- Technology: Implementing advanced technologies like plug-in hybrids and electric cars.
Each of these has the potential to make a substantial dent in America’s petroleum usage, but none of them can do it alone, and none of them should be overemphasized.
What will it take to move all three of these forward? Mandates? Incentives? Dictatorship? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
For a few ways you can reduce your dependence on petroleum, see the Biodiesel Guide:
7 Steps to Buying a Diesel and
6 Ways To Find And Use Biodiesel Anywhere
Learn How To Make Biodiesel On YouTube
Related Post:
U.S. Gasoline Still Among World’s Cheapest
It goes without saying that fuel consumption is tied directly to the number of miles driven every day by American commuters. It also goes without saying that the easiest way to cut back on commuter miles is for people to work remotely.
In the past, this required people to telecommute from their own home. There is a new option for people who want to work remotely, but prefer working in a professional office space outside the home. The new option is based on people working from Remote Office Centers.
Remote Office Centers lease individual offices, internet, and phone systems to workers from multiple companies in shared centers located near where people live (around the suburbs). Remote Office Centers allow people to skip the long commute by taking advantage of office space located a mile or two from their home.
There is a free web site for people who are interested in finding a Remote Office Center near where they live: http://www.remoteofficecenters.com
There is a new option for commuters who want to save fuel and cut down on their daily commute. Workers can work remotely out of a Remote Office Center. Remote Office Centers lease individual offices, internet, and phone systems to workers from multiple companies in shared centers located near where people live (around the suburbs). Remote Office Centers allow people to skip long and expensive commutes, by taking advantage of office space near where they live. Most office workers spend their day on the phone and on computer systems that are hosted in some remote center anyway. There is no reason to drive to some distant office when a remote office will work just as well.
Remote Office Centers offer a simple solution to the high price of gas and endless hours wasted in heavy traffic every day. If you can pick the location of your office, then you have more options on how to get to work: walking, biking or mass transit. In any event, it is going to take less time and fuel than commuting across town through heavy commuter traffic.
There is a free web site for people who are interested in finding a Remote Office Center near where they live: http://www.remoteofficecenters.com
It goes without saying that the best way to conserve fuel is to cut back on miles driven. There really is no reason to drive back and forth to work every day, if you have the option of working in an office near where you live and connecting to the corporate network across the internet.