Trevor.

> Adapting new cars to run on CNG might not be a bad idea IMHO.

Unfortunately the Muldoon government built power stations which used up lots of the gas, so there’s not much left.

If we had used the gas directly for cooking and water heating, the amount of electricity use it displaced would have been about three times as much as the amount of electricity the power station gave us. This way it could have lasted 3 times as long, or we could have had plenty left over for CNG to power transport.

Unfortunately that option is only available in the North Island.

Trevor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/20/oil.useconomy

An explosion at a Texas oil refinery sparked early nerves among traders, causing a shutdown of the Big Spring facility which processes 70,000 barrels of oil per day. There was also concern about heightened tension between America and Hugo Chavez’s regime in oil producing Venezuela.

But analysts said the real reason for a $4.51 rise during the day was a mounting recognition that Opec could tighten the flow of oil into the global market when oil ministers meet on March 5.

and

Algeria’s oil minister Chakib Khelil, who chairs Opec, told Reuters: “Production is not going to increase. It will either decrease or be stable.”

So a broken pump can cause the odd ripple, but it takes a statement by the chairman of OPEC to really put the frighteners into the market.

They’re not building more refinery capacity because there is no likelihood of any increase in production. OPEC will not increase production because it cant - the easy oil is running out.

Venezuela has not increased production over the last five years or so because its easy oil is cut as well, and its nerves about Enron et al are more about grabbing a bigger share of a diminishing resource than about socialism vs capitalism. That’s why Chavez is very anxious about possible military interference from USA because he is walking the fine line between clinging to his country’s major source of income vs posing a strategic threat to a power that has already anexed by military conquest much of OPEC’s production in Arabia.

Its not a pretty picture is it?!?!

It’s ironic and slightly forgetful that frog says “this could indeed be the plateau that has long been forecast by the Peak Oil community” when in fact this is the view of organisations like CERA and IEA who they usually refer to plateaus. Peakies usually refer to a rapid fall from a peak as you regularly see in Colin Campbell’s work

http://www.aspo-ireland.org/contentFiles/newsletterPDFs/newsletter85_2 00801.pdf

for those who think the oil peak is good news for global warming, remember it isn’t proposing a date after which all oil use will entirely cease! it will decline gradually. the problem of global warming is still with us - especially as some are saying action is urgently needed, if not already too late.
besides, incentivizing carbon emission reduction also helps incentivize the search for alternative energy. a free-for-all approach merely puts off the necessary action

In 1999 a private developer offered to incorporate a bus exchange into a central city retail development. The city council agreed to the proposal and Transfund promptly commited $5million to make it happen. In 2004 it became obvious that the bus exchange was reaching its traffic capacity years earlier than expected. The government promised to increase Canterbury’s land transport funding by $50 million a year, so funding wouldn’t be a problem. The government reneged on it’s promise so here we are four years later with the bus exchange unable to cope with the public response to high petrol prices and second exchange not expected to be constructed before 2012.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4407285a6530.html
This government can sure talk the talk but it aint walkin’ the walk.