[dashster]

Saw someone say this in an article comment and found the source - a Bloomberg article quoting Mark Lewis and Peter Oppitzhauser, analysts at Kepler Cheuvreux SA in Paris : "U.S. shale, for instance, accounted for about 20 percent of world investment in oil in 2013 and supplied only four percent of global production"

However, it probably should compare current investment with production from that investment, not total production which is benefiting from past investment. But given the higher decline rates of tight oil production, it wouldn't be a perfect comparison since I think a tight oil field will produce less versus it's first year, than a conventional oil field will.

[Subjectivist]

If it really took 20 percent of money investments and based on stock reaction people are bailing out of shale rapidly it won't be long before the ripples gather into a Tsunami.

[dolanbaker]

Maybe it'll be replaced by increases in fuel economy and fewer miles driven, then its loss will not really be noticed.

[ennui2]

Fewer miles means less commerce.

Hello. This is the 21st century, not the Mad Men era. Not all "commerce" involves physical products moving around. How many "miles" does it take to buy a track from iTunes? How many jobs can be executed by telecommuters?

[ROCKMAN]

According to the EIA oil from the shales during Dec 2014 is 5.24 million bopd. Based upon the best guess for global production that represents about 5.8%. And then there's always the question about what "oil" means but we'll let that dog along. Some of that 5million bopd is from a lot of shale wells that have passed thru their high decline rate phase and some are still dropping like a rock. Again, splitting hairs a bit to worry much about IMHO.

So higher oil prices led to a lot of shale wells drilled with the subsequent production increase. Lower oil prices = fewer wells drilled and thus fewer new high rate producers. So where do we end up at in 12 months? Take a guess. But it doesn't matter what anyone here guesses: we should have a good idea in the next 6 to 12 months. In the mean time let the war of words carry forth and may the victor be suitably rewarded. LOL.

[dashster]

Fuel-economy increases have already been wrung out of the system by modern aerodynamic auto design. Any further mileage improvement (at the expense of car-body weight/safety and slower speeds) would decrease worker productivity. Reigning paradigm finds that Not Acceptable.

Can you elaborate on why you feel that fuel economy increases will decrease worker productivity?

I think you are incorrect in attributing fuel economy gains to aerodynamics or primarily to aerodynamics. I believe it is primarily smaller engines in smaller cars. And there is still a long way to go for that, at least in America. Americans do not, for the most part, drive small cars. In fact, they still use SUVs and trucks as commute vehicles and switched to both when fuel economy standards were created and made more lenient for both.

[ralfy]

Hello. This is the 21st century, not the Mad Men era. Not all "commerce" involves physical products moving around. How many "miles" does it take to buy a track from iTunes? How many jobs can be executed by telecommuters?

Virtual economies rest on incredible levels of energy and material resources usage, including those needed to manufacture and transport media players, not to mention making and replacing more, etc. The same goes for tens of thousands of consumer goods, the infrastructure needed to manufacture and transport them together with raw materials and components, the increased frequency in which they are moved to keep storage and inventory costs low, etc.

[Keith_McClary]

Cutler Cleveland notes, “A dollar's worth of steel requires 93,000 BTU to produce in the United States; a dollar's worth of financial services uses 9,500 BTU."

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
Richard Heinberg - 2011

[Poordogabone]

Aside from a few hybrids modern cars our NOT aerodynamic.
It is obvious that they push a ton of air. It is obvious as well that marketing cars that look like big toys is much more lucrative than slick aerodynamic ones.

[Tanada]

Pstarr look at your own graph, horsepower has grown substantially for a modest increase in weight. In car terms that means a formerly modest 4 cylinder engine can provide as much horsepower as the V-6 of the 1990's era cars. The Dodge heavy duty trucks with their V-10 engines have declined and been replaced with higher horsepower but lighter V-8 versions. Total horsepower went way up, weight increased modestly and since 2000 model year this has been paying off in steadily improving fuel economy across the board.

[Withnail]

America was not built on downloads and the so-called "digital economy" is mostly a diversion for wealthy white people. The rest of the world uses bittorrents

I am white and I endorse this message.

[dolanbaker]

Building smaller cars, ain't rocket science!
We've been doing it for years in Europe & Japan and a lot of other places as well.

[dashster]

Pstarr look at your own graph, horsepower has grown substantially for a modest increase in weight. In car terms that means a formerly modest 4 cylinder engine can provide as much horsepower as the V-6 of the 1990's era cars. The Dodge heavy duty trucks with their V-10 engines have declined and been replaced with higher horsepower but lighter V-8 versions. Total horsepower went way up, weight increased modestly and since 2000 model year this has been paying off in steadily improving fuel economy across the board.

That's all true, but I posted the graph to support my contention that fuel savings were due to streamlining, not weight or horsepower reductions. (the engine may be light, but the vehicle weight has increased and it draws lots of fuel.) And therefore that further fuel saving would not happen. (Unless we transmigrate the air off planet with those unfortunate attendant problems. )

If vehicles really are larger, with more powerful engines, then we can save more fuel by building smaller cars with smaller engines. The Geo Metro/Chevy Sprint were small cars that had 3 cylinder engines and got highway mileage in the low 40's. In July 2009 Car and Driver tested what they called a 1998 Chevy Metro against a 2010 Prius hybrid and both got 42 mpg in their test.

One problem with gas mileage reductions is that over time each additional mpg accounts for a smaller savings. If you drive 10,000 miles a year in a car of the early 1970's getting 13 mpg, you use 769.23 gallons. If you drive an average car today getting 26 mpg (13 mpg better) you use 384.615 gallons a reduction of 384.615 gallons a year (50%). But if you then switch to a Prius getting 39 mpg (13 mpg better), you use 256.41 gallons, a reduction of only 128.205 gallons (33%).

[dashster]

What is adjusted fuel economy. Is this graph supposed to be showing the "average car"? Does it also include trucks and SUVs?

Dasher it is not primarily smaller engines in small cars that has increased mpg. Both horsepower and weight have increased . . . while gas mileage has gone way way up. So yes, it seems efficiency gains must be mostly aerodynamic. And those improvements have been wrung out as far as they can go. Without adding skirts.

The improvements in mpg from aerodynamics don't account for all the mpg improvements we have seen since the early 1970's according to the numbers given in this article.

At the high end of drag coefficient we have trucks at 0.40 to .44 (SUVs .36 to .41).
At the low end of drag coefficient is a Toyota Prius at 0.26.



A boxy Volvo 960 had a drag coefficient of .36.


So if they shaped a Volvo 960 like a Toyota Prius, it would have an improvement in drag coefficient of .10 . He says that for every .01 improvement in drag coefficiency of a car, you get an improvement in a car's fuel economy of approximately .2 mpg. So if the Volvo 960 got 25 mpg, and we shaped it like a Prius it would get (.2 x (.1/.01) = 2mpg ) 27 mpg. There has been a much bigger improvement in gas mileage from the 1970's to today than 2mpg.