Tag Archive for: course-ESRM_462

It is hard to underestimate the influence our Federal Energy Information Agency (EIA) has on energy markets.  Their annual and quarterly reports, littered with predictions, drive investments, public policy, and global understanding of energy production and consumption.

So the recent coming to terms with the fact that the EIA has of late been hugely overestimating American petroleum consumption is cause to sit up and take notice.  A very readable overview of this overestimate was pulled together this past summer by Lydia Cox for the World Economic Forum:

US oil production has transformed itself fundamentally in the past decade.  Between 1970 and 2008, US crude oil production fell by nearly half as conventional wells were depleted.  Since 2008, however, production has rebounded from 5 million barrels per day to an average of 8.7 million barrels per day in 2014.  The almost entirely unexpected increase – largely attributable to technological innovations such as advances in horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and seismic imaging – has helped the US become the world leader in oil production.

Whereas the developments in oil production have been widely reported and appreciated, far less attention has been paid to US petroleum consumption’s remarkable decline relative to both recent levels and past projections — one of the biggest surprises to have occurred in global oil markets in recent years.  Petroleum consumption in the US was lower in 2014 than it was in 1997, despite the fact that the economy grew almost 50% over this period.  As illustrated in Figure 1, consumption rose steadily from 1984 through the early 2000s, peaking in 2004 before decreasing in conjunction with rising oil prices.

US petroleum consumption between 1949 and 2014 (in millions of barrels of crude oil per day). Figure: Energy Information Administration (as cited in Cox 2015).

The deviation from the EIA’s estimation from more than a decade ago for our American consumption is sizable:

Deviation between historic (2003) and current (2015) EIA predictions of U.S. petroleum consumption to 2025. Figure: Energy Information Administration (cited in Cox 2015).

Unfortunately this massive deviation from the expected growth in oil consumption is a uniquely American phenomenon and primarily a transportation sector phenomenon.  Simply put, we are burning less gas a diesel in our cars and trucks due to two main factors:

• reduced miles driven on average (formally referred to as Vehicle Miles Traveled, VMT)
• improved fuel efficiency

Reduced oil consumption owes almost entirely to improved fuel consumption rate and reduced vehicle miles traveled in the transportation sector. Figure: Energy Information Administration (cited in Cox 2015).

To date the reduced miles driven accounted for the majority of fuel savings,   As Cox explained:

Between 2003 and 2014, gasoline prices explain a large share of the fuel economy increase of the light-duty fleet.  However, over time we expect fuel economy standards to have a growing influence on fuel economy — both for the light- and heavy-duty fleets.  Fuel consumption from the heavy-duty fleet accounts for one-fifth of total transportation sector consumption, and is the fastest growing component in the transportation sector.  New heavy-duty fuel economy standards that the Administration has announced will reduce actual transportation sector consumption relative to even the 2015 projections, which do not reflect these new standards.

Given the importance of miles travelled in explaining the surprises, we use household survey data to present new evidence on the factors underlying the changes.  Demographics appear to explain a very large portion of the vehicle miles travelled developments, but we also find evidence that the effects of demographics and economic variables on vehicle miles travelled have changed over the past 20 years.  Such changes present a major challenge to projecting future petroleum consumption.

On into the future, improved fuel efficiency via improving Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards will become to greater driver of lowered consumption:

In 2014, rising fuel economy explains roughly 25% of the consumption surprise, and vehicle miles travelled explain the remaining three quarters.  In the 2025 projections, however, the factors are more comparable, with fuel economy accounting for 45% of the surprise and vehicle miles travelled accounting for 55%, demonstrating the growing rule of public policies like fuel economy standards in shaping fuel use.

In sum, the high gas prices we have been seeing over the past decade have helped curb our driving habits and ultimately lead to our burning less fuel.  Over the coming decade, our current Clean Energy Strategy Policy will likely be at the root of this reduce oil consumption.  In and of itself it is not strong enough to get us to a sustainable future.  But this dramatic reduction in estimated oil consumption shows effective policy and clear drivers can indeed push our US economy into a low carbon future.  This can work.

References

Cox, Lydia.  2015.  The surprising decline in US petroleum consumption.  World Economic Forum Blog.  Posted July 10, 2015.  Accessed February 21, 2015.

Reporters are continuing to cover our work on documenting the magnitude of plastic pollution across our world ocean and the potential impacts from all this unintended petroleum waste, both macro and micro.  This week our CSUCI team headed over to downtown Ventura for a presentation to the general public on what we have found to date.

The VCReporter‘s Chris O’Neal covered this in a story that ran today:

Clare Steele is an associate professor of environmental science and resource management at California State University, Channel Islands, in Camarillo. Steele conducted research, along with seniors Dorothy Horn and Michaela Miller, that shows that plastic pollution, in particular so-called microplastics, has been found within the food chain through sand crabs, which in turn are eaten by shorebirds, who themselves are eaten by fish that could be consumed by humans.
“This is a considerable global problem that we’re really just getting a handle on,” said Steele. “We’ve known about plastic pollution on a large scale for quite some time, but people are really starting to focus on the microplastics.”
Steele and her undergraduate students began researching the topic of microplastic pollution by collecting sand samples from around the world, and in particular from Northern California and all the way to the Mexico coast.
“We’re getting samples of sand from Grand Cayman in the Caribbean, from South Africa and from Hawaii, and we’re finding this microplastic pollution in every place that we look,” said Steele.
Microplastic are, simply put, the remnants of the plastic bottles, bags, fishing lines, etc., that have broken down into smaller and smaller pieces rather than biodegrading into the environment, thereby creating pieces of plastic from half a millimeter in size to microscopic, unable to be seen by the human eye…

Dorothy Horn is a CSUCI senior studying environmental science and resource management and is one of Steele’s students. Since September 2015, Horn has dissected 125 sand crabs found on beaches from Alaska to San Diego and has discovered, thus far, that roughly 35 percent of them have “ambient fibers” within them.
Aside from being a danger to the animals that ingest them, Horn says these pollutants have a hidden danger to humans as well.
“In other species, invertebrates, mammals, they’ve shown to cause endocrine disruption, as in changes in hormone production,” said Horn, adding that increased hormones can disrupt reproduction. “If a little fish eats a little crab and so on up the food chain and then we eat the fish, well, there’s something called bio-accumulation of toxins that could have an effect on us.”
Toxins, says Steele, cling to plastics in the ocean like Velcro, creating a concentrated area of chemicals that leech out of the plastic.

Read the whole story here.

Anyone wanting a slightly shorter (than the hour long public lecture) and more technical overview of our microplastics work can check out this presentation (sorry for the lame camera work on my part) from a conference in Sacramento in November 2015:

Also, don’t forget our recent story in the Ventura County Star on microplastics.

Recovery in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon has been something of a slow recovery when it comes to the most impacted communities (mid- and deepwater).  More readily-viewable areas have seen mixed recovery.

Much of the discussion in Louisiana has centered around the payments or “getting back to work.”  A new documentary, After The Spill, by Jon Bowermaster, places the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill into the context of Louisiana’s perpetual lovefest with the oil and gas industry that has been a key driver of wetland loss and coastal erosion for more than seven decades.

Last Friday, the documentary screened at the Joy Theater in New Orleans.  Check out this provocative documentary on a screen near you and join the debate and discussion about the appropriate role of oil and gas extraction along the Gulf Coast.

See Mark Schleifstein’s summary here (from NOLA.com).

Freeway sign for the Pacific Coast Highway near Solimar Beach burns near Ventura on Saturday, Dec. 26, 2015. (image: KABC)

The current Solimar Beach Fire raging north of the City of Ventura is threatening numerous oil drilling and storage areas adjacent to Pacific Coast Highway along the Rincon coast of northwestern Ventura/southeastern Santa Barbara County.

12-28-15 23:00 Update:

As of 17:00, Ventura County Fire is reporting 100% containment with only about 70 personnel on the ground engaged in mopping up efforts.  Officials revised the burn area to 562 hectares (1,388 acres). At last report, all oil and gas facilities were reported undamaged.  The same goes for homes and buildings: no significant damage.

12-27-15 22:00 Update:

We have seen some awesome sunsets across Ventura County these last two nights.  The particulates in the air over the western reaches of the county are not posing a health threat (they are primarily blowing right offshore), but are treating us to some wonderful colors.

Sunset from W Potrero Road above our CSU Channel Islands campus. Boxing Day, 2015.

Fire officials were reporting 75% containment as of 17:30 Sunday night with fire personnel on scene down to 335 people.  Officials also disclosed the oil operation at the ignition site was part of the holdings of California Resources Corporation.

The active front has moved well inland from PCH.  Comparatively little scorching happened in the immediate coastal zone, with flames apparently jumping PCH over less than a linear mile of freeway.  All told I saw burned hillsides over no more than a five mile stretch of PCH as I drove the area earlier today.

Coastal hillsides along the Rincon section of PCH. This gives you a good idea of what the vegetation looked like as of two days ago (pre-burn).

Coastal hills along the Rincon section of PCH midday on December 27, 2015.

12-27-15 9:00 Update:

See the latest from the VC Star.

Ventura County Fire Officials are now reporting 70% containment.  Staffing is a bit down from yesterday at a reported 426 firefighters on scene as of this morning.

The cause of the blaze has now been confirmed to be private power lines that were blown down by high winds.  These were on an oil production company’s property.  There were near active wells, but those wells were apparently not damaged.  Usually these areas are devoid of vegetation.

12-26-15 23:00 Update:

See the latest from the VC Star and LA Times.

All lanes of PCH and all rail service had reopened at of mid afternoon as winds have continued to slacked throughout the day.  The immediate coastal zone and associated oil infrastructure is mostly out of danger at the moment.  Ventura County Fire Department is reporting 60% containment as of this evening thanks to the huge support in both manpower and air support.

The Solimar Beach Fire

A Ventura County Fire Department engine on PCH as flames range from the Solimar Beach Fire burning just north of Ventura on December 26, 2015 (Image: Ryan Cullom).

The fire viewed from the city of Ventura (Image: Ventura County Fire).

Solimar Fire from the cockpit of a Ventura County Air Unit Copter 7 making a pass on the morning of December 26, 2105 (image: tweet from Ventura County Air Unit).

A train passes a burned segment of hillside e along PCH just North of Ventura, Boxing Day, 2015 (Image: Chuck Kirman/Ventura County Star).

A fast-spreading, offshore wind-whipped wildfire has burned as estimated 480 ha (1200 acres) of coastline (as of the 11:00am press briefing on December 26, 2015) near Solimar Beach north of Ventura, California.  The fire has prompted mandatory evacuations along the nearby beach enclaves and a complete closures the 101 Freeway (aka Pacific Coast Highway aka PCH) in both directions as of early Saturday morning.  Rail lines which parallel the freeway along this section of our coast are also shut down until further notice.

Ventura County Fire personnel are working the fire with more than 600 fire fighters on scene or en route to the fight the fire.  The flames are being pushed by a strong northwest wind and currently poses a potential threat to oil, gas, power and rail infrastructure.

Ventura County Fire estimating it will take them about three days to get full containment.

Fire incident map as of midmorning on Boxing Day, 2015. Map: Ventura County Fire

While the actual ignition has yet to be determined, the fire appears to have begun around 10:30 p.m.  Christmas night near the 3000 block of West Pacific Coast Highway.  Overnight flames were within 50 m (150 feet) of the sand and various of our long-term sandy beach monitoring sites.

Solamar Beach Fire freeway closures as of Boxing Day, 2015.

Oil & Gas Infrastructure in Harms Way

Fire officials claim to be on cautiously worried about oil and gas facilities in the vicinity, citing the fact that oil companies have cleared ample brush around the perimeters of their operations and are now working closely with emergency personnel to avoid any problems.

Detail of the San Miguelito oil field partly threatened by Solamar Beach Fire. Red dots are locations of active oil wells as of 2008 (image: Wikicommons).

Altered Freeway Traffic…

Union Pacific Rail, PCH, and the 101 Freeway from State Route 33 to State Route 150 were closed as of early morning on December 26 given both the proximity of the fire to the roadbed and the fact flames were sporadically jumping PCH itself and igniting vegetation on the seaward side of the roadbed.

Given the complete closure of the Rincon, the alternative route for this major north-south corridor was via the 150 and 33 highways.  As someone who regularly drives this twisting, curvy route, I was relieved to see that the California Highway Patrol recommended big rigs NOT take State Route 150.

…will Kill More Animals

Our lab is uniquely positioned to quantify the potential unintentional consequences of this necessary, altered traffic flow.  More on this later, but in brief we have been monitoring wildlife road kill across southern California roads for the past decade and have robust estimates of how many critters are killed on more than 50 roadways in and around Ventura County.

Before this closure we had documented the following kill rates along these three roads (the Rincon section of the 101, the 33, and the 150):

As the 33 is one of our most intense concentrations of road kill in the county, I estimate that as we boost the traffic flow along the 33 and 150 highways, we will see perhaps an additional 58 animal kills that we would not have seen had the bulk of the traffic remained on PCH/had we not had this fire.