Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
In Armenia, they get lots of money from the diaspora. Money that goes to things like nice new paved roads. But Armenia is so poor only the military can afford gasoline. So all cars are run on natural gas, imported from and subsidised by Russia.

Appearantly, it it very easy to convert ordinary cars to run on natural gas.

In the event of a sudden cessation of oil imports to us, count on that happening.

http://iea.org/textbase/stats/pdf_graphs/AMOIL.pdf

That's what I call a steep decline rate...

See how they don't use any heavy fuel oil anymore? They switched to biofuels. Chopped down all their forests.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Wed Feb 6th, 2008 at 10:26:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Starvid:
See how they don't use any heavy fuel oil anymore? They switched to biofuels. Chopped down all their forests.
You think you are joking...
Wikipedia: Charcoal
The massive production of charcoal (at its height employing hundreds of thousands, mainly in Alpine and neighbouring forests) was a major cause of deforestation, especially in Central Europe. In England, many woods were managed as coppices, which were cut and regrew cyclically, so that a steady supply of charcoal would be available (in principle) forever; complaints (as early as in Stuart England) about shortages may relate to the results of temporary over-exploitation or the impossibility of increasing production. The increasing scarcity of easily harvested wood was a major factor for the switch to the fossil fuel equivalents, mainly coal and brown coal for industrial use.


We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Feb 6th, 2008 at 11:21:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, I wasn't joking. Ironically, what saved them, beyond the Russian gas, was their decrepit old reactor at Metsamor coming back to life after having sustained earthquake damage a few years earlier.

I'm not really sure safety is tiptop there, to say the least, but just imagine the kind of cornercutting they must have been doing back in 1994 when the entire country was freezing in the darkness.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Wed Feb 6th, 2008 at 11:36:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]