70 Comments

1. David H:

In terms of Hydrogen, please review this site, then see if you change your mind, for example what is the average commute to work in the USA, in the UK its less than 25 miles…

http://www.itm-power.com/

All I am waiting for is for cheaper Solar panels with the coating that collects 95.6% of sun light and I am going on this route, I expect to see a Hydrogen economy developing rather than a biofuel one…, as Biofuel is not a good idea due to the issue around food supply.

Dec 27, 2008 - 3:16 am 2. poul:

“In San Francisco and many other communities, solar power generation is now available at costs that are lower than buying electricity from the local utility.”

no it isn’t. it is several orders of magnitude higher, if you count all the expenses and amortization of the capital.

and that’s the crux of the problem – we still have to burn coal to produce electricity, which makes electric cars – and hydrogen – the most idiotic among all environmentalist delusions.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:26 am 3. eon:

As seen here, solar, like wind, works well at the micro level, where demand is relatively low, long-distance transmission is not required (avoiding impedance problems due to low amperage), and most importantly the climate permits sufficient sunshine to energize the collectors. It also has the small drawback that for roughly 12 hours out of 24, its power output is exactly… zero. (Wind has a similar problem- namely, that it only works when the wind is actually blowing. Which doesn’t happen all the time.)

I doubt solar power would work as well a few hunderd miles north, in, say, Seattle, which gets about 200+ days of rain every year on average, and a maximum of 60-65 sunny days, disregarding their present heavy (12″-18″) snows which are more than they have historically gotten in an entire decade. Wind, however, might be a better fit- assuming that the windmill survives the usual fall gales, that is.

If people (environmentalists/ “ecologists”) want a “clean”, all-electric power and/or transportation grid, the only “carbon-neutral” answers that work on the macro level are hydroelectric, or nuclear. I am fascinated to notice how many electric-vehicle/ electric-everything enthusiasts require smelling salts- or straitjackets- whenever those two terms come up.

As Heinlein said, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. And as for Ohm’s Law, don’t expect Congrss to repeal it. It was passed at a much higher level, and no appeal has succeeded in the last 6.5 billion years.

Hydroelectric or nuclear. Those are your choices, “ecologists”. Deal with it.

clear ether

eon

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:08 am 4. Marian Kechlibar:

There is an interesting field of exploration: energy of tidal forces. Tide is a very regular phenomenon, and the overall balance of energy involves the gravitational pairing of the Moon and the Earth, which deals in numbers orders of magnitude higher than anything human-related.

However, this field is very far from practical use yet. The most advanced teams are funded by an Aussie multi-millionaire who made fortunes on extraction of oil from ocean bed; they, therefore, do have good understanding of the problems therein. And the greatest problem is: how to prevent the ocean from smashing your energy-collecting devices into tiny bits during a storm?

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:34 am 5. kabud:

hydrogen solution is a hoax. no need to discuss it.
electric solution is another hoax: think about batteries, what they made from.
There is not enough lithium in the world for even 3% of cars))))

current battery types are so expensive that a plugin costs around $40 000))))

Alcohols is the only solution. We can switch 100% cars to alcohol and create the alcohol industry(methanol and ethanol) includind network of fueling stations in MONTHS not even years

And it will cost us UNDER 500 billion dollars.

This year we spent around 1 trillion dollars on oil!!!!!!!!!!

do yourself a favour, educate yourself:

http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8E8A21BF-6D12-4BD1-B7B9-C00CD3547C90
Robert Zubrin: Well, I think it has a great deal to do with what’s going on in the economy. This year, depending upon where oil prices go during the final weeks of the year, Americans are going to pay something like $900 billion for oil.

In 1999, we paid $80 billion for oil. In 2003, we paid $200 billion for oil. So, between 2003 and this year the amount that Americans have paid for oil went up by $700 billion.

Now, to give you an idea of what that means, we pay the IRS $2.5 trillion a year, so this is like a 30 percent tax increase, except instead of the money going to Uncle Sam, it goes to Uncle Saud and Uncle Hugo. And it has devastating affects on the economy.

Just to put it in proportion, between 2003 and this year the amount that Americans paid for new houses went down by $160 billion. So the amount that we paid out for oil was more than four times as much as the amount that went out of the new housing market.

This is a big enough tax to collapse the new housing market and also resale of existing house market, as well. It’s 16 times as much as the amount, the $50 billion that went out of the new car market between 2003 and 2008. This is a big enough tax on the economy to collapse the housing market, and thus the mortgage market, and thus create the financial crisis that we just saw. And, as well, as the car market, and thus the industrial economy, and so forth.

Now, I have to take issue with one thing that David said, although I found many things he said quite instructive. But one thing I disagree with is this, is I don’t think this is caused by a weak dollar, at all. I mean although that caused a little bit of it.

The price of oil was $11 a barrel in 1999. And for it to shoot up a factor of 13 to $140 this year, is not due to a weak dollar or inflation. Inflation was quite moderate over this period.

There’s something else involved, and it’s called OPEC. The OPEC has been constricting world oil production, actually since 1973. If you look at world oil production between 1973 and today, if you look at non-OPEC oil production over that period, it doubles. From about 22 million barrels a day in 1973, to the mid 40s today, and you’d expect to see that because the world economy has doubled over the same period in size.

But if you look at OPEC oil production, it was 30 million barrels a day in 1973 and it’s 30 million barrels a day today. Now, they’ve had wild short-term ups and downs as they turned the taps on and off to try to manipulate the market in short-term maneuvers. But overall they are producing the same amount of oil today as they produced a third of a century ago, despite the fact that the market has doubled, despite the fact that they’re sitting on top of 80 percent of the world’s oil reserves, including all the easiest to drill stuff.

So what OPEC is like is like a cruel dog owner who puts a collar nice and snug around the neck of a puppy and leaves it sit there while the dog grows, so the collar gets tighter and tighter and tighter until it chokes the dog potentially to death.

Now, somebody says, “Oh, the reason why the oil price shot-up was because of the economic growth in China and India.” Now, it’s true there’s been economic growth in China and India, and that’s a contributing factor.

But we had more economic growth between 1945 and 1973 by far, and the world economic growth rate was in the order of 6 percent in that period. And the price of oil was absolutely flat adjusted for inflation, between 1947 and 1972.

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:43 am 6. Ron Wagner:

Small high mpg(or equivalent) vehicles of all kinds and with all sorts of fuels: electric, hybrid, butanol, ethanol, gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, hydrogen etc. We need to subsidize fueling stations that can do it all, and subsidize electric charging stations that work off a credit card. The more alternatives we use, the lower we can keep gasoline and diesel prices.

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:18 am 7. SunSword:

Just as when Henry Ford produced early cars and you could get one model and one color (black), and today you can get thousands of models and colors from hundreds of manufacturers — so I think will energy use diversify from the current oil based economy to one based on many different sources. It will not be “the one thing” replaced by another “one thing”.

For that reason, I think if there was to be another Manhattan Project it should focus on batteries. Because whatever the power source, we need better storage and as Сергій Кабуд pointed out — Lithium is a bottleneck.

A truly transformative technology would be several types of storage that would let the individual store power and transfer the stored power to other stored power units.And it is possible that going the chemical route is not the correct direction — perhaps mechanical storage might be the way to go.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:02 am 8. keithacita:

the only solution is his latest invention —
the gore personal methane nanofactory. feta cheese the new oil. OFEC – Organization of Feta Exporting Countries.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:55 am 9. Jack Okie:

Lithium may or may not be a bottleneck. Here is an opposing view:

http://lithiumabundance.blogspot.com/

There are (at least) two car companies planning to sell electric vehicles based on a different kind of lithium battery. Altairnano claims a 10 minute charge with the kind of power station they plan for filling stations, plus safety and total cycles not provided by lithium ion batteries. See the links below for details.

http://www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk/home.php

http://tinyurl.com/altairnano

http://www.hipadrive.com/

http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/

The Lightning has its electric motors in the wheels, dispensing with a mechanical drive train altogether.

If the above technology proves out, then it seems we’ll be driving EVs in the future. I expect they will be plug-in serial hybrids, with small efficient diesel engines consuming biodiesel to generate the electricity to recharge the batteries for long distance driving. Using food stocks to generate ethanol is a political move, and typical of the distortions you get when the gummint gets involved. Switch grass and sorghum are proving to be much more practical choices.

All these EVs in our future are going to require a lot of electricity, which means nuclear. Thorium seems to be the way to go:

http://tinyurl.com/8k548j

A thorium reactor is not only intrinsically safe, it can burn up the nuclear waste and weapons grade material we have laying around. India is committing to thorium in a big way.

kabud, two points: It’s not just “economic growth” in China and India, it’s industrialization and urbanization. Both countries are consuming far more oil than before, both for transportation and industrial uses. Second, the devaluation of the dollar against other currencies we’ve seen over the past several months inflated the cost of oil in dollars. The price in other currencies is also higher, but not as much. Here is a graph with an interesting perspective:

http://tinyurl.com/4lu3ag

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:13 am 10. JKB:

I love the recurrent way to achieve this nirvana is to impede the economy by taxing the cheap energy sources to artificially cause the Chosen sources to appear reasonable.

Pure electric vehicles don’t have a chance since the plan is to drive coal out of electric generation by taxes and ridiculous regulation. Since coal is responsible for over 50% of electricity generation, banning it or driving up the cost will cause grid-supported vehicles to be very expensive to keep charged. Anyway, their range and infrastructure requirements make them only useful for urbanites who should be standing in the rain waiting for the bus anyway.

In the end, the only alternative fuel for vehicles that will work on the large scale is the one that will support the 18-wheelers. That is the one that the infrastructure will be built for since there is real profit in supporting trucking. I’d bet on biodiesel and hydrogen. The rest are hobby sources that will never permit you to venture out into the countryside.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:14 am 11. kabud:

To SunSword:

we have 300 million vehicles now if i am not mistaken and every year another 10-20 mill added

also we have a number of military vehicles and aircrafts both civil and military

This is not something to experiment with.

If our economy, and when our economy will resume its growth:

oil will be at $200 a barrel at least.

We need to convert all our cars and most of the trucks NOW.

It will not take a lot of money if done massively.

may be $100 a car, may be $500.

Total costs: 300 million cars $500 dollars each = 150 billion dollars :total conversion costs at the highest price. Realistically we shoud expect it to be considerably less

With military and aircraft it is a little more complicated but could be done also. I would suggest that military and aircraft is another 10% on top of these calculations.

So here is for cars:

ANY new technology will cost $10000 a car or even more.

Count your dollars Yankee! You don’t have too much left.

We know about ethanol- it is excellent motor fuel. Brazil runs on it.
We know how beneficial ethanol program is for our agriculture : last year our exports went up 23%.

Methanol can be produced from any biomass.

FORD was looking even at producing methanol from hemp because it yields the most biomass with the least expenses in fertilizing or irrigation out of all possible agricultural plants

Today we have at least 3 tanks at every gas station:

93, 89, 87.

Leave one tank for gas

and wash and convert the other two for :
1.methanol, 2.ethanol.

Cost: $20 000 a tank if not less.

With 200 000 gas stations in the USA, 2 tanks each:

we are looking at
8 billion for gas station conversion. !!!!!!!!!!! it is about the cost of a ONE or TWO NEW refineries!!!

Methanol plants:

you can google it and find that to build a new methanol plant you need around 200 million dollars.

To caver all our motor fuel needs with methanol we need around

500 billion gallons a year to be produced domestically.

It is around 2000 big methanol plants that can be build on large coal mines or on the large garbage dumps liek the one on Staten Island in New York.

Also methanol plant could be strategically positioned in the forestry areas such as Wisconsin state. There is a research paper online that shows how Wisconsin can have all of its fuel needs produced locally from wood methanol.

In some cases in some not very populated areas huge methanol plants are not needed but a smaller one may better do the job.

Costs can be estimated though :

2000 plants 200 million dollars each :
400 billion dollars
——————–

TOTAL COST TO GET RID OF ANY OIL for motor fuel CONSUMPTION

1.150 billion existing cars conversion
2.8 billion for gas station conversion
3.400 billion dollars methanol plants

remember that we did not count military vehicles and aircraft: both as well can be run on methanol and ethanol based fuels of different type
diesel fuel as well can be produced from alcohols or in a similar simple and cheap technological processes.

so the final figure: under 600 billion dollars

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:25 am 12. Bill Perron:

My goodness, all the nay sayers on this site that say it can’t be done. Hey they said the automobile was just a fad a hundred years ago, National Geographic magazine printed an article on the moon around 1940 that said we’d never get to the moon because there was no known fuel to propel an air ship there, the earth was the center of the universe until some obscure Italian astronomer and his telescope proved the falseness of that belief, Western Union could have owned the telephone at one time but poo pooed the idea of voices traveling any great distance as a practical idea, Edison once said to shut down the patent office because anything worth being invented has been, the personal computer was another idea the nay sayers said was a stupid idea. All you folks that say alternate energy is not workable please get out of the way so those who can do will do.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:51 am 13. James Torguson:

That’s it! You solved it!

We will all come home work each evening and plug our electric cars into solar panels! After an over night recharge at 0 volts, they will be ready for us the next morning!

Oh, sorry, the 0 volt thing. Solar cells at night just don’t work as well as they do in the day time.

At night we will just have to plug them into the grid and use electical power generated by burning coal instead.

Coal powered cars. The new green!

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:59 am 14. Fantom:

Or we could drill our own oil. Build refineries, both conventional and those using Fischer-Tropsch process to turn coal into fuel. We could go on for centuries in this manner. With fuel cost at around $1.50- 2.00 a gallon. And who knows , if the high priests of manmade global warming are correct. We humans might just stave off the next ice age in the process.

Here is an interesting read. http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/gasification/index.html

Might want to build some nuc’ler plants too.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:05 am 15. kabud:

>12. Bill Perron:

we don’t have 100 years

oil will be at $200 or more very soon. Enemies took 3 trillion dollars of our money this year

do you know what they will do with it next year or should i tell you?

300 MILLION CARS MAN. and 10 million added a year.

Worldwide it is possibly 50 million new cars a year.

Aicrafts, trucks, military vehicles.

Don’t hide from facts.

You are betting on something that will not happen in your life time EVER.

I was born in the 60s.

My parents started to work with computers that were made out of stolen IBM models and blue prints in the 70s in USSR

I worked with cardboard cards in the middle of the 80s when i wrote my first programs.

Only today in 2010 we can say that computer are becoming (not yet) something that is as widely used as cars in the place they were invented
in USA.

Still there is a huge chunk of population who can drive but can not use computers.

So 50 years was not enough to adopt it.

So do’nt bet your hopes on the UNEXISTING technologies so high.

It is not going to happen in your life time. Grow up.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:30 am 16. Larsen E Whipsnade:

I never knew there was so many scientists amongst us – with so much confusion about the best fuel to save the world. But aren’t they overlooking some basic facts? Fuel consumption in America is declining. Ethanol is a horribly expensive, inefficient and unstable fuel. Batteries are (and always will be) clumsy and expensive. Diesel has the most bang per volume of any fuel. Airplanes can’t and won’t ever fly reliably on electric, hydrogen, or ethanol. There’ll never be enough coconuts to make fuel for airplanes. A diesel engine in still a diesel, regardless of the type of diesel fuel; therefore there is no such thing as a “biomass diesel”. And gasoline always will be the cheapest and most stable fuel for small machines.

Then there’s two screamingly obvious issues: (1) how can scientists claim that petroleum comes from decayed biomass if Brazil is finding enormous pools of oil 20,000 feet BELOW the bottom of the ocean? Were there ever any dinosaurs at this deep level? Is there more oil even deeper in the middle of the planet? Where is it coming from? And (2) Nobody, anywhere, has yet shown that there is any “global warming” resulting from carbon fuels.

So how is it we have so many goofy ideas about saving the world when our scientists keep losing sight of the basic facts of transportation fuels? The whole energy discussion is as confused as the global warming issue. And that’s not saying a lot about the so-called intelligence of our scientists and politicians!

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:31 am 17. Bilgeman:

Rolls eyes…

Another True Believer, Heaven help us all, because we’re going to get electric vehicles shoved down our throats by government fiat…no matter if we live in the boondocks and actually NEED four wheel drive or whether we live in Brooklyn and commute to Manhattan by subway, and simply use our Prius to motor out to an adorable little bistro in the Hamptons.

Look, ace, there’s a million different ways to skin a cat. YOUR preferred method happens to be electric, and if you live in an urbanized metropolitan area,(and don’t mind being effectively “kenneled” there by an electric’s range limitations), fine. That makes sense.

Despite it’s limitations, it’s a very mature technology, and I’ve sailed quite a few ships which use the DC electric motor as their mode of propulsion,(although the generators’ prime movers have always been stinky old medium speed diesel engines…and in one instance, a pair of boilers).

Others are queer for the various diesels.

Some think LNG is the way to go with it’s relatively easy retrofitting of existing vehicles,(they did this back in the 1960’s using a Plymouth Fury or Ford Fairlane as a testbed, IIRC…and got free “air-conditioning” from the conversion into the bargain).

You can even do the job with steam, all you need is to burn something in the boiler’s firebox…wood, coal, back issues of High Times magazine…no matter.

Thing that makes me upset is that the True Believer mindset is going to use Federal funds to inflict The Battery upon everybody…and then poor Farmer John isn’t going to get his crops in since his John Deere electric tractor won’t have enough juice to get the job done.

And anyone with two brain cells to rub together would be asking why tractors aren’t produced with diesel-powered engines anymore…

If electric vehicles are “all that and a bag of chips”, then why not climb down off the rooftop, soak your head awhile, and wait for Market Forces to deliver the inevitable verdict?

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:56 am 18. Pappadave:

#2 Poul is absolutely right. These bugwitted idiots who think electric powered cars are the “answer” to “pollution” (by the way, CO2 is NOT a “pollutant!”) are as full of it as a Christmas turkey! The electricity has to come from SOMEWHERE, and right now, it’s produced by coal, natural gas and {shudder} OIL!!! Also, those giant wind turbines going up all over the place use more energy to BUILD that they’ll EVER produce throughout their lifetimes–another net loss in energy. To make methanol for fuel, the biomass–whether it be corn or non-footstuff sorts–has to be HEATED. The fuel used to produce that heat is coal, natural gas or {shudder} OIL!!! In short, the production of EVERY “alternate” fuel on the planet relies on coal, natural gas or {shudder} OIL. In addition, it takes almost as much fuel to produce an electric car as running it will save in fuel costs in its expected lifetime.

Until Americans become less scientifically and logically illiterate, they are going to be subject to the scams being run at us by the environmentalist elitists who are actually just unreconstructed communists intent on doing away with capitalism and the “unfairness” of the U.S.’s economic prosperity.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:59 am 19. Bilgeman:

Larsen Whipsnade:

“Then there’s two screamingly obvious issues: (1) how can scientists claim that petroleum comes from decayed biomass if Brazil is finding enormous pools of oil 20,000 feet BELOW the bottom of the ocean? Were there ever any dinosaurs at this deep level? Is there more oil even deeper in the middle of the planet? Where is it coming from?”

I should mention at this point that I sail on what’s called an MPSV, (Multi Purpose Supply Vessel), which does what the Company Man on the Drilling or Production rig needs done.

That said…I wondered at that myself.
Turns out the answer is that what is 20,000 feet below a seabed today USED to be a swamp in the tropical regions of Pangaea or Gondwanaland.

Through hundreds of millions of years and the magic of plate tectonics, all the “cards in the deck” got “shuffled”, and therefore you end up finding oil in such notably UN-tropical biomass terrains as Alaska’s North Slope, Siberia and the North Sea.

If you pause a moment to consider just how much territory comprised the tropical belt of Pangaea or Gondwanaland, and how thoroughly the deck has been shuffled in the intervening eons, you can’t escape the conclusion that there must be a heck of a lot of fossil fuels still out there.

And from the rig floor, the current meme is that with the new seismic 3-D imaging techniques, they’ve found that in the old and mature wells in the Gulf of Mexico drilled in the 50’s 60’s and 70’s, they managed to miss the really BIG deposits.

Consider that I was working a rig drilling for natural gas this summer just over a mile offshore off Cameron,Louisiana.
the Hercules 150:
http://www.herculesoffshore.com/drilling.html

They wouldn’t drill there if there wasn’t gas,since even a “shelf well” is an expensive proposition, the gas didn’t arrive there just last year, and yet the deposit was overlooked entirely all this time.

God knows what other deposits we may yet find, and where.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:12 am 20. Joe P.:

The Very High Temperature reactor design directly outputs high amounts of hydrogen and heat along with electricity.

http://www.gen-4.org/Technology/systems/vhtr.htm

A hydrogen distribution network would mean long distance hydrogen pipelines running from nuke reactors to distribution centers. Trucks would be used to transport the H2 from the centers to the gas stations.

Building a hydrogen distribution network is only half the problem. For reliability, it needs to be made massively redundant, which nearly doubles the effort.

Hydrogen powered electric (fuel cell) is the most attractive design. Using service stations for on-demand fueling is much more convenient than spending hours charging an electric car. The only on-demand battery charging solution is to replace all batteries at a fueling station. I can’t see that ever working.

Ideas are cheap. What we need is leaders who can actually manufacture this stuff.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:26 am 21. John Moore:

Electric cars would be really neat things, but… batteries today have 1/40th the energy storage density of gasoline! Theoretical best batteries have 1/4th the energy density, and nobody has ever come close to theoretical best. And, you have to transport those batteries around with…. energy. And you still have to produce the electricity.

Maybe fuel cells will do the trick, but over 40 years of work on them has yet to come close. Then you need something to feed the fuel cells.

The problem with any sort of biological or solar (incl wind) “solution” is power density. It just takes a whole lot of sunlight to make the power. There may be an economical solution in there somewhere, but it hasn’t arisen yet.

Nuclear won’t work because the enviros and the NIMBYs won’t let it.

It will take an energy catastrophe to solve the political problems. Then, I suspect coal, nuclear and additional oil drilling will arise as the interim solutions.

Remember, the ONLY thing wrong in the near and medium term with fossil fuels is the hypothetical long term effects of global warming (renamed “climate change” since the earth hasn’t warmed in 10 years). All the hysterical flapping around is a result of the fear of the dreaded CO2! North America is the middle east of hydrocarbons – if you include coal, oil sands and oil shale.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:29 am 22. cedarford:

A lot of projection by people (Kabud, Brian Douglas) that don’t understand technology at all.

The amount of energy that could be collected on a wealthy San Franciscan’s roof, assuming they work at night and only need to drive on sunny days (125 days out of the year) is enough power (assuming no electricity is used in the happy San Franciscan’s home)? That amount is under 10 miles..

Kabud has a good “alcohol fantasy” going. Don’t ruin it with the reality of what wreckage ethanol has already caused or the fact that large methanol bioreactors that make more energy than they take to run remain outside current technology. In engineering we call the one material or ingredient that would make an impractical project practical – “unobtainium” – because it usually is.

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Bill Perron:
My goodness, all the nay sayers on this site that say it can’t be done. Hey they said the automobile was just a fad a hundred years ago…..All you folks that say alternate energy is not workable please get out of the way so those who can do will do….

Bill, I’d be happy to if the only person you starved or wrecked the economic future of was yourself. Unfortunately, all the “alternative energy” dreamers on the Left and the Right seek to obligate and ensnare the rest of us in their dumb schemes. I’d be delighted to get out of the way, cut off your access to nuclear and fossil fuel…and see what happens to you and your fellow “alternate energy” dreamers.

Generally, “tech-happy” optimists tend not to be in the science and engineering fields and blithely apply what was a breakthrough in one field to their certainty of breakthroughs in other fields – if only enough gov’t money or “heroic John Galt-like entrepreneurship” is thrown at the problem.
Thus, because we have cars (never condemned as impractical, BTW, except by the Greenies of the day) said never to be in everyone’s home – said as much by the people that saw the future as trains, subways, electric street trolleys as by rural Fundies faithful to their mules —the logic then is the autos success makes all other things now considered impractical, practical.

“They laughed at the auto, they laugh at my idea of a personal aircar flown by antigravity now! But I will be vindicated, President Eisenhower will reward me…Muahahhhaaaaa!”

The same people lacking scientific and engineering creds also lack a lick of economic sense and extrapolate that all resources will be driven to be dirt-cheap by technology (“We once paid 1,000 an ounce for aluminum, therefor, one day, genius technology will drive the price of gold down enough it is used in soda cans!”) They misapply lessons of proven technology and understood physics applied to projects like the moon shot or microprocessors (Moore’s Law) to “guaranteed success in the war on cancer, household fusion reactors, mass ocean water desalinization getting twice as cheap every 3 years (misapplying Moores law to unrelated sci&tech)- IF ONLY (1) Government throws money at it OR (2) IF ONLY Government gets out of the way and “unleashes” their CEO heroes…

**************

Poul & Eon – Thanks for your dose of reality check administered to the “dreamers”. Poul’s message and Eons about the only 2 CO2-free means of practically powering electric cars are
hydro dams and nuclear (and the need for Greenies to be given smelling salts when they realize this).
You too, Torguson. Though the problem you point out could be solved by requiring San Francisco Metro and Marin County to only work at night, only after sunny days, and have work and school all located only 3 or so miles away from their homes given the energy-gen contraints on a rooftop collection limited surface area…When it would be cheaper to just walk. Perhaps some modifications…Tell the Greenies that wish to work in daytime or drive more than 10 miles a day that they need to convince 19 neighbors to walk and put up the rooftop collectors devoted to one driver…and add the 200 lead-acid batteries plus safety equipemnt to a room in their house (good for 10 years) – or the giant hydrogen tank in their basement (making the house a TV, computer, and weed-free smoking zone a matter of survival)
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Marian Kechlibar – I toured the Canadian test tidal power plant on the Bay of Fundy before it closed. Impractical. On top of only 4 hours of shifting time real power gen a day, and a very low MW-per dollar capital construction…The Canadians said it was very manpower cost heavy from labor needed to deal with biofouling, corrosion, debris screening & disposition. Uncompetitive. The cost of it was 18 times what the Nova Scotians hoped to get with a new nuke plant if the hysterics in Ottawa would stop blocking it, without factoring in costs associated with backup power needed due to the erratic, non-constant nature of tidal power.

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Ron Wagner:

Small high mpg(or equivalent) vehicles of all kinds and with all sorts of fuels: electric, hybrid, butanol, ethanol, gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, hydrogen etc. We need to subsidize fueling stations that can do it all, and subsidize electric charging stations that work off a credit card. The more alternatives we use, the lower we can keep gasoline and diesel prices.

Economics says that you can do little to affect the price of a global commodity if demand is expected to rise elsewhere to compense for loss of demand in any one country. If the substitutes you offer are all more expensive than oil, then all you do is inflict economic pain locally to benefit oil users elsewhere. The idea of shielding the market from the impact of more expensive substitutes, and building an expensive infrastructure for a half dozen incompatable alternatives to oil on the backs of taxpayers to benefit only a few users is also economic folly.
On the contrary, the more incompatable energy supply alternatives infrastucture you build, the more alternatives far more expensive than oil you mandate, the more expensive transportation will be or the higher taxes will be…choose your poison…
You might have a strategy where we go with 1-2 substitutes we have a lot of potential and resources in and an already existing distribution system. That would be natural gas or electricity from building 300 new nuke plants…most likely, if you got past the political opposition from the Left and Agribiz..

Of course, vehicles that lower net fuel consumption – the needed oil or more expensive substitutes…like hybrids, are a good idea. But it is not just MPG, but miles driven that matter. A PC San Francisco lawyer who drives a 300 mile a week commute from distant suburbs in her 35 MPG hybrid has no business railing against the couple with the “gas-guzzling Winnebago” that drive it 300 miles a year.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:49 am 23. Alessandro Machi:

Wow, you actually deleted my prior comment with all the innovative ideas in it.

http://www.DailyPUMA.com

Pajamas media is listed on DailyPUMA, do you have a problem with that?

Dec 27, 2008 - 1:54 pm 24. therealist:

Forget cars. Is anyone building any more roads? Around here you can’t build anything anymore without the greens and NIMBYs shutting you down.

Dec 27, 2008 - 1:56 pm 25. Will Becker:

No one energy source will supply the need.For example if we all drive electric cars,where will we get all that electricity?

Dec 27, 2008 - 2:25 pm 26. poul:

we are still HEATING HOUSES WITH OIL for santa sake! and a hybrid car is better for city stop-and-go traffic, but worse for highway traffic where “hybrid” part doesn’t kick in.

the only rational solution is to build so many nuclear plants that the electricity literally becomes too cheap to measure. only when we close the last coal, oil and natural gas power plant and decommission the last furnace, we can look at what to do with cars.

the big part of it will hopefully be the public transportation. i would rather take subway then drive if i can, and so would many, many people, if the public transportation in usa was of the same quality as in the major european cities, which also prevents them from forming inner-city ghettos. that’s one lesson we can indeed take from europe.

another lesson – stop overtaxing the diesel fuel. it is much more effective, it is much cheaper to produce, and if we weren’t taxing it out of price range for most people, we would see much more super efficient diesel cars on the roads – as it is, again, in europe. it is enormously stupid and short-sighed to try to tax freight trucks through diesel fuel.

so, short term – diesel, medium term – public transportation, long term – nuclear energy. the market will take care of the rest.

Dec 27, 2008 - 2:31 pm 27. Michelle Renee:

Cedarford, suppose I cut down all the trees so there’s no shade. Since I don’t get sunlight on the northern side of my house, that’s 700 square feet of solar panels. Suppose I get the latest techology that is 30% efficient, and costs about $15 a square foot. Total outlay for the solar cells, about ten grand. Sunlight at noon give me 130 watts per square foot, so that should be 39 watts per square foot, but since the sun moves across the sky I need to take the square root of 0.5 to get the root-mean-square of that power, so over the entire daylight period I average 27.6 watts per square foot, and since there’s no sun at night I take half of that, which gives me 13.8 watt-hours per square foot. Times seven hundred square feet gives me a grand total of 9.66 kWH. Now suppose I get the latest electric car which gets 7 miles per kilowatt hour and costs say only $90,000. This means for the unbelievably low price of 100 K I can drive 67 miles every day.

Dec 27, 2008 - 3:03 pm 28. Joe P.:

Public transportation has a glass ceiling of tolerance. Just yestarday I was on the Orange Line in Los Angeles – and was immersed in a grotesque discussion between someone and his “dowg” buddies from the hood who just happened to use the same bus. The 1st dowg had a felony vandalism charge that was dismissed by the DA. The 2nd dowg hadn’t met 1st dowg in 6 months, but knew that because he hung out with somebody’s sister who heard that. Dowg #2 was flabbergasted that Dowg #1 got a felony charge if the vandalism involved anything less than breaking windows. (Frankly, I thought Dowg #2 had a good point here.) But Enough! Why must I listen to this!?

To be clear, this was a conversation among 4 dowgs, which encompassed the entire rear 1/4 of the bus – the Orange Line bus.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to blast iPod music into your ears to avoid this. But come on. It’s personal space invasion if these guys are within 20 feet.

Dec 27, 2008 - 3:19 pm 29. David:

I just bought a new gas hog SUV. Drill for that oil because I will be damned before I drive a environmental friendly crap car.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:10 pm 30. John Coffey:

“I know because I’ve been in the laboratories, talked with the lead engineers, and driven a host of electric prototype vehicles.”

So have I Brian and most of those guys are getting laid off and project schedules are being pushed out by years. This little article can filed away with very similar articles published over the last 30 years every time fuel prices increase, although this one is about 3 months behind the fuel price curve.

Keep chasing butterflies…

- John

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:13 pm 31. Jack Okie:

Joe P. and others:

Did you even bother to follow the links in my earlier post? I can’t promise that the technology is mature enough for prime time, but these guys seem serious. Remember that a battery does not need to have the energy density of gasoline, it just has to be good enough, because electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines. And if this pans out, you’ll have energy density out the wazoo.

http://tinyurl.com/EEStor

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:11 pm 32. nobozons:

I intend to drink alcohol not burn it in my car. I can’t consume nearly as much as my car can. The cost benefit analysis shows that it is a far far better thing to eat food than to make fuel out of it. It also shows that for the foreseeable future it is better to spend the major part of our money on producing oil in this county. Solar panels are still horribly inefficient and costly, there is no hydrogen source available except for breeder reactors, no distribution system for it and no storage facilities for it. Electric cars would be great except there is no source of electricity for them in any number. Windmills are dead ended when applied to large power requirements. All of these fanciful solutions are dead ended. They can only contribute at the margin; and that is not going to reduce the price of foreign oil. Interestingly, the recession has whacked the hell out of the price and the lack of confidence in the economy will continue to reduce the price. If the supply is reduced to up the price, than that will deepen the recession and continue to keep the price low.

If congress doesn’t reduce the controls on autos Detroit will never recover. I have a car with a windshield so thin that it can’t withstand a pebble thrown by a passing car. Can you imagine driving in the winter in a snow storm in a toy car?

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:18 pm 33. cedarford:

Michelle Renee – Great Point! You leave me speechless with the true aim of your point.

Don’t forget that you are also either a nightime worker with Flex Work Days (when it is overcast) or a daytime worker with about 15K in lead-acid batteries and storage electronics and acid/lead vapor safety devices set up in your basement.

About 7X your present per mile cost of travel…

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:34 pm 34. Rufus:

Everybody read an article authored in 2003, by an oil company stooge, and became instant experts.

Ethanol is currently powering the equivalent of 17,000,000 cars (approx. 10 Billion Gallons,) and costs about $1.65/gal to produce.

Meantime your box of cornflakes went up about $0.02.

Dec 27, 2008 - 6:58 pm 35. Bill Perron:

Keep on with the stinkin thinkin, that is a sure way to capitulation. Some see obstacles, while others see opportunities. It has always been that way and always will. As I said before, get out of the way because progress is gonna mow ya down, and you’ll be left out in the cold with those who watch things happen, and with those who say “what happened,” as others make things happen.

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:06 pm 36. poul:

Rufus – “Ethanol is currently powering the equivalent of 17,000,000 cars (approx. 10 Billion Gallons,) and costs about $1.65/gal to produce.”

bullshit:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r1552355771656v0/

David Pimentel1 Contact Information and Tad W. Patzek2
(1) College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853
(2) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720

Received: 30 January 2005 Accepted: 30 January 2005
Abstract Energy outputs from ethanol produced using corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass were each less than the respective fossil energy inputs. The same was true for producing biodiesel using soybeans and sunflower, however, the energy cost for producing soybean biodiesel was only slightly negative compared with ethanol production. Findings in terms of energy outputs compared with the energy inputs were: • Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced (Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn). • Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/ethanol.toocostly.ssl.html

Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.

“There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel,” says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. “These strategies are not sustainable.”

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/19/news/economy/commodity_prices/index.htm

Corn and milk: A 1-2 inflation combo
Corn and milk prices just keep rising, driven by a soaring demand for ethanol. Got $4 milk? $6 a bushel for corn?

http://zfacts.com/p/63.html

Corn ethanol subsidies totaled $7.0 billion in 2006 for 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol. That’s $1.45 per gallon of ethanol (and $2.21 per gal of gas replaced).
Even with high gas prices in 2006, producing a gallon of ethanol cost 38¢ more than making gasoline with the same energy, so ethanol did need part of that subsidy. But what about the other $1.12. Not needed! So all of that became, $5.4 billion windfall of profits paid to real farmers, corporate farmers, and ethanol makers like multinational ADM. Why is it the farm states put up with this?!

Where did those subsidies come from:
1. 51¢ per gallon federal blenders credit for $2.5 billion = your tax dollars.
2. $0.9 billion in corn subsidies for ethanol corn = your tax dollars.
3. $3.6 billion extra paid at the pump.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:41 pm 37. Bilgeman:

Mr. Douglas:

Iowahawk has already foreseen your electric car:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/11/lemon.html

(I swear that fella is a national treasure).

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:20 am 38. djr:

36.6 kWh/US gallon

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:24 am 39. kabud:

36. poul: insectologist

David Pimentel is absolutely incompetent insectologist

whose ideas are to CUT USA POPULATION TO 100 million people!!

he is spreading anti-American enemy propaganda

it is a shame to quote `something` like him

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:27 am 40. Dennis D:

We can move in small steps. Why must we hit a Home Run with one idea? I heard Toyota is making solar panels for the roof of a vehicle that will just power the Air Conditioner which will help MPG.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:31 am 41. kabud:

Get this
————————–

http://www.entomology.cornell.edu/Faculty_Staff/Pimentel/pimentel.html

Professorships

* 1976-present Professor of Insect Ecology & Agricultural Sciences, Dept. of Entomology and Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University
* 1969-76 Professor of Insect Ecology, Dept. of Entomology and Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University
* 1973-74 Professor, Core Faculty, Center for Environmental Quality Management, Cornell University
* 1963-69 Professor and Head of Dept. of Entomology and Limnology, Cornell University
* 1960-63 Associate Professor of Insect Ecology, Cornell University
* 1955-60 Assistant Professor of Insect Ecology, Dept. of Entomology and Limnology, Cornell University

———————————————-

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:32 am 42. jeremy W:

“How about a coherent energy policy where we add a reasonable tax to gasoline, thereby encouraging fuel sipping and then use every cent of that revenue to address these structural needs?”

How about Christmas every day? How about a host of unrealistic goodies?

Most of what was written is mush like the nonsense about solar being cheaper than conventional. Yes, it is, if you count in all of the silly cross subsidies and taxes. That is the problem. There is so much finagling with “energy policy” that there is zero possibility of “coherent” policy.

If you want “coherent” policy, get rid of all the sill;y government goodies – tax breaks, subsidies and taxes – and start to full-cost everything. Then you will get a “coherent” policy.

This article is yet another illustration of the crazy way that everything is done in California and the screw-ball results that arise.

“Coherent policy” – Not likely.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:44 am 43. David W. Lincoln:

100 km, or 60 miles per charge. Well, I for one am not willing to take longer periods to time, than is the case currently, to get to where I want to go.

This is part of the legacy that the granola crunchers avoid like a ham sandwich at a bar mitzvah.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:53 am 44. Old Country Boy:

Most of you commenters that think that electrcity for transportation is most efficient also think that milk comes from a grocery dairy case. Eon is correct. The only really viable charging sources if you want electric cars is nuclear and hydro. Nuclear is not bad, and we have a treasure trove in the stored spent fuel. All we need is one or two fast breaders (old name). They are the safest of al reactors, but produce weapons grade materials along with a few pounds of daughter elements.

We need to use the best fuel for the best purpose. Stop using natural gas and petroleum for power generation. Use natural gas delivered to the user as in home heating. Use petroleum for transportation because it is easily and safely transported. (for the numnuts who don’t know this out there). Let everyone who wants to have wind, solar, and biofuels – just don’t subsidize them, because that leads the mathemetically impaired to think they are cheaper or better.

And for the commenter who thinks he/she is the only scientist/engineer that knows about this. Think again. There are at least 6 billion scientists that believe the goracle and global warming. Are these people all wrong?

From a research engineer who put weather stations up around the world.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:56 am 45. Old Country Boy:

correction – that’s fast breeder not breader, and the coracle comment was sarc. There are academic and political whores who will tell you anything for a buck.

Dec 28, 2008 - 6:52 am 46. kabud:

Another benefit of nuclear energy:

more nuclear reactors-
more material for nuclear weapons

WE DESPERATELY NEED THOSE

it will considerably reduce the risks of attack on USA

those risks are the major cause of recession by the way

Since 1978 when :

China joined world economy, later
Reagan strengthen US defense
USSR dissolved or at least played it so the West believed that danger is not there any more

world finances were constantly injected with false optimism

and they grew disproportionally to the world GDP

Check it out youselfs:

total world finances in 1980 were at the level of world GDP

In 2007 total finances counted (160 trillion) to be around 4 times of world GDP

And i am not sure how to count derivatives that could be even bigger in total.

Starting from 2001 event known as 9-11 optimism started to disappear

Risks went up and contributed to world economic crisis

If USA increases military spending it will reduce risks.

So more nuclear power-more nuclear weapons-less risks-more optimism-economy will grow faster

Simple as that

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:51 am 47. Pappadave:

Right you are, OCB. When we started subsidizing “scientists” with tax dollars we effectively ruined science. Real science is as rare as hens’ teeth any more. Why? Because “scientists” quickly came to realize that they could extract MORE tax dollars if they could only convince those holding the taxpayers’ purse strings (Congress) that a dire “emergency” exists which made their own little piece of “research” essential. Since Congresscritters are as scientifically illiterate as the rest of us are becoming, we get politicians like Al Gore touting this unscientific nonsense (and making a personal fortune in the bargain). It’s literally astonishing how someone who’s merely glib can put forth this idiocy and make it seem plausible enough that large numbers of sheep fall in line and sign onto it.

Since our universities have essentially stopped teaching logic and critical thinking, very few college graduates even have the ability to sift through the nonsense and recognize it for what it really is. What passes for “critical thinking” these days is university professors teaching our kids to reject everything that has stood us in good stead since the Revolutionary War and embracing the phony concept of socialism as a means of forcing equality of outcome instead of providing conditions which permit equality of opportunity.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:01 am 48. M. Simon:

In San Francisco and many other communities, solar power generation is now available at costs that are lower than buying electricity from the local utility.

And taxpayers get to make up the difference. People who can only afford to drive a twelve year old second hand jalopy get to subsidize people who can afford to buy a new car.

Isn’t it wonderful?

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:14 am 49. M. Simon:

Jack Okie,

EEStor has yet to deliver one of their supercapacitors for independent testing. Not even a lab model.

Many in the industry think that they are fudging by not taking into account dielectric saturation i.e. capacitance at low voltage is way higher than capacitance at high voltage. Not to mention the fact that capacitance at room temperature can be 2X to 3X higher than capacitance at 20° below or 100° above zero F. You will note that all their “specifications” call out the capacitance at about 73° F.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:31 am 50. thegre8_1:

NO WAY JOSE.

Dec 28, 2008 - 10:55 am 51. George:

While others may focus on more expensive energy for transportation, I think only less expensive alternateves have a chance in the marketplace. Potential less expensive fuels are compressed natural gas and conversion of coal to a liquid fuel like methanol. Economically it doesn’t matter if the more energy goes into the production of transportation fuel as long as the input energy source is cheap like coal and the output energy carrier is valuable like diesel fuel.

I would like to see a change in EPA regulations to require Ethanol and Methanol material compatibility in all new cars sold in the US after some close in date like 2012 combined with signigicant deregulation of DIY alternative fuel conversion. The goal would be to have a fleet of vehicles that could be converted to run on alcohol fuels if they ever became less expensive than gasoline without building the full cost of flex-fuel capability in to each car or truck.

I would also like to see more CNG refueling stations along major highways. Natural Gas is less expensive than gasoline or diesel fuel, but high pressure fuel tanks are expensive and range is lower. If the refueling infrastructure was in place, low prices for CNG could cover the expense of the fuel tanks. Unlike alcohol or hydrogen, natural gas is relatively easy to distribute by pipeline. Unconventional sources of natural gas from shale, coal beds, methane hydrates, etc. extend the life of this fuel beyond conventional oil and gas wells.

Dec 28, 2008 - 1:40 pm 52. Old Country Boy:

OK, I guess I have to make another post for the dreamers. Alcohol is not cost effiecive. It is only used because of the subsidy, the Iowa farm lobby, and the environmental nitwits. If you put methanol or ethanol in your tank, say 10% with 90% gasoline, you get a reduction of mileage of up to 10%. Maybe one of you math geniuses can tell me how it is cost effective to get a lower gas mileage. If alcohol bearing gasoline costs $1.40 (as in Oklahoma), you can go to a station that sells alcohol-free fuel for $1.50. It seems to me that you are losing 4-5 cents a gallon at the reduced mileage. Youall need to think of gallons/mile or $/mile instead of miles/gallon or $/gallon.

Next, think of the people with chain saws, lawn mowers, log splitters, weed eaters,leaf blowers, kawasakis, gasoline pumps, boats, etc. The small engines barely run on low octane unleaded. What do you think will happen with ethanol on a cold wet day?

Mr. George: CNG fuel is OK for local deliveries and public transportation where competant maintenance is resident. However, any presurized gas system has a short life and many places to leak. It really is not very good for cross country travel.

Your approach is for more big government to pass a new rule or law. That is the sorority girl or liberal/marxist approach. “I’m gonna make a new rule…” The dead tree version of US code now extends from DC to SFO. Enough is enough. The only ones who benefit are the lawyers.

Dec 28, 2008 - 2:46 pm 53. Bilgeman:

George:

“I would also like to see more CNG refueling stations along major highways. Natural Gas is less expensive than gasoline or diesel fuel.”

Compressed Natural Gas, (CNG), is a good alternative, but Liquefied Natural Gas, (LNG), is the way to go.

The advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to build a cryogenic tank than a pressure-vessel beefy enough to liquefy a gas by compression,(as is done with butane, hexane, propane and pentane).

Also, since methane liquefies at cryogenic temperatures, and you need to warm it up to gassify it prior to combustion, you would get free “air conditioning” as a by-product,(a not inconsiderable benefit throughout much of the US in peak driving season).

My very first ship was the SS Aries, of this class:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~sulindhill/LNGAquarius.jpg

The tanks were pressurized to 15 psig, and to transport the equivalent amount of methane unliquefied would require 617 ships of this class.

LNG keeps Japan’s industry running…

Dec 28, 2008 - 4:35 pm 54. poul:

Bilgeman,

“Liquefied Natural Gas, (LNG), is the way to go.The advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to build a cryogenic tank than a pressure-vessel beefy enough to liquefy a gas by compression.”

and if you leave it parked for a while, the resulting explosion when it heats up is quite spectacular.

Dec 28, 2008 - 5:20 pm 55. Bilgeman:

poul:

“and if you leave it parked for a while, the resulting explosion when it heats up is quite spectacular.”

Well, we’d onload LNG in Indonesia, Borneo or Sumatra, and then push the load for 6 or 7 days northwards to Japan. We did have boil-off, which we burned in the boilers, (The pipes that connect the tanks of the Aquarius at their tops in the pic are what this was for). And we NEVER fully discharged the cargo, since we would keep the tanks cool on the empty southbound trip by spraying the LNG on the tank walls so they would be ready to receive the next load.

In fact, we used to have “Econo Races”…the Cargo Engineer would keep spraying to generate boil-off, and we’d see how little bunker fuel oil we could burn enroute to Indo.

You must be thinking of a BLEVE,(Boiling Liquid-Expanding Vapor Explosion),which will happen if ANY tank of liquefied gas is burned hot enough. In training, we saw film footage of a rail tankcar going up,(compressed gas, btw), and it was QUITE impressive.

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:40 pm 56. Eric:

Unless you are willing to believe that man is responsible for “climate change”, I’m not, then there is really little reason to pursue short term alternatives to oil for transportation. We have trillions of recoverable barrels of oil in our shale deposits, and trillions more which can be obtained from coal gasification. To stretch these resources even farther we should work to transition all electricity generation to nuclear and away from coal and natural gas. I’m not saying we shouldn’t pursue alternatives for the day when we eventually do run out of economically viable coal and oil to extract, just that there is no urgency.
The strategic advantages to be gained from becoming energy independent and even a net oil exporter are tremendous. Just think of what economic power we would wield if we could use our massive reserves to control the price of oil. There would be no more ability for the world’s petrotyrants to use oil wealth to arm themselves, commit acts of terror, or act against us in any way.
The revenue from the extraction of all this domestic fuel would fund the entire federal government and provide huge sums for research in to alternatives. The only thing standing in our way are extremist organizations like the Sierra Club and the rest of the anti-growth, anti-Western, anti-capitalist eco-Marxists.

And I just read a great article in National Geographic over Christmas about the devastation of Borneo’s (?) forests which are being wiped out to grow palm trees for palm oil, a major bio-diesel fuel. Show me a bio fuel which doesn’t cause more damage than it it supposedly saves and I’ll show you a bridge I have for sale.

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:45 pm 57. madamemayhem:

will my next car be a plug in EV? Nope. i am currently aiming to lose my little fuel efficient subaru and get a vintage, gas guzzling, land yacht. thats right i want an acre of detroit steel surrounding me at all times while driving in an area where illegals are careening around without a license or insurance. screw the clown cars!!!

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:46 pm 58. Eric:

LNG? Ugh – weak, weak, weak fuel. While in college I worked in a textile plant that had compressed NG fueled forklifts and they were significantly less powerful than standard gas burning models. To get an equivalent HP you’d have to double the displacement of a standard gasoline engine. That is the problem with ALL current alternatives, they simply do not have the same number of recoverable BTU’s per unit volume as does gasoline.

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:48 pm 59. Pappadave:

Yeah. Here you get a twofer. Cheap fuel and spectacular fireworks displays when it explodes as ambient air temps get above 90. However, it’s pretty expensive to keep having to replace one’s car two or three times a week in the summer. I know! We’ll make cars out of paper! Oh oh! That means cutting down more trees, though.

Dec 28, 2008 - 7:54 pm 60. Old Country Boy:

Bilgeman: I appreciate your experience and point of view. However, I think your experience is delivering LNG to Japan and pacific rim countries etc., which have little or no domestic gas production. As I said, gas has certain natural and economic uses. Since the LNG you picked up was probably from Alaska and the rest of the US is supplied from the oil compact states, I don’t see that your solution has much bearing on the USA today. We don’t need LNG. We have gas in the pipelines. Which highway would you recommend the SS Aries take to get LNG from Cushing, Oklahoma to, say, Chicago? Would you use the Port of Catoosa?

(Intended humor – not intended to disparage)

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:24 pm 61. myth buster:

Our nuclear engineers need to put their egos aside and build Fusion Induced Fast Reactors. The fast neutrons generated by fusion reactions (FIFRs) can easily fission any fissionable isotope, including Uranium-238 and Thorium-232. Fusion won’t generate enough energy to recoup the energy input on its own, but the fission reactions induced by it will generate a gain of 8-10 or more (meaning that you get about 10 times as much energy out as you put in, at the expense of waste materials). Problem is, the fusion engineers consider fission dirty, and the fission engineers consider fusion a pipe-dream. FIFRs are feasible today, but they’re not being pursued.

Dec 28, 2008 - 8:31 pm 62. poul:

Bilgeman, if you leave cryogenic tank uncooled, it *will* explode as the pressure builds up. i’ve seen it once, or rather what remains from the place where it happened. now, you can let it leak to remove the pressure, but then you will come back to your parked car with an empty tank even faster.

seriously, why all this bother when diesel fuel is perfectly fine alternative?

Dec 28, 2008 - 9:01 pm 63. David H:

The issue with solar is that you need a way to store the energy for use during the evening, using the surplus electricity to produce hydrogn which can then be used to create electricity, or heat up water makes sense. People should look at the link I gave them at the start of this. The whole objective is to reduce the reliance of oil and other hydrocarbons that are controlled by our enemies, every bit helps.

Dec 29, 2008 - 4:52 am 64. Bilgeman:

poul:

” you can let it leak to remove the pressure, but then you will come back to your parked car with an empty tank even faster.

seriously, why all this bother when diesel fuel is perfectly fine alternative?”

For cars, certainly. I was throwing the automotive LNG conversion out there as one of the “million different ways to skin the cat”.

And OCB’s point is well-taken, I was thinking more along the lines of clean power generation and home/commercial heating with NG, which is already a “done deal”, the new cryogenic infrastructure being entirely installed “upstream” from the consumer.

As I pointed out, a boiler (and ANY internal combustion engine which burns methane,despite the loss of power by the lower BTU’s), is going to be incredibly clean…necessitating less crankcase oil changes,(which itself is a not inconsiderable saving).

In this application, which itself is a done deal in many of the Eastern Seaboard cities, (Boston, Cove Point, MD, Elba Island GA, and New York City used to have an LNG storage facility,but they tore it down). LNG makes a lot of sense.

And once the stuff is re-gassified, you can pipe it wherever you like.

Lowers the demand for gasoline and diesel, which leads to…lower prices, (which is kinda the point, yes?).

Dec 29, 2008 - 5:27 am 65. Bilgeman:

OCB:

“Since the LNG you picked up was probably from Alaska and the rest of the US is supplied from the oil compact states, I don’t see that your solution has much bearing on the USA today. We don’t need LNG. We have gas in the pipelines.”

Ummm, no we don’t. That’s why Cove Point, Elba Island and Boston all built LNG facilities back in the 70’s…to import LNG, (from Algeria, at the time).

George Bush (41) was big into that trade with his El Paso LNG company. IIRC, he had 3 tankers running, and had ordered at least two more, but Avondale Shipbuilding screwed up the tanks on the newbuilds,(El Paso used prismatic tanks, rather than the sphericals favored by Energy Transportation…mainly because at the time Avondale didn’t have “Goliath”, the crane at Quincy Shipbuilding that lowered the spherical tanks into the Aquarius hulls). So they made PL-480 grain bulkers out of them,(the Welfare of the US Maritime World).

And then a combination of NIMBY and the Algerians hiking the price for their gas pretty much put the kibosh on that for awhile.

But the trade is on its way back. Cove Point has or is in the process of reopening, and I sailed past a brand spankin’ new LNG exporting facility outside of Lake Charles LA.

Dec 29, 2008 - 5:40 am 66. per o:

It is very clear to me that the world is divided into two groups

Group A one group understands and have used “thermodynamics, chemistry and physics and arithmetic”

Group B the other group beleives in “opinion leaders, coolness, and I dont and cant understand it , so it must be magic , and if its magic I can beleive anything I want to.

Group B wants to force Group A at gun point, or by economic destruction to join Group B

its very much like the hitchhikers guide becoming reality

hopefully telphone sanitizers will join Group A

Dec 29, 2008 - 1:37 pm 67. Roderick Reilly:

“”"”"”"”Obviously, that gasoline burning power plant should be relegated to the scrapheap of history.”"”"”"”"”

Why? We can still improve on it. Also, I get this bad feeling that we’re not talking about just reducing our dependence on oil, but eliminating it all together. How incredibly stupid would that be?

Most rocket launch vehicles, all warplanes, most other aircraft will need petroleum-based fuels for a very long time. And, please, no stupid notions of running supersonic jets on “biodiesel,” puh-leeze!

Also, no ignorant notions that all rockets shouls switch to hydrogen right off the pad, because hydrogen is NOT the best fuel for the initial part of a launch (hydrogen is a superior upper stage fuel), and is so light that the fuel tanks for hydrogen are huge and bulky. Kerosene and its derivatives as well as other industrial chemicals are better for this purpose, and will be for decades.

My point is that life and technology and modern human needs are about a whole lot more than lil’ put-put cars, running the hair-drier, charging the iPod, and heating our houses. Please take in the big picture. Thank you.

Dec 29, 2008 - 2:41 pm 68. David H:

Actually I think we will still use hydrocarbons as comment 67 so rightly points out, my own attempts at energy self-sufficiency are to pay less tax and limit the amount of money I pay for a commodity controlled mainly by people who want to kill me and destroy my civilisation, so by changing my consumption by using Hydrogen I do my bit to reduce the amount of money they can take from us.

As I live in Europe and teh distance is not as big as in the USA, my commute is less so this approach will work for me, I guess that we will have different solutions. Personally I hope that they keep refining the Hydrogen based fuel cell.

I am waiting for the right cost/efficiency for the direction I want to go and then I will take the plunge.

Did anyone look at the ITM site?

Dec 30, 2008 - 2:48 am 69. Pappadave:

David H.

How do you think hydrogen is produced? Primarily, through electrolysis–which requires electricity, which is produced primarily today by the burning of fossil fuels (Oh, I understand there are numerous nuclear plants in Europe, but MOST of the world’s electricity comes from hydrocarbon combustion.)

Wake up and smell the roses, people. We aren’t going to do away with the need for hydrocarbon fuels in the foreseeable future…period.

Jan 1, 2009 - 8:43 pm 70. Electric Log Splitter:

wow what a informative post. thanks for that post. it will help a lot specially in me whose searching for an answer in my question. now it is solved. thanks a lot

Sep 9, 2009 - 2:47 am