A thought I have long held on the issue of energy security for the US: US miltary budget is just shy of $500 billion per annum, a large part of which appears to be for sustaining a sufficiently powerful military to protect US energy interests in the Middle East.
What would the impact on the price of oil be if the US were to reallocate 10% of that annual budget to the deployment of renewable energy schemes? $50 billion would build a lot of wind and solar farms and could also be used to fund wave and tidal projects that private equity will not touch for a host of reasons (technological uncertainty, long payback periods, planning concerns, etc), as well as providing a huge source of R&D funding for new technologies. By virtue of the fact that the funding would come from re-allocated federal budgets it would not be necessary to demonstrate private equity style rates of return. In theory it would not be necessary to show a demonstrable "return" at all.
It is estimated that there is in the region of 50,000 MW of tidal and wave resource on the west coast of North America, enough to provide for pretty much all current power consumption west of the Rockies. An example of the type of project that could be contemplated can be found at http://www.tidalelectric.com/ (although I personally do not believe that this would be the most economically efficient way to harness tidal power, it has the benefit of being sufficiently low-tech to be demonstrably workable)
Clearly such projects would not be like-for-like replacements for the majority of petroleum-based product consumption, but they would provide a huge future resource base for electricity-based replacements to the existing FF-based transport infrastructure.
Prioritization as it relates to DOD spending versus DOE spending is a topic I have touched on numerous occasion but keep in mind that Peak Oil is a Liquid Transportation Fuels crisis, not an electrical one.
Peak Oil is a Liquid Transportation Fuels crisis, not an electrical one
This is a bit misleading IMO. If for example we replace enough natural gas from electricity generation, it can be easily used directly to fuel the cars. The technology is there and can be applied to existing vehicles (at the cost of some 1-2000$, likely to drop with mass production).
Displaced coal can be liquified or maybe better - gasified with higher efficiency to be used the same way as NG.
The truth is that PO promises to be a crisis, because all of the fossil fuels seem to be reaching a logistic maximums for various reasons and to different extent. These maximums will likely convergate in time when various replacement processes start to be implemented. Another consequence is that the severity of PO will vary with the location, because coal and NG are not that fungible as oil. Coutries where coal or NG is still abundant or countries that rely on nuclear energy will be much better off.
This is a back of the envelope calculation, but what it reveals is a catch-22 situation if we are unable/unwilling to change our pattern of energy consumption.
If you take ALL the natural gas that was used (in 2005) for electrical production and used it in place of gasoline, you would displace only 37.5% of all the gasoline used. Furthermore, I drive a NG car periodically. They burn NG or gasoline but not "both" so when you run out of NG (actually when the regulator cuts you off), unless you have some way to quick-connect a pressurized bottle of NG, you are stuck.
Our Hondas have a maximum fill pressure of 3200 psig. Our other larger vehicles have tanks pressures up to 3600 psig. Filling them is relatively simple with the quick connect system, but it is not fast. A near empty tank can take 20-40 minutes to fill to capacity with a large "fast" compressor station. Since you are compressing gas from a much lower "street pressure" to a much higher tank pressure, the compression causes the gas to heat. These compressors have a very large intercooler to drop the temperature back down to acceptable levels prior to filling the vehicle tank. Nonetheless, these tanks do get quite warm when filling. A "slow fill" system or systems with small intercoolers may take as long as eight hours to refill. Changes the experience of filling the tank to a "career."
Add to that the fact that electrical generation using natural gas primarily uses relatively new, high-efficiency simple cycle or combined cycle turbines that can only burn natural gas or distillate oil. So whatever gas you take away (and oil you save from automobiles) has to be made up by more oil use. These new simple-cycle CTs are much more efficient that just about any coal-plant except supercritical, double reheat EGUs with a nice cool lake for condenser water. And there aren't any coal-fired power plants that can match the current generation combined cycle CTs.
That's the principle behind IGCC...to gasify coal into a product that can be burned in a high-efficiency combined cycle CT that is more efficient than an equivalent coal-burner. You give up a substantial amount of the efficiency by using the coal's heating value to gasify it, but the operating at a net 40-45% efficiency compared to the more nominal 30-35% efficiency of a standard coal-plant may be worth the difference.
But the underlying point is that with 2% annual growth in various energy demands AND the need to change to a different distribution of fuels...well it's just not going to happen. Consider that without PO staring us in the face and we kept everything in it's current proportions (oil, gas, coal) that in 35 years we have to have the ability (and the infrastructure) to handle twice as much of EVERYTHING as we do now.
More over, the substitution of coal (or more clearly the liquifaction and gasification of coal) for other products we currently use won't be as much help as many think.
Thirty years ago, "we had" about 400 years of coal at the usage rate of the mid-1970s. Today we have between 250-275 years. Did we really use 125-150 years of coal in 35 years? Yes, mostly because we've doubled our rate of consumption and our estimates of the reserves (and their declining quality) have become more refined.
Currently, coal accounts for about 23% of our total energy use. With the combination of "normal growth" and susbstitution of coal products are we really likely to have enough coal for "hundreds of years?" Probably not.
Anything that can replace 1/3 of a countries wehicle fuel use is not an "only" solution. I get excited by anything that can replace 1/10.
Seamless transition between gas and gasoline is standard on the biogas cars sold in Sweden and its essentialy the same methane.
It would be a very good idea to build as manny nuclear powerplanst as you can and replace natural gas heating with heat pumps and any base load use of natural gas for electricity production.
There is hardly any baseload generation of electricity in the US using gas except for CHP plants (which might best be left alone). These turbine plants that have been put into operation are largely "instant on" peaking and reserve plants.
Heat pumps only make sense for a portion of the US. Even with the higher COP that is possible with newer designs, they don't do well in cool moist winter environments. They spend too much time defrosting.
By seamless, do you mean that any vehicle is switchable between gasoline and methane? Do they have one injection system for gasoline and another for NG/methane?
The point I was making is that this is not a substitution. Robbing the NG from electric generation from high efficiency pre-mix NG turbines to burn in vehicles means that turbines must burn something else (distillate oil with diffusion combustion rather than pre-mix). Unless consumption is reduced, you end up with "no solution."
"Heat pumps only make sense for a portion of the US. Even with the higher COP that is possible with newer designs, they don't do well in cool moist winter environments. They spend too much time defrosting. "
What about ground-exchange heat pumps?
"this is not a substitution. "
Any thoughts about substituting wind, and in the longer term solar, for coal and nat gas?
On ground exchange---possible but costly and less appetizing when things go wrong. I have several friends that have invested in such systems and their dissatisfaction comes from when things go wrong underground.
Only portions of the US have areas where wind is "reliable." It should be included in this mix, but you can't just turn the wind on. And as was demonstrated in CA this past summer and previously, heat waves tend to correspond with low wind just when you have the highest demand. CA's problems were also compounded by the NG compressor cooling issue.
As for solar, I think we are probably far enough along on higher efficiency PV cells that we should consider jumping forward with them. Solar thermal also has some promise in certain areas (e.g., Kramer Station in CA). A point worth considering about solar cells is that the higher efficiency cells require substantial initial energy input as well as fossil fuels. If we wait to long, solar will look like an alternative we wished we had taken and would then be tantilizingly "out of reach."
I recommended to a friend in Peabody, MA that she install
An undersized geothermal heat pump (adequate for summer cooling load)
A high efficiency condensing gas furnance (~94% AFUE but the c)
and
3) A wood furnance with outside combustion air
as well as insulate & caulk/seal more.
She can "twitch between fuels". Currently a geothermal heat pump can probably supply all her heating down to 32-40F at the lowest cost (wood perhaps cheaper, but not dramatically). NG may be more expensive/BTU but not dramatically and the capital cost is much lower.
Wood is the emergency backup and potentially lowest cost but a hassle. Uneven heat as well w/o air circulation but when a blizzard hits, the grid goes down, it is good to have a pile of wood !
If we start doing it on a large scale, I expect that we are going to have the bottles pre-filled at the gas stations, and you just pay for the difference. The best thing of all is that the infrastructure to transport NG is already in place.
The case for transitioning at least partially to gaseous fuels is not bad: we can obtain them from the ground, from coal, from biomass, we can even use electrolysis and mix the H2 in small proportions. The respective processes are much more efficient then turning them to liquids.
Your idea has a certain appeal and a practical limit.
First a simple, high pressure quick connect would be possible for changing tanks, similar to how we currently fill these vehicles.
Second, a typical FRP tank (which is what our vehicles contain) take more vehicle volume than a gasoline tank. We can get about 200-250 miles per tankful. Even though methane is highly compressible (I mean that in the sense that it does not follow the ideal gas law), the combination of methane (at pressure) and tank weight required for a vehicle provides a limit to moving tanks around. You and I are not going to hoof one of these tanks around (even dividing the current single high pressure tank into two or three smaller tanks might make the individual tanks more manageable, though the total weight will increase and increases the number of connections required). Even an automatic "bottle replacement system" would require some sort of universal system for vehicles.
Third, bottle storage and inspection. It's one thing to have various LPG bottle redistribution points for gas grills and even for those systems that use a larger amount of LPG with larger truck transported replaceable bottles. But think of the footprint required for a typical "gas station" to store full, empty, and those bottles being refilled for the number vehicles served. Thats much different than underground storage tanks for liquid fuels.
I posted this some time ago and no one commented. I took all of the known world reserves and consumption of coal, oil and NG frrom the EIA website, converted them to equivalent Btus and did the math for growth rates. I can provide the data if you like:
Growth Rate Years Remaining
0% 90.4
2% 52.1
4% 39.0
Depleting landlocked sources of NG are far more valuable in other applications then used as an LTF insofar as North America is concerned.
At the end of the day, it will be easier and cheaper to convert one's F-150 to run on an EtOH blend with a smarter carb, then to try and change the entire motoring infrastructure.
And unlike the fossils, EtOH can be produced anywhere on the continent, from practically any carbonaceous material available.
Add conservation, electrification and other mitigation strategies to the mix and we should be able to keep up with a modest rate of decline.
But the combination modest decline and demand growth are a dangerous formula. Far better to ditch the F-150 for a more modest, light weight vehicle that we also drive less.
Basic physics of moving mass does not change just because one changes fuel.
With infrastructure you might be able to produce EtOH anywherem but there are large swaths of the North American west that have low growth rate, limited biomass because they are high plains deserts. I just drove through the areas of Northern Colorado and across much of lower and middle Wyoming. There may be quite a number of gas and oil wells and much oil shale, but it's a fairly stark landscape most above 6,000 feet.
Fair enough. I'll give you an interesting segue though: mesquite.
Down in Texas there's apparently 1000's of acres of mesquite that thrive in the low mositure environ and actually choke off the creation of natural water reservoirs.
There's been no way to harvest the mesquite until just recently as an outfit down there have created the first ever designated mesquite harvester.
The potential exists (and groups are working on it as we speak) to turn this unique and most unanticipated feedstock source into ethanol.
"What would the impact on the price of oil be if the US were to reallocate 10% of that annual budget to the deployment of renewable energy schemes? $50 billion would build a lot of wind and solar farms and could also be used to fund wave and tidal projects..."
Good idea. When you gain control of the U.S. Congress, we should implement this plan.
2009 will give the Democrats a secure hold on the Senate, a bigger majority of the House, and the White House. Then we will see a synfuel and electric cars program. Possibly electric trains someplace like New York where the subway can be elevated and population is dense. Elevated railroads are unpopular, but cheap and fast.
2009 will give the Democrats a secure hold on the Senate, a bigger majority of the House, and the White House.
I'd be careful with predictions. Personally the Democrats regaining the majority right now I think was a strategic mistake on their part. I don't think its a Republican conspiracy, but I can't help but think that the Dems may be walking into a trap set by fate. If the economy tanks into recession shortly after they take over in 2 months, and if they can't show progress on forcing the Republicans out of Iraq, or if Iraq improves due to Bush's plan, they could be setting themselves up for a nasty fall.
Not to mention, even in winning the democrats are acting like a pack of jackals, and some are calling for Dean to resign from the DNC because the Dems didn't capture "enough" seats. Gotta love it... win back a majority in both houses in a nation that is roughly 50/50 split, and its still not good enough.
When all is said and done, the Democrats will have picked up roughly 30+ House seats, which is about equal to the greatest margin the GOP ever enjoyed during their 12-year reign. As for Howard Dean, the man is now vindicated! His controversial "50 state strategy" was a stroke of genius, whereas the Republicans and their president were spending money in the most unusual places (i.e. solid red) during the waning days of the campaign. Clearly, the man's efforts paid off handsomely for his party, and they are in a much better position to parlay their success in 2008.
For environmental advocates, the election results clearly were beneficial. Two of the most dastardly villains in Congress were removed from their powerful positions as chairmen of influencial committees. Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Resources Committee and a sworn enemy of virtually every environmental law you could think of, lost his race. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will be in the minority party come January, thus losing his chairmanship (this dinosaur mocked global warming as the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon the American people", and was among the most prominent roadblocks in Washington regarding this issue).
Having purged these two individuals from their committee chairmanships made the election results all the more satisfying. :)
The 2008 electoral map is VERY friendly to the Dems in the senate. It is going to be very difficult for them to avoid picking up a seat or two. In the house, even if they lose a fair number of seats, barring some sort of tidal wave, they'll still have the majority. For state houses and governorships, they have a solid majority now that will last until 2010 (4 year terms), which means they automatically get to do redistricting in 2010 throughout most of the country (30 states, roughly, with the majority of the country's population, and thus House seats).
This means that in 2010, they will pretty likely gerrymander the remaining blue state republicans straight out of existence. This is exactly what gave the republicans their current majority, lots of (in their case mid-decade) redistricting. The Dems get to redistrict now, and the results will probably not be pretty.
In addition, we have two more years of bush being a total ass.
I think in 2008 the Dems will actually gain seats in both houses, and the white house.
I do not accept the premise that the Democrats automatically have it easy going into 2008. In fact, looking away from politicians to actual ballot initiatives in all 50 states, I get the strong impression of a nation that is predominantly socially conservative and fiscally conservative. An astonishing 6 in 10 voters exit polled in Ohio (CBS news) said they were not voting for Democrats but against Republicans. That's hardly a description of firm control.
The Democrats certainly can hold the Congress and take the White House but I do not see that as automatically assured as you seem to think. Rather, the Democrats are going to have to moderate their socially liberal positions somewhat, and be more fiscally conservative than Democrats have ever been before. Moderating social positions happens all the time and measuring how "liberal" or "conservative" one is on social issues is a very subjective thing. But the budget is not very subjective at all, at least to the man in the street.
I believe that the last Democrat controlled Congress to pass a balanced budget was under Nixon. The balanced budgets passed under Clinton were all Republican held Congresses. I firmly believe the budget is a major issue, almost as large as Iraq. If the Democrats can successfully force the White House into a withdrawal from Iraq and balance the budget, they will have 2 huge feathers in their cap for 2008. If they can do neither of these, I expect many of them to be replaced yet again, either by other more conservative Democrats, by Republicans, or by independents.
The Democrats are in a strong position, no question. But it's not a guaranteed win. They will have to work to continue to hold the Congress and take the White House. Adopting sane policies on energy would be a good start and there are many Democrat affiliated groups that are putting forth good proposals now rather than smoke-and-mirrors over ethanol and such.
"I believe that the last Democrat controlled Congress to pass a balanced budget was under Nixon. The balanced budgets passed under Clinton were all Republican held Congresses. "
That seems a little misleading: technically Congress controls the budget, but these days the President usually sets the agenda. Think about Reagan and GWB's tax cuts/deficits. It seems clear to me that the last 2 Dem presidents, Carter and Clinton, were much better deficit wise than their successors.
I agree that Dems are in a bit of a trap. I think their best bet is energy: oddly enough, that presents a much better win/win than an Iraq withdrawal or deficit reduction, either of which could have big unintended consequences.
Would this be some new "Democrats" party? One that will replace the current Democratic party? Because I don't see any influential democrats touting any alternative other than ethanol. And even that's not at the top of the agenda.
The democrats are just as much a part of the problem as the republicans. If you think they are going to do anything that will upset the capitalist growth engine, think again. They may try to make it a little softer on the edges, like raising minimum wage, but they aren't going to threaten the whole set up.
The Democrats just want to re-distribute more money from the rich to the middle class, end the war in Iraq at all costs, and do more to protect the environment and chase around whatever they think is preventing the golden age of justice from arriving (gay marriage, more regulation, etc). Neither party would really know what to do in a real crisis. All "radical" solutions are totally unpopular and off the table, the polling data-analytics have gotten so good now that it's kind of a prisoner's dilemma with the co-operators choosing to implement real policy and the poll-chasers defecting. Of course if the libertarians won, we could have a Byzantine Empire style radical simplification of the country instead of ever increasing levels of diminishing marginal returns. Simplification is really unpopular though.
I bet you voted for Nader too. WOW, that sure worked the first time around, didn't it?!? Please, please, PLEASE, learn from the past.
Saying the Democrats are the same as the Republicans is so hopelessly out of touch with reality that I almost don't know where to begin. It's like talking with a creationist, can we accept that the earth is round, or do we need to start with turtles all the way down?
Seems to me one either gives up hope, which in an American context means voting for a fringe party (and throwing away one's vote)
OR
one votes for one of the 2 main parties, and tries to work within the system for change.
Something like Richard Pombo losing his seat in CA was a big win for the environment, everywhere, not just in the USA. Taking out James Inhofe is as likely as a blizzard in mid August in New York City, but would have similar benefits.
Another important thing to do is to learn the issues and become an advocate for them. The internet allows a lot of grass roots communication to take place-- odd though it may sound, there are lots of people who think global warming is a distant problem that scientists are in disagreement about.
Because of the internet, it is possible to access directly the scientific knowledge and debate, and understand how wrong that viewpoint is.
What's out of touch with reality is believing that Dems will do anything significantly different. We had a Democratic congress for three plus decades before the recent Republican run - lot of good it did.
So, while you might not know where to begin, I'll just right you off as hopelessly naive.
These were all huge pieces of legislation, with significant effects for improving the environment of the United States.
What little alternative energy R&D and standards regarding appliance and home energy efficiency that has taken place.
the reality is it will take both Republicans and Democrats to achieve action on climate change.
Senators Lieberman and McCain proposed trading in CO2 permits. Whether they were serious or not is not clear, but it is certainly the case that the Gingrich-DeLay House of Representatives killed any chance of legislation of this nature.
Voting for third party candidates is not wasting your vote. Firstly, the greens, libertarians, and other parties do serve as a warning shot across the bow of the 2 major parties.
Why did Republicans lose this time? A lot of polling data suggests its because Conservatives either didn't Vote(in disgust with the Republicans), or voted third party libertarian etc. Its a way to show that while a voter isn't ready to switch sides to the other major, they are dissastisfied with the current job.
Secondly, Independents and Libertarians have won seats. I think even a Green has been in Congress before too, but I'd need to double check that. Also many lower level government seats can often be picked up by third parties. They have a harder time, but it can be done.
Thirdly, Politcal Parties have been upended and phased out in our past. Where are the Whigs? They were a major party for a portion of American history. Eventually enough people are going to get tired to this never ending pendulum(sp?) of the Dems and Repubs. When that happens a new party will have a chance to emerge and become viable against the current 2 majors, or replace one of the 2 majors.
If you only think you have 2 choices all the time, then this country is really screwed. New ideas have to be brought into the fray, and a lot of times the two majors look at the surge in a particular minor party's popularity, and steal the idea that led to that popularity. Hurts the small party, but ultimately the idea gets pushed forward.
"What would the impact on the price of oil be if the US were to reallocate 10% of that annual budget to the deployment of renewable energy schemes?"
About zero.
If on the other hand, it were applied (consistently for 20 yearsr) to a fee-bate system to enhance, or replace the CAFE auto standards by favoring high efficiency vehicles, it would slowly have an effect over the lifteime of the vehicle fleet.
"$50 billion would build a lot of wind and solar farms and could also be used to fund wave and tidal projects..."
Yes, but how and where? Would we have the wind farms in nowhere----congressional pork to put wind farms in places with no wind and little electrical demand, but located in the Appropriations Committee Chairman's district?
OK, that's an exaggeration.
Note that one nuclear plant (Palo Verde) produces more power today than all the wind and solar in the US combined.
A thought I have long held on the issue of energy security for the US: US miltary budget is just shy of $500 billion per annum, a large part of which appears to be for sustaining a sufficiently powerful military to protect US energy interests in the Middle East.
What would the impact on the price of oil be if the US were to reallocate 10% of that annual budget to the deployment of renewable energy schemes? $50 billion would build a lot of wind and solar farms and could also be used to fund wave and tidal projects that private equity will not touch for a host of reasons (technological uncertainty, long payback periods, planning concerns, etc), as well as providing a huge source of R&D funding for new technologies. By virtue of the fact that the funding would come from re-allocated federal budgets it would not be necessary to demonstrate private equity style rates of return. In theory it would not be necessary to show a demonstrable "return" at all.
It is estimated that there is in the region of 50,000 MW of tidal and wave resource on the west coast of North America, enough to provide for pretty much all current power consumption west of the Rockies. An example of the type of project that could be contemplated can be found at http://www.tidalelectric.com/ (although I personally do not believe that this would be the most economically efficient way to harness tidal power, it has the benefit of being sufficiently low-tech to be demonstrably workable)
Clearly such projects would not be like-for-like replacements for the majority of petroleum-based product consumption, but they would provide a huge future resource base for electricity-based replacements to the existing FF-based transport infrastructure.
Prioritization as it relates to DOD spending versus DOE spending is a topic I have touched on numerous occasion but keep in mind that Peak Oil is a Liquid Transportation Fuels crisis, not an electrical one.
Here's the tongue in cheek Oreo Cookie example I use: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-YzPuCGShI8
Luckily, I'll have the chance to address the above in Washington next year.
This is a bit misleading IMO. If for example we replace enough natural gas from electricity generation, it can be easily used directly to fuel the cars. The technology is there and can be applied to existing vehicles (at the cost of some 1-2000$, likely to drop with mass production).
Displaced coal can be liquified or maybe better - gasified with higher efficiency to be used the same way as NG.
The truth is that PO promises to be a crisis, because all of the fossil fuels seem to be reaching a logistic maximums for various reasons and to different extent. These maximums will likely convergate in time when various replacement processes start to be implemented. Another consequence is that the severity of PO will vary with the location, because coal and NG are not that fungible as oil. Coutries where coal or NG is still abundant or countries that rely on nuclear energy will be much better off.
It is very hard to build new gas docking terminal (NIMBYism and BANANA stuff)
BANANA is Build Absolutely Nothing Awfull Near Anyone.
Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything!
If you take ALL the natural gas that was used (in 2005) for electrical production and used it in place of gasoline, you would displace only 37.5% of all the gasoline used. Furthermore, I drive a NG car periodically. They burn NG or gasoline but not "both" so when you run out of NG (actually when the regulator cuts you off), unless you have some way to quick-connect a pressurized bottle of NG, you are stuck.
Our Hondas have a maximum fill pressure of 3200 psig. Our other larger vehicles have tanks pressures up to 3600 psig. Filling them is relatively simple with the quick connect system, but it is not fast. A near empty tank can take 20-40 minutes to fill to capacity with a large "fast" compressor station. Since you are compressing gas from a much lower "street pressure" to a much higher tank pressure, the compression causes the gas to heat. These compressors have a very large intercooler to drop the temperature back down to acceptable levels prior to filling the vehicle tank. Nonetheless, these tanks do get quite warm when filling. A "slow fill" system or systems with small intercoolers may take as long as eight hours to refill. Changes the experience of filling the tank to a "career."
Add to that the fact that electrical generation using natural gas primarily uses relatively new, high-efficiency simple cycle or combined cycle turbines that can only burn natural gas or distillate oil. So whatever gas you take away (and oil you save from automobiles) has to be made up by more oil use. These new simple-cycle CTs are much more efficient that just about any coal-plant except supercritical, double reheat EGUs with a nice cool lake for condenser water. And there aren't any coal-fired power plants that can match the current generation combined cycle CTs.
That's the principle behind IGCC...to gasify coal into a product that can be burned in a high-efficiency combined cycle CT that is more efficient than an equivalent coal-burner. You give up a substantial amount of the efficiency by using the coal's heating value to gasify it, but the operating at a net 40-45% efficiency compared to the more nominal 30-35% efficiency of a standard coal-plant may be worth the difference.
But the underlying point is that with 2% annual growth in various energy demands AND the need to change to a different distribution of fuels...well it's just not going to happen. Consider that without PO staring us in the face and we kept everything in it's current proportions (oil, gas, coal) that in 35 years we have to have the ability (and the infrastructure) to handle twice as much of EVERYTHING as we do now.
More over, the substitution of coal (or more clearly the liquifaction and gasification of coal) for other products we currently use won't be as much help as many think.
Thirty years ago, "we had" about 400 years of coal at the usage rate of the mid-1970s. Today we have between 250-275 years. Did we really use 125-150 years of coal in 35 years? Yes, mostly because we've doubled our rate of consumption and our estimates of the reserves (and their declining quality) have become more refined.
Currently, coal accounts for about 23% of our total energy use. With the combination of "normal growth" and susbstitution of coal products are we really likely to have enough coal for "hundreds of years?" Probably not.
Seamless transition between gas and gasoline is standard on the biogas cars sold in Sweden and its essentialy the same methane.
It would be a very good idea to build as manny nuclear powerplanst as you can and replace natural gas heating with heat pumps and any base load use of natural gas for electricity production.
Heat pumps only make sense for a portion of the US. Even with the higher COP that is possible with newer designs, they don't do well in cool moist winter environments. They spend too much time defrosting.
By seamless, do you mean that any vehicle is switchable between gasoline and methane? Do they have one injection system for gasoline and another for NG/methane?
The point I was making is that this is not a substitution. Robbing the NG from electric generation from high efficiency pre-mix NG turbines to burn in vehicles means that turbines must burn something else (distillate oil with diffusion combustion rather than pre-mix). Unless consumption is reduced, you end up with "no solution."
What about ground-exchange heat pumps?
"this is not a substitution. "
Any thoughts about substituting wind, and in the longer term solar, for coal and nat gas?
Only portions of the US have areas where wind is "reliable." It should be included in this mix, but you can't just turn the wind on. And as was demonstrated in CA this past summer and previously, heat waves tend to correspond with low wind just when you have the highest demand. CA's problems were also compounded by the NG compressor cooling issue.
As for solar, I think we are probably far enough along on higher efficiency PV cells that we should consider jumping forward with them. Solar thermal also has some promise in certain areas (e.g., Kramer Station in CA). A point worth considering about solar cells is that the higher efficiency cells require substantial initial energy input as well as fossil fuels. If we wait to long, solar will look like an alternative we wished we had taken and would then be tantilizingly "out of reach."
- An undersized geothermal heat pump (adequate for summer cooling load)
- A high efficiency condensing gas furnance (~94% AFUE but the c)
and3) A wood furnance with outside combustion air
as well as insulate & caulk/seal more.
She can "twitch between fuels". Currently a geothermal heat pump can probably supply all her heating down to 32-40F at the lowest cost (wood perhaps cheaper, but not dramatically). NG may be more expensive/BTU but not dramatically and the capital cost is much lower.
Wood is the emergency backup and potentially lowest cost but a hassle. Uneven heat as well w/o air circulation but when a blizzard hits, the grid goes down, it is good to have a pile of wood !
Alan
What went wrong? Were they unhappy overall - IOW, would they do it again?
The case for transitioning at least partially to gaseous fuels is not bad: we can obtain them from the ground, from coal, from biomass, we can even use electrolysis and mix the H2 in small proportions. The respective processes are much more efficient then turning them to liquids.
First a simple, high pressure quick connect would be possible for changing tanks, similar to how we currently fill these vehicles.
Second, a typical FRP tank (which is what our vehicles contain) take more vehicle volume than a gasoline tank. We can get about 200-250 miles per tankful. Even though methane is highly compressible (I mean that in the sense that it does not follow the ideal gas law), the combination of methane (at pressure) and tank weight required for a vehicle provides a limit to moving tanks around. You and I are not going to hoof one of these tanks around (even dividing the current single high pressure tank into two or three smaller tanks might make the individual tanks more manageable, though the total weight will increase and increases the number of connections required). Even an automatic "bottle replacement system" would require some sort of universal system for vehicles.
Third, bottle storage and inspection. It's one thing to have various LPG bottle redistribution points for gas grills and even for those systems that use a larger amount of LPG with larger truck transported replaceable bottles. But think of the footprint required for a typical "gas station" to store full, empty, and those bottles being refilled for the number vehicles served. Thats much different than underground storage tanks for liquid fuels.
Growth Rate Years Remaining
0% 90.4
2% 52.1
4% 39.0
VERY interesting for those that suppose that we can substitute (conversion losses like CTL up "consumption").
Renewables ARE needed !
Thanks,
Alan
At the end of the day, it will be easier and cheaper to convert one's F-150 to run on an EtOH blend with a smarter carb, then to try and change the entire motoring infrastructure.
And unlike the fossils, EtOH can be produced anywhere on the continent, from practically any carbonaceous material available.
Add conservation, electrification and other mitigation strategies to the mix and we should be able to keep up with a modest rate of decline.
Basic physics of moving mass does not change just because one changes fuel.
With infrastructure you might be able to produce EtOH anywherem but there are large swaths of the North American west that have low growth rate, limited biomass because they are high plains deserts. I just drove through the areas of Northern Colorado and across much of lower and middle Wyoming. There may be quite a number of gas and oil wells and much oil shale, but it's a fairly stark landscape most above 6,000 feet.
Down in Texas there's apparently 1000's of acres of mesquite that thrive in the low mositure environ and actually choke off the creation of natural water reservoirs.
There's been no way to harvest the mesquite until just recently as an outfit down there have created the first ever designated mesquite harvester.
The potential exists (and groups are working on it as we speak) to turn this unique and most unanticipated feedstock source into ethanol.
Good idea. When you gain control of the U.S. Congress, we should implement this plan.
I'd be careful with predictions. Personally the Democrats regaining the majority right now I think was a strategic mistake on their part. I don't think its a Republican conspiracy, but I can't help but think that the Dems may be walking into a trap set by fate. If the economy tanks into recession shortly after they take over in 2 months, and if they can't show progress on forcing the Republicans out of Iraq, or if Iraq improves due to Bush's plan, they could be setting themselves up for a nasty fall.
Not to mention, even in winning the democrats are acting like a pack of jackals, and some are calling for Dean to resign from the DNC because the Dems didn't capture "enough" seats. Gotta love it... win back a majority in both houses in a nation that is roughly 50/50 split, and its still not good enough.
When all is said and done, the Democrats will have picked up roughly 30+ House seats, which is about equal to the greatest margin the GOP ever enjoyed during their 12-year reign. As for Howard Dean, the man is now vindicated! His controversial "50 state strategy" was a stroke of genius, whereas the Republicans and their president were spending money in the most unusual places (i.e. solid red) during the waning days of the campaign. Clearly, the man's efforts paid off handsomely for his party, and they are in a much better position to parlay their success in 2008.
For environmental advocates, the election results clearly were beneficial. Two of the most dastardly villains in Congress were removed from their powerful positions as chairmen of influencial committees. Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Resources Committee and a sworn enemy of virtually every environmental law you could think of, lost his race. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will be in the minority party come January, thus losing his chairmanship (this dinosaur mocked global warming as the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon the American people", and was among the most prominent roadblocks in Washington regarding this issue).
Having purged these two individuals from their committee chairmanships made the election results all the more satisfying. :)
I would go further....
The 2008 electoral map is VERY friendly to the Dems in the senate. It is going to be very difficult for them to avoid picking up a seat or two. In the house, even if they lose a fair number of seats, barring some sort of tidal wave, they'll still have the majority. For state houses and governorships, they have a solid majority now that will last until 2010 (4 year terms), which means they automatically get to do redistricting in 2010 throughout most of the country (30 states, roughly, with the majority of the country's population, and thus House seats).
This means that in 2010, they will pretty likely gerrymander the remaining blue state republicans straight out of existence. This is exactly what gave the republicans their current majority, lots of (in their case mid-decade) redistricting. The Dems get to redistrict now, and the results will probably not be pretty.
In addition, we have two more years of bush being a total ass.
I think in 2008 the Dems will actually gain seats in both houses, and the white house.
The Democrats certainly can hold the Congress and take the White House but I do not see that as automatically assured as you seem to think. Rather, the Democrats are going to have to moderate their socially liberal positions somewhat, and be more fiscally conservative than Democrats have ever been before. Moderating social positions happens all the time and measuring how "liberal" or "conservative" one is on social issues is a very subjective thing. But the budget is not very subjective at all, at least to the man in the street.
I believe that the last Democrat controlled Congress to pass a balanced budget was under Nixon. The balanced budgets passed under Clinton were all Republican held Congresses. I firmly believe the budget is a major issue, almost as large as Iraq. If the Democrats can successfully force the White House into a withdrawal from Iraq and balance the budget, they will have 2 huge feathers in their cap for 2008. If they can do neither of these, I expect many of them to be replaced yet again, either by other more conservative Democrats, by Republicans, or by independents.
The Democrats are in a strong position, no question. But it's not a guaranteed win. They will have to work to continue to hold the Congress and take the White House. Adopting sane policies on energy would be a good start and there are many Democrat affiliated groups that are putting forth good proposals now rather than smoke-and-mirrors over ethanol and such.
That seems a little misleading: technically Congress controls the budget, but these days the President usually sets the agenda. Think about Reagan and GWB's tax cuts/deficits. It seems clear to me that the last 2 Dem presidents, Carter and Clinton, were much better deficit wise than their successors.
I agree that Dems are in a bit of a trap. I think their best bet is energy: oddly enough, that presents a much better win/win than an Iraq withdrawal or deficit reduction, either of which could have big unintended consequences.
The democrats are just as much a part of the problem as the republicans. If you think they are going to do anything that will upset the capitalist growth engine, think again. They may try to make it a little softer on the edges, like raising minimum wage, but they aren't going to threaten the whole set up.
Check your dictionary and a good history book.
Byzantine means 'complex and deceitful'.
Libertarians would simplify, but some of the problems are by their nature complex.
For example Global Warming: an unpriced economic externality with disastrous consequences for all.
Overfishing falls into the same camp.
Then there is nuclear terrorism, the dependence of the US on foreign oil, global problems like AIDS and flu.
Saying the Democrats are the same as the Republicans is so hopelessly out of touch with reality that I almost don't know where to begin. It's like talking with a creationist, can we accept that the earth is round, or do we need to start with turtles all the way down?
OR
one votes for one of the 2 main parties, and tries to work within the system for change.
Something like Richard Pombo losing his seat in CA was a big win for the environment, everywhere, not just in the USA. Taking out James Inhofe is as likely as a blizzard in mid August in New York City, but would have similar benefits.
Another important thing to do is to learn the issues and become an advocate for them. The internet allows a lot of grass roots communication to take place-- odd though it may sound, there are lots of people who think global warming is a distant problem that scientists are in disagreement about.
Because of the internet, it is possible to access directly the scientific knowledge and debate, and understand how wrong that viewpoint is.
So, while you might not know where to begin, I'll just right you off as hopelessly naive.
The Endangered Species Act
The Clean Water Act
Corporate Average Fuel Economy
These were all huge pieces of legislation, with significant effects for improving the environment of the United States.
What little alternative energy R&D and standards regarding appliance and home energy efficiency that has taken place.
the reality is it will take both Republicans and Democrats to achieve action on climate change.
Senators Lieberman and McCain proposed trading in CO2 permits. Whether they were serious or not is not clear, but it is certainly the case that the Gingrich-DeLay House of Representatives killed any chance of legislation of this nature.
Why did Republicans lose this time? A lot of polling data suggests its because Conservatives either didn't Vote(in disgust with the Republicans), or voted third party libertarian etc. Its a way to show that while a voter isn't ready to switch sides to the other major, they are dissastisfied with the current job.
Secondly, Independents and Libertarians have won seats. I think even a Green has been in Congress before too, but I'd need to double check that. Also many lower level government seats can often be picked up by third parties. They have a harder time, but it can be done.
Thirdly, Politcal Parties have been upended and phased out in our past. Where are the Whigs? They were a major party for a portion of American history. Eventually enough people are going to get tired to this never ending pendulum(sp?) of the Dems and Repubs. When that happens a new party will have a chance to emerge and become viable against the current 2 majors, or replace one of the 2 majors.
If you only think you have 2 choices all the time, then this country is really screwed. New ideas have to be brought into the fray, and a lot of times the two majors look at the surge in a particular minor party's popularity, and steal the idea that led to that popularity. Hurts the small party, but ultimately the idea gets pushed forward.
Their share of Republican voters even rose, by about as much.
What really happened was Independent voters shifted towards the Democrats, from the Republicans.
About zero.
If on the other hand, it were applied (consistently for 20 yearsr) to a fee-bate system to enhance, or replace the CAFE auto standards by favoring high efficiency vehicles, it would slowly have an effect over the lifteime of the vehicle fleet.
"$50 billion would build a lot of wind and solar farms and could also be used to fund wave and tidal projects..."
Yes, but how and where? Would we have the wind farms in nowhere----congressional pork to put wind farms in places with no wind and little electrical demand, but located in the Appropriations Committee Chairman's district?
OK, that's an exaggeration.
Note that one nuclear plant (Palo Verde) produces more power today than all the wind and solar in the US combined.