<Lehman: more socialising the losses of the rich The Oil Drum Hurricane Ike, Energy Infrastructure, Refineries and Damage Models Landfall Thread (Updated 9/13 18:00 EDT)>
<DrumBeat: September 13, 2008 DrumBeat DrumBeat: September 15, 2008>

128 comments on DrumBeat: September 14, 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Show without comments | PDF version

AlanfromBigEasy on September 14, 2008 - 2:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It is, IMHO, possible to conserve NG faster than it depletes. 22% of USA electrical generation from wind will *NOT* displace the 22% produced by NG, as claimed by Mr. Pickens. Time of day, seasonal demands (summer peak for most US electrical demand, summer minimum for wind) will, SWAG, displace slightly more coal than NG at these levels (absent pumped storage).

OTOH, increased insulation, better windows, tankless gas hot water heaters, solar water heaters and perhaps even wind driven ammonia production will save significant NG. Greater industrial efficiency will save even more.

Wind should be PART of a larger strategy for reduced NG use. Devoting some NG for specialty transportation (city buses, airport shuttles, garbage trucks, etc.) is a good strategy IMHO.

Fewer VMT (vehicle miles traveled) in smaller cars/SUVs is a better strategy than converting them to NG.

T Boone Pickens is NOT in favor of anything that he cannot make money off of. That much was crystal clear in a conference call with his staff.

Best Hopes for Better Plans than the Pickens Plan,

Alan

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
DownSouth on September 14, 2008 - 2:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Ah, you have hit the nail squarely upon the head. Sure, the Pickens/McClendon plan has a little to do with using less natural gas, but it has much more to do with using more natural gas.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
BC_EE on September 15, 2008 - 1:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

One thing became apparent to me Sir Alan of the BE, and this has been the underlying theme through much of the TOD comments since I've been participating (I've actually been on longer than my present handle). That is, we are having the discussion at all.

This may seem intuitively obvious to most whom post on this site, but if we take a moment to reflect, we are having discussions our parents would think absurd only some 40 years ago. Of course I ponder on this point on a daily basis, but I believe it deserves repeating in a larger audience.

Even though I go about my everyday job such as flying around in a helicopter in the BC mountains defining run of river hydro electric developments, the scale of our challenges still humbles me.

And in case you are interested, we were putting clear engineering conceptual design to run of river hydro electric developments in the same area where most of the 2010 Olympics will be conducted. Its not every day you get to fly around in the beautiful mountain terrain on a perfectly clear September day where most would pay 100's of dollars while you are getting paid $150/hr. Also, we are sensitive to the environmental and long term impacts and are doing all we can at the front end.

I don't want to really string transmission lines everywhere, but if someone can come up with a better use of the laws of physics, I would be most pleased to hear it.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
elwoodelmore on September 15, 2008 - 5:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"......we are having discussions our parents would think absurd only some 40 years ago."

now hold on there just a minute....... my parents were of the great depression and ww2, they new about shortages, they new about the need to conserve resources, what they would think absurd is the waste .

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
AlanfromBigEasy on September 15, 2008 - 5:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have very fond memories of flying between Kitimat and Kemano in an Alcan helicopter to inspect a surplus power plant. Another stop to inspect the transmission towers.

Best Hopes for Once in a Lifetime Experiences,

Alan

PS: A some point (today ?) Power electronics will become cheap enough to justify using HV DC Lite transmission towers with two (or even one, ground return) wires instead of three.

Lower cost transmission (higher $ on either end) with much less obtrusive poles.

What MW are you looking at ? 49 MW is limit for "good hydro" in BC I think ?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Leanan on September 15, 2008 - 6:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This may seem intuitively obvious to most whom post on this site, but if we take a moment to reflect, we are having discussions our parents would think absurd only some 40 years ago.

Sorry, BC, but I completely disagree.

We are having exactly the same discussions my parents had 40 years ago. Well, maybe more like 35 years ago.

They had these same discussions back in the '70s, during the first oil crisis. The '70s oil crisis was only partly political. The reason OPEC was able to cut us off was because of peak oil USA, ca. 1970.

Many of our current mass transit systems were built because of the '70s energy crisis. Much of our research into alternative energy had its roots then, too. The "new" technology stories so beloved by technocopians were news back then, too - oil from algae, solar from space, nuclear fusion, etc.

In the '70s, my parents thought we would run out of oil in 40 years, and it was a fairly common belief, even taught in many schools. Limits to Growth was written in 1972, and even though my parents were conservative Nixon voters, they thought the book was correct. They truly believed that their children would grow up in a much poorer world - one where meat and personal cars were a luxury beyond the means of ordinary people.

But...it didn't work out that way. Yet. The oil crisis turned out to be temporary, soon we were "drowning in oil," and people forgot.

IMO, this is a big reason it's so difficult to get people to pay attention. They've gone through it before, nothing really happened, so why is it different this time?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
elwoodelmore on September 15, 2008 - 7:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"They've gone through it before, nothing really happened, so why is it different this time?"

i think humans share at least one of the pavlovian dog's genes.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

128 comments on DrumBeat: September 14, 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Show without comments | PDF version