Energy Independence

[hifigator]

Jul 14, 2008 13:14:19 GMT -5 Coast2CoastHoya said:

Thanks, ed. I'll take the insults if it means further constructive discussion on this and other issues.

Ain't it the truth!

[The Stig]

My (random) thoughts on energy issues:

- Attaining energy independence needs to be a top national security and economic priority for the United States. I think most of us agree on that here.

- The age of oil is coming to a close. Simply continuing to use oil at the current rate will soon be impossible, since the rising costs of extraction will make it uneconomical. Continuing to use oil as a secondary energy source is fine, but we need to find a new primary source.

- We need to make the switch now, while our oil-driven economy is still functioning. Waiting until the economy is crippled to start the conversion to a new energy source is a very bad idea to say the least. However, given how incredibly short-sighted the public is, this is a very real possibility.

- Short-term solutions to high oil prices are bad, since they increase the possibility of irreversibly high oil prices crushing our economy. Because the public is so short-sighted, alternative energy sources will only receive public support if people are being hurt by high oil prices. If we use an artificial short-term solution to bring oil prices back down, people will suddenly forget about finding new energy sources. When the short-term solution runs out, oil prices will shoot up again, and another short-term solution will have to be found. This cycle will continue until all the short-term solutions are exhausted, at which point we'll have an economy that relies on a resource that doesn't exist anymore in sufficient quantities. It's better to keep the prices high now (but not so high as to bring our economy to a standstill), and make the switch to an alternative energy source while we still have some oil to hold us over until the new source is fully up and running.

- Purely "green" energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro should be exploited to the max. They won't be enough to be a primary energy source, but they can contribute a lot more than they are right now. Private solar power ought to be heavily promoted, especially in sunny areas. For example, every house in Southern California really ought to have a solar panel on the roof. The homeowners would benefit from lower electric bills, and if enough people participated it cold bring down energy costs for everybody. Governments can promote this by funding research to reduce costs, subsidizing installation costs, and giving tax breaks to people who participate.

- Nuclear power needs to be the new primary energy source. Yes, it has its drawbacks, but they are less significant than the drawbacks to other energy sources. Nuclear power is available now, doesn't produce carbon emissions, isn't going to run out anytime soon, and can provide enough energy to make the US energy independent. I know anything nuclear scares a lot of people, but Western reactor technology is incredibly safe. Chernobyl could have never happened with a Western reactor, and Three Mile Island was much ado about very little. I heard a great story of a nuclear scientist who went to the Capitol Building for a hearing on nuclear power. One of the congressmen started ranting about Three Mile Island, and in response the scientist pulled out a Geiger Counter, which showed that the room they were in was more radioactive than Three Mile Island had been right after the accident.

- Hopefully nuclear fusion power will eventually come along and solve all our energy problems. However, we can't rely on that when our current energy source is being rapidly depleted. We need an interim energy source that can sustain our country for a long time in case fusion power doesn't work out.

- Ethanol is a dead end technology that is only being promoted because corn farmers did a good lobbying job. The ethical ramifications of using food sources as energy sources pretty dire.

- For automobiles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles seems to be the most promising route forward. The technology is available today, and with additional investment it can become economical. Getting pure hydrogen from water requires a lot of energy, but that can come from the nuclear power I was talking about earlier.

So in short, I think our long-term primary energy source should be nuclear power. "Green" energy sources should be the foremost secondary source, with fossil fuels sticking around until they're no longer needed. Hydrogen fuel cells should power our cars, and somebody needs to start cracking the whip on those nuclear fusion scientists.

Feel free to criticize/discuss.

[SFHoya99]

Some quick thoughts:

The exorcist -- I know you've been driven into the ground on this, but I can tell you work in something like academia or law. Anyone in business understands that energy prices have been a primary reason is driving up costs.

Whether it is the cost of labor increasing due to transportation costs, the costs to ship raw materials, semi-finished goods and finished goods, the cost to run production equipment (from threshers of wheat to electricity in production lines) to actual raw materials (plastic is made of oil), almost everything you buy is increasing in cost because of oil.

Food, transportation, manufactured goods, etc.

As for the remainder of the discussion, there's a lot of disinformation out. But SirSaxa is right about one thing -- what Nixon and Carter started was stopped by Reagan and not restarted. This is relevant because we're in some ways thirty years behind.

You can't just focus on drilling, either. You need refineries, resin production and other investments. And you need to focus on renewable energy and nuclear has to be on the table.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Jul 14, 2008 16:34:26 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

what Nixon and Carter started was stopped by Reagan and not restarted. This is relevant because we're in some ways thirty years behind.

So very, very, very true.

[SFHoya99]

Interesting article: www.newsweek.com/id/146161

[SirSaxa]

Glad to see some semblance of substance on the board.

Just to add a little,
Agree with Coast and Stig on Ethanol. Plus corn-based ethanol requires 1 gallon of gas/diesel to produce 1.25 gallons of Ethanol. A disaster.

Nuclear. The Number I have for France is 80% electricity from Nuclear. Italy had a referendum and renounced Nuclear years ago, now they buy 50% of their electricity from FRANCE!

Economic impact of sending $700 Billion out of our economy? Well, if you don't get that, just compare it in size to the Bush/Congress stimulus bill of earlier this year. That was for $152 Billion. not even 25% of the "incremental" cost of oil -- killing US economy and making the US far to vulnerable to international threats.

3 mpg? vs ANWR? That was an example. In the 70's the Ford/Carter mandated 27.5 mpg for cars. Double what it was at the time. In 10 years, they achieved it (then Reagan reduced it AND gave SUVs a pass so they wouldn't count). The point of that was ANWR is no saving solution, has enormous risks attached, makes us more dependent on oil, and exacerbates climate issuse. Meanwhile, we haven't even ATTEMPTED to do the easier CAFE standards until a couple months ago.. and even that was a lame effort. The rest of the world gets far more Gas mileage than we do.

SO yes, we need to do LOTS.
Like Coast, I suggested we get started immediately on the easy ones... efficiency, conservation, solar, wind, etc. THEN tackle the more controversial ones once there is some momentum and trust among the sides.

[hifigator]

Here's a few quick thoughts:

1. As for ethanol, I will defer to you all on that one. I don't know enough to comment on the feasability/efficiency of potential future expansion of the technology. I have heard some preach for greater funding, but you all seem to be pretty united in opposition. Most likely you are right I would presume.

2. As for solar ... that has been my soapbox for a long long time. I honestly believe that the only reason we don't have far greater solar technology is because we haven't tried hard enough. It isn't efficient enough for the utility companies themselves right now and they are virtually unanimously against buying power from the customers at market value. The Texas law that Austin mentioned, sure sounds like a good idea, at least on the surface. As much as I tend to oppose government subsidies, a tax break/incentive to increased solar use could be a good idea and as I mentioned, the Texas law requiring utility companies to pay what they charge for reclaimed power from solar customers could be a step in the right direction. In any case, I think solar potential is tremendous.

3. Wind: I think of this in similar terms as I do of solar. Some areas are routinely sunny. Similarly, some areas are routinely windy. I don't know how effective wind powered turbines and the sort could be on the large scale, but in windy areas I would have to think that large scale use could at least contribute to personal consumption at the very least, just as solar panels are frequently used to heat individual pools down here.

4. Encouraging efficiency and funding research and development for alternative and new/renewable sources is a good idea. But to extend that logic by making SUV's "illegal" or mandating extreme efficiency standards which place an extensive tax burden on SUV manufacturers or drivers is flawed. This is basically the message of such reasoning:

"We, as a society want increased efficiency among our vehicles. Accordingly, you can't drive your Tahoe/Escalade/Yukon/Avalanche/Montero/Excursion/Expedition etc... because we don't think it is efficient enough. And if you do, then we are going to sock it to you and soak you with burdensome taxes, such that only the richest of people can afford to drive them."

That is a dangerous, dangerous logic. Similar logic has resulted in the absurd tobacco bans around the Country. Similar logic resulted in the ban of trans-fats in Chicago. Trans fats are bad and we now know that, but to make them illegal is wrong. Should we encourage scientist to develop similar tasting alternatives but without the negative long-term health benefits? Sure. But to make margarine -- for example -- illegal is flat out absurd in my book.
For the record, I don't smoke ... well, cigs anyway, and I despise the transfat industry, although I admit that I will eat crackers for example that have some trans fats in them. I am trying to cut out as much as I can, but that doesn't mean that government should do it for me. My grandfather had a heart attack in '72. He followed doctor's orders religiously. Back then, or shortly after, C. Everett Coop as our surgeon general informed us of the dangers of butter and convinced many a person to adopt margarine. My grandfather died in May 1st, 1984 and I graduated high school the next month. I have always wondered if maybe 12 years of butter instead of that crappy margarine might have been enough to give him just another month or so. Not that his seeing my graduation is that big of a deal, but just on the grand scale of things, the timing has always had me ask that question.

5. Nuclear energy should definitely be exploited and I mean immediately. I read that we have the technology to replace 25% of our current oil dependency with increased nuclear reactors within 7-8 years, and 50% in just over a decade. Even if those numbers are a bit optimistic and its twice that long, then we should still go that route.

6. Lastly, we need to open up some of our reserves in limited basis to give us a short term relief, meanwhile we should start pumping oil from ANWR where it only needs to be piped about 80 miles to link into the current pipeline. As for offshore drilling, I am for limited expansion in that area, but the other ideas listed are more practical and will be more effective in both the short and long term in my opinion.

[SirSaxa]

HiFi

"4. Encouraging efficiency and funding research and development for alternative and new/renewable sources is a good idea. But to extend that logic by making SUV's "illegal" or mandating extreme efficiency standards which place an extensive tax burden on SUV manufacturers or drivers is flawed. This is basically the message of such reasoning:

"We, as a society want increased efficiency among our vehicles. Accordingly, you can't drive your Tahoe/Escalade/Yukon/Avalanche/Montero/Excursion/Expedition etc... because we don't think it is efficient enough. And if you do, then we are going to sock it to you and soak you with burdensome taxes, such that only the richest of people can afford to drive them."

No one is suggesting sending people to jail for their SUV's.
The vast majority of people who drive SUV's, do so instead of driving cars.
The only point is that since people use them like cars, they should be treated like cars and not given an exemption from the gas mileage standards. In other words "Don't subsidize SUV's".
A Ford Escape Hybrid, for example, has no problem meeting fuel mileage requirements.



Meanwhile, the US Auto industry is going bankrupt because they focused so much of their business on gas-inefficient SUV's that no one wants anymore.

[TC]

I think saying that Energy Independence should be #1 on our national priority list is understating the importance of it. It should be #1, #2, #3, and #4 (and continue on ..). When you think about how many people in the North are going to struggle to pay heating oil bills this winter or any subsequent winter, or how exurbs are going to be ghost towns due to the increased cost of commutes, how food prices will rise because of the use of fertilizer and farm machinery, how the entire consumer discretionary sector is going to be sliced in half by increased energy costs and the effect on consumers, how transportation costs effect education and local budgets, how importing vast quantities of food this effects our food security and our food prices, and how poor choices are going to effect us in terms of climate change, you start to realize the scope of the problem.

Andy Grove's electric transportation plan is the best one I've seen to date :

www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/our-electric-future

In the short term though, conservation is really the only choice we have where we can make an immediate impact. It needs to become a national priority very quickly.

[TC]

And the day after I write that conservation is the only chocie we have where we can make an immediate impact, our President decides he'll do nothing about it. Typical.

We need leadership in a bad way.

[DrumsGoBang]

I run totally on biofuels.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Jul 16, 2008 8:10:26 GMT -5 DrumsGoBang said:

I run totally on biofuels.

Actually, that's true!

TC -- absolutely. It may very well be the issue that ties all others together: economic prosperity, military security, environmental quality, climate change, community welfare, etc.

I know it's a drum that's been beaten to death, but this administration's evisceration of and blind eye toward issues of energy independence, conservation, pollution, economics, and other realities are arguably the worst in American history. I just learned today that fmr. Sec. of the Interior Babbitt signed guidance in his last days in office directing the bureaus within Interior to incorporate climate change into their land use planning processes (which will fundamentally change (in good ways IMO) the way the bureaus do NEPA analysis) -- and that until Mass v. EPA, no only was it not done, but bureaus were directed NOT to discuss climate change at any level (and certainly not plan for it). Unbelievable.

We have perhaps a generation of work to re-envigorate the progress of the previous three decades and un-do the radical reactionaryism of this decade.

[hifigator]

Jul 15, 2008 18:06:00 GMT -5 SirSaxa said:

HiFi

"4. Encouraging efficiency and funding research and development for alternative and new/renewable sources is a good idea. But to extend that logic by making SUV's "illegal" or mandating extreme efficiency standards which place an extensive tax burden on SUV manufacturers or drivers is flawed. This is basically the message of such reasoning:

"We, as a society want increased efficiency among our vehicles. Accordingly, you can't drive your Tahoe/Escalade/Yukon/Avalanche/Montero/Excursion/Expedition etc... because we don't think it is efficient enough. And if you do, then we are going to sock it to you and soak you with burdensome taxes, such that only the richest of people can afford to drive them."

No one is suggesting sending people to jail for their SUV's.
The vast majority of people who drive SUV's, do so instead of driving cars.
The only point is that since people use them like cars, they should be treated like cars and not given an exemption from the gas mileage standards. In other words "Don't subsidize SUV's".
A Ford Escape Hybrid, for example, has no problem meeting fuel mileage requirements.



Meanwhile, the US Auto industry is going bankrupt because they focused so much of their business on gas-inefficient SUV's that no one wants anymore.

You were missing my point. I didn't mean to suggest that SUVs should be treated differently than cars. What I meant was that trying to place excessive extra burdens on people because of things such as the vehicle they drive is a bad idea. They pay more already, in the form of taxes, fuel costs and insurance. Trying to dictate general behavior because of what someone or a group of "someones" determine is better for society is dangerous territory. I'm obviously not trying to excuse aberrant behavior in any way, when I say that. But there is a clear difference between excercising individual freedoms and deciding what someone else "should" do.


Note to TC:

I have a hard time worrying about heating bills. Granted, down here in Florida, I could probably live my whole life without ever having heat. Still, it is easy to generate heat from very renewable and sustainable sources. We have been known to use logs when the need arises. I understand that wood stoves are a bit more difficult and dangerous in high rise apartment complexes, which are quite common in the big cities common in the northeast. Even so, that seems like a relatively minor problem on the grand scale of things.

[SirSaxa]

Jul 15, 2008 23:49:48 GMT -5 TC said:

Andy Grove's electric transportation plan is the best one I've seen to date :

www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/our-electric-future

In the short term though, conservation is really the only choice we have where we can make an immediate impact. It needs to become a national priority very quickly.

TC... thanks for posting the Grove article link. For those who may not know, Andy Grove was the CEO of INTEL, the world's largest manufacturer of microprocessors. The article is excellent and thought provoking.

[TC]

What I meant was that trying to place excessive extra burdens on people because of things such as the vehicle they drive is a bad idea. They pay more already, in the form of taxes, fuel costs and insurance. Trying to dictate general behavior because of what someone or a group of "someones" determine is better for society is dangerous territory.

Read the Andy Grove article I posted. His idea is to concentrate on converting the most inefficient cars on the road (trucks, SUVs, etc) to dual-fuel now, because it puts a bigger dent in our consumption than converting small cars->hybrids and PEV hybrids.

Arguments about CAFE standards are a joke at this point though - the American automakers will be out of business within two years, and people aren't going to buy new SUVs and trucks with gas at higher prices than $4 a gallon - which we will be heading for, despite this pullback.

I have a hard time worrying about heating bills. Granted, down here in Florida, I could probably live my whole life without ever having heat. Still, it is easy to generate heat from very renewable and sustainable sources. We have been known to use logs when the need arises. I understand that wood stoves are a bit more difficult and dangerous in high rise apartment complexes, which are quite common in the big cities common in the northeast. Even so, that seems like a relatively minor problem on the grand scale of things.

Then I don't think you understand the problem. You're not going to convert the *entire* Northeast - most of which uses heating oil - to wood without severe environmental effects.

80% of Maine uses heating oil
55% of New Hampshire uses heating oil
55% of Vermont uses heating oil
Big parts of CT, MA, RI use heating oil.

We're not talking about small amounts of oil either - an average house uses 1,000 gallons of heating oil a year. And that's not gasoline, it's the "middle of the barrel" oil that is shooting prices up. Heating oil is 8% of our national oil usage, so it's somewhere where we can make some conservation progress.

Finally, just like you have problems "worrying about winter heating", I'm not too personally worried about Florida's water crisis or the fact that practically your entire state might be underwater someday due to sea level change, but that doesn't mean it's not a huge problem.

[kchoya]

T. Boone takes time away from running the Oklahoma State athletic department to push wind energy:

www.pickensplan.com/

We can talk about government action or changing personal habits (47+ miles to work, really?), but real change is going to happen when big companies and oil men like T. Boone believe there's money to be made in solar/wind/nuclear/going green and start ramping up R&D and pumping resources in to these alternatives.

In the 70s/80s, Detroit didn't buy into the smaller is better craze until Japan, Inc. starting beating their pants off. Now, we're moving away from building the next Canyonero towards hybrids, NGVs, etc., but (at least with respect to the Big 3) they might be in such bad shape they may not be able make the shift profitably.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Jul 16, 2008 12:10:39 GMT -5 hifigator said:

Note to TC:

I have a hard time worrying about heating bills. Granted, down here in Florida, I could probably live my whole life without ever having heat. Still, it is easy to generate heat from very renewable and sustainable sources. We have been known to use logs when the need arises. I understand that wood stoves are a bit more difficult and dangerous in high rise apartment complexes, which are quite common in the big cities common in the northeast. Even so, that seems like a relatively minor problem on the grand scale of things.

Dude, wood is not a good solution to heating homes. It would be a natural resources DISASTER to convert that much forest and arable land to energy production (see a common theme with that?) not to mention the degree to which the ecosystem service of carbon sinking trees provide would decrease.

Oh, and check out this link: www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html

Let's look at how some typical fuels match up:

Type of Fuel	Pounds of CO2 per unit	Pounds of CO2 per million BTUs
Motor Gas	822.944 per barrel	159.425
Bituminous Coal	4931.300 per short ton	205.300
Wood	3812 per short ton	195

Just based on the numbers, wood isn't a good alternative. But, there's a note at the bottom of the table that describes CO2 from wood as "biogenic" and therefore inapplicable to atmospheric concentration increases, but that doesn't make sense to me: won't the carbon from a tree become airborne if the tree is burned for fuel? NevadaHoya, can you explain this?

[TC]

Jul 16, 2008 14:52:56 GMT -5 Coast2CoastHoya said:

But, there's a note at the bottom of the table that describes CO2 from wood as "biogenic" and therefore inapplicable to atmospheric concentration increases, but that doesn't make sense to me: won't the carbon from a tree become airborne if the tree is burned for fuel? NevadaHoya, can you explain this?

The answer is yes, the CO2 does become airborne, but by virtue of the fact that the tree that wood came from soaked up that carbon, it's considered a "carbon neutral" fuel vs. fossil fuels, which are releasing CO2 that was stored ages ago.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Thanks TC. But why does it make a difference when the carbon was stored? I would think the form, function, and location of the carbon would matter in terms of atmospheric concentration. I knew I should have stayed a bio major ...

[SirSaxa]

Jul 16, 2008 15:02:29 GMT -5 TC said:

The answer is yes, the CO2 does become airborne, but by virtue of the fact that the tree that wood came from soaked up that carbon, it's considered a "carbon neutral" fuel vs. fossil fuels, which are releasing CO2 that was stored ages ago.

Yes, that the argument TC, but it gets a lot scarier than that -- after looking at the US Govt. Website link provided by Coast.

These biofuels contain "biogenic" carbon. Under international greenhouse gas accounting methods developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, biogenic carbon is part of the natural carbon balance and it will not add to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.3

True in theory, but when you burn trees that took 20-30-50-100 years to grow, you are essentially releasing decades worth of built up carbon in a matter of minutes -- hours at best. Now it will take more decades to grow a tree to offset it. -- So we are just going to assign the number ZERO to the carbon we just released, even though nothing more misleading could possibly be done. And we are not even going to go near the impact of the loss of "carbon sink"

Now for more scary stuff:

Reporters may wish to use an emission factor of zero for wood, wood waste, and other biomass fuels in which the carbon is entirely biogenic. Municipal solid waste, however, normally contains inorganic materials principally plastics that contain carbon that is not biogenic. The proportion of plastics in municipal solid waste varies considerably depending on climate, season, socio-economic factors, and waste management practices. As a result, EIA does not estimate a non-biogenic carbon dioxide emission factor for municipal solid waste.

In other words, we have no idea how to measure it (or we don't want to acknowledge how bad it is) so we don't assign it any number at all. This is sometimes referred to as the "Principle of sweeping under the rug in the hope that no one will notice"