Next, there are the unavoidable inefficiencies of the electric transmission system itself. America’s power grid is a wonder of modern technology and it’s obviously necessary to distribute the power we need to run our refrigerators and computers, light our homes and keep the pumps and motors that industry depends on turning. Yet, electric power distribution is hardly the model of efficiency. A significant portion of the energy generated by power plants is lost in distribution, due to voltage drops, resistant heating and other line losses. In many cases, moving energy around the nation via a network of thousands of miles of metal cables represents the best way to transmit power, but it’s hardly the most efficient way to do it.
Consider motor vehicles. By the time we work our way through all of the inherent, expensive and unavoidable inefficiencies of generating, transporting and storing so-called green power in the vain effort to fuel our transportation needs, we are left with the unavoidable conclusion that doing so would create more of a demand for power, not less. Or, to put the president’s proposition another way, if America somehow transformed itself into a nation in which the transportation sector was fueled entirely by electricity, we would be significantly less energy efficient than we are today. We can, and should, continue to develop hybrids, for that technology provides even more bang for our fossil fuel buck, without pretending that the ultimate source of power – crude oil – isn’t our best energy option.
Ultimately, if we can figure out a way to use as-of-yet undiscovered solar-powered catalysts to produce hydrogen inexpensively, we may free ourselves from the tyranny of fossil fuels altogether. Yet, as technology proceeds along those paths, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be distracted by the promise of a green energy panacea.
That is one of the best short explanations of why Obama's energy policy is a disaster in the making that I have seen. Great job, Rich!
For transportation, energy density is the decisive factor and nothing can provide the energy density of gasoline or diesel fuel, not even natural gas. The natural gas powered Honda has almost no trunk space because the thick steel tank takes up twice the volume of a gasoline powered Honda's gas tank.
Cheaper, more efficient transportation is a technical problem best solved by the entrepreneurial free market. Government subsidies and taxes can't accomplish it. Europe has had the equivalent of $10 per gallon gas for years yet no efficient alternative exists to gasoline.
Despite all of the funds diverted for "green energy", th EU has no development in sight because of the exact reasons of energy density that you discussed. I support giving the green light to the private sector to go all out, just not with tax dollars, and allow private enterprise to excel and produce. Here in California we still have the wind turbine champions that crow about how magnificant the "low-tech" solution is to a high tech problem They also fail to mention that the maintenance costs of the turbines is greater than the savings leaving large areas with non-functioning turbines.The solution is the free market with America's unique spirit of entrepreneurship leading the way.
Dittos to Reason_for_life. This is the best explanation from a journalist of the technical engineering/science problems we face in the 'energy problem'. So much of what we hear is advertising, wishful thinking, or, most often, propaganda. It is a travesty that science/engineering reporting has come to this, but it has… for twenty years, at least.
There's a British company, ITM Power Ltd, which has developed a fuel cell membrane costing only one twentieth of standsrd industry costs, http://www.itm-power.com
The question you don't answer is, where do we get our energy from once fossil fuels become scarce and prohibitively expensive?
I've been an engineer for over 40 years and I have heard about energy "breakthroughs" in every one of those years. None have come to pass. At least five times I have heard that the cost of solar cells has been cut in half yet solar energy is farther away from profitability than it was when I started in engineering. Nuclear fusion was 10 years away in 1970, now it is 20 years away.
Maybe this British firm has the answer to fuel cell cost. Great, then all you need is something to generate hydrogen that doesn't use three times the energy that you'll get out of it. Then you need a way to distribute the hydrogen and you'll need to convert existing gas stations to handle hydrogen. So after you spend a trillion dollars or so on a this new production and distribution system you'll be ready to start making a profit.
A breakthrough in fuel cell cost is nice, but it won't change the cost of getting hydrogen to the cars and that is where the real problem is.
Everyone of the great "breakthroughs" in automobiles suffers from this same problem – enormous new capital investment and distribution costs. Solve that problem, and you will change the world.
In most media, and the public debate consensus truth is that we're gonna run out of fossil fuel quite soon, but (surprisingly?) the best experts don't think so. An article in European Energy Review, by Peter Odell, Professor Emeritus of International Energy Studies:
tinyurl.com/ybdg737
I believe we got many discourses of consensus truths in the scientific debate (and to a certain degree in science itself), that co-exists with the political debate. (Claims of certain truth from suggested (but often not real, or even faked) consensus seems to be a very common thing today.)
I believe that wind power can be good in very special cases, but it's a catastrophe — both economically and environmentally (its CO2 reducing capability is limited, and it affects local environment) — in normal cases, as long as we have e g fossil fuel and nuclear power. When we runs out of fossil fuel we will have to find another solution, and we will do that, but it may not be wind. To subsidize any energy source a lot is to create one which isn't reliable. Is this why the left (Obama?) loves green energy projects? Spain has ruined its economy with green power. Spain's unemployment figures sky rocketing in because of wind power etc. A study by professor Gabriel Calzada Álvarez:
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employmen…
Michael,
We will move to other fuels once oil/gasoline become economically prohibitive – really so, not by government taxation. The world moved to petroleum from coal because it was more versetile and convenient. I'm old enough to remember coal fired furnaces in our house and the chores to stay warm vs oil or natural gas. That was a market transition, Obama's is not and won't work now.
Bob D, Mississippi
Well let us all watch the incredible rise in this company's stock price. Wait, Wait, Wait, oh sh**, it didn't happen. The promises of these people don't materialize. (rhymes with surprise ironically)
I will answer your question that is not 'answered'. Nuclear power generation and new (better) battery technology. Solar power and wind power are a engineering joke.
we're sitting on 2 trillion barrels of oil here in the US alone so that argument doesn't make sense
I agree with this short well written article. Green power subsidies are enormous. It also so volatile that it makes the needed produced fossil back up energy a more inefficient energy source.
.
Seldom discussed is the natural discharge of batteries. If you park an electric car for a few days it will run out of charge = lots of energy! A fossil car is in this respect 100 percent more efficient, since it keeps its energy.
In a country with 65-95 percent of energy from fossil fuel the electric car don't reduce fossil energy consumption much (or at all), and natural discharge isn't even included in many calculations. Besides this there are dozens of problems with e g construction, and poor performance of electric car. Heavy electric cars for transportation of goods is e g an impossible equation.
Oil is dirty business. The combustion engine is noisy and creates a lot of CO.
CO2 is not what we have to worry about. It is benzene, carbon monoxide and other ugly heavy hydrocarbon chemicals that come with the combustion of oil.
Canada, particularly Ontario, is experimenting with wind, solar, and tidal sources of energy and comparing them with nuclear and fossil fuel sources to see which ones stack up best. So far wind is taking the lead but of course it beats solar in northern climes.
Cap and trade may be necessary for the capitol needed but caution must be the word.
How long will cap and trade tax be required? How long will green jobs go on?
Will there be abuses of the money derived from cap and trade as there often is?
without CO all trees, heck, the whole flora will die…..like humans would without O…….
Don't listen to nonsensical lies.
CO is a poison.
CO2 is needed for plant's photosynthesis.
A mixture of CO and CO2 is created by incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons, fossil fuels, in oxygen-poor conditions – like an internal combustion engine.
Check your middle school chemistry before you claim others are nonsensical
Yes, CO is a poison. It is also thermodynamically unstable at room temperature and combines with atmospheric oxygen over time to form CO2. In addition, even the most rudimentary catalytic converters speed up this process, so cars don't really emit appreciable CO anymore.
Describing an internal combustion engine as being oxygen poor means you are running a fuel rich engine cycle which isn't efficient. Given that all modern cars on the road now are fuel injection with computer monitored fuel air ratios, you don't end up with a whole lot of under combustion. As such, you don't end up with a heck of a lot of CO either. What does get by (because at high temperatures more CO is in equilibrium with CO2) gets cracked by the catalytic converter.
CO- carbon monoxide, bad
CO2- carbin dioxide, good, and is needed of all life.
One of these days oil is going to become prohibitively expensive to extract. After that, it's back to slaves and horses and a global population of a few hundred million. Unless someone comes up with an alternative.
There are huge supplies of oil shale, tars sands, and very low grade crude oil out there which haven't been exploited because normal light crude is still plentiful. Once those get tapped out, we can turn coal into oil (Germans did it in WW II, it's not rocket science).
After all those potential supplies of fossil fuel are gone, then you can panic.
To be quite blunt, what needs to be developed is energy storage, and there is plenty of free market incentive pushing that (laptops, cell phones, etc.) so we don't need subsidies.
Electricity: one kilowatt hour from coal costs 5 cents…one kilowatt hour from wind costs 21.5 cents…
My monthly electric bill would go from $50 to $200…and the landscape would be beautified by those charming windmills….
Or you could convert CO2 to fuel like this.. http://www.carbonsciences.com/01/technology.html
Peak oil is coming and we need to get ready with practical answers. Wind and Solar are way too expensive and as the author aptly states very impractical for vehicle fuel. Natural gas is reasonable, safe and pretty easy to distribute like T. Boone Pickens has shown over and over. These progressives bog blog blog and then drive off into the sunset in their SUV's or private jets and leave the real work to others.
Anyone who is listening to Pickens needs to find a better source. The man is dedicated to finding ways of picking your pocket with government help. He's a big pusher of wind power via subsidy and is very fond of natural gas because he's heavily invested in it due to its position as the backup for those idle wind farms.
Natural gas is almost as dangerous as hydrogen, pressurized tanks (even steam) are extremely dangerous in small light vehicles.
If pickens' ideas were good he wouldn't need or want government money to get them off the ground. You'll know when something better than gasoline comes along because it will sell itself.
peak oil is NOT coming anytime soon, there is zero infrastructure for alternative fuels, the costs in space needed are prohibitive, there is no way yet to store alternative power, batteries developed for vehicles like the hybrids are much more dangerous to the environment, etc etc etc
I can get energy from a thin or a thick air – just give me $ubsidies!
Maintenence costs of windmills exceed the energy they produce…
STOP THAT NONSENSE!!!!
Rich Trzupek should just stop writing about energy until he does some homework. He loves to set up the "straw man" of solar and wind pwer, while ignoring the great advances in automobile engines (hydrogen, electromagnetics, etc.). We have "stuff" to help with cars and have had "stuff" for quite some time. We just have to force people to get them off the shelves and into our cars.
Rich: do all of us a favor: learn something about alterntive energy before you insult the most important move our nation could make.
Gary – do US a favor and provide some specifics, preferrably with links. "He's ignorant, trust me" isn't going to cut it.
Yeah, the myth of the "non gasoline engine which the oil companies have hidden" has been proffered for so long it's children are on Medicare. If you have any actual fact, not hearsay about an efficient energy storage means which isn't currently in use, feel free to demonstrate. If not, you're just blowing smoke.
You mention two:
Hydrogen- impractical as there is no go way to store it and the energy density is piss poor (though not nearly as bad as current battery technology).
Electromagnetics-vague nonsense. Do you mean batteries? (gasoline has 80x the energy density). Capacitors? What? Tesla's mythical ambient energy? How about some reality please?
I think the answer to this problem at least as far as transportation is concerned
is going to be alcohol. Alcohol has the energy density we need and does not
have the infrastructure probles noted above because it can be shipped stored and
pumped just like gasoline. Alcohol is renewable because it is made from renewable
sugar starch and even celulose. We need to solve the efficiency problems associated with making it and not use "food crops" for making but it is the way foreward and our best answer right now.
making
The problem with going to alcohol is Mothers Against Drunk Driving would impound your car and you would not have any aspirin for the hangover. Yes, aspirin is a crude oil by product. As is Ammonia, Anesthetics, Antihistamines, Artificial limbs, Artificial Turf, Antiseptics, Auto Parts, Awnings, Balloons, Ballpoint pens, Bandages, Beach Umbrellas, Boats, Cameras, Candles, Car Battery Cases, Carpets, Caulking, Combs, Cortisones, Cosmetics, Crayons, Credit Cards, Curtains, Deodorants, Detergents, Dice, Disposable Diapers, Dolls, Dyes, Eye Glasses, Electrical Wiring Insulation, Faucet Washers, Fishing Rods, Fishing Line, Fishing Lures, Food Preservatives, Food Packaging, Garden Hose, Glue, Hair Coloring, Hair Curlers, Hand Lotion, Hearing Aids, Heart Valves, Ink, Insect Repellant, Insecticides, Linoleum, Lip Stick, Milk Jugs, Nail Polish, Oil Filters, Panty Hose, Perfume, Petroleum Jelly, Rubber Cement, Rubbing Alcohol, Shampoo, Shaving Cream, Shoes, Toothpaste, Trash Bags, Upholstery, Vitamin Capsules, Water Pipes, Yarn…
Why not just trade the food for oil? You'd get a much better return on your money.
The best answer right now is to drill our easiest to get at sources, and pump enough from them to pay for building and maintaining the pipelines and other infrastructure to quickly turn on the spigot when needed to mitigate fluctuations and disruptions. Then use oil from elsewhere as much as needed to keep our economy growing quickly so the money's there for the research in the first place. That maximizes the advances in technology needed to replace oil as fuel, and that hastens the day, rather than sets it back.
Alcohol is a very poor choice. Ethoal destories engins, it polutes more, and mpg is reduced. One of the unintended coniquense of bio fuels such as alcohol is that people are starving to death in developing countries as land that was used to produce food is now being used to develop energy.
Imagine the president a hundred years ago when there were few cars and many horses and buggies. He decided horses were messy things that pooped everywhere and took up usable farmland for their feed rather than for human feed and that cars were much better. Of course, cars were extremely inefficient and expensive and there weren't nearly enough of them, but the president decided people needed to switch to cars anyway. He wanted to raise taxes on hay and horses and wagons and all things related to their use so high people couldn't afford them any more so that they would switch to cars. A hundred years ago, people would have said no way. It makes as much sense and our president wanting to tax fossil fuels and everything related to them so we would switch to solar and wind, which are expensive, inefficient and just not widely available.
OK. But say the place you bought the horses from was actually an enemy nation. Sure, there were a few other places you could breed your own, but not nearly fast enough or in enough volume to satisfy demand. In fact, one of the places where you bred your own horses became so full of poop due to negligence that it was impossible to live there. No one knew how to clean all that poop up. All the attendent industries supporting the horse breeding were drying up as a result.
To keep the horse trade flowing, you had to pretend to ignore the bad things your enemy was doing, plus the fact that it only made them richer while you were more and more dependent on their whim.
You, and your people, knew it was folly to continue down that path–but you did anyway.
Maybe you want to lead by example then & trade in your gas car for an electric model.
Also you may want to trade away your kids cars for an expensive new electric model as well. Of course you may have to sell your 3 bedroom home & move into a used 1973 marshfield trailor home thats really close to work & school to afford all this but you seem like your willing to make the sacrifice from what I'm getting here. Thats fine for you if your willing but please dont spill this crap on the rest of us.
You can't argue with anything I've said, so you attack me for hypocrisy. Well we're all hypocrites and we need to face up to REALITY.
We won't, of course, until it reaches crisis proportions.
So…shoot the messenger?
He wasn't replying to you Jim, he was replying to Mary, but his point obviously applies to you as well. You did an excellent job continuing her analogy, but the premise is still false.
Wind, solar (promising – if you put the collectors in high orbit), or hydrogen could just as likely be a novelties, like the steam powered automobile. All have serious drawbacks and environmental consequences even if their efficiency is increased by magnitudes. Forcing it is more likely to kill or put off indefinitely real breakthroughs. When they happen, they will sell themselves.
Sure we should use up the arab's light sweet first, somebody will buy it, they'll get richer for a while anyway, and still hate and kill us. We should drill and pump enough of our own to make opening our own spigots quick and easy. That would mitigate fluctuations that set our economy back.
Good article…at least the author is familiar with the first and second laws of thermodynamics. You can't appreciate the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline unless you're in snow country and you compare a snow blower with a shovel. But I wish he would stop referring to oil as a "fossil fuel"–if you do the math, you quickly come to the conclusion that there is another process down there making oil…and…in places…it appears to be renewing itself
The problem with green energy is the laws of Thermodynamics. Energy can't be created out of wishful thinking.
Wind energy actually creates negative useful energy. Wind power must be backed up to provide the customer with electricity when he flips the light switch. Utilities companies are using gas turbine generators for that back up. These turbines are very efficient when operated at full power, but when used as back up are only about 35% efficient. Data from existing installations show that gas consumption for back up is higher than it would be running the turbines at full output.
Solar just isn't concentrated enough to provide much usable energy, and it only works when the sun shines. .
Hydrogen systems are by definition negative energy producers. Those darn Thermodynamics laws say that it takes as much energy to break a water molecule apart as you get back when you combine hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell or anywhere else. When you add in compression and transportation costs, it becomes another big money pit. Sorry folks. We're stuck with either fossil fuel or nuclear power for our energy needs.
This is the second time in my life that a president & government were committed to "Green" or Solar/Wind energy. The first time was in the 70's with Carter. I remember being caught up in the hubris of the time. The hard facts were that all of the alternatives being promoted were more expensive & less efficient than what was currently in use. The end result was a massive boondoggle that ended when the government subsidies were ended.
The problem is that the laws of physics are immutable & no amount of pie-in-the-sky dreaming can make a thing practical & cost effective if it isn't.
When an electric car can match the performance & cost of a gasoline fueled car, then it will be adopted by the public, otherwise – forget it!
The problem with government promoting technologies is that they don't know in advance which will work & which won't. Goverments will often back ideas that don't pan out & waste billions before abandoning them – Nuclear powered airplanes anyone?
The government not only can't pick technologies but also can't pick people to develop those technologies. Samuel Langley got $50,000 from the feds to develop a heavier than air craft. He was a well credentialed engineer and a plausible choice. He failed miserably.
Meanwhile, in free market land, two "uneducated" bicycle mechanics solved the problem brilliantly. Self taught and highly motivated these two great aviation pioneers became legends in aeronautical engineering. Orville and Wilbur Wright.
The Daily Show last week ran clips of every single president from Nixon to Obama denouncing our dependence on foreign oil and pledging to put resources behind developing alternate energy resources.
The Defense Dept.'s modus operandi is spending on technologies that may or may not work, so I am inclined to agree that Govt. does not "know;" but we are, inarguably, now seeing the results of having paid no heed to the warnings of literally EVERY president from the last 40 years.
Also, I remember the 70s and solar power and it was a boondoggle at the time. The irony is that solar power has "caught up" from the days of those massive, ugly roof panels, but the technology has failed to capture the popular imagination.
While it's true that we're not seeing decent alternatives to the ability to move people and goods across the country, we do have technologies for construction that could massively reduce consumer utility costs. As you rightly put it–there's not a big market for these technologies. But they exist.
Part 2
Only free markets have the intelligence to pick winning technologies and do so through the pricing mechanism – only if new technology is better & cheaper than the old will it succeed.
Government tinkering with the markets by giving subsidies or placing high taxes on fuel, etc. only distort the market & do not lead to the desired results, while costing billions. This is the lesson of Spain.
Subsidies never help, they only hinder development of new technologies.
I'll let you in on one of the best kept secrets of engineers – we are easily bored. Once we get a design that is profitable we stop improving the product and move on to something else. Subsidies make things look profitable that really aren't so we stop major improvements once the product is profitable instead of continuing on to a substantially better product.
What's worse, is that engineering talent is finite. If engineers are drawn into a hopeless field like solar or wind power we aren't working in areas that might actually be able to challenge oil as an energy source. Those areas, like converting coal to a liquid, are promising but will require years of work to get the efficiency up and the costs down.
New battery technologies are being ignored since subsidies make it appear that the present technologies are adequate, when, in fact, they are more costly and less useful than a free market would produce.
Subsidies are terrible, they distort the market and result in an investment of engineering talent in the wrong areas. All government technology subsidies need to be abolished.
Great summary Mr. Trzupek. However, the green movement is not about the environment or the economy; the environmental movement really seeks totatalitarian control of energy. The green utopia, if realized, would have little to no impact on climate, and the economic effects would be ruinous. But the 'greens' would achieve the goal of enhanced control of the 'little people'. Arguing the finer points of thermodynamics and economics has no effect on these 'progressive' sorts anyway, since a) as already mentioned, the economy and the environment are not the real issue, just the phony justification for an enormous power grab, and b) leftists have no capacity for logical thought to begin with.
Obama will show you guys someday. Dilithium crystalline mineral used to regulate the anti-matter. Dilithium's chemical symbol is Dt, its atomic weight is 119 and it is a member of the hypersonic series of elements. Dilithium regulates the matter/antimatter reaction in a ship's warp core because of its ability to be rendered porous to light-element antimatter when exposed to high temperatures and electro-magnetic pressures. It controls the amount of power generated in the reaction chamber, channeling the energy released by mutual annihilation into a stream of electro-plasma.
Ayyeee… Captain Kirk!
At last! Thanks, Scotty! I knew you would come to our rescue on one of your time travel trips to the past. The problem is we haven't discovered any dilithium crystals on earth yet. Even at that, this suggestion has as much merit as some of the plans from the greenies. Thermodynamics is the study of what processes are possible in the real world, not the pie-in-the-sky world of the administration.
G. Parsons: The author knows what he is talking about. You do not. After insulting the author, you make some vacuous allusion to advances in electromagnetics (!?) and hydrogen power. As far as advances in electromagnetics, I have no idea what you are talking about and I suspect neither do you. As far as hydrogen energy is concerned, and as another poster helpfully explained, thermodynamics does not allow this to be feasible without a ready supply of hydrogen.Hydrogen cannot produce more energy than it takes to generate the hydrogen in the first place. Hydrogen can be obtained in elemental form from natural gas wells, but the progressive greens aren't going to allow drilling. Another poster recommends using ethanol as fuel, but again, it requires more energy to produce ethanol than it can give back as energy. Both ideas are thermodynamic losers and real scientists know this.
I think many posters here make good points about the sorts of boondoggles government can get into when it starts subsidizing (with waste at the Defense Dept. topping the list).
We do need to consider, though, that this is not just about "going green" for the sake of feeling smug; this is absolutely about national security, and national security is part of government's job.
How exactly is it a national security issue? You think Canada and Mexico are going to cut us off or something (we get most of our fuel from those two).
Every administration has considered dependence on foreign oil a national security issue. Here is a recent conservative take on it:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Lecture/The-Nati…
Yes, and all those administrations, and that article are all pretty much daft.
I've seen the arguments, and they are not very persuasive.
Let's put it this way, if we were really that concerned about foreign oil, we would have done something in Venezuela about that whackjob Chavez who has managed to ruin what used to be one of our largest oil supplies. Instead we have just sat back and let him tank the place. Has it had an impact? No, not really. The oil market is pretty damned elastic with a good quantity of capacity. It can adapt pretty quickly to changes and compensate for increases in demand.
There is only one solution which can replace fossil energy as the major energy source of mankind, namely the combination of nuclear energy and hydrogen economy. At present (fission based) generation of nuclear energy is a fully developed, efficient and safe technology, which can be used both for the production of electricity and for the generation of hydrogen by electrolysis with existing industrial methods. Hydrogen will replace fossil fuels in mobile uses (cars, generators etc.). This concept is well known for decades. What is the reason that it is not used even in a small pilot scale? Ask the oil companies.
Current figures from the US Dept. of Energy:
oil/natural gas $.25/megawatt
coal $.44/megawatt
nuclear power $1.59/megawatt
wind power $23.37/megawatt
solar power $24.34/megawatt
Not mention that windmills kill lots of birds. Wait until PETA starts protesting bird killing windmills.
And for the hydrogen fans – there is ongoing research on the storage and transportation issues. Looks like a nice long term solution, but it is not ready yet. By the way, the temperatures needed to combust hydrogen in conventional engines lead to to high NOx pollution – the myth of nothing but water vapor coming out the tail pipe is wishful thinking.
"G";
Your assertion about hydrogen being "not ready" will come as a shock to those folks down here (search for HHO games) who have been doing it (hydrogen/water motors) for quite some time.
While a viable alternative to fossil fuels is not currently available that does not mean we should not work towards using them. 100 years ago there were more all electric vehicles on the road than gas,diesel or steam powered. Amazingly we still have approximately the same range now as then (100 miles on a charge). No real change is going to occur as long as we have the mindset that it is too costly, too hard or too much of a burden on some people. First we need to stop the subsidies for petroleum companies. They already make billions and we subsidize them too. Then apply those subsidies to research and development of green renewable energy technologies.
I don't agree with the president or his cronies, but then I don't agree the republicans either since neither party is doing anything substantial to ween us off fossil fuels. No, quite the contrary on both parties and as we circle the drain they continue to spend more time and effort into blaming each other instead of working towards real solutions.
We need to abolish all energy subsidies, especially ethanol. We should abolish that subsidy retroactively and make those crooks pay back the money they took.
Ending ALL subsidies is not the answer either. President Regan pushed legislation that guaranteed wind generation a profit and that spurred real growth in that area. Oversight later cleaned it up quite a bit so those that really produced stayed and the others were torn down (later replaced by better wind turbines). China is pushing green energy and even a member of OPEC is investing heavily into green energy. For us to ignore this is as foolish a choice our refusal to ween ourselves of imported oil back in the 70's.
that last line should read " is as foolish a choice as our refusal to ween ourselves off imported oil back in the 70's."
The wishful thinking behind green fuels is very deceptive and ala Al Gore it will
put a carbon footprint up our rear ends. The entire idea is to burn us for big bucks
and they get the mileage out of our hides. It is not just what we wanted, a more
expensive way to live. The only way to get work out of the green revolution is to
put the scammers in jail and on chain gangs repairing our roads, $0.05 per hour.
William
Some people just need to grow up!!
Turning our energy needs to ANY alternative source will take nearly a century.
Most greenies do not fully realize (after listening to really smart Progressives) just how completely reliant we are on oil/coal/natural gas our country is; if they did they would see that the free market has already found the most abundunt and cheap energy source available.
Of course the oil was projected to run dry in the 1930's, 70's and 90's and now when?
It is like a spoiled child whinning; one poster even wants the government to FORCE us into using products that will cost us more.
Buying a Prius may make you feel good, but you have to drive it for 35 yrs to cover the extra cost if ever!!
I think you all get my drift; but I do agree that government labs should keep getting funding to look for the next energy source.
The problem with fossil fuels is the economical threat it imposes on the West. Even thou we get most of our oil from Canada and Mexico, the cheapest and best oil is in countries hostile to Israel. Israel needs us to be dependent on Middle East oil to maintain the Ad Hoc premise of defending the "Holy land". If we were not dependent on foreign oil (most Americans don't care or see pass the cost of fueling their tanks), we would only have the excuse of defending Israel by our Christian heritage of keeping the Holy Land sacred to Christians and therefore not turned over to the Muslims like Istanbul… Israel depends on this strategy as it is displayed over and over on FPM with their lack of substance leading to some of thier false premises
That has to be one of the most delusional things I've seen in a while. Thanks for the laugh.
retty good article. Does Obama really have visions of green nirvana, or
is this just one more slight of hand to crush the American economy. In any
case what is missing in the article is a stratregy to make the most of our
resources. For example burning natural gas to generate electricity is an
awfule waste of a resource. If we expand nuclear power, and expand our use
of natural gas for autos we have an almost inexhaustable supply. If Obama
was more concerned with actually helping the problem than causing them he
could cause a small green revolution overnight. He could order that all
new government fleet cars must be dual use and able to run on natural gas.
At the same time make an effort to use nuclear for power generation.
Unlike ethanol, natural gas distribution is largely already available
nationwide. We would conserve oil, reduce pollution, have clean
electricity production and reduce our need for foreign oil. Af course if
it makes sense Obama will rule it out as part of the solution.
The "Greens" want nothing more than to rid us of our freedom of movement. Thanks to oil and some ingenuity, we have the greatest freedom of movement ever known by man. Travel went from Days to Hours and Hours to Minutes.
Now they want to give you an Electric Car that won't even get you out of Town, let alone back. For at least twice the acquisition cost no less. With a battery one will need financing to replace.
At those kind of prices, a Horse is looking better and better all the time.
See how "Greeeeeeeen" works.
The arguments against the author's points are hilarious. Especially edifying are the two from the gentleman who claims that talking about inherent problems with the twin green Utopian energy sources, wind and solar, is "setting up a straw man", and that we'll all be better off when we're "forced" to adopt these alternatives. That is pretty much a textbook example of liberal-left persuasive commentary.
What bothers me with green energy is that it is dependent on making current energy sourses very expensive by artifical means. People have been working on "green" energy for the last 50 years. No one has come up with an affordable "green" energy sourse.
What is really funny is the liberals that care so much for the poor and are pushing this "green" energy will be hurting the very poor people they claim to champion. The limosine liberal will easly afford $10.00 a gallon gas. The poor guy won't. They will not be able to afford to drive their own car and the cost of mass transit will soar.
Any discussion about oil prices over the next decade must include an attempt to quantify emerging economy demand as an important driver at the margin. Here is a simple thought experiment using Chinese demand to give some idea of the magnitude of the supply issues we face:
-China moves from 3 bbls/person/year to the South Korean per capita consumption level of 17 bbls/person/year
-Transition takes 30 years
-No peak in global production
In next 10 years we must find 44 million BOPD. If you superimpose peak production on top of this demand profile using the following parameters oil prices would increase approximately 250% in real terms over next 10 years:
-Oil demand elasticity of -0.3
-Current production 84 million BOPD, current price US$ 80
-Peak production 100 million BOPD
-Post peak decline rate of 3-4%
If you want to try the model for yourself using your own assumptions it can be found at: http://www.petrocapita.com/index.php?option=com_content&...
New technologies don't just pop out of the ground and replace the old. You have to invest in them to get them started and that takes time and resources. If you really think that we can use gasoline forever, then you are simply delusional. Oil is a limited resource. I.e. we will run out of it one day.
You conservatives have no balls and no vision; a bunch of naysayers who can't think of any solutions. So go ahead and stick your heads in the sand and say that everything will be ok with the way things are. That always makes you feel better.
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Oh, an excellent post! No idea how you wrote this report..it’d take me days. Well worth it though, I’d assume.
I hope that America will make a step forward in this direction and for her other country too.