Pentagon report: U.S. can be oil-free in 15 years

[pberq]

Regarding John Kerry's speech on energy last week,while he is better (of course) than Bush, he only talks about getting 20% of our energy from renewables by 2020.

Here is an article on a Pentagon report saying that we can achieve independence from oil in 15 years:

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10083

Excerpt:

"The centerpiece of the report is a strategy for moving the United States from oil dependence to independence in 15 years. The authors provide the evidence to assert that a secure future will be all-electric, decentralized and efficient. The transition happens in three stages of five years each. Car engine technology moves from internal combustion to hybrids to fuel cells. On-board fuel moves from oil (gasoline, diesel) to bio-fuels (such as ethanol) to pure hydrogen. Transportation sector efficiency doubles from today’s paltry 20 percent by shifting to ethanol hybrids and further increases with vehicles designed around hydrogen fuel cell power systems. After 15 years and less than $100 billion in investment, America will have kicked its oil habit.

This is not science fiction. The technology is available to start today. The challenge is transforming the market and the infrastructure, but attitudes are already changing. The plan notes the emerging alliance between the Motor City and the Midwest: “General Motors recently signed a two-year partnership agreement with the national Ethanol Vehicle Coalition.” That’s because this path to independence makes great economic sense. A survey by the consumer-opinion gurus at J.D. Powers shows that with hybrid SUVs entering the market this year, sales are expected to expand significantly. And by growing our own fuel, we keep hundreds of billions of dollars right here at home, producing jobs and transforming America."

[kalian]

1. Its easier said than done....

if you research peak oil, you will find many well-documented
articles which explain how alternative fuels "aren't". Ethanol
requires massive amounts of land be dedicated to the production of
said fuel. Issue number one: water...or lack thereof...

15 years is way too optimistic...

[pberq]

6. Well-documented articles: Alternative fuels "ARE"

Check out this report cited in my original post:
http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/energy_movingamerica.htm

Also, have you read the voluminous information at Rocky Mountain Institute's site?

http://www.rmi.org/

Here's a sample:

Page 7 of 49 Twenty Hydrogen Myths 02 September 2003
Copyright © 2003 Rocky Mountain Institute. All rights reserved. www.rmi.org

· The oft-described technical obstacles to a hydrogen economy — storage, safety, and
the cost of the hydrogen and its distribution infrastructure — have already been
sufficiently resolved to support rapid deployment starting now. No technological
breakthroughs are needed, although many will probably continue to occur. Until
volume manufacturing of fuel cells starts in the next few years, even costly handmade
or pilot-produced versions can already compete in substantial entry markets.
Automotive use of fuel cells can flourish many years sooner if automakers adopt recent
advances in ultralight, crashworthy, cost-competitive ultralight autobodies. If
fuel cells prove difficult to commercialize or hydrogen’s benefits are desired sooner,
there might even be a transitional role for hydrogen-fueled engine-hybrid vehicles.

· The hydrogen transition should not need enormous investments in addition to those
that the energy industries are already making. Instead, it will displace many of those
investments. Hydrogen deployment may well need less net capital than business-as usual,
and should be largely self-financing from its revenues.

· A well-designed hydrogen transition will also use little more, no more, or quite possibly
less natural gas than business-as-usual.

· A rapid hydrogen transition will probably be more profitable than business-as-usual
for oil and car companies, and can quickly differentiate the business performance of
early adopters.

· Most of the hydrogen needed to displace the world’s gasoline is already being produced
for other purposes, including making gasoline. A hydrogen industry big
enough to displace all gasoline, while sustaining the other industrial processes that
now use hydrogen, would be only severalfold bigger than the mature hydrogen industry
that exists today, although initially it will probably rely mainly on smaller
units of production, nearer to their customers, to avoid big distribution costs.

· A poorly designed hydrogen transition could cause environmental problems, but a
well-designed one can resolve most of the environmental problems of the current
fossil-fuel system without making new ones, and can greatly enhance security.

[Old and In the Way]

2. I'm convinced the Bush taxation policies were done to assure

that we don't change from the path of oil dependence. This should be the centerpiece of the Democratic vision for America's future.

Republican vision = oil = war and occupations = dead end
Democratic vision = alternativ/renewable energy = jobs = future

[caledesi]

3. Al Gore (Earth in Balance) was "way ahead of the curve"

On page 325 and 326, I wrote “It ought to be possible to establish a global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year period.” It is possible; it needs to be done; it will create more jobs, not destroy jobs. I am proud that I wrote those words in 1992, and I reaffirm them today. Earth in Balance (revised) - Al Gore

[NNadir]

5. Nonsense. He was exactly the same as Bush. Ralph Nader said so.

And Ralph Nader knows everything.

Man, am I bitter about that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. This needs to be a nationalized source of energy:

"all-electric, decentralized and efficient."

Not sure what they mean by decentralized. If it means that there will be localized cells instead of a national grid system. Okay. But if decentralized suggests privatization, I say, NO WAY! Corporations haven't done anything to deserve our trust on matters that involve energy or water.

[pberq]

7. Decentralized electricity production

Here is an excerpt from p.39-40 of the report cited in my original post found at: http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/energy_movingamerica.htm

By definition, this all-electric world would not be an extension of the present, with all of
the currently familiar sources and methods operating in just more effective or efficient
ways, but would necessarily be a different world. In general, what we are envisioning
here would be a place where the generation of electricity would come from any of a
number of sources – all of them very low in pollution byproducts. Sources would include
some of the renewable approaches that are familiar today (wind, solar, tidal and wave, et
al.) as well as more exotic sources that would be invented between now and then.

The electricity production would almost certainly be more decentralized than the present,
with increased amounts being generated at the location of use (aboard vehicles, in homes,
etc.), rather than at some central power plant.

There would be significant increases in the efficiency of
• generation (photovoltaics with 70% efficiency, for example),
• transmission (very high temperature superconductivity),
• storage (magnesium batteries, etc.), and
• use (much lower per capita requirements).

In general, breakthrough technologies would produce sources and devices that were much
smaller than today. Personal electrical generation sources would be a distinct possibility
(portable fuel-cells for computers are now on the market). Superconductivity, for
example, would result in motors and other components that were much more compact
and lighter than what we find familiar today. With microelectromechanical (MEMS)
advances the requirements for similarly very small, highly portable energy sources would
proliferate.

This would be a world where electricity was everywhere – produced and carried on
people (for health monitoring, communication, computation, environmental control, etc.),
generated in/on all forms of transportation (from personal to mass), powering freestanding structures (like bus schedule signs at bus stops). Burning fuels to produce heat and then converting it to other useful forms of energy would be as much of history as the steam engine is today.

[NNadir]

8. I think that the costs of these schemes are extraordinarily high.

Superconductivity at room temperatue is a very, very, very long way off. No one has come close to producing a superconductive material that can carry large amounts of current with accessible transition temperatures. Moreover the existing materials are, I believe, ceramics, which have a very poor properties for being made into transmission lines. Even if such superconductors existed that had high enough transition temperatures to function at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, the construction and maintainence of a liquid nitrogen cooled power line that extended over hundreds or even thousands of miles would most likely be far more expensive (and energy wasting) than simply allowing the losses associated with resistance in high voltage lines.

Solar photovoltaics are still incredibly expensive and are only deployed on a large scale where large subsidies exist. While they have promise for the future, I very much doubt that they will be an enormous part of the energy equation in 15 years, simply on the grounds that they are not cheap. They have niche value, of course, in low power devices like calculators, but even without expensive storage systems, their costs remain prohibitive for most large scale operations. (I've looked into the matter for myself.) The environmental costs of manufacturing them is not trivial either, although they are much better in this regard than many other forms of energy.

Vast storage systems, especially batteries, are very expensive, resource intensive, of questionable safety, and extremely bad for the environment where they represent huge point source pollution opportunities.

In general, I question the claim that millions of localized energy producing systems are always to be preferred to centralized systems. This is because I think that localized systems are very difficult to regulate and control and offer to many opportunities for pollution. I also think the term "economies of scale" has entered the language for a very good reason: It generally is cheaper to do things on a massive scale than it is to do by piecework.

Such delocalized energy schemes have a certain political charm if you have a contempt for "evil corporations," but I think we're confusing things. I admit that modern US corporations, populated by the members of a corrupted and lazy culture, have gotten a bad name. Once upon a time though, before the accession of baby-boomers to positions of power, corporation's main products were not shuffled papers and pyramid schemes. Once upon a time they actually produced products like electric power, and they were quite good at it, enriching the American people by producing products at low cost and high value and in the process, creating jobs.


This is a very, very, very optimistic claim.

I am old enough to remember similar claims being made thirty years ago. Donald Fagen mocked the optimism of my youth with his song "IGY" written about the optimism of the Kennedy years:

Standing tough under stars and stripes
We can tell
This dream's in sight
You've got to admit it
At this point in time that it's clear
The future looks bright
On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we'll be A.O.K.

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free

Get your ticket to that wheel in space
While there's time
The fix is in
You'll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky
You know we've got to win
Here at home we'll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There'll be spandex jackets one for everyone

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free

On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
(More leisure for artists everywhere)
A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free yes and eternally young

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free


I'm not "eternally free and eternally young" myself. If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is.

The steam engine, by the way, is not a piece of history. Most of the electricity in the world generated today is obtained using steam turbines.

[pberq]

9. Why Hydrogen?

http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid540.php

Excerpts:

Why Hydrogen?

Hydrogen, first on the periodic table of the elements, is the least complex and most abundant element in the universe. Using hydrogen as fuel can fundamentally change our relationship with the natural environment.

As a nearly ideal energy carrier, hydrogen will play a critical role in a new, decentralized energy infrastructure that can provide power to vehicles, homes, and industries. Hydrogen boasts many important advantages over other fuels: it is non-toxic, renewable, clean to use, and packs much more energy per pound. Hydrogen is also the fuel of choice for energy-efficient fuel cells.

Decarbonization: the Trend Towards Clean Renewables

Post-industrial nations tend to favor energy-fuel decarbonization—a migration toward fuels with lower concentrations of carbon (exemplified by the shift from coal- to natural gas-fired electricity in the United States). Less carbon implies a greater concentration of hydrogen, which boasts a much greater specific energy density and burns more cleanly. As the trend progresses, pure gaseous hydrogen fuel waits as the ultimate goal.

Looking ahead, it is also important to consider that fossil fuels are finite: we will eventually run out of them. This is not the case with hydrogen. Because this renewable energy carrier can be made from the electrolytic decomposition of water, and becomes water again when joined with oxygen in a fuel cell, hydrogen is inexhaustible. And when the process of electrolysis is powered by renewable electricity, the energy lifecycle of hydrogen is entirely pollution-free. In the meantime, transitional methods exist to make hydrogen with relatively moderate environmental impact.

We currently consume fossil fuels 100,000 times faster than they are made, inspiring much speculation about how long our worldwide supplies will last. But the actual date of empty wells is largely irrelevant. The many benefits of hydrogen will make petroleum fuels obsolete at low prices before their scarcity sends drilling costs skyward. In the coming years, we will begin to see our energy economy, now rooted in fossil fuels, replaced by a hydrogen economy.

[NNadir]

14. Do you happen to know off hand the critical temperature of hydrogen?

It's energy density both in liquid and gaseous forms?

It's coefficient of viscosity?

The cost of transporting hydrogen, even by pipeline?

The side products of manufacturing hydrogen by electrolysis?

The nature of the pollutants that electrolysis systems produce?

It's safety profile?

The energy efficiency of electrolysis?

If you know all these things, you will quickly understand why Bush is proposing this as an "energy solution."

Every week or so, someone has to remind folks that hydrogen is NOT a form of energy. It's a form of storing energy, and a particularly dangerous one when contemplated in fast moving vehicles.

Hydrogen is very useful, but only as a synthetic intermediate for captive (or nearly captive) use. Electrolysis is, and probably always will be, a very wasteful way to make it.

[Dead_Parrot]

25. Hydrogen is perfectly safe to use in transportation...

[jpak]

10. The price of photovoltaic modules is rapidly declining

while the price of new nuclear capacity steadily increases.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/000063.html

<snip>

(from a recent DOE report)...

January 2001 Status and Recent Progress in Photovoltaic Manufacturing in the USA there is data on recent cost trends in photovoltaics from 1992 to 1999:

Module Manufacturing Costs and Capacities PV module costs are usually given in "dollars per watt," with the watt value defined in terms of the module power rating under specific conditions. Figure 1 shows total manufacturing capacity versus average direct costs for modules manufactured by participants in the PVMaT Project. The plot is based on 1999 data from 12 industrial participants, each of which has active production lines. The "average module manufacturing cost" is a weighted average based on the manufacturing capacity of each of these participants. As seen for the 12 manufacturers, PV manufacturing capacity has increased by more than a factor of seven since 1992, from 13.6 to 99.3 megawatts. Additionally, the weighted-average cost for manufacturing PV modules has been reduced by 36%, from $4.23 to $2.73 per peak watt. Projections through 2005 indicate a steady decline, to an average module manufacturing cost of $1.16 per peak watt at just over 865 megawatts of capacity.

<end snip>

By next year, US PV manufacturing capacity could produce the equivalent generating capacity of a large light water nuclear power plant - at affordable prices.

How many new nuclear power plants have been ordered in the US since 1978???

None.

Why?

Because they are too expensive to build and operate.

Uncle Sam - not private investors - owns and operates most of the front end and back end of the nuclear fuel cycle - Why?

Because the cost of maintaining the US nuclear fuel cycle has skyrocketed in recent years. Private investors won't touch it - it is a huge tax dollar black hole and a massive subsidy to US nuclear industry.

US uranium production is declining rapidly...

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/qtr_upd/qupd.html

In 2002 the US produced only 2 million pounds of U3O8

The US nuclear power industry, however, purchased ~50 million tons of U3O8...

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/uia/figureh3.html

What made up the difference??? Imported uranium.

The US is more dependent on foreign uranium than foreign oil.

How can this be a secure and affordable future source of energy?

Decentralized solar energy WILL beat out all other forms of power generation this decade - hands down.

[NNadir]

15. Um, US Uranium production is declining because Uranium is so cheap.

There is enough Uranium above ground in Fernald, Ohio to meet US energy demand for centuries. There are also enormous reserves of Thorium in the United States. There are 40,000 metric tons of Uranium also contained in so called "nuclear waste." All of that Uranium is immediately recyclable in CANDU type reactors, one of which is now proposed for building in the United States. (There are 11 of them right across our border in Canada, and they already export electricity to the United States.

Japan, by the way, established that it will be economical to obtain Uranium from seawater (where there is over three billion metric tons (not pounds)when the price of Uranium rises over $100/kg. It actually happens that Uranium is so dense in energetic terms, that the price of Uranium has very little bearing on the cost of nuclear power. Over 90% of the cost is capital investment.

Also, I think you would be well advised to read your links, and make a distinction between tons and pounds. They are different units. They differ by a factor of 2,000 in english units, and 1000 in metric units (kg/MT)

If you look at other threads, you will recognize that two new nuclear reactors have been proposed in this country last week. (It's a good thing too). Why? Because they are the cheapest form of energy known, except for wind, when their fully loaded costs are considered. (Fully loaded = capital cost, fuel cost, health cost, environmental degradation cost.)

Tell me, if solar power is so cheap, where there is even one solar installation producing as much power as the small nuclear power plant (700 MWe)? Where is such a plant been ordered (ever in history). Where has one ever operated economically without a subsidy(ever in history)?

Tell me, if PV power is so safe, what you know about the chemistry (environmental and processing) of Cadmium and how such chemistry applies to the solar industry?

In what state of the Union does PV solar electricity approach even 1% the total output of electricity? (Nuclear = 20%, nationwide, 50% here in New Jersey.)

I'm over fifty years old, and for my entire adult life I've been listening to the mantra, "the cost of PV power is coming down." Surely it is, but it is still far from competitive.

This report from the University of Stuttgart, with lots of nice bar graphs, demonstrates that not only is the cost of PV power in real terms (cash layout) 10X greater than nuclear power, but its external cost, (cost to the environment and human health is also much greater.)

http://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/opus/volltexte/2001/748/pdf/Voss_Vortrag_Paris_Folien.pdf


I also started a thread to which there were a fair number of responses showing that the EU has released a report showing that nuclear power is, with the exception of wind power, the cheapest in both economic and environmental terms. The thread, still here on this forum is entitled: "The external cost of energy: What you pay with your flesh."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=5609&mesg_id=5609

I cannot believe how entrenched energy mythology is. (I can't believe it, but I'm no longer surprised at it: It took over 20 years to convince people, even with the help of several Nobel Laureates, that the Naderian lie "Plutonium is the most toxic substance known" was purely absurd.) It's depressing as hell, because the emergency is not some day in the far off future, waiting for the day that PV power becomes practical. It is now. Today. We are in extreme danger and still so many of us are incapable of thinking clearly.

[NNadir]

17. Um, Enron was building the world's largest solar plant, 50 MWe, in Greece.

I don't know if the collapse of Enron stopped the project. I'd guess it did.

This plant, if finished equals 1/20 th of a single nuclear plant.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/045.html

[jpak]

21. Concentrating uranium from seawater would be an environmental disaster

Oceanographers routinely use high capacity submersible pumps to collect thorium, uranium and tritium from seawater.

Thousands of liters of seawater are required to obtain picogram quantities of these elements.

Scaling that up to meet the US domestic uranium demand would require processing hundreds (if not thousands) of cubic kilometers of coastal water each year - altering its chemistry and temperature, and killing marine organisms.

Furthermore, the energy requirements would be enormous.

It ain't gonna happen.

Cheap nuclear power????

Privatize the US nuclear fuel cycle and fold those costs into the price of new nuclear capacity:

oppose the taxpayer bail out the last remaining U conversion facility in the US (they are in BIG trouble and want Uncle Sam to take them over),

make the industry buy and operate US U enrichment facilities (they tried this before but had to have Uncle Sam bail them out),

make them pay the full cost of staffing and operating the NRC,

make them pay the full cost of nuclear R&D (now paid for by US taxpayers) themselves,

make them take full responsibility for the custody and disposal of nuclear waste (they dumped that on Uncle Sam in the '90's),

repeal the Price-Anderson Act - let the insurance industry determine the liability costs and make the industry pay the premiums,

then tell me that new nuclear generating capacity is cheaper than any other energy cost.

Cadmium use in PV modules????

The vast majority of PV modules produced today are made from crystalline or amorphous silicon - not cadmium telluride.

http://www.oja-services.nl/iea-pvps/pv/materials.htm

The quantity of cadmium in CdTe modules is very small

http://www.nrel.gov/cdte/

Why would you want to build GW-sized PV arrays? It doesn't make sense.

PV is highly dispersible and scalable - you don't need to build GW-sized PV farms to generate electricity for homes located hundreds of miles away..

PV arrays can be mounted anywhere and can be sized to fit any local power requirement. -on building roofs, on street lamps, dispersed in grid connected multi-kilowatt-sized arrays along fence rows in agricultural fields - you name it.

Again - thousands of US homeowners are buying and installing PV and domestic solar hot water systems.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0212/p14s02-sten.html

http://www.solarelectricpower.org/SEPA_Member_News/index_detail.cfm?LinkAdvID=14991

http://www.solardev.com/SEIA-rapidmkts.php

PV is the energy solution of choice for the developing world.

http://www.solartoday.org/2003/mar_apr03/bringing_light.htm

http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/soleng.htm

The US solar energy industry is thriving in the free marketplace - nuclear power can only thrive if it is heavily subsidized by the government (= taxpayers)- it's a loser....

[NickB79]

23. One question

What do us Northerners do on those dreary winter days when the sun rises at 9am and sets at 4pm, and the sunlight isn't even that direct in the first place? Unless you have those massive PV arrays you said we don't need further south to collect sunlight and send it up here, that's a major issue. Or, what happens when a storm system moves through the area and blocks out the sun for a few days to a week? PV could be a good way to supplement existing energy systems, but its underlying weakness is its supceptibility to the environment. Coal, oil, and nuclear can all run 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, regardless of weather conditions outside. While I'm sure PV could make a dent in our energy needs, it in no way comes close to replacing diminishing fossil fuels. Nuclear does. We would have to drastically cut back our energy usage in the developed nations (thats why solar is the energy solution of choice in developing worlds; they only need a small amount of electricity for the limited amount of electrical appliances they use).

[Dogmudgeon]

24. Save it for a rainy day ... and accompanying rant

Energy storage technologies are the obvious solution; a low-level, decentralized "grid" will probably emerge. But that's not the real problem.

Look, we could argue for weeks about which source of power is better than which other, but we'd be ignoring a couple of very fundamental, very painful problems our civilization will be encountering.

First, we have a one-track-mind approach to solving problems. There will be no single magic energy technology; not for a good long time, anyway. I am far from a nuclear-phobe, but nuclear power requires enormous capital investment, and worse yet, is highly centralized. It currently depends on the very corporate system that will be threatened in a social economy routed by an energy super-crisis. I hope a decentralized, low-cost, highly secure/safe form of fission generation (or fusion, alas!) can be developed soon, but I am not optimistic about that. The main problem I perceived with the nuclear industry in the late 1970s that led to its effective defeat was the petty corruption common to most high-priced ventures -- in an industry that requires diligence, intelligence, and multiply redundant safety systems.

Second, we have set ourselves up for collective, world-wide disaster for so tightly and rigidly linking economic progress to energy consumption. We have to maintain a 2.5% per year increase in energy consumption growth just to avoid economic depression; even with the cleanest source of energy imaginable, we would eventually be generating so much waste heat that we'd turn the planet into a ball of melted rock.

Third, almost nobody involved in online energy future discussions realizes that there are several "sectors" in any energy "household". Domestic, or Residential energy use accounts for maybe 5-10%. And it's the easiest to conserve. The real pain of an oil crash won't be so much cold houses in the winter as massive economic collapse and probable brushfire warfare. So if we're cold in the winter (climate change or not), we know it will be from the inequities of our economic systems, not the loss of energy resources themselves. These inequities have always caused problems, but if we get to the point where most of our population is hungry and shivering in the dark in the winter, with babies and old folks dying by the million, social revolution will surely follow. And it won't be a nice, utopian revolution.

I'm aware that I'm leaving out a lot of other, necessary "details", and I welcome all fill-ins, corrections and expansions on my gloomy rant. But I look back at history, and the only experience we've had with an energy crisis was in the 1970s. We did reduce our use of energy, and that gave us about 15 years of "breathing room", but the cost was economic stagnation and the rise of Neo-Conservatism and other fear-based ideologies. The next energy crisis will be far deeper, and will last until we make major changes along the lines of the problems I've outlined above -- plus all the stuff I omitted.

This isn't intended to flame anyone. I simply think the energy problem is the "bleeding edge" of social and economic changes that are coming whether we prepare or not. We can do this easy, or we can do it hard -- and it's looking more and more like we'll be getting served the canned Whoop-Ass rather than the fresh Peaches and Cream.

--bkl

[Bdog]

26. Use a different form of solar energy.

Use a hybrid car that runs on ethanol or bio-diesel. Use it to create electricity and heat your home in the winter.

Grid tie your transportation...small scale combined heat & power. Net metering.

[jpak]

27. I'm originally from Maine

According to the Maine Solar Energy Association, there are at least 1000+ off-grid solar homes in the state.

Every one of the PV equipped homes has enough battery capacity to cope with the climate - and their owners don't live at 3rd world levels...

Here are some links to solar homes in Maine..

http://www.solarhouse.com/index2.html

http://members.fortunecity.de/cmeyers/

http://www.midcoast.com/~jgs/

http://www.centralmaine.com/news/local/280775.shtml

This solar home was the local refuge for on-grid neighbors during the Great Ice Storm of 1998...

http://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/archive/98/mar98/offthegrid.html

Driving from my parents house in to our camp in in rural Maine (an 11 mile trip) I pass by one home with a 500W wind turbine and a 0.5KW PV array, 2 homes with solar hot water arrays, one home with a 2.5KW PV array and a camp with a 200W PV array.

My parent's home is heated by a wood-fired central heating system that also provides all of their hot water - we cut the wood on our own property.

Furthermore, ~40% of the electricity generated in Maine is from renewable sources: low-head hydro (~20%) or waste-wood fired power plants (~20%).

Solar energy associations in the northern tier of states sponsor an annual Tour of Solar Homes.

http://www.ases.org/tour/2003_Tour/listings.html

Click on any northern state - there are LOTS of solar homes up there.

I have seen of more solar homes in central Maine than I have in the Florida Panhandle - solar is a viable energy option in all the lower 48, Hawaii, and even some parts of Alaska.

Does that help?????

[Bdog]

19. Integrated systems for cooling, heating and power

http://www.bchp.org/

Integrated systems for cooling, heating and power (CHP) for buildings incorporate multiple technologies for providing energy services to a single building or to a campus of buildings. Electricity to such buildings is provided by on-site or near-site power generators using one or more of the many options: internal combustion (IC) engines, combustion turbines, miniturbines or microturbines, and fuel cells. In CHP systems, waste heat from power generation equipment is recovered for operating equipment for cooling, heating, or controlling humidity in buildings, by using absorption chillers, desiccant dehumidifiers, or heat recovery equipment for producing steam or hot water. These integrated systems are known by a variety of acronyms: CHP, CHPB (Cooling, Heating and Power for Buildings), CCHP (Combined Cooling Heating and Power), BCHP (Buildings Cooling, Heating and Power), and IES (Integrated Energy Systems).

CHP systems provide many benefits, including:

reduced energy costs,
improved power reliability,
increased energy efficiency, and
improved environmental quality.

[Indiana_Dem]

11. Here is some good info on hydrogen fuel prospects:

http://bromine.servlet.net/gems/fuelcellfolly/fuelcellfolly.html

Fuel Cell Folly



Preliminary





E. R. Pat Murphy



May 9, 2003









Table of Contents

Introduction

Selling the Fuel Cell

The Fuel Cell Stock Market Record

California Air Resources Board – EV Folly

The Need for Accuracy – Oil Depletion

What is a Fuel Cell

What is Hydrogen

Sources of Hydrogen

The Fuel Cell/Hydrogen Battery System

Fuel Cell Misrepresentations

The Real Cost of Hydrogen – When the experts ignore data

How Efficient is the Fuel Cell

One “Not so Hidden” Agenda – Nuclear Power

Renewables and Hydrogen Production – A Huge Risk

Needed – An Objective Evaluation

The Real Problem – The Consumer

The Car and Values – “America’s Love Affair”

Conclusion

A Proposal For A Ride Share Transportation System

References





Introduction:

In the late 1990s articles about electric cars began to appear with more frequency in the media - heralded as a major societal transition from polluting internal combustion engines to “clean, emission free vehicles”. In 1997 small numbers of these “electric vehicles” (EVs) were shipped to test customers. Owner groups were formed, web sites were developed and a new exciting world of fundamental change in transportation began to be extolled in magazines and newspapers.



GM shipped the EV1 in 1997. Ford bought the rights to the “Th!nk” electric car, developed by a company in Norway, and began shipping versions of that vehicle. Ford also developed a truck, the Ford Ranger EV. Honda shipped the EV Plus and Toyota the RAV4 EV. From 1997 through 2000, the EV was proposed as the solution to foreign oil dependence and environmental problems. In that four year period, GM doubled the mileage range of the EV1 with a new battery system.



By 2002, it was all over. Ford stopped selling Th!nk and sold the rights to a Swiss company. GM withdrew the EV1 and began recalling the cars, all of which had been leased to customers. Honda and Toyota stopped marketing their cars, and their Web sites disappeared. The life cycle of the Electric Vehicle, marketed as a wonder, was less than a decade. Its growth and demise overlapped the dotcom phenomena and the disappointments were similar. Over 100,000 vehicles were to be zero emissions by this point in time. The actual numbers – approximately 3000.



The media has now turned to fuel cell vehicles and what is termed “The Hydrogen Economy”. This seems to be the latest “new” economy, the Internet Economy having faded almost completely and the Information Economy having gone down in disrepute. The fuel cell and “Hydrogen Economy” will presumably free us from many things, foremost our current dependency on oil imports from other countries, particularly the Middle East – the same claims made for the EV.

[pberq]

13. Fuel cells a folly?

If fuel cells are a folly, then why is Cosmo Oil Co. leasing one?

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20040330a5.htm
"Nissan begins leasing fuel-cell vehicles

Nissan Motor Co. began leasing the X-Trail FCV fuel-cell vehicle on Monday, following rivals Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. to promote the commercial use of environmentally friendly cars.
The first leased X-Trail FCV was delivered to oil refiner Cosmo Oil Co., which said it will use data collected from the vehicle to help develop its own hydrogen-supplying technologies and equipment."

And why is Ford testing fuel cell cars in Canada?

http://www.stockhouse.ca/news/news.asp?tick=BLD&newsid=2215890
"Ford to test fuel-cell cars in regular use in Vancouver, says Ford Canada CEO
3/25/04

VANCOUVER, Mar 25, 2004 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) --
Ford of Canada will put four hydrogen-powered Focus subcompact cars on the roads of Vancouver this year in a real-world test of fuel-cell technology, the company's president said Thursday."



If fuel cells are a folly, then why did Toyota, Nissan, and Suzuki go to the trouble of building and showing fuel cell vehicles at a show in Tokyo last November?

http://www.hfcletter.com/letter/November03/features.html

"Japan Carmakers Show Fuel Cell, H2 I.C. Concepts, Prototypes at Tokyo Motor Show

TOKYO - Unlike the Frankfurt Auto Show two months ago where the hydrogen/fuel cell cupboard was almost bare, this year's Tokyo Motor Show here turned out to be what might be described as an abundance of riches.

While a lonely BMW V-12 hydrogen i.c. engine was just about the only exhibit of note in Frankfurt (see Fast Forward, p. 5), Japanese carmakers here went all out with a strong focus on future products and technology during the 12-day event Oct. 25-Nov 5 to highlight their fuel-cell vehicle and hydrogen activities.

On the fuel cell side, Toyota Motor Corp.'s Fine-N, Nissan Motor Co'.s Effis, and Suzuki Motor Co.'s Mobile Terrace, all concept cars, drew the most attention."


Last I heard, companies like Ford, Nissan, Suzuki, etc. don't spend time and money on something unless they have a reasonable expectation that it will make them money in the future -- in other words, to them fuel cells are not a folly.

[Dissenting_Prole]

29. Just because.....

you can build a couple of prototype fuel cell vehicles doesn't mean you can build 200 million of them, or the infrastructure to keep them on the road.

The manufacture of the average car uses about 90 barrels of oil. Do the math.

Now try to implement all this new technology while the economy is wobbling due to oil depletion. Good luck.

http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

[Ricdude]

12. Why do we have to drive so much in the first place?

The fundamental step that *every* "we can be off of oil in X time" skips is the reorganization of society so that we don't need to drive so far for daily living. If we don't scale down our driving needs, it will that much more difficult/impossible to meet our transportation needs on purely renewable sources. We have such an aversion to public transportation, and even trains, as efficient modes of transport, and *that* needs to be overcome before any of the other changes possible will become viable replacement options.

Personally, I reduced my family's dependence on petroleum by 1600 gallons over the last year. I traded in an 11 mpg Ford Bronco for a 45 mpg VW TDI Beetle. Currently, approximately 1/3 of it's fuel has been from renewable biodiesel. If biodiesel weren't quite as far away as it is, that figure would likely be closer to 2/3.

People are starting to complain about high gas prices. That's good. Maybe some more people will start to do something about it. That would be even better.

[pberq]

16. Government of Canada Puts Fuel-Cell Technologies on the Road

To those naysayers about fuel cell technology, what about this?
Is the government of Canada following a pipe dream?

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/April2004/01/c7236.html

Government of Canada Gears Up to Put Fuel-Cell Technologies on the Road

VANCOUVER, April 1 /CNW/
- Marking another milestone on the road to a new
energy era powered by hydrogen, the Government of Canada today announced
funding for the world's first Hydrogen Highway(TM) to be built between
Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia. The Right Honourable Paul Martin,
Prime Minister of Canada, made the announcement at Globe 2004, a trade fair
and conference on environmental technology and management.

"The Hydrogen Highway will take us from the fossil-fuel economy we live
in now to the new hydrogen economy," said Prime Minister Martin. "Canada's
going to show the world that hydrogen fuel-cell transportation is more than a
great idea - it's practical, efficient and within reach. Hydrogen technology
is part of our commitment to responding to climate change and creating new
economic opportunities."


"It's time to put hydrogen on the road and the Hydrogen Highway is the
first step," said the Honourable R. John Efford, Minister of Natural Resources
Canada (NRCan). "Today's announcement underscores the Government of Canada's
commitment to a prosperous and competitive hydrogen and fuel-cell industry,
and is a clear sign that we have reached a new milestone."

[Ookie]

18. In "Who owns the Sun" by Berman and O'Connor

The authors discuss the reason's why alternative energy sources haven't been pursued more aggressively, and of course, the answer lies at the end of the money trail. Large energy companies haven't finished squeezing all of the profits out of fossil fuels and when they do they will be interested in alternative energy..... as long as they can figure out a way to control it and make tons of money from it.

[pberq]

20. Money trail

Ookie has given the best explanation yet.

In the meantime, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, the Canadian Government, etc. are investing in fuel cells so they will be ready to switch over as soon as possible.

[phantom power]

22. Here's what I think is funny

Opponents of energy reform tend to call plans like Kerry's too "radical".

Let's examine this idea. Kerry is proposing that we have 20% renewables, in 15 years. But the obvious corrolary is that we'll still be using 80% traditional fossil fuels.

I think that achieving 20% renewables would be extremely significant, and it would also mean we were in a good position to expand it even further in the future. But how on earth can anyone call a 20% change, over 15 years, "radical"?

[peachy]

28. Agriculture is the problem

Alternative sources of energy cannot yet address the problem of growing food and transporting it to markets. Hydrogen is a battery we do not yet have the technology to generate hydrogen in the required quantities from clean sources.

And quite a bit of the report does rely on science fiction. It repeated speaks of technologies that do not exist or are not considered viable. And if we run out of oil before we find a suitable replacement our economy will be so devastated that it will be difficult to sustain continued research and development in any extravagant solutions.

Kerry doesn't go far enough. Even for as little as he's proposed he's afraid to stand up for it in public and instead he engages in finger pointing with Bush over worthless sound-byte solutions.