And we need to stop those non-working wealth takers from immigrating to our lands. Looting and pillage is not a viable basis for any modern economy.

Posted by: Stendec at February 9, 2006 8:10 AM

Aww man... Just pump a few billion dollars into the Danish Hydrogen pill, will ya? You wanna end your dependance on oil? Then there's your answer.
I find it hard to understand why governments, who want to reduce oil dependance, don't just pour money into the developments of hydrogen powered engines, hydrogen powered heaters for housing, hydrogen powered power plants etc. etc... The technology exists, it just needs a bit of cash to develop working prototypes.

Posted by: DanishDynamite at February 9, 2006 8:21 AM

Time to bring back Nuclear:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=020806A

Posted by: Gary at February 9, 2006 8:31 AM

Robert Zubrin is a really interesting guy. In the early 1990s he developed what was called "Mars Direct," a program to put a team of astronauts on Mars for a sum far less than NASA's projections. The proposed program had an interesting energy component - the astronauts would use a very small nuclear reactor to provide energy so that they could make rocket fuel out of the Martian atmosphere and chemicals in the Martian soil. Had the project gone through, perhaps Ralph Nader could'be moved to Mars (sans return vehicle) to protest that evil nuclear energy. After all, the guys at GE are really just Monty Burns clones and desire to be like Bu$HitlerMcHalliburton when it comes to energy.

Zubrin also wrote a book called "The Promised Land" in which aliens who had evolved on Earth return to the Pacific NW to live. It is a humorous satire of the Middle East - which means Mr. Zubrin might end up in Secure Location Undisclosed too.

Posted by: Darius LaMonica at February 9, 2006 9:00 AM

I read this article last night. DanishDynamite, Zubrin notes quite succinctly why hydrogen is a red herring--hydrogen is a carrier of energy, not a source of energy. The amount of energy needed to separate hydrogen from water far exceeds the amount of energy retained in the hydrogen.

Zubrin's proposal is nuclear plus solar, nuclear for the baseline electrical load, solar for the surges in demand, which tend to occur in summertime, when solar works best.

Posted by: longtime lurker at February 9, 2006 10:26 AM

Danish:

And just where does hydrogen come from?

If you want an intelligent discussion of energy issues, a good place to start is here with the Engineer-Poet:

http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/

Posted by: johnb at February 9, 2006 11:03 AM

Zubrin's innovative plan for fueling the return trip from Mars to Earth, manufacturing fuel in situ, inspired what is now NASA's own plan for Mars exploration. I highly recommend The Case for Mars by Zubrin, for all you geeks out there.

In addition to nuclear and solar, wind is quite practical and economical as a source of electricity. It is growing by leaps and bounds, both in the US and EU, led by who else but the irrepressible Danes, who get ~30% of their electricity from wind:

http://www.awea.org (US)
http://www.windpower.org/en/core.htm (EU)

Both sites have lots of interesting information about wind power.

The main drawback of wind is, like solar, generation can only happen when the weater allows. At present there are no practical means of storing utility-scale energy that do not involve building, for instance, an elevated resivoir and a secondary hydropower plant.

Wind has been on the receiving end of a lot of subsidies, but overall it generates power at competitive prices. I doubt wind energy subsidies come anywhere close to the subsidies we give to oil. We must include in these subsidies about 1/2 our defense budget!

Quijybo

Posted by: Quijybo at February 9, 2006 11:16 AM

Ofcourse hydrogen isn't a red herring. It's perfect for cars(replacement for gasoline), heaters for houses(replacement for oil) etc.

It's true that today it costs too much, and is thus not competitive with todays alternatives. Neither was wind energy at one point.
Wind energy was made competittive because governments(incl. my own) poured money into developing it. The same is needed for hydrogen.

"It is estimated that hydrogen could, theoretically be cost competitive at seventy-five cents per gallon, equivalent of gasoline. This estimate is if solar dish gensets were used as the electricity source for hydrogen production. Solar gensets hold the worlds record for converting solar energy to electricity (McAlister). Using this method a relatively small area of land could manufacture enough Solar-Hydrogen to supply the entire energy requirements for the United States. According to a study funded by Saudi Arabia ,even if less efficient photovoltaic cells were used, a relatively small area of land could displace all their oil exports (Phoenix Project)"

Posted by: DanishDynamite at February 9, 2006 12:53 PM

Danish:

What many proponents of hydrogen miss is why generate electricity by whatever means only to use that electricity to produce hydrogen. Why not use that electricity directly for propulsion since electricity is energy. Battery technology is advancing rapidly (i.e. various types of Lithium batteries) and plug-in hybrids, which would be useful for intracity commuting, are already viable. In addition, the electricity infrastructure is already largely in place.

Quijybo:

Wind energy subsidies in Canada are presently about 1.0 cents per kWh. and due to decline to 0.8 cents per kWh very shortly. Wind energy costs about 8 cents per kWh presently.

Posted by: johnb at February 9, 2006 1:48 PM

"Wind energy costs about 8 cents per kWh presently..."
-- from a Canadian poster above

Harness all the winds off Hudson's Bay and all is forgiven for those decades of anti-American stuff. Fill Saskatchewan with solar collectors able to produce as much energy as the tar sands of Alberta. No one in the Colossus of the South would begrudge Canada a single loonie sent northwards for wind or any other kind of energy supplied, from the tar sands of Alberta to the hydroelectric power sent from Quebec to New England.

Meanwhile, our American State of the Union Message messenger explained that Americans are "addicted to oil" and to help break the addiction he is going to spend another "$5 million" on wind energy. $120 billion, or 24,000 times as much, will be spent on the tarbabies of Iraq and Afghanistan, making them better places for their inhabitants, so obviously yearning to be free, and in that freedom, so obviously eager to reach out and make peace with the world of the Infidels.

Posted by: Hugh at February 9, 2006 4:41 PM

Hugh:

I didn't follow the State of the Union Message - did he actually say $5 million on wind energy? I suppose that might buy you few turbines.

One of the problems with harnessing wind energy from diverse regions is the lack of grid infrastructure. Even in relatively populated areas grid interconnectivity isn't a given. One needs the high voltage transmission lines in the vicinity.

Regarding solar, I don't exact figures but photovoltaics is still too expensive to be commercially viable. I believe its cost is somewhere in the 20 - 25 cent per kWh range. If someone has better figures, please note them. The efficiency of photovoltaic cells hasn't improved all that much - not sure about the manufacturing cost. They are extremely reliable though. Wind energy costs have really been reduced over the past 25 years mostly through evolutionary engineering design.

Posted by: johnb at February 9, 2006 7:24 PM

....my, my, so many frigid "experts".
I have said it before and I'll say it again, realizing that no one listens anyway...

Energy derived from oil is only a small portion
of oil usage.

Much of the oil is used in the manufacturing
process.

Posted by: learjet0450 at February 9, 2006 8:50 PM

One of the sources of energy that we can use right now is E85 which is 85% Ethanol and 15% gas, your big three auto makers are going to start to producing more Flex Fuel Vehicles, they burn alot cleaner the ethanol is produced from grains or wood chips, and is renewable and it's alot cheaper, plus you can even get plans showing how to build your own still which can produce either five gallons of Ethanol and hour or the deluxe model which produces 10 gallons and hour, they just built a new ethanol plant not far from where I live, and there starting to put this fuel mixture in gas stations, something else that could help is I just read and article where they are wanting to open up off shore drilling in VA and Florida, I didn't realize it but the article stated that 85%of the coastal lands are off limits for oil drilling, and that the liberals are behind all of this hands off, so we need to voice are support for actions that well lessen are dependency on oil from the Middle East.

Posted by: Real American at February 9, 2006 9:17 PM

The only thing lacking is will.

In the early 1930's most scientists thought that nuclear energy might be released from the atom in a few hundred years, -if ever.

Fermi, Szilard and Oppenheimer demonstrated that, with a pressing-enough impetus (mortal fear of it being done by Hitler's scientists first) the atom's splitting and essential harnassing was done in less than a decade.

And isn't the slow bankrupting and ongoing blackmail of Western civilization and the demographic and literal infiltration by a cult of sworn theocratic terrorists not as serious an impetus?

All the tools are lying at out feet. Geothermal, wind, solar, tidal, biomass, coal gassifcation, oil shale, biodeisel, ethanol, hydrogen, vastly improved battery storage, soy oil and milkweed 'latex' for replacement of petro-plastics, and nuclear fission (to replace more dangerous fusion) reactors on the visible horizon.

Only the weakness of the societal leadership fails to take up the present mortal challenge and inspire and implement the needed Manhattan Project for Energy Independence. This gutlessness has us in the full nelson of dependence on "foreign" oil.

The cost of NOT doing it far outweighs all of the quibbling over non-comeptitive kw hour costs.

Living as hostages costs far more, because your future can be derailed by those who hold the greasy spigots.

There is no FDR to come up with experimental and inventive intitiatives and clever legal expediencies to force the change on the comfortably ossified business interests. And no JFK to say "We are going to the moon by the end of this decade..." and doing it.

They just aren't appreciating the seriousness of the danger, yet, at the top of government. And profound and rapid change comes primarily from the top, through eloquence, legal legerdemain, and just enough charming 'b.s. power' to smooth over the whining cries of "Impossible!" from the entrenched interests that must be overcome.

People will do the impossible if they are tickled into it.

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 9, 2006 11:51 PM

From the article in question
Ritualistic calls by utopians, moralists, and environmental absolutists for energy conservation are utterly inadequate and doomed to failure. To see this, simply run the numbers. Every year, about 17 million cars are sold in the U.S.—roughly 10 percent of the worldwide total. Even if Americans were to buy only hybrid cars offering a 30 percent fuel saving over existing models, and none of them drove more, and there was no expansion in the U.S. vehicle fleet, this effort would result in only a 3 percent annual reduction in global gasoline use.
Conservation, however, offers no prospect of being even this effective. Most industry analysts predict a hybrid market share of less than 1 percent. At the same time, the total number of cars is increasing. Under any realistic conservation scenario, total gasoline consumption will continue to rise and the looting of our economy by oil producers will continue. Conservation through gasoline efficiency is, quite simply, a losing strategy. It is like trying to survive in a gas chamber by holding your breath. We need to break out of the gas chamber.

I'm glad to see someone pop this myth. Conservation is one thing when it comes to turning off the lights in an empty room. However, on an industrial scale, conservation is a non-starter. Why? Because the main things powering the major world economies today is the drive to penetrate global markets and increase market share. In order to do this, prices have to be driven down to points where the revenue generation is maximized. To prevent huge volumes from translating into huge losses, costs have to be reduced, and that can only be done by a massive increase in production thoroughput. Guess what that means. A massive increase in energy consumption.

As the article goes on to state, all the current alternatives - nuclear, solar, hydro-electric and wind - are electricity generators, but can do nothing to address the energy needs of the transportation sector, which has to be based on liquid fuels.

Getting to the Ethanol and Methanol solutions, the agricultural products from which these can be obtained - corn, sugarcane, while converting coal into methanol would help re-direct some of the fuel available for electricity towards transportation.

On the question of performance and miles per gallon, would methanol be the equivalent of today's high octane, while ethanol be the equivalent of heavier hydro-carbons? Also, can this alcohol fuel substitute jet fuel as well?

Also, as the author notes, agriculture has been a declining sector in the last several years, but if intensive, rather than extensive farming was adapted for corn, sugarcane, sugarbeet, etc, then it could partially meet the transportation needs. That way, Agriculture would then practically fall under the energy sector. Also, under CAFTA, we are importing sugarcane from Costa Rica for that very purpose. If we did that with enough tropical non-Islamic countries, this would, as the author suggests, be a shot in the arm for them as well.

I just can't wait for the day when this dependence on petroleum is history. It would be interesting to see what our attitude would be towards the world's biggest losers. Like al Qaradawi said, they can get back to their dates and camels. They could even burn up all their oil - as long as it lasts. Provided they could build their own cars - nothing to suggest that they can.

P.S. Robert, thanks for this link. It certainly felt better looking at the exit strategies from the Islamic fuel, rather than following the depressing news about the jihad of the day. Coming to think of it, petroleum is to the world what islam is to humanity.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at February 10, 2006 2:38 AM

Infidel:

Both methanol and ethanol lack the energy density of gasoline and diesel fuel. I don't have the exact figures but ethanol will give you something like 85% of the fuel mileage (as mpg.) and methanol 75%. These figures are pretty loose so don't quote them. Check the Ergosphere for the more accurate figures (you may have to root around). Note also that there is controversy regarding ethanol production in so far as the required energy inputs compared to the energy output. Some people have argued that ethanol production is nothing more than a subsidy to farmers.

http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/

Regarding the conservation question, while it isn't an end in itself, there is so much "low hanging fruit" in North America that I do believe it could make a difference in energy pricing. Since commodities like oil are priced at the margin, any reduction in demand will curtail future price increases. I keep wondering N.A. consumers aren't demanding, or possibly won't accept, the wonderfully fuel efficient diesel engines that are commonly available in European cars.

"If a growing automotive market trend in Europe is any indication of a potential trend in the U.S., then a lot more diesel-powered vehicles could be seen on American roads. Recently collected market data by Robert Bosch Corp. confirmed that more than 50% of new passenger vehicles sold in Europe today are powered by diesel engines. According to the data, the number of newly registered passenger cars using diesel fuel in Western Europe has jumped to a record high of 51.9%, up 5.3% since a year ago."

""With gas prices soaring and emissions regulations getting tighter, the diesels argument of one-third less fuel consumption than gasoline engines and lower carbon dioxide emissions makes a very strong case in their favor," Krenz said. "It appears only a matter of time until this new breed of quiet, clean, smooth-running diesels capture the attention of the American public."

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3828/is_200505/ai_n13640858

For demonstration of the fuel efficiency of diesel engines, you can search on Google Video for a Top Gear episode where Jeremy Clarkson drove the Audi 8 luxury sedan to Edinburgh and back from London on one tank of fuel. That's 800 miles.

Posted by: johnb at February 10, 2006 10:42 AM