Organic farms as good as jungle, prairie, and coral reef at storing extra CO 2?  I think so.

Where to find an article  on how conversion to organic agriculture would restore depleted soil to act as a carbon sink.  As it did before being converted to chemical agriculture.

The key question?  How much carbon is stored in healthy organic soil?  Chemical ag destroyed soil must be near zero.

With the huge land area devoted to agriculture could this  reverse global climate disaster all on its own?

If one thinks of photosynthesis as nature's main mechanism to restore the greenhouse gas atmospheric balance to pre-human created combustion related catastrophic change, then that huge land area as a carbon sink might just be the difference that saves us, along with renewable energy replacing fossil, chemical fuel farming, and nuclear.

Prairie soil is 58% stored carbon, according to a Canadian study  http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/pub/pallande.pdf   

 In a natural prairie layer after layer of soil can accumulate over time.  Just how much carbon can this natural soil store.  Or say crop land where organic soil was fed 90% of the biomass of the crop  (return  the hay, manure, cornstaks, all back in.).

Could it  be enough to swing the carbon balance a few percentage points, maybe make a crucial difference?  We are talking only slight rises in average temperature over decades.  And huge areas of the earth's surface that could store carbon.  The healthy soil would also increase agricultural efficiency, decrease land area needed, and improve the quality and lower the chemical toxicity of food.

New water management policy could really help this effort.  In order to restore the wetlands and aquifers that farming depends upon, a new sort of dam and levy system on river systems needs to be used.

Many areas drained for agriculture and protected by levees need to become wetlands again.  With locks built into levees to let flood waters into these areas and then later let them drain back into the river.  Residents can have homes built on concrete barge foundations to cope with flooding as they are doing in the Netherlands.

The wetlands restore the aquifers pumped dry and polluted by chemical agrictlture.  Wind pumps can even pump the excess water up into higher and higher wetland areas to bring water to regions that now pump rivers dry, like the Colorado.

Why have flooding damage in northern Caloformia and drought in southern?  This would distribute water out and increase the photosynthetic CO 2 absorption. 

Natural wetlands are a huge carbon sink.  Water is becoming a limiting factor in restoring global climate balance.

The latest news from the DeWalt power tool nano tech lithium ion battery release is that they promise 2 to 3 times the operating time over the 18 volt model.  The 18 volt model has a 2.4 amp hour battery.

So around 7 amp hours are stored in the 36 volt lithium ion battery?  If so each battery holds around 250wh.  Since each battery weighs 2.4 pounds, 7.5 kwh of storage, the equivalent energy to one gallon of gasoline, would weigh about 70 pounds.

It looks like the NIT/A123  lithium ion nano batteries may weigh in at around 70 pounds per gallon of gasoline  energy equivalent. They are now being used in a car project by Altairno.  And a similar Hitachi battery design is being used in a Subaru test vehicle.

That's 350 pounds for a 5 gallon range.  Say 200 miles in an economy car?  With the rest of the electric components at around 150 pounds, that is 500.

Remove the motor, transmission, and related items from an economy car.  Would they weigh 500 pounds?

Pretty close.  Maybe the electric version could save weight with lighter versions of easily replaced body components.  Save 100 pounds that way and the electric version will weigh and perform the same.  With a range of 200 miles.

Add another 70 pounds of batteries for a 240 mile range?  It would depend on driving habits, extension batteries could be added for longer trips.  The added weight would be well within the vehicle's cargo capacity

 

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/04/pem_fuel_cells.html#comment-15958076

Very hopeful comments Harvey.  I hope that Canada and the US will build a power grid corridor for wind power from the high wind speed areas of the northern great plains to meet the power needs of both countries and abandon fossil and nuclear power.

Market forces are already impelling wind power investment to such an extent that there is a shortage of wind manufacturing capacity.

I believe there is a great future in 50 mw (equivalent kwh production to a continuously operating 50 mw source) wind machines on the plains, and 100 mw floating wave/wind platforms offshore. 

These machines would be huge and harvest wind power from much greater heights where wind is steadier and has a much greater average speed (power in the wind varies with the cube of wind speed). 

By locating them in deserted remote areas and offshore out of site the NIMBY problem could be solved.  the scale would lower the cost of power produced to levels that would more than compernsate for more costly power transmission lines.

As far as storage to even out supply and demand the upgraded grid will even that out considerably and the storage capacity of batteries in 100s of millions of electric cars and homes will do the rest.

Also energy intensive industries like glass and metal recycling sand foundries are already being used to buffer demand/supply variables.  They are operated when surplus power is available and shut down during high demand and low supply conditions.

Super conducting energy storage rings are a utility scale storage technology that deserves research and development also.

As far as tar sands, oil shale, liquid fuel from coal, agribizz biofuel, nuclear power, I think all these sources are far to garmfiul and expensive to condsider practical alternatives to pursue in the future.  They ought to be abandoned as soon as possible.

We should go all renewable electric for all power needs especially trabsportation.  Air travel can still be supplied with liquid fuel from the waste stream using algae-to-fuel technology. This is what the best possible outcome looks like to me.

I also have a different take on hydropower to make it more enviro friendly.  Gates that ipen up beside a river then let excess water into wetlands, when the river flow is low the water from wetlands would flow the other wat, into the river.

Power would be produced by underwater wind mill type devices mounted in the gate structure,that would not harm fish or wildlife. 

This would control flooding, save water in wetlands that would replenish aquifers, allow fish populations to thrive where normal dams destroy them, and still provide a lot of hydropower.

This plan would actually provide far more hydropower than is now produced because it would allow far more installations than conventional dams, that are nor being built and some actually removed because of damage to fish and aquatic ecosystems.

Imagine the Mississippi with these installations all along problem flooding areas.  It would produce huge new sources of power and restore drying up and contaminated aqifers depleted by disastrous agribizz farming techniques and desert city (like Pheonix, Las Vegas, LA..)water use.

Thomas I don't think we can agree on the urgency factor involved in conversion to renewables.  Have you seen the artcles on melting permafrost release of methane? 

Unless more people heed this warning the political will to reform energy policy on a global emergency scale may not exist in time to save life as we know it on spaceship earth.

http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/quotes2.html#Q121t

One example of Bush's "trifecta" joke, which he has repeated on several occasions: "The recession -- no question, I remember when I was campaigning, I said, would you ever deficit spend? And I said, yes, only if there were a time of war, or recession, or a national emergency. Never thought we'd get -- (laughter and applause.) And so we have a temporary deficit in our budget, because we are at war, we're recovering, our economy is recovering, and we've had a national emergency. Never did I dream we'd have the trifecta. (Laughter.)" (Office of the Press Secretary, 16Apr02: "President Calls on Congress to Show Fiscal Responsibility: Remarks by the President at Meeting of the Leaders of the Fiscal Responsibility Coalition, Room 450, Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, 3:15 P.M. EDT, posted at www.whitehouse.gov) Or: "I didn't think I was going to draw the trifecta. (Laughter.)" (borrowed., 29Apr02, "Remarks by the President at Heather Wilson for Congress Luncheon")

Bush played quite a joke on US all.  National debt gone from 6 trillion to 9 trillion.  Money borrowed from China and OPEC nations like Saudi Arabia.

Where does the money come from to buy our government bonds that finance our huge new debt? 

From the oil and manufactured products that these creditor nations  sell US.  It's an interesting scam.  Meanwhile bushco inc related companies like halliburton  atain  record profits by raking in maybe 5% of those trillions scammed from US all. 

And then bushco crony lobbyists and politicians collect a tiny percentage of the corporate take.  Quite a food chain your grandchildren's future standard of living takes.  They will owe a 100 trillion if it is ever even payed.

The Bible mentions something called  "jubilee", in which every 50 years all debts are forgiven.  Is that what duuhbya is counting on?  Hehehey.

Jubilee Bible In the Hebrew Scriptures, a year of rest to be observed by the Israelites every 50th year, during which slaves were to be set free, alienated property restored to the former owners, and the lands left untilled.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/10/J0071000.html

Instead of setting slaves free this huge debt will enslave future generations to corporations owned by the Saudi, Chinese, and other governments that Bush has borrowed these trillions from in your name.

In the US private debt does not pass through generations, but public debt does.  The US one big debtors prison?  Yer doin' a heckuva job bushie!!

Finally all the progress of unions for decent wages and working conditions and trust busters like Teddy Roosevelt against pludering monopoly corporate power and FDR in instituting a social security safety net overturned.  The ultimate Reagan revolution victory.

http://shackhappy.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/28/1846732.html?nc=1&message=

How the fractal of our times is destroying spaceship earth.  On the other hand, this realization creates a countervaling fractal.

Illumination in the darkness of insanity.

"What's so funny 'bout peace,love, and understanding?"  (Elvis Costello)

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0222-27.htm

Read this if you dare!  As the permafrost melts amounts of methane released into the atmosphere will dwarf the already catastrophic greenhouse effect of CO 2 from human combustion sources.

This emergency is on the order of WW 2, it needs WW 2- like war production of renewable energy products.

Wind, solar, geothermal heat pump heating/cooling, and electric vehicles.  Coming off assembly lines as fast as jeeps and tanks and liberty ships in WW 2.

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update52.htm

WIND ENERGY DEMAND BOOMING:
Cost Dropping Below Conventional Sources Marks Key Milestone in U.S. Shift to Renewable Energy]

But as with solar panels, the supply of wind plants is limited by lack of capital investment.  That is true because of the monopoly on capital of the fossil and nuclear fuel industries and their government shills and banking partners.

Where are the powerful environmentalists who have access to capital?

Bill Gates?  Investing millions in ethanol.

Ted Turner?   With the biggest ranch in the US where he is raising bison, why doesn't he fund wind?

RFK jr?   He opposes Cape Wind thus encouraging bribrery to outlaw all offshore wind development.  If his opposiyion to Cape wind is honest, why doesn't he co,me out in favor of capital investment in wind in the manufacturing sector for installations in other areas?

We need leaders who have the ear of those controlling capital to step up to the plate.  US consumers have made them wealthy and powerful.  Get with the program guys, let's have an energy revolution!

http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/wtr_16624,295,p1.html

This is the car project vaguely reffered to in articles about the new power tool batteries being released soon by DeWalt.

Industry moves very slowly.  But at least this technology is on the way.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

This analysis proposes using open algae ponds to replace current oil based liquid fuels.  An area of 15,000 square miles would be needed to power our present mode of transportation (that is without more efficient vehicles) at one third the cost of oil.

By instead using 15,000 square miles (a park equivalent in area to a circle aproximately 120 miles in diameter)of northen prairie restoration land (as I propose here)  electric plugin hybrid vehicles that use a tenth of the liquid fuel of present vehicles could be charged with wind power.

That would mean that algae/biodiesel farming, to match the reducxed liquid fuel needs, could be contained in solar cogeneration facilities mounted on roofs and over parking lots.  

These collectors would use present power plant emmissions and recycle waste water into clean water and fertilizer and provide the needed biodiesel as well as other biofuel byproducts (alcohol needed for biodiesel processing, methane) and produce heating/cooling energy as well as electricity for buildings where they are located.

As battery technology improves and liquid fuel becomes unecessary for land vehicles, biodiesel from algae will still be useful as fuel for aircraft and a precursoer for the chemical industry, totally replacing those needs now filled by oil.

This is a practical, affordable  path for the energy revolution we so sorely need. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/national/17nuke.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Well it seems part of the nuclear waste needing reprocessing is the US groundwater supply.  The wonderful wizards that bring US  nuke-you-ler power have been caught leaking radioactive water into our groundwater.

But only in Illinois?  Well not exactly, they have been caught doing this in Florida also...and Mass...and New York...and?

"The NRC records also indicated that over these years the St. Lucie reactors had released over 6800 Curies of liquid tritium--radioactive hydrogen--into local waters. Community groups in western Massachusetts have implicated liquid tritium releases from the now defunct Yankee Rowe nuclear reactor as the cause of abnormally high rates of five kinds of cancer and Down's Syndrome. And in Suffolk County on New York's eastern Long Island, residents have filed a $2 billion lawsuit against the operators of a research reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory, contending that its leaks of tritium and other radioactive substances into the groundwater have contaminated their community water supply."

http://www.sprol.com/?s=teeth

Still want a nuke plant in your backyard?  Make sure you have really good health insurance, for your kids especially!  Cancer treatment is extremely expensive.

But maybe with new improved plants these leaks will not happen?  Would you bet your kid's lives on that?

But the worst part of this story?  No filter will separate tritium from groudwater.  Only the incredibly energy intensive process used to make fuel for thermonuclear fusion bombs can do that.

The energy to clean this groundwater pollution would dwarf all the power ever produced by nuclear power plants.

Well spring is almost here!   A waterfall near my home with house sized ice chunks ready to crash is about to sound the call, very loudly!!  (hope to post some video of it here soon)

And what other ice jam has had a jolt lately?  Congress!

Surprising.  The Dubai ports deal was the limit.  People all over America, informed by media figures like Jon Stewart,Lou Dobbs, and Kieth Olberman, wrote and called until the corporate shills in congress finally stood up on their hind legs and barked.

It was a showdown between the corpoRATs in the Bush administration and the corpoRATs in congress.  The congressional rats are running this year so they threatened to over ride the president.

 President Bush, the big oil lobbyist/commander in cheif, that serves his constituents in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates before he considers the security of we the people, has finally been turned down on one of his crony contracting deals with his middle east oil business partners.

Now how about focusing that same anger to get, say 95% of containers coming into US ports inspected, instead of 5% inspected, the dangerous state of port security under Chertoff (incompetent Bush crony appointee, former whitewater assistant prosecuter) and Bush homeland security.

Or how about an energy plan that takes that 15 billion in corporate welfare from the US oil companies that feed 100s of billions of consumer dollars to terror supporting countries in the middle east like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

And gives that  money, normally wasted through corporate welfare, directly to homeowners and small businesses to install solar panels, wind generators, and drive plugin vehicles.

That would seem to be another issue, just like the ports deal, that could cause a thaw in bribery and corruption on behalf of corporate thieves and their shills in government.

http://www.microturbine.com/caseStudies/hevCase1.asp

Capstone microturbine generators power electric buses at a much higher efficiency than  conventional internal combustion onboard power plants.

But combined with high temperature direct fuel cells that run on various  fuels  (gasloine, diesel, methanol, ethanol, natural gas) 75% efficiency  is now possible.

http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/FuelCellToday/IndustryInformation/IndustryInformationExternal/IndustryInformationDisplayArticle/0,1588,287,00.html

So far this technology is bus and power plant size, but there is nothing preventing the development of a 60 kw version to power electric plugin cars except the will backed by capital investment.

75% efficiency instead of the typical 17% efficiency of a normal internal combustion vehicle.

Since most driving is trips under 100 miles between the possibility of plugging in for a recharge from the utility grid and battery technology has reduced that recharge time to minutes, very few vehicles would need the auxillary fuel cell/microturbine recharger. 

 And even  vehicles, such as long hall trucks or cabs, could be recharged for most of the miles they drive from the power grid (even cab and  truck drivers need a break every few hours), only a small percentage of miles driven would rely on the fuel cell/microturbine generator.

This could reduce  the percentage of fuel consumption for transportation to single digits of what is used now, if it replaced standard internal combustion transportation.

Will you soon drive an electric car with an auxillary fuel cell/microturbine that plugs into the trunk for cross country trips?  The dealer plugs it in for your vacation, just in case. 

With more plugin points that operate 24/7 on cards, at rest stops, restaraunts, convenience stores..as well as gas stations, even on longer trips recharging would be easy.  And only take minutes with the latest battery technology.

Recharging while driving

Of course the ultimate recharge solution is power strips right in the roadway, under the asphalt.  Pull into the recharge lane and a pickup coil under your vehicle picks up power from coils under the road surface...as you drive, no need to stop for "gas" (recharge).

This is a pefect electric solution for trucks, buses, (trains too)or long distance driving by car.  With the internet and card accounts the power received would be properly billed to the driver's account.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/12/153637/246#3

400 times http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/uou-bm9102603.php "Bad Mileage: 98 tons of plants per gallon" "Dukes also calculated that the amount of fossil fuel burned in a single year - 1997 was used in the study - totals 97 million billion pounds of carbon, which is equivalent to more than 400 times "all the plant matter that grows in the world in a year," including vast amounts of microscopic plant life in the oceans." Just doesn't seem sustainable somehow.   Some intersections can be dangerous!

5 times And wind resources are 5 times energy used worldwide. http://www.ocean.udel.edu/windpower/ResourceMap/index-world.html "Archer and Jacobson use worldwide weather stations (more accurate than the above GEOS-1 data, but not covering the oceans) and estimate the worldwide land and near-shore wind resource. Their calculation of total wind resource is 72 TW. This is seven tiems the world's electricity demand and five times the world eneregy demand (all commercial fuels and carriers)." This on the other hand would seem sustainable.

How about a Prairie National Renewable Energy Conservation Park.  Where 1000s of huge wind plants spin over a renewed prairie filled with delicious free roaming organic buffalo?

Eat the healthy buffalo meat in lieu of cornfed, unhealthy, feedlot beef.  Use the wind electricity to stop greenhouse gas emmision.  

Enjoy the prairie.   Forever.

The wind plants will be dismatled, removed, and recycled after their useful life of  40 years. 

By then who knows what will provide power?  90% efficient solar panels?  Fusion?  

 At least we will hand off stewardship of a planet earth back in greenhouse gas balance by using wind (and solar, and hydrokinetic power)in the next 4 decades.  Rather than fossil fuel combustion based energy.

http://scientificactivist.blogspot.com/2006/02/nuclear-power-play.html

Well Nick there is a compromise that I have discovered, after many go arounds on nuclear power on various venues.

How about letting the nuclear industry build a few waste processing reactors at Yucca Mountain.  The waste needs to be dealt with anyway.

If they can operate safely, efficiently, and agree to real regulation instead of industry self regulation, then more plants can be considered.

The tradition  of contamination and corruption in the past government/industry operation needs to be eliminated before widespread nuclear power buildout occurs.  Trust must be restored.

Of course this will mean only a few new plants are built in the next decade.  It will be 10 years until they are proven to be safe and safely and economically operated.

Meanwhile that leaves nuclear fission out of the global climate change cure for awhile.  Hundreds of new plants would need to be built to have any signifigant effect.

After 10 years of power generation and waste processing, the lessons learned should be applied to new designs and new nuclear plants should then compete without subsidies with other clean power generatinmg technologies on long term cost, including any fuel requirements and future waste disposal costs.

This is a compromise that environmentalists may be able to  live with, providing subsidies now in place for coal, nuclear, and fossil fuel power are eliminated.

And a substantial portion  of those savings are put into temporary subsidies for wind, solar,and  wave power, large scale electrical energy storage, geothermal heat pump heating and cooling, and conversion from internal combustion transportation to battery electric vehicles.

 

Great Gristmill blog discussion:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/4/0241/31043/#2

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.jaffe.html

"The prospect of cheap cellulosic ethanol makes it possible to envision a very different energy landscape. Since it doesn't require fuel-intensive refining, Iogen's product would provide a net energy gain"

This is a bit misleading.  Actually the Iogen process requires more processing energy than ethanol from corn does.  Which is what it ought to be compared too. 

Sam is comparing it to the energy intensive process of breaking down the cellulose into fermentable starch and sugar using large industrial pressure cooking, similar to the process used to break down cellulose to make paper.

The Iogen process uses a bacteria that works like a natural organism in a wasp's digestive system to break down the cellulose.  That adds an extra  fermentation process which takes more energy than the single fermentation of corn mash.

The lower price of ethanol from  the Iogen process is due to the feedstock, crop waste, wood chips, or switchgrass is a lot cheaper than corn.

And the net energy gain from cellulosic ethanol is from the lack of chemical fertilizer needed to grow switchgrass and the fact that crop waste gets a free ride (so to speak) fertilizer wise, because the cost of the fertilizer is absorbed by the food portion of the crop, the grain or corn.

Monoculture switchgrass taking over the land now in conservation would further devestate the environment and burning more fossil fuel or using more nuclear power to process crop waste will cause more green house gas and other pollution and contamination related to nuclear power.

Only cellulosic ethanol from crop and food waste processed with wind, solar, and by using heat pumps to make fermentation and  distillation much more efficient will be an eco-friendly method.

And taking all that crop waste, normally tilled back in, out of the soil ecosystem will devestate the soil even further than chemical farming already has.  Use up the soil and we are sunk.

The costs, all heavily subsidized, for this cheap fuel could never compete with electric cars charged up with wind, solar, and wave power systems.

And where did anyone get the idea that burning ethanol is that much better than burning gasoline as far as global climate change is concerned?

The fuel cell/ethanol concept seems a good one as far as greenhouse gas goes, except that fuel cells are way too expensive and the catalytic converters to produce hydrogen from ethanol have not been perfected and still may emit a certain amount of CO2.

Wind, wave, and solar powered by the nuclear reactor in the sun is as close as we will ever get to perpetual free fueless non-polluting energy.  And run through electric vehicles and geothermal heat pumps it will beat these other schemes all hollow in every respect.

But that's in a real free market without  government subsidies, hidden as in the cost of war, global climate disaster, and nuclear waste; or  exposed in the form of pork barrel legislated corporate welfare for oil, nuclear, and agri-bizz interests.

Once again, I will repeat, the environmental movement needs to get unified behind the very best energy policy or the powerful interests behind these other subsidized corporate plans  WILL win.

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18976/article_detail.asp

This argument seems accurate and clearly proves the practicality of an alcohol based transportation economy.

He only misses two points, the improvements in battery technology that make electric vehicles (powered by wind and solar electric)even more cost effective, eliminate more greenhouse gases,and foster greater energy independence  than alcohol fueled internal combustion.

The second point he has missed, and this is huge, is that nuclear cogeneration to produce alcohol (from coal or biomass)would move the adoption of this technology  forward at a much faster rate due to the cost advantage from greater efficiency.

But as I said in my earlier comment, for some reason industry has blinders on when it comes to these sorts of inovations.  Even this expert, who has a vastly better understanding than most on these issues, has not mentioned it. 

His argument that americans only replace 17 million cars per year and that any new technology would not be adopted quickly enough to have any practical effect also applies to the FFVs (flexible fuel vehicles that run on any mixture of methanol, ethanol, and gasoline)that he is proposing to replace standard vehicles.

Lets face it, these series of oil wars, climate disaster, and economic ruin that are inevitable with dependence on imported oil are serious enough to justify manufacturing efforts on the scale of WW 2 war production.

And in that case it is possible to replace the vast majority of at least US vehicles within a decade.

If the nuclear industry combines with the biofuel agri-business sector the political and economic push behind it could crush any move towards wind, solar, and electric vehicles.

We could see the US and many other nations around the world knee deep in energy farming and nuclear power, and the resulting eco destruction from mono crop chemical agriculture and nuclear waste and pollution.  As well as vast new markets for coal converted to methanol.

Zubrin's argument is very powerful and very dangerous.  Moving forward as a unified environmental movement toward a green  electric powered transportation economy is more important than ever. 

The infighting and bickering over  issues like Cape Wind, nuclear power, and biofuel is handing victory to the industrial corporations of agri-bizz and nuclear that will benefit from Zubrin's plan.

 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/2/52324/18981#3

I'm waiting for the big agri-chem-bizz and nuke you ler corporations  to announce that they are processing corn into ethanol using nuke-you-ler cogeneration.

 Waste heat from nukes heating the mash for fermentation and then distilling the ethanol off.  Triple distilling is used so it is a major cost of ethanol and a major energy input.

The industry will report the great news as unparralelled efficiency that lowers costs and greenhouse gas emmissions.

The process of turning cellulose to fuel is even more energy intensive, so that will benefit even more from cogeneration.  And cellulosic feed stock is much cheaper than corn, making this process even cheaper than corn to ethanol.

Say goodbye to a widespread trend towards wind, solar, and electric cars if/when this happens.

In other words, if big ag and nuke execs realize that this will make them the winners in the energy revolution, we could very well be looking at fields and forests turning into energy farms at an alarming rate.

And an excuse to build more and more nuke-you-ler cogeneration powered biofuel plants, that in turn provides an excuse to build more nuke-you-ler power plants.

Good thing few of these  energy execs  ever listen to the chemical engineers that work for them.  Corporations that depend upon technology used to be run by engineers, but now they are run by accountants.

That is the slim edge we have in this fight, but given the huge profits and political power at stake, how long will that be the case? 

Most accountants are technically illiterate petty tyrants it's true, but do they love money and power enough to sacrifice their egos this time around?  Let's hope not.

 

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/01/energy_independ.shtml

The oil mob got 15 billion in the last fiscal year in subsidies, take that away and buy 100,000 electric plugin hybrid cars for government replacement fleet vehicles on the local, state, and federal level. This creates mass production efficiency and cost reduction.

And pay 30% of the cost of small to medium solar and wind systems on homes and small businesses, and give the green energy credits to the owners to help pay for the systems also. More mass production.

Buy solar, wind, and geothermal heat pump systems to power government buildings. It saves taxpayers money on energy and creates mass production efficiencies.

Fund energy purchasing contracts for government electric power use from large wind and solar systems. Spurring more mass production.

Then the manufacturing revival created will in turn boost the tax base, paying the tacpayers back the 15 billion and more.

Apply this amount..saved by eliminating oil company subsidies for 10 years. Exponential demand will start up for these products in a few years. At the end of 10 years drop all the subsidies.

We arrive at the libertarian energy policy in the end. What could be more liberating than every home and business supplying it's own energy needs?

Especially once the systems are payed off, about 10 years, then the power is essentially free.

The (failed)promise of nuclear power? Electricity too cheap to meter?

Well no, because you will still be able to sell excess power back to the utility, maybe even negating the damnable property taxes on your home?

http://www.hydro.com/en/press_room/news/archive/2005_11/hywind_en.html

These are what are needed in the Cape Wind situation.   Anchored a few more miles offshore than the present site,they would not interfere with the residents who object to it.

By scaling the size of each machine up, the extra cost of cables to transport the power would not increase the cost per kwh.  Larger machines that will not be visible from shore are preferable to smaller machines that are.

And by adding a toroidal wave power generator the power would be even less expensive, it could double the amount of kwh produced by each platform.

From a discussion here:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/23/233434/091#11

Capacity factor measures how many kwh (kilowatt hours) a system produces in a given time period compared to how many kwh that the rated power of the system would produce in that same time period under continuous operation.

A coal fired plant typically produces  80% of what it's rated power running continuously would produce.  The site says nuclear is 90%, but what about downtime for maintenance?

Does cutting that 28 foot square opening in containments and replacing inner workings  take months or years?

Wind and solar are typically 30% due to variability of the energy source. 

So what does this mean?  It means that cost per watt of generating capacity tends to be difficlt to compare between generating  systems.

So it is easier to compare kwh per year, rather than power ratings or capacity factor.  That is how wind power contracts are negotiated and verified.

A typical home uses about 10,000 kwh per year.  A 12 foot wind generator operating in 12 mph average winds will produce about 3,000 kwh per year.  That solar panel on the New Jersey home mentioned on my blog produces about 7000 kwh per year.

His panels have an 8.5 year payback period in energy bill savings.  The wind generator would be similar in payback and most of the average home's power use could be obtained from a dual system of this type.

 With solar cogeneration heating domestic hot water and helping a geothermal heat pump provide home heating and cooling, the whole system would produce enough of a surplus of electric power to charge an electric vehicle for household use.

Wind and solar can be scaled up to provide commercial transportation, manufacturing, and heating/cooling energy by installing it on roofs, over parking lots, farms, and industrail sites.

The largest wind machine kwh production levels indicate that the generating capacity needed to power half the present capacity of 600,000 mega watts  (the equivalent of 600 typical nuclear reactors), 300,000 megawatts, could be provided by 15,000  1,000 foot wind machines.

The 15,000 square miles that these machines would be distributed on would constitute less than 2% of the very high windspeed area in the nearly deserted northern great plains.  And 98% of that land area would not be used, only rudimentary roads and the tower bases would be actually used.

Nuclear plants come in at 2,3,4 dollars per watt of generating capacity.  Who knows how high the cost will go, given the fact that new plants are so far impossible to site and finance in the wake of Cherbobyl, Three Mile Island, and revelations about widespread radioactive contamination at various government owned, nuclear industry contractor run, sites like Hanford, Oak Ridge, Rocky Flats ...and on and on.

The equivalent generating capacity per watt from wind (factoring in the 30% versus 80% capacity factor for wind versus nuclear) is at 2 dollars (in the newest, most efficient wind machines)and dropping.  With the mass production of 15,000 units the cost would drop signifigantly. And wind has no fuel or waste.  Cost of wind on that scale would be about 2 cents per kwh.

Half of national  electric power could come from home and commercial building installations of solar and over  parking lots, and the installation of small to medium wind systems.

The other half from these large wind machines.  Nuclear is just not necessary.  And it is far too expensive and dangerous.

That's all without even considering the waste, which could add up to a dollar ( or even more) per kwh generated over 10s of thousands of years of secure storage, not to mention transportation, processing, and  nuclear plant decommisioning.

 

 

Maybe all this infighting in the environmental community has produced a compromise on siting wind and solar power projects. 

No industrial renwable power in natural areas, unless those installations are temporary and a portion of the energy generated goes to remediate land around the wind farms already devestated by agriculture and industry... actually returning destroyed areas to a natural state.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/18/105422/981#2

  How much earth destruction does a particular human activity entail?  

Modifying a human  activity (such as home heating or transportation) to conserve energy should have the same (or maybe a greater) emphasis as powering that activity with green energy.

Most up to date comparisons indicate that the initial cost of wind is higher than coal or natural gas fueled generation capacity.  An independent, unbiased scietific study (with no industry funding or control)of the latest projects ought to be done.  

I think that otherpower.com, the do-it-yourself home wind power builders have attained the lowest intial cost and cost per kwh, with good old fashioned low tech cooperation between friends and neighbors.

As you say the main advantage to wind is zero fuel input.  Wind and solar are nuclear powered, but the reactor, the fuel, and the waste are 93 million miles away, in the sun, where they belong.

An antique Jacob's wind electric machine, running since the 30s, is probably the cost per kwh leader.  (Too low to meter...as the nuclear industry used to tout in the 50s.) Due to the advantage of not needing fuel decade after decade, all that free wind adds up.

It looks like solar panels that simultaneously generate elecricity and heating/cooling capacity covering the average sized home roof, parking area, and southern exposure coupled with a small wind system (under 12 ft in diameter) can produce enough power to equal the per capita personal energy use of the average american.

And enough capacity to power public and commercial buildings, manufacturing, and commercial transportation can be obtained with solar and wind installed on public buildings,at commercial, farming, and industrial sites and over parking lots.

No wilderness land need be utilized.  

In fact an environmental  program ought to be adopted that establishes a 40 year permit for industrial wind that includes remediation of the land around wind plants (don't call 'em "turbines", "plants" are bird friendly).

 If farming or industrial uses have destroyed it, the 40 year time period could be used to restore  the cropland around the machines into a nature conservation area.  In the case of industrial pollution, extra peak wind energy that would normally go to waste can be used to operate compressors that could power filtration systems that would trap and eventually eliminate toxic waste.

A small tax on the wind powered electricity ought to be reserved to retire and recycle the wind machines and the site after the 40 year period is up.  Then that remediated land can stay a natural area.

And no wind machines need to be installed where they interfere with  natural vistas like the ones near the Cape Cod area.  There is more than enough area already devestated by human abuse to meet our energy needs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/business/yourmoney/15view.html?ei=5070&en=8015c341d2572446&ex=1137560400&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1137397543-X1j9/0+ZrKUvmlkFPpTkZA

Mr. Nordhaus is the economist who put the subject back on the table with the publication of a prescient prewar paper that compared the coming conflict to a "giant role of the dice." He warned that "if the United States had a string of bad luck or misjudgments during or after the war, the outcome could reach $1.9 trillion," once all the secondary costs over many years were included.

That is the equivalent of adding 2 dollars per gallon to the cost of gasoline, diesel, and heating fuel over the next 20 years.  But since a gas tax will not be imposed to pay for these oil wars, that debt will be compounded instead.

Lowering the standard of living and gutting the financial health of the USA. 

On the other hand, a national  policy to replace oil with renewable energy would revive our failing manufacturing sector, lower and stabilize energy prices, and instead of raising the national debt to astronomical levels as these oil wars are doing..  actually pay off the debt incurred by this korporate kleptocracy disguised as the bush administration.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Z.shtml

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

    But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.

If this could be proven, the Bush administration should be history.

But with a GOP majority in the legislative branch that can't happen.  Can this assault on the US Constitution be halted in the 06 election cycle?

If it comes down to actual impeachment will neocons get their friends in Saudi or Syrian intelligence  to stage a minor  terror incident to bolster the president?  After all, they did stage the WMD, flowered greeting, and Saddam connection with al qaeda big lie campaign to justify the invasion of Iraq.

To save their administration would they at least be willing to let a terror attack occur?  Just a little one? 

This recent disposable cell phone terrorism story sure seems staged.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/13/111914/405/#6

If the urgency of global climate disaster impells the use of wind power over any local objections, why does that same emergency not impell us to simply drop controversial projects like this that delay the build out of wind power for years.

With the time and money wasted arguing and litigating over this one wind farm....how many times the power capacity could have been installed where there are no NIMBYs?

And given a wind farm many times the size of the Cape project, that could have already been up and running on the northern great plains, how much closer would we be to the meaty 10% level of the exponential growth curve that chatacterizes the adoption of a new technology?

Investment on a national scale, instead of getting tied down in endless bickering over one wind farm.  Rather than fighting a diversionary battle, move forward with the real home front effort to win these energy wars.

10s of thousands of 1000 foot scale wind machines are needed to really win this battle. North Dakota,South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota...  all welcome wind energy development.

If this green energy revolution is really that vital, and I believe it is, build capacity out where it is actually wanted first.  Then as that 10% level is approached and passed the momentum created will get projects going in places like Cape Cod, without blunting the leading edge of this important movement.

Only 3000 of these very large wind machines across the northern great plains would get US to the level of 10% of total electric power generated by wind.

And last but not least of the reasons to at least modify the Cape Wind project as RFK jr suggests?  

The time and money spent in endless litigation  would be better spent on moving the whole project further offshore, possibly on floating platforms.  That would open up the entire coast line of the US to offshore wind, wave, and ocean current power generation.

If NIMBYs can't see them from shore, it makes everything so much easier.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.html

This design features the harvest of biodiesel from the algae that is used to soak up the CO2 from the coal combustion.

a further ptoduct after the biodiesel is natural gas, which can then be stored and burned instead of coal, or better yet run through a catalytic fuel cell to produce electricity directly.

Multi-fuel plants like this that store wind and solar power, in the form of natural gas, can cleanly buffer the times when wind and solar power does not keep pace with grid demand.  And the use of coal can gradually be phased out, but without idling the expensive turbines and generators, they can then burn mainly natural has from algae production.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/6/193649/7888/#12

Projections
Those pessimistic projections tend to move us all closer to ...  the ultimate pessimism.  Death.

Human energy is  better invested in hopeless causes, like this green energy revolution, than in really hopeless causes, like living out self fullfilling disasters, one oil war, climate shift, and terror attack after another.

Break the cycle.

Was the idea of producing millions of ships, planes, aircraft, tanks, trucks, guns  ...and the atom bomb (talk about looking impossible!!) in a few short years, to win WW 2, impossible?

We are in a downward spiral, a cold/hot war over energy.  And there are extra WMDs out there that anyone can buy for the right price.

This production of green energy revolutionary "war" machines needs to be approached as WW 2 war production was.  This is global survival at stake, not just national.

Build the millions of solar panels and geothermal heat pumps, like duuhbya has at his ranch, and millions of wind machines from home size all the way to 1000 foot industrial scale.  And the millions of electric cars, buses, trucks, trains, and yes even aircraft.  

We can win these series of neverending cycles of oil war with a massive war production effort.

No more need for oil, no more oil wars and climate disaster.

All over the news channels!

The same old rummi line.  Repeated by various cable news talking head retired military experts.

These middle managment military retired colonels are spewing this point. 

 If you wear more body armor and have uparmored humvees the bad guys will use bigger bombs...and get you anyway.

They are protecting their friends and relatives, administrators in the pentagon who bought into the neoconman war on the cheap plan. 

Someone has to pay for the mistake of not supplying the very best armor to US troops.  This has been delayed for YEARS! 

And is public knowledge.  The pentagon has finally ordered the new body armor?  Just recently.   Ass covering needs to be done.

All kinds of excuses are being made, but this is the main one.  Repeated over and over..it started with rummi in Iraq. 

Rummi  told the guardsman who asked about the missing armor upgrades, after riding from the airport in a specially super uparmored halliburton vehicle (I bet that one transport contract would have paid for body armor for all of US troops and uparmored humvees!), that fatality in combat is fate, armor does not matter.  If one has your number on it, your time is up.

The more the armor the bigger the bombs the enemy will use.

One aspect of that lie is true...the insurgents have unlimited quantities of explosives.  The shock and awe march to baghdad, neoconman war on the cheap strategery, left saddam's huge ammo dumps full of explosives unguarded.

They were looted, and those explosives provide a practically unlimited supply of improvised explosive devices, IEDs to kill US troops.

The level of criminal negligence in the conduct of these oil wars does rise to the level of prosecution and impeachment.  The fact that this can't and won't happen, makes it clear that the US government has been subverted by a coup.

The US constitution has been suspended since the 2000 appointment of Bush/Cheney.

 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/6/172045/7999#6

"limit the amount of energy that any household or company may use.  A rational cap would be the amount that could be produced at the site added to what is produce within the political boundary"

An interesting and unique idea.

Personally I think small scale solar, wind, and water power would power my idea of balance, humankind living within it's means in symbiosis with the natural world.  

Enough EXTRA power could be conserved and generated, over and above local needs, to make those areas already blighted by industrial and agribizz destruction provide enough space for industrial energy uses.  

Land devestated by chemical agriculture is many, many times the area needed for wind and solar on land.  And offshore installations can be justified from an environmental stance by their prevention of the use of pond nets that are destroying life in the ocean.

Would it be possible to achieve that state of grace given the virulence of the human infection?  

I say we go for it.  Prove the concept works and fight the hopeless poltical and cultural odds to make that the new norm.

Is there any better hopeless crusade to join?  Nope.  Onward!

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/8/03856/17905#2

Biofuels (from anything but the waste stream or possibly algae grown in solar collectors)are a titanic waste of scarce capital that ought to be going into electric cars powered by wind, water, and solar power.  

As well as a waste of the natural world in the form of agribiz monocrop, genetically modified, pesticide/herbicide eco-suicide.

Biofuels still require combustion to yield useful energy.  And infernal combustion vehicles are inherently inefficient.

In a world at war over oil, it is imperative that a viable alternative be produced.  

That alternative is electric battery power, charged up with green power.  These cars are being kept off the market by the present capital allocation monopoly that favors infernal combustion at all costs.

The agribizz biofuel movement is a scam.  It uses oil, coal, and nuclear power to produce huge government subsidies for nothing but a feel good solution.

Nuclear power (from the sun) charging battery powered vehicles through wind, water, and solar power systems is the safe, economical alternative that is needed to end oil wars and global climate disaster.

And since the cost of electric transportation is about one dollar for an equivalent amount of power provided by one gallon of oil or biofuel energy, merely removing the subsidies from fossil fuels and nuclear and applying even a fraction of that wasted capital to kick start this green electric revolution, will have 5 major problem solving effects.

1.  Jobs.  Manufacturing jobs will return along with the buildout of green energy.  Millions of electric cars, heat pumps, solar and wind installations, and electric vehicles woll need to be manufactured.
2.  Global climate change from CO2 greenhouse gas due to fossil fuel combustion will be halted.  The costs in terms of storm damage and lost economic growth may be the biggest hidden expense of ALL from fossil fuelishness.  100's of trillions, Katrina's costs are rumored at 2 trillion now?
3.  The US economy will boom without the endless oil wars and ever increasing oil prices draining effect.  Stable energy prices for decades to come will dispell fear of fear itself and restore investor, consumer, and business confidence.  Fear of terror over oil has a huge negative effect on confidence in the economy.
4.  Standard of living.  Having ones own solar panels, wind generator, and electric car will be like owning ones own home instead of renting.  Buying increasingly expensive energy from corporate monopolists is like renting and having the rent double every few years, natural gas, heating oil,gasloine, and diesel all doubled in recent years.

And that "rent" money is GONE!  Money invested in solar, wind, and electric vehicles just keeps on yielding higher and higher dividends over the years, restoring the standard of living lost to job outsourcing and soaring transportation and heating and cooling costs.

5.  Quality of life.  All life on planet earth will benefit from an end to the devestation that fossil and nuclear power wreak upon nature.  We are all a part of the natural world, as inseparable as our individual breath from the breath of mother earth.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/hydro_develops_.html#comment-12614499

These large floating platforms can have wave power generators built into the base in order to double the power output per platform. And tidal current generators extending below them.

For energy storage try this idea, electric plugin cars, trucks, trains, buses... as a national distributed battery. Each home or business with plugin vehicles would also have it's own emergency power ... grid outage due to increasing weather volatility is a very signifigant fact eroding economic health.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/19/1455214.html.html

Floating platforms are also further offshore where NIMBYs will not see them. And placed in the path of pond net fishing fleets could save the national fisheries from this destructive industrial fishing that is scouring the seas of life... killing off 1000s of species in order to harvest a few to extinction for short term bottonline considerations.

No other solution...negotiation, threats.. have been effective in stopping this grave threat to all ocean based life.

The more selective, careful fishing techniques of responsible fishermen, regulated by environmental laws, will then protect a stable, sustainable food resource.

These smaller operators are being shut out by the illegal pond net fishing.

Posted by: amazingdrx | Jan 6, 2006 2:57:13 AM

 

http://msmith.typepad.com/smithelectricco/2005/07/one_year_lets_r.html

A huge part of this quick payback is the New jersey policy of letting homeowners sell their own clean energy credits.

Serious campaigning needs to be done to get this incorporated into every states energy policy for green energy.

Here in Wisconsin the power company gets those credits, but are they the ones who pay for the system?  nope.

It's little details of public policy hardly even noticed by legislators that make the difference to a green energy revolution.  Our representatives do not even read the legislation they vote on.  So maybe a public campaign that makes them stand up and do the right thing might help.

Almost all legislation is written by industry lobbyists, that's the sad truth.  Corporate "citizens" are the only ones represented by politics for hire.  And they are not even real citizens.

Has a corporate "citizen", like enron or halliburton, ever been sentenced to prison?  That's impossible right?

So why do these "citizens" have more rights than the rest of US?  A perrmanent get out of jail free card.  No wonder they steal the mega sums they do.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/12/25/22501/989#2

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?ex=1135746000&en=85c1fc6177dd927f& ei=5070

"Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/nyregion/22police.html?ex=1135746000&en=53334bb47adc9f11&e i=5070

"Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fbi.html?ex=1135746000&en=0184c4f98727565d&ei=5 070

"The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/politics/25wiretap.html?ex=1135746000&en=d2ae725096562244& ei=5070

"Congressional officials said Saturday that they wanted to investigate the disclosure that the National Security Agency had gained access to some of the country's main telephone arteries to glean data on possible terrorists."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/weekinreview/25bamford.html?ex=1135746000&en=0267ffdbbdeb2c92& amp;ei=5070

"Run by the ultrasecret National Security Agency, the listening post intercepts all international communications entering the eastern United States. Another N.S.A. listening post, in Yakima,Wash., eavesdrops on the western half of the country."

The Bush administration war on the US constitution.  Be afraid!

http://www.sprol.com/?p=291#more-291

There were five radionuclides that contributed the most to radiation dose from the river pathway (dose is the amount of radiation absorbed by a person's body). The five radionuclides were phosphorus-32, zinc-65, arsenic-76, neptunium-239 and sodium-24. The Dose Reconstruction Project estimated that these radionuclides accounted for more than 94 percent of the potential radiation dose from the river pathway. There were many other radioactive materials released into the river as well.

The nuclear fuel consisted of fuel "elements" which were less than two feet long and encased in metal. There were thousands of fuel elements in each reactor. The increase in the reactor power levels put more stress on the fuel elements. Under this stress, the metal covering could split and allow small chunks of the radioactive fuel to be flushed into the river with the cooling water. The largest chunk weighed more than a pound. There were nearly 2,000 fuel element failures during the operation of the eight original plutonium production reactors.

Were any terrorist organization to acomplish sabotage on even a fraction of the scale of this one disaster caused by the nuclear industry, the secret prisons operated by the duuhbyaist regime would be filled to the brim overnight.

Does anyone doubt that?

And yet no one has ever been held responsible for even one of these nuclewar waste disasters. 

How about a nuclear plant in your backyard?  No?  Not even if your beloved leader whom gaaawd speaks through commands it?  Hehey.

New plants are being planned right now in the faithfilled southland.  They need the jobs.

 

The beauty of electric plugin vehicles is that they would also serve as a huge national distributed battery.

All connected to the grid when parked, 100s of millions of cars would provide energy storage to buffer inconstant wind and solar power inputs. 

And when your local power went out from a storm (it happens 4 or 5 times per year here) threatening to freeze your home in winter, the  huge capacity (80 kwh or more, enough to power your home for days) in your electric car's battery has you covered until things are repaired.

When 50% of the US does drive plugin electric cars, that will amount to days worth of energy storage across the country, allowing renewable energy and electric power demand fluctuations to be adjusted with backup fossil and hydroelectric sources.

Even the American Wind energy Asociation, an advocate for wind power, admits the supply interuption problems with going over 20% renewable power use on the grid.  These car batteries would push that theoretical limit way up!

Maybe only 20% of power will come from fossil fuel someday?  That would be very good for mother earth.