Then other bloggers jump on their conslusions.  with all kinds of criticism from scientific sources even.

For instance:  when many of us said, Katrina is a result of global climate change, more extreme weather variations.  More severe storms.  In this case due to hihger average water temperatures, the heat engine that drives the hurricane.

That seemed plausible.  We were soundly denounced by other bloggers with lots of scientific support, printed in the corporate media.

Now a year later, scientific reports are coming around to our conslusion.

I just wonder if the radical prediction that fuel farming, nuclear, and fossil power will be abandoned in favor of renewable electric powered transportation (at a relative cost of 75 cents per electric "gallon"), will have a similiar fate.

Come on Subaru, make it so.  Warp 7.  

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/6/8/165835/4175

Great discussion Karen

"...not to forget the hundreds of thousands of Americans, tens of millions of people worldwide, who die every decade directly from fossil fuel waste."

Yes fossil fuel is awful at the scale it is currently used.  So is nuclear power.

The solution is blowing in the wind, the cleanest, cheapest, immediate replacement for fossil fuel and ever widening nuclear contamination.

At the Paduchah Kentucky plant that makes all the fuel for nuclear power plants, plutonium has been spreading out into the groundwater for decades.  The contamination of this resource, that is vital to life itself, has spread miles already during the industry coverup.  

It is flowing into the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers down through the Mississippi valley to the gulf.  Have you eaten any Louisuana quisine lately?  Crawfish and shrimp from that wonderful ecosystem?

What is life itself in all its wonderful variety of experience worth?  Can you insure life itself for "accidents" like this plutonium contamination of a whole region?

Give it up.  Go solar, go electric.  

Oil, coal, nuclear fission must all become just a horrible warning from history or there will be no one to read a history book left.  

The dark future of spaceship earth impelled by evil  men like Lord Cheney of Halliburton.  Hehey.

Dark humor?  Better to laugh than cry.

Those who learn from history are doomed to watch others repeat it.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2006/05/23/008209.html

This one uses titanium oxide nano layer on the cathode.  The stuff that makes paint white, titanium oxide.  With nano-tech!

Renewable electric transportation is coming, oily dinosaur corporatitstas can't stop it.  They can slow it down though, until all our money is in their pockets and we can't afford to mass produce it.

http://athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=25082

Solar powered airship 12 miles high!      Why?  To spy.

Really big blimp.  Geosynchronous.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/5/19/194157/712#1

Thanks d.

The status of becoming anti-gas-guzzler-status.  Kind of dialectic!

Saw a huge, obscene stretch hummer limo out in front of a prom party at the Duluth convention center last night.  Teens seeking status.

I was there for a John Prine concert.  He revived his Vietnam era anti-war song.

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
© John Prine

"While digesting Reader's Digest
In the back of a dirty book store,
A plastic flag, with gum on the back,
Fell out on the floor.
Well, I picked it up and I ran outside
Slapped it on my window shield,
And if I could see old Betsy Ross
I'd tell her how good I feel."

Chorus:
"But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more."

"Well, I went to the bank this morning
And the cashier he said to me,
"If you join the Christmas club
We'll give you ten of them flags for free."
Well, I didn't mess around a bit
I took him up on what he said.
And I stuck them stickers all over my car
And one on my wife's forehead."

Repeat Chorus:

"Well, I got my window shield so filled
With flags I couldn't see.
So, I ran the car upside a curb
And right into a tree.
By the time they got a doctor down
I was already dead.
And I'll never understand why the man
Standing in the Pearly Gates said..."

"But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
We're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more."

Commenting before the last chorus:  "I wrote this song in 1968, and put it on the mantle in 1975. I revived it by a special request from the president.  He doesn't know it, but he asked for it."

He did his new anti-war song too.  To thunderous roaring applause!

"Have you ever noticed, when you're feeling really good
There's always a pidgeon, that'll come shit on your hood
Or you're feeling your freedom, and the world's off your back
Some cowboy from taxas, starts his own war in iraq"

"Some humans ain't human, some people ain't kind
They lie through their teeth, with their head up their behind
You open up their hearts and here's what you'll find
Some humans ain't human, some people ain't kind"

http://www.lyricsdir.com/john-prine-some-humans-aint-human-lyrics.html

The nations that export oil that fear the Bush administration warring for oil are changing their oil transaction currency to Euros as a defensive move against the corporate servant administration.

This administration does what is good for Exxon, Halliburton, and Bechtel.  But that is not what is good for this nation.

As this financial  attack on the dollar, by switching to Euros for oil trading, debilitates our debt ridden economy we the people suffer.

The corporate class that this neoconservative cabal pulling the president's strings represents would rather manufacture in low wage, no regulation, no tax areas.  No more feeding high wages to labor unions and bribes to environmental regulators.

America has been betrayed and hung out to dry, while corporate assets are already hedged for this Dollar to Euro shift.  We the people are left with an unpayable national debt due to the weakening dollar and Bush administration runaway spending through corporate welfare like the lease giveaway to big oil and war contracts with Halliburton.

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2005/10/lithium_ion_pow.html#comment-16828283

This confirms my guess here!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/4/13/1884417.html

I guessed 70 pounds per gallon of gas equivalent. This one is about 75. And I guessed 250 wh per kg, this battery is 225wh per kg.

The 6 to 8 hour charge time and 2004 build time frame makes me think that the nano tech batteries maybe even better, as they have the 5 minute charge to 90% they may have even higher energy density than the batteries in this project.

But the basic weight to power ratio and range design factors hold. Making the design a practical alternative to liquid fuel. That is with the quick charge A 123 or Hitachi nano-phosphate lithoium ion.  Or if this battery can be charged quckly enough to compete with the convenience of liquid refueling speed like the A 123 battery can.

At 70k and 300 bucks per kwh this system is expensive, but mass production could bring that down. That means the battery is 12k alone.

But a 25k total price with a 20% profit margin might still be possible,given mass production, that's reasonable. Typically components like these batteries come down in price rapidly with mass production and continuing research, just as microchips did and now PV cells are dropping in price.

Donald Trump and Imus talking about wave power and wind power?

Yep.  Trump just said oil could be replaced in 10 to 15 years.  No dispute from Imus or even the righties on his show? 

Cheney listens to Imus everyday as do a lot of influential people.  This has to chap his wrinkled ass. 

Maybe Imus will adopt altrernative energy like he has adopted alternative cleaning products and vegetarianism? 

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.