Even if it becomes rare, it will be available, for a price.

For that reason, I say leave that and concentrate on improvements that are better and happier in the short term.  A hybrid, for instance, is not empty hype. ;-)

Put it in the agenda and let the chips fall where they may.  Using biofuel and flex fuel vehicles and hybrids as a transition in order to mollify critics of renewable electric transportation.

But the quicker everyone simply gives up on agri-bizz biofuel, nuclear power, and similar mega-corporate government subsidized disasters like these, the quicker and cheaper the transition to the real solution will be.

That is why experimental cars using the latest batteries should be built and publicized now.  Otherwise huge pork barrel corporate welfare for corn ethanol, a new generation of nukes, flex fuel vehicles and more will take off, and be hard to get stopped later on...when actual mass production of electric cars will make them the obvious winner.

Pick the winner now, back it with a 100% effort by government and industry, forget the rest.  And cancel all future oil wars...and the bankrupt nation, economic depression from soaring energy prices, and millions dead that come with further invasions.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

The subsidy of the US government releasing the nuclear power industry from liability is the only thing that makes it still able to operate.

Nuclear power represents uninsurable risk, that means no insurance company could or would take on the risk of paying for everything lost in an accident like Chernobyl.  And that means that no institutional investors would ever fund a nuclear power plant without that government liability waiver.

And the acceptance of the financial responsibility for nuclear waste is another huge nuclear power industry sibsidy.  Only corporate welfare keeps nuclear power going, and going very badly at that.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Even so, the investment to support them will be tremendous in both energy and resources.  Asphalt or concrete for roads.  Plastics and metals for bodies.

As energy becomes more expensive, everything will become more expensive.  The cost of personal vehicles will go up, both for us as individuals and for society as a whole.

I can think of many more important things we should be investing in -- education, food, high tech, health, ecological restoration.  

Why not:

1. Develop a way of life that does not rely on powered vehicles. Instead - walking and bicycling for most of our daily activities.
   
2. Develop cities and villages that do not require powered vehicles.

A society based on personal vehicles is what is called a "Class 1 Error" in permaculture: a mistaken design decision that dooms all your further efforts to frustration or failure.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodgas

Walk or bike daily, and "get the car out" now and then for a longer trip or for more payload.

This is sounding like another thread where the perfect is opposed to the merely good ... and a lot of good can be built with what we have on the market today.

Odo: Yes, in the near-term what we need is just smart policy and deployment of existing technology, along with a focus on energy efficiency and public transit. Low-hanging fruit, etc. But the purpose of the index-card manifesto is to paint a picture of where greens see us going in the long term. What's their desired endstate?

The question I'm trying to ask in the post is this: Is it fair to say that the proper attitude for a green toward powered vehicles should be that in the long term, to the extent that we continue to need or rely on them, they should be powered by electricity?

To me the answer seems like an obvious Yes, but I'm not really clear how widely shared this opinion is.

grist.org

Certainly a class of personal transport technologies (electric, hydrogen, even compressed air) use energy captured or concentrated elsewhere.  For those the total system pollution (inc. CO2) will be determined at the generator.

Other solutions (ethanol, biodiesel) have more obvious and immediate emissions, but we don't know how they compare to the total systems above.

And we certainly do not know, at this point in the curve, how these will scale to 200+ million cars.

The easy thing is to support the obvious, that "walkable cities" end-run many of these issues, and that "total system pollution" (when it is ultimately presented) will be the bottom line.

Better in the sense that it produces less pollution, does not rely on scarce fossil fuel resources, curbs global climate change, and runs on a stable low cost energy source.

Are battery electric cars, wind generators, solar cells, and hydrokinetic generators new concepts?  Nope.

But new variations and combinations of them are what can solve these problems.  

For instance, the nano-phosphate lithium ion batteries are a new development of a very old idea that solve the transportation energy problem.  Now only mass production is needed.

And enough renewable power to charge 'em up.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Easy when you put it that way ;-)

Of course million of bets are placed in NASDAQ each day over whose "only" will win in each of the thousands of current technology plays.

Day trading isn't going to get this done.  Actual investment is needed.  

Millions of citizens investing in  electric cars charged from their own power systems, that's a good bet for that money now wasted on corporate welfare for big energy companies.

Gambling is not actually capitalism, that is probably the big hold up in getting new technology to market.  Too many unregulated insider trading hedge funds.

Real investors have been treated as cash cow suckers for insider crooking, and capital is drying up.

Apparently prosecuting Martha did not clean things up.  what a surprise, I thought she was the ringleader.  Hehey.

Direct subsidies to homeowners is a good place to start, that'll get capital to mass production.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

If it were easy, we could "choose one now" for the manifesto, and investers could "choose one now" to make themselves rich.

Who wouldn't like to be an investor in the Polaroid or Microsoft of the new energy future, right?

It's important to understand which things are truly "unpredictable" and far-future tech winners are one of them.

I doubt any of you understand the manufacturing development process.

The solutions you people are contemplating, cannot be massed produced before THE Mid-East war.

The visions of everyone driving around in autos with solar panel bodies, is wonderful conversation for futurists.  Fantasies are good for well being.

Mass production of solar panels for home heating purposes, have been discussed since the 1973 "Oil Embargo".....Still very few Americans can afford Solar Heating panels for home heating.

1973 to 2006 is thirty-three years of discussion, with little results.  (Who stopped Enviros from investing in, and mass-producing solar panels anyway?)

I suppose some moron is going to say: we all need to take out massive equity loans on our homes, to pay for solar panel covered homes.  Most Average Americans are already maxed out on their home equity loans.  Large personal investments for enviro-friendly energy solutions, are out of the question.

..


America First The World Second

BTW:

Americans are EIGHT-HUNDRED-BILLION DOLLARS in personal debt (est.).

You folks really believe Average Americans can afford costly enviro-friendly energy solutions, while laden with such debt.  Affordability through mass production is far off.

Any person who understands economics, can connect the dots to the unrealistic goals and expectations committed to Average Americans, when it comes to affording costly enviro-solutions.

.

America First The World Second

Americans are EIGHT-HUNDRED-BILLION DOLLARS in personal debt (est.).

You folks really believe Average Americans can afford costly enviro-friendly energy solutions, while laden with such debt.  Affordability through mass production is far off.

Any person who understands economics, can connect the dots to the unrealistic goals and expectations committed to Average Americans, when it comes to affording costly enviro-solutions.

If see the big-picture unfolding, and really want to know what the future holds, we can discuss our future in real terms.

Thank you,

Captain America
TaxpayersAmerica@yahoo.com

America First The World Second

We've got 220+ million cars, we retire roughly 4.5% each year.  If we came up with a perfectly attractive replacement, it would take 20 years at current rates to replace them all.

And I don't think anybody expects plug-in hybrids to be so attractive that every last new car buyer will choose one.  I mean, someone who was about to go for the new Dodge Charger is suddently going to go for a plug-in Prius?  I certainly don't think so.  And I don't think the country is likely to go for any law that forces him to.

So what we will realistically have is small improvements across the map, as people choose to spend a little less of their valuable cash on gasoline.

Yes, personal savings have crashed, the housing boom that supported it has slowed, higher gas prices have in more cases been put on credit.

The opportunity here is to say that you can be happier if you get out from under that SUV loan, and into something more ... comfortable.

As you say it's all but impossible to pick the right company, besides who cares about money anyway?  Why waste time dwelling on that?  (Might as well buy life insurance or lottery tickets.)

Better to invest in renewable energy on a personal basis than risking one's money in corrupt markets.

Solar, wind, and electric cars for home use are already great investments.  

They actually increase one's standard of living while consuming less.  

That is why subsidies to homeowners rather than companies is the better energy policy.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

But sure, in terms of small improvements across the map, there are many things we can do to improve our individual fiancances and lifestyles, even as we improve our environmental footprint.

There is a valuable concept from economics, called the "energy intensity."  If we reduce the ratio of energy spent to make a living, or the ratio of energy spent to have fun ... we come out ahead.

It strikes me that if the former is really true, you don't need the latter.

The transportation part of the energy policy I'm backing is battery electric cars charged up with renewable energy.

Which companies will thrive in this energy future? Leave that to free markets.

My suggestion is that  subsidies to fossil and nuclear power interests (15 billion for oil alone) be cut off, and a part of that savings be devoted to direct incentives to homeowners and small businesses to install solar, wind, and use electric transportation.

And that government at the federal, state, and local levels use solar and  wind power  and electric transportation aided by the savings from eliminating subsidies to fossil and nuclear power interests.

Spend 2/3rds on the new energy policy and put 1/3 toward paying down the deficit.

So if total subsidies cut to fossil and nuclear power companies is 100 billion per year, put 33 billion into direct homeowner and small business incentives.  Put 33 billion into converting governnent to using renewable energy.

Then use the other 33 billion to pay down the deficit.  Keep this program going for 10 years, then drop all subsidies.

Put that into an index card?  That's pretty hard to do.

Bumpersticker?  Almost impossible..unless it's on an electric car, that you plug into your wind and solar energy system.


http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

And of course fossil fuels should be taxed.

But don't worry .. the vested interests will never listen to me.  Wind/Solar/Ehanol/Hydrogen companies and institutions pay their lobbyists too well.

Give a tax break equal to 2000 dollars off each electric car conversion, if it costs 6000 dollars that would cut the payback period by 1/3.  

With 10 billion per year that would equal 5 million conversions.

Similar incentives for wind and solar would power a growing demand and in turn precipitate mass production capital out from under matreses.

Invest in companies whose products you actually use?  Well sure, some bought Dell and made money in the 90s.

Would you buy it now?  Maybe some options? (lottery tickets are a safer bet)

People will invest again when the trust factor returns.  There have to be products people rely on first.  Invest in your home first.  A neighbor has a solar panel that saves money, you get one.  Cause and effect.

That's an energy revolution.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

"[looking backwards] we only see and count the winners, to the exclusion of the losers (it is like saying that actors and writers are rich, ignoring the fact that actors are largely waiters - and lucky to be ones, for the less comely writers ususally serve French fries at McDonalds). Losers? The Saturday newspaper lists dozens of new patents that can revolutionize our lives. People tend to infer that because some inventions have revolutionized our lives that new inventions are good to endorse and we should favor the new over the old. I hold the opposite view. The opportunity cost of missing a 'new new thing' like the airplane and the automobile is miniscule compared to the toxicity of all the garbage one has to go through to get to the jewels (assuming these have brought some improvement to our lives, which I frequently doubt)."

That's a good rant ;-), and I read it after our earlier posts this morning.  As you can see the guy and I are on the same vibe, with respect to picking technologies.

Will a 'new new thing' save us on transportation costs?  Maybe.  But maybe after you spend that money on "Plan A" the answer will be condo/office/shop complexes that allow people to walk for their daily needs.

It is best to prepare one's personal and family future in light of the disatrous effects this will have.  Many have invested in big oil and will outspend any problems with energy prices.

Meanwhile why not fight this hopeless battle?  It is fascinating to observe, but even more interesting is to find solutions.

Since an energy agenda will not have a lot of political effect, why not pick the best technology to back at the start.

For instance:  Battery electric plugin power, either as a conversion, added onto a hybrid, or as a new vehicle.   Only subsidize that part of the vehicle that is battery/electric, the gas engine part receives no subsidy.

Argue it out on fora like these and in the media,then in congress, get a solid defensible policy, then let the market pick the best battery or electric conversion companies.  Let consumers make the choice with their tax break.

You are right, only the markets can pick the winners, but we can choose to give tax breaks to certain types of vehicles.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I know David has pushed for walkable cities, but our addiction is so strong that we block that possibility out.  

The effect is that transport alternatives are not little steps in the right direction.  They are expensive steps in the wrong direction.

(BTW, thanks to David for continuing to bring up the important issues and to the posters for the thoughtful comments.)
 

Bart
Energy Bulletin

...your POV can play right into the hands of those advocating for the staus quo?

Leave the environmental movement to endlessly debate over various aspects of different energy policies, and of course disagree endlessly, but be comforted by advocating a shift to less driving....

...while business as usual goes on, until the last drop of oil fetches 500 dollars per barrel and nuclear power plants in every county are busy turning coal into methanol.

Less driving AND renewable electric powered transportation are needed.  And fast!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

David, you say biofuels seem inefficient.  But to my knowledge, even the most cutting-edge photovoltaic cells operate at less than one-third efficiency, and the figures I've seen for windpower are even lower.  And that doesn't factor in losses due to transmission or distribution or storage.  Without hard numbers on all these technologies, I don't think you're making a valid comparison.

That said, why make the decision based on efficiency?  Sure, that's the prevailing mentality in our society, but if we're out to change the world, why not start from the beginning?  If it's true that there's enough windpower in the Dakotas, or solar power in Arizona, to supply all our needs, shouldn't our primary concern be just getting our energy from renewable sources in sustainable ways?  And is choosing a single form of energy for all our vehicles a good idea?  What if some ran on biofuels and some ran on electricity?  We're pushing for diversity in our energy sources; that would be one way to achieve it.

Another point, since you seem to be such a fan of Amory Lovins:  wasn't one of the main points of his 1976 piece that the type of energy should be suited to the task, and that electricity, as a high-quality form of energy, isn't needed for most applications, including transportation?  I'm not, perhaps, technologically savvy enough to make this determination, but it seems to me that if we could achieve sustainable production of clean-burning biofuels, that might just be preferable to (and maybe less expensive than?) using electrical systems that require high-tech batteries made with heavy metals (even if the batteries are rechargeable and the heavy metals are eventually recycled).  Just a thought.

As to whether this is too much for an index card manifesto, I would say that depends on the intent of the manifesto.  If you're trying to encapsulate all of "green" theory on one 3x5 piece of paper... well, all I can say is, you'd better write really small.  If, on the other hand, you're going for a clear statement of goals which will act as a platform for action and an opening point for discussion, then I think you're on the right track.  Just look at all the discussion you've already generated with a single point, in a single forum...

Anyway...

amazingdrx: "Leave the environmental movement to endlessly debate over various aspects of different energy policies..."

When I was on an emergency response team, they taught us a maxim I always remember:

Don't just do something, stand there!

I think we are faced with a set of problems that are degrees of magnitude larger than anything we've faced in the last 200 years. In particular: climate change and the end of cheap energy.  

Again and again, we under-estimate these problems.  Our hopes and fears prevent us from seeing clearly.  

Thus we have two very different analyses:

1. Things are manageable; the future will be much like the past. Hybrids, electric vehicles, ethanol, etc. are reasonable steps in a slow evolution.
   
2. Climate change and the end of cheap energy will dramatically change our society.  We need new paradigms -- for example, reviving our rail system rather than encouraging personal vehicles.  Stopping cheap air travel.  Figuring out how to live a satisfying life by staying at home.  I wrote a piece on this strategy, which has some practical suggestions that people can act on now: Adapting zones and sectors for the city.

I wish that the milder solutions advocated on this thread were sufficient, but I fear they aren't.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

On "Don't just do something, stand there!" I'd guess (or hope) that there is a division between those things we do now as individuals, and those things we hope we can spur later in society.

I think I can walk to the market today (in what is becoming a Sunday morning routine).  That will keep me out of trouble (using no gas or electricity), give me a little excercise, and give me the chance to grab a few groceries.

Looking further, we can put a gentle pressure, to try to nudge the future one way or another, but ... history finds its way by a combination of accident and averages.  No one can seriously presume to chart the course.

But endless debate is "do(ing) something".  Just like "more study" was doing something.

The bike-ins are a great way to put your point across. Which I admit is an excellent point!!  Drive less miles, walk, bike, ride trains and buses (with bike racks) more.

But draining the energy out of the environmental movement with endless debate or more study of global climate change, and standing there waiting until someone decides what to do...

...is doing exactly what the powers behind the status quo want us to do.  And of course if we then wait and let others decide what to do; it will be to burn the last drop of oil, then make more fuel for SUVs and hummers from coal with nuclear power.

Will more people take the alternative road of walking, biking, buses and trains when only the upper middle class can afford cars?  Yep.  Just as it is in europe today.

It is inevitable with soaring energy prices.  Leaving environmentalists little to do but "stand there" it seems.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Media coverage is abysmal.  We're better informed about movie stars and brands of shampoo.

I don't mean to pick on you, amazingdrx, but this is a good example.  amazingdrx writes:

Many experts agree that there is enough coal to continue on the present course with internal combustion vehicles powered by fuel extracted from coal for 100s of years.

True, but with some caveats:

• The environmental devastation will be stupendous, as we go after the coal that is harder to get at.
  
• The cost of liquid fuel derived from coal will be more expensive than the cheap petroleium we've been used to.
  
• Even though coal supplies are large, we would be using them at an increasing rate, due to increases in population and demand.  And especially so, since coal would have to substitute for oil.  
  
• The coal will be dirtier coal, with a disasterous effect on greenhouse gases.
  
• Carbon sequestration -- which would be a way to prevent coal from releasing CO2 to the atmosphere -- is an iffy, unproven technology.  It would have to be very effective (less than a 1%/year rate of leakage, for example).  Caltech professor Nathan Lewis is very dubious about the prospects for sequestation http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
  
• Even if sequestration is viable, isn't it likely that many countries won't bother, since it will be expensive?

There's a tremendous amount for us all to learn.  Since I've started to follow energy issues, I've been humbled time and time again by my lack of knowledge.      

Bart
Energy Bulletin

Amen, brother.

grist.org

Do you see it as something that will be shaped, as the nation rises up to transform 220 million gasoline cars to run on  ... Chemical X?

I think you can stop wasting energy because history has never worked that way.  History moves like a slime mold.  It only gets to places that were connected to the old position a thousand different ways.

This is a population response, with a few billion individual players.  Even the best, most powerful, statesmen, authors, and activists only get to say what they wish would happen.  Everything is a summation of average belief and a good deal of random events.

If Three Mile Island had not happened, or even been delayed a few years, how many nukes would we have?  Accidents (sometimes in the literal sense of the word) shape the future.

If you ask me that's liberating, because it means you don't have to obsess about choosing just the right plan, writing just the right manifesto, contributing to just the right cause.

It's enough to back the things that you think are generally good, and oppose the things you think are generally bad ... and let the chips fall where they may.  They will anyway, no matter what you do.

• it most commonly makes diesel, and would not directly benefit the current US auto fleet

• you need a lot of CTL plants

It's possible that it will happen, but it will not happen overnight.  Slime mold again ... a 20-30 year process?  If nothing better (and no strange accidents of history) comes along?

Bonus question: How fast will the Internet be in 20-30 years, how good will video conferencing be, and how will that change telecommuting?

Bonus bonus question:  When the 70's/80's fuel crisises hit no one suggested telecommuting as a solution, because it wasn't invented yet.  What aren't we talking about now, that hasn't been invented yet?

(you better recognize that last one as a trick, unanswerable, question)

Yes Bart, and doubly so if nuclear power is used to mine and refine the coal.

That is why acting now to steer the policy towards renewable electric powered transportation is vital.  Money diverted by other solutions, like corn/ethanol and coal/methanol, flex fuel vehicles is wasted in any battle to stop greenhouse gases.

The powers behind energy business as usual are comfortable with a shift to coal, nuclear, and even agribizz alcohol.


http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

The powerplant and batteries to replace an internal combustion engine, transmission, and fuel to provide equivalent power and range, now weighs the same as the old techology you recycle in a comversion.

Put the transmission, engine, fuel, exhaust, cooling systems..  all on one side of the balance.

Put the electric motor, controller,and battery pack on the other side.  It might even weigh less.


http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Look at it this way: Big social changes are coming. There's momentum building -- anyone paying attention can feel it. But what social change? Nobody can be sure. When the pressure builds up and explodes to the surface, a huge amount of energy will be released. How will it manifest? It could go any number of ways. My own biggest fear is that the Western world, particularly the U.S., will respond with spasms of nationalism, isolationism, xenophobia, and military build up.

One obviously cannot control how things play out, but if there's a fairly clear, fairly well-understood, absorbed-into-conventional wisdom model of a sustainable direction, it at least raises the odds for a good outcome.

People will not want or demand what they don't know. All our efforts should be going toward familiarizing the general public with a picture of a world with less oil, less personal mobility, and less material consumption that is nonetheless attractive. So when the time comes, there will be a popular swell behind it.

I'm rambling, but my point is just this: Right now, the sustainable future we greens envision isn't even a live option. It exists only deep in the wonky folds of environmental books and websites. It needs to be given life in the culture at large.

grist.org

I think any plan/manifesto is good if it gets people on board ... but (as I've said) I see danger in too much detail:

• it serves to highlight differences within the group
  
• it excludes people with parallel goals
  
• it burns energy in its creation
  
• it needs to be revisited as technologies evolve

Two years later my project, and many other projects, were still running ... but the chosen five were dead.  Ghost towns.  It made me think I should have pressed harder.

That's a different field but I see a parallel.  I mean why choose biodiesel or plug-in hybrids or pure electics, when none of us knows what problems or breakthroughs each will experience?

I think it is far easier, more flexible, and attractive to speak in general terms - "we support the many low cost and environmentally friendly personal transportation options now being developed."

Finally, I think sustainable and alternative energies are getting a lot of press right now.  The are in State of the Union addresses and Superbowl ads.  The fact that they are disorganized and parallel ... like a slime mold ... is as I would expect it.

It is promising that the environment is getting so much press. We may be witnessing the creation of a new playing field, a green one. Competitors who refuse to compete on that field may be left out of the game. Free market competitors are always trying to get on the uphill side of a sloped field (that is why we need referees--government).

Industry seems to have discovered that green is selling. Enter greenwashing. By making a few low-cost modifications to fuel systems and printing millions of tee shirts, some manufacturers are hoping to continue selling lots of huge, 4 x 4 gas guzzling pickup trucks that can only carry two people, or more commonly one person and his dog, trucks that will never haul or tow anything more than a boat or jet ski. You can now buy one with a powerful V-8 that not only has a hemi, but also has the "capacity" to use ethanol. This fact will, of course, be clearly emblazened on the side of the truck along with the word "hemi", saving farm families and America all in one package. Sign me up, wrap me in a  flag.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

It's obvious that many of you live in progressive islands rumored to be infesting the North. Down here, progressive means cutting trees and laying pavement for new developments. Leaders in my state want to sell off the State Park land to developers to help balance their budget (and pay for the 500 million dollar convention center that we REALLY need to get more 'progressive'). I wish I could share in your  enthusiasm, but below the Mason-Dixon line, the green revolution is fantasy.

a liberal in redsville

Invest now before the blue state national guards are forced to start restricting border crossing.

The big news here is everyone going to renewable, locally grown,green everything on their own, with no government/industry help.   Subsidizers and monopolists need not apply.

We really do not need any help, it all just makes sense.  Economic and environmental sense.

National policy?  Who cares?  We don't figure in it anyway.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I'll have to sneak in one day and troll you ;-)

Because only renewable electric plugin power provides low cost, stable priced energy and greenhouse gas elimination  with no radioactive waste.

Take the subsidies from the rest, give it to the best.  

If the environmental movement chooses generic feel good phraseology instead of actual reform involving a shift of real capital resources to renewable energy users, it only benefits the status quo.

And that means global climate disaster.  Mother nature turning into a perma-bitch.  You will not like her when she's angry.

5 to 10 Katrinas per year.  Good luck with that.

How high will oil and indeed any liquid fuel, biodiesel, ethanol go then?  Natural gas?  Those storms hit energy alley, where all the fuel is shipped through and refined.

And all the food is grown using that fuel.  Remember the dust bowl?  With increasing drought it could return, the fires are raging right now in drought stricken areas.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I don't really see a need for the general movement to specialize too far, especially when so many improvements from the status quo are possible across the board.  The 157mpg car that David wrote about earlier today is a case in point.

It's not a pollution-free electric car, but it does offer more than twice the mpg of the best car currently legal in the US (the Honda Insight).

Perhaps it comes back again to the perfect (future electric cars?) and the merely good (shorter term options?), as well as of individual choice.  FWIW I don't like Segways, but I can support them (ok, passively) because hey ... they might get someone out of a car.  Maybe a Segway is something that wouldn't be on my manifesto ... but I don't mind it being under my umbrella.

No-one wants a hydrogen car, I now understand, but that doesn't mean water-splitting CSP can't be helpful. (Hydrogen-plus-CO2) to methanol, and methanol-to-gasoline, are known arts. Thus solar production of gasoline, and, since high-grade heat is high-grade heat whether produced by a focusing mirror or a nuclear reactor, nuclear gasoline, are a matter of putting together about three things, each of which is old hat by itself.

Something very odd would have to happen for the product of the three steps' efficiency not greatly to exceed that of biofuel production.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion, nuclear cachet

Maybe leasing a car or truck for a few hours when needed from a local coop.  And biking the rest of the time.

Do people really want to sacrifice a bit?  More support might be forthcoming with a smart combination of austerity for the common good coupled with renewable, distributed power.

A compromise design could provide affordable renewable powered lifestyle with current technology.   It was always hard designing a renewable power system that would replace the huge waste fed by the grid.

That average 10,000 kwh used per year per household could be 2500 with some sacrifice.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

So what do we want and how do we say it? When I think of sustainable transporation systems it has a lot of walking, biking, sharing, etc with technologies that are renewable and (dare I dream?) resorative to the Earth. It would leave room for incremental improvement and radical change.

Perhaps we need to start looking at transportation the way Amory Lovins encourages us to look at electricity - not as the electrons through the wires but the services it provides, i.e. the lights, computer power, the cold beer.  That way we can focus on the best way to solve each transportation issue, rather than which if any technology is going to be THE answer.

A lot of people would want to live car free.

That's what I've realized from this discussion.  And that's a very good point.

I don't think many will choose my particular preffered form of transportation energy until it is widely demonstrated and tested.  They are stuck on what is now available, which is dissapointing but certainly understandable.

Electric assisted bikes would be a good step in between I think.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Biofuels and nuclear/clean-coal/hydrogen: Is that what we want? And if not, how do we slow the headlong rush without just coming off as perpetual naysayers?

Lester Brown has a simple answer: wind-powered plug-in hybrids. Wind is a huge resource; the infrastructure (electrical grid and gas stations) is already in place; the technology exists; there's already momentum behind it in influential circles. And it's way better for the environment.

So why should we not jump behind them? For fear of being "prescriptive"? Fear of making a prediction that might not pan out? I'm not sure I find that convincing.

grist.org

The higher percentage of miles driven by clean electricity the bigger the incentive.  A hybrid with an electric component equal to the internal combustion component would be in the middle.

Pure electric plugins would get the most subsidy, and the new SUVs that don't save gas, but are hybrids instead to boost power get the least.  But these ought to still get some incentive, because they save fuel in traffic jams.

And then incentivize wind and solar to feed the electric component of transportation also.

And of course provide the incentives by eliminating subsidies for oil, coal, and nuclear power.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

What we are facing isn't a little bump in our path, but a new world, in which energy and resource issues are paramount.  

We need:

• Think tanks which can do the research and analysis that are needed.  The small operations we have now (Amory Lovins and Lester Brown) are just the beginning.

• An informed, critical public which demands good policy, and which will not be manipulated by corporate giants and special interests.

• News media that give good information and analysis, again with a critical eye.

• Political parties which have energy platforms beyond wishful thinking and corporate giveaways.

• A general culture which is more energy- and resource-literate.  To those who say it is too complicated, consider how quickly people have become accustomed to the complex technology of computers.

BTW -- Does this discussion have the record for length?

Bart
Energy Bulletin

There is some literature on the difficulties and strategies in "cat herding" in the open source software literature.  It might apply as you try to get all the enviropnmental cats together on a specific environmental plan.

And, "Here's my basic reasoning: Humanity's energy reserves (fossil fuels) are finite. We need to start living within the earth's solar budget."

Finally, "Someone tell me what's wrong with this reasoning."

One thing that's wrong with that reasoning is that "fossil fuel" energy reserves are NOT finite (in any practical sense of the word).  

Presently, humans worldwide consume approximately 400 quads (400 quadrillion Btus) of energy per year.  The total worldwide deposits of methane hydrates have been estimated at approximately 400 MILLION quads.  In other words, methane hydrates could power all of humanity at its current rate of energy use (for all purposes) for 1 MILLION years.

Another thing wrong with your reasoning is that you totally neglect the possibilities of either fission or fusion.

Recently (December 2005), Scientific American contained an article that outlined a method by which long-lived (half-lives greater than 300 years) nuclear fission wastes could be essentially eliminated.  This would occur through reduction and use of pyroprocessing (high temperature electroplating) of existing "high level" nuclear wastes, combined with use of liquid sodium fast neutron reactors.  This method could essentially eliminate all long-lived nuclear wastes that presently exist, while generating no new long-lived wastes.  Further, it could be done without generating any weapons-grade nuclear materials.

Finally, you totally ignore the possibility of fusion.  It will be necessary to develop fusion if humans ever have any plans to "terraform" (or at least establish permanent colonies) on Mars.  Establishing self-sufficient permanent human habitation on Mars is a good idea as an insurance policy against disaster on Earth. Given the fact that fusion will be necessary for this function, it's logical that fusion will also be a potential major source of energy on earth.  Man-made fusion on earth, rather than relying on fusion occurring 93 million miles away on the sun, has the advantage of providing a very compact power source.  I don't know exactly what the electrical power needs of New York City are, but let's say they're presently 10,000 megawatts.  Now, you want to add transportation to that...so let's call it 20,000 MW.  A much larger area than New York City would be required to provide that power by wind, photovoltaics, hydro, or biothermal.  But it's a miniscule area for fission or fusion plants.

One more thing...if controlled hydrogen-boron fusion can be achieved, all radioactive products are eliminated:

Hydrogen-boron fusion

P.S.  I do agree with your assessment that eventually all personal transportation will rely on electricity.  My estimate for this to happen is not less than 30 years, nor more than 60.  But neglecting the potential of methane hydrates and/or fission and/or fusion is wrong.


Mark Bahner

We are suffering from an over-reliance on experts.  

These concepts are just not that complicated, keep this thread going until that is apparent to any interested observer dave!

Filling out or even preparing to have one's tax forms filled out is more confusing than the issues involved with choosing which transportation energy solution to incentivize.

The market takes care of the unknowable, namely which specific companies with which specific design wins the biggest number of consumers.

What do we need in the area of transportation?

Zero greenhouse gas emmissions.

Zero pollution.

No fossil fuel reliance.

It must encourage those who choose to be car free.

Simple operation and manufacturing.

Safe operation.

Bike and walking friendly communities, electric assisted bikes, electric trains and buses(with bike racks), plugin electric vehicles (available for rent on short notice for reasonable cost for the car free), and very efficient (75% with fuel cell/microturbine design)flex fuel generator backup systems for those electric vehicles where necessary.

I think it IS possible for us to make informed decisions on these issues.

What is too complicated here?  If we all know, maybe we can do some research and uncomplicate it?

That dialectic is what can create a manifesto that is understandable (but let's not call it a manifesto in public?  hehey).

So don't diss the notion of mere virtual creatures of the internet coming up with useful results.  Some maybe of questionable reality, screensavers on alien spacecraft orbiting earth for all we know.  

But this is not that difficult.  If we expect our lawmakers (congress and the white house are full of morons)to understand it, it sure as hell better be simplified!!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Way too expensive, dangerous, and corruptible.

See what I mean?  This IS fairly easy to discern.

In fact listening to a nuclear expert on this topic would only complicate it.

What is the simple aproach to nuclear?  Let them try a few of these waste processing reactors in the safest place possible, moniter carefully, and see if it does what they promise safely and cost effectively.

We have been fooled by nuclear experts (government, industry contractors, scientists)time and time again.  Any buildout of nuclear on a scale to solve global climate change (hundreds of new reactors in the US alone)is going to take indpendently verifiable safety and efficiency (capital invested versus power output)results.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I want some of what this guy's been smoking. Is this why NASA is wasting research money on human space travel? I thought Bush came up with this one on his own- it reflects his level of understanding of the challenges we face.

When our planet becomes so toxic and uninhabitable as to make Mars look attractive, (and it just might if we pursue infinite fossil fuel use, and widespread fission and fusion reactors), I think we should do the Universe a favor, admit that we suck, and just die off gracefully in our own pool of toxic waste.

If we had spent the money already wasted trying to harness fusion and trying to deal with fission waste on the deployment of existing clean and relatively harmless energy sources and more efficient ways to use energy, we might not need to have your wonderful imagination or (killer weed) to see a bright future.

a liberal in redsville

But I am looking forward to Dr X demonstrating that it will work!

A) Expel more carbons into the atmosphere

B) As the increased carbons rise into the upper atmosphere, the penetration of the Solar rays will be less.  The earth will cool, due to the Sun's rays being blocked by increased carbons in the atmosphere.

C) After Global Cooling has been achieved, we can clean the atmosphere again by burning less fuels, if we need a little Global Warming.

Thank you,
Captain America
taxpayersamerica@yahoo.com

..

America First The World Second

Solar energy stations that make oil will be able to deliver their energy in a form that looks good in the below table. Per 300 personal-vehicle-driveshaft kWh,

108 L        96 kg      ·   Gasoline
448 L       516 kg      ·   Hydrogen, -253°C liquid
972 L     1,222 kg      ·   Hydrogen, 10-kpsi gas
666 L     1,533 kg      ·   Zinc pellets
245 L       331 kg      ·   Boron pellets
208 L       323 kg      ·   Aluminum pellets
??? L     7,880 kg      ·   GM EV1 NiMH battery pack
??? L    12,700 kg      ·   GM EV1 lead-acid battery pack
? 1050 L  2,100 kg      ·   AC Propulsion T-zero Li-ion battery*

Where air oxygen and solid ash are involved, the mass estimates take into account both bins, fuel and ash, and count the ash bin as full and the fuel bin as empty. (A metal-burning car is heaviest when it won't go any more, unlike a gasoline-burning one, which is heaviest when it has just been refuelled.)

"Individual mobility is much valued, and no amount of propaganda has succeeded in making people forego it. As fast as countries become prosperous, their citizens buy cars even when their wise men oppose it", says emeritus Comp. Sci. professor John McCarthy (http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/energy.html ).

Similarly, I say cars whose energy reservoirs can deliver several hundred kWh at the driveshaft are much valued, and if solar power plants that can economically support them are built, those solar plants will thrive, no matter what battery advocates say about electric powertrains' superior efficiency in using the little energy that is available to them. That superior efficiency has, of course, been taken into account in the table. If it had not, the batteries would start at 30 times as bulky as gasoline tanks, not just ten times.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
boron: internal combustion, nuclear cachet

* http://www.acpropulsion.com/EAASV_101803.pdf , p. 17 of 42

I like the idea of "standing there" for a few minutes, months, a year or so.  All of us.  I had a colleague in Missoula, Montana who used to call for a general moratorium on everything for a year, so we could just stop and assess.  Turn it all off for a year.  Re-assess.

Peace,
Kip

We are suffering from an over-reliance on experts.  

These concepts are just not that complicated, keep this thread going until that is apparent to any interested observer dave!

...The market takes care of the unknowable, namely which specific companies with which specific design wins the biggest number of consumers.

I agree with you that we don't need to wait for experts for most of our individual decisions.  But for the decisions we are making as a society, we desperately need research and analysis.  

The market works well for consumer items, when there aren't hidden subsidies or oligopolic control of the market.  Granted.

The problem is that decisions about energy are not like that.  Energy technologies require a huge investment in infrastructure (e.g. hydrogen fueling stations).  Peter Tertzakia argues in "1000 Barrels Per Second" that as a result, energy technologies are very conservative.  Revolutionary changes are rare.  This means -- we'd better make the right decisions. Nuclear?  Hydrogen power? Coal and carbon sequestration? Invest in the infrastructure of roads/vehicles, or  railroads and dense urban areas.  Should we invest in upgrading the electric grid?

Unfortunately, the level of knowledge among the public and lawmakers is low (as you point out!) It is all too easy for special interests to dominate the decision making, steamrolling the rest of us.

Good, objective information is drowned out by propaganda and pressure groups.  An ominous trend is for the Bush administration to silence scientific researchers whose findings don't adhere to administration policy (for example, the pressure on climatologist Hansen of NASA).

Bart
Energy Bulletin

I'm working on it, thanks for the encouragement and temporary suspension of disbelief(?).  Hehey.

Hope I don't have to pay retail for the batteries, yow!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I am learning what it takes to explain why I think the plan I'm supporting will be the best.

If it is hard to explain to those who really kind of wish it IS a good solution, then it's really hard to explain to those who oppose it.

All of these alternative energy and environmental issues  have been on my mind since the first energy crisis, and nuclear technology before that, since I was a kid.

For instance, when I read about Iogen using fermentation to break down cellulose into starch and sugar, I think of experiments I read about in the 70s to use the bacteria that wasp's use to do this.

So I infer, without checking, that Iogen probably took DNA out of the wasp bacteria and put it into a yeast bacteria to facilitate this process.

And when I read about pebble bed reactors using graphite around the fuel pellets, I thought of reading the accounts of the first nuclear reactor in the squash court at the University in Chicago during WW 2.

I recalled as a kid reading that the scientists working on the Manhattan project in the squash court were terrified over the flammability of the graphite.  Later to be proved prudent, since Chernobyl's flammable graphite moderator had a lot to do with the disaster.

My point is that even though I am not a chemical or nuclear engineer, I have insights on these issues that are overlooked by experts.  Instead they go along and defend the technology, even though obvious problems can be spotted by an interested observer.

What if the genetically engineered cellulose break down  bacteria escapes into the wild?

What if the thin silicon carbide coating on the pebbles in the pebble bed reactor cracks exposing the flammable graphite?

Break through the veil of jargon around technology and apply reason,but let the experts test and model how well it works, and then don't be shy about letting real voters understand the issues at hand.

I take my extrapolation for power output from huge wind plants from GE charts on the peformance of their wind machines.  Real world data gathered by experts, but even a non-expert can apply equations that predict power output from larger machines.

And I take the mileage, battery weight, and efficiecy of electric cars from the known performance of the batteries, the equivalent to liquid fuel, and the mileage of a comparable gas powered vehicle.  All figures