Just curious.  

2. Dilbert Cartoons are fun
http://greyfalcon.net/dilbert2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/dilbert3.png

3. Then again, even Dilbert isn't perfect ;D
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/12/t ...

_

Frankly I challenge the concept of why "weaning the US off of foreign oil" is so ultimately desirable.

What is implied by it?

That somehow if we buy all our oil from Nigeria, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, that Washington politicians will be less influenced by Saudi's with lots of lobbying money?

Even if we magically stopped buying oil entirely.
Unless we devalue oil itself globally, oil will still be valuable.  

And Saudi's will continue to get lots of money from it.  With which they can spend to buy-off more US politicians.

-David Ahlport

Whats more important?
Peak Oil, or Global Warming?

Should we be focusing on:

1. Increasing fossil fuel consumption
   
2. Or Decreasing fossil fuel consumption

And what's more economic(al) than billions of dollars spent on construction, security, insurance, and waste storage?

Not quite sure what an 'efficient source of energy' is, since I thought efficiency was about energy usage, but we all know how efficient it is to push electrons through hundreds of miles of cable from a centralized source, right?

I just can't wait to buy my own nuclear powered automobile, complete with stylish concrete and lead sheilding. I'm sure that will be efficient. Does nuclear waste make good compost?

a liberal in redsville

What could be more environmentally friendly than nuclear waste, uranium mining, cement kilns, and the risk of nuclear 'accidents'?

And what's more economic(al) than billions of dollars spent on construction, security, insurance, and waste storage?

Not quite sure what an 'efficient source of energy' is, since I thought efficiency was about energy usage, but we all know how efficient it is to push electrons through hundreds of miles of cable from a centralized source, right?

I just can't wait to buy my own nuclear powered automobile, complete with stylish concrete and lead sheilding. I'm sure that will be efficient.

You should buy yourself some straw, with which to make a companion/adversary.

Nuclear powered automobiles will be, of course, indirectly powered by nuclear motor fuel plants.

It is unlikely that more than a small fraction of those here know or care how efficiently electricity travels hundreds of miles, but that efficiency is in fact in the mid-90s percent, as I recall.

Nothing is currently more environmentally friendly than nuclear waste, etcetera. Nature has given us a lead by stuffing the earth, within oil-drill range, with millions of nuclear power plants' worth of radioactivity.

How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?

1. Get off oil
   
2. Get more oil

Considering this is the kneejerk dominant context which Peak Oil is viewed in, I find it alarming to see how focus gets put on Peak Oil. (Or alternatively Foreign Oil)

Especially from Democratic Candidates.  Since they are falling into the trap of dittoheading Republican talking points, and framing paradigms.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_la ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2u4zNGtnY8

-David Ahlport

There are no Democratic candidates in China.

GreyFlcn wrote: they are falling into the trap of dittoheading Republican

There are none of those in China, either.

Au contraire, I am very concerned that the coming energy crisis (and by that I do not mean necessarily climate crisis) could be extremely bad news. I think it is coming before there is a chance for any alternative energy to scale-up in time to compensate for depletion rates and overwhelm any attempts at conservation. This is particularly relevant with regard to liquid fuel for transportation, at least if one places credence in many of the analyses posted on The Oil Drum or published elsewhere in article or book form. What I am saying is that sometime very soon, the expense and/or availability of liquid fuel for transportation, together the run-up in cost of just about everything else, and including as a result difficulty in maintaining a workforce, jobs themselves, health care, etc., and the maintenance of all infrastructure may become the predominant reality and the foremost concern in the public mind.

Furthermore, I look at the energy crisis (and as far as this comment is concerned--separately and distinct from climate considerations) in a more comprehensive way. As part of a series of cycles of intensification of production, population growth, and resource depletion that may even pre-date the origins of agriculture. But now the potential for devastating effects across the globe, including the availability fresh water and the depletion of topsoil and minerals other than petroleum, may be of equal concern to climate change, despite all the "ink" devoted to discussing the latter.

On the other hand, I could be wrong. I don't presume to know, but as you see I have my thoughts on the matter. I was curious as to how David viewed the situation.

See residential use of petroleum combined

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

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/office_eere/pdfs/figure2_oil_ ...

I.e., it takes the light blue section from the chart above and splits it up, and projects it forward.

I'd observe:
1) Cars and some of the light trucks [SUVs and pickups that really are primarily used for personal transport] are plausibly convertible to mostly-electric usage, and usage conserved.

THIS IS THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT, and the most obvious, which is why people talk about it a lot.

2. Some pickups (really used as pickups), delivery vans, etc, get some help from being hybrids.

3. Class 8 trucks get a little help from being hybrid (regenerative braking, idling), but not much.
   

I'd guess off-road vehicles don't get much help either, and worse, big trucks and combines and such tend to have long lifetimes, which means they are really stranded assets.

4. Some trains can cost-effectively be electrified, diesel-electric trains can get some modest help from hybrid-regenerative braking. (GE)

5. There's some pretty serious work to do (see Hirsch Report) to get the total usage (1) down to the domestic production line and (2) down to the long-term number eventually required, i.e., ~0.

6. Some of these applications have no obvious electrification possibilities, in which case:

c) OR this all gets extended by tar sands / oil shale / coal-to-liquid ... and THEN we get to a) or b), but with a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere.

-John Mashey

That wouldn't be miraculous, it would be fairly straightforward and cost-effective, at least to electrify something like 75%.  Marginal increases beyond that would, of course, be more expensive.  Hybrids are about 2.5% of new sales now, and doubling every 2 years.  The hybrid part of the market can morph into plugins quite easily, and this is probable.  This means that plugins could be more than 50% of new sales in 10 years.  Cars less than  6 years old account for 50% of vehicle miles travelled, so getting to something well above 50% of VMT in 20 years is quite doable.  Of course, getting to something like 80% would be very, very close behind.

"In fact, nothing could help the U.S. wean itself off "foreign" oil. Oil is a fungible commodity sold on a world market. We all buy from the same pool. There's no way to buy a barrel of oil that says "Made in the U.S.A." "

But who cares?  What we care about is our balance of trade, and if we reduce our oil consumption to equal our production our country will be immmeasurably better off.

Oil-fired power is about 3% of the total US grid, and has been fixed at that level since the OPEC price shocks in the late 70s/early 80s when we officially abandoned it on the power side.  But even at it's peak in 1973, oil was only 17% of the total power mix.  Oil issues have primarily always been transportation issues, not power.  (It was, for a time a significant source of thermal energy, but outside of new england it has largely been replaced by gas - another OPEC casualty.)

Electricity, on the other hand is about coal (50%+), nuclear (20%+), natural gas (10 - 15%) and hydro (5 - 7%, and falling).

First, that's the case in the US, but in many other places (like Japan, and S. America) it's very different, and elimination of oil for generation there will make a difference in the US.

Perhaps more importantly, it isn't hard to electrify transportation.  It may take longer than we like, but it's very doable, and we've already started with hybrids (which are easily retrofit upgradeable to plugin, once batteries are cheap enough (which will happen soon)).

Unfortunately, blogging is not the best format for in-depth analysis or nuanced arguments. Of course, we will never totally get off of oil--and your point about the fungible nature of energy is indisputable.  The point is that--considering rising oil prices, growing energy consumption, and environmental issues--all sources of energy must be on the table, including nuclear.  If Edwards had his way, the U.S. would have to find another source to make up for the 20% of U.S. energy consumption that nuclear currently provides.  As it stands today, that would likely come from oil, gas, or coal.

Also, re: cars on nuclear energy: if we moved to hybrid/electrical cars in the near future and homes were powered by nuclear energy, cars could, in part, be running on nuclear power.  

Thanks again for the link,
AB

1. 20% of the electric, not 20% of US energy.  Huge difference.

2. Funny how this guy hacks on Edwards for his response rather than focusing on Hillary and Obama for claiming to reject Yucca but staying silent on solutions to high level waste.  The US is so energy wasteful that we could slash our electric consumption more than 25% at zero cost (at a profit, in fact).  Now, while I personally wouldn't close any nukes to do so -- I would close the dirtiest coal plants in order until there are no coal plants operating in the US -- at least Edwards has the honesty to connect a question about Yucca Mt. with a discussion about nuke plants.

If I had more space, I would have commented more on Obama and Clinton Yucca Mountain stance.  The nuclear experts I have read suggest that it's a remarkably safe project, at least for thousands of years to come.  Still, I found the more egregious position to be Edwards's absolute rejection of nuclear energy.  

Lastly, I'm in total accordance with you about coal and overall energy efficiency (or lack there of).

Thanks for reading,
AB

Natural gas provides about 18% of our total energy consumption and is used largely for stationary energy applications.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec1_3.pdf

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec4_2.pdf

By converting most of that to nuclear electricity we could move the natural gas into transportation, replacing 2/3 of our imported oil until electric transportation technologies mature.


Things Everybody Should Know About Energy

By converting most of that to nuclear electricity we could move the natural gas into transportation, replacing 2/3 of our imported oil until electric transportation technologies mature.

And thats the basic premise of the Republican party's "energy future".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59AQTzYW3xI

Basically:

1. Move all the fossil fuels to our cars
   
2. Move all the power plants to nuclear

(Excpet of course they will still continue to have and make lots of money)

_

Catch being that would involve a LOT more CO2 emissions from our cars.

And the prospect of doing nuclear in a way which is geopolitically safe, and cost-effective is a near impossibility.
http://neimagazine.com/story.asp?sc=2047917
http://h2nuke

_

Can you honestly say you'd be fine with every nation in the world saying "We're going to start nuclear enrichment program and build nuclear power plants to power our entire grid"
http://alternet.org/audits/48890/?page=entire

And can you honestly say that securing that type of situation would cost an additional 0$ dollars?

Much less creating a globally destabilizing issue which is on par with global warming in scope and severity.

_

Especially when the whole premise of "energy independance" seems to be freeing ourselves to the political option of carpet bombing Saudi Arabia, or any other Arab nation who gets in our way.

-David Ahlport

The other was just my bad:
http://greyfalcon.net/h2nuke

-David Ahlport

- I don't ask for airplanes.

I'm really, really trying to understand how to do these, or if they are simply going to disappear.  When you said it was easy, did you mean these?

If long-distance travel (except selected rail, and  (mostly)wind-powered ships) is to disappear, we need to start thinking how to restructure the USA big-time, and it's going to take a while (longer than I'll be around).

This is a serious question: I'm assuming that:
a) Cheap conventional oil gets used up
b) We avoid doing tar sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquid.
c) We forbid biofuels, since that's the clear message here at Grist.
d) But, we (eventually) get plenty of renewable electricity, with some sequestered coal.

Anyway, please start talking seriously about the hard parts of the transport system, not the relatively easy part.

-John Mashey

google.com/search?q=nuclear+ships

197,000 hits.

But there are at at least 40,000 substantial ships out there.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:ONN4v8DcUt8J:www.isl ...

I need a lot of convincing that the world's Navy experience is safely and economically scalable to widespread commercial use by average engineers and sailors, some of whom do things like running into bridges in San Francisco Bay.

The history of commercial nuclear ships, so far, doesn't seem encouraging.  Can you provide something more specific and positive than a general Google that gave webpages like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_shi ...
which gave me 4 nuclear merchant cargo ships, of which exactly 1 seems to be still in operation.

-John Mashey

Natural gas is very good for electricity, but I must say, the relative cost is not consistent with the economic consequesnces.  The cost of raw natural gas, driven up by increased utility load, reduced by 40% the 20% POSITIVE balance of trade contributed two years searlier by the US chemical industry.  That had a very unfavorable influence on the dollar, and also drove up the price of ethanol (unfortunately natural gas is considerable fraction of the cost of the ethanol).  

The Yucca project is very safe and sound - although there is local resistance, as related to the historical meaning and saacredness of the place.  Their views are entirely meaningful and justified.  There is transportation difficulty too - some areas won't permit it passage.  I think there could be a lot more local concentration to higher level waste and local permanent storage, but the technical details would drive up the cost too much.  

I wish I could see another path to energy security for the US than coal liquid in the short term, nuclear (producing its own fuel) in the longer term, and ultimately becoming a source of hydrogen fuel for transportation once an infrastructure for it is built.  

A lot of the CO2 produced in the coal liquid process could be reinjected to the historical mines, and the conditions in the mine under which that would re-equilibrate with any remaining coal to yield CO and hydrogen should be studied.    

Today, our transportation infrastructure is compatable with gasoline only.  One day it could be compatable with hydrogen.  

I think many of our present fears about global warming have taken focus away from the ideals many seek towards a better future for the energy situation.  

I firmly believe there will be quite stable temperatures and quite normal variations throughout the globe for some years. Before all our concerns about the issue are put at rest, I hope we make good choices in the meantime  

the QM3 will be full in seasons when other passenger liners aren't, because it will be nuclear.

I've been trying to figure out a reactor design that curious passengers can see into, like a swimming pool reactor, but with a more heat-resistant transparent radiation shield than water. But if that proves impracticable, passengers still will choose nuclear marine propulsion for the same reason that seemed to motivate Greenpeace contractors, a few weeks after I made the prediction: safety and cleanliness. (That Wikipedia article mentions Russian nuclear icebreakers, some of which double as cruise ships.)

, some of whom do things like running into bridges in San Francisco Bay.

Look up the exploits of the nuclear submarine with the same name. Nuclear powerplants are not fragile.

How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?

It is tempting, but dangerous to equate changes in electric grid mix with changes in transportation fuel use, on the theory that EVs of some flavor will take off.  They might... but they might not.  And it bears noting that even if they do, passenger vehicles are 19% of US CO2 emissions (almost entirely from petroleum).  Electric power generation by contrast is 42% of CO2 emissions, predominantly from coal. And is 1/2 as efficient as it was in 1910.

In other words, even if we were to eliminate every ounce of petroleum used for passenger vehicles and everyone drove not just plug-in hybrids, but full EVs with the power coming from nuke/PV/wind/other zero CO2 source... we would have less impact on fossil carbon emissions than simply returning the grid to it's 1910 efficiency.  Meanwhile, if we don't place a heck of a lot of effort in making sure that our grid doesn't become more coal-intensive, there is a very real probability that an EV future ends up equating to more coal use.

I am in no way suggesting that we need to focus only on electric or transportation.  Both are critical.  However, we need bear in mind that while a future that is contingent on two infrastructural overhauls - both of which require massive amounts of public and private sector capital is a heck of a big bet, and one in which we can succeed on one front, fail on the other and end up worse overall in spite of our "success".  

Should we shoot for big bets?  Of course.  But we shouldn't put all our eggs in that basket.  And moreover, we shouldn't give any credence to the "nuke can displace petroleum" argument without a heck of a lot of caveats, lest the politicians and public start chasing a path that has more ways to fail than to succeed - at the expense of paths with a higher likelihood of comparable benefit.  

At core, this isn't all that different from the hydrogen economy debate.  If we can get vehicle technologies to work and get them mass deployed in auto showrooms and if we can concurrently get a hydrogen fueling infrastructure in place to displace the competition, it works.  But it is critical that we focus equal or greater effort on those approaches that don't end in choruses from Annie ("Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow...")

That is true, neither in terms of thermal efficiency, nor in terms of economic efficiency.

Edison's New York City plant [...] converted about 2.5% of the energy from fossil fuel into electricity. That number rose to 4% in 1900 and 10% in 1913 in Insull's advanced power plants. The trend continued into the 1960s, when the industry's best power unit converted about 40% of the raw energy into electricity; the average plant demonstrated an efficiency of a few percent less--33%.

From the same link:

Consumption of power grew at a 12% annual rate from 1900 to 1920; from 1920 to 1965, it leaped ahead at about 7% per year. Such rapid rates of electricity consumption exceeded the growth rate for all energy sources together by a factor of 4 to 5.5 times. As consumption increased, the price of power declined: in 1965 cents, power used by residential customers dropped from about 90 cents per kWh in 1892 to a little more than 2 cents in 1965.

In current dollars, that would be $6.02/kWh in 1892, and "a little more than" $0.13/kWh in 1965. Looking at the graph, it seems to have been a nominal $0.10/kWh in 1910, which would be $2.24/kWh in current dollars.

The value of thermal energy continuously declined throughout the 20th century, as this quote indicates:

The major reason for the rapid escalation of consumption was simply that electricity proved to be a highly versatile source of energy that was highly valued in American society. [...] In general, electricity became viewed by most people to be a commodity that made life more pleasant and more productive. "Live better electrically"--an advertising slogan employed by the utility industry in the late 1950s-- should not be viewed cynically as an advertising pitch from selfish hucksters. Rather, it reflected a generally accepted truth about the value of electricity. In this light, one can understand why most utility managers took special pleasure in their work. Not only did they help their companies produce more power at lower rates; they also helped improve the lives of their customers.

Therefore, also in this light, we can see that alternate efficiency-comparisons based upon mere employment (rather than employment specifically to generate electricity) of thermal-power-generated are highly irrelevant -- and increasingly-so.

Why would nuclear-powered automobiles not be more-directly nuclear-powered by onboard Radioisotope Electric Generators (REG's) charging batteries?

400 electric watts x 24 hours per day = 9.6 kWhe per day. At 300 watt-hours per mile, that would provide a daily range of 32 miles -- easily extendable by a small onboard gasoline-powered generator.

As well as all other energy needs.  All other schemes are dangerous and far too expensive.

Forget about it.  Just get on with renewable distributed smart grid, plugin hybrid transportation, and conservation technologies.

Nuclear powered cars with nuclear fuel onboard?  Please continue buddy!  Every potential voter needs to hear about this.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Like this one, only with more power.

The Yucca project is very safe and sound - although there is local resistance, as related to the historical meaning and saacredness of the place.  Their views are entirely meaningful and justified.

More like, "It's an hour's drive away from Las Vegas".

-David Ahlport

Why would nuclear-powered automobiles not be more-directly nuclear-powered by onboard Radioisotope Electric Generators (REG's) charging batteries?

It would be much easier to freeze oxygen for storage on board a car than similarly to liquefy hydrogen, which latter practice, as a hydrogen-energy fan, I once thought was bound to catch on. There were prototypes. So I am sympathetic to the idea of cars that slowly recharge their propulsion reserves while parked.

But the small continuous power supply they might use to do that can't also use very scarce energy. That works only for a vehicle that billions can share, such as an outer planet probe.

Power from radioisotopes whose every ray is easily blocked can't, as far as I am aware, be more than a tiny byproduct fraction of a nuclear power system's total output. One in roughly six 235-U nuclei that are reacted do not fission, instead becoming 236-U. Some small fraction of those, I guess 0.01, become 237-U, which promptly decays to 237-Np. This is purified by a chemical process that is not essential to normal commercial nuclear power production, and further neutron-irradiated to convert another fraction, I guess 0.5, of its nuclei to 238-Np, which promptly turns to 238-Pu, the desired easily-shieldable thing. This is won by another special chemical separation, and at last we have our slow, nonpenetrating, "Off"-switch-lacking energy source.

It gives ~5 MeV. The five 235-U nuclei that did what they were supposed to do gave ~1,000 MeV. 5/1000, times the product of the various fractions, is the sort of byproduct fraction that can go to radioisotope thermal generators.

After the on-board conversion losses, it looks as if about one RTG-powered car could exist for each million burning motor fuel generated at large shared nuclear stations. The whole million of the latter could have PV-blackened hood and roof, and be parked outside, so why not do all 1,000,001 and delete the RTG.

How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?

The battery's staying power is tied to the enduring nature of its fuel, tritium, a hydrogen isotope that releases electrons in a process called beta decay. The porous-silicon semiconductors generate electricity by absorbing the electrons, just as a solar cell generates electricity by absorbing energy from incoming photons of light.

If this takes off, RTG's will be totally Nowheresville.

Please not that I did not say, "RTG." I said, "REG." I think that, as REG fuels, beta-emitters might hold more promise than alpha-emitters.

Beta-emitters emit electrons that always have a range of initial energies, and this range always extends down to zero. Usually the average energy is about one-third of the maximum. Some alpha-emitters emit monoenergetic helium nuclei, and many emit on only a few narrow bands, all near the maximum. So clearly the effort to harness beta-decay is misconceived.

If this were not true, what would be your preferred way of getting a triton?

If the heat released as a byproduct were partially captured through motor fuel synthesis, how many million cars could run on that byproduct per car running on tritium energy?

How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?