Red Raider

The Pickens Plan: Where Are We One Year Later?

Long Investor:

Your comment is typical of that of an academic who does not function in the real world. Please be better than that.

Although your numbers may be accurate, they are misleading to say the least. Hydrogen is not found in nature in useful quantities. Most hydrogen is "manufactured" from natural gas, and must be assigned the relevant carbon footprint. The electrolysis of water eliminates the carbon issue, except for the coal required to generate electricity.
Of course, if you have a magic wand and move the calendar out some 20 years to the future, you may be able to get your power from wind and solar. Has anyone seriously considered the cost to our economy, and to the federal defecit, if we were to build enough "clean" generation and transmission grid to make the required hydrogen??? I believe it borders on insanity, and I will not believe we will ever do it unless and until I see a valid economic impact study.

The obvious answer is nuclear in the long term, natural gas in the near term. It will take an honest responsible engineering and economic study to prove it....not likely until you get the politicians out of the game!!


On Jul 10 09:45 AM Longinvestor wrote:

>
> Letting cars alone use gasoline and converting semi's and trains
> to hydrogen makes more technical sense to me. The little drop in
> CO2 emissions with natural gas is not going to get any of my investment
> money. I would prefer to use wind and solar power to make hydrogen
> & oxygen gases. These stored gases would then run zero CO2 emission
> fuel cells 24/7 per the recent MIT invention.
> web.mit.edu/newsoffice...
>
> The carbon footprint:
> www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1...
>
> Motor Gasoline MG 156.425 Pounds CO2 per Million Btu
> Anthracite Coal AC 227.400 Pounds CO2 per Million Btu
> Bituminous Coal BC 205.300 Pounds CO2 per Million Btu
> Methane ME 115.258 Pounds CO2 per Million Btu
> Natural Gas (Pipeline) 117.080 Pounds CO2 per Million Btu
> Hydrogen Gas (electrolysis) 0.00 Pounds CO2 per Million Btu

Plug-In Natural Gas Hybrid Vehicles: A Game Changer

Keep up the good work Fitz Man!!

The case for NG vehicles is so obvious to the informed, that it tells us something about our politicians and the political industry.

The rest of the world is already using NG fueled vehicles by the millions. And we can't even get our president and our politicians to talk about it. We'll spent many millions on alternative energy R&D for the Hell ov-it, while the interim mid term solution is ignored by everyone save Boone Pickens. And he has been taken in by the wind mill subsidy that we can't afford.

How about applying a little engineering and economics to all these alternatives? Does anyone actually consider the amount of energy we need?
The wind solution is too costly and too feeble, solar is the same. Doesn't work very well in vehicles either. Nor will we never grow enough biofuel. Hydrogen fuel comes from nat gas. How in the world can we prefer hydrogen to nat gas, unless we go to nuclear FUSION to make the stuff?

Plug in electric will come from coal fired electric power plants, because they haven't (and maybe won't) let us build nukes. That is until we decide the weather is too warm. So we have to generate power from nat gas, which seems to work damned well! In fact it always has worked damned well.

Fitz You are a brilliant ray of sunshine in this dark environment. I hope you are never silenced!

If I can help I will.

Obama 'Shines' Natural Gas

You are sadly misinformed. We have more nat gas than we will ever use in 100 years. The US and Canadian industries can easily meet future demand at less than 2/3 the price of gasoline, and at about half the carbon emission.


On Jan 27 09:36 AM TRS wrote:

> On the NGV thing... A big impediment is the 35% decline rate of domestically
> produced natural gas, which is up in the last 5-years from 28% or
> so. Bottomline is its harder and harder to harvest natural gas. Especially
> when one considers the economic threshold for new projects is roughly
> $6/mmbtu. I suppose increased demand via the transportation pool
> would keep prices above $6 but it'll also continue the decline curve
> creep. What happens when it hits 40 or 50%?
>
> Why is it that no one discusses super conductivity? the technology
> has come a long way and its now possible at temperatures just below
> zero, up from -200+. Get it to operate at ambient temps and now you're
> talking major energy efficiency. Gov dollars are better spent on
> such research rather than meddling in markets.

New Cartel Announces the End of Cheap Gas

The author is certainly overstating his case!

Our domestic price of natural gas is not likely to be influenced by any Russian cartel. Our supply is virtually all domestic and Canadian. What little we import is in the form of LNG, which is brought in to "backfeed" the piping systems because of pipeline capacity limitations.
There is no reason to expect a supply deficiency in the near future. In fact the domestic suppliers such as Chesapeak are curtailing 2009 production.

New Technology Makes Natural Gas a Viable Replacement for Oil

The author's comments are generally correct, however, we are missing one important issue. Pipeline transmission infrastructure limits current NG sales. And NIMBY resistance is likely to limit pipeline construction.

The benefit of LNG imports includes the backfeeding of transmission lines to improve their capacity to supply users at the ends of the line, such as those in New England. Pipeline limitations will also affect our ability to export Nat Gas.

U.S. Automakers Can't Afford to Overlook Natural Gas Opportunities

Obviously the technology is proven, NG vehicular fuel will be profitable, the bottom line (all in) economic choice is obvious.

Invest in our infrastructure, spend our money at home, reduce fuel cost, create jobs, reduce carbon emissions and pollution. Why not?

The feds will bail out the automakers for $25 billion. Why? Why not seed money for CNG?

We need some politicians who are interested in the USA. What in the Hell is the matter with us?

Pickens Explains His Plan

Goodideirs comment is well taken. Pickens should be making money. Hopefully lots of it.

Please note that Fred Banks is also correct. At best the availability of wind turbines is about 30%. Oversimply put, this means you need 10 to do the work of 3. Absent the very substantial federal subsidy the entire scheme will collapse. Of course we can all count on the politicians to continue the (enormous) tax rebate subsidy because the treasury can always print more money.

Note: I am long CLNE and WPRT

2 Hedges Against Global Oil Demand

Long term oil and nat gas investor, in it for the long term. I support the author's view.
Alternatives remain problematic, and rely on strong financial support from a government that can no longer afford it. e.g. wind at 20% of operating cost, ethanol, etc.
Nat gas for vehicles is proven practical and economic but will require infrastructure build out and help from govt. to get it started.

Will Automakers Switch to Natural Gas?

If one calculates the volume of nat gas required to replace up to 10 gallons of gasoline or deisel oil, it becomes evident that nat gas on board storage will require very large heavy high pressiure cylindrical tanks. The storage requirements will limit the range of most practical personal autos to about 100 to 150 miles. Mini cars may do a lot better, but personal comfort and space will be sacrificed.

Nevertheless, CNG fueled vehicles may be suitable for commuting and short shopping trips. They can be refueled from personal residences by installing commercially available compressors and storage tanks already available from the market.

Implementing Pickens' Plan for Public Energy Policy

Very insightful and well thought out. This plan, or something like it, would probably work well enough to save our future.
Nevertheless, our US democracy does not respond to logic! Voter interest and support is needed to move politicians, and the voting public does not understand or care about this. They will support the politicians with the high sounding promise. They will not voluntarily support higher gas prices.
How do we, and Boone Pickens convince the politicians that this plan would gain votes? How could we win the public support neccessary to make such a major change in the tax laws? Who will support the extreme (voluntary) increase in fuel prices?

We do have plenty of oil, and we could (if needed) import experienced workers and rigs with ever higher wages. Company profits can be (and will be) applied to training workers as needed.

The suggested changes presume that we will respond to logic and sound planning. In reality the economy and the business world respond to the market. To the extent that social planners and tax manipulaters mess with the free market they always screw it up.

Maybe some politicians will try to be rational but most will respond to special interests and perceived voter interest.

Good plan, but I doubt we can plan our way out of this mess.