frflyer

A Natural Gas Centric Strategic Long-Term Comprehensive Energy Policy

January thaw

What are the problems with technology and costs of wind energy? The technology works and produces inexpensive electricity. It's the greenest energy of all. Spain has 12% wind power already, but in America where we have 1% or whatever, we're told that it can't work. Denmark has 20% wind power. We have a huge country with tremendous wind and solar potential.


realold

If you read the article at climate progress referenced in my first comment, you would see that what you believe about the economics and environmental impacts of running cars on electricity are not well founded. The article makes a good argument that running cars on NG has it's drawbacks too. It's more efficient to use the NG to make electricity to run cars, than to burn it in cars. About twice as efficient, which means half the emissions for the same miles driven, and half the NG used. But that doesn't necesarily mean we shouldn't build NG cars, if it will help us get off foreign oil and help transition us to the future of transportation. Even T Boone Pickens sees it as a transition facilitating choice, not a permanent solution.

There's not a perfect solution during this difficult time for personal transportation. But we do have the tools to transform the electric grid and improve efficiency.

Maybe we should pursue both NG and EVs, NG-PHEVs and HEVs, with the EVs being fine for city cars, delivery vehicles, taxis, commuting, job trucks on farms and industrial sites where long range is not a big issue, etc.
Maybe eventually we will have Plug in hybrid biofuel cars, using biofuels that work and make sense economically and environmentally and with inexpensive high performance batteries.


" I have read that as much as 2/3 of the electricity sent through power lines to your home is lost to the atmosphere and heat"

I think 2/3 is a little high. but
That's why we need HVDC transmission lines with their much lower line loss. There are other ways to cut our waste energy and make our power plants more efficient, like combined heat and power.
You are talking about running electric cars on todays grid, which by the way is already cleaner, in general,than burning gasoline in all the cars. Other's are talking about a grid with increasing inputs from wind and solar, which will develop along with the transition to EVs and PHEVs. We aren't going to replace our entire national fleet of cars next year to EV or NG, or even in ten years. By then, at least a few hundred gigawatts of solar and wind will be built.


The NREL says California has 661 GW of solar thermal (CSP) potential in it's deserts. That's their low estimate, based on the flattest land that isn't in environmentally sensitive areas. Less flat land can also be used. Compare 661 GW with California's present total generating capacity of 58 GW. There are 5 other southwest states with similar or larger potential for solar thermal.
Add to that photovoltaics as distributed rooftop etc., and utility solar PV and solar starts looking like real power. Like as much as over 300 average size nuclear plants in California alone.

This is our best renewable energy source and the one most Americans have probably never heard of.
Which is why I talk about it. Go to the Desertrec website to see what others see for CSP potential in Europe, North Africa and the Mid East and the rest of the world.

www.desertec.org/

www.trec-uk.org.uk/

www.trec-uk.org.uk/csp...
"CSP Around The World"
Worldwide CSP solar potential.

Some study found that wind power could provide enough electricity to power every car in America, using a square of land 1.2 miles on a side, if you don't count the space between turbines, which is large. Wind only uses about 2 1/2% of the land where it's sited, allowing agriculture or nature to co-exist with it.
A 2 MW turbine takes up about as much ground space as a parking space for a car.

Wind and solar will create more jobs than any other energy development. The NREL says that solar thermal plants would be a far greater economic benefit to California than new gas plants.

A Natural Gas Centric Strategic Long-Term Comprehensive Energy Policy

Mike
I'm not disagreeing with you on natural gas use and it's ability to reduce oil imports.
Transportation, particularly personal transportation, seems to be the hardest nut to crack. I'm for whatever will work to both get us off imported oil, and reduce emissions significantly. However, even given the present small percentage of power supplied by solar and wind, I still think they can be built up rapidly to be major contributors in the next decade and beyond.

Part of the problem is that too many people don't understand the magnitude of what needs to be done to solve the energy problem and mitigate global warming. This includes some environmentally inclined people, who think that if we all just live green and improve our carbon footprint, all will be well. See the articles at Climate Progress on core climate solutions to understand the scope of the task. Even if you don't agree with the selection of solutions there, it's a good starting point for discussing what needs to be done. And an indication of how much the political will to act needs to be improved on.

climateprogress.org/20.../
They do include nuclear and natural gas.

On the other side of the argument, too many Republicans think that Drill baby drill and nuclear are the only answers, and block all attempts at developing renewables, clinging to old cannards about how solar and wind can't ever amount to much. The vast majority of Republicans and Libertarians still think they are smarter than the 97-99% of climate scientists and every single major scientific organization in the world, who agree with AGW. The vast power of the oil companies is what is perpetuating those myths, and paying big money to confuse the public on the issue. But we are supposed to believe that the entire world scientific community are the ones who are trying to fool us, in some dark conspiracy. How naive can people be?
That is what is doing the most harm and preventing us from getting off the imported oil and solving the climate problem.
You used the word ludite. Look no further.

A Natural Gas Centric Strategic Long-Term Comprehensive Energy Policy

This is what the heck I'm talking about.

www.heatisonline.org/c...

"subsidy programmes from 1918 are still in place"
"I'm not aware of any oil and gas subsidy that has ever been phased out," said Koplow, the leading expert on U.S. energy subsidies"

"in a time of skyrocketing oil prices and profits, why did the George W. Bush administration in 2005 authorise an additional 32.9 billion dollars in new subsidies over a five-year period?"

"Koplow's 2007 report to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development puts the annual U.S. subsidy at an average of 39 billion dollars a year, when the costs of guarding oil lanes in the Persian/Arab Gulf, and the Alaska Pipeline are included. This does not include any costs from the Iraq war"

"Estimating U.S. oil and gas subsidies is very challenging. Subsidies rarely involve cash payments. Instead scores of U.S. government agencies and departments create hundreds of programmes to support the U.S. energy sector. And there is no requirement for the federal government to keep track of all this."

"Energy subsidies are often simply hidden from public scrutiny. It's only recently been revealed that 40 companies granted leases between 1996 and 2000 for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico do not have to pay royalties for the publicly-owned resource. This is worth nearly a billion dollars a year in lost revenue to the federal government, according to a 2008 study by Friends of the Earth (FOE), a U.S. environmental NGO, and may ultimately total 50 billion dollars."
These production subsidies do nothing to lower the price of petrol at the pump for U.S. consumers. It simply boosts companies' bottom line, Pica said.

"This massive government intervention distorts energy markets, making it very difficult for alternative energy sources to compete without similarly massive subsidies. "And it promotes America's addiction to oil," Larsen added."

www.setamericafree.org...
This link shows even more subsidies to fossil fuels. I chose the lower numbers fro Koplow

A Natural Gas Centric Strategic Long-Term Comprehensive Energy Policy

The idea of running cars on NG or hybrid NG/electrics has a lot going for it. My initial thought, when I heard of Picken's plan, was that NG PHEVS would be a great combination, with quite low emissions.
But there are other things to at least consider

What about the argument that as far as powering cars, NG is almost twice as efficiently used in power generation to run electric cars, than using NG in cars?
climateprogress.org/20.../

Is there enough NG to run cars without shutting down gas power plants? Because shutting down gas plants and letting coal plants run makes no sense. Increasing efficiency of power plants would
save

While the article focuses on ending oil imports, which is a good thing, we should also be focusing on phasing out dirty coal plants.



Mad Hedge Fund Trader

"Wind and solar alone won’t work on still nights"

True, except for CSP with heat storage, which can run at night with valuable dispatchable power, and with far cheaper energy storage than batteries. Also, there is a lot to be said for the option of combining NG firing with solar plants, like the NREL pilot plants in the Mojave. CSP is already the cheapest solar power and will become much cheaper in the near future.


www.altenergystocks.co...

www.nrel.gov/csp/troug...


If John Peterson is right (series of articles at Seeking Alpha), and advanced lead acid batteries are a cost effective choice for hybrids, PHEVs etc, then we can avoid the dependence on Asian battery imports. Exide (XIDE)intends to manufacture and sell AGM batteries with activated carbon negative electrodes, developed by Axion Power International (AXPW.OB), in an agreement anounced recently. This could at least serve the transition to more advanced batteries, Li-ion or some other chemistry, that are also affordable.

seekingalpha.com/autho...

They are a big improvement over standard lead acid batteries in terms of cycling etc. They have the advantage of affordability and U.S. manufacturing already in place for lead acid batteries, as well as established recycling, marketing etc.

"i agree that the "greenies" (as you refer to them) are shooting themselves in the foot because of their lack of pragmatism wrt energy policy. their positions to back solar and wind at the expense of natural gas is, in fact, keeping us addicted to coal and oil"

That is a ridiculous statement

I do agree that some environmentalists are shortsighted in blocking solar development in the southwest, for example, and like most groups, can be wrong headed at times. However, to say that advocating for solar and wind is perpetuating our addiction to oil is absurd. And most of us who are advocating for renewables are ok with natural gas. While I hope we eventually get away from all fossil fuels, natural gas would be the last to go.
You know damn well who is perpetuating our addiction to oil. Blaming it on renewable advocates is mistaking the fox for the hens.

Wind and solar can be built 2-3 times as fast as the equivalent nuclear plants. We could have hundreds of gigawatts of cheap clean energy by the time the first nuclear plant gets built in a decade or more. By then, nuclear and "clean coal" will not be able to compete with solar and wind prices, which will all be in low to mid single digit cents/kWh, when nuclear and coal with CCS are in the mid teens cents/kWh.

The power from solar thermal (CSP) with heat storage will be as valuable if not more valuable because of it's dispatchability. See article above from alternative energy stocks.com
The NREL, while expecting the first handful of plants to be on the expensive side, thinks the costs will rapidly fall with experience and economy of scale.
There are economies of scale that come with bigger CSP plants.
Because of limited fixed costs in the main part of the plant, adding more collectors, and hence more power, has diminishing costs.


Wind energy grew by the equivalent of 2 1/2 nuclear plants just last year in the U.S.. Ever hear of 2 1/2 nuclear plants being built in one year?
And that's figuring in the 30% capacity factor for wind. 8.3 GW capacity growth.
8.3 x .30 = 2.49 And the growth is just getting started. Even at last year's rate, that's 100 GW capacity in ten years.


Alex Filonov
"No technology is sustainable if it needs constant government support."

You mean like the 90 years of subsidies that the oil industry has enjoyed? According to the leading authority on U.S. energy subsidies, not one subsidy has ever been phased out, since 1919.
Oil gets $39 billion a year. - for the most profitable industry in the history of the world, and the largest and most powerful, and the answer to the question about who is encouraging our addiction.

Fossil fuels in general get $49 billion a year. That's 3 times as much as the subsidies for all the renewables put together, that Obama wants.

Nuclear power has been subsidized fo 50 years and $$ hundreds of billions.

Subsidies are the worst argument imaginable against renewable energy. Especially at a time when our addiction to oil is also ruining our economy and has gotten us into two wars in two decades in the mid east.

H.R. 1835: Legislation for Natural Gas Transportation

Sorry for the redundancy. I wish the window for typing these comments was bigger, so you can see what you're doing.

H.R. 1835: Legislation for Natural Gas Transportation

Some things to consider, and everything should be considered.

The point has been made by some, that it is much more efficient to use NG in power plants than in cars. Is this an efficient use of our natural gas suppies? NG power plants can be made more efficient than they are now, by coupling them with renewables, with fuel cells, capturing waste heat etc.
T. Boone Pickens plan, to replace gas plants with wind farms and then run cars on the NG, doesn't quite add up.
His investment in wind energy is a good thing, but wind with it's intermittency isn't a good match for replacing NG, which can be fired up when needed. Also, I'd rather see coal plants closed than gas plants, which are much cleaner.

The personal transportation issue is a thorny one. I'm not ruling anything out. We obviously need some kind of near term solutions that will help transition to whatever comes next in vehicles.

Renewables, which some of you object to, are ready to build right now, and can be built much quicker than nuclear. Coal with CCS is still experimental. Solar and wind can be built on a large scale, long before CCS will become a reality. In the ten years it would take for the first new nuclear plant to go online, or the first CCS coal, hundreds of gigawatts of renewables could be built. And by then, they will be as cheap or cheaper than fossil fuels, or new nuclear. CCS won't be cheap. Estimates for building new nuclear plants and for the price of their power have skyrocketed. Renewables will only go down in price over the next 10-20 years.
Silicon for PV cells fell off a cliff this year. Grid parity PV is already a reality in expensive energy markets and will be nationwide in a short time.

Look at NRELs report on CPS solar. Look at their estimates for it's potential just in the deserts of California.
Up to ten times as much power as all electricity generated in California now. Their estimates for how many plants would be built by 2015 are already too conservative, based on how many CSP plants are already being built or are approved.

www.nrel.gov/csp/pdfs/...

These can be built from conception to completion in three years.
And look at NRELs study on the economics benefits of CSP which are far greater than from comparable gas plants. (all the reports are in the pdf above)

CSP commercial development isn't as far along as wind, but could have similar growth rates. With heat storage, it's dispatchable steady power even at night. Estimates for power prices are under 10 cents/kWh in 5 years, or more likely at current growth rate, less than 5 years; and 4-8 cents/kWh when industry economy of scale is reached. And like I said, they're ready to build now.

Wind energy in the U.S. grew by 8.3 GW last year, and that is just the beginning of the growth. Even considering winds capacity factor, that's the equivalent of building close to three 1GW nuclear or coal plants in one year.
Even at that rate, 100 GW could be built by 2020. The rate will be much higher going forward, although the current economic situation will likely slow it for the next year.
Wind energy is cheap already.

Why not choose energy sources that don't need fuels. None ever, to prospect for, mine, refine, transport, store, burn, clean up the mess from, pay health costs from, fight wars over, live with wild price flutuations from.

Some things to consider, and everything should be considered.

The point has been made by some, that it is much more efficient to use NG in power plants than in cars. Is this an efficient use of our natural gas suppies? NG power plants can be made more efficient than they are now, by coupling them with renewables, with fuel cells, capturing waste heat etc.
T. Boone Pickens plan, to replace gas plants with wind farms and then run cars on the NG, doesn't quite add up. His investment in wind energy is a good thing, but wind with it's intermittency isn't a good match for replacing NG, which can be fired up when needed. Also, I'd rather see coal plants closed than gas plants, which are much cleaner.

The personal transportation issue is a thorny one. I'm not ruling anything out. We obviously need some kind of near term solutions that will help transition to whatever comes next.

Renewables, which some of you object to, are ready to build right now, and can be built much quicker than nuclear. Coal with CCS is still experimental. Solar and wind can be built on a large scale, long before CCS will become a reality. In the ten years it would take for the first new nuclear plant to go online, or the first CCS coal, hundreds of gigawatts of renewables could be built. And by then, they will be as cheap or cheaper than fossil fuels, or new nuclear. CCS won't be cheap. Estimates for building new nuclear plants and for the price of their power have skyrocketed. Renewables will only go down in price over the next 10-20 years.

Look at NRELs report on CPS solar. Look at their estimates for it's potential just in the deserts of California.
Up to ten times as much power as all electricity generated in California now. Their
estimates for how many plants would be built by 2015 are already too conservative, based on how many CSP plants are already being built or are approved.

www.nrel.gov/csp/pdfs/...

These can be built from conception to completion in three years.
And look at NRELs study on the economics benefits of CSP which are far greater than from comparable gas plants. Water deslinization, and combined heat and power can be had from solar thermal plants. Some are being built just for the heat, for industrial and agricultural processes.

CSP commercial development isn't as far along as wind, but could have similar growth rates. With heat storage, it's dispatchable steady power even at night. Estimates for power prices are under 10 cents/kWh in 5 years, or more likely at current growth rate, less than 5 years; and 4-8 cents/kWh when industry economy of scale is reached. And like I said, they're ready to build now.

Wind energy in the U.S. grew by 8.3 GW last year, and that is just the beginning of the growth. Even considering winds capacity factor, that's the equivalent of building close to three 1GW nuclear or coal plants in one year.
Even at that rate, 100 GW could be built by 2020. The rate will be much higher going forward, although the current economic situation will likely slow it for the next year.
Wind energy is cheap already.

We import most of our uranium. How does that give us energy independence?

Why not choose energy sources that don't need fuels. None ever, to prospect for, mine, refine, transport, store, burn, clean up the mess from, pay health costs from, fight wars over, live with wild price flutuations from.

The Pickens Plan Changes Its Strategy

I agree with kebu77

Rail is much better for long haul than trucks, much more efficient.

One problem with Picken's plan that immediately jumped out at me, is that what we really need to phase out is coal fired plants, as they are the dirtiest by far.
I forget the numbers, but coal transport accounts for a huge percentage of our rail capacity. As coal is phased out, it will free up rail freight capacity for other materials/products.

There are other problems with Picken's plan, which are analysed in depth at the following article from Climate Progress.

climateprogress.org/20.../

Windfarms can't function as peaker power plants as gas plants often do.

The most promising renewable energy solution for replacing coal fired plants is solar thermal power in the southwest. Solar thermal plants can operate as base load, follow on, or peaker power plants. No other renewable energy can do this.
A must read article on solar thermal and it's potential and how critical it is too a sensible energy policy for the future is at.
www.salon.com/news/fea...
Solar thermal is perfectly suited to the energy demand cycle during the day and can provide power at night. Thermal storage is at least 20 times more efficient than electric storage.

The Honeymoon Is Over: Gauging the Market with an Obama Presidency

Yes is is a matter of record who damaged the economy.
When Reagan was elected the federal deficit was $1 trillion.
It's now $10 trillion, with all the additional $9 trillion coming under the past three Republican administrations.
The election was not just a repudiation of Bush. It was a repudiation of Reaganomics, which has had over 25 years to prove itself. It has failed 80% of Americans.
The savings and loan scandal, and the current mess with credit markets is the result of Republican policies.

According to a study by the Pew Foundation, between 1983 and 2004, the top 1% got 33% of the growth in wealth. The next 4% got over 25% of the growth for a combined 60% or so. The bottom 80% of us got only 11% of the growth. A middle age worker today makes 12% less than his father in real buying power. Union membership has been cut in half. Meanwhile corporate executives make 10 time as much as in 1978, as compared with their workers.
Regressive tax schemes have never worked and never will.
I also question the claims that Reananomics created vast amounts of wealth. What created the growth in wealth (which all went to the top 20%) was the revolution in technology. -computers, biotech, internet, telecommunications etc.

Afraid of windfall taxes for oil companies? Since the estimated tax credits and subsidies for oil and gas is $84 billion annually, I think this is a non issue. Last year's democratic proposal to take $21 billion from oil company tax credits and apply d them to alternative energy would have only amounted to 1% of oil company profits.
Of course Republicans voted against it, as they voted against renewable tax credits eight time this year. Then they lambast Pelosi for not reconvening congress during the summer vacation to vote for more offshore oil drilling. Drill baby drill is a ludicrous and absurd mantra. More oil drilling is less than a bandaid for the current energy crisis. Nuclear energy is not sustainable in any way shape or form and is not clean, regardless of what they tell you. Republicans just don't get it. They want to replace one non renewable energy source with a worse one. In twenty years we would be facing a new crisis- peak uranium. Don't believe me? Read the Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy pdf online. I have a new blog at
energysolutionswecanbe...

Regardless of the economic mess, we have to invest in renewable energy if we want to solve the problems facing us. It will kill three birds with one stone,- energy, economy, environment.
Oil is killing our economy and our environment.

Profiting from the Pickens Plan: FAN, Clean Fuels, Fuel Systems

Anyone, who thinks nuclear power is cheap, safe and clean, better read the "Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy", which dispells those myths thoroughly. Nuclear doesn't even give us energy independence, we import 90% our uranium. Download the pdf. Nuclear has numerable problems is not safe. and it is not clean. Yes the final conversion to electricity is clean, but nothing leading up to that point is clean at all.
See the Blueprint for U.S. Energy Security at:
www.setamericafree.org...

And read the proposal at Scientific American.
A Solar Grand Plan
www.sciam.com/article....

When considering the $400 bilion total in public money to be spent over 30-40 years in the SciAm proposal, keep in mind that we now give over $80 billion annually to oil companies in tax credits and subsidies. And McCain wants to give oil companies $4 billion more. But Republicans are blocking $6 billion for solar wind and geothermal, etc. combined! In other words for one eight of what the oil companies now get, we could have a grid with 69% solar energy by 2050 from solar power plants in the southwest, not even counting the distributed energy from solar PV all over the country.