DougM

Recession? I've Got a Solution

Well, then why not expand domestic oil production by allowing states to open up costal areas and ANWR to drilling? Because of inelasticity in both supply and demand, a small increase in domestic supply could bring the market price down by a large percentage and have the effect of lowering our imports as measured in dollars. OPEC leaders must be laughing their arses off when we ask them to increase production but won't produce our own reserves.

Recession? I've Got a Solution

Re. ramping up coal creating "more problems than it solves", I would make the following points:

1. It will greatly increase CO2 emissions at a time when we are trying to cut them. Coal is the most carbon-intesive energy source we have. CTL processes waste some of the energy in the coal to effect the conversion.

2. Our coal reserves won't last forever. It's yet another fossil fuel that will eventually be depleted. World R/P ratios for coal are over 100 years, but dropping fast as coal use in the developing world skyrockets. Coal won't last the rest of this century, especially if it's called upon to make up for the energy we used to get from oil as that goes into depletion. In contrast, proven uranium and thorium reserves would last millenia even if used to power all our transportation.

3. Vehicle electrification is a far more efficient way to tap into energy alternatives, because of the inherent inefficiency of internal combustion engines. This is true even if the electricity comes from coal. And of course we have many more ways of making electricity.

4. I think we should at least discuss biofuels since that's our current quick-fix solution. Biofuels are hugely disadvantatged versus solar PV and solar thermal; the problem is that photosynthesis captures less than 1% of the available solar energy. The difference is 1-2 orders of magnitude, depending on the crop, location, and the solar technology it's competing with. In other words, it's an insurmountable hurdle. The analysis only gets worse for biofuels if you factor in side-effects such as soil depletion, fertiliser runoff, etc. In fact, given the enormous energy costs associated with rendering feedstocks into liquid fuels pure enough to use in internal combustion engines, it is arguably more efficient simply to dry energy crops and then burn them to generate electricity - no breakthrough in cellulosic decomposition required.

In sum, liquid fuels do provide a convenient portable source of energy, and for many applications (e.g. heavy equipment, planes, ships, etc.) they are unlikely to be dethroned for decades, if ever. However, those uses are small enough in the aggregate that we could easily meet them with declining petroleum resources for the rest of the century, and I believe we could continue meeting them for centuries to come by using CTL, biofuels, and other alternatives, once petroleum resources are depleted. To make that future work, personal transport would have to go electric. Since 80-90% of trips are within the all-electric range of a plug-in hybrid, it seems practical to displace that much of current personal transportation consumption to the grid.

I suggest you google around or read some of the energy blogs, such as Robert Rapier's blog or Geoff Styles' Energy Outlook blog for more information about these issues.

Recession? I've Got a Solution

I agree with vboring, CTL is going to create more problems than it solves, and to boot will just deplete our coal reserves faster. I think you've nailed it with energy policy as the single most effective lever to pull, but vehicle electrification and expansion of nuclear and solar thermal power are a better way forward than more coal.

On the trade imbalance with China specifically, the US has more than raw materials to offer. Specifically, we produce a lot of IP-heavy things like movies, games, software, even prescription drugs. The sad fact is that in China (and a lot of other places) these things are taken without any payment to their creators.