carbonates

Book Review: Robert Hefner's 'The Grand Energy Transition'

Natural gas is currently suffering from being categorized along with oil by policy makers and consumers. The two fuels vary dramatically in supply, marketing, and consequences of consumption. We do have a hundred year supply of natural gas, even if consumption rises, due to changes in drilling technology and geologic paradigm shifts that are currently being adapted in the natural gas industry.

Currently natural gas is the only fuel that can be used to quickly supply electric power when demand rises unexpectedly. Wind power, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, and even coal cannot do that as quickly as natural gas. Currently natural gas is the cheapest source of hydrogen. In effect, burning natural gas IS burning hydrogen as most of the energy comes from the 4 hydrogen bonds.

There is no reason that natural gas cannot be used to substitute for transportation fuel (gasoline and diesel), yet wind and solar cannot do that with any efficiency. I converted my vehicle to natural gas in 1974. Large fleets of buses and garbage trucks in my area have been converted for years.

The real problem for natural gas is that the current administration is throwing the baby out with the bath water, by limiting natural gas production and doing nothing to improve natural gas distribution systems. Currently the natural gas industry is facing higher taxes, serious restrictions on technology applications, revocation of Federal leases, increasing royalties and severance taxes at both federal and state levels, and a supply glut that is forcing most producers to stop drilling and cancel programs that would have been our supply several years from now. Boom and bust, while decried by Obama, seems to be the real result of his administrations policies for the natural gas industry. Maybe Al Gore (who was once a proponent of natural gas) needs to read this book so that maybe the Whitehouse will get the message.

Investing in Wind Energy: When Will Growth Peak?

I'd like to see some calculations of how you think that growth rate of installations can be maintained. This seems to be Kool-Aid for the alternative energy sect and I don't agree with your math. Few business models or natural functions can grow in the manner you are suggesting.

Manufacturing of equipment, availability of capital, capacity of local and long distance power infrastructure, NIMBY problems that require months and years of public hearings, environmental hurdles such as Environmental Impact Statements (often requiring a year or more of preparation), leasing of land from landowners, building of roads, species impacts such as those on bats and birds (not to mention endangered species like Kangaroo Rats and Mojave Ground Squirrels), Federal leasing requirements, local and state government regulations and permits, time required for actual site research into wind patterns to justify economics of projects, time limitations on field and construction access caused by wildlife breeding periods (required by Federal regulations), lack of trained installation personnel who are willing to work 200 ft in the air, insurance and liability issues, transportation limits that restrict the size of equipment that can be moved in many areas, bad weather and myriad other problems are quite likely to limit the growth rate to a much smaller number and will eventually impose a maximum growth rate, probably long before 2016. As the overall annual growth increases, it is likely to be a smaller and smaller percentage of the year before leaving the total installed capacity to grow in a pattern resembling a natural log, rather than being exponential as you suggest. Dream on.