Brahm

Obama's Green Promise

We currently have an energy, global warming as well as an economic problem related to the price of energy. If we are careful about finding the solutions, we may be able to solve all of them in varying measure. However, to do this we need to have the cooperation of the slick and the unthinking loud-mouths for some restraint. To be able to do it at all without an even worse fall-out! (Remember ethanol from grain. The cure is worse than the disease to start with..)

Based on the authors presentation, some options should be ruled out outright, and debate should stop because it only causes more confusion and air-pollution from the mouth.

Liquid fuel from coal debate should end. Why? As the author says it is expensive and needs massive investments which we don't have or can't afford. However, the most compelling reason is that it worsens global warming. The efficiency of converting coal to liquid fuels is only about 50% (within a plant; cracking petroleum to liquids in a plant about 88 to 92% and depends on type. of process). If you consider the energy expended in mining coal, transporting/shipping it to a plant, etc, the efficiency would perhaps be less than 40%. Mining and transporting coal is avery energy intensive, and often needs diesel and electricity (not coal!).

Ditto in many ways for converting natural gas to liquids. Efficiency about 50%, but not as bad as coal because natural gas does not contain as much carbon (Btu to btu) as coal. However, if you can use natural gas directly (in a car engine as the author mentioned) why waste energy (global warming!) by converting it. to liquids? Of course, hopefully the car/vehicle engine operates as efficiently at least as an engine on liquids. It does! Actually somewhat better! So I say forget about conversion of natural gas to liquids in most cases.

Hydrogen and fuel cells based on natural gas. This is a difficult issue as there has been too much air pollution coming out of mouths! I was connected (managed the implementation) with the US Government's technology development programs for hydrogen from coal about 25 to 30 years ago. As expensive as the liquids from coal processes, but the efficiency of conversion (whether from coal or natural gas) is somewhat higher than that for converting coal to liquids. Efficiency (in plant) for both close to 66 -68% range, and despite so-called conceptual technological advances (only peripheral) over the last 30 years, the efficiency has not improved much. Mission impossible to get any significant improvements in process efficiencies in my view. So here we have global warming (not as serious as in the case of liquids) issues, though we have also got cost problems. So I say forget this option forever, even though the coal and gas lobbies will say our"National Security." imperatives. (They don't think global warming and our economic security is National security at all!)

Use gas directily! Use coal for coal gasification (which technology development programs I also managed during the period mentioned above). Coal to electricity via gasification- ("clean coal" combined cycle) is more efficient than coal to electricity via current conventional combustion based electricity generation. However, in $ and cents it is about 20% more expensive. When you factor health-care costs which our combustion powerplant generators don't pay from their pockets, coal gasification-combined cycle is actually about 15% cheaper (perhaps more if you include other environmental benefits). The technology availble is so advanced that you can virtually get a near zero effluenct clean technology which also is not given credit during economic analysis by the loudmouth cliques whose only interest is $ and cents for themselves.

This is my epocrypha for today. I am retired and don't seek the limelight, but don't mind doing and contributing for the public interest if the slick and the loudmouths don't shout me down. Sorry if I have done a good job writing good prose.