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.

Implementing Pickens' Plan for Public Energy Policy

Did you or did I make a mistake? As I said I had been kind of scandalized by those TV ads I am fairly sure that what T. Boone has been pushing is diesel derived from NG. There were news interview/program which I saw where he appeared to advocate such an apprroach. Or perhaps, even I read about also. Perhaps, my mind is playing tricks. I will check again.

On the subject of private cars and natural gas, I am afraid that it has been sort of dismissed as being impractical . It presents a lot of safety issues as well. Ever thought about basements and houses blowing up when piped gas (at even low pressure) is used for heating? How about mass public places blowing up, where natural gas is filled up for cars or cylinders installed, if such a model were to be adopted? Or cars blowing up in crowded public places when a car has been fitted with malfunctioniong gas cylinders/controls/gad... which may be leaking. Expect every car-driving American to become an expert in handling gas at moderate or high pressure? Did T Boone say anything about this? I bet not, whether I am mistaken on what he meant on natural gas use for transportation.

As I have said, mass public or commercial transportation (trucking, buses, perhaps trains, etc) are excellent candidates for natural gas susbtitution. And, the infra-structure for these would not be expensive because we don't have to put up a filling station in every locality.

We actually have a tough time to set up pipelines for natural gas transmission across the country. If all private (cars) transportation were to be switched on to it, it would perhaps be a formidable 100 year problem to evolve an adequate infrastructure.

The $2/gallon equivalent for gas is speculative. It probably does not include transmission, distribution and marketing costs. (Current gas price (bulk does not include transmission, distribution, etc) is about $11 to $13 per 1000 cu ft (or per $7 million Btu). The equivalent for gasoline is about $23 on the East Coast at the gas station. Still think $2 dollar equivalent for gas is possible! How about if OPEC drives the price of the barrel to $100. Or, the market in gas gets so tight because of mass demand that it kicks up the price of gas to a current equivalent of about, le's say, $17 at the hub in Kansas(?)/Louisiana?

The intermediate term solution for private automobiles, in my most thought-out view, is more small cars, hybrids, electric cars with much highher mpg average standards thyan prevalent now. We can cut consumption 30 to 40% using this approach within 10 years. Of course, we need to bring this to start immediately, using incentives/disincentiv... including severe tax implications if necessary.

I will check again! I don't know how to reach you beyond today.

Implementing Pickens' Plan for Public Energy Policy

When I was in elementary or middle school, our teachers, while teaching us hand-writing made us write "patern" sentences over and over again, sometimes more than a 100 times or more to teach us to write well. (Yes at that time in history, they actually taught us hand-writing by making us write on a "patern-notebooks" filled with sample hand-writing!)

The sentences used to be mostly wise sayings or homilies. One of them which I still remember was: NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION. Quite cute and true! But only till yesterday. Today invention usually runs against economics and economists, sometimes of the phony sort. This species called economist will justify anything, even, however bad, using his science of economics. Fequently hidden personal benefit often at the cost of others, the environment and even global warming is the real hidden agenda behind these economic analyses.

Our celebrated author of this piece has thrown us a very marvellous opportunity to hash out some ideas (if possible!) by propounding the wisdom of T Boone Pickens on the use of natural gas. Of course, being myself always somewhat on the weird-side, I can't help thinking that perhaps the middle name for the gentleman should be changed to Bonehead. However, I did not and shouild not do such a thing, even though I have been brutalized by those sellf-serving ads on TV for the last several days. Only for the sake of civility I shall not!

Now, about the wind thing. It is being done in many parts of the world, and, of course, should continue despite the distraction introduced by T. Boone. Even when it is somewhat (not too much more!) costly, it should be done. Why? Because among many phony obstacles, justified mostly on economic grounds by those who are gung-ho for fossil (coal, oil and even gas) based power/energy, hidden fraud appears to be the bias on the use oif fossil fuels. The votaries of economics almost always assume that apples and oranges are the same. Coal, oil and gas based power (or other uses) appear to be assumed as having the same effectiveness so long as they can satisfy the same end, or have similar economics. This kind of economic analysis is actually nonsense! For example, there are health costs associated in the use of each of these fossil fuels. In the case of electricity production, these costs may not be borne by the utility company or the investor, but nonetheless they are real costs. They are borne by the individual (in terms of disease and personal costs), or the government or society at large.

How about the costs (in future mostly) on global warming induced by fossil fuel use?

Now coming to the use of natural gas for diesel and transportation as proposed by T. Boone. Should we be adopting this model, even if economics can justify it? The efficiency of conversion of natural gas to diesel is only about 50%. Are we forfeiting a large part of the advantage (in terms of global warming) on the use of natural gas through such a model vs use of natural gas in pother situations without injvolving conversion to diesel? Why not a natrual gas engine for use in trucking, heavy vehicles, and other public transportation needs? It has been done and is being done in some parts of the world with excellent results. Good economics and improved environment in central cities. And also not tough to set-up a network of stations to provide compressed LNG to the commercial transportation industry. Excellent concurrent benefits in terms of public health. Granted, it is not practical for private small transportation vehicles (i.e. our cars). However, use of such an approach in heavy public transportation would save us lots foreign exchange. And the economics would be excellent compared to that on the use of natural gas based diesel or oil per se.

What do we do with coal? Forget about power plants run on combustion technology. Wherever suitable coal supply is available, use integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology. For base-load plants, we can get 45% efficiency now using IGCC (vs. 42% for coal combustion). 2 or 3% improvement in efficiency translates to 5 to 7% better over combustion technology! Nothing to sneeze at when you look at it in termsof the modest Kyoto proposals.

Many analyses performed in the past show that costs are actually better for IGCC if you factor in health costs. Almost zero pollution in the case of IGCC, and this technology can also spur the use of CO2 isolation and storage (sequestration) in future. Of course, this will have to await feasibility of undergrouind storage for CO2 in future.

Can gas be used in a better way as such without resorting to conversion? Yes and no. The subject is broad and it would be confusing at this point to cloud our contention that T. Boone Pickens doesn't have much to his proposals or contribution at this time. Perhaps, he wants to make a fast buck or two more before he leaves. Serious approaches to solve real problems in credible real ways take a long time. It takes more serious and perceptive minds and souls to do so. But first there must be a national will and a strong public consensus on the need to do so. The time is not right yet! Otherwise, nobody would be side-tracked by light-weights like T. Boone Picken.

I have some of the natural gas stocks mentioned above in my portfolio. However, I have no desire to make more gains with ideas like diesel!