Chris B

10 Green Energy Gambles for 2009: 3 Month Update

Nuclear would not be economically competitive if it wasn't massively subsidized by taxpayers. Taxpayers cover the vast majority of expenses for security, research, safety assurance / inspections, fuel and waste transport, and fuel and waste storage - which is the biggie, hundreds of billions of dollars sunk into Yuca Mtn. Add the taxpayer expenses together and nuclear becomes a very expensive energy source.

Oil is subsidized too. When's the last time Exxon sent an army and navy to the Persian Gulf to protect oil supplies or sent billions of dollars in foreign aid to area regimes? A "free market with no government interference" price for oil would be at least double the current levels.

The effect of all these direct and indirect subsidies is that part of our national energy cost gets billed to us through payroll taxes and the national debt.

Of course, this creates the economic incentive to freeload and use as much energy as you can, because much of the additional cost will be paid by the government, not by you directly. I suspect we're nearing the end of the financial sustainability of this tax-paid-energy model.

Maybe instead of looking for "green" energy solutions, we should start looking for "economically sustainable" energy sources that reduce our economic dependence on depleting fossil fuels but don't depend on an invisible flow of tax dollars to sustain them. Geothermal, wind, and even some forms of solar energy are rapidly approaching that point. Costs for each of these energy harvesting systems have dropped exponentially in the last 20 years and will continue to do so as economies of scale and fresh technologies are realized.

For example - the one-off, custom built binary geothermal generators used in 1970's research projects have recently been replaced by off-the-shelf modular units from United Technologies (UTX), Ormat (ORA), and others.

The people who in the 1970's said that computers were too expensive for home use made the mistake of underestimating the scale of industrial production and improvement. However, computers in the 1970's weren't competing against taxpayer-subsidized typewriters, slide rules, and graph paper.

10 Green Energy Gambles for '09

I'm really intrigued by Razer's modular binary geothermal model. In theory, they can extract baseload energy from relatively low temp areas and build or expand plants quickly and cheaply, which makes them a clear winner for a world looking to reduce fossil fuel dependency. I truly want to believe.

However I just can't get over the fact that on their website, they claim to build 100mpg Chevy Suburban conversion kits with their proprietary electric motor (the design is a closely held secret - suspiciously). Apparently all the electric motor companies in the world have overlooked this marvelous technology and those stubborn automakers like Honda and Toyota aren't interested in building 100mpg full size SUV's. No earnings are reported from this division, and it appears to exist only to draw the link in investor's heads: "Wow, geothermal powered cars!". What next, an antimatter warp drive?

I truly want to believe, but in the case of microcap companies with spectacular claims, experience shows that investors must be skeptics. If they are overstating their technology, what else are they overstating?

Alternative Energy Storage Needs to Take Baby Steps Before It Can Run

Thank you for an article that asks about the economics of hybrids and pure EV's. It seems like all the other commentary out there revolves around fanboys debating the pros and cons of their various chosen technologies or just claiming that the technology already exists and we need to buy it, regardless of price or limitation.

I can envision a diesel-electric hybrid compact with a 600 cc diesel, electric drive, regenerative braking, and a small battery or capacitator for acceleration. Such a car should get 70+ mpg. The European Ford Focus diesel comes really close to that point as it is.

Alas, we will continue to gear our automotive fleet towards gaz guzzlers for as long as the economic pain is not too bad. Unfortunately, we've discovered again and again that the pain can get bad quickly - OPEC practically schedules our most severe recessions. As nakedjaybird points out, the proven way to acheive energy independence is through gas taxes, which will never happen here.

Alternative Energy Storage Is an Investment Tsunami

First, be very, very careful about companies claiming to have "change the world" technology. Being listed on the stock exhanges does not infer legitimacy or truthfulness. There are a lot of outright cons out there whose only purpose is to collect and lose investor's money. Consider Zap! automotive and assume the prospecti are lying to you.

Second, think critically about resources and the needs of billions of people to use those resources. Is there enough lithium on earth to provide two billion cars with several hundred pound batteries? Enough nickel? What are the economics of mining/recycling that much of a semi-rare element? If you think today's prices are high, imagine if the whole world starting consuming it at once. Gold would be yesterday's precious metal! EV's might be uneconomical long before things got that ridiculous.

Third, I cannot understand how folks advocating energy independence and green living don't get excited about (cheap) 40-50 mpg hybrids and insist instead on pure EVs. Those hybrids are a huge improvement over our current fleet of <20mpg conventional cars and are the only economical and technologically capable solution on the table TODAY that could reduce our oil consumption by half. Getting fired up over hypothetical, unproven technology and panning existing medium-term solutions seems impractical.

Fourth, we all need to realize that in the long run, the rise of China means our lives have to change. Suburbs and exurbs will end. 3,000 sf detached houses will end. 4,000 lb cars to commute 20+ miles back and forth to work will end. Affordable airfare will end. Our cities will resemble Tokyo and our towns will resemble those in continental Europe. It won't be the so-called green movement that mandates these changes, it will be economics, and the sooner we change, the wealthier we will be. Light rail beats any EV in terms of both economics and environmental impact.

Energy Storage Opportunities vs. Irrational Expectations

In the early 70's it was said that Americans would never buy Japanese cars because they had a reputation of making poor quality products in the 50's-60's that didn't fit Americans' tastes.

Who made such claims? Ford strategists. It cost them dearly, as the decision about the Fiesta will.

Energy Storage Opportunities vs. Irrational Expectations

I agree with the authors assertion that exotic, rare-earth element batteries will never be commercially viable for cars. The near term future is in existing technology: diesel electric hybrids, which is what the locomotive industry figured out six or seven decades ago. At 60-80 mpg, you'll be able to afford biodiesel at $20/gal long after peak oil.

Oshkosh (OSK) has figured out that adding old-school capacitators to military diesel trucks provides excellent performance at something like a 20% mpg gain. I'm not sure why some of these unobtainium concept projects are attracting more attention than that.