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On Climate Change and Driving the Hydrogen Highway
Jim, a switch to hydrogen-powered transportation makes little sense for several reasons:
- It adds a wasteful, unnecessary extra step to converting energy to motion. Electric cars will have sufficient range within 5 years to address nearly all Americans' needs, and be 50% more efficient (GREET simulation).
- As John correctly points out, hydrogen is problematic (and energy-intensive) to move, store, and dispense.
- Proton-exchange membrane (PEM) technology continues to have durability issues.
- An infrastructure will cost something on the order of $500 billion (Romm).
- Hydrogen will likely be the result of methane-powered reforming, which with efficiency losses likely will create a worse carbon emissions problem than we have right now.
- Renewables-powered electrolysis would provide a minute fraction of the energy necessary to power America's transportation.
I understand that the American Petroleum Institute is anxious to find a use for their 50,000 service stations which, like their fuel, are going the way of the dodo. Shell has dipped their toe into the alt nuclear pool; if other oil companies have any vision beyond the next decade they'd be wise to do the same.
On Energy Facts: Solar Energy's Massive Price Drop
This graph does not represent solar energy's "massive price drop". It represents the massive price drop of solar panels, only one facet of an energy source predicted to remain 30% more expensive than nuclear for at least the next five years. The graph is illustrative of the fact that this localized, variable source with high transmission, land use, and integration costs still occupies less than 1% of America's power generation despite a dramatic drop in the cost of the basic hardware.
As Germany's failed Energiewende experiment is quickly proving, solar is exacerbating climate change by requiring good old dependable coal to back it up when the sun doesn't shine. It's discouraging to see people so easily fooled by this sleight of hand - one that's only pushing us closer to the climatological point of no return.
On US Oil Boom Shifts Focus to North Dakota Bakken Shale
Sally Jewell's comment that these discoveries "will help private, nonprofit and government decision makers at all levels make informed decisions about the responsible development of these resources" assumes responsible development of any new fossil fuel sources is a given.
That assumption grows more dubious by the day.
On California: Energy Rich, Decision Poor
Randy, like anything else "high" is a relative judgement based on what those taxes get you.
I'm more than happy to pay California's higher taxes, because living here is worth every penny.
On California: Energy Rich, Decision Poor
I'm not wondering. From the Chronicle:
"Illegal immigrants help Texas gain 4 house seats
"...Much of it is due to more births than deaths. One expert estimates that 55 percent of the state’s growth comes from the newly born.
Another chunk comes from in-state migration. Those are people fleeing states with rough economies — like Michigan — for better job opportunities in Texas.
The rest, roughly 20 percent, is from migration — both legal and illegal. (The Census counted everyone, regardless of immigration status.)"
http://blog.chron.com/immigration/2010/12/illegal-immigrants-help-texas-gain-4-house-seats/
A dubious distinction. I wonder if immigrants (both legal and illegal) are aware they're twice as likely to die in Texas jobs?
My earlier link addresses the purported U-Haul phenomenon:
"But consider this: A truck also costs more to rent from San Jose to Yuma than from Yuma to San Jose. Are we to conclude that Yuma — with the nation’s highest metropolitan unemployment level, at 27 percent — is doing better than Silicon Valley?
The U-Haul theory also assumes that truck renters are representative of workers in general. In fact, those who move themselves naturally have few possessions or lack resources to hire a moving van. Putting aside other issues, would it be reasonable to draw sweeping conclusions from this sample?
Christopher Thornburg of Beacon Economics, one of the economists cited in the Business Journal story last week, dismisses the U-Haul theory as little more than folklore.
“Why are we even having this debate? We know that net migration is about zero,” he told me. Stories like this gain traction because “you have an opinion and you’re looking for some kind of data to support your position.”
Thornburg is no fan of California’s regulatory climate. But in the end, he says, the notion that California is bleeding “is just not true. California has been and will continue to be a success story.”
On California: Energy Rich, Decision Poor
In today's news: you're twice as likely to die on the job in Texas as California.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/texas-353624-california-percent.html
No, thanks.
On California: Energy Rich, Decision Poor
A common right-wing rallying cry. Problem is, it's not true.
The California business exodus myth
On California: Energy Rich, Decision Poor
Mark, it's comical to hear someone from a state with a $600 million budget shortfall making economic suggestions to a state with a balanced budget. In fact, Californians have been making decisions based on fact for a long time. But the real issue is your assumption that residents of the two states have similar priorities.
California is addressing global warming while Texas and other oil-producing states are going for the quick buck, leaving their toxic enviornmental record as a legacy to their children and grandchildren. Speaking as a Californian, we consider our priorities vastly more progressive than the free-market-solves-all nonsense that Rick Perry espouses. Texas's environmental record is dismal: it has the highest CO2 output in the country, and ranks 36th on a per capita basis; California, with 12 million more people, ranks 3rd best.
Of course this is due to Texas's reliance on fossil fuels, and they should be embarrassed. Fossil fuels are regressive, dirty sources with a minor role in our energy future.
On Will PG&E Be the First Utility To Fall To Solar Energy?
Tom, T&D looks like a safe bet as long as there is electricity to transmit and distribute. Why is the deal any sweeter for natural gas generation utilities (the guys who keep the lights on at night and on cloudy days, on whom solar is completely dependent) who now have a middleman? What keeps them afloat?
With the levelized cost of solar well above any other form of power generation, the only reason costs are not driving solar investments is subsidies, which put solar well out of the "de-coupled market" spectrum. Taxpayers are footing the bill for solar, not free enterprise. Not making a value judgement, but lets call it what it is.
On Are Fossil Fuel Companies Pouring Money Down the Drain?
Schalk, all of the methods of monitoring CO2 injection you mention would be extremely easy to circumvent, most easily by creating an exit well at some distance from the injection well. And while music downloaders outnumber crooked contractors, the stakes for a crooked contractor would much higher - likely millions of dollars.
Asphyxiation? I live one mile away from a natural gas power plant and thousands live closer than me. Your "concentrated CO2 stream" is exactly the same as what the power plant releases during normal operation, and I'm not aware of any asphyxiations yet. Nor worried about it.
On Bakken Bonanza: More Oil and Natural Gas from Drilling Innovation
Oil making modern living possible.
Mark, the idea that oil, coal, and gas "make modern living possible" is laughable. The French power 70% of their lives with safe, clean, and sustainable nuclear energy, and with the help of renewables and an electric infrastructure we could retire those dirty relics of the 19th century forever.
It's going to take more than the lustful cravings of billionaires to convince Americans we need to tear up more pristine wilderness and destroy more groundwater in the name of augmenting our supply of fossil fuels. What they do make possible, and inevitable, is catastrophic climate change - and we have much, much more than we can afford to burn already.
Let's move on, shall we?
On Climate Change and the Energy World Map
Interesting Schalk, I don't see any scenario where CCS will be remotely feasible in the future.
What energy are you going to use to store CO2, and what will be the penalty in efficiency? More importantly, as I've already mentioned in prior posts, there is virtually nothing to prevent CCS plant operators from venting invisible, odorless CO2 and pocketing the change. What verification scheme do you imagine which wouldn't be fraught with corruption?
Every CO2 pricing scheme has failed miserably to reduce carbon consumption. What leads you to believe that this situation will change?
As far as CCS being less capital-intensive than nuclear - we have no idea how capital-intensive practical CCS would be, and frankly we don't have time to find out. On the other hand, at the peak of nuclear plant construction in the early 80s, about one plant was being built per week. At that rate we could replace the world's coal use by 2050 and stop adding utility carbon to the atmosphere.
Electricity may be responsible for 40% of energy-related emissions in 2013, but it's unlikely that it won't play a much larger part in transporation in the coming decades.