***Alternative Energy Forecasts*** 21

[deltawhy]

Hello, so I know everyone here has at least an opinion on this subject. I would like to see what the industry experienced members think of alternative energy and the forecast for the near future.

Within the next 5, 10, and 15 years, what do you think will become dominant in North America, Europe, and Australia?

One of the main issues plaguing alternative energy is the method of energy storage. What do you think will become dominant? New types of chemical batteries, flywheel storage, compressed air, water pumping, etc.

How about less known about methods, like plasma gasification and MSW energy?

Will micorgeneration become a major player, with the addition of hybrid and electric vehicles putting massive amounts of stress on the already stressed grid?

Any thoughts?

Regards

 

[TGS4]

But the harm done by the emissions that remain is paid for by others, and not in proportion to how much fossil fuel they use.

What harm?

 

[ewh]

Why, global warming of course.


"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[cranky108]

"fundamentally a non-existent rail-freight system"?????

I doubt this statment, and in fact the number of freight has increased over 100% in the last 30 years. Unless you are talking about the EU, which uses mostly ships and barges. But I believe you were talking about the US.

Just because the trains don't travel by your office dosen't make this true. They do travel by my office and I know there are much more in other locations.

 

[zdas04]

There are thousands of trains on the tracks at any given time in the U.S. At the same time there are millions of over-the-road trucks on the interstates hauling goods for an something like an order of magnitude more expense per pound per mile compared to freight trains.

With more expensive fuel in the last 10 years, some number of the trucks are short-hauling freight to a railhead and from a railhead to its destination, but not enough. There are whole states that are either not served by rail or are barely served by rail.

Hauling freight from coast to coast is a really poor use of the Interstate system and a good use of the rail system. My bombastic statement was a comment on the number of trucks that are on the interstates more than anything else.

David

 

[moltenmetal]

"What harm"? Seriously? We're not talking about the CO2 emissions only here: there are plenty of OTHER emissions that cause PLENTY of harm, including loss of life.

As to David's good point about rail versus trucks- we agree.

Railroads directly pay the costs to maintain their own infrastructure.

Truck transport companies pay to share the public road infrastructure. But those costs are subject to intense lobbying effort and hence are not nearly high enough in proportion to how much damage these trucks cause to the public infrastructure.

Both pay taxes on their fuel use- a smaller amount for rail than trucks due tot eh greater fuel efficiency- but obviously not enough differential to shift usage patterns much.

The fact that until recently, the City fo Toronto shipped garbage to a landfill in Michigan BY ROAD, indicates that the taxes on transport by road are nowhere nearly high enough.

This is yet another disparity that increased taxes on fuels would help to fix. Unfortunately, with the rails ripped out during times when diesel was super-cheap, going back now is VERY difficult.

 

[KENAT]

molten, I believe that zdas point was that for at least some applications, at least some of the other pollutants are addressed by limits on emissions etc.

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[SnTMan]

To perhaps shift the conversation a bit, anyone want to offer opinions on the NATGAS Act?

My own take:

*If T Boone is for it, I'm against it.
*Not in favor of more market distorting subsidies.
*Against the idea of helping the well-off pay for their nat-gas cars and home fuel stations, to me this is the electric "car" tax credits again.
*In favor of the idea of less expensive transportation fuels.
*In favor of reducing imports of fuels from people that hate us.
*In favor of cleaner fuels.
*Range questions. Not sure the general public understands this at all well. One writer to my local paper was looking forward to CNG aircraft.
*At what point will road use taxes be applied to NG, and how?
*How, if at all, will the fuel tanks be regulated?

Any takers?

 

[cranky108]

I don't know much about natural gas legal stuff. So I won't.

What I do know is that the rail-truck break even point is about 250 miles.
I also know several companies will only transload for a minimum volume (probally has to do with making a profit). So if you live in an area with little volume of freight, you probally don't have rail service.

I don't believe it is just the cost of fuel that determines profit margen. It has to do with labor, insurance, cost of equipment that meets the EPA requirements, etc

I would like to see natural gas cars, but I don't like filling my car in my garuge with either gas or natural gas.

 

[KENAT]

Well...

Fundamentally I think using Natural Gas (or variations) as a 'mobile' energy source for vehicles makes a lot more sense than using it for stationary grid electrical power generation where there are so many other options.

It has already been done since at least the second world war (well, that may have been 'town gas' but same concept) at various times in various places.

Why California didn't focus on this as a solution to the air cleanliness in LA rather than electrical cars or the 'hydrogen highway' I'll never fully grasp - I'm sure it's to do with the influence of the granola munching extreme greenies etc. but still.

It's fundamentally doable, there are no major technological hurdles as I understand it, just implementation.

I have no problem for some kind of subsidies/state spending to get it up and running so long as eventually it levels out/pays itself back etc.

The range issue only comes in on converting existing vehicles. For vehicles designed for it from the start it's a virtual non issue.

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[cranky108]

So what is the difference in a vehicle made for natural gas and converted vehicles?

Would it happen to be the weight? If so I'm not interested in an unsafe vehicle (Like le car).

So would there be a method of taxing natural gas for vehicles? Who would pay the road tax?

 

[KENAT]

Well, you'd design in the 'gas tank' instead of adding it as an after thought - typically in addition to the 'gasoline tank' often at the direct expense of luggage/trunk/boot space. So the increased space used as a proportion of vehicle volume wouldn't be too bad.

Additionally, engines designed from the ground up to run on natural gas could be optimized to do so.

As to the taxation, there are lots of ways to do it.

Maybe you just increase the tax on NG full stop, whether it's used for heating, cooking, tumble dryer or stationary electrical energy generation...

Maybe you change from taxing fuel as an approximation of how much use you make of the roads and apply a more direct charge - be it based on gps tracking of the vehicle or 'toll booths' that read the license plate or some variation (big brother anyone?)

Maybe you do it as part of the car tags/licensing system, potentially tracking the mileage of the car each time you renew and applying a 'tax per mile'.

I'm sure there are pro's and cons to all those methods, and probably plenty of other possible ways.

Change isn't always bad, and if we're going to look at change perhaps it needs to be more fundamental change not just tweaking the current system.

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[TGS4]

We're not talking about the CO2 emissions only here:  there are plenty of OTHER emissions that cause PLENTY of harm, including loss of life. 

Interesting statement. Care to back that up? David's already listed the costs that currently go into liquid fossil fuels to manage ACTUAL harms. Most refineries spent $500+ million dollars ~10 years ago to reduce sulphur content, to manage harmful SOx, and pay for every barrel of refined product in operating costs. And the costs of the efforts to contain fugitive emissions of carcinogenic compounds is not a trivial cost.

Your post discusses automobile and transport truck "costs", but there is no link to the fuel source. All of those could be magical transports running on pixie dust, and you'd still have these issues. There's nothing that you've written that is a direct causation (remember, correlation does not equal causation). We indeed do have transport infrastructure issues, but it is not related to the motive fuel itself.

So, what harms are not captured and paid for already?

 

[moltenmetal]

Trains died because trucks were easier and either cheaper or not too much more expensive in total. The wrong price was set on the cost of trucsk to public infrastructure and lobbying has kept it there. But now the tracks are gone, and with them, so have our alternatives.

We do not regulate the quantity of emissions to the atmosphere. Rather, we regulate the intensity (concentration) of particular emissions- the quantity can and does increase with consumption, without limit.

We charge NOTHING for the emissions themselves- and we should, by means of a direct emissions tax on the fuels themselves. Much more effective than a cap and trade system which can be scammed and defrauded.

Compare that to disposing of anything at a landfill or any discharge to a publicly owned water treatment works. In either of those cases, there's something to be gained economically from eliminating the discharge. Atmospheric discharge, once within the intensity limits of the regs, is FREE, even though as a society we pay for the costs of asthma and other respiratory diseases, premature deaths, mercury contamination of food fish etc. etc. etc.

And yes, I do consider fossil CO2 to be an emission worthy of concern, along with all the others.

Then there are the innumerable other intangible costs of fossil fuel exploration, production, refinement and distribution. The massive military spending. Dealing with repressive regimes. The environmental consequences of spills.

Fossil carbon is too valuable, and too finite, to be wasting as a fuel in the profligate way we do today, especially in North America. The only way to deter wasteful consumption is to increase price: subsidizing consumption of "virtuous" alternatives is doomed to failure. The market does increase price as scarcity or risk dictates- but not fast enough to fund the changes we need. And when you factor CO2 into the mix, the whole thing becomes even more urgent.

 

[cranky108]

Do you wish to explain the other reason they pulled up tracks? Simply there was a tax on each mile, and the potential profit for so many of those miles just wasen't there to pay for the tax, and maintenance. So it was a business decision to abandon so many of those miles (call your state if you don't agree with the rail roads decision).
Substidise roads and tax rails, what would anyone believe would happen.

If CO2 is a concern, ask how many carbon offsets have you purchased? Have you tried off the grid living? What is your part?

I happen to disagree with man caused GW, and therefore I don't believe I or anyone else needs to do vrey much to correct it. So how exactly to you believe you can fix the perceved problem without infrengeing on my liberties?

And don't mistake my disagreement on GW with my belief we should do more to be more efficent.

 

[TGS4]

moltenmetal - by your logic, then CO2 would be considered an emission worthy of charging for. Since you, I, and every other not-plant organism generate CO2 as a waste product, your logic would dictate that they should also be charged for said emissions. I recall that I did a calculation during the Canadian federal election this year (whilst engaging some political parties that promoted a carbon (sic) tax). Based on the average human, each person should be charged about $250/year, based on a carbon (sic) price of $50/tonne. You get that implemented first, and then we`ll talk about charging for other emissions.

Again, I don`t have a problem charging for something that has a real and quantifiable harm. zdas04 listed, in detail, the harms that are already being mitigated and costs accounted for. Tell me again, what harms are not being captured.

crank108 - when you talk about CAGW, please keep the word `believe` out of your words. The science that demonstrates link between anthropogenic CO2 and temperature increase is lacking. No need to believe it or not, the science and the math doesn`t demonstrate it. Period. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that those that believe in CAGW are doing so out of a belief system that is more akin to religion or politics than science. (To those that believe in CAGW, no direct ad hominem attack intended)

 

[rb1957]

respectively, i disagree with that. just because there is no proof (between CO2 and warming) doesn't mean there isn't any, that could be understood in the future.

i agree there is no proof currently, and so some people believe (in the absense of proof) that there is a connection. equally i think some people believe there isn't a connection (since they equally can't proof there isn't).

and yes, i agree that global warming has reached (descended ?) to a religion, where prophets are reverred, believers praised, and non-believers (figuratively) burned at the stake.

 

[TGS4]

rb1957, until the null-hypothesis is reversed, no current proof means that there is no proof. Any day, proof could come along and change that, but until such time, there is no proof.

The null-hypothesis being that the temperature rise being observed (observation error, etc aside) is natural and not connected to the increase in atmospheric CO2 content. Until causation is made falsifiable (still waiting for this step, BTW), and falsification of the `anthropogenic CO2 causes the observed temperature increase alone` hypothesis is demonstrated, the null-hypothesis survives. The catastrophic aspect (the one which demonstrates the harm of CO2) is an additional step, that again must survive the scientific rigor.

Any other conclusion is not based on scientific logic. (IMHO)

 

[cranky108]

TGS4 I don't have to have proof to believe something. That's the basis of several religons isen't it?

Real proof would be a much greater influence, true. But with out it we either have a belief one way or another, even if we don't admit it.

I do agree we should have the $250 per person fee enacted, so all these protesters can be arrested for tax evasion.

 

[TGS4]

cranky108 - I agree. That`s really the difference between science and religion. Proof without belief vs. belief without proof. I don`t have a problem with either, just so long as people appreciate which side of the ledger their opinions are based one.

Oh, and that $250/head fee is an annual amount, too. And, people who exercise and metabolize more, would generate more emissions, and so should be taxed more. Kinda the antithesis of the tax-the-fat movement... I wonder what the `carbon footprint` of a cyclist commuter is...

 

[rb1957]

do you include the cyclist's "emissions" ?