Electric Cars and Solar Power Kills babies.

[TallDave]

1. Depends How much garage space you have, it also depends whether maintainence costs scale with age or usage (i.e. will they go down dramatically if it is stored in an appropriate environment without being run frequently). Regarding cheapness, I don't think you should underestimate the power of the learning curve. I'm sure we'll find a happy medium between cost and safety, if India can do it so can we!

I've heard that the land area required for crops to power every vehicle in Britain is the size of all the agricultural land in Britain. Learning curves work with technology, but you can't create land out of thin air, although I'm sure it would be possible with fission or fusion reactors to synthetically make ethanol ort methanol someday, which would be good.

2. I sometimes use bikes for my groceries, but only for trips less than two miles. If I wanted to travel ten miles to buy a computer, I'd rather use an EV!

1. Space always costs; even if you already have the space there's the opportunity cost of whatever else you could have used it for. The maintenance costs for two personal transport machines will almost always be higher than the same amount of work done by one machine. You will also be required to carry insurance on both in most areas. Overall safety costs are not likely to go down, because more and better features will be mandated faster than the costs shrink. People in India are willing to accept much worse conditions than Westerners.

There's actually quite a lot of land available for biofuels. They can be grown in what is currently considered scrub.

There's also no shortage of ag-convertable land, because so much famland has been abandoned. Most people don't realize that we actually have less acreage in ag production today than we did 100 years ago -- but we produce something like 10 times as much per acre. Crop yields have risen steadily and food prices have marched downward in sync; population hasn't kept up so marginal producers have been driven out of business (there's an old joke about the farmer who won the lottery; when asked by a TV reporter how it feels to have won millions he replies "Well, this is wonderful. We'll be able to farm for 30 more years now."). Biofuel crop yields will probably grow much much more quickly for two reasons: because of the huge profits and because the objections to GM food won't apply to GM biofuel.

[jmc]

The best price is determined by supply and demand.

We have the best government money can buy.

I disagree. Markets are not perfect nor forward looking. Unused technology degrades down a "forgetting curve" as easily as increased production causes prices to go down a learning curve.

Free trade causes the tragedy of the commons. There is a finite resource, all the free agents are using it, it will be gone soon because everyone else will consume it. The logical answer? Consume as much of it as you can before everyone else does! Free acting independent agents unfettered by laws or restrictions can often use a resource less efficiently.

Chances are 80 million out of those 100 million haven't even heard of peak oil are relatively unaware of the damage tar-sand production causes, and don't really think climate change is a risk. Of the remaining 20 million that pretend to care, 19 million are hypocrites that won't let it change their lifestyles (including many flying to IPCC conferences in Australia)

Those 535 people in Washington are also hypocrites who will legislate frugality meassures and abstemious tax incentives on others while living excessive and luxurious lives themselves. But the burden of 535 hypocrites on the world is less that the burden of 80 million uniformed apathetic people and 20 million hypocrites.

People often say that low energy prices will allow the economy to grow enough to be capable of doing more energy research. That is true, but although it gives us the resources we very rarely choose to use those resources when energy prices are low as it is unlikely that newly researched alternatives will be competitive. Same case with efficiency, there's no point in spending extra to increase efficiency when the money you save on your energy bill doesn't justify the expenditure.

In actual fact the most money was spent on researching alternative ways of producing energy and using energy more efficiently during the stagflation era f the 1970s when energy prices were high.

I agree that taxes reduce the efficiency in the means of production. But a reduction in the efficiency of production will often cause a corresonding increase in the efficiency of consumption.

[MSimon]

Markets are not perfect nor forward looking.

True. But they are only marginally slower than government when there is a way to meed demand that is profitable. And they tend to reduce costs faster than government. They can't put a gun to people's heads to make up for losses.

One need only look at the mess governments have made of the PV industry. It is currently about twice the size necessary. Why? Germany has killed its subsidy. Spain as well. In Spain an economist found that every green job killed two non-green jobs. That fits in well with the fact that PV electricity costs 2X to 3X conventional sources. If PV was lower cost than conventional it would be a job creator.

Now there is one place governments can handle the "forward looking" problem without wasting vast sums. Research. Why don't they do more? It is hard to hand out vast sums to favored individuals and groups.

One need only look at Polywell. Government has carried the work on far enough so that private enterprise would be willing to take the risks to finish the work. Why? Because win or lose the time horizon is now short enough.

The same goes for algae-oil.

Don't forget.

We have the best government money can buy.

i.e. government is very prone to corruption.

One need only look at Medicare fraud at 30% vs fraud on insurance companies at 1%. That difference is returned in part to shareholders.

[MSimon]

I agree that taxes reduce the efficiency in the means of production. But a reduction in the efficiency of production will often cause a corresonding increase in the efficiency of consumption.

Ah yes. Reduce the quality of life. Or on the margins the chance for life. What a humanitarian concept.

Nothing like increasing costs for something by government fiat to get the peasants to conserve. The trouble is: governments tend to spend 10% more than they get. Increasing the get increases the overspend.

BTW all mining will despoil some area. So what? It is not like we are short of area. We should keep mining until lower cost alternatives are available.

As to peak oil - well we could convert coal to oil. In actual fact we have not reached nor are we any where near peak geological oil. What we are near is peak political oil and probably past peak $20 oil.

A geologist explains it:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... tlook.html

Simon

[jmc]

I agree with your point on research, we certainly need more of it.

But governments restrictions on consumption can improve resource management. Take fisheries for example, by putting in fishing quotas stocks can be allowed to recover. Unfettered fishing would lead to the collapse of fishing stocks.

Similarly there are precedents for successful government efforts. France's government backed nuclear programme brought the country from getting 0% of their electricity from nuclear power to 80% in 20 years. They also have one of the fastest train networks in the world.

I would imagine any large scale plan for Europe to import solar power from North Africa would also need government backing.

Because governments can always use tax money to recuperate their losses, they are less averse to taking bold decisive leaps then private companies this can be beneficial... so long as those leaps are in the right direction.

I also agree with the comment about using taxes to buffer the price of oil and other commodities. Industry does best when there is stability, when there is certainty over the future cost of raw materials, buffering prices could help ensure that stability.

Markets don't anticipate the risk of climate change unless regulation factors it in either.




Well you can tax the rich and well off, encourage that section of society to consume more efficiently and subsidise the poor.

If the money the government recieve is spent on technologies to substitute the resource they are taxing then you effectively just investingin the future.

I read the article that geologist wrote, its really justa rant on how Iran is letting its infrastructure got to pot. How much oil could Iran produce even if it wanted to?

[MSimon]

Well you can tax the rich and well off, encourage that section of society to consume more efficiently and subsidise the poor.

Sure you can. You can also squeeze them so hard they take their marbles and go elsewhere.

Because, you know if the rich were sufficiently philanthropic in the way you imagine they would already be giving the government their money out of the goodness of their hearts.

Please explain how to get your scheme to work without putting a gun to people's heads? It seems there is no limit to the goodness you can do with coercion.

I can tell you how to get mine done without that. Make all research an expense item on the income tax. Instead of a capital expense. See I have actually reduced the coercion required.

[MSimon]

I read the article that geologist wrote, its really justa rant on how Iran is letting its infrastructure got to pot. How much oil could Iran produce even if it wanted to?

Yes it is.

All the oil socialisms are doing that (Mexico is another case). The current "peak oil" is political not geological.

[jmc]

You may well have a point. I'd like to read any links you have on other countries botching up their oil infra-structure. Nonetheless political or not it would nice to have an energy infrastructure that didn't depend on the effective running of regimes in the more dodgy areas on Earth.

And there's the risk of climate change, an electric car - nuclear power station infrastructure would emit a lot less CO2.

Whether or not the GISS is trustworthy or whether they have enough stations recording temperatures that reach the right standard, whether climate models are any use or not, there's still the ice core data showing a distinct correlation between carbon dioxide and planetary temperature.

I know you have this argument that CO2 concentration lags temperature I've looked at the ice core graph myself in great detail and I don't see that at all, sometime it lags... sometimes it leads. The correlation is loose enough for it not to be at all clear which it is (there are plenty of other factors that affect temperature aswell after all). But the historical correlation between CO2 and temperature is nonetheless very noticeable.

O.K. so we don't know whether it lags or leads the temperature at present, and we don't know whether the rest of the biosphere will react with positive feedback or negative feedback, when CO2 concentration go outside the bounded regions of the last million years or so temperature wise, that leaves a 50% chance that are emmissions will lead to catastrophic climate change killing billions of people in the poorer parts of the world. Is that a chance worth taking?

[MSimon]

And there's the risk of climate change, an electric car - nuclear power station infrastructure would emit a lot less CO2.

The climate is always changing. There is no risk. It is a certainty.

CO2 is plant food and the atmosphere is dangerously low in CO2.

Below 200 ppm many plants do not grow. Below 90 ppm no plants grow.

For the sake of the plants - more CO2.

[MSimon]

Whether or not the GISS is trustworthy or whether they have enough stations recording temperatures that reach the right standard, whether climate models are any use or not, there's still the ice core data showing a distinct correlation between carbon dioxide and planetary temperature.

There is absolutely no doubt about what you say.

What you failed to mention is that CO2 FOLLOWS Temperature.

OK you corrected that in the next paragraph.

You are confusing cause and effect. And I even have a likely mechanism: warming oceans evolve dissolved CO2. There is 50X as much CO2 in the oceans as there is in the atmosphere.

I'd like to see the data showing CO2 leading temps in the last 50,000 or so years. The reason I'm limiting it to the most recent era is that CO2 diffuses even in ice smearing the data.

[MSimon]

O.K. so we don't know whether it lags or leads the temperature at present, and we don't know whether the rest of the biosphere will react with positive feedback or negative feedback, when CO2 concentration go outside the bounded regions of the last million years or so temperature wise, that leaves a 50% chance that are emmissions will lead to catastrophic climate change killing billions of people in the poorer parts of the world. Is that a chance worth taking?

Cutting back drastically on CO2 emissions without a cost effective replacement will CERTAINLY kill billions.

Where as CO2 induced climate change may kill billions. And with your 50% chance that CO2 is the cause and then the probability that man will adapt and relatively few will be harmed I know which way I'd bet.

We can't keep burning buried carbon forever. But there is no need to panic either.



===

And on top of all that China and India don't intend to join in with Western Suicide. By 2020 China will produce 2X as much CO2 as the Americans. And they are not planning to stop there. The USA is about 6X as efficient as China in tons CO2/$ GDP. Cutting back in the USA will move the industry to China making things worse.

Explain how you intend to square that circle?

[MSimon]

I have been working on energy issues since 1962. And I have been hearing dire warnings for just as long. These days, like US Grant, I don't scare worth a dam n.

[MSimon]

I have been working on energy issues since 1962. And I have been hearing dire warnings for just as long. These days, like US Grant, I don't scare worth a darn.

Remember the Ice age scares of the late 70s? I do. I predict that by 2020 that will be the next scare du jour.

CLIMATE CHANGE

[jmc]

I agree we need a carbon free replacement power source. What about nuclear energy? Oh and China is engaged in an aggressive nuclear power plant construction programme, if they can get the price lower than coal they'll probably start planning on how to reduce their carbon footprint.

The three other possible methods would be solar thermal, thin film photo voltaic and nuclear fusion.

I've had an idea for a "nuclear combustion engine" rather along the lines of General Fusion's one only I believe potentially much better. (Fingers crossed)

Solar thermal could work because all you need is a material to reflect the sun, which does not create too many constraints on what you can use, so there's a good chance you can find something pretty cheap and robust. Another thing I like about solar thermal is that unlike wind there aren't any moving parts (except in the cental tower) so the reflectors aren't subjected to the constant stresses and strain the components of wind turbines are. I don't see any reason why their lifetime could not be over a hundred years.

I'm not aware of the central tower being anymore complex then any normal thermal plant they can also store heat for the night by melting salt during the day.

The material deposited by the thin film process I would imagine would be quite expensive by mass but because its a fraction of a micron thick a very small quantity of it could cover and extremely large area (if a suitably cheap substrate could be found) I realise the process has not yet been perfected to churn them out yet but it could be around the corner.


I reject wave power as a solution.

I REALLY hate carbon sequestration as it will never be cheaper than just emmitting it.

I'm not a fan of biomass, simply because plants are inefficent solar collectors (1% max) compared with solar panels (5-10%) and they need agricultural land while solar panels can be placed in the deserts.

I'm skeptical about wind and geothermal.

[MSimon]

jmc,

I have the advantage over you. I'm sceptical of everything.

BTW solar thermal requires moving heliostats. 100 year plant lifetime? Steam plants are only good for 40 years. The problem with solar thermal is land. At 1 KW/sq m (peak) at 30% thermal efficiency (assuming a cooling water source) it takes a lot of sq m to get up to 1 GW. Big capital costs. 3.3E6 sq m. About 1.1 miles on a side. Plus greens don't like them - it ruins the desert. And then there are the occasional unpredictable desert storms where output is way down. I have seen a few. Really beautiful. Not good for power generation. So how many desert sites have access to the required cooling water?

PV right now has the best chance to be commercially sound and that isn't expected to happen until 2012 or 2015.