Prii fans:
KUOW, our local NPR station in Seattle aired an interview with a guy who's written a book, "The End Of Oil". He was the most articulate person I've heard in a very long time talk about energy use and sources. Some tidbits, which many of you probably know already:
1. Hydrogen is a huge problem area and not likely to come on line anytime soon. Biggest problem is producing it without using more energy than you would liberate. Issue is that it keeps the Big Three, Big Petroleum and the Government from dealing with the problems NOW. Fuel cells are possible but what to power them with?
2. Oil production has peaked. OPEC knows it, the US knows it, and world politics are only going to get crazier as we, Europe, Japan, China and India compete for diminishing supplies.
3. Bio diesel is a wonderful grass roots partial solution, but creates problems if you scale it up to try to produce enough to run an economy with. Do we want to use agriculture to grow fuel instead of food? There are some crops that can be used to make bio diesel that can also be used as part of the crop rotation cycle practiced by farmers to keep their fields fertile. Big pluses are: no net increase (reduction, actually) in greenhouse gases and easy participation by Joe Consumer who wants to do something positive and feels trapped by the present system.
4. Hybrids represent the immediate best solution and can be made even more efficient by running on diesel engines powered by bio fuels. Plug in hybrids that combine the best of Prii type hybrids with the added advantage of being able to run on pure battery power for daily commutes.
There is a big chat about this on PriusChat.com.
5. Eventually, we will have to reconsider nuclear power. In 50 years, at present growth rates, we will need to generate four times the energy we use now, AND with a quarter of the greenhouse gases unless we want to fry ourselves. Virtually all forms of energy production that work on any large scale, involve greenhouse gas production.
6. Wind, solar, tidal, offer some relief but suffer from lack of "concentrated energy potential", i.e. it would take a hundred square miles of wind generators to equal a large oil or coal fired power plant. Solar depends on, obviously, daylight, and also is not energy dense per unit of area measurement. It would take a solar field the size of Arizona to provide the energy needs of this country. Doubtful that Arizona would agree to being so converted.
7. Europe is better off than we are because we have benighted, short sighted government in bed with oil and energy companies, while Europe has been progressing into alternative energy much faster than we.
8. Back to cars: Japan is years ahead of us. GM poo-pooed the hybnd idea ten years ago when it first surfaced, but the Japanese made a huge (and, as it turns out, right on) committment to hybrid technology early in the game and now is the leader of the pack. The most efficient use of an internal combustion engine is when it's running at a constant RPM, as in a generator. The most efficient engine/motor (actually) is electric. This is why diesel locomotives are so efficient: the diesel provides the electricity and the electric motor does the heavy lifting. The Prius simply puts that idea into a passenger car. A diesel Prius would be a thing of beauty.
9. Conclusion (my own): we change the energy face of this country one car, one driver at a time. As gas prices climb, the hybrid becomes more attractive and GM is recognizing this. More attractive means more hybrids and lower production costs. The Prius is almost a "one off" model given that there are fewer than 200,000 in the world. The economies of scale will change this.
We will continue to depend on oil for our lifetimes, but the picture is changing; from the bottom up.
Bob
KUOW, our local NPR station in Seattle aired an interview with a guy who's written a book, "The End Of Oil". He was the most articulate person I've heard in a very long time talk about energy use and sources. Some tidbits, which many of you probably know already:
1. Hydrogen is a huge problem area and not likely to come on line anytime soon. Biggest problem is producing it without using more energy than you would liberate. Issue is that it keeps the Big Three, Big Petroleum and the Government from dealing with the problems NOW. Fuel cells are possible but what to power them with?
2. Oil production has peaked. OPEC knows it, the US knows it, and world politics are only going to get crazier as we, Europe, Japan, China and India compete for diminishing supplies.
3. Bio diesel is a wonderful grass roots partial solution, but creates problems if you scale it up to try to produce enough to run an economy with. Do we want to use agriculture to grow fuel instead of food? There are some crops that can be used to make bio diesel that can also be used as part of the crop rotation cycle practiced by farmers to keep their fields fertile. Big pluses are: no net increase (reduction, actually) in greenhouse gases and easy participation by Joe Consumer who wants to do something positive and feels trapped by the present system.
4. Hybrids represent the immediate best solution and can be made even more efficient by running on diesel engines powered by bio fuels. Plug in hybrids that combine the best of Prii type hybrids with the added advantage of being able to run on pure battery power for daily commutes.
There is a big chat about this on PriusChat.com.
5. Eventually, we will have to reconsider nuclear power. In 50 years, at present growth rates, we will need to generate four times the energy we use now, AND with a quarter of the greenhouse gases unless we want to fry ourselves. Virtually all forms of energy production that work on any large scale, involve greenhouse gas production.
6. Wind, solar, tidal, offer some relief but suffer from lack of "concentrated energy potential", i.e. it would take a hundred square miles of wind generators to equal a large oil or coal fired power plant. Solar depends on, obviously, daylight, and also is not energy dense per unit of area measurement. It would take a solar field the size of Arizona to provide the energy needs of this country. Doubtful that Arizona would agree to being so converted.
7. Europe is better off than we are because we have benighted, short sighted government in bed with oil and energy companies, while Europe has been progressing into alternative energy much faster than we.
8. Back to cars: Japan is years ahead of us. GM poo-pooed the hybnd idea ten years ago when it first surfaced, but the Japanese made a huge (and, as it turns out, right on) committment to hybrid technology early in the game and now is the leader of the pack. The most efficient use of an internal combustion engine is when it's running at a constant RPM, as in a generator. The most efficient engine/motor (actually) is electric. This is why diesel locomotives are so efficient: the diesel provides the electricity and the electric motor does the heavy lifting. The Prius simply puts that idea into a passenger car. A diesel Prius would be a thing of beauty.
9. Conclusion (my own): we change the energy face of this country one car, one driver at a time. As gas prices climb, the hybrid becomes more attractive and GM is recognizing this. More attractive means more hybrids and lower production costs. The Prius is almost a "one off" model given that there are fewer than 200,000 in the world. The economies of scale will change this.
We will continue to depend on oil for our lifetimes, but the picture is changing; from the bottom up.
Bob
