The cover photo: Raw, wild energy on a galactic scale, the striking crab nebula as photographed by NASA using the Hubble telescope.A nebula starts when a star can no longer support itself, and becomes unstable. The star will eventually blow up, and the dust and chunks of the star will orbit the core. The heat reflects off the chunks, and makes the nebula glow. Rarely, black holes form the same way as a nebula.
M1: The Crab Nebula is the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD. It is filled with mysterious filaments that are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than was expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The cover image is from a composite photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is presented in three colors chosen for scientific interest. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second.
The Crab Nebula is the expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion viewed and recorded by Japanese and Chinese astronomers nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans. This composite image was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. It is one of the largest images taken by Hubble and is the highest resolution image ever made of the entire Crab Nebula.
For more information on this spectacular object, go to: http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m001.html
Howard Johnson says, “Technology can provide us with beauty, such as the marvelous Hubble photographs, and solutions to our most vexing problems such as diseases, the energy crisis and the search for understanding—building on past knowledge and probing into the unknown.
“Technology can also bring us devastation, terrorism, environmental destruction and even the end of life on our planet. The choice is up to us. We can work together intelligently and build a better tomorrow for everyone or we can turn this green planet into a wasteland?
“Yet technology is neither the hero nor the villain in these scenarios. It is the hand of man wielding technology that yields both the creation and the destruction.”
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CONTENTS
Dedication
Preface
Introduction and Author's Comments
Background Section
Why any Changes in the Fuel/Energy Industry Will be so Difficult and Costly to Accomplish
Some Personal Observations, more Background
Some information I hope the reader understands regarding media-promoted environmentalist-backed, "Global Warming"
Why Petroleum Won't be the answer
Worldwide Distribution of Electricity Sources (table)
What this Book Is Really About
America Needs a Mission for Energy Independence
The shining Example of Ireland
A Scenario of the Future: a Warning, Hopefully not a Prediction
Another Scenario of the Future: Ten years into that Future
An Interesting Scenario A Day in the Life of a PHEV
ALL PAGES BEFORE THIS POINT ARE INCLUDED IN THIS EXCERPT.
THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS HAVE ONLY THEIR HEADINGS LISTED.
Modern Energy Systems
I. Fuel Energy Sources
. A. Fossil-based Power Source Fuels
. . 1. Coal
. . 2. Petroleum Fuels
. . . . . a. Gasoline
. . . . . b. Diesel fuel
. . . . . c. Jet engine fuel
. . . . . d. Fuel oil, for Heating
. . . . . e. Heavy fuel oils
. . . 3. Other Mined Fuels
. . . . . a. Natural gas
. . . . . b. LP gas (propane)
. B. Non fossil-based Renewable Power Source Fuels
. . . 1. Ethanol (grain alcohol)
. . . 2. Methanol (wood alcohol)
. . . 3. Butanol (butyl alcohol) a new player
. . . . . Fuel Comparison Table
. . . 4. Another fuel possibility 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF)
. . . 5. Biodiesel
. . . 6. Methane
. . . 7. Wood
. . . 8. Plant waste
. . . 9. Agni-byproducts
. . . 10. Ancient fuels peat and animal dung
. C. Manufactured Fuels
. . . 1. Hydrogen
. . . 2. Method used to make hydrogen and methanol
. . . 3. A new process could produce viable new liquid fuels
. D. Nuclear Fuels
. . . 1. Uranium
. . . 2. Deuterium, tritium
. . . 3. Exotics
. . . 4. Helium three
II. Other Natural Energy Sources
. A. The Sun
. . . 1. Direct sunlight
. B. Water Power
. . . 1. River dams
. . . 2. Tidal
. . . 3. Wave action
. C. Geothermal
. . . 1. Volcanic
. . . 2. Deep heat energy
D. Wind energy
III. Electric Power Plants
. A. Steam Turbine Power Plants
. . . 1. Coal-fired power plants
. . . 2. Natural gas fired power plants
. . . 3. Oil fired power plants
. . . 4. Nuclear power plants
. . . 5. Geothermal power plants
. B. Water or hydroelectric power
. . . 1. River dams
. . . 2. Tidal
. . . 3. Wave action
. C. Wind turbine power
. D. Gas turbine power plants
. E. Solar power
. . . 1. Solar photo voltaic power cells
. . . 2. Radiant heat energy
. . . 3. Focused radiant heat energy
IV. The Distribution of Energy
. A. Electricity
. . . 1. The Grid, Transmission Network
. . . 2. Batteries
. B. Liquid fuels
. . . 1. Fuels liquid at normal temperatures
. . . 2. LP gas (liquified petroleum)
. . . 3. LNG (liquid natural gas)
. C. Hydrogen
V. Fuel-powered Systems and Devices
. A. Combustion-Based Systems.
. . . 1. Internal combustion engines
. . . . . a. Reciprocating spark ignition engines
. . . . . . . (1) A Special Case, LNG or Liquid Natural Gas
. . . . . b. Diesel engines
. . . . . c. Turbine engines
. . . . . . . (1) The turbojet engine
. . . . . . . (2) The turboprop engine
. . . . . . . (3) The turbofan engine
. . . . . . . (4) The Micro turbine engine
. . . 2. Steam engines
. . . a. Reciprocating steam engines
. . . b. Steam turbines
. . . 3. Stirling engines
. B. Non combustion-powered Systems
. . . 1. Nuclear Fission Reactors
. . . 2. Nuclear fusion
. . . 3. Fuel cells
. . . 4. Batteries
. . . . . a. Lead-acid batteries
. . . . . b. The Firefly battery
. . . . . c. Zinc-Carbon batteries
. . . . . d. Alkaline batteries
. . . . . e. NiCad, or nickel-cadmium batteries
. . . . . f. Nickel metal hydride batteries (NiMH)
. . . . . g. The lithium-ion battery
. . . . . h. Nickel-ferrous batteries
. C. Hybrid and combination systems
. . . 1. Diesel/electric combinations
. . . 2. Dual-electric buses
. . . 3. Gasoline/electric combinations
. . . 4. Gas micro turbine/electric
. . . 5. Nuclear/steam turbine power plants
. . . 6. The hydrogen fuel cell vehicle
VI. New Hybrid and Other Vehicles Now Available or Soon to Be on the Market
. A. Hybrid Vehicles
. . . List of Hybrid Cars
. B. PHEVs or Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles
VII. Non Fuel-powered Systems and Devices
. A. EVs, or Pure Electric Vehicles
. B. Battery powered small vehicles and tools
. C. There are a few other non fuel powered vehicles
. . . 1. All electric trolleys
. . . 2. Inertia powered buses
. . . 3. Air-powered vehicles
. D. Where does all this energy originate?
VIII. Fuel Pricing and Other Factors
IX. A bit of Speculation
X. Putting it all together
XI. Wish List Things We Wish Were Available Now
. A. A PHEV or EV conversion for existing vehicles
. B. Another item on the wish list is geothermal energy
. C. Then there is butanol
XII. Conclusions and Predictions
Final Warning.
Author recommended books
Bibliography
Internet references and links
Endnotes
Appendix
American imagination, ingenuity and determination are still alive and well. (From the Internet)
President Bush's remarks about energy in his 2006 State of the Union Address
Hydrogen Vehicle Won't Be Viable Soon, Study Says
National Fuel Cell Research Center at UC Irvine to test new, efficient and clean power technology Excerpt
An Investigation of the Feasibility of Coal-based Methanol for Application in Transportation Fuel Cell Systems
GM Volt Concept Car Press Release
Tesla roadster, From EP to VP Excerpt
Phoenix Motorcars Exhibits All-Electric Mid-Sidetrack
Japan to set up Public/Private EV Program Firefly battery: A radically new lead-acid battery
New Information on the Firefly battery, now available
Chinese battery firm rolls out hybrid car
Power Technology - Douglas Battery Relationship
Back from the Dead: The Future of EV powered Cars Excerpt
The Electric Vehicles of Today and Tomorrow Excerpt
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, a Niche Market
Nickel-metal Hydride Batteries, Why are they not being used?
Chevy Sequel: GM Press Release excerpt
Is GM putting too much on batteries?
Altair
A123Systems Receives $40 Million Investment to Expand Manufacturing of Plug-In Hybrid Batteries Excerpt
Why
The Nano Technology Revolution, Dan Linstedt
Buckypaper, new nano technology development with promise
Ex-Environmental Leaders Tout Nuclear Energy Excerpt
U.S. Nuclear Industry PR Campaign, by J. R. Pegg Excerpt
New process generates hydrogen from aluminum alloy
Engineers develop higher-energy liquid fuel from sugar
Ultracapacitors, the Dark Horse in the Race to Power Hybrid Cars Excerpt
Ethanol May not be Good for the Environment Excerpt
GM announce new batteries for Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid Excerpt
Some information and Web sites about Electric vehicles
Table - Comparisons of Tesla EV with the Bentley Arnage T
Table - Comparison of the ACP eBox with the Toyota Prius
Table - Comparison of the Phoenix SUED with Toyota 4Dr Pickup
Phoenix SUED specifications and information
INDEX
* * * * * * * * * *
DEDICATION
It is with great humility I express here my gratitude to all of my family and friends who have endured hearing and reading my technical rumblings about the energy crisis and what should be done about it. They have been tolerant of my passion, my “techno speak,” and numerous essays on the subject that they have been asked to read and critique. Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, Bobbie and Bob Grimm, for their considerable emotional and financial support of this effort. Without that support, this book would not exist. I especially appreciate and treasure the memory of my late wife, Barbara, who was my editor, proofreader, counselor, and constant support during much of the early time spent on this book even to her last days. Much of her effort is reflected in these pages. She is surely cheering the publication of this work from on high. Thanks also to Daphne Fox whose help and support have been invaluable for the last years of my writing. Last, but not least, many thanks to a really great friend, John O'Renick, who sent me an invaluable critique of an earlier manuscript. His excellent critique enabled me to put this much improved version together.
PREFACE
Nearly ten years ago I started writing a book titled simply, SOLUTIONS! In it I proposed practical solutions to many of the knotty problems facing our nation and even the world. I developed solutions to many serious problems like drugs, the environment, tax systems, and national security, I described various practical solutions, making each a chapter in the book. Among the many problems I looked at was energy and fuel systems. In 2003 as I was working on this I heard a gentleman being interviewed on the Diane Rheem show on NPR talking about the great promise of the hydrogen fuel cell. He explained with great enthusiasm how it was going to revolutionize the transportation industry with vehicles that only exhausted pure water. It sounded quite promising to one who had worked and done research in the petroleum and energy industries for much of the previous fifty years.
I went on the Internet, found his website and emailed him that I was interested and asked him to provide access to more information about this new technology. I received an instant reply thanking me for my interest and providing me with a list of references, articles, and books on the subject, many he had written. I also began looking into the realities of the entire system of which the vehicle and its source of power are but a small part. By the time I had discovered what the whole system would entail: the raw materials, manufacturing processes, distribution, storage, and dispensing of hydrogen, the infrastructure required for such an undertaking, and the new technologies needed to create all these interacting systems, it looked to be more than a daunting task. It looked prohibitively expensive. When I emailed him asking about infrastructure costs, he referred me to another member of his “staff.” Several unanswered emails later, I received a notice from “his assistant” informing me that the staff member I had emailed had left for other employment, for greener pastures I presumed, and that I would soon be hearing from another. Months passed during which time I repeatedly emailed his office without any response. A few months later I received a failure notice from Yahoo. His email was no longer active. So much for th touted “expert”on the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Perhaps his government grant ran out and was not renewed.
My curiosity was piqued, my interest was heightened, and I noticed growing public concerns about energy and the environment. I began researching energy, energy systems, fuels, transport, and all the other parts of the complex interactive systems that comprise energy. Added to what I had learned from my education and years of experience, it became a fascinating store of information—practical data about systems from past, present, and future. This information has been cataloged in this book, A Convenient Solution, along with my opinions about the forces that will control how we deal with the problems, the motives of those making important decisions, and the technologies involved. I’m certain there is much I have missed and much waiting in the wings to be discovered and touted by those who do such things. That’s how it is with virtually every item of science and technology. By the time information is published it has been changed or replaced by a new discovery, system, or use of technology.
Unfortunately, politics and politicians will have a great deal to say about where we go with energy, which systems get “approved” and funded, and which are discarded. Unfortunate because much of this will be decided by people who haven’t a clue as to the real actions, values, or cautions required by any energy system. Their decisions will almost certainly be decided by those that provide them—the “governmentalists” (my apolitical term with obvious meaning)—those with the most power and/or money in response to their almost pure emotional appeal. Politics has so invaded many of our institutions (education, unions, entertainment, the media, and many professions) and is so controlling that little can be accomplished without political clout. No one can accuse any politician of providing an honest, forthright, non emotional proposal on anything. In fact, to even question some of their pronouncements—to ask for answers to rational questions and concerns—is to invite public ridicule at the hands of politicians and celebrities including the main stream media. The public’s growing worship and adoration of celebrity dooms us to succumb to the charms of charlatans who promise the moon while lining their pockets and empowering themselves. The ancient worship of “royalty” is not dead, it is merely substituting a new set of “royals” so enamored of the media celebrity worshipers.
To question or dismiss political correctness is to invite ridicule, insult, humiliation, dismissal, or worse. Just ask anyone who has come out in public questioning the accuracy of the current “global warming” phenomena. Respected scientists who have not joined the ranks of loyal supporters of catastrophic human caused global warming are challenged at every turn, not with facts and logic, but with highly emotional reactions. Countless members of this group including myself, concerned about scientific accuracy and credibility, would like open debate on the facts and predictions. They are insulted and ridiculed as ignorant and il informed just because they are questioning. One climate scientist of note, who describes the global warming movement as a scam, has challenged Al Gore or any other proponent of the theory to a public debate on the subject. It will never happen. The political force behind HCGW (Human Caused Global Warming) is far too powerful worldwide to allow open debate. Motivated by the promise of huge carbon taxes and massive controls over industry, politicians the world over are behind this mass movement.
Peter Abelard described what should be done when he said,
“By doubting we are led to inquire; by inquiring we perceive the truth.”
HGCW fanatics shun inquiry because they fear the truth will derail their gravy train. If you doubt this just see if there are any studies questioning HCGW being funded at any University or government agency. I couldn’t find any. In contrast, there are few universities that have not funded numerous studies about the dangers of HCGW, and government studies abound, here and abroad. If all of these vocal proponents of HCGW are so certain they are correct, why do they refuse to publically debate any opposition? Those they so oppose and ridicule, merely question the scientific accuracy of HCGW. They Correctly point out there are many scientifically accepted causes for global temperature fluctuations that can be shown to be much larger factors than human insertion of CO2 into the atmosphere. Those who question say they doubt HCGW is as dangerous or challenging as it is said to be and want to debate with accurate scientific comparisons and known factors. It seems to me that those with reluctance to engage in open debate are admitting that their position is weak or nonexistent.
This is but one example of the prejudicial power of celebrity and politics to influence and control groups like the scientific community. Have we indeed reached the point where celebrity and emotion trump facts and logic? If so, this will certainly affect and maybe even control any of the new technologies and systems described in this book. It is my hope that independent American entrepreneurs will overcome the forces of this juggernaught and develop effective new technologies and systems so efficient, powerful, economical, appealing, and yes, profitable, that the public will adopt them and make them successful. Hopefully they can do this before some idiotic zealot cashiers them over some new environmental, social justice, or human rights fantasy wielded with a machete where a scalpel would be more properly used.
I have a few friends and even some among my family who are so imprisoned by far out ideology that they will not read, listen to, consider, or even discuss anything that is not within the confines of their “box” of accepted values or actions. I have even been ordered not to send or try to discuss any of my opinions that even question their positions on anything. It is interesting to note that I have been described as an extreme liberal by some of my conservative friends and as a right-wing fanatic by some of my more liberal friends and family. These otherwise fairly normal folks are true fundamentalists of both the extreme left and extreme right, some political, some religious. They readily express hatred toward those who disagree with their “holy” positions in any way. I truly feel sorry for the bitterness they must feel to be so adamantly against things they hardly understand, most of which opinions are fostered by leaders of groups or mass movements they belong to, or follow.
Eric Hoffer described these people many years ago:
“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.“
Though politics is a major player, the purpose of this book is not political. It is to provide information and encouragement for thinkers, doers, and movers and shakers—those that “make things happen.”. The numerous energy systems described include those used for several hundred years, those just discovered and in their infancy, and even those long known but grossly underutilized.. Many of these will fall into disuse or be kept merely for historical or sentimental usage. It is my hope that even those from the far left or right can shelve their powerful prejudices and take a pragmatic view of the very real and useable systems proposed in this book. Success in solving or even improving the energy systems would greatly enhance the economic, environmental, social, and human factors in our nation and even the rest of the world. Our position in the world and the respect of people everywhere would surely follow.
America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.
Arnold Toynbee
Introduction
This book is about energy, energy systems, energy use, fuels, and fuel use. It describes some history of energy and fuels, their sources, practicality, and uses. It also describes many new and revolutionary materials and systems that could be solutions to the current energy crisis. The best combination of the solutions described could solve our energy crisis in just a few years, a decade at most. The real problem is in enacting these solutions. Implementation will be dependent on varied systems of interacting disciplines, companies, researchers, investors, and governments.
Author’s comments about the many forces
that will shape our energy systems
that will shape our energy systems
Energy, fuels, and all their associated products and services make for some extremely complex and interacting systems on a huge scale. This rapidly changing, worldwide set of systems are affected by a broad range of factors and circumstances. Some of the major ones include:
1. The state of the world's economy
2. Supply/demand balance
3. World prices of crude oil
4. The politics of the nations and organizations that produce and sell crude oil
5. The politics and power of the oil importing nations.
6. Supposed global warming and its effects on policy and markets
7. The “global warming” movement and the power it wields
8. Profitability of alternate fuels compared with petroleum products
9. Profitability of various energy use systems
10. Profitability of various energy generating systems
11. Government involvement at many levels
12. Private investment
13. Public and private research efforts
14. The news media and even the world of entertainment
There are certainly many more, but to try to list them all would be foolish and counterproductive. Suffice to say that there are enough interacting variables to tax even the expert operators of the most sophisticated super computers. What this mean is that significant changes in any of these factors can affect a number of the others and not always in predictable ways.
Changes in the world economy
The recent mortgage banking meltdown is just one example of how inscrutable each of these factors of change can be. It also shows just how much damage political manipulation of economic conditions can bring about. Apparently, a group of self-serving political appointees replaced sound banking practices with politically expedient actions and “cooked the books” of two huge government mortgage companies to hide the results. Couple that with the application of government pressures on mortgage bankers and finally the bubble burst. This was the straw that broke the back of the much abused mortgage system. Suddenly, billions of dollars of equity disappeared, almost overnight. As a result, the government's two mortgage companies collapsed bringing down with them several major mortgage banks. The ripple effect triggered the collapse of several other giant financial institutions before expanding into the general economy.
Take the negative effect on the economy of months of $4+ per gallon gasoline, the resulting destructive effect on America’s big three auto makers, and the constant harping on the “terrible economy” by politicians and the media. Adding these caused economic conditions to take an immediate downturn. The change in demand drove the price of oil below fifty dollars a barrel for the first time since 2004. This has resulted in the pump price of gasoline dropping as low as $1.70 per gallon in some places. At about the same time demand for many things ground to a halt as mortgage foreclosures skyrocketed, people stopped buying, jobs disappeared, and unemployment rose. With American retail sales dropping catastrophically, those nations that have been supplying America with consumer goods are suddenly in a slump. The resulting drop in demand for petroleum products in those nations further precipitated the slump in petroleum prices. This resulted in a substantial drop in orders for expensive goodies for the oil sheiks. The snowball effect on the world economy has stock markets plummeting all over the world. This in turn has depressed investment in business expansion which does not bode well for the future.
How does this effect the move toward alternative fuels? It's obvious that with gasoline less than $2 a gallon, the economic pressure to switch to alternative fuels has dropped substantially. Alternative fuels costing $2 and more per gallon that looked attractive when gas was $4 a gallon will encourage no investment now. It could be that the low price of petroleum products will call a halt to the development of alternative fuels. With the only incentive being the very questionable global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions, it is highly unlikely investors and entrepreneurs will look favorably at alternative fuels, at least for the present. For the same reason, drilling for oil in places like the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana will not look nearly as attractive for investment as it did when oil prices were higher. Already these facts have caused T. Boone Pickens to shelve plans for a huge wind farm in Texas. His liquid natural gas project will continue as planned since the price of natural gas is dropping just like petroleum.
On the other hand, electric vehicles, batteries, and electric power generation will remain attractive if only for the very low cost per mile they will offer, even lower than petroleum fuels at the new lower prices. Add to this the long life and low maintenance cost associated with electric vehicles and this looks more like the best promise for the future. With new battery technology the heart of an electric vehicle system, and new types of electric power generation supplying the blood, these systems look to this writer to be by far the best bet for the future. Shrinkage of dollars available for investment in new products and systems occasioned by the economic downturn will certainly slow the development of needed products for an EV/PHEV-BASED economy.
Government Involvement
Government involvement can have a huge positive or negative effect on any development. Government meddling was at least complicit in generated the mortgage meltdown, and the resulting banking failures. Now they are getting into the auto business via the bail out route. This could throw up a sizeable barrier to new vehicle development by artificially sustaining some financially troubled auto companies with taxpayer dollars. Be reminded that the big three are only a part of the auto industry in this country. Chapter eleven bankruptcy would certainly enable them to regroup, retain their assets, and return to competitive viability. It has done so in many other industries like the airlines. Of course, one could argue that government interference and regulations brought about huge unplanned expenses of retooling and because of that perhaps the government could share some responsibility for the poor financial state they are in. This could justify at least some of the bail out money they are looking to obtain. Government uses money to bring about the changes they want that may or may not be good for the nation as a whole. All of this is completely free of economic pressures to be profitable.
Let's examine a scenario based on the success of EVs, PHEV.s and massive new electric generating capacity. Suppose that by 2018 we have nearly doubled our electric generating capacity and that nearly half of our vehicles are running on electric energy. At today's prices for electricity, private electric vehicles cost about 4¢ per mile and commercial trucks about 16¢ per mile. The associated drop in demand for petroleum fuels would result in about the same cost. The maintenance advantage of the electric vehicles over those fuel powered would be substantial, a major factor in corporate decisions about fleet purchases. Some of the side effects would be closing about half of our refineries and the related loss of jobs throughout the oil industry. Those workers would have to be retrained for new kinds of jobs. A major part of the automotive repair and parts industry would also disappear even as some switch over to maintenance of electric vehicles. Major disruptions would occur among suppliers and systems that support petroleum fuel systems. While the energy industries, and the repair and maintenance companies would certainly be American, the vehicle manufacture could go overseas, primarily to China and Japan unless they were persuaded economically to develop here.
One could go through each of the above numbered list of a dozen factors with any of the situations described and find differences and problems we would face because of the possibilities each could present. One quick look would provide a sense of the complexity of these problems.
In addition, any rapid response to these problem situations presupposes a major commitment by many people and some active cooperation between groups and organizations currently at each other's throats in angry verbal and political combat. Continuation of existing politically determined policies and activities will merely get us more of what has happened that has brought on this crisis. That includes, higher fuel prices, even higher food prices, and no new oil, oil alternatives, or energy sources, an economic catastrophe. Trillions of dollars will continue to bleed from our economy and into the coffers of the oil-rich nations, many of whom work for our destruction. Continuing to do the things that brought on these serious problems are guaranteed to get us more of the same. What we need is a radical new direction for our nation and a reversal of the policies that put us where we are. A large part of the world is presently going in the wrong direction. We should be leading in a new and better direction and not following.
Politicians and political forces
What is that wrong direction and what is this new and better direction? What I am about to say and propose could turn off many people including those who have the closed minds of the extreme left, the extreme right, or any other controlling ideology. It will do the same to those who are emotionally bound to any ideology, the non thinkers and the blind followers whose minds are so addled by passion they have few moments of rationality. These are the destroyers of the world, the angry permanent children who learn that destroying things of value gets them the attention and power they so desire without having to think, plan, or work very hard. From their ranks come the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, gang leaders, political hate mongers, and the angry mobs of the world. There is no reasoning with these individuals—no negotiation—no cooperation—no significant communication—certainly no peace in any sense of the word. They understand only power and destruction, anything that uses fear to control, sometimes even to the point of murder of innocents. To quote an American phrase, “it's their way or the highway.”
The author is hopeful readers will use this information about the extreme complexity of the interrelated issues and possible solutions outlined throughout this book. There will certainly be a chorus of practical answers along with many impractical ones. Let us hope we pick from among the most practical and effective.
Some information about the political challenges we face
John Stossel, consumer advocate and 20/20 reporter, explains that much of what we hear—and what the media say—are myths. In his book, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity subtitled, Get Out the Shovel Why Everything You Know Is Wrong, Stossel points out how politicians and activists use anecdotal evidence to prove the truth of concepts that are factually untrue and often downright harmful. Here is one of the nearly two-hundred common myths debunked in his book. This one is in the chapter about business.
* * * * * * * * * * *
MYTH: Government must make rules to protect us from business.
TRUTH: Competition protects us if government gets out of the way.
It took me a long time to learn that regulations can't protect consumers better than open competition. After all, I worked in newsrooms where “consumer victimization” was a religion and government its messiah. But after fifteen years of watching government regulators make problems worse, I came to understand that we didn't need a battalion of bureaucrats and parasitic lawyers policing business. The competition in the market does that by itself. Word gets out. Angry customers complain to their family and friends; consumer reporters like me blow the whistle on inferior products and shoddy services. Companies with bad reputations lose customers. In a free society, cheaters don't thrive. (At least in business.)
Once I learned more about economics, I saw how foolish I had been. Government uses force to achieve its ends. If you choose not to do what government dictates, men with guns can put you in jail. (And clever lawyers remove gobs of money from you to get you out.) Business, by contrast, cannot use force, no matter how big they are. So all business transactions are voluntary—no trade is made unless both parties think they benefit. In 1776, economist Adam Smith brilliantly realized that the businessman's self-centered motivation gets strangers to cooperate in producing a multitude of good things: “He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Few of us appreciate the power of that invisible hand. I don't give my pencil a second thought, and yet I could spend years trying to produce one without turning out anything as good as the worst pencil available.
He goes on quoting an essay “I, Pencil” by Leonard Read of the Foundation for Economic Education. The essay describes the people equipment and organizations actively involved in gathering the components of the pencil from all over the world. This includes many items: the machines and workers who combine those components, the machines and workers who make those machines, the trucks and ships that carry the raw materiels and finished product around the globe, and the systems that distribute the pencils to the end users. It's an amazing and enlightening bit of prose. I highly recommend reading Stossel's book. It will provide an instructive background for much of the information contained in these pages.
Sadly, politicians will have a great deal to say about what we do and how we address the growing problems involving energy and the associated economic problems. They have little understanding of energy problems and solutions, or the invention, development and manufacture of fuels and energy systems thus are poor judges of what might and might not work out. The reason for the political emphasis in these first sections is to discuss the problems facing any new technology and business entity that must run the political gauntlet.
At this point I respectfully suggest that if yours is the closed mind of the political ideologue and you are offended by any comments that disagree with your beliefs and agenda that you skip the next few chapters and go directly to “What this Book is Really About.” I am a believer in American free enterprise capitalism and a rational, logical approach to solving problems. The pages that follow are based on that belief and could color the opinions of readers who do not share my views. Most of the content that follows these pages is non political and should be of interest to all points of view.
Politics is a totally emotional game with virtually no rational component. Many politicians are totally engrossed in ideology and are without any practical ideas or effort that does not support their ideology. They are far more likely to propose and vote for those things that promote their agenda or benefit their backers and constituents rather than practical or creative proposals that address the problems. Entrepreneurs and their investors will be the ones who will solve these problems if government just gets out of the way.
For example: Haliburton, much abused by the left and the media, and a lightning rod for their anger and condemnation, has a proven record of excellence. They completed their independent contracts to deliver goods and services in Iraq for less than half the cost of the same things supplied by agencies of government. This is just one more instance that proves private enterprise always beats government in any productive effort, and pays taxes into the US treasury to boot. Perhaps their excellent performance, that makes the government look so bad in comparison, is the real reason those proponents of government over business—the socialists and the media—so hate and condemn them and other successful independent businesses.
It is my considered opinion and experience that most Americans can rise above these unreasoning passions if given the opportunity to open their minds, to think and reason. I am a sincere believer in the basic goodness of most Americans. I have seen a great deal of evidence in the outpouring of compassion accompanied by free giving of physical aid during times of catastrophe virtually anywhere in the world. This has often been twisted by those who envy and thus despise America. Recently, after a major natural disaster, one news service reported the US government had given far less in disaster relief funds than the governments of a number of smaller nations. The truth that was never mentioned was that the private, non government gifts from Americans dwarfed the private giving of the entire rest of the world. When added to the government's gifts the total was more than the next three or four nations total giving combined. That's just one example of how a hostile news service can twist the news and skirt the truth to serve their particular agenda.
Free, independent Americans are the ones who should find interest in this book, and for whom it is written. These are the open-minded thinkers and doers, workers and organizers, creators and builders, who made this country the greatest, most free and independent nation on Earth by their energy and hard work. I urge those who belong to this shrinking majority of real Americans to read with an open and objective mind. I'm sure many will find statements that run counter to long held personal beliefs, no matter where their political loyalties lie. When this happens, please read the entire section as objectively as possible and consider the logic of the arguments presented. The understanding gained will be surprising.
Many new and revolutionary materials and systems, and combinations of these are now available that could solve our energy crisis in just a few years, a decade at most. We must investigate these and bring the best through development into production and use. This will only happen to those that gain attention and favor in the eyes of the influential and then the public. The best will fall by the wayside if they don't gain this favor, no matter how excellent. Unfortunately, politicians, the media and entertainment people, who mostly have little understanding of energy problems and systems, could have a great deal to do with the choices made that will impact our immediate future considerably and our long range future drastically. Entrepreneurs will also have a big part, but only if their efforts are rewarded and they are not shackled by emotionally driven government regulations. The Background Section that follows deals with these realities in our nation as I see them.
It is my fondest hope and wish that within our nation we can find cooperation and respect between groups that now usually see each other as enemies, or sources of political power rather than fellow Americans trying to do something positive by building for a mutually advantageous future. The groups I speak of include: academia and their excellent researchers, private enterprises from individuals to the largest corporations, governments and government agencies, local and national, and all of the entertainment world including: the media, Hollywood, New York, and the world of sports. I realize this is a big order, particularly since the political wars have ratcheted up to fever pitch and emotions run high. The human energy and dollar expense consumed by these growing conflicts incited by angry rhetoric is enormous and terribly wasteful. Emotions and resentment for past real or imagined injustices are powerful and deeply held. Nevertheless, peaceful cooperation and a little understanding and tolerance along with some give and take can work wonders.
Ireland, doing something right for a change
We have a very good example of what can happen when warring factions lower their weapons, tone down their rhetoric and do just that. Ireland fifty years ago was virtually a third world nation with much internal strife. Today it is the most rapidly expanding economy in Europe and has so many good jobs it must import workers to man its manufacturing plants. More about Ireland's fantastic rise is described in the body of this book. The gist of it is Ireland did what I suggested as my fondest wish for America in the previous paragraph. Mostly, the Irish changed their attitudes, a lot. Someone once said, “Attitude is everything.” Another old saying is “you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Simply stated, Ireland did just that. Intelligent actions based in these types of positive concepts had a great deal to do with Ireland's meteoric rise. Their people mostly changed their attitude about business and industry, big time. They changed from anti business to pro business in government, in their media, and among their people. They lowered business taxes and removed burdensome controls and restrictions, those that didn't work or were a source of political payoffs. As a result, businesses prospered and grew, investment money poured in, much of it from the US, and their economy took off like a skyrocket. We should learn from their success. What we need now is a lot more honey and a lot less vinegar used among politicians, government, the media, business, and even the public. The rapidly expanding economies of not only Ireland, but China, India, and many other smaller nations give testimony to the power of a friendly attitude toward business, toward profits, toward investors, toward capitalism, and toward workers.
Growing rancor of political campaigning is one example of the power of inciting hatred to sway voters. The preponderance of personal attacks over substantive proposals shows how much easier it is to tear down a political opponent than to build one's own stature and make serious proposals. Negative campaigning is easy and especially effective in the age of the “sound bite.” Like war, it is easy. All you have to do in war is break things and kill people. Any idiot can do that with little training. In political campaigns it is pure emotion that drives voters. Serious proposals, even solutions for all-important problems, rarely get the media play and public attention that hate-filled rhetoric prompts.
For similar reasons, it takes far less skill or organization to demolish a home or even the World Trade Center than it does to conceive, design, and build the same thing. Conflict is easy. Cooperation and creative building are far more demanding, require careful consideration, dedication, creative effort and hard work. They are infinitely more rewarding. This is what we sorely need right now.
Often attributed to Lincoln in error are these words penned by William J. H. Boetcker, in 1916.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Yet are those not precisely the short lived, instant gratifications politicians and media personalities regularly wield against those they oppose for any reason?
Often attributed to Lincoln in error are these words penned by William J. H. Boetcker, in 1916.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Yet are those not precisely the short lived, instant gratifications politicians and media personalities regularly wield against those they oppose for any reason?
A prediction of where we seem to be headed comes from far back in history. When the 13 colonies were still part of England, Professor Alexander Tyler, a Scottish historian, wrote about the fall of the Athenian democracy over 2000 years earlier.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates promising them the most money from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.
These are the real malignancies we must overcome if we are to solve the rapidly growing problems facing not just the US, but the entire world.
It's about time members of groups that constantly denigrate and condemn others out of class or economic envy began to honor and respect the achievements and rewards of those others. I see it as important that we recognize the realities of our situation and the real reasons we are where we are. There has been enough of this huge and debilitating blame game and all of its political distortions and emotional hate-filled activities. We have been engaged in terrible inner political warfare while our enemies stand on the sidelines urging on the various sides and gleefully watching our self destruction.
Many links to blogs and web sites are included in this book. This information is far too voluminous to include in the book. It is information that anyone can access using the Internet. A single powerful caveat exists about Internet information. Many charlatans lurk well hidden behind attractive facades on the Internet. Even a cursory examination will reveal there are magic, energy out of nothing, and secret smoke and mirror articles readily available. Many of these are driven by hidden agendas. Every searcher must be certain any information comes from a reliable source and really is from that source. All information must be checked and confirmed from other reliable sources.
The following section deals with this political and communications problem in greater detail. This is the background of where we are, why we are there and what we must do to go forward. It has little to do directly with energy and fuels, but everything to do with what we must overcome in order to counter this growing menace before it destroys us.
Background Section
Why any Changes in the Fuel/Energy Industry
Will be so Difficult and costly to Accomplish
Why we are where we are with regards to petroleum
As much as we would like to have one, there is no quick fix to our dependence on increasingly expensive petroleum. It will take years of expensive research and development to find and develop the best energy systems and fuel replacements for gasoline and diesel in enough quantity and at a competitive price. In the interim, existing fuels will have to suffice. Consider the following:
1. The world demand for petroleum fuels is growing rapidly with no end in sight. China leads the rapidly developing world in growing that demand and will surpass the US in oil consumption in 2008. This is driving the market price of petroleum higher worldwide. World production of crude has begun to slow as existing oil fields are becoming depleted and production is slowing. New oil fields are harder and harder to find and many known fields are too expensive to tap even at today's high prices. No American oil company can do a thing about that.
. . a. The three largest oil fields under production in the world are past their prime and production is declining and getting more costly. These three include, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Mexico. All things being equal, this alone would cause the price of crude to rise.
. . b. Control of 94% of the world's crude oil production is in the hands of foreign oil companies. Many of them are state-owned monopolies. Most of these state owned oil companies have used their oil as a cash cow for the government and have not set aside cash reserves to search for new oil to replace their dwindling resources.
. . . . (1) Pemex, the Mexican state owned oil company needed to explore for new oil to replace the rapidly diminishing Cantarel oil field. Since they had squandered all of their oil profits on handouts and civil projects, they didn't have the estimated 18 billion dollars to commit for the needed exploration. When the government proposed an investment that would have included private participation in Pemex, a partial privatization, leftist activists raised huge demonstrations and riots against it so the plan had to be scrapped. This clearly shows how short-sighted, ignorant and self serving those on the left are, even to their own detriment. Faced with the slow deterioration of their only real cash cow, the government of Mexico has done nothing. They can only obtain the eighteen billion required by increased taxation. This will further damage an already declining economy. Maybe Mexico should lower taxes like the Irish did and thus increase revenue.
2. America has a virtual sea of oil within its borders and around its shores. Thanks to what I believe to be misdirected effort to influence elected officials by some overzealous environmentalists, the most accessible of our known oil fields are off limits to American oil companies. Others are so expensive to drill into that they will never be a significant source. Some of those offshore oil fields are now being tapped by the Chinese who do not have the relatively accident-free record of our drillers. They are not controlled by the high level of safety and environmental regulations as are our drillers.
. . a. Drilling horizontally, the Chinese can access oil fields just a few miles from our coast. These same fields could have been pumped by American oil companies using American labor, generating American profits and paying taxes to the American governments and maybe lowering our pump price of fuel. So much for the wisdom of our politicians.
. . b. A blowout of one of their wells or a major leak in one of their pumping stations could seriously damage our Gulf Coast. We would have no control over such a tragedy. So much for the wisdom of members of Congress.
. . c. The herds of Caribou we are trying to protect by preventing drilling in ANWR based on the theory our activities would affect them negatively are now helped by the heat of the very same kind of oil pipelines already in place. The Caribou huddle near these heated lines in extremely frigid weather for survival. So much for the claim of harm to the caribou herd. Incidently the Caribou herd has increased dramatically since the oil fields and pipeline were built.
. . d. American oil companies have become expert at drilling undersea without incident or spill. The many drilling rigs damaged by hurricane Katrina did not spill a drop of oil into the Gulf. OK, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but no blowouts or significant spills occurred, even in the face of those devastating hurricanes. Is there any good reason they should be prevented from drilling all around our seacoasts?
. . e. The largest known oilfield in the world is under most of North Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan in Canada. This field known as the Bakken formation in the Williston basin has been known since the 1950s. Drilling for and recovery of this oil is quite expensive. Drilling is estimated to cost 15 to 30 dollars a barrel. Therefore, using the field was just not cost effective when crude was between 10 and 20 dollars per barrel. Now, with the price going through the roof, this oil is becoming more attractive. It is estimated it will take the investment of billions of dollars to bring this field into full production and even that will take several years. Realistically, we may be able to extract only a tiny portion of the “sweet” crude oil contained in this field because getting it is so difficult and expensive. Out of the 400 billion barrels some estimate is contained in the formation, a mere one to one and a half billion appear to be extractible economically by current technology. I only explain about this to show just how difficult it is becoming to find new viable sources for crude oil. For more information on this potential source of crude, go to Internet site:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/features/ngshock.pdf
. . f. So, for the time being and to get us over the rising costs of petroleum and petroleum products until we have viable alternatives, I join the chorus saying, “Drill here! Drill now! Save money!” That means environmentally safe drilling on the North Slope including ANWR, the continental shelves, the Gulf of Mexico and anywhere else we can find domestic sources of oil. If we don't, our economy could soon be destroyed by fuel prices going sky high as many billions leave our economy and build the wealth of despots who hate us and vow our destruction. One prominent North Dakota state official put it this way, “We are working hand-in-hand with members of the oil industry to turn the potential of the Bakken field into reality. We find them knowledgeable, cooperative and hard working. They are providing good jobs and economic growth for our state while demonstrating genuine concerns for the environment. They are indeed friendly partners in our state's economic growth rather than the evil ‘Big Oil’ as painted by others.” That certainly is a far more realistic policy than the animosity toward business and Big Oil expressed by the media and Washington elite.
3. Business and in particular, Big Oil, is getting a bad rap from some politicians and the media, as usual. Oil executives who make a great deal of money were demonized by several Senators during a recent Congressional investigation into high fuel prices. When asked to explain his multimillion dollar compensation, one executive pointed out that business executives competed for jobs just like other workers. His salary was in line with other executive salaries with similar responsibilities and was not nearly as high as some sports figures or entertainers. Also, his company's profits, 11%, were not nearly as large a percentage of sales as Microsoft, 34.24%, Apple, 18%, or Pfizer, 17%, for example. I wonder why the Senate never investigates or condemns the millions paid to sports figures, rock stars, or other entertainers. Why not accuse them of “gouging” the public?
. . a. Think about it! The price of fuel at the pump is but a single example of how real world events have a major effect on the wealth of our nation as a whole. These events impact our living standards, our environment, and our physical and emotional health. Business is getting a bad rap from the other groups mainly because business is a tempting target for attacks motivated by class envy. One Democrat Senator made the revealing comment, “Democrats love employees, but hate employers.” The phrase, “Everybody hates the boss,” is the result of constantly inflamed employee/employer battles. This helps take public attention away from the mischief happening within the political arenas and the ill-informed public lap it up eagerly. Make no mistake, cheats and scoundrels are found in all groups including businesses, governments, academia, labor unions, and others. Some members of these same groups are also afflicted with nepotism, favoritism, immorality, discrimination, and self service. None are immune to these human frailties. In my opinion, the financial competition in American business will eventually weed out those with negative effects on profitability or their companies will go broke. Add the intense scrutiny of government and the media to the financial operation and business must spend a great deal of effort just to keep their record clean. Many succeed and for very long periods of time.
. . b. I wonder if the fortunes amassed by so many in Congress or the other branches of government could stand up to the kind of scrutiny afforded business executives. An examination of the finances of all politician and government officials that moved from relatively modest economic condition to extreme wealth after a few years in office could be very enlightening. I'll wager a great deal more of this kind of mischief is going on in political and other endeavors than in business. That's because business is held to account by the need for profit and financial integrity just to survive while politicians and other groups have no such limits. Politicians can buy votes with government money and rarely get called on it. The “Robber Barons” of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century have left the business world and now sit in the halls of congress and populate much of our federal bureaucracy.
. . c. So who and what is really to blame for high fuel prices? It's not Big Oil that prevents drilling in ANWR, along our coasts and virtually anywhere else in the sea of oil in and around our country. It's not Big Oil that threatens massive new taxes on fuel. It's not Big Oil that is raising petroleum consumption in China, India and elsewhere around the globe. If government really wanted to do something positive, they could rescind that part of the forty to seventy cents per gallon tax that does not go into repair and maintenance of our roads and highways. That is a whole lot more than the five or ten cents per gallon oil companies take as profit. Add the constant harangue of class envy against Big Oil in the media and from politicians and it is no wonder the public has little concept of who is really to blame. I am no big fan of oil companies, but they are definitely getting a bad rap that should be equally charged against the media, politicians and those opportunistic environmentalists. These self-serving activists are preventing us from drilling for the sea of oil in and around our nation and doing so just to serve their own political ambition and agenda. Still that would only be a short range solution to provide temporary relief until alternate fuels could be developed.
. . d. An effort on everyone's part to abolish or at least diminish this contrived animosity and lower taxes could go a long way to help solve this dangerous energy crisis. If this happens, it might begin to draw business that has moved overseas back home. The benefits, even to a less intrusive government, can be substantial. Ireland's tax revenue soared because government removed the ridiculous, make work regulations on business while at the same time taking a much smaller portion of the pie. As a result, the pie became so very much bigger. Which is the better choice, high taxes and a small pie or small taxes and a big pie? In other words, would 10% of $1,000 or 2% of $10,000 yield the better return? Investment capital, the lifeblood of any private or for profit enterprise, always flows to where the greatest returns can be made. There is nothing complex or emotional about that. It's axiomatic. It has been proven time and time again in this country by the effect of tax policy. Universally, when the capital gains tax is lowered, business booms (read that as more jobs for more people) and tax revenues increase because of it. The Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush tax cuts all resulted in increases in federal tax revenue while tax increases have almost always resulted in lowered tax revenues. If you were an investor would you move your money to the U.S. with a promised 40% to 50% corporate tax and a 39% capital gains tax or Ireland with a 12.5% corporate tax that includes capital gains? It's no wonder the stock market is plummeting. Investment money is fleeing our shores for better returns elsewhere. Professor Tyler was right in his predictions quoted earlier on page 12. Right now we're doing exactly what he foretold.
. . e. In the face of these facts and in spite what it means for our nation, the new administration and Congress promise a doubling of the capital gains tax and the removal of the Bush tax cuts. To add to our nation's problems they are proposing additional new taxes to pay for expensive federal programs and bureaucracy and add to our economic woes. These same people also prevent us from constructing needed new refineries, from building new nuclear and coal-fired power plants, and so are handing increasing billions of dollars to nations whose leaders hate us and vow our destruction. How anyone can propose such actions is beyond my understanding. Apparently, they want so badly to punish the American people for being successful they are willing to sacrifice job growth, tax revenue, and the economic health of the nation to do so. These proponents of economic disaster either are stupid as a log or have some sinister but hidden purpose. None of their proposals make rational sense. It is use of political power at its worse and promotion of class envy as a motivator. The result will be that everyone suffers and could ultimately lead to the economic destruction of our nation. Our enemies could hardly plan a better strategy. Some Personal Observations,
more Background
I would like to clear the air about my own thoughts and ideas, so the reason for this book and its contents are more clearly understood.
Knowing the mind set, beliefs and understandings of the author will help the reader to better understand the content of these pages. Make no mistake. I am an independent conservative believer in America and American capitalism. I know what the word “conserve” means, how to do it and its limitations. While reading this section, keep in mind that though much of this has little to do directly with solution to our growing energy crisis, it has a great deal to do with how we tackle the problem, which systems gain favor and are used, what we do about fuel and transportation during any transition, and how quickly we solve these problems if we do manage to solve them.
This section has mostly to deal with that premise. It examines many people, organizations and systems that will influence how we attack and hopefully solve the current energy crisis. This is done by explanation and by providing examples. This background has little to do directly with the subject matter of the book. It does have much to do with why it was written, why politics will have a great deal to do with the choices made, and why it will be so difficult to solve the energy crisis. Any solution must run the gamut of political prejudices, business hierarchies, public clamor, and the obvious biases of a media far more interested in celebrity, scandal, sensation, and their own political agenda than fact. Those able to gain or buy favor with the afore mentioned will obviously gain the most attention. The squeaky wheel is still the one that gets the grease.
It is my opinion that most humans are inherently decent creatures whose nature is to care for and respect at least some of their fellow humans. This ranks high among the reasons humans have been so very successful in survival and reproduction. Even among the groups of evil people I use in the horrible examples are doubtless some kind, thoughtful, well intentioned if naive individuals, usually well hidden. Sadly, others are unkind, devious and have evil intentions. We have all met both kinds, but mostly we deal with the infinite variations between those extremes.
I also want to make clear my feelings and opinions about political positions, parties, and the like. I support ideas and proposals that make sense to me and are congruous with my technical training and experience as well as my moral beliefs. I believe capitalism, even with all its highly criticized evils, to be far more conducive to the well being of the greatest percentage of the people than socialism or communism at their best. It is certainly far better than any kind of totalitarianism. I also believe the old saying, “That government governs best that governs least.”
There are many evils the left attributes to capitalism. I believe those evils are really faults of human nature and are present far more in the hierarchies of socialism than in the US under our form of capitalism. The actual dispersal of power is the reason. In socialist nations, the power to control and govern including the means of production and distribution is always in the hands of or under the control of a single group. With socialism there is little or no competition, no individual free enterprise ownership or involvement, and no incentive to excel, improve, or be efficient.
Actually, socialism is merely a modern version of the European feudalism of the middle ages, completes with lords and ladies—the politicians in power—and serfs—the common folk. Socialist governments, except those that are very small, always grow their bureaucracy to the point at which the productivity of the nation drops to low levels and the living standard of the common people suffers greatly. Sooner or later their despotic leaders recognize the power of the media to mold public opinion, take control of the media, silence dissent, and tell the people only what they choose to let them know. North Korea is an example of this in the extreme while Venezuela is rapidly going the same way.
Contrast the organization in socialist nations where a single group calls all the shots with the many thousands of stockholder owned companies we have in the US. Each company has its own independent board of directors, executives, and stockholders who vote and so control the actions and the futures of their companies. I can absolutely guarantee those stockholders have more to say about the operation of the company whose stock they own than the voters in any nation have to say about the operation of their government. Capitalism is the ultimate form of public ownership of the means of production and organized services. Socialism is the form of bureaucratic control of the means of production and organized services by a single, small group of politicians—the ultimate monopoly. The large number of independent and self actuating organizations in any American style capitalist nation spreads control over a wide range of individuals and organizations. Certainly there are evils and scoundrels associated with our form of capitalism, but certainly no more than in our government. They pale in significance compared with those found in socialist monopolies.
Most socialist nations are formed out of nations previously under totalitarian control where an uprising overthrows a hated king, dictator, or corrupt government and takes over control of the government. This usually ends with a new totalitarian state with a single dictator. The old Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela are all perfect examples. Iran is an example of the Islamic fascist version of socialist dictatorship which acts much like a socialist government and controls virtually every Islamic nation. These governments are examples of what happens when any group or entity has a monopoly of power and is accountable only to itself. This eventually results in an economic collapse when the cost of maintaining the closed economy outruns the ability of the people to produce. It can also be the result when the source of natural wealth of raw materials dries up. The Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea have already passed through this phase. The Islamic dictatorships will face the same collapse when their oil runs out since they are not developing any other sources of wealth or wealth creation.
China, India and even Russia are three examples of socialist nations that have discovered the power, enthusiasm, and energy that come from even a modicum of capitalism. Each has responded differently. China has partially embraced capitalism with great enthusiasm and is continuing to privatize more and more of its considerable production capabilities. Their current leader, a scientist and engineer reportedly announced, “Profits are good! Business is good! Free enterprise is good! Capitalism is good!” That is surely a major unprecedented reversal of form and almost certainly unbelievable. Tom Friedman describes these amazing facts in his book, The World Is Flat. This all started years ago when Chinese officials realized that farmers cultivating their own tiny fields were out producing the huge collective farms by a large margin with more and higher quality produce and in their spare time. These tiny capitalist enterprises were far more productive than the state owned farms. This is almost universally true. Governments have almost never been able to do anything productive nearly as well as private enterprise, not as economically, not as efficiently, not as profitably, and government spends tax dollars while private business pays taxes.
In these now rapidly expanding economies, ownership has given their citizenry the incentive to work hard and care for the fruits of their labor. Having a “piece of the action” has been and will always be a powerful motivator to excel and produce high quality goods in the most efficient manner. No government entity can possibly compete with men who are free to use their own effort to provide for themselves and their families. They never have and never will. The burgeoning Chinese economy is evidence of the power of free enterprise capitalism, even in a totalitarian state. How this will play out politically in the future remains to be seen. Once the free enterprise genie is out of the bottle, it may be difficult if possible for the communist government to maintain their absolute control and stuff those freedoms back into that bottle. The heady experience of economic freedom and the resulting life style once tasted will be very hard to squelch peacefully.
Another major force that will be involved in the selection of America's new energy policy and the industries it influences, is our federal legislature. Special interests and their lobbyists, powerful individuals with huge fortunes, self-serving politicians, pork-barrel projects and earmarks all have far too much power in Washington and will have a major influence on where we go with energy. Members of the Washington in-crowd have developed using public funds to buy votes for incumbents into an art. The many blatant examples need not be mentioned here. They have become so normal they are ignored by the media.
Pork barrel projects and earmarks are the means politician's use to buy votes while sometimes lining their pockets at the expense of the public. They use your federal tax money to buy local votes from their constituents where the money will be spent to provide profits for favored businesses and trickle down to local jobs. Of course, the job's part is all they ever mention. They never talk about the profits made by contractors that are frequently relatives, or businesses they own, or the increases in value of property they own, or consulting fees or jobs with lobbyists for relatives. Those politicians who have been exposed are just the tip of the iceberg. Why are there so many nouveau riche in Congress? If that isn't because of well disguised political payoffs, I'm the next President of the United States.
Members of Congress from neither party hold a monopoly on these practices and frequently brag to their constituents about their actions. (Vote buying?) Naturally they are never called to account for their actions because all of them do it. Makes one wonder about the smaller fish that are never “caught with their hand in the cookie jar,” doesn't it? For whatever reason, public figures seem able to get away with far more evil without complaint than private individuals in business. Unfortunately, these self-serving politicians will certainly impact the outcome of any effort at new energy.
Recently I visited Ketchikan Alaska, the site of the proposed and now famous bridge to nowhere. This bridge across the sound would have linked the small town of Ketchikan with a large, sparsely populated island. It would have cost US taxpayers about six million dollars for each resident of the island.
On October 20, 2005 the Heritage foundation wrote, “Dubbed the Bridge to Nowhere, the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million.”
I learned from some residents of Ketchikan the true purpose of the bridge that the media neglected to mention. The city has expanded along the coast to the point where land suitable for homes and businesses is becoming more scarce and so more expensive. People are now building twenty and even thirty miles from the town along the coast. Mountains prevent expansion away from the shore so the town is growing long and narrow. A quarter of a mile from downtown Ketchikan, across the deep, narrow passage is an island that has a great expanse of land suitable for development. Completion of the proposed bridge would open up that land to development and make it worth many times its present value. I wonder who owns that land and pushed for a bridge that would make them a huge fortune paid for by the US public and not cost the land owners a cent.
Latest rumor is that private interests together with the State of Alaska will fund the bridge and cover that funding with a tax on profits of any land sales on the island. The island land owners are furious.
These are examples of the epidemic of abuses involving the use of public funds by our elected officials that has reached ominous proportions, a seemingly unstoppable bureaucratic juggernaut. The latest farm bill is another example. At a time when the price and profits from grain used in the expanding manufacture of alternate fuels is rising precipitously, to subsidize farmers to the extent this bill does is ridiculous if not immoral. Supposed to help the family farm, these subsidies go mostly to huge corporate farms who fund and control the farm lobby.
This will be another factor in determining just what fuels we use as alternates and the industries and systems required to supply and use those fuels. I wonder what route the money takes to reach the coffers of the politicians who approved that bill. I only mention these things because they are a reality any organization or person will face in any efforts to develop and market alternative fuels or energy systems.
That being said, I provide these words of warning. The media and many politicians are doing their best to make American oil companies, Exxon in particular, extreme villains for raising the price of gasoline at the pump. That is specifically because such commentary serves their agenda and removes the heat from their actions no matter how far it strays from the truth. Those who promote this idea either are completely ignorant of business and the oil business in particular or know they are lying sometimes just to shift the blame from themselves.
The stake of all American oil companies combined in the world petroleum business is a mere 6%. If they shut down all of the wells they control tomorrow and went out of the oil exploration and drilling business completely, oil producers from the Middle East, Venezuela, and even Russia could pick up the slack in a heartbeat. Saudi Arabian oil companies alone could probably deliver that amount and more. These are not publicly-owned companies. They are state-owned monopolies directly under control of their political leaders—socialism in action. Sometimes the profits go directly into the pockets of the rulers. This is the case in virtually every middle eastern oil producing nation as well as Nigeria, Venezuela, and even Russia. The largest oil company in the world is now PetroChina, a state owned company. These oil companies have infinitely more control over fuel prices than do American companies, yet our media and politicians continue to demonize our own oil companies and completely ignore those who do control the world's oil. I wonder why? This is not to say or even infer that some of our own oil companies don't play dirty for their own benefit.
What are the long range goals of these new world oil companies and the leaders of the oil rich nations? Whatever those goals are, certainly one of the most troubling results is the transfer of trillions of dollars from Western economies to the personal holdings or control of despotic leaders. Even the dimmest lightbulb among the American public could understand the menace of the growing mountain of debt now held by the Oil sheiks and their banks. Many are now suggesting that American oil companies are to blame. They can't get at the oil sheiks so they attack a convenient domestic entity because it suits their political agenda. Some are even suggesting the answer is for government to take over the oil companies. That would be one more step in the destruction of economic freedom in the United States.
Any government takeover of a business or industry would be a monumental disaster for that business or industry and for the nation. Once on that slippery slope, Marxists in our government would soon turn our marvelous, free, productive, diverse, and colorful nation into a dull, colorless imitation of the old Soviet union.
The fat little socialist dictator in Venezuela did just that in his nation. He used class hatred to inflame his people and bring down the ones who built the Venezuelan oil industry. He now personally controls this huge cash cow, after taking control of the infrastructure of several American oil companies who had invested hundreds of millions in the Venezuelan oil industry. Chavez told them to grant his government controlling interest in their installations or get out without compensation. Several oil companies have just walked away, choosing to do so rather than commit to helping Chavez. Meanwhile, Chavez is buying public support by selling gasoline for mere pennies per gallon to Venezuelans. It seems to work for him. Chavez recently shut down the only remaining voice of dissent in Venezuela. Since then he has installed a system of individuals spying on their neighbors. Should these neighborhood spies not report on their neighbors they will be imprisoned. It looks like Venezuela is going the same way as Cuba did fifty years ago. They may call it socialism, but it sounds more like Hitler's Germany to me.
Please keep all of that in mind while reading on about several ominous situations that are affecting our economy right now. These are situations that will seriously impact where we as a nation go with energy and fuels and how the choices we make will change our economy for better or worse. The size of the problem and the positive and negative economic changes our nation could face are enormous, even catastrophic. One wrong choice, one error in reaction could destroy us economically in a very short time.
We live in a society and culture of dichotomous differences even where there are many more than two positions. We are clearly divided into, male and female, young and old, child and adult, Democrat and Republican, even liberal and conservative. Then we are divided by race, culture, ethnicity, religion, politics, language and any number of physical, social, financial, ethical, professional, and emotional factors. Those who would control or influence us have developed sophisticated ways to use these divisive factors to set us in conflict with each other.
Virtually all questions and problems morph into pro and con arguments, yes versus no, right versus wrong, black versus white, etc. It has been asked, why is it we cultivate our few differences to divide us rather than use the vast number of things we have in common to unite us? Actually, the answer is quite simple and expressed in another, easily understood saying, there are those who know how to divide and conquer.
Divide and conquer has been the heart of modern politics as it has been in warfare from prehistoric times. Divisive hate speech, accusations and counter accusations, these are the heart of presidential campaigns and of most political contests. Political campaigns provide many emotional diatribes, very little substantive proposals or commentary, and almost no truth or facts. Certainly it is no-holds-barred combat.
Much of this is driven by mass movements, emotionally charged and driven movements with slogans, heroes, villains, and countless blind followers playing follow-the-follower. Even with the best of intent, mass movements usually become driven by hatred and almost always lead to major human disasters. This happens even when they succeed in their avowed purpose. Too frequently the movement takes on a life of its own, far from the original, even when there is lofty intent. Many examples of this exist along with many reasons why it is so. Eric Hoffer described the emotional followers of so many passionately driven mass movements many years ago.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
Freedom and an open, objective education are the enemies of those who command these mindless, purposeless forces. That is because those who are truly free know that freedom demands responsibility for one's own actions. Freedom must be taught. Even though it is among the most basic human animal instincts, it is frequently overwhelmed by conformity and peer pressure at an early age. Therefore it must be taught at those very early ages by parents and teachers who understand and value it. Another Eric Hoffer quote illustrates my meaning.
People unfit for freedom who cannot do much with it are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a have type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a have not type of self.
The enemies of freedom, those who hunger for power, are those who would impose their will, their values, their mores, their political system, their political correctness, even their religion including atheism: on everyone under their control. In many organizations and nations this imposition is made with force or even threat of death.
No matter how benevolent at the start, movements that follow these patterns ultimately turn violent and evil. The Christian church of the middle ages, the industrialists of the eighteenth century, the labor unions of the early twentieth century, the Nazis, even organized crime, the Mafia, and modern city gangs, are examples. Islamic fanatics have lead a devilishly cruel and deadly movement since coming on the scene in the seventh century. Certainly not all involved were evil men. It's just that the infatuation of force usually brings the “meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley” to the fore as the leader, and dead opponents never cause trouble. These leaders are not far removed from the “king” of a monkey troop who fights his way to that position over the mangled and dead bodies of those who oppose him. We humans, on the instinctive level, are not so far removed from our simian cousins.
The Communist revolution in Russia is a classic example. Started by a large group of idealist intellectuals, the Bolshevik revolution toppled a weak and intransigent royal government. Once that government was defeated, the idealists and intellectuals gave way to the vicious Stalin dictatorship. In the process, virtually all of these idealists and intellectuals were brutally murdered or thrown in Siberian prisons. Leon Trotsky was even tracked down to Mexico and murdered by Stalin's assassins. The “meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley” had indeed risen to be the monkey king of the Soviets.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834 1902) made the famous statement, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” The last part of his remark is rarely mentioned, but is certainly true. I wonder why this is so? Our American Constitution was written by men who knew first hand the evil power of oppressive, controlling government. That document was crafted carefully for the sole purpose of protecting free men from their government, even though it was a republic. Far from perfect, that document seems now to be under attack by those who would “modernize” it or change its meaning outside the methods outlined in that document. The desire of these favored few individuals is clearly to gain control over people, to force them to submit to their will. Like the Taliban, they seek to destroy any object or person that does not support their “sacred” way. Free Americans must be vigilant to keep these “favored few” from using the courts to reinterpret the Constitution to serve their own purpose.
Politics is strictly an emotional game and the most important factor for any American candidate to have now is celebrity and the support of the media. The entertainment-driven media thrives on celebrity. As a result, many Americans have come to value celebrity and image above all else. The public seems to value celebrity above honesty, character, ability, education, experience, even morality. These all take a back seat to celebrity in virtually every election. This is most unfortunate because celebrity and leadership ability rarely go together. Just because an individual can do the things that create their celebrity status like, make a stirring speech, do a magnificent job of acting, have a beautiful face or body, sing like an angel, or throw touchdown passes: these attributes do not make them wise or enable them to be a capable leader. Witness the large numbers of celebrities, usually from the entertainment world, who take up causes and speak out with apparent authority about things they know very little about.
Liberal socialist establishments, organizations, and leaders in the U. S. and probably throughout the world constantly seek power over our means of communication and entertainment. That's words, laughs and tears—mostly emotions and instincts. They also seek influential power over education at virtually all levels. They want to mold the thoughts, concepts and beliefs of children and young people to serve their particular agendas. The decimation of our education system and poorly equipped graduates gives testimony to the damage they and their policies have wrought on our once unexcelled education system. Other examples of the power of indoctrination over education on children and young people can be learned from the news or found in history books.
Most people my age learned about the Hitler youth movement as it was happening. We heard how young Germans were taught they were superior and that Jews were inferior. The German puppet masters then blamed all of the woes of the German people on Jews and created the holocaust. Certainly that is an over simplification of the reality, but it did happen almost that way. But of course, Hitler's Germans were pikers compared with the hordes of Islam.
Muslim beheadings and terrorism are nothing new. These emotionally driven fanatics have been committing those atrocities on any who would not convert to their faith since they first came on the scene in the seventh century. Madrassas in the Muslim world have taught millions of young people only from the Koran avoiding any other source. This has created countless angry followers who have been taught only hatred toward anyone who doesn't adhere to their beliefs. They learn from nothing else, from no other source. Only a privileged few, mostly the very wealthy and powerful, receive any other education at all. Is it any wonder then that Islam has had an extremely bloody history of conflict with and invasion of their neighbors?
Muslim invasion of India—Very few know that while the Muslims invaded Persia in 634, they invaded Sindh in India in 638, a gap of just four years. While Persia succumbed in seventeen years by 651, Muslims took seven hundred years to overrun India (today Sindh is a part of Muslim Pakistan that was carved out of Hindu India in 1947). And even after that they could not rule India in peace. Over the centuries, mobs of Muslims frequently attacked non Muslims and especially, Hindus, hacking them to death with knives. Victims included men, women, children, and the aged. They are continuing the same thing today as witness the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The only difference is now they attack with bombs and bullets (and civilian aircraft). When they acquire atomic weapons, they will not hesitate to use them.
Historians have written about “Islam's bloody borders” over many years. Charles Krauthammer said in an article titled, The Bloody Borders of Islam, published in the Tampa Tribune on Dec 6, 2002. “From Nigeria to Sudan to Pakistan to Indonesia to the Philippines, some of the worst, most hate-driven violence in the world today is perpetrated by Muslims and in the name of Islam.” The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www. freerepublic.com/focus/news/838321/posts.
The Hitler youth movement and Islamic Madrassas are just two examples of how indoctrination of the people can work to serve the purposes of the few puppet masters who control masses of blind followers. This ultimately results in the game of “follow the follower,” human lemmings willing to do virtually anything including sacrificing their miserable lives to serve the “cause” of their masters. These masters will do whatever it takes to keep their followers poor and ignorant and control them by offering up enemies that are made responsible for their misery. This includes encouragement to have many children to feed their armies of blind followers many of whom will gladly sacrifice their lives for their leader and against their enemies.
I only describe these horrors because, for the most part, these people are the ones who control the world's oil and whose despotic leaders are receiving the mountains of dollars being spent on petroleum by the rest of the world. They are the ones who will eventually rule the world unless we quickly develop the alternate fuels described in this book. Make no mistake. Their long range plan is for your grandchildren to be taught only from the Koran under threat of the scimitar. That is if your progeny manages to live through the take over. The growing cost of petroleum plays right into their plans as do the efforts of those who are preventing us from drilling for our own oil. The only way to stop them is to remove the bans on drilling in our domestic oilfields while feverishly working to develop alternative energy sources and fuels, and fast. This is an infinitely greater and impending menace than supposed global warming could ever be, even at its worse.
Currently, members of the new administration and Congress are announcing their plans to impose many more taxes and more government controls limiting our freedoms and controlling the actions of individuals. At this point in time the camel has his head is in the tent and is poised to move in bodily. Our freedoms are not disappearing suddenly, but in tiny virtually unnoticeable incursions like the camel sneaking into the tent. Many successful industries like drug and oil have been a target for hate speech and condemnation by Democrats left with their typical class envy tactics. While both industries show billions in profits, their actual profits expressed in percentage of sales or investment are quite modest compared with other industries, around 11% for oil (below average) and 17% for pharmaceuticals (above average). Why aren't those liberals in the media screaming at the “obscene” profits of Microsoft projected to be $19.34 billion or 34.24% profit for 2008?
Enemies of capitalism seem always to use dollars when they want to condemn major corporations and percentages otherwise. Does the public even have a grasp of how much a billion dollars is, or that billions in total profits may represent only an average return on investment? Or do they understand that those profits are usually reinvested as capital to provide new opportunities for American business and new and better jobs for Americans? Every dollar taken from those profits as taxes is a dollar that will not add to business development or payrolls. The people in Ireland have learned and embraced that understanding and it turned their nation into the most dynamic economy in Europe when just a few decades past they were virtually a third world nation.
Some politicians are bludgeoning the oil industry with class hatred saying that oil companies should be taxed to pay the federal fuel tax of eighteen cents per gallon to reduce the cost to consumers. Seeing that the oil companies net only about a nickel, or at most a dime a gallon on fuel and that governments combined tax is from forty to seventy cents per gallon, their claim and suggestions are preposterous. They carefully hide the government’s take of eight to fifteen times that profit to keep the public's focus off of the taxes. That is why it is government that really gouges motorists.
If the government takes over the oil companies, as one mindless representative suggested, or puts them out of business, who's going to pay to replace the billions in taxes provided to the government by those oil companies? Last year that was $28.5 billion paid by Exxon alone. This amount is almost exactly the amount the lower income half of American wage earners paid in income taxes. Think of it, one oil company, Exxon, is paying the same amount in income taxes as the entire lower half of American wage earners. Still, oil company profits have been around 11% of sales and 8% return on investment in recent years, a very modest percentage comparable to the average of other businesses.
Lawmakers have called for new “windfall profits” taxes similar to the one signed into federal law in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter that would tax the profits of major oil companies at a rate of 50 percent. If so, why limit it to oil companies? Why not tax all corporations at 50% or maybe 90%. That's one sure way to destroy America's strength and productivity. Does anyone remember the huge inflation and interest rates of 22% that Jimmy Carter's financial wisdom gained for the country during his presidency?
Who really pays the taxes? The truth of the matter is that very few members of the public understand the realities of any taxes. Every business, large or small, every professional, every taxable entity or organization—all workers—appear to pay taxes to many governments. But just who is it that actually pays these taxes? Corporations do not pay taxes. Businesses do not pay taxes. Professionals in their professions do not pay taxes. Organizations including those who are not-for-profit do not pay taxes. All of these “taxpayers” merely collect those taxes from customers or clients in the price of their products and services and then pass them onto the government just like the much more obvious sales tax. Even the so-called company paid portion of FICA taxes add to the cost of an employee and so are really taken from the employee.
What happens if lawmakers enact windfall profits tax at 50% of net profits? It's really quite simple. Every dollar increase in taxes will be met with a slightly larger total increase in fuel prices at the pump to make up for the increased cost of doing business. As with all business, this cost will be passed through to the consumer or end user. That would add as much as another nickel to the price of gas at the pump. So who is paying that excess profits tax? It's the ignorant motorist who voted those incompetent oafs into office just to punish the oil companies.
No matter when or how they are levied, taxes are ultimately paid by the final consumer or user of service. At the present time, hidden taxes amount to between 20% and 26% of every dollar the public pays for everything. Every dollar paid for every nail, hammer, car, vacation, legal service, doctor visit, and so on, now contains between twenty-four and twenty-six cents in hidden federal taxes. Actually, the hidden taxes on fuel are a bit lower than that because of the rapid rise of the cost of imported oil now around 70% of the price at the pump. A huge part of that is appropriated by the governments of the oil-rich nations where we have absolutely no control. It goes directly into the coffers or certainly the complete control of their leaders.
Some information I hope the reader understands regarding media-promoted environmentalist-backed, “Global Warming”
Since the use of systems and items described in this book would go a long way toward answering the demands of the global warming crowd one would think I would be jumping on that bandwagon. If ever new information convinces me that global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels is real and that it poses a serious threat, I will do so. At the present time I believe all the hoopla about the dangers of global warming are ill advised at best and could be dangerously wrong. All humans act, react, make decisions and develop understanding and positions based on perception—not reality. It is not facts that motivate people, but their perception about everything. What one believes trumps knowledge in every instance, no matter how far from reality. So it is with “Global warming.”
Since the use of systems and items described in this book would go a long way toward answering the demands of the global warming crowd one would think I would be jumping on that bandwagon. If ever new information convinces me that global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels is real and that it poses a serious threat, I will do so. At the present time I believe all the hoopla about the dangers of global warming are ill advised at best and could be dangerously wrong. All humans act, react, make decisions and develop understanding and positions based on perception—not reality. It is not facts that motivate people, but their perception about everything. What one believes trumps knowledge in every instance, no matter how far from reality. So it is with “Global warming.”
While this book is not about climate change, it does reflect the effects of the political and media frenzies regarding “global warming.” Thus the points are made that using alternative fuels or other energy sources could lessen or even stop the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere for whatever that may affect. A great many possible causes for changes in the average temperature of the earth are quite evident. The “greenhouse” effect of CO2, methane, water vapor and other gases is but one of a large number of factors that effect climate. Many of these factors are poorly understood and the actual weight of their effects on the climate is subject to large fluctuations according to which scientific study one reads. Even if it became a proven fact, global warming would be an insignificant problem compared with the real and present danger posed by rapidly rising oil prices and the resulting economic drain on our nation. Even the ever present threat of Islamic invasion and terrorism is a far greater menace than global warming at its worst.
With regard to the often quoted phrase, “Overwhelming numbers of scientists support the theory that man's use of fossil fuels is bringing about catastrophic global warming.” I have taken a small quotation from The Creation by E. O. Wilson. A national bestseller, the book was published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. of New York City. This quotation is about “scientists” and who they are.
Most researchers, including Nobel laureates, are narrow journeymen, with no more interest in the human condition than the usual run of laymen. Scientists are to science what masons are to cathedrals. Catch any one of them outside the workplace, and you would likely find someone leading an ordinary life preoccupied with quotidian tasks and pedestrian thought. Scientists seldom make leaps of imagination. Most, in fact, never truly have an original idea. Instead, they snuffle their way through masses of data and hypotheses (the latter are educated guesses to be tested—global warming?), sometimes excited but most of the time tranquil and easily distracted by corridor gossip and other entertainments. They have to be that way. The successful scientist thinks like a poet, and then only in rare moments of inspiration, if ever, and works like a bookkeeper the rest of the time. It is very hard to have an original thought. So for most of his career, the scientist is satisfied to enter the figures and balance the books.
Scientists are also like prospectors. Original discoveries are the gold and silver of their trade. If important, they can buy collegial prestige, and with it wider fame, royalties, and academic tenure. Scientists by and large are too modest to be prophets, too easily bored to be philosophers, and too trusting to be politicians. Lacking in street smarts, they are also easily fooled by confidence artists and sleight-of-hand tricksters. Never ask a scientist to test the claims of paranormal phenomena. Ask a professional magician.
Few scientists know more than a small fraction of available scientific knowledge, even within their own disciplines.
The text of this book takes no position about CO2 and global warming. Still, the author resents the “it's a fact” attitude of the many proponents of global warming, most of whom haven't a clue what the reality is. Its use as a political club to bludgeon opponents and influence the public is really quite shameful. The media-driven catchall assumption that carbon dioxide is the reason for global warming and that man's activities, particularly the use of fossil fuels, is the sole cause, is appalling. Many other factors that affect global climate change can easily be shown to be much larger contributors to global warming than greenhouse gases. Many climate scientists even believe and report that we are near the beginning of another ice age and they have just as much credibility as those with opposing views.
Climate is an extremely complex system that we have been studying for a long time up to and including the age of the supercomputer and computer modeling. Still, we have hardly touched the surface as can be attested to by the accuracy of our current weather forecasting. For example, in spite of all our technology, predictions of the frequency, location, and path of any hurricane are fraught with pure conjecture. We can't even hope to predict the intensity of any hurricane season. Witness the 2006 season. It was predicted to be one of the worst ever. Instead it turned out to be one of the mildest, the opposite of the predictions of some of our weather scientists and their supercomputer modeling. How about your local weather forecaster? How often does he miss the mark predicting just a day ahead?
The world's climate system is infinitely more complex than a single hurricane season. It moves in cycles and eddies that run from seconds to millennia. About forty years ago some climate pundits feared we were heading into global cooling and needed to prepare for a drier, cooler time with lower sea levels. According to many scientific studies of past frigid periods we are past due for the onset of the next ice age. Hubert Lamb of the UK Met Office dominated the 1961 UN meeting on global cooling. A founder of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, he was one of the world's top climate scientists. He warned that people had become complacent about climate at a time when population growth, cold, and drought could seriously damage their food supplies. (The Norse in Greenland perished of starvation after five hundred successful years when the Little Ice Age destroyed their crops.) In historic times the climate has veered from warmer than the present, the Medieval Warm Period, to the much colder conditions of the Little Ice Age. Evidence shows that much of the Sahara and the Middle East held lush vegetation and crop land ten thousand or so years ago. The media gleefully reported on global cooling as a fearful danger and asked, “What can we do about it?” Their tune has since changed substantially. The wind of media-driven opinion has switched direction from cooling to warming, with a vengeance.
Seemingly, members of the media are more interested in blaming Americans as the culprits causing the alleged problem than in trying to find those who may have viable solutions, or even reporting credible opposing views. It is a lot easier to blame others for a problem than to make the effort to find a real solution. That is one of our common human failings. In the media's case, it is far easier to find and report the negative emotional ravings than to ferret out and report the mundane realities of those seeking solutions. Pain and suffering, doom and gloom are their currency, their stock and trade. They thrive on the human “gawker” response that draws crowds of onlookers to even tragic accidents. Rarely do good news or real solutions to problems catch their attention. Many individuals the world over are using global warming as their new cash cow. Politicians are writing punitive tax legislation over carbon credits and charges. This practice is eagerly adopted on even very small scales that tax ordinary individuals for tiny additions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
In spite of all this, there are several very real happenings that do not support global warming. I recently visited Alaska and spent a day in Glacier Bay. While there I learned some interesting facts, mostly from a recent publication about the glaciers. Since the mid 1700s Alaskan glaciers have been known to be steadily receding. Early explorers found glacier ice all the way to the mouth of what we now call Glacier Bay. There were maps in the book with lines showing the dates of glacier terminus from the 1700s to 2007. All the glaciers were shown to have steadily receded until the early 1990's. Since that time all of these glaciers have advanced steadily. In recent years, average global temperatures have dropped. I also learned that arctic sea ice has been increasing rapidly since 2004. I wonder why the media has not made the public aware of these facts?
The truth of the matter is that we are affecting the climate by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. That's about the same kind of truth as the fact that pouring a bucket of water into lake Erie will raise the lake level. That is about the same order of rise that can be attributed to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. The truth is we have very little definitive knowledge of how much effect raising or even doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will have in the long run. We certainly are unable to hazard even so much as an intelligent guess as to what or how much the effect might be. Proponents of global warming neglect mentioning the following factors known to affect climate and the average world temperatures as much or more than increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide:
• The wobble of the earth's axis increases or decreases the retention of energy from the sun. (22,000-year cycle)
• The eccentricity of the earth's orbit increases or decreases the energy we receive from the sun. (12,000-year cycle)
• The variation of energy output by the sun. (1,400-year cycle)
• Variations in snow cover—snow reflects heat.
• Variations in cloud cover—clouds reflect heat.
• The variation in cosmic rays causes a variation in cloud cover. (no known cycle)
• Dust and sulphate in the air can absorb or reflect heat.
• Ocean temperatures and circulation.
• Volcanic activity (Eruption of Mount Pinatubo brought on several years of cooler temperatures.)
• Winds—as winds increase, dust from dry farmland and deserts, enters the air. (Gobi desert dust sometimes reaches as far as our west coast.)
There is one gross misconception about ice and ocean levels that global warming proponents and the media constantly get wrong. It is true that water from melting glaciers and melting ice or snow supported by land will cause ocean levels to rise. However, polar ice and the floating ice shelves of Antarctica and Greenland do not do so no matter how big or extensive they are or how much they shrink. It's a simple law of physics known by most high school physics students. Floating ice displaces an equal weight of water so melting that ice will not change the water level whether it is in a glass, a bucket, or the ocean. Sadly, it seems that the proponents of global warming are infinitely more interested in the emotional impact of their statements than in their scientific accuracy
For a level-headed and well-documented explanation of the realities of global warming/cooling factors, read the sections on climate in Nigel Calder’s award winning book, Magic Universe. The information in this book is easily understood by laymen and is not influenced by political dogma.
The real reason for the furor over global warming
It is the author's contention that the global warming issue has become a powerful force because primarily it provides a vehicle for politicians to gain revenue for their own purpose while giving them power over large industries and even nations. Using the powerful appeal of “save the planet,” these power hungry individuals and their willing supporters have generated an economic bonanza based almost entirely on emotional appeals poorly supported by facts. A check of the Internet will reveal several hundred web sites devoted to global warming. All of them are asking for members, donations to their “cause,” and participation. Most spend more words asking for donations than anything else. Global warming has become a huge cash cow for politicians and supporters of all kinds. I would like to know just how much money is collected by these “save the planet” web sites and how much they actually use to further their cause. I would be surprised if it were very much.
About carbon dioxide
With the exception of hydrogen, all gaseous, liquid, and solid fuels produce carbon dioxide when burned in any energy process. In addition, the production of hydrogen by any means other than by electrolysis, using energy from nuclear, wind, water or tidal power plants will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from both the energy and the raw materials used to create the hydrogen (coal-fired power plants for instance). It is interesting to note that for each pound of carbon oxidized to carbon dioxide, four pounds of oxygen are removed from the atmosphere. For every thousand tons of CO2 added to the atmosphere, eight hundred tons of oxygen are removed. In all the concern about CO2 there has never been a single mention of that fact.
It has long been accepted as fact that all of the oxygen in our atmosphere has been created by photosynthesis in plant life over many millions of years. Plants take CO2 from the atmosphere, combine it with water to produce organic materials, and release oxygen as a byproduct. This has created a huge sink of carbon, including all fossil fuels as well as existing live plants and animals. It also built up the oxygen from zero to the 21 percent in today's atmosphere.
Human use of fossil fuels is reversing that process. This could arguably cause disastrous results to natural interactive processes, such as weather, ocean and air currents, water ice and sea levels. The truth of the matter is that we don't really know how big the problem might be or even if it is a problem at all. It will be a very long time before we have those answers.
Why petroleum won't be the answer
There are many ideas and systems, new and old described herein. No apologies are made for favoring some over the others. Favored mostly are those that seem to be practical, economical and especially speedy. Some of these have come to prominence recently and thus are not covered as thoroughly as others. Things are changing rapidly in this field with new ideas and products appearing almost daily. These are being triggered by the rapidly advancing price of petroleum. It is my belief that an energy crunch is coming much sooner than most expect.
In addition to the very real problem of diminishing oil reserves there are other factors adding to the price and subtracting from the available supply of petroleum. Thanks to some environmental extremists and their liberal supporters in Congress, we have virtually castrated oil exploration and drilling for new sources in and around the U. S. These powerful voices have made it all but impossible to build new refineries and have even tried to stop the expansion of existing refineries. The constant stream of condemnation of the oil industry has convinced the public and thus many politicians that Big Oil is their enemy. This precipitated tremendous animosities that are amplified every time the highly advertised price of gasoline goes up. The government's initiatives for promoting alternative fuels and limiting consumption have put a damper on nearly all new investment by oil companies in infrastructure to increase production and capacity. Our country is awash in a virtual sea of proven oil fields from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Slope. This oil is there and accessible, but American oil companies are forbidden by law to go after it. No perpetrators of the problem, American oil companies are almost as much a victim of high-priced petroleum as the average motorist. Certainly their image has been tarnished by all the class hatred rhetoric.
If anything is to blame it is the extremism of over zealous environmentalists who have helped drive the price of fuel through the roof. They seem to want to make many things and especially fuel so expensive we have to curtail its use or stop using it altogether. They want us all to be riding bicycles or walking to satisfy their warped sense of necessity. Think about American oil companies being forbidden to drill for proven oil deposits around Florida to protect shoreline ecosystems. Sounds great, doesn't—it protecting the environment. Now that we are not drilling in these fields the world's largest oil company, PetroChina in cooperation with Cuba is drilling not far from Key West where American companies are forbidden to drill. Ask any environmental activist what they plan to do about that. PetroChina has none of the environmental controls on drilling and drilling techniques required of American oil companies. So much for our politicians protecting the environment along our shores. As far as Big Oil is concerned, last year, PetroChina overtook Exxon as the world's largest publicly traded oil company. There goes all that potential profit and billions in taxes from our shores to China. Real smart move, that. An enemy bent on destroying our economy could hardly have accomplished more.
All this posturing and the blaming of those deemed responsible for rising fuel prices is so much useless and potentially damaging hot air. The fact is world demand for fuel is growing while the supply is diminishing. No matter how experts consider it, that's why oil prices are rising. New oil fields are becoming harder and more expensive to discover and utilize worldwide. Here are some facts. Some analysts say high oil prices, and the record profits they create, are masking growing difficulties at many of the major Western oil giants. American major oil companies, which once dominated the global energy business, now control only about 6 percent of the world's oil reserves. They are having a difficult time increasing production and renewing reserves. They have been replaced by resurgent national oil companies such as PetroChina, Brazil's Petrobras, Petr›leos de Venezuela, S.A. and Russia's Gazprom. Politicians supported by the media don't seem to care a bit about that as they keep screaming hate at American oil companies and inciting animosity among ignorant voters. If you think fuel prices are high now, consider what could happen if taxes and government animosity drive American oil companies out of business or cause the stockholders to merge them with foreign companies.
That has happened to other industries in the past. Textiles and consumer electronics are the first to come to mind. In their lust for power, some politicians seem bent on using class envy to provide them the political power to kill every American golden egg-laying goose they can. This economic suicide seems to serve no purpose other than use the poor and ignorant to bring down the very people who have built the greatest machine for innovation and wealth for the highest number of common people the world has ever seen. Will they do the same to any alternate fuel or energy system that starts to show promise? It wouldn't surprise me at all. They seem to want every promising solution thwarted or stopped. Perhaps this is because they don't want any solutions. As long as there are problems they can use as clubs with which to beat their opponents bloody, they will continue to do so. Is this all because their lack of ability to build has turned them to doing what any idiot can do, destroy?
It was Abraham Lincoln, champion of the poor and downtrodden who wanted no reprisals against southern leaders after the war. Lincoln felt it best to turn enemies into friends. During the Civil War he refused to demonize the enemy. When Washington received news Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, the President was asked to speak to the celebrating crowd.
Addressing the jubilant crowd, Lincoln said that: “I have always thought Dixie' one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted that we fairly captured it. I presented it to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance.” The band played “Dixie,” followed by “Yankee Doodle.” This was Lincoln the humanitarian who in his second inaugural speech finished it: “With malice toward none. With charity for all.” Everyone around Lincoln knew that he meant it. How many of the current crop of politicians could say and mean words like that?
In stark and obvious contrast, Democrats, like DNC chairman Howard Dean, are diametrically opposed to such thoughts. His famous rant, “I hate Republicans! I hate conservatives! I hate Rush Limbaugh!” gives ample proof. Hatred and demonization are evidently the political stock-in-trade of the left precisely as it is of virtually all current liberal Democrats in our Congress and their vocal friends and supporters. So much for peaceful cooperation.
The purpose of this book is to provide information and encouragement for doers, movers and shakers. The numerous energy systems described run from those used for several hundred years to those just discovered and in their infancy. Many of these will fall into disuse or be kept merely for historical or sentimental usage.
Here's a bit of old news: For all practical purposes, the horse and buggy have left the American scene. Except for the Amish and some nostalgic sight seeing uses, they have disappeared completely. The Stanley Steamer and the Baker Electric, once quite popular are now found only in museums or in the hands of collectors. The “iron horse” of the plains is but a memory with a rare few still in collections or on sightseeing railroads. A few WWI Sopwith Camels and WWII Japanese Zeros are still flying. Last fall I witnessed a WWII B17E Flying Fortress fly by while I was walking on a popular Florida beach. It was quite a thrill watching that half a century old legend still flying. How vastly different it is from the modern B2 bomber. This illustrates the increasing speed with which technology advances. Most of what we have today would be as unrecognizable during the era of the B17 as the B17 would have been at the time of the revolutionary war.
As time passes the evolution of technology accelerates. It has been said that the sum of scientific knowledge doubles every fifteen years. This has been going on since the time of Copernicus in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Galileo and Kepler in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and Newton in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Western science seems to ignore completely the work of Muslim mathematicians and astronomers who knew that the earth was a sphere and revolved around the sun centuries earlier than Europeans. They in turn had learned from Greek and Persian astronomers and mathematicians after translating much knowledge into Arabic from Greek and Persian. These early scientists in turn probably learned much of their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy from the Egyptians.
How about today? With computers to record our work and the Internet to distribute it, new knowledge quickly spans the globe as the sum of knowledge continues its geometric expansion. Not only are we learning new things faster, but new, practical and sometimes serendipitous findings now spread around the world at the speed of light. Information can be distributed instantly, but the actual creation of new items, systems, procedures and processes still requires time and considerable effort to move from raw material to finished products. Most of these fall by the wayside because of unattractive appearance, lack of understanding of their actual value, lack of economic appeal, or even erroneous perceptions. If another item or system is cheaper with the same value or even more expensive but with superior value, that system will prevail. Except within government bureaucracies, profitability is the clue to the economic success of any item or system. The life of even a well-accepted technology can soon be eclipsed by a newer, better or cheaper technology. Witness the evolution in recorded music from the wax cylinder to the brittle 78, the flexible LP and 45, to reel tape, to 8-track tape, to cassette tape, to CD, to DVD, and now micro chip and Ipod. The effective life of each system lasted for a shorter period of time than its predecessor. This is the nature of accelerating technology in the music business as in many other industries.
This book is about the same kind of thing happening in the energy industry, a much broader field than music with many more variations and possibilities. A problem or need arises. Creative minds search for answers, primarily to find ways to make money, a living, even wealth. The many answers are presented to the public in ways from simple word-of-mouth contacts to mass media advertising. All things being equal, the highly advertised will always prevail over the word-of-mouth simply because it reaches infinitely more people in a short period of time. By the time widget A gets started by word of mouth, widget B has thousands of orders from its massive advertising.
In the automotive world, Joe Doaks and company might be able to produce only a few cars a week after three years of hard work simply because this small company has limited working capital. They must then sell the cars to get more working capital to continue in business. The profits from sales must be enough to pay the employees, pay for raw materials, business services, insurance, legal fees, a location where the business can operate, and taxes and fees to several governments. Those same profits must pay for any expansion and for interest on any debt the company may have. On the other hand, General Motors already has the needed physical assets and capital to pay for the development and manufacture of any new vehicle it deems will make their sales goals and earn a profit. They also have legal and contractual obligations that Joe Daoks and company do not. While development and all the associated details may take GM eight years to complete for a single vehicle, once those goals are met they have the ability to produce these new cars by the thousands. This enables them to swamp JD and company with saleable products. Of course, if JD and company have a valid patent on a critical part of the new car, even GM couldn't produce it. Usually what happens is that GM or another big auto company will buy the patent from JD and Company for more money than the owners would make on their own.
So it is with all of the new systems described in this book. These have been proposed or developed and are being pursued by companies of many different sizes, some with patents, some without. I have some very distinct opinions of the systems we can and should end up using. The same can be said for those interim products needed to move us from total dependence on petroleum to multiple energy systems in the next decade or so. I also have some definite opinions about those I think will not be successful. These opinions are shared with readers near the end of the book in the section on conclusions and predictions.
It makes no difference who or what is blamed for rapidly rising fuel prices, we still need alternative fuels and energy sources. They have become an absolute necessity because of diminishing supplies of petroleum. It makes no difference what your position on environmentalism is, we still need alternative fuels and energy sources. It makes no difference what the reality is about global warming, we still need alternative fuels and energy sources. It makes no difference how much oil companies are hated or loved, we still need alternative fuels and energy sources. Use of any fossil fuel will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. There are only two known ways to use energy without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The same two reasons apply if we are forced to survive without petroleum fuels for any reason.
The first and most obvious is energy from fuels derived from plant materials—non fossil sources. Carbon dioxide created by the burning of these fuels came originally from the atmosphere. Thus, use of fuel produced from plant sources only returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was originally taken from it. These no-net-CO2 fuels include: wood, ethanol from corn, methane recovered from landfills, methanol, butanol, DMF and ethanol from plant material fermentation, oils from plant sources including soy beans, palms, and algae, pelletized agricultural waste, and any other form of fuel from recent biological activity.
The second way is and promises to be far larger than no-net-CO2 fuels both today and in the future. It includes all non combustion processes for generating energy. Those energy systems currently in use include: nuclear, river water, solar, wind, tidal water, ocean wave action, and geothermal. Each of these has its own set of challenges, including practical limits, funding, new technologies, environmental impacts, site locations, weather problems, real or imagined dangers, and concerns of the public.
Any or all of these processes could be used to generate electric power for grid distribution in the Optimal Energy Economy of the future described in these pages. It remains for some nation or organization to take the high road to the cheap, safe, portable, no-net-CO2-producing energy that these processes promise. Once in use, the benefits to the economy of any nation that uses it will be unlimited
Nuclear power, is it passé?
In the past, nuclear power has been touted as the best way to produce safe, clean, non CO2 producing energy. Unfortunately, a very slanted and scary movie, The China Syndrome, so frightened the American public that the entire nuclear industry was scuttled there and then at tremendous expense and waste. Once more, perception of the American people trumped reality. This false perception was generated by a fictional story. It completely baffles me that the public believes a completely fictional story over the obvious reality. Hollywood must still be gloating over the destructive power wielded by their movie. It is interesting to note that it was based on an actual nuclear accident, the one at Three Mile Island. The interesting thing about that accident is that the safety features of the plant worked. The danger was contained just as the plant was designed to do. Radioactive leakage was far less than the maximum considered safe and the resulting dispersed radiation was barely detectable above normal background radiation. There was never any detectable radiation danger. Fortunately for France and China, they didn't believe the intended message, understood the reality, and are now rapidly developing and building nuclear power plants. By the way, nuclear power has been proven the safest of all types of power plants in real terms of human lives lost and bodies injured. I wonder why Hollywood and the media never acknowledge that fact.
Two far different methods could turn out to be the best in all ways including economic. Geothermal power could be the real winner in an all-out competition given that useable geothermal energy is available in about 60 percent of the area of North America. This is covered in sections II C and III A 5 on geothermal power. I wonder if Hollywood will mount a new attack on progress with The China Syndrome II about a cataclysmic geothermal volcanic explosion. Don't put it past them. Right now in California, several geothermal plants have been supplying power for some time. Though still a tiny part of the overall mix, geothermal power has the greatest long term potential of any system, including wave energy power.
Following are some recently released estimates showing the present distribution of the various worldwide energy sources. Also shown are two potential energy sources and how they could stack up for the future.
Hydro electric . . . . . . . . . 15% . . . . . . 2,665 Terawatts
Nuclear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15% . . . . . . 2,665 Terawatts
Natural Gas . . . . . . . . . . .20% . . . . . . 3,481 Terawatts
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7% . . . . . . . 1,218 Terawatts
Coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40%. . . . . . 6,963 Terawatts
Renewable fuels . . . . . . . . .2% . . . . . . . . 348 Terawatts
Geothermal . . . . . . . . . . . . .1% . . . . . . . . 268 Terawatts
Wave Potential . . . . . . . 200% . . . . . . 34,816 Terawatts
Geothermal Potential . . 1000%+ . . 160,000+ Terawatts
Nuclear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15% . . . . . . 2,665 Terawatts
Natural Gas . . . . . . . . . . .20% . . . . . . 3,481 Terawatts
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7% . . . . . . . 1,218 Terawatts
Coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40%. . . . . . 6,963 Terawatts
Renewable fuels . . . . . . . . .2% . . . . . . . . 348 Terawatts
Geothermal . . . . . . . . . . . . .1% . . . . . . . . 268 Terawatts
Wave Potential . . . . . . . 200% . . . . . . 34,816 Terawatts
Geothermal Potential . . 1000%+ . . 160,000+ Terawatts
Like geothermal, the marine energy sector is still in its infancy compared with all the other energy sources we use today. It's only now starting to gain a lot more attention, and what is more important, the large influx of investment capital it needs to expand. Wave action of the ocean is a recent technology with great promise and, like geothermal, it is already in use for a tiny portion of our electric power. While wave energy is only a possibility to many people, the truth is it is no longer just a possibility. Several ocean energy companies are not only producing power right now, but they are landing power purchase agreements with the major utilities. No better proof exists that this power generation system is viable than a power purchase agreement. A very small Canadian firm that few people even know exists recently picked up a long-term deal with a major utility in California to deliver power to the grid.
Here's what we are facing: Pundits now report that the coming change in energy is certain to be the most drastic and overwhelming disruption the energy markets will ever see. Besides water, there is absolutely nothing more critical for the entire world than adequate supplies of cheap energy. We rely upon it for our transportation, our food, our medicine, our clothing, our agriculture. It's the underlying force that keeps the world moving. As we've already begun to see with oil, it is also the one thing that can bring the global community to its knees, if there isn't enough of it. So needless to say, an energy resource that's relatively infinite and inexpensive is an energy resource that will drive the next evolution of our energy economy. There are not many proven technologies to choose from right now?
Back in March of 2005 I read a dire prediction about petroleum. It was a confirmation of what I and many in the oil industry had known and supposed for as long as 50 years. We have known and predicted the growing decline in world oil production between the year 2000 and 2050 even that long ago. The March 2005 prediction said we were about to run out of oil. Actually, that is not true. It should have said the discovery and extraction of new crude combined with existing supplies was not keeping up with demand. It correctly reported the price of oil was about to go through the roof. Oil was predicted to reach $80 a barrel within the next two years and go as high as $185 a barrel.
Steve Forbes couldn't resist ridiculing this prediction. He made his own prediction, “In 12 months, you're going to see oil down to $35 to $40 a barrel. It's a huge bubble, I don't know what's going to pop it but eventually it will pop. You cannot go against supply and demand, you cannot go against the fundamentals forever.”
The last part of his statement was right on the money. You cannot go against supply and demand forever. That was more than three years ago and now it's reality. Crude oil passed $130 a barrel in May of 2008, and everybody from President Bush to OPEC to the CEOs of Big Oil now say exactly what that prediction was saying in 2005. The world's supply of easy oil is quickly running out. In spite of this, the current economic down turn quickly brought crude oil prices down dramatically. A quick economic turnaround and oil prices would return to the stratosphere. This pause in rising prices could provide us the time to convert to alternatives, but that is not likely to happen. Besides the human nature to put things off, venture capital required to develop alternative energy has suddenly dried up. The increase in taxes promised by our new government will further inhibit investment.
Little has changed even though they all seem to have gotten the message: government officials, oil company CEOs, even consultants to the petroleum industry worldwide. Statements like, “Growth in global demand for oil is accelerating and the supply is not.” “The era of cheap energy is over, permanently.” “Access to oil and gas can no longer keep up with the demand.” “Prices of all petroleum products are poised to go through the roof.” Then there is my own prediction made early in 2007 in the manuscript for this book of $200 per barrel petroleum and $8 a gallon gasoline in 2010. When I first included that full page prediction, I wrote it as a scare tactic, an attention getter, a way to capture the imagination of the reader. Little did I realize it would be a fairly accurate prediction. It is still there just in front of the main body of the book along with a new prediction of low oil prices.
As the world's oil production slows and the demand for oil rises, the results could be catastrophic. Prices are already rising precipitously, not only on oil and oil products, but on virtually every other product or commodity. The first indicators of the looming disaster, rising prices for food and then other items are already evident. Grain prices have doubled in the last year as they are taken from the food supply to make biofuels. The ripple effect of this switch is already creating shortages in poor areas of the world where starvation is a major problem. The world recession of 2008 has temporarily reversed these price increases. The rapid drop of petroleum prices and the cost of fuel at the pump pleased most Americans. Of course, the job losses and business failures that accompany these dropping prices are not very pleasing. When and if economic stability and economic growth return, oil prices will once again head for the stratosphere. This will only get worse until and unless we develop the new energy systems described herein. The long range prospects remain for less and less oil at higher and higher prices.
In their edition of May 12, 2008, The Maine Sentinel reported, “The modern world needs cheap oil like the human body needs oxygen; remove it, and we could be headed for economic decline, resource wars and social chaos.” To me, if cheap oil is like oxygen then even more so is the broader term, cheap energy. Cheap alternative fuels and cheap and plentiful energy are absolutely essential to the health of the world's economies. To prevent monumental economic disasters for the whole world some individual or group must come up with viable solutions to cheap fuels and energy. Viable energy alternatives are certainly within our grasp. It is vital that we develop these into practical, working systems.
High prices for virtually everything could lead to lower demand, but this could spiral into a very bad depression. In view of the rapidly increasing demand for oil in China followed closely by India and several others, economic disaster could be upon us very soon and will be the most serious challenge the modern world has ever faced. Hungry and angry people lead to desperate people which in turn can lead to horrible consequences. Should the price of oil and energy continue to escalate it will eventually be priced beyond the ability of ordinary people to pay for it. At this point the economic collapse will be sudden and catastrophic. No developed nation is equipped to handle such a collapse. That's why we must act now immediately and decisively. Delaying will surely lead to widespread conflict and even war, war unlike any we have ever seen.
Although most people still believe we have plenty of oil and natural gas and that the prices will soon return to previous levels, others are beginning to realize that is just not true. Left leaning politicians and the talking heads on TV are still saying how we can solve the problem with conservation and new technologies. Reducing our consumption of oil, it will fall back to less than fifty dollars a gallon. That places them firmly among the glue-sniffers. In all seriousness, how can they possibly believe this will happen? This is especially true for the pundits and analysts who regularly appear on television to talk about how improved technology will continue to lower energy costs and bring as much energy to market as we demand and force the price of oil back down to $35 a barrel. It will never happen in that way. Market forces will always control the price of oil even as it has dropped the price precipitously because of the deepening recession of 2008. Even if we opened up all the fields in and around our nation to drilling, it would only delay the problem and not for very long at that.
Again, remember Steve Forbes' infamous prediction in 2005 that higher oil prices would cause supply to increase and outpace demand. But, according to Matthew Simmons, the world's top oil investment banker and an energy adviser to President George W. Bush, the idea that cheap oil would last forever is a 21st-century myth: “The religion was faith-based, not fact-based! It was an illusion!” At the first Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) conference in 2005, Simmons observed that the peak oil problem had started to look like a “theological debate,” and quoted Dr. Herman Franssen, saying, “It is time to leave ‘I believe’ inside a church.” The facts are that our largest oil reservoirs are running out of oil and their production is falling. Most of the world's current oil production is from fields that are past their prime and are now declining. These fields include most of the world's biggest and most productive.
Kuwait's Burgan Oil Field—In an incredible revelation early in May of 2008 it was reported by the Kuwait Oil Company that its Burgan field, the world's second largest oil field, is tapped out and has passed peak output.
Cantarell, The Third Largest Oil Field in the World, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Mexico's state oil monopoly, expects its production at the Cantarell oil field to slow earlier than previously forecast. Their chief executive said the decline is now expected to average 14% a year starting in 2007 and go down soon after.
Most of the other known reserves of petroleum are in fields that are at least beginning to decline. New fields are getting smaller and harder (read more expensive) to find and bring into production. This has been going on for at least ten or fifteen years. Even the latest oil recovery technologies have had less than dramatic results. Instead of increasing the amount of oil available, these techniques have brought about the more rapid depletion of the existing reserves. The future for cheap oil looks even grimmer as these technologies have merely hastened the demise of existing oil reserves and reduced the promise of future production. This is already a factor in the rapid rise of the cost of crude.
Add to this, the huge oil deposits offshore and in Alaska that have been removed from exploration and production almost exclusively by over zealous environmentalists. Then there are those proven fields in our country where the cost of drilling and extraction is between $20 and $30 a barrel. These fields including one in North Dakota that holds as much as a fifty-year supply of sweet crude were never tapped when crude could be purchased for $10 a barrel. Now that crude prices have gone so high and it becomes economically feasible to mine, it will take several years to drill, reach, and pump enough of this oil to make any impact. Drilling will take a huge investment which comes only from the profits of the oil companies. Should the government, as suggested, increase the taxes on those oil companies, this oil will take just that much longer to be made available. Those politicians and media talking heads never mention that while whipping up public animosity toward Big Oil, do they? They don't want you to know their efforts are the largest contributors to the high prices you must pay for fuel and those efforts are the chief reason we are sending trillions to despotic states that plot our destruction.
Many oil experts both in and outside of the industry correctly predicted the rising prices of crude almost to the dollar as long ago as early 2005. What amplifies the problem is the fact that for every calorie of food consumed in the United States, there were 10 calories of fossil fuel consumed to make the fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides; fuel to run the machines that plant, tend, harvest, transport, and process the goods; and fuel to deliver them and refrigerate them. That is without considering the energy you use going to and from the stores and then to cook your food. This means that as fuel prices rise, everything that includes a cost of fuel in their mix will rise along with fuel. The extensive use of cheap fossil fuels in food production is what has enabled the world population to multiply by four and a half times in the last century to around 6.7 billion people at the present.
It's really quite simple; food is fuel and energy. Food travels an average of 1,300 miles from the farm to the plate in North America, leading critics such as James Howard Kunstler to decry the “3,000-mile Caesar salad” that travels from California's breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley, to his table in Scranton, Pennsylvania. We need oil for nearly everything we do, and our entire infrastructure is built on the assumption that there will always be lots of it. Serious problems and expensive shortages are no longer coming. They are already here.
“A Saudi oil-output hike would not solve US problems:” George Bush 10:04 A.M. May 17, 2008.
US President George W. Bush said that a hike in oil output by Saudi Arabia would not solve American energy problems. “It's not enough, it's something but it doesn't solve our problem,” Bush told reporters in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Bush said he was “pleased” with a Saudi decision taken on May 10 to increase its oil production by 300,000 barrels per day in response to customers, but said that he was “also realistic” about what the Americans should do.
“Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancing of alternative energies as well as conservation,” he said. It is divided into three comprehensive parts The Crisis in a Barrel, Making Money from the Fossil Fuels That Are Left, and Energy after Oil.
The first two are only band-aids on the problem and merely delay our eventual succumbing to depletion of crude supplies, and not for very long. The third is the only option we have and that is what this book is about.
The sad reality most politicians, the media, and the public seem to completely ignore is that the billions of dollars of investment required to power the twofold answer to the energy crises—new oil and alternative energy—must come from business profits. Increasing taxes on business will lower this amount substantially and discourage research and development. Substantial profits of American business are absolutely essential to our economic health and the real solutions to the very real energy crisis. The economic explosion of China and other countries will cause the price of crude to keep right on growing past $130 per barrel and heading for $200.
China's crude demand is expanding at 11% a year. China has already passed the US as the emitter of the most CO2 in the world and will soon replace the US as the world's biggest oil importer. The growth of India's oil demand is not far behind. These two nations account for a third of humanity. As their breakneck development continues, the energy needs of their factories and construction firms along with those in Brazil, Mexico and other populous emerging markets can only escalate.
Specifically, as these countries get richer, and their citizens can afford more, the number of cars in the world, now around 625 million, is set to double in less than 20 years. Think of the impact of that on global oil demand, seeing as around 70% of current crude output is used to fuel cars.
The UK Telegraph, April 2008 (before the economic crisis broke)
* * * * * * * * * *
What this Book Is Really About
It is possible that the best way to explain what
this book is about is to tell what it is NOT about.
It is definitely not a hand wringing message
of doom, gloom and contempt for America.
It is possible that the best way to explain what
this book is about is to tell what it is NOT about.
It is definitely not a hand wringing message
of doom, gloom and contempt for America.
We have far too many of these messages of doom and gloom given to us daily in the media and by politicians who have nothing good to say or predict about America or Americans. These defeatists seem to be doing everything they can to discredit, take away and destroy all the things most Americans—actually most people in the world—want for themselves and their families. It all boils down to E-N-E-R-G-Y and what it costs—energy to light our cities and our homes, power our factories, move our vehicles, operate our computers, fly our airplanes, power our medical technology, grow our crops, and build our buildings—energy that does so very much for us every day. Of course, fuel is merely one part of the energy equation.
Two opposing views of how to manage energy come from differing political viewpoints. One is to utilize the systems proposed in this book to expand energy systems and grow our domestic economy. The other is the way of those who would limit its use, and reduce consumption. Mostly they would use government to enforce stricter and stricter limits, often by levying taxes to raise the price and so reduce use. The power of those who idolize this method has virtually shut down our domestic oil production. Using state and federal laws they have stopped us from drilling in virtually all areas in the country where new oil can be found. An example is the Gulf of Mexico. The known reserves of oil in the ground there and elsewhere in and around our country are huge.
It is Not about Solutions in the Distant Future
This book proposes solutions in years, instead of decades, with little infrastructure changes using existing technologies. These solutions are based on total energy systems including: creation, storage, distribution, use, power grid stations, fuel manufacture, waste disposal, local power generators, vehicles and vehicle power systems. Not to examine and develop these alternative energy sources is economic suicide.
It Is Not Just about the Growing World Demand for Oil
It is interesting to note that the rapidly expanding economies of India, China, and some other third world nations are demanding increasing amounts of petroleum and will continue to do so for years into the immediate future. China is currently on a binge of building power plants and developing sources for petroleum, even near our Gulf Coast. Since the Florida legislature had the wisdom to prohibit American companies from drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, our friends, the Chinese, in cooperation with our friends, the Cubans, are now drilling for that oil a few miles off our coast. By using slant drilling techniques they will be able to extract oil from beneath our continental shelf off Florida and Louisiana. They are not restricted by the safety and environmental rules American companies must abide by so they can do it the cheap and dirty way. So much for the wisdom of our politicians in protecting our Gulf Coast from oil spills.
It Is Not Just about Alternative Fuels
The only real question is, can we convert to alternative fuels fast enough to avert economic disaster. These fuels alone may not provide the solution as they bring about problems of their own like competition with food. What we really need is new and more practical energy systems for generating electricity.
It Is Not Just about New Types of Vehicles
Snazzy new cars are the part of the energy use system that the public most responds to and the media most reports about. They are also among the last essential parts needed for our overall energy systems. Without a complete operational system to distribute energy from source to vehicle, those cars are merely a useless hunk of unmovable metal and plastic.
It Is Not Just about Reducing Global Warming
There are several overwhelming reasons why we must quickly develop new, innovative energy systems requiring non fossil fuels and the infrastructure to create and distribute that energy. Supposed global warming caused by carbon dioxide is the least of these. Even without this consideration, we desperately need an alternative to petroleum products. Thanks in large part to limits imposed by our over zealous and intrusive government, they are becoming more difficult and expensive to find and recover. A sudden major disruption of the oil supply would wreak havoc with the world economy and create a depression that would make the one in the thirties look mild in comparison. This is not an American problem, but a worldwide one.
It's Not about Waiting for a Major Catastrophe
Many of the concepts and systems described are already in existence. We have started to design, build and even use some of these advanced non fossil fuel systems. This major shift away from petroleum fuels must be made quickly enough to avert the catastrophic economic menace that rising prices for petroleum fuels promise. Those accelerating prices are even now beginning to bring down serious economic problems on the entire world. An adequate solution could probably be found within the systems described in these pages.
It Is Not Just about an Economic Bonanza
Should we develop programs using these systems, the benefits to our nation and the world would be substantial and almost immediate. The optimal energy system would provide far more material benefits than just economic growth and prosperity.
It IS about Preventing Economic Collapse and War
Make no mistake, the very real threat of war looms larger each day. This tension is fueled by the growing demand for energy from those huge nations now experiencing explosive economic growth and demanding more oil as their economies accelerate. The dangerous conflict in Georgia was most likely one of these over control of energy. This is compounded by an accelerating food shortage that is possibly even more dangerous than the fuel shortage. As the prosperity of these large nations grows, the demand for fuel and food is far outstripping the supply. The result can be hungry people running amuck in killing frenzies as is happening in much of Africa. Add Islamic fundamentalist terrorists from nations awash in oil money and there are two easily recognizable groups that either care nothing about human lives and would not hesitate to snuff out a few hundred million, or who would cheer loudly at the murder of virtually every person in the West. That we find new, non petroleum-based systems for energy generation, transport and use is absolutely essential to help prevent this from happening. The answer to this can certainly be found by pursuing some of the avenues laid out in these pages. Hopefully, an abundance of cheap energy that doesn't interfere with the food supply will relieve some of that danger as well.
It's Not about Words and Emotional Reactions
We always have plenty of that from politicians and the world of entertainment including the media whose stock in trade is the use of words to stir emotions. These voices, frequently of doom and gloom, often falsely condemn many who could be instrumental in solving problems. In fact, they can be causing great damage by dividing us and generating discouragement and conflict. They use class envy and contrived figures to entice anger and distrust among the people for the very organizations that are best equipped to solve our problems.
What we need is positive action—actually many actions by creative people who do much more than talk—and the leadership to help guide and inspire us all. We desperately need people who design and build, the men and women with creative minds and laboring hands who are willing to work hard to provide us both the ideas and the actuality of new energy technology. We need those skilled and hard-working hands that till the soil, build the infrastructure, and operate the computers and machinery, and yes even those who manage and invest. These are what drive the productive engine that has been and will continue to be America.
Those people are there, now, hard at work trying to solve our problems in the old-fashioned way, American ingenuity and drive. Spurred on by the promise of great rewards if their efforts are successful, those who participate are many, often unknown. The promise of profits—a dirty word to the ignorant and those who would control them—is the fuel that drives the creative human engine that could solve most of our problems if given the chance. It is these free entrepreneurs and investors who will solve the energy crisis if only those posturing and strutting politicians and government officials would stay out of their way.
This book tries to describe the wonders these people have created and the new wonders that will solve our energy problems.
For those who think I am a bit over critical of our government let me say that as much as I decry the make-work leeches in the bureaucracy created by self-serving politicians, I also appreciate and applaud the effort of those dedicated public servants who work hard within the burdensome bureaucracy and help our nation. I have gained much information from DOE web sites:
http://www.pi.energy.gov/, and
http://www.pi.energy.gov/documents/newecon_appendix.pdf
America Needs a Mission
for Energy Independence
for Energy Independence
That mission is to discover, develop, and implement practical ways to save us—the United States and the world—from the ravages of the fossil fuel dragon. We should do our utmost to make everyone aware of available options for safe, affordable energy generation and use. We should also try to motivate everyone to demand we adopt these many options.
It is paramount that we develop realistic solutions to the energy crisis from among the multitude of products and systems that are in use, under development, or even latent ideas in the minds of America's creative genius. We must collect and examine descriptions of fuels and energy systems—past, present, and future—and of many possible and practical ways to replace fossil fuels with renewable fuels or energy systems. It matters not to a driver what powers his vehicle when he presses down on the accelerator pedal. Any power system that provides adequate mobile power economically when that pedal is pressed will satisfy his needs. All of the new systems could replace fossil fuels as the prime energy source for our nation and even the world. In the process this could lead to a carbon dioxide neutral energy system, one that adds no new CO2 to our atmosphere. The options needed are real and practical alternatives to fossil fuels that will replace the use of petroleum and coal-based fuels with renewable, non polluting fuels or electrical energy and in the process:
1. build an American energy system that will stop the hemorrhaging of billions of U.S. dollars, mostly to despotic nations that preach our destruction.
2. build an American energy industry that boosts our economy and provides good jobs for many Americans.
3. stop the growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide and that possible link to global warming: and accomplish most of this within just the next ten years.
Our total energy system consists of many types of energy systems, sources, fuels and conversions. The requirements of the components of such a workable system should be judged by the following criteria:
1. They should be comparatively inexpensive to use.
2. They should be developed using environmentally sound, sensitive principles
3. They should be far easier, simpler and less expensive to implement than the hydrogen fuel cell system.
4. They should be adaptable to our existing infrastructure with minor changes.
5. They should use raw materials we already have or that can be developed here, locally.
6. They should be applicable to existing vehicles with minor upgrading. 7. They should be useable with existing IC (Internal Combustion) engines of all types.
8. They should be developed using existing, evolving technology able to be essentially complete within ten years.
9. They should create a system that is a net zero contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
10. They should use an evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary change—a good start to becoming constantly improving, adapting systems driving numerous growing and improving technologies.
11. They should be developed by America-based industry with the many resulting substantial benefits to our nation—social, political, and economic.
While the main thrust of such systems will be to provide new, better, less expensive and less environmentally intrusive systems for energy and transportation, many benefits other than just getting away from fossil fuels accrue. These include direct positive effects on four of the first seven of the top twenty-two “most serious concerns of the American public” as shown in a public survey conducted by MIT and cited below.
Public perceptions and concerns
Howard J. Herzog, a principal research engineer at the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE); MIT graduate student Thomas E. Curry; and professors David M. Reiner and Stephen Ansolabehere developed a survey including questions about the environment, global warming, and climate-change-mitigation technologies, and the most important issues facing the United States today.1 The survey in its entirety can be viewed at the following website
http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/LFEE_2005-001_WP.pdf
Questions showed that the environment in general and climate change in particular are not high-priority issues for the public. The environment came out thirteenth on a list of twenty-two possibilities for “the most important issues facing the United States today.” The front-runners on the list were terrorism, health care, and the economy. On a list of ten specific environmental problems, “global warming” came up in sixth place, well behind water pollution, destruction of ecosystems, and toxic waste.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This list represents public perception of the severity of a problem, not the reality. It is well known that media attention to a particular problem or situation influences public opinion. Since the survey was taken, and with the growing hype about global warming, that concern now tops the list of environmental concerns, having moved from sixth to first in just a year. That could well be described as the “Chicken Little” effect. Whether or not it is an actual cause for concern is completely irrelevant. Public perception and the assumption by so many public figures that human created carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic climate change for the worse makes it a real concern to many people. Some realities of our current understanding of climate change including global warming are described elsewhere in this book.
The solutions recommended in this book directly relate to and could be a powerful and positive force toward the following items on the survey, showing their position of importance to U.S. citizens according to the survey taken in 2005:
No. 1 Terrorism
No. 3 The economy
No. 4 Unemployment
No. 7 Federal budget deficit
No. 13 The environment
The number two concern, health care, though not directly affected would surely benefit from the economic growth these solutions would provide.
Changes in three years
The public's perception has changed considerably since 2005 because of many factors that include: the rising cost of petroleum and petroleum products, the rising cost of food along with worldwide shortages, the lack of any significant terrorist attacks on the United States, and the general acceptance as a proven fact that global warming caused by human production of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels represents a real and imminent threat. Add to that the long ago predicted mortgage meltdown and it becomes evident our economy has taken several damaging blows. This latest economic blow was brought about by foolish and even unscrupulous lending practices and speculation that should have been illegal, but were not. Once more our politicians hurry to lock the barn door after the horse has been stolen.
Those who are complaining the loudest are the very ones who orchestrated this crisis. Now they have the gall to ask to be put in charge of the solution. How stupid do they see the public? Are they right? That all of this together has not brought on a collapse of our economy is a testimonial to the strength of that economy. Just how well it continues to grow or decline depends on many interwoven factors. Not the least of these is the result of political acctions. The specter of increased taxes and government controls on business in America looms large in the minds of business managers and owners all around the world. People will always react to their perceptions rather than to realities particularly regarding poorly understood phenomena. This is amplified in importance by the media's preponderance to report in detail any bad news or frightening scenario. Add to that those politicians and media personalities who use any possible bad suppositions no matter how insignificant as bludgeons with which to batter any who would dare to disagree with them or their agendas. The effect on the public's perception of virtually anything is influenced greatly by all the ranting and raving.
A poorly supported yet probably fairly accurate report on the current state of public's perception provides the following new list of related concerns:
No. 1 The economy, especially as it relates to rising fuel and food prices, and now the mortgage meltdown \
No. 2 Unemployment
No. 3 Terrorism
No. 4 Health care
No. 7 Federal budget deficit
No. 11 The environment (global warming leads)
This is strange considering that until the sudden economic downturn, the economy continued to expand and unemployment had risen only to around 6%, a normally acceptable level in good economic times. The public's attention has shifted from those figures and in 2008 focused on recession, the mortgage and corporate credit debacle, unemployment, and rising energy and food prices that they see and deal with every day. These really scare them. With politicians and the media constantly waving the recession flag for more than a year, it is no wonder people are nervous. In fact, media pessimism could have been a powerful force in creating the recession.
A monumental task with many obstacles
Even with these substantial benefits bundled into grand plans, the planners must still deal with significant forces. These forces can make a new idea work or relegate it to the ash can of history. Real difficulties and obstacles must be overcome in order for any new system to become a reality no matter how positive and/or effective that system might be. The battle to get the most beneficial systems noticed and made a reality may require more effort than the implementation of the idea or system itself. The process, once begun, may take completely unexpected twists and turns in moving, sometimes forward and sometimes back, but always in the ultimate direction of success.
Our space program and its goal to “put a man on the moon in ten years” followed just such a wandering path en route to its success. We can expect no less from our efforts to find a new fuel/energy system that has a far more powerful practical and obviously profitable goal. Clearly, President Kennedy's commitment to put a man on the moon in ten years and the follow-up on that commitment was a major force in making it happen. Media hype and glamorization helped garner public support and enthusiasm. That was a government program operated by a government agency implemented mostly by private contractors according to government bid specifications. It was a process oriented solution with a single defined goal.
What we need now is leadership that is courageous enough to state a goal such as “convert to new, home based energy systems in ten years” and then work ceaselessly toward achieving that goal. We need leadership that will initiate a system oriented, broad spectrum approach to solving our growing energy crisis. This is an even greater challenge than putting a man on the moon, a serious challenge that could be instrumental in securing our very survival. We need this ten-year goal declaration to be well stated and backed by leadership with vision and the dedication to follow through. The commitment would be to develop new energy systems that will provide American-made renewable fuels or other portable energy systems and will add no more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and do it within the next ten years.
This commitment is a much broader goal than putting a man on the moon. It has many branching and interconnected avenues that could lead to successful solutions. The key to final success will be found in the development of many areas of research rather than just one or two. These include the best combination of energy sources, means of obtaining that energy, means of moving the energy from source to point of use, and finally the systems of using that energy. A variety of equally effective systems fitting differing needs could be developed by a diverse group of privately funded entrepreneurs and inventors. The result could end up a variation on the current theme where we use several types of fuels in different configurations for similar purposes.
Delaying that, as many are now doing by talking about reaching that goal in thirty or fifty years, is a recipe for disaster. We do not have that kind of time to wait. Just run the numbers. Continuing to transfer billions of American dollars offshore for thirty to fifty years will destroy us economically long before we can develop an alternative fuel economy. Even ten years could be too long, but I believe we can handle that. Certainly it would be less disastrous than thirty to fifty years.
What we don't need now are politicians that use class envy, and every negative action they can promote including global warming as smoke screens to hide their own obvious and damaging failures. Not just to hide their gross negligence, but to use completely false factors as the reasons for new and oppressive taxes, and government powers to control commerce and punish those they see fit to punish for any reason. These power hungry opportunists use their lackeys in the media to ridicule the one thing that might stave off our economic collapse, the movement whose motto is, “Drill here! Drill now! And pay less!”
Here's some information about one large field from the U.S. Geological Survey official results of a groundbreaking study released on June 9, 2008. The report confirmed a massive oil reserve in an area the locals have nicknamed the “Bakken,” which stretches across North Dakota, Montana and southeastern Saskatchewan. The study estimates a huge 3.65 billion barrels of undiscovered oil in the Bakken. Compared with the agency's estimate back in 1995, the study reports a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered. The reported mean estimate of 3.65 billion barrels of oil is for undiscovered oil only, and doesn't include known oil. The total amount of recoverable crude in The Bakken deposit could be as much as 400 billion barrels. Once impossible to extract, this oil has yielded to new horizontal drilling and rock fracturing techniques. The Bakken is now being hailed as the single largest oil find in US history. Experts estimate that this light, sweet (low sulfur) crude will cost Americans about $16 a barrel. Let's hope we can obtain major production from this field before opportunistic obstructionists can figure out a reason to prevent drilling there.
It may be that the current crisis can be diverted by new recovery technology in this field, but hopefully the incentive to produce viable non fossil fuels and other energy systems will continue. Eventually we will run out of fossil fuel and will need alternatives. The attention given to new energy and fuel systems will undoubtedly involve effort into other seemingly unconnected areas. We are still deriving long-term benefits from technology developed for our space program. It would certainly be the same for any fuel/energy program. It is amazing to discover that so many of our serious problems are interrelated and how finding one solution often leads to another almost totally unrelated solution and so to the demand for another workable system.
Existing systems
Presently there are at least seven petroleum-based and mined fuels used in a variety of engines and boilers. These are in addition to coal used mostly in power plants. Use of all of these fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide to our atmosphere. There are at least six non fossil-based fuels currently being used or being considered for use. Most are manufactured from plant materials and add no-net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in use. Some do add carbon dioxide in their process of manufacture. There are a few non fossil solid fuels, mostly used for heating and cooking. There is a wide variety of harvesting and manufacturing processes used to obtain or make these fuels. Some of these manufacturing processes require more energy input than the resulting fuel can produce.
There is also the special case of nuclear fuels that use radioactivity to generate heat to boil liquids that drive turbine generators. Since these do not use combustion, they do not release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
The only reason we need fuel is to provide heat energy which we then convert to electricity or mechanical power. There are at least five combustion based systems in use. The internal combustion piston engine is the most common and the most developed. Turbine engines make up the rest of the internal combustion types. Other sources of power include: piston steam engines, turbine steam engines, several types of nuclear reactors, fuel cells, and batteries. All of these power sources turn energy derived from chemical reactions or nuclear fission into electricity or mechanical energy which then powers vehicles, tools, and factories.
There are at least six types of batteries in use, some of which are very new and just beyond the development stage. These new technologies will come of age when continuing development of improved technologies lower their costs and improve their safety and efficiency.
Electric motors of many types and sizes, long important in stationary applications and semi-portable tools are growing in use in vehicles. The fastest growing application of new battery technologies is now battery-powered, cord-free tools and electronic equipment. Application of these new batteries to hybrids, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and even pure electric vehicles (EVs), is just in the beginning stages.
In the power plant segment of our energy system there are at least eight very different sources of energy used to drive the generators that produce our electricity. Each has its own positives and negatives and all can pose serious environmental problems.
All of these parts of our energy system have been described to illustrate how complex it is. Making any major change would be a difficult and arduous task. Even deciding which changes to make—what system to develop—will be difficult. The answer could lie in a very successful technique used mostly in America for a long time, individual entrepreneurship in a relatively unfettered free enterprise business environment.
The challenge ahead
There are literally thousands of individuals using their genius to develop new energy technologies motivated by the promise of rewards for themselves and for their organizations. We are not alone in free entrepreneurship. The powers that control China have suddenly realized its value and are now encouraging it. This has created one of the biggest economic turnarounds in the history of nations. Other countries have seen the light for some time and their economies are booming. Even India, the other Asian giant, is beginning to loosen the socialist government reins that have held their economy in check for so long. The phenomenal growth of the Irish economy is another example.
Internet access to the rest of the world and primarily the free world has been a factor in these changes. Even some governments that once controlled virtually every aspect of their people's lives are now recognizing the value of free entrepreneurship, and capitalism. Profit is no longer a dirty word in many of these nations. Tom Friedman details these changes in his recent book, The World is Flat 2.0.
The Shining Example of Ireland
Ireland is a prime example of what can happen when government frees businesses and entrepreneurs from oppressive controls and taxes while at the same time the public attitude and media have become pro business. After years of wallowing in poverty in a country where government controls and high taxes on business stifled progress and discouraged investment of both time and money, the Irish took a dramatic new course. Government interference and controls of business were largely abolished. Complex reporting that bogged down management was mostly thrown out. Corporate taxes once among the highest in the world received a major change in the late 1970s when capital gains were included in corporate profits and all were taxed at 32%. Then in the 1990s the corporate tax rate was reduced to 12.5%. Government changed from being the enemy of business to being a strong supporter. The results speak for themselves. This so stimulated the Irish economy that between 1995 and 2001 corporate tax revenue actually tripled and Ireland became the poster nation for lower corporate taxes. Ireland is now one of the most vibrant economies in Europe. Business is booming like never before. There are now many high paying jobs and investment capital is flowing freely into a nation that once couldn't coax any investors. In the last twenty years more then 1,000 foreign companies have moved to or opened operations in Ireland. Local firms have also flourished and greatly expanded with worldwide impact. Employment has grown so much that Ireland now imports thousands of workers just to keep their industries running. All of this success is because of the new positive attitude of the public, the media, and government of Ireland to the development of business. This radical new attitude has brought on the availability of world class support services including banking, trade finance, transport systems and advanced telecommunications.
Irish political scientist and historian, Tom Garvin, is the author of several books on Irish political history. “I have to make a mental effort to remember the Dublin of the 1950s, which was in many ways a Third World city,” Garvin reports. “Horses, no motorcars, children in bare feet, dirt everywhere, people living in slums, no television, no bathrooms—a really impoverished European country that didn't seem to be going anywhere.” When a dear friend visited Dublin in the 1970's, she found relatively little improvement from Garvin's picture of the 1950s.
When she and I visited Dublin together in October of 2007, the city was almost unbelievably different: vibrant, hopeful, optimistic, enthusiastic, and almost ecstatic. Expensive clothes and new vehicles were everywhere. The local car dealer had buyers waiting sixty days to take delivery of their new BMWs. The streets were filled with people who literally overflowed the pubs and upscale stores that lined the streets. This amazing economic outcome resulted from government working with business rather than against it and removing oppressive tax burdens rather than imposing them. What also helped was a pro business attitude of people and even the media rather than the class hatred and anti business attitude we see so prevalent in our own country today.
The concerted effort to solve our energy problems if augmented by this kind of positive attitude and action by everyone here at home would certainly stimulate the economic growth that has sustained our economy at such high levels for so long. If our efforts at solving our energy crisis are driven by hope for substantial economic rewards, we will surely succeed and hugely so. If on the other hand, those anti business voices of doom and gloom succeed and control our government with the new oppressive regulations and taxes they have promised, our economy will surely go into reverse and much more quickly than even the present slow down has indicated. How can they promise “half a million new jobs” when they also promise huge tax increases on those who would provide the capital to create those jobs? Faced with these tax increases it is more likely that we will lose several million existing jobs along with those new ones. The fall of the dollar we are currently experiencing will accelerate. Those entrepreneurs who might have solved our energy crisis will do so in Ireland, or China, or India as our stifled economy sinks into depression and our energy needs go unsolved.
The recent crane accidents are a significant and troubling indication that this may already be underway. This may seem a remote relationship, but consider: construction cranes are disassembled after their job is finished and shipped to a new site for a new job often far from the last site. The largest number of construction cranes in use, long was in the US. Now it is China and India that lead as locations for construction cranes with the US a distant third, almost on a par with Russia. The result is that the newest and best cranes are occupied in those countries and we have to be satisfied with the left overs, sometimes aged and second rate.
Cranes, construction equipment, investment capital and even people with expertise now move in a world economy. These important wealth generating systems and people gravitate to the locations where they have the most opportunity to generate wealth. They will abandon places where government regulations or taxes reduce the wealth they can produce and move to more favorable environments. Understanding this brought about the explosive Irish economy and even the new Chinese economic expansion. One example of this in action is the movement of some American managers and craftsmen to Russia. Numerous construction managers, contractors, and even skilled workers are being recruited by Russian builders to work in Russia. This is a new thing, and quite troubling. It indicates the relative energy of those economies. I'm sure there are other similar movements of people, investment capital, and technologies in this world economy. People, equipment, technology and money are now moving worldwide to where they can generate the most income.
How we approach and deal with this serious problem and the attitude we take toward those who have the power to solve it will ultimately decide which technologies prosper and which fall by the wayside. The steadily rising cost of petroleum fuels has made alternative systems practical that were far too expensive when oil was five dollars a barrel. One possible stumbling block to these changes could result from a dramatic, sudden, and sustained drop in the price of oil like that resulting from the recession of 2008. As long as these low prices continue, development of alternate fuels and energy systems will probably be put on the back burner. Eventually dwindling supplies of petroleum will wipe this out as demand again outpaces supply and prices head skyward once again Solving the energy crisis will impact many serious problems that we are facing right now. The biggest is the outflow of billions of dollars for oil to nations that preach our destruction. The boost to our economy alone would create a bonanza in this country like we have never before seen. New jobs, new technologies, new industries, and new entrepreneurs would flourish. Even without new taxes (what a dream that is) government revenue would soar from the increased economic activity. The demise of the oil industry would certainly be replaced by the new energy industries. Actually, those oil companies that got aboard these new technologies rather than opposing them, could use their present wealth to invest in them and grow rather than fade away.
Whether or not human contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere causes global warming is only remotely connected to our energy related problems. If these new energy systems eliminate the wholesale use of fossil fuels, so much the better. Even if it has a negligible effect on global warming, it can do no harm to maintain the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere near to where it has been for a very long time. That would also satisfy the demands of the global warming proponents and opponents and redirect their energies elsewhere to other far more dangerous challenges facing humanity. Concrete benefits to the rest of the world with the exception of the oil-rich nations would also be substantial.
Some Predictions
Studies of energy systems of so many kinds provide evidence that the future will probably see the greatest growth in energy generated in the form of electricity, distributed and used by a wide variety of systems. There will be rapid growth in electric generating capacity primarily in nuclear, but with geothermal a close second and possibly eventually leading. A decline in coal-fired power plants is probable unless we find a practical technology to gather and sequester carbon dioxide, a very difficult and expensive challenge. Wind and direct solar generation still require substantial government subsidies and will remain xpensive. They will be only minor players in contribution to the grid. Their use in small, local applications where connection to the electric grid is expensive and to home heating and providing hot water will probably be a substantial benefit and addition to the energy mix. Hydro power will not grow much as environmental concerns will make it increasingly expensive. One interesting possibility now being studied is the conversion of ocean wave action to electrical energy. Thus far, costs and practicality seem reasonable and the downside appears to be virtually nonexistent.
Vehicles will become more electric and less fuel powered as battery technology continues to improve and rapid charging systems are developed. There will always be hybrids, mostly electric vehicles with onboard charging capability, because charging capabilities may be unavailable in some places. Of course there could also be additional growth in micro turbine generators which are already being used for both remote and emergency power applications. Variety will be great as technologies progress and new ones come along.
A number of possible alternative fuel and energy systems exist that could replace present systems based on coal and petroleum with those that do not use fossil fuels. The benefits of these systems are many, varied, and have far- reaching positive attributes. These run from battery powered vehicles to biodiesel produced from algae to a reforming process for animal and vegetable fats to coal conversion to liquid fuels. Successful production of these energy systems and fuels would include immeasurable economic and political benefits for the citizens of any state or country that adopts them and environmental benefits for the entire world.
There are many innovative new products and technologies that could help us move to a new energy system with a low, or possibly zero-net carbon dioxide environmental impact. Many of these are already available and on the market. Others are soon to come. All that is needed is acceptance by the buying public and the associated development of better technologies and manufacturing capabilities. Some effective PR would provide a big boost.
Two possible direct replacements for gasoline are butanol (butyl alcohol) and 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF). Both have been available for a long time primarily as solvents and paint thinners. Both can be used in current gasoline engines with little or no modifications. Their high cost relative to gasoline is now changing as gasoline prices rise. New manufacturing techniques have already lowered the production costs of these new fuels to competitive levels. These also have the possibility of being made out of waste plant materials by active biota. Several new techniques have already shown some success. All that is needed is further research and development of processes that can be scaled up to meet the kind of quantity required for a gasoline replacement.
There are serious side effects from the growth of biofuels.
Conversion to alternative fuels is already creating serious problems that can only grow worse. Enough corn and soy beans are being diverted from food production to energy use (as ethanol and biodiesel) to bring about some major increases in the costs of these grains. Most have hit all time highs on the grain markets and no sign of a relaxation of this upward trend has yet appeared. This is exacerbated by the rapidly expanding economies of nations like China, India and others. Farmers everywhere are thrilled with this new bonanza. Increases in prices for all baked goods, meats, eggs and milk—anything that uses or requires grains—are already quite noticeable in stores.
Another concern that has quite a different but equally negative effect is the growing of palms for palm oil to be used as biodiesel fuel. Much tropical rain forest is being cut, burned and cleared to grow palms for the highly profitable oil they produce. Destruction of rain forest with its huge capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could more than counter any gain in the carbon dioxide balance from use of biodiesel made from palm oil.
There are many other ways to produce biodiesel that could become practical were we to pursue them aggressively. One that is well documented is the use of Algae fed nutrients from waste water or other biological waste materials to produce useable oils. For more information, view the Internet site:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html.
This is an example of just one possible process. Many of these new technologies would bear fruit if more research were provided. This would accomplish two needed goals. One would be to produce biodiesel without interfering with food crops. The second would be to make profitable use of waste materials that now cost money for disposal.
Using food crops to make biofuels has already caused disruption to the food supply which is only going to grow worse. Because of this we need emphasis on new fuels made from non food chain raw materials along with new battery technologies. As a result, electric vehicles will garner the most support. A great expansion of geothermal power generation to cover the increased energy demand could be our best bet for electric power. These are some of the only readily acceptable and practical options that can lead us away from dependence on fossil fuels without a major disruption of our food supply or serious damage to our environment. It is unlikely that any practical development of cost-effective fuel-cell powered vehicles, hydrogen or otherwise, will come to the fore without a major breakthrough in technology. Although such a breakthrough is always possible, there seems to be no hint of any in the foreseeable future.
There are powerful and deeply entrenched economic and political forces all over the world that actively oppose any system to replace fossil fuels. This is because it would challenge their power and control over energy. Hopefully, our nation will overcome this opposition and lead the world by becoming the first to adopt such a system. If we don't, I'm certain China, India and several other countries will jump at the chance to be first with new energy technology and its associated benefits. What happens when suddenly we have
$200 A BARREL
PETROLEUM
AND $8
A GALLON
GASOLINE ?
PETROLEUM
AND $8
A GALLON
GASOLINE ?
If we wait 'til then, it will definitely be too late. A Scenario of the Future:
a Warning, Hopefully not a Prediction
Dec. 10, 2010—Associated Press: (hypothetical)
Yesterday, crude oil hit a new high on the world market as the $200 per barrel ceiling was reached and passed. Regular gasoline in the United States is now selling at the pump for $8.19 per gallon. The effect on the world economy and especially the U.S. sector has been devastating. Oil experts see no end to rising oil prices since OPEC is tightly controlling production and refuses to increase production in spite of rapidly growing demand in China and elsewhere. Iran's Achmadinijad and Venezuela's Chavez have joined forces to dominate OPEC. Their repeated joint impassioned announcements of hatred for America and their plans to destroy our economy seem now to be gaining momentum. Add to this Russia's increasing threats to control and shut down their oil pipeline to Europe has had a catastrophic effect on the world's oil supply.
The European Union, hard hit by the Russian threat to their oil supply, is processing new travel restrictions for member countries and will wait to see what happens before getting more involved. Officials in these countries have drafted several resolutions and are debating a course of action in the UN. No concrete proposals for action have been made. Perhaps the rapidly expanding French nuclear energy program and the promised rapid expansion of the manufacture of new battery powered vehicles being produced in Germany and England are beginning to replace many of their fueled vehicles.
The American delegation has pressed for action on several proposals, but France, Germany, and Russia have opposed every American plan. Strangely, China now seems to be siding with the Americans in urging for action. Perhaps their growing need for oil has caused them to change their position.
This could happen. Considering current events, this is not an impossible scenario. Wishful thinkers might say so, but supposing a scenario does unfold that causes oil prices to skyrocket (like a series of destructive Gulf Coast hurricanes?). Al-Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalists have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Their desire to bring chaos and destruction on the West is certainly not diminishing. With Russia now flexing their new economic and military muscles, a new threat has arisen from the ashes of the old USSR. Our dependence on oil is the key to their success and, incredibly, is providing them with vast funds for military weapons, training and recruiting as well as an economic weapon.
Why don't we do something now before our economy is totally devastated?
The prices paid for motor fuel are posted on huge signs in every filling station. In spite of this, most Americans understand little of the nuances associated with energy, fuels and the environment or the economic menace these factors pose. I'll wager that long before gasoline reaches $8 per gallon the motoring public will be screaming. Look at the uproar created by $3 per gallon gasoline. They will be screaming hatred at the oil companies and for their politicians to do something immediately! (Even though they have some complicity, oil companies are a convenient scapegoat and recipient of our wrath particularly when public figures constantly condemn them as the cause.) While the best time to take steps is now, before any serious crisis, my guess is that nothing effective will get done until that major crisis inundates us as the current economic downturn might do. That, of course, is human nature. The media could be a huge help in this situation, but they seem to lack the courage or ability to do much but condemn.
Of course, there is also the long range possibility that all the changes from a conversion to non petroleum fuels and electric powered vehicles would not be beneficial.... What then happens when suddenly we have
$10 A BARREL
PETROLEUM
AND $.70
A GALLON
GASOLINE ?
PETROLEUM
AND $.70
A GALLON
GASOLINE ?
If this happens, what will be the consequences? Another Scenario of the Future:
ten years into that future
Dec. 10, 2018 Associated Press: (hypothetical)
Yesterday, crude oil hit a new low on the world market as it dropped to below $7 a barrel. Regular gasoline in the United States is now selling at the pump for $.69 per gallon. The effect on the world economy has been dramatic. Many new alternative fuel manufacturers have gone bankrupt. With consumption now less than half of what it was just five years ago the resulting glut on world oil supply has dropped the price to unimagined lows. Iran's Achmadinijad and Venezuela's Chavez joined leaders of most of OPEC nations screaming about a Western conspiracy to bankrupt their nations. Announcements of hatred for America and their plans to destroy us seem now to be gaining momentum. Add to this Russia's increasing belligerence because of economic problems and the potential for war is growing. In the European Union, the growth of France's nuclear energy industry and the batteries and electric cars now being delivered by British and German manufacturers have combined to reduce petroleum use to a small fraction of what it used to be. European batteries and EVs are being challenged by offerings from China and even the US. The new American EV Motors Corporation has quickly become the world leader in EV manufacture with the greatest range, 500 kilometers and the most efficient new vehicle with in-wheel motors. The revolutionary new US lead-acid batteries outperform both Chinese nickle metal hydride batteries and Italian nano lithium ion batteries and are much cheaper. The world wide acceptance of these new US products has brought about an unprecedented economic boom in America after the calamitous crash of ten years previous.
America is fast becoming the world leader in geothermal power after a breakthrough in drilling techniques developed by American oil drilling companies. This new technique is promising an unprecedented low rate for electricity as more and more GT power plants come on line. Previously rate ranged from 7.18› per kilowatt hour in West Virginia to 19.8› in New York. The new rates range from 2› to 6› per kilowatt hour less.
Like France, China is relying on nuclear energy because geothermal energy is still too far below the surface there to be utilized economically. Their auto plants are turning out EVs and PHEVs at an astounding rate, most for their growing domestic market. At the same time they have become the world's largest exporter of EVs. China has virtually stopped importing oil.
This could happen as well. Changes during the next ten years could easily make this a reality. Such a dramatic reversal of the world's petroleum economy is quite possible. It all depends on which way we decide to move. An American government that is friendly to creative business and a public more aware of the reality of profits and job creation like the Irish could turn our nation's economy around rapidly. Our wealthy oil companies could change their prospects and make up for the loss of fuel revenue by turning to drilling for heat energy instead of oil. Investing in GT power plants in stead of refineries could put them in the forefront of the new energy economy.
Should we do something now before our economy is totally devastated we will certainly benefit from the changes.
The prices paid for motor fuel are posted on huge signs in every filling station. Will those change to prices for a quick charge for vehicle batteries? Will we intelligently use existing technologies to move toward this end while going through the probably painful changeover from petroleum fuels to alternative fuels to electric vehicles? Will we weather the storm of new geothermal power plants and the closing of the coal-fired ones? Will we find new jobs for the thousands of people who will lose theirs as the petroleum industry, then the alternate fuels industry are displaced and shut down by changes to an electric economy fed by geothermal energy? Only the future will tell, but this was just one of possibly thousands of future scenarios some of which will play out over the next ten years. An Interesting Scenario—
A Day in the Life of a PHEV
This scenario shows what could come to pass if one form of the PHEV proposed by the author becomes a reality. It is just one example of many options of a completely new type of vehicle the author proposes be developed. It is the story of an average American, five to ten years in the future. The scenario uses existing technologies and components that are already commercially available. Modification of commonly used designs to adapt to use in small vehicles would be far simpler and less expensive than what is required for a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle system.
The Story: Science Fiction, or Soon-to-be Fact?
It's morning, and Sam Wilkes heads out to his garage, his two school-age children in tow. He is taking them to school on his way to his first sales call of the day. Sam opens the garage door, unplugs the charger from the outlet in the garage, gets in, and drives his children to school in virtual silence—no engine noise; the car is operating on electric power from storage batteries. As he drops the kids off, he notices the fuel tank is almost empty, but that is no problem as the battery charge gauge shows 95 percent, almost a full charge. That's enough to move him nearly a hundred miles. On the way to his next stop he pulls into a filling station and fills the tank with “RN fuel” at $3.10 a gallon. It takes twelve gallons to completely fill the tank. (See the information about RN fuel in the note at the end of the story.)
After completing his first sales call, he heads for his office in Bakersfield to file some reports and pick up several things for his next call. After driving across town, he pulls into a private parking place in front of his office. Noticing his charge gauge shows 70 percent, he plugs in the charger to the outlet in front of his car provided by the company for his use. It will be charging while he is inside. At the same time, solar cells in the roof, rear deck and hood of his car are also charging his batteries from the sunlight as they will continue to do throughout the day. A day parked in the sunlight will provide up to thirty-five miles of travel, free of any fuel or energy costs. Some flow of electricity from the solar cells continues even when it is cloudy although at a reduced rate.
About an hour later, Sam gets in his car and heads north on CA 99 for his next call about 150 miles away. As he heads down the highway, he sets the charger control at 70 percent. The micro turbine will turn on and begin charging when the battery charge drops below 70 percent. It will continue to run until the batteries are fully charged when the micro turbine will shut itself off until the charge once more reaches less than 70 percent, the charger's current minimum setting. The charging system does not start because the batteries are almost fully charged.
When the charge drops below 70 percent, some twenty miles down the road, the RN fuel micro turbine powered generator starts up automatically. Sam hears a soft whine as it gains momentum and finally levels off at its optimum speed. Since he is driving on fairly level ground, the charge gauge slowly creeps up, as the micro turbine is generating more electricity than the car is using.
About thirty miles from his destination Sam heads up into “the grapevine,” a steep grade that will take him over a mountain pass at five thousand feet above sea level. Noting his charge gauge is at 95 percent, he knows he has plenty of power to make it over the pass. By the time he tops the pass his charge has dropped to 40 percent, but now he is going downhill. As gravity pulls the car faster downhill, the electric motors stop using power and employ what is called dynamic braking to hold the car at a safe speed—a cruise control in reverse one might say. In dynamic braking, the electric motors become generators, feeding power back into the batteries. The energy that would normally be used up and converted to heat in conventional brakes is instead converted into electric power stored in the batteries. Every time he uses the brakes his batteries receive a charge. At Santa Clarita he turns west on CA 126 for the drive into Ventura where his client waits. As he turns onto CA 126, he notices his charge is back up to 75 percent.
When he stops to pick up his client, Sam turns the micro turbine control off. This will make the car virtually silent as it runs on electric power alone while his client is in the car. Two hours later Sam heads for home. He forgets to turn on and reset the charging system control. Climbing back up the grade, Sam is using a lot of power from the batteries. Several miles below the pass the charge drops to 10 percent and the micro turbine generator whirs into life all on its own—a safety feature. Sam realizes his error and that he will probably not make the pass since the car is using more power than the generator can supply.
Rather than push his luck and wait until the charge drops to zero, he pulls off into a rest area and parks. The whir of the generator is reassuring as Sam reaches for some papers in his briefcase. He might as well start writing his report while waiting for the charge to be replenished. Solar panels in the roof, deck and trunk lid contribute to the recharge even when Sam is driving, just as long as he is in daylight. Fifteen minutes later, Sam notices the charge is up to 40 percent, more than enough to take him over the pass.
Once over the pass, the long steep descent combined with the generator and the solar panels have filled the charge to 70 percent. By the time Sam is forty miles from Bakersfield, the charge is full and the generator turns itself off—a fuel-saving economy effort. Sam switches off the system control and drives the rest of the way in silence on battery power only. After parking in his garage, he plugs the charger cord into the electric outlet. The charge is down to 20 percent, but that's fine. Charging from an electric outlet costs just a bit more than a quarter the cost of charging with the RN fuel generator. After dinner, Sam and his wife go out for a show with the batteries now fully charged. With a range of a hundred miles on battery power alone, they will not have to use the generator at all.
Sam's fuel gauge shows he has used just five gallons of RN fuel in driving more than 375 miles. At $3.10 per gallon his fuel cost is $15.50. His cost for electricity from the power plant was about $4.30, making a total of $19.80 or about five cents a mile. During the trip, his micro turbine had emitted little greenhouse gases (by comparison with today's gas vehicles, less than 5 percent) and almost no pollution. If electric power used to produce the methanol component of the RN fuel were supplied by wind, solar, hydro or nuclear power plants there would be virtually no pollution or net greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere.
—End of story
About RN (renewable) fuel: This fuel, used in the story is a hypothetical, but easily made, infinitely practical blend of fuels such as: methanol, ethanol, butanol, DMF (2,5-dimethyl furan), or other fuels and fuel additives in proportions found to have the best cost/benefits ratio considering the manufacturing, blending, transport and usage. Like M85, E85 and other “flex- fuels,” it could require some minor redesign and/or modifications to many of today's engines. Already, “flex-fuel” vehicles are on the market that would run on some blends of “RN” fuel while other, specific blends of “RN” fuel could be used in present vehicles without modification. RN fuel is also a non fossil fuel and as such does not add any net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Read more about RN fuel later in the section on fuels in this book.
About the solar panels: A significant amount of electrical energy could be generated directly by the sun if solar panels were installed in the roof, rear deck and hood of the car and used to charge the batteries whenever the car was in sunlight. These panels could provide a significant portion of the cars energy virtually free depending on where it was kept and driven. It is conceivable that if driven only short distances, like to work and for local shopping, most of the energy required would be free. Of course, these panels and their wiring would add to the initial cost of the car, but the return on the investment in the form of lowered energy costs could possibly pay for the panels in less than a year of use. That would depend largely on sunlight available where the owner lived, drove, and parked his vehicle.
What This Scenario Could Point to
Is this a possibility? Not only a future possibility but all the technologies used are already available and highly developed. Prototype vehicles such as the one described have already been announced by several car makers and could be on the road in just a year or so. Commercial model availability might take several years, but that would be far sooner than for any hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Naturally, improvements and evolutionary developments would be involved. Several fuels other than the RN fuel used in the story could be used. These include most all of the fuels described in the section on fuels later in this book.
With the introduction and scenario setting the stage, we will now delve into the nitty-gritty of energy systems and devices to see where we are and where we could be going.
