I'd argue with that Ludi, but perhaps it belongs in a new thread. Actually, there's probably one already out there in VB land. :)


Sure, you can argue with that, if you want. I've been studying this issue intensively for over a year, and I've come to the conclusion that many people are seriously misinformed. I've tried quite hard here to help people become informed on the energy issue, but there has been little interest.

The fact is oil is a particularly dense energy source, there aren't any energy sources as dense which are as easy to obtain and transport, in mass quantity. Any practical alternative has to be equally cheap, dense, easy to transport, and plentiful. If there were, we'd be using it already.

Alternatives only become viable when oil becomes hard to get and expensive, which doesn't solve the problem of hard to get and expensive energy. Our society runs on cheap, easy to get energy. And lots of it.

I split this thread. It's related to the speech, yes, but I didn't want this conversation to take over the other thread.

Ludi, I fear we may come from a fundamentally different point of view here. While a large difference in cost would be prohibitive, I don't think that an alternative fuel source necessarily has to be equally cheap to be viable as a product, especially if there are environmental factor put into the equation. Also, some restructing of government funding/spending may help eliminate some of the cost to producers/consumers initially, allowing time to refine methods/technology and reduce the cost in the long run.

Any alternative fuel source has to be competitive, dollar for dollar, with fossil fuel to be viable as a consumer product.

The problem is that fossil fuel is a mature product, i.e. most of the fixed costs of extraction, refining, and distribution have already been paid. To build a solar power grid, even for the smallest of cities, and maintaining the same level of service that is currently available would be extremely expensive. Building alternative fuel cars is not as simple as strapping a hudrogen sponge on the back and rolling out.

IamJen, a gallon of fuel is actually costing US consumers between $5.60 and
$15.14 <http://www.walksacramento.org/gas.html> if you include all subsidies, tax breaks, and other associated costs. So the first step is not to start subsidising alternative fuels, it is to STOP subsidizing fossil fuels.

In Canada the Green Party proposed just that, cutting all gasoline and fossil fuel subsidies, and turning that money over to the alternative fuel industry. The only problem with that course of action is that most electricity in Canada is generated by coal and natural gas power plants. So you not only take away most peoples automotive mobility, but you increase the cost of electricity by 500% to 1500% overnight. I currently pay about $40 per month, my bill could instantly go up to $200 per month. The effect is compounded by the fact that the fuel used to transport the fuel to generate electricity would also go up 500% to 1500%, so the real change could equal as much as a 3000% increase in prices. So now my electricity could go up to as much as $1200 per month.

Anyway, this is becoming an essay, but suffice it to say that Ludi is proabbly more right that wrong by saying that North America runs on cheap oil. A good movie to watch about this is 'The End of Suburbia'.

As for solutions, IamJen, I think you are right in a way as well, we need to petition the government to start taking some of the gas taxes and building mass transit using cleaner diesel fuel, propane or natural gas powered vehicles.

We need more alternatives to driving, not alternative fuels for driving.

I pretty much concur with Sketchy on this. Alternatives are important, but they simply can't take the place of cheap fossil fuels given our current society. This is a literal physical impossibility, because they are not as energy dense. That is, it takes a large amount of energy to produce them versus (cheap) oil. Since we're running out of cheap oil (not oil itself, just the oil that's easy to get), alternatives will be competitive, but they simply will NOT be able to take the place of cheap oil. Our society will have to change.

Of course cheap oil was never REALLY cheap, we are paying the price in global climate change.

The thing is, all the environmental factors in the world won't make people happy about having to pay a lot more for everything. It will be especially hard on the poor.

I don't have the time to argue this, but I personally find that a hydrogen fuel system based off of a renewable electricity grid is fairly plausible as an alternative for our current system. Yes, hydrogen has problems, chiefly being the difficulty to safely transport it and the lack of an infrastructure for it. However, with the introduction of hybrid vehicles, I think it's fairly safe to say that the technology is advancing such that a hydrogen fuel system will be doable in the next 10-20 years, given that current trends continue.

That's neat, Daral. Problem solved.

Never mind that a renewable energy grid won't produce enough electricity to support our car culture, unless you mean a new nuclear grid.

"Robyn Williams: We have your cherries in the middle of winter.

Albert Bartlett: And we have New Zealand apples: enormous petroleum consumption to bring those in.


Robyn Williams: You’re suggesting we won’t be able to afford that much longer?

Albert Bartlett: That’s what it looks like to me and all the talk about alternative energies is talk and not a lot of progress is being made. There are two aspects: the first aspect is, you have to get the technology worked out and the second aspect is that you have to get this infrastructure made and in place nationwide. So if you’re going to talk about hydrogen for vehicles you’ve got to have hydrogen filling stations in every village and city in the country, you’ve got to have big distribution facilities. The cost of this is just staggering, it can’t happen very fast.

Robyn Williams: And of course, what you were saying about the planes flying, there is no substitute really for the petrol which they use in planes is there?

Albert Bartlett: No, you don’t fly planes on nuclear reactors and of course hydrogen doesn’t make sense unless you get hydrogen from solar power. If you build coal fired electric plants to make hydrogen from water that takes enormous of energy, there’s big waste. You know in a coal fired plant two thirds of the energy is wasted and one third appears as electricity on the bus bar, and if you use hydrogen from solar energy then at least you have chance to get ahead. Now in the States if you buy a cylinder hydrogen at a chemical supply house, chances are that hydrogen is made by breaking down natural gas. You’d be better off burning the natural gas than going to all the problem of breaking it down into hydrogen. But somehow the policy makers in Washington DC don’t seem to recognise these obvious things and they say, well, we’ve got to get started and so on and natural gas supplies worldwide are not nearly as large as I think some people imagine. And this for instance, I was reading recently that Australia is a major exporter of liquefied natural gas from up in north/west Australia. You know, I think somebody, some minister, somebody ought to look at this and say we’ve got to save some of that for future generations in Australia."

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/incon/stories/s1544650.htm

Sketchy..I agree re: not subsidizing fossil fuels..that what I meant to imply re: shifting funding.

In the current, present day, at this very moment, I agree that alternative and fossil fuels are not equal in cost (even adjusted for subsidies, etc.) However, I'm not calling for an end to them this second. I firmly believe that a large part of the disparity is due to a lack of equality in funding, and that fixing that problem will reduce the difference is cost.

Additionally, I think we see evidence all around us that consumers are, in fact, willing to pay higher costs for items which are more enviro-friendly. If the cost is substantially higher, then yeah, that's considered a big drawback. But to say that it has to be exactly dollar for dollar is inaccurate (for many Americans)

But do please realise that many people will be quite upset when everything becomes more expensive. For most Americans, cheapness is the most important thing. If it were not, we would not see the success of Walmart. You're talking about the minority of Americans I'm afraid.

That's neat, Daral. Problem solved.

Never mind that a renewable energy grid won't produce enough electricity to support our car culture, unless you mean a new nuclear grid.

It's obviously unfeasible with current renewable technology. I was quite deliberate when I said "if current trends continue". Mostly what I'm referring to is the likely appearance of plastic solar cells in the next 1-5 years, which have radically higher potential than current solar power. Do a google search on "plastic solar", you'll see what I'm talking about.

So kenya and tanzania are having to dramatically cut power because of their overreliance on hydroelectric power. I don't believe there are any credible renewables that the majority of the world can rely on as of now (iceland's geothermal is one exception).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4583876.stm

The End of Suburbia is a bad documentary that does a disservice to the public by exploiting their interest in a subject to instead feed them conspiracy theories and pseudoscience much like What the **** Do We Know?

No, there aren't any credible renewables that the general world can rely on. Iceland geothermal is one special case. Also, a generally unknown fact is that the united states is very rich in wind power. As of right now, personally, I'd say that wind power has the best economics of all the renewables. However, as mentioned above, I think solar has the greatest potential in the near future. Fusion has a lot of potential too, but nothing soon. 40-70 years from now, fusion might have potential, depending on how well ITER goes.

I saw a message on another board to the effect that almost as soon as Bush gave his State of the Union speech, he proceeded to cut the funding of the office that studies renewable energy and fire all the staff. If anyone has a cite to a news article about this, I'd appreciate it.

I just tried to post the link, but i haven't made enought posts to do that yet...

There is an article on the new york times online by Matthew Wald titled "In Energy Work, One Hand Giveth and the Other Taketh"
which mentions the layoffs at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in relation to "earmark reform"

I also read about this somewhere else, but I can't remember where right now...

The End of Suburbia is a bad documentary that does a disservice to the public by exploiting their interest in a subject to instead feed them conspiracy theories and pseudoscience much like What the **** Do We Know?

What was so bad about End of Suburbia? I mean it's not perfect, but it makes the point that we are very reliant on fossil fuels, and North America is addicted to cheap oil.

I do however agree that 'What the bleep' was a pile of the same. THAT was psuedoscience at it's best. Yes, quarks think and act like little muppets and water has feelings.

Additionally, I think we see evidence all around us that consumers are, in fact, willing to pay higher costs for items which are more enviro-friendly. If the cost is substantially higher, then yeah, that's considered a big drawback. But to say that it has to be exactly dollar for dollar is inaccurate (for many Americans)

Maybe for some items, but as Ludi points out, you're talking about North America here (mostly) and, by and large, Americans don't care enough, and in big enough numbers, to make that kind of change.

The real problem though is a macroeconomic one. Because the entire continent is reliant on inexpensive fossil fuels (with huge environmental costs) it becomes very difficult to wean people off of it. The price of oil affects the price of all commodities (food, clothes, hard goods) because they are moved, by and large, by automobile (trucks and vans). When prices start to rise the first people affected are the marginal earners, people on the edge of poverty slip into abject poverty, the middle class start sliding down to lower class, etc.... As the middle class cuts back on spending, businesses start to suffer, the tax base is eroded because of less sales tax collected, less business tax, and less income tax due to layoffs, more layoffs, more erosion, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, the social implications are much bigger than they appear on the surface.

Anyway the point I am making is that the cheap oil is so much a part of our culture that it will require a great effort wean ourselves from the teat of long dead plants and animals. The trick is to not attack big oil directly, but to make people demand changes which force big oil to change. Any alteration to tax laws will be lobbied right out of the building before any governement can consider making changes, any ajustment of subsidies will be attacked by the labour unions and the lobbyists because of negative reprecussions to labour and shareholders. No, we use the carrot and not the stick.

My first suggestion to remove all on street parking in cities, make people start paying for the privilege of driving, and ban the construction of parking arcades (parkades), parking lots, and other automobile abandonment locales through zoning bylaws and development permits. Once the cost of parking becomes too onerous people will begin to seek alternatives, car-pooling, mass transit, alternatives (walking and cycling), or simply moving closer to the places they need to be (work, school, shopping, etc...).

Once the oil reliance is weakened in the cities we move to more stringent environmental laws, auto emissions laws, manufacturing emissions laws, and enforce stiff monetary penalties or tax sanctions for nonconformance. Again, you can use the carrot by offering tax breaks and subsidies to businesses that lead the way, either by changing facilities or methods to become less destructive. Keep improving standards and enforcing the laws until we can kick the crutches out from big oil.

Finally you can go after big oil by way of legislation and litigation. Once big oil has nothing left to fight for they might just roll over and die (I doubt that). Write laws that force the automakers and oil companies to stop using fossil fuels altogether, and start suing on behalf of the athsmatic children, the cancer victims (melanoma from a destroyed ozone layer, lung cancer from exhaust), all of the children whose fathers and mothers died from working over smelters and welders, and all of the children who have to live next to perpetual tire fires and refineries. Imagine a class action suit brought by all of the victims of drunk drivers (alcohol might be the bullet, but the car became a gun).

Anyone?

I'm in favor of grassroots solutions, myself.

http://www.communitysolution.org/

The cost of renewables is substantially higher than fossil fuels. Which will require us to cut down our use of power.

Renewables (except nukes and largescale hydroelectric) currently make up around 2% of energy production. An enormous investment in new infrastructure will be required to transition to renewables. And they can't physically produce the same quantity of energy we currently enjoy from fossil fuels.