At 2:49 PM 4/15/5, Mike Carrell wrote: [snip] > >My point in the essay is that wind and solar have well known problems, and >hydrogen storage and distribution on the scale necessary to sustain our >present lifestyle is not attractive.
In responding to this sentence earlier I got sidetracked by concerns over the biases of the Hirsch report on the effect of peak oil on transportation fuels, and did not complete my thoughts. The problem with the conclusion the use of renewables will be unattractive, and analyses like the Hirsch report which simply ignores them, is that not everyone is working from the same base assumptions. Also, there are significant new developments in energy production technology with increasing frequency, whcih change the base assumptions. It seems to me clear that we do not have to fully convert to a hydrogen economy to make dramatic reductions in the cost of energy and simultaneously eliminate or reduce atmospheric contamination with greenhouse gasses and other materials. There are useful interim or long term actions or developments which can be made starting now, including: 1. Solar towers, 2. Sterling engine based solar energy collection, 3. Bi-thermal (combined liquid air - thermal well) energy storage, 4. Improved battery technology used in transportation, 5. Silicon based energy storage and energy transport, 6. Nitrogen based energy storage and transport, 7. Wind power generation on mountains where the big energy is, 8. Biomass and waste conversion to liquid fuels, 9. Improved economics of conventional wind mills, 10. Development of advanced nuclear reactors, 11. Development of high efficiency DC power transmission systems, 12. Much improved and more widely used insulation materials (aerogel, etc.), 13. Improved solar arrays, 14. Threats to the global economy and financial markets, 15. Increased public awareness there is a serious problem at hand, 16. Increased conservation as a result of public awareness and energy cost, 17. Possibly, at long last, some money for novel energy research. The Energy Legacy Plan, or a similar balanced approach, can help bring all this to early fruition. In addition, simultaneous development of existing known resources, like coal, clathrates, and other vast methane reserves will also help at least mitigate the peak oil problem for a while. We should also expect oil finds in the southern hemisphere and other places which have been relatively untapped, and possibly shale oil or other known oil sources will be tapped. While there are indeed big costs associated with energy development, the cash flow associated with massive renewables creation also represents great opportunity, and the human labor required could be the basis of a massive economic boom. The costs of renewable development are offset by resulting energy abundance and thus overall energy price drops. In fact, the greatest enemy to renewables production and conservation has been energy price fluctuation. Perhaps variable energy taxation aimed in part at smoothing the cost of energy would be or would have been useful. Certainly the global development of reliable cheap clean energy will ultimately greatly enhance the world economy and world peace. It can not happen too soon. The ulitmate crisis is not peak oil, but rather peak water. We will need cheap energy to obtain the water and thus food the world needs. Regards, Horace Heffner
