Horace Heffner wrote:
On Dec 8, 2007, at 7:36 PM, R.C.Macaulay wrote:
Horace wrote..
Batteries and plug in hybrids, especially diesel hybrids that also
run on biodiesel, seem to be the likely winners for the future
I actually have a typo in the above. It should say "Batteries and plug
in hybrids, especially diesel hybrids that also run on biodiesel, seem
to be the likely winners for the NEAR future - i.e. 10 years or more."
I also forgot methane vehicles, which could catch on.
Howdy Horace,
Volkswagon seems to be focusing on diesel hybrids. Been watching for
them to introduce such in the USA. Would love to get my hands on a 1/4
ton truck. Maybe they fear the intent of the Chinese that are vocal
about introducing such here at under price of 12k.
Why the big push in research in hydrogen if it's not going anywhere?
Your argument has merit.. makes sense.
A big research push is acceptable to the oil and coal industries,
especially if the source of the hydrogen is natural gas or coal. Much
better for them to dump government money into hydrogen stuff that won't
have significant impact for years (especially *their* hydrogen stuff)
rather than reduce the billions in incentives (now charity) to the oil
industry established when oil was under $20 a barrel, and channel it
into solar incentives. This kind of hydrogen planning and research is
being done now even though it should be obvious to a child it is way
more efficient to burn coal directly, or burn natural gas directly in a
car, and the infrastructure and proven technology is in place to start
doing this almost immediately. This would only be a temporary and
partial measure though, because there is not enough natural gas to go
around for this, and fossil fuel consumption has to be reduced anyway.
If sufficient money were put into building a solar infrastructure and
HVDC power transmission system,
Why HVDC?
I've been led to believe that the problems in efficient DC-DC conversion
outweigh any advantages to DC distribution. (Granted, some computer
power buses use single-voltage DC and downconvert at the board level,
but that's all low-current stuff and efficiency isn't such a big deal in
that case.)
If we're changing the grid, wouldn't it be more reasonable to switch to
higher frequency AC, which would be easier to manage than 60 Hz (and
maybe less dangerous)?
Just wondering.
a 1960's style moon shot sized effort,
we could have a new day in the USA in 5 years. That will probably
happen anyway with much delay, but we are going to lag way behind Europe
and others due to a lack of foresight or will in the US Senate. The
best strategy for oil and coal is to jack the financial incentives and
economic and legal conditions around so as many renewable companies go
out of business as possible - let them build up and then pull the rug
out from under them, one area at a time if necessary. The problem with
this strategy is many free world governments have cleaned house
politically, and the incumbents now know the name of the game. The
conversion from fossil fuel is well underway in places like Germany,
which is employing solar even though solar conditions there are as bad
as here in southern Alaska. Alaska is currently cleaning house
(actually House and Senate) by convicting politicians and oil industry
lobbyists of bribery. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see some action
of that kind on a national level at some point. A lot of the current
financial problems that prevent the US from affording a major energy
effort right now are at least partially due to excessive financial
industry lobbyist exposure, be it legal or not. In my opinion we are
probably headed for stagflation again, and the only way out of that is
increasing productivity. The computer revolution has already happened
so what's the next big opportunity for productivity increase? Energy of
course. Hopefully it won't take politicians and voters 10 years to
figure that out.
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
