The energy sources I am going to discuss are in my personal order of what, I believe, we should be concentrating on to meet our energy needs in the next ten years. I will not be talking about sources that are considered long range such as fusion, wave, and tidal; or stable sources such as geothermal and hydroelectric energy. I also will also not include hydrogen, which, like electricity, is an “energy carrier.”
Further, this discussion is not about conservation. It’s not about going green or getting a hundred miles per gallon. This is only about the energy sources we will be using increasingly or decreasingly in the next ten years.
So let’s get on with the count-down – worst to best!
No. 10 on my list, the most problematic and disastrous energy source to our national well-being is the use of corn to produce Ethanol. Corn is classified as a renewable biomass food crop. Over the last several years Congress has mandated that more and more of our gasoline has to be blended with ethanol. And lots of money has been appropriated along with these mandates including tax credits and incentives which now amount to $5 billion dollars annually plus a 51 cent per gallon subsidy to oil companies to blend ethanol with gasoline. The new proposed congressional bill cuts this by only 6 cents to 55 cents per gallon. Only recently with the increase in food prices have legislators begun to realize that these laws should have specified non-food crops (crops we don’t eat or feed to our farm animals) and not a food crop like corn for ethanol. Not surprisingly, farmers are plowing under their wheat and other grain fields to make way for corn because corn prices have shot up more than 75% in the past year from $4 to over $7 a bushel affecting almost everything else at the supermarket. In 2008 about a quarter of our corn crop will go toward ethanol.
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060412/Feature1.asp http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080403/corn_at_6.html
http://gas2.org/2008/04/09/2015-30-of-us-corn-harvest-will-be-gasoline/
http://www.cato.org/view_ddispatch.php?viewdate=20080430
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,367007,00.html
No. 9 on my list, a source that is problematic and disastrous to our well-being, is Oil. So strapped for oil are we that we are importing huge amounts from other countries. We consume more than 20 million barrels a day but we only produce 5 million barrels. To make up for this deficit we have to pay for foreign oil which is a large portion of our balance of payment deficit, and the chief reason for our weak dollar. It’s not that we don’t have it; it’s just that Congress has placed most of our oil deposits off-limits to drilling. Nevertheless, the real problem lies in the fact that our oil reserves are limited, are mostly offshore, and will take around ten years to get into production if Congress were to suddenly allow drilling tomorrow. And don’t look for any great production off the coast of Virginia as the entire eastern seaboard contains no more than half a year’s supply of oil (3%) (rather it’s the natural gas that we have out there). And not that much is in the Alaska Nation Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) either (23%). Most of it is offshore off the western cost of Florida (63%). But the real problem lies in the fact that the oil rich countries are tipping the economic balance of the world in their favor to the demise of our country and others with not much oil. We account for 25% of global demand and possess less than 3% of proven reserves. Most of the world's known oil reserves are in the Persian Gulf, in the hands of dictators either willing or obliged to fund al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. America has always had the ingenuity to lead the world on to new frontiers, and using the world governments’ concerns over carbon emissions, we could very well lead the world on to cleaner energy sources, sources we have. Nothing pleases the Middle East sheiks more than our clamor for a new energy policy that focuses on drilling for more oil. They have been nervous of late worrying about the fact that we Americans with the world’s biggest and strongest economy might just steer the world away from an oil economy. So let’s move on to those other energy sources that have a much better chance of making us economically stronger and independent and getting the whole world off an oil economy. http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html
No. 8 on my countdown is Oil Shale. The Green River Formation, spanning some 17,000 square miles across parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, is an underground ancient lakebed holding at least 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil (that's triple the reserves of Saudi Arabia). Shell oil has invested 28-years and more than $200 million in coming up with an economical way to produce oil from Green River. Shell Oil says the most promising method of extraction will produce 3.0 million barrels of oil per day by 2040 or 14% of today’s energy needs – in 32 years! In Dec 2007 Shell withdrew its application to the Department of Reclamation and Mining Safety for further efforts to wrest oil from the rocks of the Green River Formation. They said they were not giving up but they have certainly slowed down. They are not that encouraged over their best extraction method. In fact most of the methods optimistically touted in the past have turned out to be deeply flawed - economically, environmentally or usually both. Of note is the fact that an oil company is taking the lead here and the output will be oil. There’s natural gas in those rocks but few have even contemplating going after that resource. We have a private oil company as the only one spending any R&D money investigating this abundant resource and only for recoverable oil. By contrast the Former Soviet Union country of Estonia uses its abundant oil shale to extract natural gas and produce electricity as its chief export and for over 90% of its own electrical use. By the way, while our government is providing no incentives here, the Canadian government is moving rapidly and progressively ahead by encouraging and getting private production of their large quantities of oil sands in western Canada. http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2007/10/31/fortune-magazine-oil-shale-may-finally-have-its-moment/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4190/is_20071214/ai_n21173369
No. 7 on the countdown is Clean Coal. So abundant is our supply of coal that we have enough to last us more than 500 years, but it’s the dirtiest of fossil fuels. The promise lies in clean coal, the process of converting coal to a gas or liquid and sequestering the unwanted byproduct carbon dioxide. Currently the coal industry is concentrating on conversion of coal directly to a liquid and not to a gas or to a gas as an intermediate step. Optimistic estimates from the coal industry put U.S. production of liquid fuel from coal at two and a half million barrels per day by 2030 or about 12% of today’s energy needs – in 22 years! While we march forward at a snail’s pace trying to convert coal directly to a liquid, a South African company is profitably converting coal into gas (Lurgi Dry Ash process) and then in a second step to a liquid. Using this two step process South Africa is today able to satisfy nearly half of its transportation needs. And, unlike the U.S., South Africa is a signer to the Kyoto Protocol.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/5/155252/7171
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6960234/description.html
http://www.dme.gov.za/energy/coal.stm
No. 6 on my countdown is Wind Energy, a renewable energy source. Advances in windmill technology have cleared the way for construction of cheap and efficient structures. Shattering all its previous records, the U.S. in 2007 increased its wind power generating capacity 45% with an investment of over $9 billion. Despite our gain, the U.S. trails badly behind European countries that account for 70% of world wind power, while we account for about 1%. Globally, wind power generation has been the most rapidly growing means of alternative electrical generation. In the U.S. Texas ranks number one in wind power with well over 4,000 wind mills and more than 1,000 under construction. Virginia, with some of the best places in the country for building windmills along the Eastern Shore, ranks last in a list of 50 states with no windmills and no plans to build any. But Virginia legislators have been overtaken by the federal government in taking the wind out of the sails of the wind energy initiative. Congress passed the 2007 energy bill which failed to extend the stimulus for wind energy production which expires this Dec 2008. The founder of one of the biggest wind-power corporations in America said that this legislation was a disaster, and being a capital-intensive industry, financial institutions will be pulling out. Meanwhile other countries have significantly increased their wind energy incentive programs. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30friedman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
No. 5 on my countdown is Solar Energy, a renewable energy source. Solar accounts now for less than 1% of our energy source, but it has great potential for rapid increase. Solar power is produced by collecting sunlight in expensive large flat silicon panels which converts the sunlight into electricity. But recently researchers have taken a huge leap forward in making the panels inexpensive by incorporating plastic into panel design. By solving the cost problem, solar energy now promises to be one of the more significant renewable energy sources in the immediate future. If we can produce abundant and cheap supplies of electricity, most people will buy electric powered vehicles. But the urgency to move in this direction, like wind energy in Virginia, is pretty much dead in the water, or rather parched in the sun since Congress failed to extend past Dec 2008 any stimulus package for solar energy production. Congress has become so caught up in political bickering that it has repeatedly turned its back on solar. With the expiration of solar credits we face loosing more than 100,000 jobs next year and more than $20 billion in capital investments. Thanks to Congress we now have less than 8% of the global solar production market from a high of 40% in 1997. For example, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, opened its newest facility in Germany in April 2008 with 540 high-paying engineering jobs, because German government incentives have created a booming solar market while our government has put the damper on solar. In April Senators Clinton and Obama were there in Ohio arguing over NAFTA job losses, both apparently ignorant of First Solar’s move; energy ignorant that is. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070719011151.htm
http://environmentdebate.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/
No. 4 on my countdown is Non-food Biomass (living and recently dead biological material that can be used as an energy source, material we don’t eat or feed our farm animals). This includes our lawn clippings and leaves and garbage and trash; “energy crops” such as switch grasses, willow trees, and sunflowers; and residue from corn stalks, citrus peel, and logging. These biomass products decompose to release methane that can be burned for the production of electricity. And like corn all of these products can produce cellulose-based ethanol. Today non-food biomass supplies about 15 times more energy in the U.S. than wind and solar power combined and has the potential to supply much more because recent technological advances such as “hydrogen conversion” and “thermochemical gasification” can provide local municipalities a profitable way to make money rather than have to spend it disposing of trash. But still, most localities are paying big bucks (like Virginia Beach) to simply dump grass clippings and leaves and other biomass waste. Across the pond Germany is building thousands of biomass plants with plans for an even more massive building program. And Spain began last year (2007) using its citrus waste to produce 16% of its ethanol while Florida throws away most of its annual 8 million tons of orange peel.
http://biopact.com/2007_02_10_archive.html
http://www.renewables-made-in-germany.com/en/biogas/
http://www.cellulosicethanol.com/
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0501/p03s03-usec.html
No. 3 on my countdown is Nuclear Power. We fear it, but in other countries, they’ve been able to make it work. In France, for instance, about 75 percent of electricity is generated from nuclear power. While our government continues to block new plants, existing nuclear power plants still manage to produce about 20% of our electricity – accident free! http://www.physorg.com/news8956.html
No. 2 on my countdown and our best renewable energy source prospect is Biodiesel. Made from the oily residue of non-food crops and animal waste, biodiesel presents great potential to replace gasoline in fueling our vehicles. Biodiesel is gaining traction most everywhere except in the U.S. Europe has already begun a massive switch to diesel vehicles, where, little known to us, more than half of all vehicles sold in Europe are now diesel, new improved over the loud hard to start versions that we saw 25 years ago and virtually indistinguishable from gasoline-burning vehicles. Biodiesel can be mixed in any proportion with diesel made from fossil fuels, and pure biodiesel reduces net carbon dioxide emissions by 78% compared to 100% petroleum diesel. And the miracle plant that is making this all happen is the jatropha, a plant that produces eight times more oil than soy bean. It would thrive in arid regions like central Florida and southwestern states, land not suitable for other types of agriculture. China, India, and numerous countries in Africa and Central and South America are now growing jatropha on large tracts of land, but here in the U.S. hardly anyone has ever even heard of jatropha. Notwithstanding, there remains a better prospects for biodiesel. Right here in our own backyard, Old Dominion University, is showing industry how growing algae on our garbage spread out in fields, can produce up to 100 times more oil per acre than jatropha crops. ODU experts say this process can supply enough biodiesel to meet all of America's transportation needs using very little land. In Europe, algae-based biodiesel ventures are growing rapidly. Even though the people in America working this issue are wildly excited, our politicians and the general public know little or nothing about algae-biodiesel, the most promising of all renewable energy sources. http://www.cellulosicethanol.com/
http://www.lightconnection.us/Archive/mar06/mar06_article4.htm
http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=356
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/odu-experiment-turning-sewage-algaebased-biodiesel-flourishing
And finally No. 1 on my countdown is a resource that we have more of than any other country (except for Russia), enough for the next 46 years, an energy source that is much cleaner than gasoline, an energy source that could quickly drive gas prices back down to a buck a gallon, an energy source that is waiting in abundance off the shores of Virginia and that could provide our state with enormous profits to pay for our schools and highways (just like the oil pipeline is doing for Alaskan citizens). Of course, it’s Natural Gas. But wait, most of our proven natural gas reserves are under lock and key and only 10% of the natural gas reserves on public lands are accessible under "standard environmental lease terms." It’s so bad that we now have to import natural gas from Canada. Just think; all of our vehicles could be easily converted to run on syngas or propane from natural gas if we were to utilize this resource. Is it safe to mine natural gas, much of which is buried offshore? Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf of Mexico and not one gas well leaked. While existing gas fields in the U.S. are slowly being tapped out, our government has discouraged drilling for more gas and at the same time encouraged more consumption. Within the last two decades federal government moratoria have closed areas off our coast lines prohibiting any natural gas development until 2012. Further hurting production increases are large untapped natural gas finds in shale formations within the continental U.S., their extraction being hampered by local and national environmental coalitions (Barnett Shale of the Fort Worth Basin, Appalachian Basin Devonian Shale and Marcellus Black Shale, Michigan's Antrim Shale, Louisiana's Haynesville Shale, Louisiana's Haynesville Shale, and Upper Green River). As a consequence natural gas prices are now 50% higher than they were a year ago.
Virginia Senator John Warner backed a “cap and trade” bill that was to go into effect in 2012, incidentally the same year the offshore drilling moratorium expires. “Cap and trade,” in place in Europe since 2006, would put more pressure on the production and use of natural gas, the default low-carbon energy option for power generation as oppose to dirty coal which is now used in about one half of our power plants. But, of course, being energy ignorant, no one in Congress was able to grasp this and instead killed the measure over fears of higher energy prices. But in reality “cap and trade” would force increased natural gas production thereby bringing natural gas prices down.
We did came close to unlocking this resource when, in the 2006 legislative session, Pennsylvania Republican House of Representatives John Peterson introduced the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Natural Gas Relief Act which would have immediately repealed the Congressional OCS moratorium and allowed “natural gas only” leasing offshore (since oil is the primary environmental fear). The measure failed by one vote in the 2006 session. And again in March 2008 the Senate upheld the moratorium. Rep Peterson will try again in the 2008 session to lift the congressional moratorium on offshore natural gas drilling. He said that Canada thinks we are "crazy” for keeping our natural gas under lock and key and is not happy with the fact that by not producing enough natural gas, we have driven up natural gas prices in North America to the point that we have the highest natural gas prices in the world (about $12.50 per million Btu) with Canada, being a close second. Recently, on June 19, 2008, Virginia’s two Senators, John Warner and Jim Webb, joined in the cry for off-shore natural gas drilling by pushing for a bill that would allow Virginia to explore for natural gas only off its shores. Meanwhile Canada allows offshore drilling in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Great Lakes; and every other country with off-shore natural gas reserves, from Norway to New Zealand and from Canada to Brazil, is drilling for their natural gas, everybody but us. We have proven reserves that will provide for 46 years’ supply at current demand, 40% of which is offshore, and that may be the tip of the iceberg as much of the offshore region remains unexplored because our government will not even let us look.
http://www.naturalgasfacts.org/factsheets/current_situation.html
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_572707.html
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letters/send/s_573644.html
In conclusion I assert that our government, our politicians, our news media, and yes, you and I, have done little to encourage conversion of our huge supply of coal to clean coal, get nuclear power going again, drill for our abundant quantities of natural gas (most of which are now under lock and key), and to promote research incentives for our renewable energy sources. We are truly an energy ignorant country that needs to get smart real soon. I urge you to get in touch with local and national government representatives. Tell them to quite their partisan bickering; tell them to get behind Senators John Warner and Jim Webb in their bid for gas only drilling offshore. Tell them to get behind House of Representatives Randy Forbes (R-4th District in Chesapeake VA) in his innovative legislation “the New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence” which calls for doing the things I have outlined in this presentation and more. I also urge you to shy away from calls for offshore drilling for oil. As I have said and repeat, oil is the wrong way to go; natural gas is our future for the next ten years because it is clean and we have huge deposits of it.
So e-mail, call, or write to your government representatives and help light the energy fires that we so desperately need
Virginia’s House of Representatives Thelma Drake @ http://www.house.gov/formdrake/IMA/issue_subscribe.htm
Senator Jim Web @ http://webb.senate.gov/contact
Senator John Warner @ http://warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
State Delegate John Welch @ deljwelch@house.state.va.us
State Senator Frank Wagner @ district07@sov.state.va.us).
References:
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=energyshell5.21.08.htm
Update Jul 2008.
Finally I have an expert that agrees with my positions on ethanol and natural gas.
Jim Cramer's Best Blogs - http://www.thestreet.com/story/10426075/1/jim-cramers-best-blogs.html?puc=newshome and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cramer
Three Experts to Help Get Us through These Hard Economic Times
(as viewed on the Today Show Jul 16, 2008)
Liz Ann Sonders (former Chief Investment Strategist Charles Schwab), Steve Forbes (Chairman and CEO of Forbes Inc), and Jim Cramer (author of “Stay Mad for Life,” the host of CNBC's "Mad Money," and co-founder of TheStreet.com.
Cramer said, “That’s our fuel (natural gas). We have discovered in the last five years more natural gas than any other country on Earth. We can take oil down by emphasizing natural gas. Use it for cars. Use it for plants. Oil comes down big under my plan.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25699943#25699943
“Originally, people mistakenly thought there wasn't enough natural gas available, but they were wrong. We have tons of natural gas here in North America — and it’s cheap to get out. You can expect companies and developers to switch to natural gas from coal (which is too dirty) from oil (which is too expensive) and from nuclear (which takes too long to build). Another point to consider is that natural gas will pass the muster of the Democrats. When you talk about fuels, there is only one fuel that has no enemies. That's natural gas.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21997402/
“You want lower commodity prices? Simply scrap the ethanol mandate. Look at wheat: It has barely budged in price. Why should it? You can't make gasoline out of it. Corn on the other hand is simply out of control, so beef and chicken are out of control. As someone who, weirdly, has raised cattle and poultry, I can tell you if I still did, I would have to slaughter all of them because my corn bill would be astronomical.”
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10423695/3/jim-cramers-best-blogs.html
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