Watt Now?

Some guy who heads a policy think tank, says we need better policy. Geophysical and industrial sciences are disengaged from the government decision making process – because nobody liked what they were saying.

What a load of…

You can save a lot of energy by living in a culvert, never washing, walking every where you go, and eating all food as is when you get it.

Energy use per person during the stone age was actually pretty low.

Does this guy practice what he preaches or is he like Gore? A total hypocriten: a guy who doesn’t even know he’s completely two faced.

# 6 moss said, “Ah – the measured conservative response of students of science.”

No, the response of someone what has designed power generation and distribution systems after reading garbage.

“We could be using half the energy that we’re using”

WHAT?

And kill more innocent and defenseless whales?
http://bit.ly/i4m8

Over 200 Narwhal whales are facing certain death by starvation or suffocation due to mankind’s inability to create enough carbon to increase the earth’s temperature and save these marvelous creatures.

We need more Global Warming, not less!

It is my personal mission in life to create the largest “carbon footprint” (a dubious concept, at best) that I possibly can.

# 9 jbenson2 said, “Over 200 Narwhal whales are facing certain death by starvation or suffocation”

Narwhal; It’s what’s for dinner…

People are sooooooo gullible.

I thought snake oil was only for snakes.

# 16 ArianeB said, “The total amount of energy we are currently generating is very close to the maximum we can possibly generate”

LOL!

Ever heard of fission.

I wish eco nuts would hibernate during the winter.

#17 Now that would save a lot of energy.

#18 That’s not naivete, that’s borderline stupidity.

#20 Yes! Thanks god we have those biodegredable batteries for electric cars. How long does it take for lithium ion to safely decompose?

# 20 Dallas said, “Good article. IMHO, the long term solution is to strive for an all electric society as quickly as possible.

We finally have leadership coming with a plan to get to the all electric society!”

The 1st part is true.

The 2nd, no. Obama has no viable plan for handling energy. Wish he did, but he doesn’t.

A shame really.

#22 The eighties greenees would be ashamed of you by praising the glories of nuke.

Poetic justice or the concecuences of being naive?

Here. Trading commodities at peak

http://tinyurl.com/6d25ur

And changing dependance form one fidel castro minion to another

http://tinyurl.com/6ytnlj

#23. Well, I believe he understands the energy problems as well as opportunities for America. I also believe he has a comprehensive energy plan and is surrounding himself with people to get the job done once president dip shit take his one way ticket back to Wacko, Texas.

Unfortunately, we also have piles of pathetic, narrow minded Americans with a chip on the shoulder of having a Democrat in office as if there was some sort of entitlement.

#25 – ‘dro

>>The eighties greenees would be ashamed of you
>>by praising the glories of nuke.

As technology and societies progress, ‘dro, so do the progressives. That’s why they’re called progressives instead of reactionary right-wing neoconservative fucktards. Not everyone has their head stuck as far up their ass as you do.

Now, go back to servicing Kuzco.

The SFM? The San Francisco Monster? The Spaghetti !@#%$ Monster? Is that like the FSM but turns people into fairies instead of pirates?

#30 – ‘dro

As we say here in the Estados Unidos, “si no tienes nada que decir, cállate la boca“.

Words to live by, m’hijito.

#34 Aye Pedro, m’hijito. Porque eres tan come mierda?

#28, Thomas,

for every $1 of investment in oil you get about $20 worth of energy. For all other energy sources, including electrical, you get about a $1 worth of energy for every $1 worth of investment.

As usual, even though you do present a rational argument, it is a wrong assumption.

The cheapest form of energy is hydroelectric. While the initial construction may be high, most hydroelectric facilities have minimal maintenance costs, and zero fuel costs. As a bonus. most Hydroelectric facilities can also provide recreational benefits and moderate flood damage. The harm to the environment is zero to minimal and certainly less that the harm from any other forms of energy production.

This direction of this whole argument comes down to economics.

The more heat you can generate, you more work you can get out of your engine. Where that heat is generated doesn’t matter — under the hood, on the surface of the solar cell, at the power plant, etc. That’s why nuclear power plants produce the most power, all other things being equal. They get really hot. Next is coal/oil. Next is solar. Next is wind.

Note: Water is in there somewhere but as we are finding out, damns are not very ecologically sound.

The more heat you can generate, the more energy you have available. Create that heat cheaply and your energy costs are cheap.

If you make energy too cheap, people will use more of it because it makes their life easier. That’s why we drive to work instead of walk. Or why some people take trains instead of walking or driving. Or flying cross country instead of driving. Or using the dishwasher instead of doing the dishes by hand. Or boiling water on a stove instead of chopping the wood, starting the fire, and boiling it over that.

Cheap energy makes our lives easier.

If the government forces industry to adopt alternative energy supplies via heavy taxing, you are really not helping people out. You are only taking money out of their pockets because in order to get the same work out of these alternative sources will require larger and more expensive systems. Eventually, people will stop using this energy and we’ll be back in the caves.

That being said, we should go nuclear. Now if we could just reduce the regulations on these plants, we might actually get one built before I need a walker.

#4 – Paddy-RAMBO

Aw, quitcher sour-grapes belly-aching, ya girly man. Wait another 56 days until the President-Elect takes office, and THEN see what he does. And if you don’t like it then, take out your RAMBO-matic weapon and start “piling up liberal bodies”.

In the meanwhile, just thank your lucky stars that you’ve still got that job as counterboy at the Radio Shack. You could be out on your kiester like the rest of Dumbya’s constituency.

The more heat you can generate, you more work you can get out of your engine.

Wrong. The more heat your engine generates is just wasted energy.

Actually, yes and now. We’re talking about two different things.

More specifically, the greater the heat differential the more work. If your high heat can be cooled down rapidly, that is how you get your work. Thus, gasoline powered vehicles are more efficient than steam powered ones or muscle power. Or as you mentioned, steam turbines. Colder water in the condenser produces a vacuum making the turbine spin. It’s a greater heat differential. There is a big difference between 150 psi steam and 1200 superheated psi steam. Both get reduced to around 150 degrees condensate but the 1200 psi system will do things the 150 psi system can only dream of.

Where that heat is generated doesn’t matter — under the hood, on the surface of the solar cell, at the power plant, etc.

Actually it does matter. Too much heat concentrated in one area will destroy that area.

You missed the point. If you want to use a kj of energy, it doesn’t matter where it is generated as long as you have access to it. Whether that is being generated under the hood of your car or at a power plant and then transmitted to the batteries under your hood. I wasn’t discussing ecological disasters or efficiency. Heat is found in both waste and generation. The trick is to keep as much of the heat as you can for your use and not waste it. That is what makes something more efficient. Even, if you can get 100% work out of your heat (thus being magically 100% efficient), the quote stands: more heat produces more work. Efficiency does increase cost of the final product.

Agreed, LED bulbs are indeed more efficient. However, price per watt-hour is way up there. It takes a couple of years to pay one off of the energy savings. Again, we are back to the economics of the situation. The government gives a tax break equal to about the sales tax on the newer bulbs but the cost is still up there. And now companies are thinking of fancy lighting system they wouldn’t have thought of with incands.

http://tinyurl.com/5t3v8f

Here is a 13w replacement for a 100w bulb. It costs $80 and takes $6/yr in electricity. The 100w bulb would thus cost $46/yr. Over two years to get your money back as the old style only costs about 25 cents. People who buy these pay 8% in taxes. Guess how much money the government stands to make by telling people to buy these things . . .

Damns

I agree that damns are probably the cleanest. However, they can’t be conveniently placed wherever we want them. We are pretty much restricted to where there are rivers.

If the government forces industry to adopt alternative energy supplies via heavy taxing, you are really not helping people out.

Sorry, but I disagree.

Taxes aren’t just a number on the bottom of the spreadsheet. They are hidden in all the permitting and regulations a company has to go through to get one built (compare the first nuclear power only took 4 years to build — now it takes around 20). If you force regulations on a coal-based plant and then remove those regulations for a wind-farm, or give them money to do it, you are, in effect, taxing the former and forcing them to compete on an unequal footing. In all cases, the final cost to generate the electricity is higher and thus the consumer pays more.

The same argument was used to force industry to stop polluting. Guess what? Most rivers and lakes are healing from the effects.

These are property rights issues and should be enforced. However, the EPA has grown into a monster organization and pretty much left their original mandate behind. They’ve gotten too big with the rest of their brothers.

The best way to wean us from fossil fuels and oil in particular is to develop alternative energy supplies that are cost competitive

I agree. But it’s not government’s job to do this. It’s business’ job. Where is government going to get the money to pay these tax breaks? Reduce spending, tax the other industries, tax the people, print more money for the hidden tax benefits?

other quoted methods

And all of these are nice. But until they can generate the energy fossil fuels do, they are going to be curiosities and not mainstream. Unless the government doesn’t mind raising the cost of energy.

The next lesson, grasshopper, is to factor in real “costs” of oil. No more “shuffle the costs” as you say. Today, the US government subsidizes the cost of oil by hiding those costs in military. Never mind the cost of polluting the environment is not free.

Let’s do some real cost analysis of oil and the true cost of oil and assume we import 3 billion barrels a year

Let’s add :
Cost of War: $200B a year (incl casualties)
Cost Military presence middle east: $75B a year

So there you have it. That shitty solar and wind alternative starts to look pretty god now, huh?

#45, I’m all for green energy. But you just can’t produce energy as cheaply and as efficiently as you can with fossil fuels or nuclear energy (assuming the regs are relaxed). The power density is just too high.

Solar/wind energy requires way more land space for the same energy generation density. These are add-on products to supplement the mainstream power generation facilities. And there are only so many places you can put these.

Solar is only good for half the day (yes, we could store it but that is an added cost).

Wind is really only useful at lower altitudes and in the south — and highly dependent on winds. Cold and/or higher elevations result is lower air density which makes them even less efficient.

btw . . . I fly over a 50 mill wind farm quite regularly. I’m lucky if I see three of them spinning on any given day.

Also, I am not quite sure where you were headed with the war thing. Want to try again?

#47 – LL

>>Also, I am not quite sure where you were
>>headed with the war thing.

I think he was headed in the direction of saying that if Iraq had as much oil as Denmark, President Cheney and his underlings (like Dumbya) would not have had such a hardon for a unilateral invasion, dragging us into a pointless war that goes on and on and on and on. Or if we were getting our energy from someplace other than underneath the burning sands of Saddam.

So that’s a “cost” of oil too.

#35 Sorry, I’m not cuban.

#45 Adding cost of war to oil cost? Next thing we’ll know, you talk with aliens.

#43, Liberty,

In energy production heat is only used in the transfer of energy. Currently the only way we have of converting fossil fuels into electricity is to burn them, capture the heat, use that heat to turn water to steam, create high pressures with that steam, use the steam to turn a turbine, and use that turbine to turn a generator. In this case the heat is only a form the energy takes. It doesn’t matter if the heat is measured in joules, watts, BTUs, calories, or doo-dads. It is still just energy. It is not the heat electrical generators are interested in, it is the recoverable energy.

Thus, gasoline powered vehicles are more efficient than steam powered ones or muscle power.

Not necessarily. Much depends upon the design. Most steam powered generators are more efficient than internal combustion engines. Internal combustion (IC) has other benefits that make them preferred for certain applications, especially transportation. BUT, heat in an IC engine is still wasted energy. IC engines work on the extraction of energy by burning the fuel and utilizing the expansion of the gases. Heat is just the byproduct of that burning. If that heat could be used then IC engines would be even more efficient.

You missed the point. If you want to use a kj of energy, it doesn’t matter where it is generated as long as you have access to it.

Actually it does. If I want to heat my house I need both the energy PLUS the ability to turn that energy into something I need. In this case heat. I could use wood, straw, coal, oil, kerosene, natural gas, propane, dried buffalo chips, or electric. Joules are only a measurement of energy. If I have access to a cord of wood, that won’t help me if I don’t have a wood burning implement.

The trick is to keep as much of the heat as you can for your use and not waste it.

The only time you want to keep heat is during the winter when it is cold outside or if you are cooking. Keeping a window open or bringing a pot to boiling without a lid will waste heat. In almost every other case you don’t want to keep heat as it is already waste energy.

Excess heat will destroy your product. That is why IC engines have radiators, computer CPUs use heat sinks and fans, and electric motors have fans built in.

Damns

I agree that damns are probably the cleanest.

Please, I know what you mean but this is irritating my perfection butt. It is correctly spelled DAM. “Damn” is to put a curse on someone.

Taxes aren’t just a number on the bottom of the spreadsheet. They are hidden in all the permitting and regulations a company has to go through to get one built …

Very true. They also include the diseases the pollution causes to the public. Then there is the cost (as others pointed out) of protecting the sources of oil. How about all the stunted trees, reduced / dead fresh water fishing, tourism, etc. caused by acid rain from coal fired plants. Then we could add in the cost of extra water purification because of pollutants.

So yes, there are regulatory hurdles new power plants need to go through. Those hurdles aren’t there for the hell of it though. Experience has shown us that left to self regulation, industry will dump as much of the cost on the public as it can. Love Canal didn’t happen because someone wanted to purposely kill children. They did it because it was cheaper to bury it in a landfill. Coal fired power plants didn’t just dump mercury, arsenic, sulfur and nitrogen compounds in the air on a whim. They did it because scrubbers cost money.

However, the EPA has grown into a monster organization and pretty much left their original mandate behind. They’ve gotten too big with the rest of their brothers.

If we could train industry to not pollute than we wouldn’t need the EPA. Unfortunately, they can’t be trusted. In case you were unaware, self regulation does not work. I don’t have the resources nor expertise to trace down who dumped that chlorinated solvent into the water aquifer. Maybe you don’t care, but I drink that water. The EPA needs more power and heftier fines against company management.