Let’s take a break together from FISA to discuss another critical issue: what should our path forward be toward a sensible energy future.

To what extent should Swift-Boating T Boone Pickens be a voice that we listen to? And, with $58 million (and perhaps more) getting thrown into this discussion, do we have any choice other than to listen? … And react?

ZED?

No option must be taken off the table.

Wind. Solar. Geothermal. Nuclear. Others we haven’t even thought of yet. We’ve much work to be done. The Oil Age is over. The BushCo Oilmen helped rush its demise with such far-sighted planning strategies as the gas guzzler tax gimmick.

Prairie Sunshine … Not suggesting that any option be taken off the table. But, the natural gas for car transport does not seem a best choice on large scale (I want that NG for fertilizer, home heating, other industrial processes, etc …). And, with the first order analysis suggesting that it is a (very) bad idea, one can look to Pickens very large natural gas interests and wonder whether the NG element is driven more by a desire to create new NG market spaces to earn even more money …

HooBoy! Thank You for dealing with this subject. I spotted probably one of his 1st ads in our part of the country, and was about to cheer far & wide.

Dang.

I far prefer to step with caution when advisable

Shall read and ponder carefully, and I can’t thank you enough for the leads to follow and better understand the issues involved.

Solar for electricity, Algae for a Biofuel, Wind power, and making use of tidal energy for starters!
Another link
Solar flexible panels being printed here in California!

Now all we have to do is to get the government and the power companies off their asses and put some real effort in these alternative means of powering our infrastructure and transportation vehicles.

Wind and solar power require alternative source to power us when the wind don’t blow or the sun don’t shine. Could be nukes- but for now natural gas from existing plants isn’t a bad solution.

The “celebration” is that Pickens is so strongly stating that we can’t drill our way out of the problem, that oil is a serious problem, and that there isn’t an oil supply solution. (Note: he has stated support for off-shore drilling, shale oil, etc …)

And, that an F3 (fossil-fuel fool) is so strongly coming out in support of wind and a HVDC distribution system. This helps give wind legitimacy with a community that has mainly ridiculed it. (Even as Texas has a robust wind industry.)

windpower is currently the cheapest method of generating electricity EXCEPT for RAW COAL generation (UGLY DIRTY).

Nicole — Gas and wind are good partners, with gas to turn on quickly when intermittent wind fails to produce against demand. Now, with HVDC and wind resources across extended regions, we have a higher likelihood of flattening the production cycle across all the wind turbines.

Not disagreeing with you, more of a broadening of your point. This is a huge issue with ramifications far beyond what we customarily think of as “energy” or traditional energy sources.

Do I have any illusions that T.Bone’s first concern is anything other than T.Bone’s bottom line, certainly not the good of the country? Hell, no. But just because he doesn’t bring clean hands to the table doesn’t mean we shouldn’t sit down and include him in the conversation.

Maybe he’s lookin’ for redemption…maybe he’s lookin’ for the next best profit string…maybe both… I’m less interested in his motivations than his ideas.

And the ideas we already have, to learn from: rural electrification of the entire country in the ’30s, hydropower, the kids who just came up with the one-person “car/bike,” all the incarnations of the electric car that were killed by oil interests….

Okay — RWCOLE … mea culpa …

Must point out that this is for ‘new’ generation.

better storage batteries

Don’t forget to Digg this post !!
Here is one mans solution to his energy issues and needs

Why not use that wind generated electricity to directly fuel America’s ever-more electrified transport sector?

because what you are describing here is a distributed energy storage and use model. with that, eventually there will be distributed generation. and that will cut into the profits of folks like pickens who depend on control of centralized energy generation and transmission.

A Siegel, thanks so much for this terrific post. I am pretty illiterate about renewables, and it’s hard to know who to trust. I trust FDL, so I really appreciate the post.

I really second everything you say about wind. The other thing afaik, is if you can do it “behind the meter,” once you buy the turbine and install it, you’re generating at retail rates of electricity.

Do you know of any resources on harnessing energy from rivers? It seems to me that because water is so heavy, it could generate a lot of power. I’m looking at the Mississippi and the Missouri as examples. That’s a very constant flow. Obviously you have to figure out some way not to kill the fish.

FWIW, another topic I’m interested for future posts is the trajectory of battery technology.

Thanks again.

This is an idea that would be very difficult, but I wonder why I work at a school miles away from my house, when I could walk to a school nearby. If jobs and housing could be better coordinated, we could save lots of fuel.

If T. Boone Pickens wants to build a huge wind farm, I think we should encourage him to do so. Iberdrola wants to invest billions in Upstate New York by buying Energy East Corp. to do the same thing(probably to pick up the wind off Lake Erie and Ontario)…only the NYS PSC is dragging their feet because they already have a big wind generation plant which just so happens to already BE in NYSEG territory. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Dereg definitely has done nothing for consumers in New York State, but the PSC keeps clinging to their model whereby utilities CAN’T own generation. Oh, and the governor of Colorado announced this week that he’s having a conversation with iberdrola in Madrid this week. i think we can all figure out what they are going to talk about. And new York state can’t get off the dime.

Yeah–or an actual useful role for hydrogen (use electricity to free hydrogen and store the hydrogen for power when needed.)

Dugg, dugged, have dugged, etc.

General Electric is, I believe, one of the larger producers of wind turbines—interesting that T Boone is advertising on MSNBC.

Another discussion of alternative means to produce power @ Scientific American

It’s not like there aren’t other means there just hasn’t been a fire under this administration to do anything else but drill for more oil and make their oil friends even richer

1

I agree we’re going to have to build more nuclear (pebble bed, per A Siegel above, it’s like natural gas, you can more easily throttle it down ).

My concern is always about the waste. How do you keep it out of the ground water for hundreds of thousands of years? Sure you can keep pouring concrete, but that cost adds up and then it’s not so inexpensive?

My hope is that we could use renewables and nuclear to eliminate the coal plants first. Then bring more renewables online so we could stop using natural gas to produce electricity. Then shut down as many of the nuclear plants as possible.

No nuclear.

Absolutely no nuclear.

We do not need it.

See the:

Solar Grand Plan

Read the damn thing. For 420 Billion we can supply 100% of the electricity WITH ALL CARS RUNNING ON BATTERY POWER and 90% of all energy needs by 2050.

READ THE WHOLE THING.

dugg, thanks for the link.

Glad to see ya supporting the Lake Toby:>)

First, thank you.

Second, battery technology is something that I watch from a distance and can follow, but not lead, conversations.

Third, lots of stuff can happen with hydro and there are some really interesting things being worked with. Problem is that hydropower is truly a difficult thing for permitting. (Claimed harder than getting a nuclear power plant approved.) There are good reasons for paying close attention to dams (fisheries impact, anyone), but this difficult might be unreasonable. In any event, as an example, this is a really interesting example of how we might be able to up hydro power by 5% or so quickly. And, it can go on rivers.

how much electricity does it take to recharge an electric or hybrid vehicle?

And isn’t the cost of producing electricity tied to the cost of oil?

Countdown aired Pickens’ ad about halfway through the broadcast hereabouts. Was that a local ad-buy, or did everybody see it? Looks like he’s going for an expensive rollout of this campaign. Doesn’t this conflict with his candidate McCain’s offshore drilling proposal?

Apparently the french are doing a pretty good job on the waste problem- they recycle it and then “Crystallize” the remainder to make it inert.

Heh. I’ve got a commie in my peace group that’s absolutely convinced that there’s no such thing as “Peak Oil,” that such talk is just a capitalist plot of some sort to…heck, I dunno. So Peak Oil hit back in 2005, eh?
I was dealing with someone who thought we could just replace Persian Gulf oil with Caspian Sea oil. Erm, not quite as Peak Oil means that it’s only a matter of time until we’ll need to get back the Gulf anyway.

I would love if society started to foster this sort of sensible decisions. Instead, we have magnet schools with kids coming from miles away, build parking lots for high school students to have cars in lots, basically assign public employees with little (no?) regard to their home and commute, etc …

If T.Boone Swiftboat wants to get all Ross Perot (”I’ll be talkin’ to ya over the next few weeks about mah plan”) and draw hin some charts’n’stuff I’ll be enamored.

Not.

The Japanese also know what’s up.

Read:

Rope the Sun!

FWIW, Nice map of the lower 48 showing average wind speeds.

Well, you know, sometimes the breeze gets pretty strong here..

How much electricity depends entirely on the vehicle.

Electricity has, basically, no relationship to oil prices unless you are in the rare situation of having significant amounts of electricity from diesel or other oil-derived fuels. Such as Hawaii, which has very expensive electricity and a major program for 70% renewable energy by 2030.

One more troubling matter that Pickens mentions too… Our tax dollars will build ‘em… C’mon Pickens you can contribute some of your billions, right…? 8-(

we’re going to have to build more nuclear (

not even an option so long as both parties are committed to deregulation.

Hydropower/rivers has the complicating factor of impacting multiple areas, so I frankly like this least. I’ve seen the competitiveness between St. Louis/Missouri and its barge traffic vs. the Upper Missouri basin ND/SD—which is too often on the wrong end of the prioritization process.

Why would FDL pay any attention to Pickens?

Pebble bed… the Chinese are leading in that area

“T. Boone Pickens”….no “ego” problem there…..D’oh….

Well, I’d love to hear T. Boone say something like, “If we’d invested all those billions of dollars that we’ve flushed down the drain in Iraq on wind power projects, we’d be there by now..”

See 24 and 34 for some real life solutions.

All off the shelf tech.

Solar Grand plan under construction.

Strizki’s house is interesting. Don’t forget that there is $500+k of additional cost that went into this. Electrification with renewables (wind, solar, and batteries/other storage) would be a fraction. Personally, I don’t see hydrogen as a large part of the solution in the near term.

Why would FDL pay any attention to Pickens?

“Even a blind squirrel sometimes finds his nuts.”

Or something like that. *g*

FWIW, I thought this was a really helpful discussion in the WaPu Builder Mike McKechnie, of Mountain View Builders, was online Tuesday, July 1 at 11:00 a.m. ET to discuss efforts to create energy efficient, sustainable homes.

It has a lot about solar and geothermal for individual home owners. It’s very concrete, not a lot of theory.

Fat chance! I wonder he has made off this “War of Choice”

I have a transmission-grid question. Is the problem that there is currently no grid where the windfarms will be, or do windfarms need a different kind of grid?

Oh … the comments that make one wish that FDL had a way to highlight top comments.

I’d love to hear T. Boone say something like, “If we’d invested all those billions of dollars that we’ve flushed down the drain in Iraq on wind power projects, we’d be there by now..”

Me too …

I’ve never met T Boone. I disagree with his politics- which is no reason not to join him if he is right on an issue and ready, willing, and able to take the lead in an expensive argument.

I play golf with doctinaire goopers who have been convinced that we can drill our way to greatness. Pickens is helpful…

I have a new name, and it makes me an expert…Rib Eye Lickins’…..

I’ll fix the world fer ya, and I lives in Texas…so I’m an xpurt. I knows all about earl…peanut earl fer boilin’ turkees, and such.

Yep the most polluted nation in the world.

Great recommendation. And by the way half-lives of common nuclear ‘byproducts’ are in the hundred of thousands of years in many cases. Most the tens of thousands, when the DOJ studied storage the came up with the idea of a religion to tell people not to dig in certain spots as only religions have such lifetimes of all human institutions.

SF writers of the 50s used this theme.

I have heard about this, too — maybe on 60 Minutes? Why isn’t this talked about more in America? Do our politicians avoid it because it’s, um, French?

Hydrogen’s poor energy density makes it a lousy choice for transportation.

Dugg

Two issues here:

1. There is an issue referred to as Stranded Wind. Frequently, good locations for large-scale renewable power are far from grid infrastructure. Thus, there is the cost / impact to get the electrons to the grid, in a place that has enough capacity to move the electrons to market.

2. High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) would be an upgrading of grid that would allow far more cost effective (less transmission loss) movement of electricity over long distances. A good HVDC backbone across the nation would enable solar power from the desert to power air conditioners in New York City, for wind turbines in Montana and Texas to be treated as near interchangeable in fulfilling power demands so that if wind is blowing in one place and not the other, you still would be able to turn on your lightbulb.

because what you are describing here is a distributed energy storage and use model. with that, eventually there will be distributed generation. and that will cut into the profits of folks like pickens who depend on control of centralized energy generation and transmission.

Ding

Energy efficient community planning, i.e. end of the exurbs and a lot of suburbs as well. National public transportation grid. All of the alternative energy sources discussed.

Even with all of these things, you are still not going to make up for the energy content in the oil we use. This brings up another parameter: population. We need to think about designing a plan to bring our population down to 100-150 million.

Long distance power transimission will require a new grid, the current one is shot anyway, based on HVDC not AC.

Off the shelf stuff from Siemons.

They’re doin’ a backbone in China right now.

I don’t know- probably because it’s expensive (just a guess) and power companies don’t want to get saddled with the cost.

Great question.

The issue with electricity from wind farms is it’s variability. A ‘big grid’ company that wants to do this can find a way – and it’s already being done here in Montana with the Judith Gap wind farm.

A really good first step would be a NATIONAL law that requires ‘big grid’ companies to buy all power generated from alternate sources. Although our power company is already using wind power – they have refused to purchase any more from a proposed expansion of the same plant – an expansion that is being funded by private investors.

Iberdrola is being expected to spent its own money to build all of this wind power infrastructure. If Pickens wants to go into the electric utility business, then he’s going to have to jump through all the hoops that all utilities do on a federal and state basis(not that this has really benefitted rate payers, mind you, but I can’t see the electric utilities going along with T. Boone getting his head in the tax payer trough when they have to use stockholder equity or borrowed money to do the same thing). That being said, there is a huge role for the federal government to play in terms of encouraging this, both at the large producer and small/residential/commercial producer as well. There is a company out of MA which is buying up all the midrange wind turbines, refurbishing them and selling them to people like farmers.

Wrong.

Oil will be needed for other things but plugin cars powered by the Solar Grand Plan can replace all reliance on oil for energy.

Why pay attention to Pickens?

Because $58 million will influence discussion in this country. Thus, perhaps it is worthwhile to have an understanding of what is being pushed with those greenbacks. No?

Jerry Brown.

Thank you.

There is a certain power in being disconnected from either party- so that one feels free to embrace a good idea wherever it comes from.

Pickens is pushing natural gas, which he undoubtedly has a big investment position in. Anything else to know?

I think that instead of building a massive new ‘big grid’ we ought to be looking at more local, small-scale production – the ‘electra-net’ as it were. If small-scale solar, wind and whatever is subsidized (with the money we are now giving to big oil) and the current ‘big grid’ companies required to purchase any excess – a lot of these grid problems would take care of themselves.

Oh by the way – Texas’ electrical grid is completely separate from the rest of the country.

Mostly not. Used to be more oil-fired, or dual-fired (oil or gas) capacity; but not so much any more.

T. Boone Pickens is out for himself. He’s just trying to make more money. He wants to double dip so to speak. He wants to make money off of wind power and oil.

Storage the electricity for times when solar or wind power is now available, off the shelf tech being done all over the world, by putting compressed air into abandoned mines.

What does the North and SouthEast of America have a lot of?

Ding!

It looks like the only votes I’ll be casting in Nov. is going to be for the local races.

The “good” dems are planning yet another sell out.

We need to think about designing a plan to bring our population down to 100-150 million.

preferably one that doesn’t involve war or mass starvation. just my 2 cents.

T.Boon Swiftboat is hardly being a good samaritan or an energy-conscious leader. He’s out to do what he’s always done, make a buck at the expense of everyone else.

His Mesa Power is planning to sell wind and water to Texans. Water. Pay or die. uh-uh. Na Ga Ha Pen.

Gonna be hard to get away from the ‘Big Grid’ due to the storage issue. But no reason every house can’t have it’s own ’solar roof’ like we are doing in CA.

While that is undoubtedly true, he actually has been moving all his money out of oil stocks for a few years now. And if there was still money to be made in oil – you can bet he would not be doing that. So whatever you think about him – you would also be well advised to pay attention to at least that part – we are past peak oil production.

Good grief. Are they trying to drive us all away?

They shouldn’t need any different kind of grid al they do is run it through some converters and change the voltage and they can connect to the existing grid. One of the problems is that the grid/infrastructure hasn’t been getting the necessary upgrades and add ing to the capacity of the overall grid again the Rethuglians have dropped the ball in not funding these projects…

C’mon CTut, you know the drill; privatize profits, socialize the risk. Same ol’ same ol’.

Wrong.

Google HVDC backbone.

This is a completely different form of transmission.

He’s been selling oil stocks while the price is HIGH. He will buy them back when they are low.

Honestly, if I thought the idea was great, so what if he has a big stake at play? On the other hand, idea is pretty frigging weak (if not bad), thus time to look for why he gets it so wrong. Oops, maybe he is not getting wrong for his pocketbook even it would be wrong for the nation.

Here’s something we need to look out for, though — especially as this “crisis” deepens, and the GOPs start running their Shock Doctrine on us:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly is pushing for approval of a project that would run a high-voltage power line through California’s largest state park for 20 miles.

San Diego Gas & Electric’s proposal would build industrial-style towers up to 160 feet tall to carry the new line through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, east of San Diego. The line would carry renewable power from yet-to-be-built plants in the Imperial Desert.

Currently, wooden poles carry low-voltage lines through the park.

“The project’s significance lies not only in its supplying additional power for a thriving and growing region but in doing so in way that truly moves California into the future,” Schwarzenegger wrote to California public utility Commissioner Dian Grueneich, who is overseeing the project’s application, the Times reported. The letter was written in December but came to light last month.

Lisa Page, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Schwarzenegger has not backed a specific route for the project and would rather the proposed line not go through the park “if it can be avoided.”

But Schwarzenegger said in his letter to the Public Utilities Commission that he wanted “to offer my support” for the project.

Page said that when the governor wrote the letter details of a specific proposed route were not included in the filing he read, and “nowhere in his letter or in any of his statements or in any communication did he identify the northern route through Anza Borrego.”

Opposition to this power line from Clint Eastwood and Arnold’s brother-in-law Bobby Shriver were one reason the Governator replaced them both on the state commission deciding whether to use public park assets for energy transmission lines.

Is Mesa Power a regulated utility in Texas?

Lots of wind in the Dakotas, Montana, etc, but very small population; hence local utilities in the past built little tranmission in those areas because it wasn’t needed. If you add lots of wind farms there, you need major transmission lines to move the energy to load centers to the east.

lol, first two times I read that I read “Mensa Power.”

Wind storage works, in some situations. Actually, in terms of large scale storage, I am more intrigued by those who proposed to use tunneling technology to create sealed hydro storage 100% below ground, which would have higher efficiencies than air pressure storage.

Yes, I have lots of problems with T Boone. One of them is an utter lack of discussion of storage issues.

Good lord.

Being a Democrat means never having to say you’re savvy.

I think Mesa was involved in the great California energy scam.

On the issue of Pickens making money–so what? If he makes it honestly and it moves america in the right direction, I have no problem with him making a fair profit..Profit is NOT sinful in my vocabulary.

So respond to the fundamentals, not to the fact that Pickens has a position.

Democrats Prepare to Buckle on Offshore Drilling

What The Fuck?

that’s the dems solution to our energy woes?

Thank you.

I did not know.

Great article on offshore drilling in today’s gooper rag..

Most interesting point- 2/3 of the available offshore reserves are already OPEN to drilling and the oil companies are just sitting on those leases.

This is a fucking BULLSHIT campaign year issue.

The Dems really know how to play the least worse card, don’t they.

I’m not calling them DeeCee Dems anymore — I’m calling them OoT Dems: Out-of-Touch.

What can they possibly be thinking? Taking “every issue off the table” for the GOP worked out so well for them in 2002.

I blame the consultant class. The gate isn’t nearly crashed enough.

Profit is not a dirty word in my vocbulary either, but I have problem with people owning aquifers, and selling the water that is in them. I believe that there have been cases already where “aquifer owners” have started horizontal drilling to purloin adjacent water reserves when theirs were not sufficient. Additionally, aquifers cover geographically (and geologically) vast areas, does ownership of an aquifer in Texas also giver him rights to the same strata in say, Kansas? If a geologist says it’s the same, is it in terms of property rights? Could he force these hypothetical Kansans to pay for wells drilled on their land into “his” aquifer (or Texans for that matter?).

Democratic Party
Republican Party

Revolution.

you give the consultants way too much credit. Them that we got elected in the first place are the ones making the votes.

the buck stops with them.

The vote stops with me.

What you are talking about is capacity through new technologies to carry more over the same power towers but using high temperature super conducting cables… They don’t care what kind of electricity flows through them AC or DC and I don’t mean sexual attitudes /s

I blame the consultant class.

Is Bob Shrum secretly working behind the scenes, *for* us?

I thought T Bones Pickens was a country artist….I know, The Stupid…

After today I figure anything bushco wants he’ll get.

I blame the consultant class. The gate isn’t nearly crashed enough.

I agree and we need to name names and point DFH fingers at these cretins.

As for the oil story, there is an article in the news box which suggests the trade off is the GOP will drop the push to open up ANWAR.. Much to the chagrin of Senator toobz.

Thanks, appreciate the clarification.

Didn’t know about the horizontal drilling into the aquifers.

A lot of the wind and water ideas we are kicking around are great chances imho for local and state governments to generate some badly needed cash. The utilities have the cash and they will pay for energy generation.

There have been windmills on the Altimont Pass in Northern California for years. I’m nut sure what they power but they’ve been there for at least 15 years.

Longer…I have been out here 30yrs and seem always remember them being ther and they have been growing in number and of course some have had new generators put in them..

But someone is telling Durbin this is the right thing to do.

Who is that? What is the audience for today’s vote, and for offshore drilling? Who wants Democrats to favor these things?

we’re not addicted to “foreign oil.” we’re addicted to oil. period. for me, that;s the whole point. even if all this drilling began tomorrow and produced oodles and oodles of oil by monday, it’d just be feeding the addict more of what he’s addicted to — that wouldn’t change because the drug is domestic.

Do you know what they power?

I’m not saying that Pickens is not on the right track here, but his interest is strictly on the business side. He’s the pusher and the drugs will very shortly not be available any more. He still needs something to push…he’s just decided to get into a different energy line..that is all.

They all feed their energy into the interconnected California grid, which is operated by the California Independent System Operator. The ISO is a “power pool” created in 1998 that combines the grids/dispatch of PG&E, SCE and SDG&E, and several municipal utilities embedded in their service areas. It’s dispatched as one system covering over half of California.

megacorps -

The true masters of the Democratic Corporatist-D Party leaders capos

As for the oil story, there is an article in the news box which suggests the trade off is the GOP will drop the push to open up ANWAR..

Why do these idiots feel the need to “trade” for anything? Do Democrats not know how to lead? Do they even deserve the chance to lead?

I don’t know that *I* want to trade the next 8 years of white-hot anger for eight years of gut-wrenching disappointments.

IMO it doesn’t matter if he’s stricktly on the business side. We have to start somewhere and possibly this asshole could convince other oil people to put their money into green technology. How can that be a loser? It’s better than no interest and nothing being done to get us off oil.

people are freaking out over the price of gas. The snake oil salesmen of the reich wing are saying that we can drill our way out of it. And the democraps are not standing up and telling them the truth. I don’t blame the consultants because people like Durban are supposed to be smarter than the consultants.

Did you guys see this:

Waxman said the documents showed that Gulf Stream’s tests of 11 trailers showed levels of formaldehyde higher than that which can cause adverse health effects.

Tests also showed that over half of unoccupied trailers, which were sitting on lots awaiting transfer to displaced families, showed concentrations of formaldehyde at or above a level that Environmental Protection Agency says people should not be exposed to for more than eight hours in their entire lifetime.

“Gulf Stream never told any families living in its trailer about these test results,” Waxman charged.

He also said the government was at fault.

TPM

Who wants Democrats to favor these things?

well, the dems could take some reasonable action to re-regulate the energy markets and therefore help voters with costs in the short term. but that would affect all the financial institutions that are 1. speculating on margin, 2. in big trouble with the housing shit piles they are sitting on and 3) big campaign donors, important lobbyists.

so…. plan B…. looks like we get kabuki political theater instead of a real energy policy. who cares if it is bad energy AND environmental policy? the most important thing, after all, is november.

… yeah, i’m even more cynical than usual.

Thanks Scarecrow. Learn something new at the lake every day.

because he’s a good bellwether?

And, that is the point. I am reacting to the fundamentals. Fundamentally, I find this to be a flawed approach.

Do not get me wrong…after what we are going through in New York with the PSC holding up and screwing over Iberdrola in terms of their acquiring Energy East corp. in order to invest billions in doing wind farms, I’m all for someone in private industry taking the bullshit by the horns and going for it. If Pickens can convince other energy people that oil is dead, so much the better…these folks are in the energy business..I don’t think they give a hoot where it comes from. so, the sooner Mr. Pickens can convince all of these chuckleheads that oil is done and coal is a nonstarter, the sooner we are going to have clean wind and solar in this country. If Iberdrola showed up at my little farmette and asked me if they could put up a tower, I’d tell them that as long as they could put in a line to my house so that I’d get free power, they could put up all the towers they want.

Tehachapi Pass in between the Mojave and the San Joaquin is dominated by wind towers. Ruins the view to say the least but so would smoke from a power plant.

Russ on Countdown with Rachel now up on C&L

A. Siegel is correct, T.Boone is only providing half the solution.

Read Jan.2008 article in Scientific American for more full solution.

Why don’t the Democrats propose something equally ludicrous? Or several somethings? Like mandating gasoline price rollbacks to when Dubya was inaugurated, with a freeze on prices forever? Or free gasoline for everyone on days that end in Y? Or nationalizing all the oil companies tomorrow? Or overthrowing the Saudi royal family?

Seriously, if offshore drilling is going to be in the national dialogue about today’s gas prices, why aren’t all the other ridiculous (but LEFTY) solutions in the mix as well? People will laugh, but a smart (Feingoldian or Frankenian) Democrat can turn that laughter around and say, “Yes, but offshore drilling is JUST as idiotic.”

We need some outrage to match the American mood — it just isn’t coming through.

(And thanks to all who broadened my understanding of transmission grid realities, upthread….)

Heh. I’ve got a commie in my peace group that’s absolutely convinced that there’s no such thing as “Peak Oil,” that such talk is just a capitalist plot of some sort to…heck, I dunno.

They’re talking about abiotic oil or abiogenic theory

Americans can’t get too much more.

take

Re the Solar Grand Plan, it would require 46,000 sq. miles of photovoltaics and concentrated solar power installations by 2050. This is essentially an area the size of Pennsylvania. Anyone see any potential problems with this?

This is why Jane and Christy’s policy focus is both prescient and powerful.

[sidebar to Christy: you are my hero on this long, long day with all the challenging family health issues you ReddHedds are coping with. We heart you.]

also disease :-(

Not if every roof is photovoltaic.

Being a current resident of Pennsylvania, you’re welcome to it.

Between Spectre, Casey, Sestak, Murphy et al, you can have it.

Personally, I despise Silver Bullet solutions and am greatly frustrated with those who believe in them

Well, I’m sure Pennsylvania does.

The rest of us, not so much. /s

Yes, but it is talking about out of 250,000 sq. miles of prime solar country in the Southwest.

Just throwing stuff out here. It might be helpful to at least attempt to rate energy corporations by their openness to renewables.

I sense a theme of a future late nite post in the making with those questions. *g*

By the way, I like your suggestion better. It goes to the distributive grid selise was talking about above.

*shrug* dunno, i’d imagine there is quite a few square miles of roofs through the sun belt tho.

What does it really matter in a corporate republic anyways.

Anyone see any potential problems with this?

Nah. Nobody’s using Utah for much of anything, are they?

Lots and lots of desert space in the west currently sitting empty. One might also bear in mind that a ’super-computer” used to take a huge room to house, but innovation and improvements have brought those to desk-top size…(which might well be inapposite – I don’t know).

I know, my bad…! ;-)

The GSP doesn’t call for using 250,000 sq miles; it says “at least 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest alone are suitable for constructing solar power plants.”

To be fair, the link posted by ACitizen STILL doesn’t match what ACitizen’s comment says about the GSP: “On the following pages we present a grand plan that could provide 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy (which includes transportation) with solar power by 2050.”

I would hate to propose ideas that required the Democratic nominee to reject and denounce me!

Lots and lots of desert space in the west currently sitting empty.

But that, of course, is not exactly true. They are actually fairly fragile ecosystems.

“Sitting empty …” There are environmental concerns in that ‘empty’ zone. Fyi …

Disaster capitalism can rid us of these pesky environmental regulations — and after today, perhaps of the environmentalists as well!

My reading is that the Solar Grand Plan is looking at using a fraction 46,000 sq. miles out of 250,000 sq miles deemed suitable.

Jeez … wish I could edit or react directly to own comments … “despise silver bullet solutions and am greatly frustrated with those who believe in them” would be more accurate.

OK, *my* turn to read comments a little bit closer . . .

Laura Flanders upstairs with a very cool grit video. Check it out.

Million Solar Roofs

http://www.environmentcaliforn…..olar-roofs

http://www.newsreview.com/sacr…..?oid=54586

Selise mentioned this earlier. Two different visions:

1. Central station model = traditional, utility-based = utility owns generation plants and transmission, and it distributes electric energy to each house, building, etc. We all pay the utility for what we consume.

2. Dispersed/distributed model = each dwelling/building becomes both a consumer and a supplier (e.g., solar panels/photovoltaics on the roof).

The T.Boone proposal is very much in the first model; instead of dozens of coal plants, it has hundreds of wind turbines feeding energy into a central grid, and all consumers draw power from that grid via distribution system.

But one can think of a home/building as both a producer and a consumer. In some hours, your home produces more than it uses, and becomes a net supplier to the grid — the excess power flows out. In other hours, your home is a net consumer — the needed power flows in. A two-way meter allows the utility to bill you or pay you, at the hourly market price, depending on which way the power is flowing, in or out. Systems in the East and come in California are being set up now to accommodate this.

This second vision combines both the dispersed and the central system — you’ll still need it much of the time, but in some hours, you’ll be “independent” or, in effect, your own energy company, selling power to the grid. Once we start to think about our homes/offices as working both ways and contributing to the solution, not just part of demand that must be met, then the size of the problem that must be solved with the central system gets smaller.

We’re already there in a few areas.

i’m tired, pissed off, and my eyes are having trouble focusing…. so maybe i have this wrong?

(46,000 sq mi * 27878400 sq ft / sq mi) / 300,000,000 people is >4000 sq ft per person.

hard for me to think that all the malls, office buildings, etc can make up the difference.

oh, and my roof is mostly shaded.

that said, i like the idea of using roof tops.

add in plug-in hybrid automobiles and we also have distributed storage.

Was just about to pull the trigger on a solar installation on my roof last month but the supplier of the panels raised the price at the last minute and I started thinking that there might be a better deal with the next prez and that the panel price may go down soon with the printed panels etc.

Will do it within the next few years though- 5kw system covers my needs nicely for about $23,000 net of govt. programs. Saves about $150 per month or $1800 per year. Would like to see the second number closer to 10% of the first number.

I’ve run the numbers for plug in hybrids. Don’t think that they make much sense until gasoline gets to $10 per gallon or so.

There’s a BIG savings per month in going from 20 mpg to 50 mpg at $5 per gallon. Going from 50 to 100 doesn’t save that much…Hard to justify for a consumer.

Decided to go down and sit in a Prius the other day to see if it fits my- well- larger than average- frame.

There WEREN’T any- all gone- on back order. Wait till winter.

you including the (currently) externalized costs to the environment?

Yes, but once you move any significant part of the transportation system to electricity, you’ve also increased the magnitude of the problem the central generation system has to solve. Whether the total energy plus warming problem is easier or not, cheaper or not, I dunno.

First step: price energy at its market price (marginal costs) on an hourly basis. You pay more in the afternoons, much less late at night, as prices changes hourly. Then we can start to see the economic tradeoffs between conservation, running your air conditioner, installing PV/solar, installing more energy efficient windows, etc. Your rates (and mine) don’t do this; we get terrible signals/incentives from an antiquated rate structure, so nothing that makes sense looks economic enough.

No- but if those costs are a couple of bucks a gallon- it still doesn’t work.

Those costs will hardly influence consumer decisions anyway unless they are ladled into the cost of the fuel- then they will make a difference.

Not likely to happen in the current political environment.

Much appreciated. I hope you, A Siegel, and others will continue to post about these issues.

once you move any significant part of the transportation system to electricity, you’ve also increased the magnitude of the problem the central generation system has to solve

ok.

then i’ll back up….

question – what is the relative magnitude of the current energy demand: transportation vs. electric?

p.s. really like your ideas for market pricing. about all that stuck with me from econ 101 was that the power of market systems was supposed to be in their ability to transmit information.

The City of Berkeley (I know, I know) will lend you that money and let you pay it back over the life of the panels. Communists.

I always try to get a Prius from our carshare pool, for exactly the same, um, ample reason. They are roomy on the inside and very trim outside. Many car-rental agencies now have them, if you want to try one out for a weekend before you order. Honda offers Civic (and maybe still Accord) hybrids, of course, as does Nissan (with the Toyota system, I believe). But the Prius is my favorite, as its unique profile conveys automatic sanctimony without the needless badge-checking required with the Honda and Nissan.

Crawford, Texas. No Problem!

“Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”

I actually rented one a couple of years ago and it seemed OK- but when I took my wife down to sit in one together- it seemed very snug (I’m six foot seven and she’s five nine.)

I thought I’d try again the other day- but no luck

Nice quote Teddy Cheney!

You can always tell who to date by the car they drive. The car tells a story.

i know a lot about tbone.

at his best, he is a consummate prevaricator.

let us review his career…

some years ago, when he was running mesa, there was such a natural gas bubble that the price of natural gas was well under $5.00/thousand at the consumer level.

how could that bubble be vented. tbone had a way. in concert with the american gas association, the southern gas association, they promoted the proposition that natural gas would be such a “clean” fuel that it should be substituted for diesel.

and lobbying a know-nothing congress, buying a know-nothing congress, tbone was able to obtain legislation mandating the subsitution of compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas for diesel. for municipal bus fleets – entities that operate on the tax dole[i.e., uneconomic].

i must tell you, using natural gas as a vehicular fuel is the worst thing that you could do. and if you want to discuss this with me in engineering detail, you know how to find me.

as the result of the tbone lobbying, the natural gas bubble has disappeared. and natural gas for residential usage has been forced into the teens/thousand.

i caught tbone on cspan/cnbc over the last several weeks. he was continuing to promote the notion of methane as a vehicular fuel. the interviewer was so ignorant, she hadn’t a clue as to how to respond to that nonsense.

but i know how to respond, tbone is a shyster.

late nite upstairs

We need to be extremely wary of T.Boone Pickens. He is one of the original corporate raiders who made fortunes tearing up companies for fun and profit. His plan looks good on the surface. All of his plans do. That’s why boards of directors of fine corporations let him succeed in being in real life what Michael Douglas’ Gordon “greed is good” Gecko was in the film Wall Street. Pickens plan, whatever its merits, will benefit him more than the American public.

Wonder if solar panels are still on the roof at Crawford.

Too easy, and that would anger the Glider Caucus (sunlight doesn’t hit the ground, reducing the upward thermals from the desert, effectively killing the Santa Ana winds)

./snark

Like to see those numbers because they are at odds with basically everything that I’ve seen out there.

And, it matters what you mean by ‘worth it’.

DiFi has the SUV version of the Prius – the InfinitiRX, which is about the most technologically advanced mass-production vehicle on the planet. But it is very dear. Might give you the room you need, though.

The City of Alameda has one of the oldest municipally-owned electric utilities in the nation. Socialists.

And do you want to mention Dick’s name?

But efficiency & conservation can produce far more from negawatts/negagallons, far faster and far less expensively, than any new production could offer.

In the interview, Cheney also says:

Well, it I suppose if you think you’ve got a crisis, if you turn on the wall switch and you don’t get any power, you’ve got a crisis. If your gasoline goes from $1.25 a gallon to $2 a gallon, the American people think they have a crisis.

He was a man with a plan.

Thanks for this chat today, A. (Sorry to be too snarky, perhaps. I read the news today, oh boy….)

Well- roughly

If you trade a 20 mpg vehicle for a 50 mpg vehicle at 15,000 miles a year you save about $2,400. (from $300 per month to about $100.

Going to a plug in saves you another $50. (but at the moment costs you $10,000 out of pocket..)

Even if the added cost is only $3,000 up front- it won’t make sense economically.

Must be the Lexus?

That thing only saves 4 mgp against the standard Lexus RX..makes no sense.

If you assume that gas goes to $10 per gallon- then you save $100 per month with the plug in vs. the standard hybrid and the whole thing makes better economic sense.

(that’s the current cost in Germany right now..)

Interestingly these ideas are pushed by the Creationist movement…gets away from believing that those vast oil and coal-bearing Pennsylvanian, Carboniferous and Permian deposits have anything to do with ancient life that is transformed to mineral deposits.

Some creationists claim to have actually created oil from inorganic materials…but have never actually done so in a reproduceable experiment that would indicate it was a common event.

“Won’t make sense economically …”

This argument can be tiresome.

There is an assumption that the only thing to consider is the gasoline price.

Okay, in terms of costs, the electric vehicles are showing themselves to have far less cost in terms of maintenance/repairs. Saved money.

But, let us move past cash. There are many “values”. Does it “make sense economically” to have spoilers? Racing stripes? Leather seats? A high-quality radio?

What value to place on driving a car that doesn’t make noise and you can stop at a stop sign with silence? What value to be placed on not having to go to a gas station as frequently? What value to be able to put on a bumper sticker “Obama bin Laden Hates This Car” (like Jim Woolsey has on his PHEV)?

Well it’s what I consider in making a decision. Do you have a plug in hybrid?

You can have one if you take your Prius to a place in LA that installs a bigger battery and a charger. It’s 10 grand.

Notice that the PRIUS DOES make immediate economic sense as long as you keep it for seven years or more.

I don’t particularly like T Boone. But, his proposal makes a lot of sense, and it’s isn’t an all or nothing thing.

T. Boone’s proposal is based on two concepts, both accurate:
— Wind is right now the lowest cost of the easily expandable sustainable energy sources.
— Natural gas is our most efficient way to transport and store energy.
There are some additional facts to consider:
— Natural gas is delivered to the home, eliminating some middle men in most transactions.
— Current automobiles can be inexpensively converted to run on natural gas.
— Natural gas (aka farts) can easily be made via bacterial digestion from almost any biological material (stored sunlight) including sewage.

IMHO, T. Boone is on a good track, and it’s a path that doesn’t preclude others.

Sorry to those who are sold on windpower, but T. Boone is full of it. Wind has a huge, and I mean huge, drawback. It is called rotating reserve and it is required as a backup for when the main source fails–and wind tends to fail at the times when you need it most–when it is especially hot or cold. Something has to be spinning to take up the slack immediately, and in most of the U.S. that is coal or gas powered steam turbines. You can’t just fire up a steam turbine and put it on line–that is a process that takes 8 to 12 hours. What this means is that the boilers at these plants must be kept hot and the turbines have to be turning. Hydro power is an exception–hydro turbines can be spun up and on line in under a minute, but with the exception of the TVA and the Pacific Northwest there isn’t a lot of hydro available. Furthermore, a lot of the wear and tear on a hydro turbine occurs at startup so there are increased maintenance costs involved and these costs are borne by the hydro operators, not the windpower investors. And steam is essentially the same–if the steamers aren’t producing near capacity and selling power they are operating at a low margin while the wind folks are raking in the bucks, but yet they have to be available when the wind dies. The lack of reliability is wind’s Achilles heel and the grid cannot rely on wind turbines for more than supplemental electricity production.

There is a public Forum for discussions about Pickens plan :
http://www.pickensenergyplan.com
Cheers.