In the book I say, “We can replace all fossil fuels with renewable fuels and alternative energy sources within ten years and with relatively minor disruptions to present manufacturing and distribution systems. Energy, Convenient solutions describes most of the existing and proposed energy systems, all within current technology and capabilities. Some of these proposed systems are quite unusual and recently announced. It provides many unique and workable, long-term answers to growing concerns about energy, the economy, and dwindling supplies of petroleum. Adopting these new systems would improve our balance of trade, our economy, our job opportunities, and our technological presence while eliminating the CO2 problem, regardless of its importance. We no longer have the luxury of time. The growing economic/political menace is here, now, real, and dangerous. If we don’t act immediately, the consequences could be catastrophic.”
Publication of the book was followed by publication of numerous articles in trade publications in many fields related to energy. Numerous book reviews, most quite positive have been written and published since publication early in the fall of 2010. Most of the negative reviews focused on the comments made about politics, Islam, and the lack of a single definitive answer. Obviously these reviewers failed to recognize the power politics and politicians have over energy decisions, even though most are poorly informed on the subject. Anyone who doesn’t see the danger oil-rich nations can pose, and the financial drain this causes the western world are wearing blinders. As long as petroleum remains our primary energy source, these factors must be considered. The answer is not a single system, or technology, but a combination of many, some effective in one field, others in different fields and industries. The one-size-fits-all solution so adored by politicians and the media, is completely impractical. The obvious difficulties and expensive collapse of many companies developing radical new technologies is just one of the lessons we must learn.
Excerpt, Energy, Convenient Solutions - How America Can Solve the Energy Crisis in Ten Years:
CONTENTS
SECTION I - Preliminaries
Dedication ix
Preface xi
Introduction 1
The Many Forces That Will Shape Our Energy Systems 1
Worldwide Distribution of Electricity Sources (table). 5
Why Petroleum Will not be the Answer 6
SECTION II - Some General Information
What this Book Is Really About 13
America Needs a Mission for Energy Independence 17
Existing Systems 22
Some Predictions 25
A Scenario of the Future: a Warning, Hopefully not a Prediction. 31
Another Scenario of the Future: Ten Years Into That Future 35
A Day in the Life of a PHEV (Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicle) 37
SECTION III - Energy Systems: Old, New, and Future
I. Fuel Energy Sources 41
A. Fossil-based Power Source Fuels 41
1. Coal 41
2. Petroleum Fuels 42
a. Gasoline 43
b. Diesel Fuel 45
c. Jet Engine Fuel 45
d. Fuel Oil, for Heating 45
e. Heavy Fuel Oils 46
3. Other Mined Fuels 46
a. Natural Gas 46
b. LP Gas (propane) 46
B. Nonfossil-based Renewable Power Source Fuels 46
1. Ethanol (grain alcohol) 47
Table Comparing Various Fuels with Gasoline. 48
2. Methanol (wood alcohol) 48
3. Butanol (butyl alcohol) a New Player 49
4. Another Fuel Possibility 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF) 50
5. Biodiesel 50
6. Methane 50
7. Wood 50
8. Plant Waste 51
9. Agni-byproducts 51
10. Ancient Fuels—Peat and Animal Dung 51
C. Manufactured Fuels 51
1. Hydrogen 51
2. A New Method to Produce Hydrogen 52
3. A New Process Could Produce Liquid Fuels 52
D. Nuclear Fuels 54
1. Uranium 54
2. Deuterium, Tritium 54
3. Exotic radioactive materials 54
4. Helium Three 54
II. Other Natural Energy Sources
A. The Sun 55
1. Direct Sunlight 55
B. Water Power 55
1. River Dams 55
2. Tidal 56
3. Wave Action 56
C. Geothermal 56
1. Volcanic 56
2. Deep Heat Energy 56
D. Wind Energy 57
III. Electric Power Plants
A. Steam Turbine Power Plants 59
1. Coal-fired Power Plants 60
2. Natural Gas-fired Power Plants 60
3. Oil-fired Power Plants 61
4. Nuclear Power Plants 61
5. Geothermal Power Plants 62
B. Water or Hydroelectric Power 63
1. River Dams 64
2. Tidal 65
3. Wave Action 65
C. Wind Turbine Power 66
D. Gas Turbine Power Plants 66
E. Solar Power 67
1. Solar Photo Voltaic Power Cells 67
2. Radiant Heat Energy 67
3. Focused Radiant Heat Energy 68
IV. The Distribution of Energy 69
A. Electricity 69
1. The Grid, Transmission Network 69
2. Batteries 70
B. Liquid Fuels 70
1. Fuels Liquid at Normal Temperatures 71
2. LP Gas (Liquified Petroleum) 71
3. LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) 71
C. Hydrogen 72
V. Fuel-powered Systems and Devices 73
A. Combustion-based Systems. 73
1. Internal Combustion Engines 73
a. Reciprocating Spark Ignition Engines 73
(1) A Special Case, LNG, Liquid Natural Gas 74
b. Diesel Engines 75
c. Turbine Engines 76
(1) The Turbojet Engine 76
(2) The Turboprop Engine 77
(3) The Turbofan Engine 77
(4) The Micro Turbine Engine 77
2. Steam Engines 77
a. Reciprocating Steam Engines 78
b. Steam Turbines 78
3. Stirling Engines 78
B. Systems Not Powered by Combustion 78
1. Nuclear Fission Reactors 78
2. Nuclear Fusion 79
3. Fuel Cells 79
4. Batteries 80
a. Lead-acid Batteries 81
b. The Firefly Battery 81
c. Zinc-carbon Batteries 81
d. Zinc-air Batteries 81
e. Alkaline Batteries 82
f. Nicad, or Nickel-cadmium Batteries 82
g. Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries (Nimh) 82
h. The Lithium-ion Battery 83
i. Nickel-ferrous Batteries 83
C. Hybrid and Combination Systems 83
1. Diesel/electric Combinations 83
2. Dual-electric Buses 84
3. Gasoline/electric Combinations 84
4. Gas Micro Turbine/electric 84
5. Nuclear/steam Turbine Power Plants 84
6. The Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle 84
VI. New Hybrid and Other Vehicles Now Available, or Soon to
Be on the Market 85
A. Hybrid Vehicles 85
List of Hybrid Cars 86
B. PHEVs or Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles 86
VII. Energy Systems and Devices not Powered by Fuels 89
A. EVs, or Pure Electric Vehicles 89
Toyota announces a new RAV4 EV for 2012 90
B. Battery-powered Small Vehicles and Tools 93
C. There are a Few Other Vehicles Not Powered by Fuel 94
1. All-electric Trolleys 94
2. Inertia-powered Buses 94
3. Air-powered Vehicles 94
D. Where Does All this Energy Originate? 94
VIII. Fuel Pricing and Other Factors 95
The Hydrogen-powered Vehicle, Is it a Scam? 97
IX. A Bit of Speculation 99
X. Putting it All Together, the Optimal Energy Economy 107
Recap of Energy 108
Geothermal Power Is Possibly the Best Solution 109
XI. Wish List—Things We Wish Were Available Now 113
A. A PHEV or EV Conversion for Existing Vehicles 113
B. Geothermal Energy 115
C. Then There Is Butanol 116
XII. Conclusions and Predictions 117
Why We Are in This Dangerous Situation 117
GEOENERGY 118
Go Green on a Small Scale - Homes and Businesses 119
One Final Warning. 120
SECTION IV - Politics Rears its Ugly Head
A Sad State of Affairs 121
Some Personal Experiences 122
Changes in the World Economy 123
Government Involvement 125
Politicians and Political Forces 126
The Shining Example of Ireland 127
The Political Challenges We Face 129
The Realities of the Gulf Oil Disaster 135
Why any Changes in the Fuel/Energy Industry Will be so
Difficult and Costly to Accomplish 139
Some Personal Observations 145
Islam, the Brutality of Muslim Fundamentalism 156
The Growth of Socialist/communist Power in America 157
Who Actually Pays All Those Taxes? 158
Media and Environmentalist Promoted Political Gold Mine,
global warming. 161
The Real Reason for the Furor over Global Warming 169
Bully for Global Warming and a Warmer Climate 171
Some Thoughts About Other Realities. 175
Smokescreen Hate Campaigns Against Big Oil. 175
The Advantages of Size . 177
Government Run Enterprises. 178
A Wild (and extremely unlikely) Future Scenario 181
SECTION V - References and Recommendations
Author Recommended Books 187
Bibliography 188
Internet References and Links 189
Endnotes .190
SECTION VI - Appendix
American imagination, ingenuity and determination are
still alive and well. 191
President Bush's remarks about energy in his
2006 State of the Union Address 192
Hydrogen vehicle will not be viable soon, study says 197
National Fuel Cell Research Center at UC Irvine to
test new, efficient and clean power technology—excerpt 199
An investigation of the feasibility of coal-based methanol for
application in transportation fuel cell systems 200
GM Volt Concept Car—Press Release 205
Tesla Roadster, From EP to VP—excerpt 210
Phoenix Motorcars Exhibits All-electric Mid-size SUT 211
Japan to Set up Public/private EV Program 212
Firefly Battery: a Radically New Lead-acid Battery 214
New Information on the Firefly Oasis Battery 215
Chinese Battery Firm Rolls out Hybrid Car—excerpt 216
Power Technology - Douglas Battery Relationship—excerpt 216
Back from the Dead: The Future of Electric Vehicles—excerpt 217
The Electric Vehicles of Today and Tomorrow—excerpt 218
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, a Niche Market 219
Nickel-metal Hydride Batteries, Why Are They Not Being Used? 220
Chevy Sequel: GM Press Release—excerpt 222
Is GM Putting Too Much on Batteries? 223
Altair Nanotechnologies Achieves Breakthrough in Battery Materials 225
A123systems Receives $40 Million Investment to
Expand Manufacturing of Plugin Hybrid Batteries—excerpt 229
Why Nanotechnology Could Be the Biggest Payoff since the Advent of the
Steam Engine 230
Nanotechnology, Information Technology, Industrial Processes—excerpt 231
The Nanotechnology Revolution, Dan Linstedt 232
Buckypaper, New Nanotechnology Development with Promise 234
Ex-environmental Leaders Tout Nuclear Energy—excerpt 235
U.S. Nuclear Industry PR Campaign, by J. R. Pegg—excerpt 235
New Process Generates Hydrogen from Aluminum Alloy 237
Engineers Develop Higher-energy Liquid Fuel from Sugar 241
Ultracapacitors, the Dark Horse in the Race to Power Hybrid Cars—excerpt 243
Ethanol May Not Be Good for the Environment—excerpt 244
GM Announces New Batteries for Chevrolet Volt Plugin Hybrid—excerpt 245
Some Information and Web Sites about Electric Vehicles 246
Table - Comparisons of Tesla EV with the Bentley Arnage T 247
Table - Comparison of the ACP eBox with the Toyota Prius 248
Table - Comparison of the Phoenix SUED with Toyota 4Dr Pickup 249
Phoenix SUED Specifications and Information 250
INDEX 251
Dedication
It is with great humility I express my gratitude to all of my family and friends who have endured hearing and reading my technical rumblings about the energy crisis and what should be done about it. They have been tolerant of my passion, my techno speak, and of numerous essays on the subject that I asked them to read and critique. Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, Bobbie and Bob Grimm, for their considerable emotional and financial support of this effort. Without that support, this book would not exist. I especially appreciate and treasure the memory of my late wife, Barbara, who was my editor, proofreader, counselor, and constant support during much of the early time spent on this book even to her last days. These pages reflect much of her effort. She is surely cheering the publication of this work from on high. Thanks also to Daphne Fox whose help and support have been invaluable for the last years of my writing. Among the many who helped me in this endeavor are two others I especially want to thank. They are John O'Renick, who sent me an invaluable critique of an earlier manuscript and Al Kalar who made several excellent suggestions about the layout of the book and some of the content. Their excellent critiques enabled me to refine and improve the book and make it easier to read.
WHY THIS BOOK NOW?
About ten years ago I started writing a book titled simply, SOLUTIONS! In it I proposed practical solutions to many of the knotty problems facing our nation and even the world. I developed solutions to serious problems like drugs, the environment, tax systems, and national security, among others. I described various practical solutions, making each a chapter in the book. Among the many problems examined were two complex and related ones—energy and fuel systems. In 2003, while working on this, I heard an interview on National Public Radio about the substantial promise of the hydrogen fuel cell. The gentleman speaking explained with enthusiasm how it was going to revolutionize the transportation industry with vehicles that only exhausted pure water. It sounded quite promising to one who had worked and done research in the petroleum and energy industries often during the previous fifty years.
On the Internet, I found his website and emailed him about my interest in his work. I asked him if he would provide access to more information about this new technology. He replied quickly thanking me for my interest and providing me with a list of references, articles, and books on the subject, many he had written. I also began looking into the realities of the entire system of which the vehicle and its source of power are but a small part. By the time I had discovered what the whole system would entail: the raw materials, manufacturing processes, distribution, storage, and dispensing of hydrogen, the infrastructure required for such an undertaking, and the new technologies required to create all these interacting systems, it looked to be more than a daunting task. It looked prohibitively expensive. When I emailed him asking about infrastructure costs, he referred me to another member of his staff saying they would answer my query. Several unanswered emails later, I received a notice from his assistant informing me that the staff member I had emailed left for other employment, for greener pastures I presumed, and that I would soon be hearing from another. Months passed during which time I repeatedly emailed his office without any response. A few months later I received a failure notice from Yahoo. His email was no longer active. So much for the touted expert on the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Perhaps his government grant ran out and was not renewed.
This piqued my curiosity, heightened my interest, and brought to my attention the growing public concerns about energy and the environment. I began researching energy, energy systems, fuels, transport, and all the other parts of the complex, interactive systems that comprise energy. Added to what I had learned from my education and years of experience, it became a fascinating store of information—practical data about systems from past, present, and future. I have cataloged much of this information in Energy, Convenient Solutions along with my opinions about the forces that will control how we deal with the problems, the motives of those making crucial decisions, and the technologies involved. I’m certain there is much I have missed and much waiting in the wings to be discovered and touted by those who do such things. That’s how it is with virtually every item of science and technology. By the time information is published, it has been changed or replaced by a new discovery, system, or use of technology.
The reader may notice some repetition of facts and descriptions. This is because many facts or descriptions fit into several different areas covered in the book. Rather than use cross references that could cause confusion for the reader, many of these usually small parts are simply inserted in the new position within different points of reference. Some simply have more than one place in the orderly progression where they are a necessary fit.
INTRODUCTION
This book is about energy, energy systems, energy use, fuels, and fuel use. It describes some history of energy and fuels, their sources, practicality, and uses. It also describes many new and revolutionary materials and systems that could be solutions to the current energy crisis. The best combination of the solutions described could solve our energy crisis in just a few years, a decade at most. The real problem is in enacting these solutions. Implementation will be dependent on varied systems of interacting disciplines, companies, researchers, investors, and governments.
The author recognizes and uses a number of language conventions that are now quite common with which he does not agree. For example, carbon dioxide is quite commonly referred to as a greenhouse gas, a serious misnomer. The physical processes by which all gasses, including carbon dioxide, absorb, hold, and radiate heat energy in the atmosphere is completely different from that which holds heat in an actual greenhouse, the greenhouse effect. Also and related, Global Warming has come to have a very specific meaning that the author finds is far more an emotional belief system than a provable reality. Nevertheless, these terms and others, are used in the text where they convey their now common meanings. Incidently, some individuals are now applying another term to carbon dioxide that is categorically false. That term, applied strictly for political reasons, is pollutant. Carbon dioxide is no more an air pollutant than is water, argon, or nitrogen and the term, pollutant will not be used to describe carbon dioxide in this book. There are other terms that are similarly incorrect but have crept into the language by common usage.
THE MANY FORCES THAT WILL SHAPE OUR ENERGY SYSTEMS
Energy, fuels, and all their associated products and services make for some complex and interacting systems on an immense scale. This rapidly changing, worldwide set of systems is affected by a broad range of factors and circumstances. Some of the key ones include,
1. The state of the world's economy
2. Supply/demand balance
3. World prices of crude oil
4. The politics of nations and organizations that produce and sell crude oil
5. The politics and power of the oil-importing nations
6. Supposed global warming and its effects on policy and markets
7. The global warming movement and the power it wields
8. Profitability of alternate fuels compared with petroleum products
9. Profitability of various energy use systems
10. Profitability of various energy generating systems
11. Government involvement at many levels
12. Private investment
13. Public and private research efforts
14. The news media and even the world of entertainment
There are certainly many more, but to try to list them all would be foolish and counterproductive. Suffice to say that there are enough interacting variables to tax even the expert operators of the most sophisticated super computers. What this means is that significant changes in any of these factors can affect a number of others and not always in predictable ways.
THERE ARE MANY NEW AND OLD IDEAS AND SYSTEMS DESCRIBED HEREIN.
The author makes no apologies for favoring some over others. I favor mostly those that seem to be practical, economical and especially speedy. Some of these have come to prominence recently and thus are not covered as thoroughly as others. Things are changing rapidly in this field with new ideas and products appearing almost daily. The rapidly fluctuating price of petroleum triggers many of these changes. It is my belief that an energy shortage or crunch is coming much sooner than most expect. The long-range forecast is for oil prices to spiral upward. The worldwide recession has temporarily halted the rapid rise over the previous few years, but sooner or later the recession will abate and oil prices will continue their long-range rise. Systems described in this book or new ones not yet imagined will eventually replace petroleum because of market forces.
The purpose of this book is to provide information and encouragement for the doers, movers and shakers in our nation—the entrepreneurs. The many energy systems described run from those used for several hundred years to those just discovered and in their infancy. Many of these will fall into disuse or be kept for historical or sentimental usage.
Here's a bit of old news: For all practical purposes, the horse and buggy have left the American scene. Except for the Amish and some nostalgic sight seeing uses, they have disappeared. The Stanley Steamer and the Baker Electric, once quite popular are now found only in museums or in the hands of collectors. The iron horse of the plains is but a memory with a rare few still in collections or on sightseeing railroads. A few World War I Sopwith Camels and World War II Japanese Zeros are still flying. Last fall I witnessed a Boeing B17E Flying Fortress fly by while I was walking on a popular Florida beach. It was quite a thrill watching that half a century old legend still flying. How vastly different it is from the modern B2 bomber. This illustrates the increasing speed with which technology advances. Most of what we have today would be as unrecognizable during the era of the B17 as the B17 would have been at the time of the revolutionary war.
As time passes, the evolution of technology accelerates. The sum of scientific knowledge approximately doubles every fifteen years. This has been going on since the time of Copernicus in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Galileo and Kepler in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and Newton in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Western science seems to ignore the work of Muslim mathematicians and astronomers who knew that the earth was a sphere and revolved around the sun centuries earlier than Europeans. They, in turn, had learned from Greek and Persian astronomers and mathematicians after translating much knowledge into Arabic from Greek and Persian. These early scientists in turn probably learned much of their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy from the Egyptians.
What about today? With computers to record our work and the Internet to distribute it, new knowledge quickly spans the globe as the sum of knowledge continues its geometric expansion. Not only are we learning new things faster, but new, practical and sometimes serendipitous findings now spread around the world at the speed of light. Information can be distributed instantly, but the actual creation of new items, systems, procedures and processes still requires time and considerable effort to move from raw material to finished products. Most of these fall by the wayside because of unattractive appearance, lack of understanding of their actual value, lack of economic appeal, or even erroneous perceptions. If another item or system is cheaper with the same value or even more expensive but with superior value, that system will prevail. Except within government bureaucracies, profitability is the clue to the economic success of any item or system. The life of even a well-accepted technology can soon be eclipsed by a newer, better or cheaper technology. Witness the evolution in recorded music from the wax cylinder to the brittle 78, the flexible LP and 45, to reel tape, to 8-track tape, to cassette tape, to CD, to DVD, and now micro chip and Ipod. The effective life of each system lasted for a shorter period of time than its predecessor. This is the nature of accelerating technology in the music business as in many other industries.
This book is about the same kind of event happening in the energy industry, a much broader field than music, with many more variations and possibilities. A problem or need arises. Creative minds search for answers, primarily to find ways to make money, a living, even wealth. They present these many answers to the public in ways from simple word-of-mouth contacts to mass media advertising. All things being equal, the highly advertised will always prevail over the word-of-mouth simply because it reaches far more people in a shorter time. By the time widget A gets started by word of mouth, widget B has thousands of orders from its massive advertising.
So it will be with the new systems described in this book. Individuals and companies of many different sizes pursue these proposals or developments, some with patents, some without. I have some distinct opinions of the systems we can and should end up using. Time will provide the reality to my opinions. The same can be said for those interim products needed to move us from total dependence on petroleum to multiple energy systems in the next decade or so. I also have some definite opinions about those I think will not be successful. I freely share these opinions with readers throughout the book.
It makes no difference who or what is blamed for rapidly rising fuel prices, or where they go in the future. It makes no difference what your position is on environmentalism. It makes no difference what the reality is about global warming. It makes no difference how much oil companies are hated or loved. None of these change the fact that we still need alternative fuels and energy sources. They have become an absolute necessity because of diminishing supplies of petroleum.
Use of any fossil fuel will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. There are only two known ways to use energy without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The same two methods will apply whether or not we are forced to survive without petroleum fuels for any reason.
The first and most obvious is energy from fuels derived from plant materials—nonfossil sources. Carbon dioxide created by the burning of these fuels came originally from the atmosphere. Thus, use of fuel produced from plant sources only returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was originally taken from it. These no net carbon dioxide fuels include many common materials: wood, ethanol from corn, methane recovered from landfills, methanol, butanol, DMF and ethanol from plant material fermentation, oils from plant sources including soy beans, palms, and algae, pelletized agricultural waste, and any other form of fuel from recent biological activity.
The second way is, and promises to be, far larger than no net carbon dioxide fuels both today and in the future. It includes all non combustion processes for generating energy. Those energy systems currently in use include nuclear, river water, solar, wind, tidal water, ocean wave action, and geothermal. Each of these has its own set of challenges, including practical limits, funding, new technologies, environmental impacts, site locations, weather problems, real or imagined dangers, government controls, and concerns of the public.
Any or all of these processes could be used to generate electric power for grid distribution in the optimal energy economy of the future as described in these pages. It remains for some nation or organization to take the high road to the cheap, safe, portable, no net carbon dioxide-producing energy that these processes promise. Once in use, the benefits to the economy of any nation that uses it will be unlimited.
Nuclear power, is it passé? In the past, nuclear power has been touted as the best way to produce safe, clean, energy without producing carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, a very slanted and scary movie, The China Syndrome, so frightened the American public that the entire nuclear industry was scuttled at tremendous expense and waste. Once more, perception of the American people trumped reality. This false perception was generated by a fictional story. It baffles me that the public believes a completely fictional story over the obvious reality. Hollywood must still be gloating over the destructive power wielded by their movie. It is interesting to note that it was based on an actual nuclear accident, the one at Three Mile Island. The interesting thing about that accident is that the safety features of the plant worked. The danger was contained just as the plant was designed to do. Radioactive leakage was far less than the maximum considered safe and the resulting dispersed radiation was barely detectable above normal background radiation. There was never any detectable radiation danger. Fortunately for France and China, they didn't believe or ignored the intended message of the movie, understood the reality, and are now rapidly developing and building nuclear power plants. By the way, nuclear power has been proven the safest of all types of power plants in real terms of human lives lost and bodies injured. I wonder why Hollywood and the media never acknowledge that fact?
Following are some recently released estimates showing the present distribution of the various worldwide energy sources. Also shown are two potential energy sources and how they could stack up for the future.
Hydro electric 15% 2,665 Terawatts
Nuclear 15% 2,665 Terawatts
Natural Gas 20% 3,481 Terawatts
Oil 7% 1,218 Terawatts
Coal 40% 6,963 Terawatts
Renewable fuels 2% 348 Terawatts
Geothermal 1.25% 268 Terawatts
Wave Potential 200% 34,816 Terawatts
Geothermal Potential 1000+% 160,000+ Terawatts
The last two on the list could turn out to be the best in all ways including economic. Geothermal power could be the real winner in an all-out competition given that useable geothermal energy is available in about 60 percent of the area of North America, and similarly throughout the world. This is covered in sections II C and III A 5 on geothermal power. I wonder if Hollywood will mount a new attack on progress with The China Syndrome II about a cataclysmic geothermal volcanic explosion. Do not put it past them. Right now in California, several geothermal plants have been supplying power for some time. Though still a tiny part of the overall mix, geothermal power has the most long term potential of any system, including wave energy power.
The marine energy sector is in its infancy compared with all the other energy sources we use today, including geothermal. It's only now starting to gain a lot more attention, and what is more important, the large influx of investment capital it needs to expand. Wave action power generation of the ocean is a recent technology with great promise. Like geothermal, it is already in use for a tiny portion of our electric power. While wave energy is only a possibility to many people, the truth is it is now a practical reality. Several ocean energy companies are not only producing power right now, but they are landing power purchase agreements with the major utilities. No better proof exists that this power generation system is viable than a power purchase agreement. A small Canadian firm that few people even know exists recently picked up a long-term deal with a major utility in California to deliver power to the grid.
Here's what we are facing: Pundits now report that the coming change in energy is certain to be the most drastic and overwhelming disruption the energy markets will ever see. Besides water, there is nothing more critical for the entire world than adequate supplies of cheap energy. We rely upon it for our transportation, our food, our medicine, our clothing, our agriculture. It's the underlying force that keeps the world moving. As we've already begun to see with oil, it is also the one thing that can bring the global community to its knees, if there is not enough of it. So needless to say, an energy resource that is immeasurable and inexpensive is an energy resource that will drive the next evolution of our energy economy. There are not many proven technologies to choose from right now.
Why Petroleum Will not be the Answer
Back in March of 2005 I read a dire prediction about petroleum. It was a confirmation of what I and many in the oil industry have known and studied for as long as 50 years. We have known and predicted the growing, rapid decline in world oil production between the year 2000 and 2025 even that long ago. The March 2005 prediction said we were about to run out of oil. Actually, that is not true. It should have said the discovery and extraction of new crude combined with existing supplies was not keeping up with demand. It correctly reported the price of oil was about to go through the roof. Oil was predicted to reach $80 a barrel within the next two years and go as high as $185 a barrel.
Steve Forbes couldn't resist ridiculing this prediction. He made his own prediction, “In 12 months, you're going to see oil down to $35 to $40 a barrel. It's a huge bubble, I don't know what's going to pop it but eventually it will pop. You cannot go against supply and demand, you cannot go against the fundamentals forever.”
The last part of his statement was right on the money. You cannot go against supply and demand forever. That was more than three years ago and now it's reality. Crude oil passed $130 a barrel in May of 2008, and everybody from President Bush to OPEC to the CEOs of Big Oil now say exactly what that prediction was saying in 2005. The world's supply of easy oil is quickly running out. In spite of this, the current economic down turn quickly brought crude oil prices down dramatically. Strange how the recession made Steve Forbes’ prediction come true. A quick economic turnaround and oil prices will return to the stratosphere. This pause in rising prices could provide us the time to convert to alternatives, but that is not likely to happen. Besides the human nature to put things off, venture capital required to develop alternative energy has suddenly dried up. The increase in taxes promised by our new government will further inhibit investment.
Little has changed even though all of these seem to have gotten the message: government officials, oil company CEOs, even consultants to the petroleum industry worldwide. They have responded with statements like,
“Growth in global demand for oil is accelerating and the supply is not.”
“The era of cheap energy is over, permanently.”
“Access to oil and gas can no longer keep up with the demand.”
“Prices of all petroleum products are poised to go through the roof.”
Then there is my own prediction made early in 2007 in the manuscript for this book of $200 per barrel petroleum and $8 a gallon gasoline for the U.S. in 2010. When I first included that full page prediction, I wrote it as a scare tactic, an attention getter, a way to capture the imagination of the reader. Little did I realize it would be a fairly accurate prediction. It is still there in the middle of Section II of the book along with a new prediction of what will happen with low oil prices. The recession of 2008 brought about a short, two to four year delay of the inevitable.
As the world's oil production slows and the demand for oil rises, the results could be catastrophic. Prices were rising precipitously, not only on oil and oil products, but on virtually every other product or commodity. The first indicators of the looming disaster, rising prices for food and then other items are already evident. Grain prices doubled in the years before the 2008 recession as grain was taken from the food supply to make biofuels. The ripple effect of this switch began creating shortages in poor areas of the world where starvation is a major problem. The world recession of 2008 temporarily reversed these price increases, but by early 2010 they were rising once more. The rapid drop of petroleum prices and the cost of fuel at the pump pleased most Americans. Of course, the job losses and business failures that accompany these dropping prices are not very pleasing. When and if economic stability and economic growth return, oil prices will once again head for the stratosphere. This will only get worse until and unless we develop the new energy systems described herein. The long-range prospects remain for less and less oil at higher and higher prices.
In their edition of May 12, 2008, The Maine Sentinel reported, “The modern world needs cheap oil like the human body needs oxygen; remove it, and we could be headed for economic decline, resource wars and social chaos.” To me, if cheap oil is like oxygen then even more so is the broader term, cheap energy. Cheap alternative fuels and cheap and plentiful energy are both essential to the health of the world's economies. To prevent monumental economic disasters for the whole world, some individual or group must come up with viable solutions to cheap fuels and energy. Viable energy alternatives are certainly within our grasp. It is vital that we develop these into practical, working systems.
High prices for virtually everything could lead to lower demand, but this could spiral into a very bad depression. In view of the rapidly increasing demand for oil in China followed closely by India and several other nations, economic disaster could be upon us soon and will be the most serious challenge the modern world has ever faced. Hungry and angry people lead to desperate people which in turn can lead to horrible consequences. Should the price of oil and energy continue to escalate it will eventually be priced beyond the ability of ordinary people to pay for it. At this point the economic collapse will be sudden and catastrophic. No developed nation is equipped to handle such a collapse. That's why we must act now—immediately and decisively. Delaying will lead to widespread conflict and even war—war unlike any we have ever seen.
Although most people still believe we have plenty of oil and natural gas and that the prices will soon return to previous levels, others are beginning to realize that is just not true. Left leaning politicians and the talking heads on TV are still saying how we can solve the problem with conservation and new technologies. Reducing our consumption of oil, it will fall back to less than fifty dollars a barrel. That places them firmly among the glue-sniffers. In all seriousness, how can they possibly believe this will happen? This is especially true for the pundits and analysts who regularly appear on television to talk about how improved technology will continue to lower energy costs and bring as much energy to market as we demand. This will force the price of oil back down to $35 a barrel. It will never happen in that way. Market forces will always control the price of oil even as it has dropped the price precipitously because of the deepening recession of 2008. Even if we opened up all the fields in and around our nation to drilling, it would only delay the problem and not for long at that.
Again, remember Steve Forbes' infamous prediction in 2005 that higher oil prices would cause supply to increase and outpace demand. But, according to Matthew Simmons, the world's top oil investment banker and an energy adviser to President George W. Bush, the idea that cheap oil would last forever is a 21st-century myth: “The religion was faith-based, not fact-based! It was an illusion!” At the first Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) conference in 2005, Simmons observed that the peak oil problem had started to look like a theological debate, and quoted Dr. Herman Franssen, saying, “It is time to leave ‘I believe’ inside a church.” The facts are that our largest oil reservoirs are running out of oil and their production is falling. Most of the world's current oil production is from fields that are past their prime and are now declining. These fields include most of the world's biggest and most productive.
Kuwait's Burgan Oil Field—In an incredible revelation early in May of 2008 it was reported by the Kuwait Oil Company that its Burgan field, the world's second largest oil field, is tapped out and has passed peak output.
Cantarell, The Third Largest Oil Field in the World, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Mexico's state oil monopoly, expects its production at the Cantarell oil field to slow earlier than previously forecast. Their chief executive said the decline is now expected to average 14% a year starting in 2007 and go down soon after.
Most of the other known reserves of petroleum are in fields that are at least beginning to decline. New fields are getting smaller and harder (read more expensive) to find and bring into production. This has been going on for at least ten or fifteen years. Even the latest oil recovery technologies have had less than dramatic results. Instead of increasing the amount of oil available, these techniques have brought about the more rapid depletion of the existing reserves. The future for cheap oil looks even grimmer as these technologies have hastened the demise of existing oil reserves and reduced the promise of future production. This is already a factor in the rapid rise of the cost of crude.
Add to this, the enormous oil deposits offshore and in Alaska that have been removed from exploration and production almost exclusively by over zealous environmentalists. Then there are those proven fields in our country where the cost of drilling and extraction is between $20 and $30 a barrel. These fields, including one in North Dakota that holds as much as a fifty-year supply of sweet crude, were never tapped when crude could be purchased for $10 a barrel. Now that crude prices have gone so high and it becomes economically feasible to mine, it will take several years to drill, reach, and pump enough of this oil to make any impact. Drilling will take a sizeable investment which comes only from the profits of the oil companies. Should the government, as suggested, increase the taxes on those oil companies, this oil will take just that much longer to be made available. Those politicians and media talking heads never mention that while whipping up public animosity toward Big Oil, do they? They do not want you to know their efforts are the largest contributors to the high prices you must pay for fuel and those efforts are the chief reason we are sending trillions to despotic states that plot our destruction.
Many oil experts both in and outside of the industry correctly predicted the rising prices of crude almost to the dollar as long ago as early 2005. What amplifies the problem is the fact that for every calorie of food consumed in the United States, there were 10 calories of fossil fuel consumed to make the fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides; fuel to run the machines that plant, tend, harvest, transport, and process the goods; and fuel to deliver them and refrigerate them. That is without considering the energy you use going to and from the stores and then to cook your food. This means that as fuel prices rise, everything that includes a cost of fuel in their mix will rise along with fuel. The extensive use of cheap fossil fuels in food production is what has enabled the world population to multiply by four and a half times in the last century to around 6.7 billion people at the present.
It's quite simple; food is fuel and energy. Food travels an average of 1,300 miles from the farm to the plate in North America, leading critics such as James Howard Kunstler to decry the 3,000-mile Caesar salad that travels from California's breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley, to his table in Scranton, Pennsylvania. We need oil for nearly everything we do, and our entire infrastructure is built on the assumption that there will always be lots of it. Serious problems and expensive shortages are no longer coming. They are already here.
“A Saudi oil-output hike would not solve U.S. problems.” George Bush 10:04 A.M. May 17, 2008.
U.S. President George W. Bush said that a hike in oil output by Saudi Arabia would not solve American energy problems. “It's not enough, it's something but it doesn't solve our problem,” Bush told reporters in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Bush said he was pleased with a Saudi decision taken on May 10 to increase its oil production by 300,000 barrels per day in response to customers, but said that he was also realistic about what the Americans should do.
“Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancing of alternative energies as well as conservation,” he said. “It is divided into three comprehensive parts The Crisis in a Barrel, Making Money from the Fossil Fuels That Are Left, and Energy after Oil.”
The first two are only band-aids on the problem and merely delay our eventual succumbing to depletion of crude supplies, and not for long. The third is the only option we have and that is what this book is about.
A dangerous reality most politicians, the media, and the public seem to ignore is that the billions of dollars of investment required to power the twofold answer to the energy crises—new oil and alternative energy—must come from oil company profits. Increasing taxes on business will lower this amount substantially and discourage exploration, research and development. Substantial profits of American business are essential to our economic health and to finding solutions to the real energy crisis. The economic explosion of China and other countries will cause the price of crude to keep right on growing past $130 per barrel and heading for $200. Witness the following news report:
China's crude demand is expanding at 11% a year. China has already passed the U.S. as the emitter of the most carbon dioxide in the world and will soon replace the U.S. as the world's biggest oil importer. The growth of India's oil demand is not far behind. These two nations account for a third of humanity. As their breakneck development continues, the energy needs of their factories and construction firms along with those in Brazil, Mexico and other populous emerging markets can only escalate.
Specifically, as these countries get richer, and their citizens can afford more, the number of cars in the world, now around 625 million, is set to double in less than 20 years. Think of the impact of that on global oil demand, seeing as around 70% of current crude output is used to fuel cars.
Above quoted from the UK Telegraph, April 2008 (before the economic crisis broke)
But wait just a minute! The imminence of peak oil may not be as threatening as we’ve been warned. In an article in the October 2009 issue of Scientific American, author Leonard Maugeri reports on advanced technologies that offer ways to economically extract nearly as much oil known to be underground as has already been delivered. This could extend the actual supply available well into the next century at around current crude prices that fluctuate between $50 and $80 per barrel in 2009 dollars. This means that competitive fuels and energy systems will of necessity need to be in the same or lower range of cost or they will simply not be viable for a very long time. Steve Forbes’ price predictions may not have been so far off the mark after all. Such information is certain to frighten away some investors now considering alternative fuels and energy systems. It will cause others to become nervous and cautious about investing their money in new energy. It will also displease the gurus of global warming.
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SECTION II - Some General Information
What this Book Is Really About
Perhaps the best way to explain what this book is about is to tell what it is NOT about.
It is definitely not a hand wringing message of doom, gloom and contempt for America.
We have far too many of these messages of doom and gloom given to us daily in the media and by politicians. These vitriolic elitists have nothing good to say or predict about America or Americans. They seem to be doing everything they can to discredit, take away, and destroy all the things most Americans—actually most people in the world—want for themselves and their families. Mostly the availability of everything people want boils down to E-N-E-R-G-Y and what it costs—energy to light our cities and our homes, power our factories, move our vehicles, operate our computers, fly our airplanes, power our medical technology, grow our crops, and build our buildings—energy that does so much for us every day. Of course, fuel is but one part of the energy equation.
Two opposing views of how to manage energy come from differing political viewpoints. One is to utilize the systems proposed in this book to expand energy systems and grow our domestic economy. The other is the way of those who would limit its use, and reduce consumption. Mostly they would use government to enforce stricter and stricter limits, often by levying taxes to artificially raise the price and so reduce use. These people and the power they wield is covered in a later section titled, Politics Rears its Ugly Head, starting on page 121 and going through page 159.
It is Not about Solutions in the Distant Future
This book proposes solutions in years, instead of decades, with little infrastructure changes using existing technologies. These solutions are based on total energy systems including creation, storage, distribution, use, power grid stations, fuel manufacture, waste disposal, local power generators, vehicles and vehicle power systems. Not to examine and develop these alternative energy sources is economic suicide.
It Is Not Just about the Growing Demand for Oil
It is interesting to note that the rapidly expanding economies of India, China, and some other third world nations are demanding increasing amounts of petroleum and will continue to do so for years into the immediate future. China is currently on a binge of building power plants and developing sources for petroleum, even near our Gulf Coast. Since the Florida legislature had the wisdom to prohibit American companies from drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Florida, our friends, the Chinese, in cooperation with our friends, the Cubans, are now drilling for that oil a few miles off our coast. By using slant drilling techniques, they will be able to extract oil from beneath our continental shelf off Florida and Louisiana. They are not restricted by the safety and environmental rules American companies must abide by, so they can do it the cheap and dirty way. So much for the wisdom of our politicians in protecting our Gulf Coast from oil spills. See The Realities of the Gulf Oil Disaster on page 134 and then on page 150 for more information about this major environmental disaster. It seems even with our government controls, disasters still happen.
It Is Not Just about Alternative Fuels
The only real question is, can we convert to alternative fuels fast enough to avert economic disaster? These fuels alone may not provide the solution as they bring about problems of their own, like competition with food. What we actually need is new and more practical energy systems for generating electricity.
It Is Not Just about New Types of Vehicles
The part of the energy use system that the public most responds to and the media most reports about are snazzy new cars. They are also among the last essential parts needed for our overall energy systems. Without a complete operational system to distribute energy from source to vehicle, those cars are merely a useless hunk of unmovable metal and plastic.
It Is Not Just about Reducing Global Warming
There are several overwhelming reasons why we must quickly develop new, innovative energy systems to create and distribute energy. Ideally, these systems will not require fossil fuels or new and expensive infrastructure. Supposed global warming caused by carbon dioxide is the least of these reasons. Even without this consideration, we desperately need an alternative to petroleum products. Thanks in large part to limits imposed by our over zealous and intrusive government, they are becoming more difficult and expensive to find and recover. A sudden, major disruption of the oil supply would wreak havoc with the world economy. It could create a depression that would make the one in the thirties look mild in comparison. This is not an American problem, but a worldwide one.
It's Not about Waiting for a Major Catastrophe
Many of the concepts and systems described are already in existence. We have started to design, build and even use some of these advanced nonfossil fuel systems. This major shift away from petroleum fuels must be made quickly enough to avert the catastrophic economic menace that rising prices for petroleum fuels promise. Those accelerating prices are even now beginning to bring serious economic problems down on the entire world. An adequate solution could probably be found within the systems described in these pages.
It Is Not Just about an Economic Bonanza
Should we develop programs using these systems, the benefits to our nation and the world would be substantial and almost immediate. The optimal energy system would provide far more material benefits than just economic growth and prosperity.
It IS about Preventing Economic Collapse and War
Make no mistake, the real threat of new kinds of war looms larger each day. This tension is fueled by the growing demand for energy from those large nations now experiencing explosive economic growth and demanding more oil as their economies accelerate. The dangerous conflict in The Republic of Georgia was most likely one of these over control of energy. This is compounded by an accelerating food shortage that is possibly even more dangerous than the fuel shortage. As the prosperity of these large nations grows, the demand for fuel and food is far outstripping the supply. The result can be hungry people running amuck in killing frenzies as has happened in much of Africa. Add Islamic fundamentalist terrorists from nations awash in oil money and we have two easily recognizable groups that care nothing about human lives and would not hesitate to snuff out a few hundred million. They would also cheer loudly at the murder of virtually every person in the West. That we find new, nonpetroleum-based systems for energy generation, transport and use is essential to help prevent this from happening. The answer to this can certainly be found by pursuing some of the avenues laid out in these pages. Hopefully, an abundance of cheap energy that does not interfere with the food supply will relieve some of that danger, as well.
It's Not about Words and Emotional Reactions
We always have plenty of that from politicians and the world of entertainment including the media whose stock in trade is the use of words to stir emotions. These voices, frequently of doom and gloom, often falsely condemn many who could be instrumental in solving problems. In fact, they can be causing considerable damage by dividing us and generating discouragement and conflict. They use class envy and contrived figures to entice anger and distrust among the people for the very organizations that are best equipped to solve our many, growing problems.
What we need is positive action—actually many actions by creative people who do much more than talk—and the leadership to help guide and inspire us all. We desperately need people who design and build, the men and women with creative minds and laboring hands who are willing to work hard to provide us both the ideas and the actuality of new energy technology. We need those skilled and hard-working hands that till the soil, build the infrastructure, and operate the computers and machinery, and yes even those who manage and invest. These are what drive the productive engine that has been and hopefully will continue to be America.
Those people are there, now, hard at work trying to solve our problems in the old-fashioned way, American ingenuity and drive. Spurred on by the promise of tremendous rewards if their efforts are successful, those who participate are many, often unknown. The promise of profits—a dirty word to the ignorant and those who would control them—is the fuel that drives the creative human engine that could solve most of our problems if given the chance. It is these free entrepreneurs and investors who will solve the energy crisis if only those posturing and strutting politicians and government officials would stay out of their way.
This book tries to describe the wonders entrepreneurs have created and the ones that will solve our energy problems.
For those who think I am a bit over critical of our government let me say that I appreciate and applaud the effort of those few dedicated public servants who work hard within the burdensome bureaucracy and help our nation. My criticisms of government are of the indolent, make-work leeches in the bureaucracy created by self-serving politicians, and those many self-serving politicians themselves.
I have gained much information from DOE web sites:
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