Re: Energy crisis threatens U.S. survival, Gore says

Dave Head wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:52:42 -0700, Joe <joea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dave Head wrote:
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:04:00 -0700, Joe <joea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Gore is also a good authority on energy and has another plan.
Disagree. He doesn't have a plan. Here's what he said today:

"the answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels."
Funny, I remember the speech being longer than that.
His plan is to replace fossil fuel burning power plants with renewable sources.

And that's my point. Its so damn non-specific. What the H is he talking
about, "renewable sources?" Corn alcohol? Biodiesel? Algae? What?
It is a challenge to reach a goal more than a fully fleshed out plan. Speaking for myself, all available options should be included. Some places are better suited to hydro sources, some wind, some solar, some nuclear, etc. Corn alcohol, biodiesel, algae etc. are only good fuels for ICE's not for grid power generation. Cars are a separate issue which Gore wasn't talking much about. You seem to think someone has to tackle all the problems at once, globally, and in fine detail to even begin to move forward. I think we need to start with what we have now (conservation, planning, efficiency, etc.), set goals and limits (CAFE standards, ZEV minimums, carbon caps, power generator conversion), and be flexible enough to allow for the unforeseeable future.
As he lays out, the first step is to modernize our electric grid. That needs to be done before we will know where/how many plants will be needed to replace the fossil fuel based power.

I wouldn't wait until all the wires are hung before starting construction on
the generating plants, whatever they are. THis stuff has to be done all at
once, so when the wires are ready, so are the power plants.
You don't need to wait until the wires are strung but you need a plan so you know what the grid will look like so you know how many power stations are going to be needed and where.
This is yet another "Don't do this" and is waaaaay short on what we should do.
Does he say, "Lets build 400 nuclear plants and shut down all the coal, gas,
and oil plants?" I didn't hear that.

I read his whole speech he gave just today, just now. He says plug-in electric
cars. Well, great, but the auto industry has been trying for decades to build
those, both here and in the orient, and guess what, they can't. Chevy has an
"almost" due in 2 years, the Chevy Volt, and it'll only go 40 miles on a charge
and will cost $40,000.
The part about electric cars was a minor part about capitalizing on the electric infrastructure he wants to build. The plan isn't about cars.

Well, it needs to be, don't you think? I mean, cars are what are consuming a
great portion of that imported oil. We have to solve the transportation
problem, dontcha know?
Sure, but I don't think one person has to have all the answers. Nor do I think we need all the answers to start moving in a new direction.
I read an interview with T. Boone Pickens today, who said he couldn't go
touring with Al as a team, because Al wants electric cars, and doesn't want his
natural gas powered cars. So, either Al is not paying enough attention to the
transportation sector, or he really is committed to electric cars, which just
aren't happening any time soon.
So? I think they should both keep moving ahead. I don't think their plans are at odds with each other. I'm sure Gore would love to have Pickens' wind farms on his renewable grid. And whether he likes the idea of CNG vehicles or not, nothing he said would prevent Pickens from developing them.
He's saying we can do solar in 10 years. Nope, ain't happenin'. There will be
_no_ help from the politicians on that one, since the help that would be needed
would be laws to squelch the nimbys and the "environmentalists" that would
oppose it. Like the phone companies just got immunity from lawsuits, the
energy industries would need immunity against lawsuits for all the solar farms,
wind farms, power lines, and _all_ the associated infrastructure that is
required to get the job done? This would have to be draconian to work - lay
down in front of a bulldozer, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not
collect $200. That is what has to happen, but the left is in control now in
congress, and they are all in love with protests and obstructionism and
opposing progress. (It just makes me sick...)

I wouldn't dismiss either without consideration.
I can dismiss Gore's ideas because they won't work. We just don't have the
tech for solar, we don't have the wherewithall to build enough wind farms to do
the job either, and we don't have the battery tech to make an electric car that
will favorably compete with a gasoline engined car. That latter thing is
important, because any car offered for sale needs to meet the customer's needs.
If the customer thinks he needs to travel from Toledo to Cleveland to Columbus
and back to Toledo every day, to make deliveries or service copiers or
whatever, he can do it in a gasoline engined car and he can't do it in any
electric car we can imagine that could be produced in 10 years - not without a
revolutionary battery breakthrough. Supposedly this battery was invented,
but... guess what... its "under development" in... Saudi Arabia now. It got
hijacked from Stanford University to Saudi Arabia. I wouldn't give you a
nickel for the life of that researcher while he's over there working on that
battery. I'm real suspicious there will be a kidnapping, suicide bomber, or
some-such, and that'll be the end of him and the battery.

Certainly there are enormous hurdles to such bold ideas, however they are mostly bureaucratic not technical. Red tape can be overcome with commitment and leadership.
See? Its dead. There's no leadership from either of the candidates on this.
Obama wants to impede _every_ form of energy - nuclear, oil, you name it, he's
against it - unless of course its some pie-in-the-sky approach that we don't
have the tech for, such as 100% alcohol cars. McCain isn't much better. I
think I'm voting for Bob Barr. I think he might actually _do_ something. Yeah,
I know he's unelectable, but hey - if enough people vote for him, and it takes
the 2 regular parties down by maybe 10% - 20% of their normal vote, maybe
they'll see the light in doing something bold.

The biggest hurdles I see are those who say there will be too much opposition for it to work so let's not even try.
While I can see that the envirowackos and NIMBYs will successfully sabotage all
efforts to do anything unusual, and a hell of a lot of the usual as well, I'd
still like to see _somebody_ try. T. Boone Pickens is at least trying, but he
appears to be the only one.

You read the whole speech but ignore all the parts about naysayers and pessimists. You certainly can hold the opinion that we won't rise to the challenge, and you are probably right since there are so many like minded people out there who can't be bothered to try even if they purport to agree with the goal.

To try, one has to have hope of success. But the politicians, so far, both
sides, have demonstrated gross incompetence to date in handling this problem.
T. Boone Pickens' approach is at least something that looks like it'll work as
far as it goes, but there are only so many smart billionaires to go around to
get stuff like this done. And, as I said before, he won't get it without help.
Getting said help from the current crop of politicians who are bent on
disagreeing with anyone from the other party just because they are from the
other party, will not likely produce said help in the timeframe needed.
So we should just stick our heads in the sand. Did you vote for Gore or Nader in 2000? Because they were the only candidates in recent history that would have pushed for these ideas from the executive. I can't imagine anyone worse than Bush for turning our energy policy around but I haven't heard anything from McCain besides campaign fluff like gas tax holidays, an unfundable X-prize and domestic drilling that is too expensive for private industry compared to foreign oil drilling.
And your plan to keep on doing what we're doing until free market technology saves us is why we are at least 30 years behind where we should be with alternative energy.
Well, you at least have to keep working on alternatives until you can one day
roll out a car that will go 300 miles on a charge of electricity and refuel in
a couple minutes _and_ not cost more than a current gasoline engined car. Work
on that 'til you get it right, then the only challenge is charging that
battery. Several hundred nuclear power plants. Naw, still can't happen, can
it? Oh well, I was just dreaming out loud.

That's the problem. No one has been working on it. Decades of cheap oil, a short sighted auto industry, and a head in the sand federal energy policy that de-funded the basic research that could hope to bear fruit in alternatives to fossil fuel, have put us thirty years behind.

Joe

Yep, they haven't been working on it long enough, anyway. They've worked on it
like hell for the last several years, but not the last several decades, like
they should have been. Still, they are up against a rock and a hard place,
because you just have to have better batteries, period, and they need smarter
people than they have in order to develop them. And that is a worldwide
problem, not just the US auto companies.
You're still waiting for the magic bullet and you seem unwilling to make any changes in the meantime. There are still many many ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in industrial as well as personal applications.

Joe
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