Bruce L. Bergman wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:41:14 "Mark A" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:
>> "Gordon McGrew" <RgEmMcOgVrEew@mindspring.com> wrote...
>
>>> Are you guys factoring in the oil you may use to heat your homes,
>>> generate your electricity and manufacture and deliver the food and
>>> other merchandise you want and need?
>>
>> Most of those things are done with natural gas or coal, except maybe
>> in the northeast. Natural gas prices have risen also, although not
>> as much as crude oil.
>
> Okay, I have to call you on this one.
>
> Natural gas for mobile applications is not practical, except for
> fleet uses like city buses or trash trucks where they can have
> refueling stations at the fleet yard - a miniscule fraction of overall
> transportation fuel use.
>
> The energy density is not there with CNG, the vehicles are literally
> built around huge fuel tanks and they still have to be refueled every
> night with a compressor station that takes energy to run. And LNG is
> hazardous to handle without special training - and you have to expend
> energy to refrigerate and liquefy the gas.
>
> And coal is unheard of for transportation - the steam railroad
> locomotive is the only practical transportation prime mover that can
> burn coal, and they are long extinct.
>
> And the EPA and State AQMD's will not let the steam locomotive come
> back burning coal or wood - the survivors still operating in museums
> and excursion duty are mostly converted to oil burners.
>
> And if you add up all the various uses of crude oil to make all the
> raw materials that go into the finished goods you buy or eat or use
> every day, and transport them through the manufacturing chain to you,
> two 42-gallon barrels a day per person is not out of the question.
>
> Train Locomotives run on "red diesel" (plain diesel that is dyed red
> to quickly show the road-use taxes were not paid if it is put in a
> road car or truck), not natural gas or coal.
>
> Almost all farm tractors and powered implements run on red diesel,
> not natural gas or coal. Steam tractors and stationary engine "Steam
> Jenny's" are extinct too.
>
> Virtually all over-the-road cargo trucking is done with diesel
> powered tractors, not natural gas or coal.
>
> Much of the northeast US is not piped for natural gas for heating
> and cooking energy, even though the population density is there to
> support it. They use "Distillate #2" heating oil (which is basically
> red diesel) or Propane, not natural gas or coal.
>
> Much of rural America outside heavily populated cities isn't piped
> for natural gas for heat, so they have to use either heating oil or
> Propane - which is an oil byproduct - and not natural gas or coal.
>
> And that fuel delivery truck is burning diesel or propane to get the
> fuel to your home tank.
>
> The only time it is practical to use coal-fired furnaces or boilers
> is large industrial or educational sites or electricity generating
> plants, where the wages of stationary engineer(s) can be justified to
> fire and monitor the system. It can only be made semi-automatic, it
> still needs a person to monitor it. And the pollution control
> equipment (fluidized bed combustion, stack scrubbers) is too large and
> heavy to be made mobile.
>
> Electricity is too inefficient for resistance space heating and only
> marginally better running a heat pump, so electricity is usually not
> the primary choice for heating. If nuclear electric generation had
> caught on and truly made electricity "too cheap to meter" as they
> promised in the 1950's we wouldn't worry about efficiency. But it
> didn't, so we do.
>
> Electricity generation and stationary large boiler plants are about
> the only place that coal and natural gas is still a large prime-mover
> energy source.
>
> SOLUTIONS:
>
> If we are going to work our way out of this corner, cranking up to
> mass production levels of biodiesel from canola or rapeseed, and mass
> production levels of ethanol from sugar cane or switchgrass or
> cornstalks (and other non-foodstuff agricultural wastes) is going to
> be a critical factor.
>
> We MUST abandon corn as a primary ethanol source - we're removing
> edible food and food-growing acreage from the food supply stream,
> choosing between eating or moving. And if we have floods droughts or
> other crop failures, energy and food both take a hit.
>
> There are too many mobile uses where you need the energy density and
> ease of use and fueling of a diesel fuel or E-85 Gasohol. Hydrogen is
> way too far out on the horizon and has severe safety problems, and
> both pure ethanol and hydrogen are unsafe (invisible fires).
>
> But Biodiesel and E-85 "Flex Fuel" Gasohol we can do with current
> technology, and we need to start NOW. With a "Manhattan Project" or
> "Apollo Project" level of urgency.
>
> And we also need to start drilling and putting new oil wells into
> production NOW. A postage-stamp sized plot in ANWR, deep water off
> the coasts, deep water in the Gulf. We can do it, quickly, without
> oil spills and disruption - but we need a unified will and shove the
> NIMBY whiners off the nearest cliff....
>
> The platforms will be at or over the horizon, so the Hollywood
> Glitterati can complain that those few platforms will spoil their
> million-dollar views from Malibu or Monterrey or Key West or
> Hyannisport - but we all know it's a load of unexpurgated bullshit.
>
> Make it a goal for the US to be energy self-sufficient and not
> import a drop of crude oil inside 10 years unless we choose to, and
> tell OPEC they can eat sand and drink crude oil if they don't like it.
>
> --<< Bruce >>--