Planetfurry BBS

[Rabbit]

I have no illusions that posting this here is going to do anyone anywhere any good, except that typing this all out might help me feel better. I've been thinking about energy almost every day for five years now, am reasonably well-informed on the topic, and believe that there _are_ solutions at hand. So, I'm going to sort of vent them here. If anyone likes them enough to spread the word, more power to them. But, as I said in the opening line, I have no illusions.

The problem, IMO, needs to be examined at two levels, a long-term solution and a short-term fix. These need to be dealt with separately because, for whatever reason, our political and industrial leaders have chosen to do nothing (or even make things worse) for decades now, instead of stepping up to the plate. Because of this short-sightedness, a quick fix is needed _now_ to rescue the economy from their stupidity. Said quick fix is, unfortunately not likely to also be the best long-term answer, but is essential to getting us there. For this quick fix, I propose _immediately_ opening up the Montana coal fields for coal-to-oil production, as espoused by the Democrat Governor of Montana.
Here's an overview--

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/24/60minutes/main1343604.shtml

Fischer-Tropsch is the real deal, not some wacko conspiracy theory. Millions of barrels of fuel have been produced using it, and we've come a long way since the process's early days. The US can, today, produce enough gasoline and diesel fuel in this way to last us for decades. The only thing stopping us is the lack of enough political will to make it happen. Period. Such fuel, according to the article, can be produced for about a buck a gallon. That means, after taxes and transportation and retailing costs, about $2 a gallon sitting in your fuel tank. (In time, it's reasonable to expect that the price would come _down_ as we gained skill and increased efficiency.) I'd estimate that, if the US _really_ tried to convert Montana coal into liquid fuels, meaning "try" at the same level of effort which made us able to carve working airbases out of fetid swamps fortified by angry, highly-trained and determined enemy infantry within days during WWII, we could have the first gas flowing in ten months or so, and a significant supply in 2-2 1/2 years. World oil prices would collapse almost immediately, once it became clear that we really mean it this time. Long-term futures-contract holders at over $100 a barrel would be leaping out of windows within days.

As stated from the beginning, this is a short-term fix. No system based on fossil fuels is long-term sustainable, or perhaps even wise. Coal-to-oil would be merely a several-decades patch to give us time and an economy healthy enough to permit investments in the _real_ solutions. There are so many promising alternatives, in fact, that one of our major problems is that our research is being diffused in many directions. Yet, a good case can be made for backing _all_ the various techs because which will turn out to be best is so unclear; indeed, the final grab-bag of answers will almost certainly draw on more than one of them. The biggest contenders that I can list off of the top of my head are geothermal, solar, bio-fuels made not from corn but from specially gengineered crops, grasses or microbes, fusion in all its many flavors, and traditional fission/breeder reactors. Predicting which ones of these will prove the winners is virtually impossible at this time because there are so many wild cards in the deck-- a truly major battery breakthrough, for example, would stack the odds heavily in favor of large centralized powerplants, while if batteries _don't_ improve chemical fuels are without question a necessary and large part of the solution.

So, we can't predict the future by sitting around and endlessly studying this stuff. But, it is a fact that that the best way to predict the future is to _create_ it. Historically, the US Navy has been one of the world's largest drivers in powerplant technology, though few people seem to realize it. This is because small, efficient powerplants are crucial to effective warship and (even more so) submarine design. The Navy is also one of the best available microcosms for fuel usage-- they burn everything from exotic rocket fuels to old-fashioned bunker oil the last I heard, and use it to power ships, planes, trucks, helicopters and pretty much anything else you can name under every conceivable environmental condition. I would propose, in order to cut through the fog, a program that requires the Navy to switch _entirely to synthetic, non-oil derived fuels_ by 2025, with targets set along the way. While I'd allow exceptions for ships that refuel in, say, Kuwait and for emergencies, I can't personally think of a better way to jump-start things, drive the research forward, and _force_ choices between all the myriad alternatives. Sure, it'd cost money-- a _ton_ of money. But, can anyone else propose a way out of this mess that _doesn't_? Or, can anyone propose a better organization to use as a real-life laboratory? And, best of all, it doesn't create a massive new Federal agency. It's not only justifiable for national defense reasons, but probably a pretty smart move in the long run to boot.

I've run into all sorts of people who are terrified that the world is about to end because of a huge energy crisis-- that's nonsense, in my book, so long as we don't render ourselves helpless. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm still an American in the old-fashioned sense of the word-- there's _nothing_ short of a square circle that I'll accept as unachievable and even logical impossibilities might not prove so darned unsurmountable at adequate dosages, under clinical trial conditions. I'm mad as hell at high fuel prices, yes. But what I'm even madder about is all the helpless hand-wringing and pathetic sitting-around I'm seeing all around me. The USA I know and love invaded Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945, in order to seize by military force two small, heavily-defended airfields there and upgrade them to B-29 standards. On March 9, despite all the efforts of a hostile major power whose resources were far closer at hand, a B-29 did in fact make a successful emergency landing, was properly serviced at facilities already in place, and took off again. That's eighteen days, people. _Eighteen!_ Today, I doubt Congress could get a bill out of committee that quickly; they'd spend longer than that arguing over who they should call as expert witnesses and then ignore. How ashamed our ancestors must be at what we've become! If we can't solve a problem as simple as this one, we've become a very different sort of Americans than they were.

_That's_ the key, you see. We suffer not a shortage of oil, but rather a shortage of courage and self-confidence. We have viable solutions to our problems at hand; what we lack is the national will to implement them. Our crisis is not one of energy, but rather one of self-identity. Are we builders and miners and makers of our own destinies? Or are we frightened and helpless children hiding in the dark, taking solace in our TV/computer/video games and Prozac and waiting for someone else to come and make everything all right for us? Me, I know where I stand. It's why I wrote this long post. We can do this, by God! We _can_! We're _Americans-- it's our heritage!

[Nicolai Borovskaya]

Well said, my friend, well said!

What is implicit in your rant (I'll call it that for you), but not specifically stated is that our politicians do not have the will, courage, guts, or whatever you want to call it, to stand up and be counted.

If our leaders won't lead, then by the gods they need to get the hell out of the way! There's no point in asking them to follow, they are constitutionally incapable of that, after all they are politicians.

Nicolai

[Katra]

I presume there are suitable coal reserves in places other than Montana and I'd recommend building coal to oil plants in more than one area. (Both to make transporting the fuel easier and to make it harder for one natural disaster to shut down the whole supply.)

I have been involved with mining and the construction of large industrial facilities. I think 10 months is rather too optimistic for getting any plant on line; even assuming permits and NIMBYs could be gotten out of the way. It takes time to design the plant, fabricate the parts and equipment, haul them to the site, and build the facility. Plus I've heard that Wyoming coal companies are having trouble increasing production to satisfy existing coal demand due to limited production of the giant shovels and trucks used to mine the coal.

As for biofuels; algae may be the best source. Put the nutrient rich water coming out of sewage treatment plants through algae growth ponds and turn a problem into something useful.

I also think we need to drill more oil/gas wells and build more oil refineries. Unfortunately a refinery has a several year lead time to build, and I understand pretty much every available drill rig is working.

Geothermal will be a useful - and essentially inexhaustible - source, but due to limited suitable geology it will always be a small part of the picture. Wind will also be a piece of the picture in certain areas. There are already quite a few big wind farms going up in various areas. Here in Oregon there are experiments in the works to generate electricity from ocean waves. The biggest hurdle may be keeping the wave energy buoys and fisherman / ocean commerce from getting tangled up.

[Rabbit]

[Henry_Hound]

Nothing discussed so far will be able to make any affects for at least 5 years. A quicker way of decreasing demand would be to encourage people to buy Hybrids, and cars that get the highest MPG through tax breaks. Currently Missouri is waiving sales tax on any vehicle that has been assembled in the state, why not apply that to hybrids, or reduce the property tax by half. That way it helps take the bite out of buying a new car, and reduces oil consumption.

[Styx]

Someone will have to pull the lawmakers out of the oil companies back pocket first.

[Cookie]

This is a beautiful plan sir. O.O

You think the way real Americans are supposed to think.

However, it's not so much lack of political will as it is a mountain of political corruption and greed.

They would rather focus on filling their pockets with money, than on upholding their duties as leaders.

If only we could repair our government, then this sort of initiative would be present.

But in order to repair our government, we'd have to unite despite differences and stop being weaklings and morons.

Right now, the US citizen has a responsibility to take down the current government by force, and return it to it's former self. But to many of us are busy hating each other (Largely fueled by media), and filing frivolous lawsuits over dropped eggs in a supermarket.

The idiots need to be weeded out first, then we need to get rid of hate mongers, then, and only then, can we unite as Americans should!

Afterward, we take down this new Nazi Germany and return it to it's "by the people, for the people" attitude.

Then, we need to re-write laws, kill political correctness, and then fix our troubles step by step.

[Howellfan]

Easier said than done, unfortunately.

For starters, who sets the exact criteria for who is and isn't a hate-monger? One person's inflammatory rhetoric is often another person's necessarily blunt truth after all. ( The two sides of the abortion debate come to mind. Lots of 'inflammatory' terms used by both parties, but frankly, up to a point, whatever side one takes on the issue, you SHOULD be blunt; the stakes are that high. It strikes me as profoundly immoral to flip-flop on issues touching on questions of murder, human dignity, and the most intimate of woman's rights. These are things that a culture stands of falls on.)

My image of a functioning democracy is a bunch of people debating at a table calmly making the most terrible accusations about their opponents and their positions - but nobody loses their temper and everyone STAYS at the table. I don't think we as a species know enough yet to hope for better than that.

*Boy, THAT got off topic!*