View Comments |
Print This Post
| 
by Alan Caruba | February 11th, 2008
The U.S. Department of Energy predicts that overall energy demand will grow by 45% between now and 2030.
The provision of electrical power nationwide has become the chosen battleground for environmental groups laboring night and day to insure there will not be enough of it to meet our needs.
The U.S. Department of Energy predicts that overall energy demand will grow by 45% between now and 2030.
The effort to insure Americans will not have enough electricity is deadly serious. Take, for example, the exultant news release (Jan 17) from the Rainforest Action Network, “Proposed Coal Plants Losing Steam,” celebrating “59 coal plants cancelled or shelved in 2007.”
Since coal-fired utilities provide over 50 percent of the electricity generated in America, the need for additional plants would seem obvious. A May 2007 Business Week article about coal noted that, “Today, making electricity from coal can cost half as much as using cleaner-burning natural gas.” Half as much at the plant translates to half as much in the monthly energy bill to homeowners and others.
The Greens, however, using the utterly bogus “global warming” hoax and assert the false notion that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will transform the climate of the earth, are successfully denying Americans electrical power.
There is no global warming and CO2 constitutes about 0.038% if the earth’s atmosphere. In past eras there was a lot more CO2 and the result was the lush vegetation that kept a lot of dinosaurs munching away for several million years.
The brownouts in California are testimony to what happens when there are an insufficient number of plants to generate electricity, whether it comes from coal, nuclear, or hydroelectric power.
Right now the population of America is just over 300 million. The rate of population growth is 3 to 4 million people a year. All will want and need electricity. Where will it come from if the Greens are successful in thwarting the building of power generation plants?
“Coal-fired power plants are the wrong investment for our climate, our health, and our economy,” said Becky Tarbotton, director of Rainforest Action Network’s Global Finance Campaign. (1) Such plants do not affect the climate. (2) Americans now have the longest life expectancy ever, so our health is not an issue. (3) Our economy is entirely based on the availability and provision of electrical and other forms of energy.
The Greens opposed nuclear energy so successfully we haven’t seen a new plant built in thirty years. If you want to increase the amount of electricity and, at the same time, reduce the cost of electricity, build a few and watch what happens.
Dr. Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine points out that, “The construction of just one nuclear power station like Palo Verde (CA) in each of the 50 states, with a full complement of 10 reactors, would supply all of the energy that the United States currently imports — with, in addition and at current prices, $300 billion per year worth of excess energy to export.”
If we can’t get nuclear facilities built and we can’t get any new coal-fired plants, what does RAN propose? The same thing as the other Greens do. So-called “renewable energy.” And “efficiency.”
Neither solar, nor wind energy is EVER going to be able to produce the amount of energy Americans use and need. The laws of physics eliminate these “solutions” to our energy needs
Energy is measured in British Thermal Units, BTUs. One BTU is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2006 the United States used 99.5 quadrillion BTUs of energy for electrical energy and for our transportation needs.
What energy sources were used to generate the power? Fully 40% came from oil, 23% came from coal, 22% came from natural gas, 8% came from nuclear plants, 2.9% came from biomass, including ethanol, 2.8% came from conventional hydroelectric dams, and less than 1% came from all other alternatives combined, geothermal, wind and solar power.
Along with the efforts to stop any means to provide the power America needs for its present and future energy, the U.S. government heavily taxes energy industries and has placed so many restrictions on new nuclear and hydrocarbon power production that there has been very little development for two generations. On top of this, it has mandated that a large portion of the nation’s corn crop, an essential element of our food supply, be liquefied and burned for fuel!
The most recent “energy bill” passed by Congress and signed by the President actually bans Thomas Edison’s most famous invention, the incandescent light bulb!
If this keeps up, we are going to run out of energy in America for electricity and for transportation. The vast oil tar deposits in Canada are a target of the Natural Resources Defense Council that has challenged the granting of permits required to expand refineries and pipelines on both sides of the U.S. and Canadian border.
A recently proposed billion-dollar project by ExxonMobil to construct a storage facility and pipeline for liquefied natural gas off the shore of New Jersey immediately drew criticism by environmental groups seeking to thwart access to this energy source. Meanwhile the State’s largest daily reported on February 9th that New Jersey ratepayers “will see double-digit increases in their electric bills.”
Whether it’s coal, gas or oil, the Greens are doing everything they can to return the United States to the same conditions that existed from before the Revolution to fifty years after the Civil War. The use and expansion of electrical energy did not really begin until the last century.
An energy catastrophe is looming for the nation and Americans cannot even look to Congress to avert it.
I've said this before:
The key problem is that our country is helplessly dependent on oil. If we were not critically dependent on the oil, we would not care what happened in the Middle East. (Consider – Darfour is at least as screwed up as the Persian Gulf area, but that’s a humanitarian problem and not a political/military one – for us – because we are not critically dependent on any resources there.) But, because we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on the resources there… we meddle, supporting thugocracies so long as they keep the oil flowing, etc. This gives motivation to the Islamist fanatics there.
(Note: motive is not the same thing as justification. Homicide investigators look for motive when solving a murder, they don’t look for justification. The Islamist lunatics are not justified in attacking innocents by our actions, but they are in part motivated by them.)
There are alternatives to fossil fuels for energy – much better ones from technical, economic, and strategic perspectives. We could go nuclear. Not just nuclear power plants, but nuclear rockets – e.g. this one: http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship.htm (the good tech stuff starts in section 7). With that, we can lift a thousand tons into orbit in a completely reusable and non-polluting craft that even eliminates its own nuclear waste and can dispose of waste generated on Earth, too. Using those, we can put up solar-power satellites that send their energy down to Earth in the form of microwaves. (If you’ve ever played Sim City… forget it. It doesn’t work that way, it can be done very safely with large margins of safety. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite especially the section on “Safety”.) With the lower launch costs of nuclear rockets, we can make the U.S. a net energy exporter, in time.
This has plenty of military applications, as well. Space is the ultimate “high ground” and a dominant U.S. presence in space should have obvious strategic benefits.
Of course, at the same time we can work on more efficient techniques for utilizing the oil we do need. Cars with better mileage (improving our overall fuel efficiency by less than 3mpg would eliminate our need to import oil from the Persian Gulf), more efficient means of generating and using fertilizers, a bit of thought about how we use plastics, etc. Even better, we can sell the technology we develop to other parts of the world – further reducing world demand for oil, driving the price down.
The lower the price of oil, the less funds the Islamist fanatics have to work with, and the less of a threat they pose. (Reducing oil prices also impacts people like Hugo Chavez, as a bonus.)
Comment by Raymond Ingles | February 11, 2008
The only fault I see in your article is that you don't make your point strongly enough! California is one of the best harbingers of our energy future. Legislators were able to cap the cost suppliers could charge. They also restricted new production facilities. In short, they tried to impose an artificial supply and demand equation on the industry to appease their political correctness.
California didn't stop the production of new electricity, they just stopped the production within their borders. This put suppliers in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Idaho in control. When the cost of production became higher than companies like PG&E were allowed to charge the consumer, producers refused to sell. They knew PG&E, and others, were on the road to bankruptcy. And that is exactly what happened:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/published/NEWS_RELEASE/27310.htm
Politicians and litigators were able to pin the mess on the energy industry. They were never asked why the disaster happened only in California and not to its neighbors, Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.
Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration put together a document to guide energy policy.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/National-Energy-Policy.pdf
Rather than debate its contents, liberals ignored it. Instead, they accused the Administration of conspiracy with the energy companies to gouge the public. We can't continue like this. Eventually the disaster that befell California will engulf the entire country. The difference is OPEC doesn't allow bankruptcy. You pay or live in the dark.
RJ
Comment by RWJones | February 11, 2008
RI writes: "The key problem is that our country is helplessly dependent on oil"
The article and the rest of the comment is good, but the key problem is the MSM and people who uncritically believe and re-quote them (most Democrats and many others). While electric and hydrogen cars are promoted as pollution free no one asks where the electricity or hydrogen will come from. Some have even touted hydrogen as free because it comes from water. The same with ethanol from corn. We can count the number of stories with honest facts on the cost of alternative fuels on the toes of one hand while Al Gore trumpets the rise in sea levels and blames America first. I’m glad that I lived in the Golden age of America and I’ve only seen the beginning of the end.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | February 11, 2008
California and Wisconsin used to be the lunatic fringe of the public regulators crushing the electric industry. When you take the boards attempting social legislation through their rate making authority coupled with mis-guided environmentalists and further excerbated by the NIMBY (not in my back yard) groups you have a formula for failure. So the electric supply will fall short? So what? Politicians will find someone in the industry to blame!
We could fix part of the problem by removing 12-20 million people that shouldn't be here in the first place but that is only a 5% solution. Illegal immigration hurts the environment and drains scarce resources.
Let's address the inane mantra that "we are addicted to oil". Silly comment but the uneducated masses like silly comments with no review of the validity or pertinence of the comment. Why do we use oil? Because it is a low cost way to achieve large results such as transportation in comfort from our home to various destinations. Why are we in short supply? We aren't attempting to bring new sources on line (thanks politicians and the environmental public following the inane mantra). Can we become more efficient? Yes, but let's start with the loudest mouths and cut their consumption…Al Gore could show how he has reduced oil and electric use to below that of an "average" family…or could he when what he appears to really want is for all of us to "do as I say not as I do". We have plenty of oil available world wide if allowed to recover it!
Consider electricity, much of which is generated using heavy oil, coal, and to a lesser extent nuclear. Can't build coal plants, can't build nuclear plants, can't place wind farms because they might disturb the view, can't do solar because the homeowner's association won't allow it, and the littany goes on and on. Ask yourself what item is going to grow in demand just by reading a sunday newspaper and associated advertising. Notice anything advertised that plugs into the wall to operate or to charge its batteries? Guaranteed growth of electric demand. Gee maybe those utility executives actually knew something when they tried to build a new generation facility.
But of course the mantra lovers and politicians knew more. They knew how to turn the United States into a third world country.
Comment by Mickey G | February 11, 2008
Um, Mickey G – The 'short supply' is not just a function of environmental regulation. Let's say we repeal all of it – every environmental law and regulation is gone. We can go after all the oil in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico, for example. And we'll further assume that the current maximum estimates of what's technically recoverable are correct – we get 85 billion barrels of oil.
That would last us only 12 years at the current rate of usage… and, as you note, energy demand is not expected to decrease or just remain stable. I rather hope the United States continues for longer than that.
We need energy, yes. But we can get energy in other ways that don’t make us critically dependent on a resource that has a price and supply controlled, or at least strongly influenced, by powers not friendly to our interests. Nuclear power (and nuclear rockets enabling cheap solar power satellites) could drastically cut our need for oil. I find it funny that you're lumping me in with environmental activists when I am loudly calling out for a major expansion of our use of nuclear power.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | February 11, 2008
Raymond, please check your figures since they are out of date and incomplete. Among the things left out are shale, tar sands, coal (yes it can be turned into oil), and new discoveries. The actual "recoverable" amounts are an order of magnitude larger than your estimate without accounting for new discoveries.
Let's go a step further and look at alternate fuels beyond the ethanol hysteria. Butanol can be substituted for gasoline on a one to one basis. It can be made from corn but who wants to starve the world by using food stuffs to create an alternate fuel. Biomass like hemp grows without fertilizer and doesn't need to be on the most fertile farmlands. Hmmm, maybe there are some solutions insteand of inane hand wringing.
I am afraid you are reading too much science speculation or maybe science fiction. In regard to your comment about environmental regulation…yes, it is a major problem as politicians buy votes, however one thing we forget is that electricity is dramatically underpriced, as is oil and water. You will be amazed at the supplies that open up when the price makes extraction feasible.
Comment by Mickey G | February 11, 2008
Mickey G – can you give me some places to start my investigation of actual recoverable quantities of fuel? I was basing my figures on: http://www.mms.gov/revaldiv/RedNatAssessment.htm "These estimates represent the potential quantities of undiscovered hydrocarbons that can be conventionally produced using existing or reasonably foreseeable technology, without any consideration of economic feasibility."
I provided some other links myself, too – you may wish to read them before you classify any of my proposals as 'science fiction'. Prototypes for every item I mentioned were built and run with 1970s technology. We can do quite a bit better now.
I'm sure we can get very creative about finding "supplies… when the price makes extraction feasible." But that means that the price has to go up substantially from where it is now, and higher energy prices are already widely recognized to be a drag on the economy. Since I'm asking for cites, I'll give one, too: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/economy/energy_price.html
Comment by Raymond Ingles | February 11, 2008
Either Ingles and his ilk or hopelessly naive or he lives on another world. There are no other alternatives to oil or coal or LNG or Nuclear energy. Simply, NONE! For small amounts of energy, yes you can maybe supplement a small home with some wind or solar. But for mass industrial economic growth, there is NO substitute for carbon or atom power. NONE, get it through fat dumb heads you idiots. The sooner you accept it, the sooner we can drill in ANWR, off CA and FL and the eastern seaboard. Mine the coal and tar sands and build safer nuke plants and tell the arab/persian inbred neanderthals to effoff!
Comment by Dean | February 11, 2008
Many in the public arena are working on the assumption that the greenies actually believe this nonsense that "alternative fuels" are a viable option. Only those at the bottom of their totem pole are true believers. The top of the totem pole merely use this as a ploy to hide their true agenda, which is irrational and misanthropic. As for oil supplies running out any time soon, we have to believe in the biotic theory of petroleum. If we had believed the estimates of the total amount of the world’s oil reserves in 1950 we would have run out of oil decades ago. By the 1960’s the estimates of what was left was substantially higher than the 1950 total estimate. Furthermore, we had already used amounts substantially higher than the 1950 estimates. Each decade the pattern repeated. I personally subscribe to the abyssal abiotic theory of petroleum. The fact of the matter is that the best, most reliable and apparently, most “sustainable” energy source was in the past, is now and will in the future be oil. I know geologists have battled for years over this, but I also think that time is proving that it is true. Will other technologies be developed and used in the future….of course….if those technologies can be financially viable on their own. Wind power, solar power, biofuels are not only financially un-viable, they are incapable of providing the world’s energy needs. The fact of the matter is, to quote Australia’s Viv Forbes, “The public has been misled on this issue by an unholy alliance of environmental scaremongers, funds-seeking academics, sensation-seeking media, vote-seeking politicians and profit-seeking vested interests.”
Comment by ElKoz | February 12, 2008
Dean – You're right! I'm hopelessly naive… except for the tiny fact that I've been proposing major expansion of our use of nuclear power, over and over again, in the clearest terms humanly possible. Go ahead, read what I wrote, try to prove me wrong. I dare you.
I'm seriously starting to wonder here – is anyone actually reading what's being written, or are people just spouting pre-programmed boilerplate in a stimulus-response mode?
Maybe I just don't fit in the standard categories. I believe we're making ourselves spoiled and weak and terribly vulnerable by staying hooked on fossil fuels as our primary energy sources. But I'm not an anti-nuke whacko either. Can anyone here imagine that it's possible that our energy strategy can have more than one dimension?
Comment by Raymond Ingles | February 12, 2008
Mr. Caruba has his facts regarding US population growth hopelessly wrong (by more than an order of magnitude). It's actually slightly less than 1% per annum.
As for his comment that the laws of physics preclude us from EVER being able to meet our energy needs from renewables, Mr. Caruba needs to learn to never say "never".
Yes, the US uses about 100 quads/annum of energy (all of it supplied by "physics"). Here is an interesting chart filled analysis: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/eh/total.html The world overall uses somewhere over 400 quads and the rate of increase in annual consumption is quite rapid. Hence, world demand will dominate what are essentially globally priced energy commodities. Electricity is the exception and the biggest ace-in-the-hole that the US has.
The annual solar irradiance that falls on the US is enormous and capturing even a tiny fraction can easily meet our energy needs, including that of increased electrical demand for primary transportation. The limiting factors are no longer technological but are of course primarily economic. As cost competitive technologies appear, they will be utilized (unless inhibited by governments). The kinds of artificial shortages noted in the article only speed the process of investing in alternative technology.
Energy costs per unit are rising faster than the capital costs for advanced solar, wind and storage technologies. Ultimately, an economic crossover will occur where the ROI on invested capital will be sufficient to make it profitable to invest. We are very close to that point now and projected near term improvements in capital cost efficiency portend some major shifts in investment 3-10 years from now. Many are making the investment now and creating an advantage by being an early adopter.
Comment by spencertk | February 12, 2008
I work in the power industry as a plant operator and it is true that all the green energy sources cannot compete with coal or nuclear for industrial growth and sustainability but they do have their place in the world. They are good for community development and projects etc. Let's talk about shale oil for a moment. The United States is in possession of the world's largest shale oil reserve. It's located under the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. There is more shale oil there than there is crude oil in the Middle East. It is recoverable and refinable but the process is more technical requiring alot of water in the process which the "Greenies" are using to shoot down any chance of making this happen. If we were allowed to refine shale oil WE would be selling oil to the Middle East when their crude reserves ran out, that is how much we have. I think that "Greenies" live in a dream world and they don't realize what it would be like to live in a Third World country with out power. I also believe alot of them are just jumping on the trendy, current "Global Warming" band wagon. We need to invest in renewable resource technologies for use at an individual/community level(I WISH I could afford a PV panel/wind turbine system for my house) and loosen up regulation concerning refining of shale oil, and coal/nuke plant construction. It has to be a combined effort on several different fronts to break free from this Mid-Eastern stranglehold.
Oh yes…and DON't tell me what type of light bulb I should be allowed to burn in my house.
Comment by Jeff D. | February 12, 2008
[...] Alan Caruba points out that we're rapidly running out of energy. He certainly points out the obvious — that the greens are using their religion, not facts, and they're slowly destroying this country. Of course, if the greens have their way, we will return to a time before the industrial age when we were all hunters and gatherers. [...]
Pingback by Ogre’s Politics and Views » Out of Energy? | February 13, 2008
[...] http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2008/02/11/america-is-running-out-of-electricity/ [...]
Pingback by America is Running Out of Electricity | Skeptics Global Warming | February 14, 2008