Energy Matters

Oil Shale

Mon, 07 May 2007 21:38:51 GMT

Our Big Secret
by Dave Cohen

The United States of America has about 70% of the world's known oil shale reserves in the western states of the lower 48. These reserves contain approximately 1 to 2 trillion barrels of oil. This is about 4 to 8 times the current oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. If this country commits itself to performing a crash development of this reserve, we could eliminate our dependence on foreign petroleum sources and most of its geopolitical consequences. As world petroleum supplies become depleted in the next few decades, we may find that the United States will have become the world’s most important supplier of synthetic crude petroleum and its products.
We could control both production and price, hopefully to the benefit of all mankind. At current rates of petroleum consumption, this oil shale reserve could supply our own needs for about 200 to 300 years or up to 400 years if mixed with the production of natural petroleum. If we supplied the whole world; it can represent 70 to 100 years of additional time before the inevitable end of fossil fuel. We could move our 21st century fossil energy crisis into the 22nd or even the 23rd century.
I believe it is reasonable to ask our leadership why this issue has not moved into first place on our political energy agenda. Why are we still out there in the press touting the use of ethanol? It is an expensive and losing energy supplement that can never supply the equivalent of more than 1% of our current petroleum consumption.
What is oil shale? It is a form of sedimentary rock that contains organic bitumen in varying quantities. If heated in a process called retorting, the bitumen is released in a liquid form that is similar to crude oil. The world’s largest known fields of oil shale are located in parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. It is known as the Green River formation.
To be profitable, natural crude oil must be selling for more than $70 per barrel. But why wait for that? It is hovering close to that now. We should move quickly to develop the manufacturing effort. Price will drop as we learn. Shell Oil Co. has already demonstrated an in ground retorting process that would be competitive with $20 per barrel crude oil prices. The increasing world demand for crude oil will inevitably force cost up as we begin to pour syn-crude into the market. We may find that the availability of large supplies of syn-crude will stabilize world energy prices. This could become a dominating factor in the industrial economies of the world.
We are sitting on one of the world’s largest known deposits of energy. We know where it is. It is entirely within our national borders. We should be moving swiftly to turn this resource on. It will supply jobs, dollars, gasoline, and petrochemicals. All of that will be right here in the United States. It will also stabilize a critical military need. Our military cannot function without fuel. Oil shale will settle that problem for at least a century and probably more.
Does this mean we should abandon renewable energy programs? No, not at all. We would be fools to do so. Clean, renewable energy should be high on our agenda. The future will still need a hydrogen economy, clean air, and an environment that is pleasant for us all.

How Much Energy Does America Consume?

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:37:00 GMT

How Big Are We?
By Dave Cohen

It is not possible to grasp the meaning of America’s energy needs without an answer to a fundamental question. That question is, “How much energy do we consume in any given period of time?” That answer is critical to understanding our needs and creating a workable plan for the future. Without that knowledge, there is a very real danger that we will waste time, money and lives creating mistaken or unworkable plans or ideas for the future.
The rate of consumption of energy is technically known as power. Power is normally expressed in the electrical world in watts, or more conveniently in its larger unit, kilowatts. What is a watt? In the metric system, it is defined as the power that is expended to raise a weight of 1 kilogram (or ~ 2.2 pounds) by a height of 10.2 centimeters (or ~ 4 inches) in a 1 second time span at sea level gravity conditions. The kilowatt is 1000 times more powerful, and will raise a weight of 1 kilogram by a height of 102 meters (~335 feet) in 1 second. For those readers who prefer to express power in terms of horsepower, it is helpful to know that a kilowatt equals 1.341 horsepower and expends heat units at the rate of 3413 BTUs per hour. (BTU stands for British thermal unit.)
Answering the original question, this writer has estimated from public sources that the U.S. is currently at least a 3.4 trillion watt society. That accounts for our daily average consumption of all thermal and renewable energy sources from our electrical grid, and includes our total daily fossil fuel consumption. If we are to maintain a healthy economy, our country needs to maintain this capability and possibly to expand it as our population and energy dependency grows. It is that number which becomes the engine of our industrial economy and our way of life.

We must answer four questions.
1. How much power will we need in the future?
2. What type of energy sources will be necessary?
3. When will we need it? A timetable is required.
4. How will we finance it?

In the next three decades, we will be facing a serious decline in our fossil energy resources, particularly petroleum and natural gas. We therefore must formulate a plan to completely replace the predicted shortfalls with alternative energy sources. Those combined sources must be able to produce a flow of energy of sufficient magnitude to more than make up for the expected decline in fossil fuel availability.
In order to address the predicted global warming issues that have been anticipated from burning carbon based fossil fuels, we must plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuel wherever possible. That requires us to plan our future around the use of renewable or fossil carbon free energy for all applications except aircraft. Aircraft will still require natural or synthetic petroleum type fuels to meet the extraordinary energy density requirements needed for flight.
It is possible to derive 3.4 trillion watts entirely from renewable or carbon free energy sources. Those sources are hydroelectric dams, wind turbines, geothermal hot spots within the earth, solar radiation, tidal bores, and lastly nuclear reactors eventually of the breeder type. We must build enough of these systems within the next 3 decades to replace all the anticipated energy shortfalls and to avoid a military meltdown as well as an economic catastrophe.
What if I am wrong about this? What if we find more oil and gas? Then we won’t need all this effort, or will we? Are we as a society willing to wager that all will be well? Would it not be better to eliminate CO2 and other pollutants? Are we willing to wager the health of our economy and our continued survival on not doing any of this?
What will we do with 3.4 trillion watts of electrical power sources? We will make hydrogen from water for clean fuel cell powered vehicles. We will power our electrical grid without the need for coal, gas, or oil. We will recharge batteries for portable power. We will heat dwellings electrically. We will run most industrial processes electrically. We will retort oil shale electrically to manufacture aviation fuel. In short, we will do everything we need to do with the energy that will be available. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren will live in a clean and economically healthy society. Global warming may even be reversed.

State of Union Energy Message

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:47:05 GMT

State of the Union Energy Statement
By Dave Cohen

Quoting President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address  on January 23, 2007, he stated:
"We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and bio-diesel fuel. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol — using everything from wood chips, to grasses, to agricultural wastes."
I listened to these words in disbelief. If this is the proposed road of progress for our energy program, then it is a road without a destination. It will lead us to nowhere. Our President simply does not seem to understand the problem. I wonder also if his advisors understand it. Surely somebody in our government must be looking ahead to reality.
The vision presented by the President ignores our country’s total energy needs, ignores greenhouse gas issues, and ignores the issue of when we will need enough renewable energy to avert an economic disaster.
His statements about ethanol, clean diesel vehicles, bio-diesel fuel, and plug in batteries address less than 10% of our energy needs and probably less than 5% when all our growing needs are accounted for.
Let us take the list one at a time.
• Ethanol is currently made from corn. It loses energy and creates pollution in the process. It currently could supply a net maximum of about 0.03% of our total energy needs. If we improve that by a factor of 100 with a wood chip and switch grass process, it still will only produce about 3% of our requirements.
• Bio-diesel fuel from soybean oil and other agricultural produce is not likely to be any more productive than ethanol. The reasons are hidden in energy expenditures and pollution involved in intensive farming and production processes. Land preparation, planting, fertilizing, harvesting, transportation, and processing are all energy intensive and potentially polluting to the atmosphere and the land.
• Plug in battery development is almost a joke. Even if the battery becomes miraculously efficient, it must be charged from our electric grid. Our electric grid derives 70% of its energy from burning fossil fuel, about 50% from burning coal and 20% from burning natural gas including a small contribution from fuel oil. It comes to the plug in point at an average efficiency of about 33% currently. So we are charging the batteries by burning fuel and making greenhouse gas with an inefficient distribution system. Not only does that make no sense; but also our existing electric grid has nowhere near the capacity to charge batteries in 150 million vehicles each night. The total power requirements need to be a factor of 5 larger than they are now to supply our normal electrical needs as well as supplying energy to our enormous vehicle fleet.
I am not against developing these technologies, but they do not constitute a plan for success. The road to success requires an electrical grid with a capacity of roughly 3 trillion Watts, all of it produced from carbon free or fossil free energy sources. This compares with our current grid that has a capacity of about 0.5 trillion Watts of which 70% is derived from carbon based fossil fuel energy sources.
Once we have 3 trillion Watts from combined energy sources, we will be 100% energy independent. Renewable carbon free energy sources such as hydroelectric dams, wind turbines, geothermal heat sources, solar collectors, and breeder type nuclear reactors are needed. That is the program about which our President should be speaking. If we can reach that goal, we can do anything we want with the energy. It is totally flexible. We can make hydrogen from water. We can make cellulosic ethanol and bio-diesel fuel. We can retort oil shale or tar sand to make synthetic crude oil. We can even recharge batteries for all electric vehicles if we can ever produce a cheap efficient rechargeable battery from readily available materials.
We will get all that and produce only a small relative fraction of our existing greenhouse gas (CO2) production.
We already know how to do this. There are neither mysteries, nor technology barriers. We need to start building this new infrastructure now, and continue to expand it to the end of this century.

Why Do We Need Renewable Electric Power?

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 16:13:50 GMT

WHY RENEWABLE ELECTRIC POWER?
By Dave Cohen

Energy comes to us in many forms. In the past two centuries, the industrialized world has depended largely on various fossil fuels taken from the ground, to supply us with virtually everything including: food, heat, medical delivery, manufactured goods, lighting, communication, and transportation. These fuel sources include petroleum, coal, and natural gas. Our economy and our way of life are utterly dependant upon them.
Fossil fuel is carbon based from ancient life forms. That carbon is released to the atmosphere primarily as carbon dioxide (CO2), when the thermal energy is released by combustion of that fuel. In the US alone, an estimated 16+ million metric tons of CO2 per day are poured into our atmosphere. Over half of that is from coal consumed producing electricity. Much of the remainder is from our petroleum consuming transportation systems such as motor vehicles, aircraft, and ships. This also includes industrial and home heating systems.
It is now believed that most of the problems associated with global warming are directly related to the accumulation of CO2 in the air we breathe. It is also true that our common sources of fossil fuel are rapidly being depleted. Fuel demand is none-the-less increasing as world population increases and as huge countries like China and India move to industrialize their economies. These facts converge on the likelihood of a potentially dangerous world energy and climatic crisis by mid-century.
Is there an ultimate solution to this problem? The answer is yes. Our country and the world have little time to lose. Interim or stop gap solutions such as finding more petroleum, sequestering CO2, converting corn to ethanol, etc. are potentially short sighted, uneconomical, environmentally unfriendly, do not produce enough energy, and are time limited.
The answer is to produce more electric power from renewable carbon free sources and to implement it quickly. The energy from such sources can replace our current electric grid. It can produce hydrogen fuel from water for our surface motor vehicle fleet. It can be used to retort oil shale for the production of synthetic petroleum for aircraft fuel production and petrochemicals. It can recharge portable batteries of electric cells. Once that power is available, it can be used as flexibly as necessary to keep our economy healthy and our country politically and militarily strong. Once we have that power, we become energy independent and free of significant CO2 emission.
What is renewable, carbon free electric power?
• it is power from wind turbines, harnessing the wind’s endless energy.
• it is power from hydroelectric dams and water turbines, energy taken from swiftly flowing rivers when available.
• it is geothermal power from steam turbines, taken from volcanic heat sources in the ground. We have huge potential in our Pacific coastal states, the Aleutian arc, and Hawaii.
• it is solar electric power taken directly from the sun’s daily energy.
• it is breeder type nuclear power, especially within our military establishment.
How much power do we need?
I estimate that we need 2 trillion watts by 2050 and 3 trillion watts by 2100. Today our grid puts out 0.5 trillion watts and is 70% derived from fossil fuel combustion. This leaves only 0.15 trillion watts as renewable. We need to build 1.85 trillion watts of new power plants in the next 4 decades. That is a tall order, but will do the job.
All of our effort must be aimed at producing this infrastructure. Efforts like Cape Wind are just the start. It is a small but necessary start. Europe is way ahead of us on this.
Meanwhile we actually have Massachusetts politicians who have opposed this. We have an outgoing governor, a former gubernatorial candidate, and a senator who have opposed it. We are lucky to have elected a governor who has a clear vision of the issues.

The Ethanol Debate

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:51:45 GMT

The Ethanol Debate
By Joseph D. Cohen

Some of you may have noticed the words on your gasoline pump. We are now routinely consuming gasoline that may contain up to 10% ethanol. Ethanol (often called grain alcohol) from US sources is most often derived from corn. Ethanol is a very acceptable and clean burning motor fuel. It will not harm your car. It blends easily with gasoline and does help to minimize the presence of small quantities of unburned fuel gases that may be present in your car’s exhaust system.
Car companies are also touting some of their vehicle’s capabilities of burning E85, a fuel that is 85% ethanol denatured by 15% gasoline. E85 is generally unavailable except in a few areas near ethanol production facilities. Not all vehicles are able to use it. If you can use it, you will immediately notice that your fuel mileage will fall by approximately 27%. A vehicle that normally gets something like 20 mpg with gasoline, may realize only 14 - 15 mpg with E85. This is a result of the fact that ethanol has a much lower available thermal energy content than gasoline. Use of E85 will increase the cost per mile of driving by about 37% over and above a possible unsubsidized higher cost per gallon of E85 fuel over gasoline.
There are a number serious economic and practical problems associated with ethanol derived from corn.
• The total ethanol production process from seed to a salable motor fuel requires a greater expenditure of thermal energy than is returned by the final product.
• A complete production sequence also requires more total fossil fuel to be consumed for the creation of ethanol than it can possibly replace.
• More pollution is created during ethanol production than is saved from running a vehicle. That includes total greenhouse gas emission such as CO2.
How do we know all this? The author cites a new study from Stanford University entitled “Ethanol From Corn: Just How Unsustainable Is It” by Tadeusz W, Patzek of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Dep’t. of U.C. Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This is a highly detailed technical study and can be read in its entirety at the following web site: http://pangea.stanford.edu/ESYS/Energy%20seminars/patzek_ethanol.pdf

It has been known for some time that corn derived ethanol is an energy intensive product with an extremely low production potential compared to our total automotive energy needs. Many conflicting studies have been done todetermine if it makes sense to pursue ethanol production for use as an alternate automotive fuel. Most early studies showed poor potential, especially from corn. A more recent study by the Argonne National Laboratory under USDoE auspices showed very small energy gains even from corn if low energy agriculture is rigidly employed. The best future ethanol yield potential may be from converted cellulose based materials such as agricultural waste and switch grass. However, that is still an unavailable production technology.
What is going on in our quest to be energy independent? Why are we pursuing dead ends in our energy policies? Our national policy reminds me of a ship trying to maneuver without a rudder. So far, ethanol provides neither a practical nor an economically viable answer. At maximum production potential, it is not likely to ever provide more than about 1% of our national energy needs. Coming from corn, the number will be closer to zero or will most likely be negative based on this latest study.
Our President has been making speeches around the country promoting ethanol as a motor fuel. His stated reason is that it is home grown fuel. He clearly does not understand the issues involved. Ethanol produced from corn represents a serious mistake in our energy policy. It makes no fiscal sense. It cannot provide enough fuel to meet demand. It is a bigger polluter than gasoline because of the production requirements. It loses energy instead of increasing it.
Unless we can obtain renewable clean energy sources to produce ethanol, it will be an unacceptable choice in our energy mosaic.

Our Energy Future

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:51:24 GMT

Our Energy Future
By Dave Cohen

What needs to be done to assure our energy resources far into the future? Why do we need to do it? What will happen if we do not get our act together?
These are the questions that will affect our future as a thriving industrial economy, our employment, our wealth, our health, our survival, and our grandchildren’s future.
We have built our industrial economy on the basis of the continuous acquisition of cheap energy from the ground. Those resources are called fossil fuel, a legacy of untold millions of years of accumulation of ancient life forms. They supply us with 70% of our electricity, 99% of our transportation fuel such as gasoline and Diesel fuel, most of our heating, cooling, lighting, and means of communication. That energy is critical in the production of our food, clothing, industrial production, and delivery of health services. Our military potential would be helpless without it. In short, if we have a critical energy shortage, our economy will be dead. That will inevitably be followed by a crisis of human survival.
A critical energy shortage is coming. Shortfalls in the production of petroleum and natural gas from known sources will be upon us in about a decade and are projected to have fallen in half by the year 2050. If we combine that with a 50% projected increase in world population, we will find ourselves at the point of no return at that time. An extraordinary population die-off will become inevitable.
Can an economic catastrophe be avoided? The answer is yes, if we change our energy driven infrastructure by that time. This cannot happen over night. We don’t have much time, 30 to 50 years is forecast. In 1935, the country needed rural electrification. A federal commission was set up to accomplish this. It was 98% complete by 1965, a period of 30 years to wire up and supply power to our rural areas. THAT was not even a complicated task.
Some people think that our United States Congress can put together a plan and create a program to save the day. That unfortunately is a dream. If anybody thinks that the 535 members of Congress can agree on what to do or even know what to do, then they are in need of reality counseling. This project should be overseen by a federal commission composed of experts in their respective fields, and are funded and mandated to get it done. I am reminded of the Manhattan Project and the NASA driven space program. A critical need is to be fulfilled by those who know what they are doing.
Can the department of energy do it? If given the objective and staffing to get it done, they are the right agency to lead the project. This requires leadership by seasoned professionals, not bureaucrats.
What technology is required for the US? The answer is 3 trillion watts (terawatts) of renewable or carbon free energy sourced power output capability. That will supply all of our normal and projected electrical needs plus all of our fuel production needs to drive our economy. That energy can be used flexibly or in an “as needed” basis. It is possible to use it to aid in the production of synthetic liquid fuel (syncrude) from coal, oil shale or tar sand. It can be used in the production of hydrogen, ethanol, and bio-diesel or any other biomass type fuel. In short, the power generating facilities capture and deliver the energy needed to keep our industrial economy healthy.
How much renewable power do we have presently? ___ We have about 0.15 terawatts currently or 5% of our future needs.
Do we need more research to accomplish this? ___ No, we know how to do this now. Research should be done to keep learning how to do it better, faster and cheaper. However we do not need it to get started. All the technologies are currently within the known state of the art.
We need carbon free power. The technologies are:
• Wind turbine power systems (many)
• Geo-thermal power plants at known geological hot spots
• Additional hydroelectric power sources if available
• Nuclear power of the breeder type
• Solar energy sourced power
We know how to build all of the types listed. There are no mysteries. We just need to get out there and do it on a sensible schedule to meet our future needs.

Energy and Food

Sun, 08 May 2005 18:23:57 GMT

ENERGY AND FOOD
by Dave Cohen

The food we consume is an energy intensive product. It has been estimated that an average of 10 calories of energy is expended for every calorie of nutrition that we ingest. This energy comes largely from a finite fossil fuel supply, most of which is derived from crude natural petroleum.
Production and delivery of food has been increasingly mechanized since the start of the industrial revolution two centuries ago. This was done to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population. In the year 1800, world population stood at about 900 million. Today, it has grown nearly sevenfold to 6.4 billion, a number for which agrarian economies could never possibly provide sufficient food.
Why does it take so much energy to consume food? The answer is somewhat complex. Gasoline or Diesel fuel is expended in the planting, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting, processing and delivery of food to market. Fuel is further expended by customers who purchase and consume the food. In addition, electrical energy or natural gas is consumed in the refrigeration, and cooking process.
If the average person ingests about 2000 food calories of nutrition per day, that accounts for 10 times that number or 20,000 kilogram calories from fuel which corresponds to 79,366 British Thermal Units (BTU), the delivered energy of 0.72 gallons of gasoline. With a population of 295 million. the US burns the energy equivalent about 212 million gallons of gasoline daily just to feed ourselves. That figure is about 27% of America’s current daily petroleum consumption of 19 million 42 gallon capacity barrels.
The next logical question is, “What will happen when world petroleum production drops by more than half?” That is currently a prediction due for the middle of this century, when human population will have increased by about 50% over today’s levels. The answers to that question depend largely on what we do as a society. If we don’t institute a solution, a population die out of extraordinary magnitude has been forecast. Today’s youth will then be at middle age and will be witness to history’s biggest human catastrophe, far exceeding the bubonic plague epidemics of the middle ages.
Is there a solution? There are two “here and now” possibilities. We need both.
1. The US must open its huge oil shale fields. We are supposed to have a 250 year supply for US consumption only. Oil shale can be a source of synthetic crude oil(SYNCRUDE). Although it is a stopgap measure in the long run, it will provide fuel oil, gasoline and petrochemicals for at least the next two centuries. This must be implemented as quickly as possible.
2. We must move toward a hydrogen economy using our vast, largely untapped clean renewable energy resources as the only acceptable electrical energy source needed to decompose water into is elements of hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be shipped anywhere for use as a mobile fuel supply.
Wind turbine technology and geothermal energy technology are both well developed, reasonably priced technologies that can be expanded to meet all of our needs in the US and worldwide. There are no technological barriers to starting this now. The only human barriers are political lethargy and public ignorance.

Energy and Economics

Fri, 20 May 2005 17:31:17 GMT

Energy and the Economy
by Dave Cohen and Louis Zirin

What is an economy? Is it money? Quite simply, money is not the product of an economy. Money is a medium that allows an economy to function easily, to be controlled and manipulated to some degree. Money makes the process of exchange fluid. An economy is really the result of productive work.
So what is productive work? One part of that answer is: “any activity that is useful or valuable to one or more people.” However, that is not the complete answer. The technical definition of work is mechanical energy resulting in the movement of matter. It might be useful and have value or could also be useless and have little value. All work results from the expenditure of energy, any kind of energy from any source.
Useful work has value and is salable. The continuous sale and use of the results of productive work is a functioning economy. The availability and exploitation of energy therefore helps to propel and grow an industrial economy. Lack of energy will weaken an industrial, energy dependent economy.
Since humans first walked the earth, most work came from human and later included animal muscle power. The energy for that came from food. Most work was directed at finding more food. At first humans scavenged for food as do the animals and plants around us. Later, we began cultivating food creating agrarian economies. Our agricultural work produced more food than we consumed, so it became salable and the economy expanded its attention to producing the goods, services and monuments of our civilization.
This was a rather slow and tedious process requiring manpower, but was significantly enhanced when additional energy sources were found and put to work for humankind. Over the last thousand years, non-human energy sources were put to work expanding our economies. Wind energy use was perfected primarily for sailing ships. Chemical energy use in the form of explosive gunpowder became common. By 1800, the industrial revolution helped to lead mankind to the exploitation of fossil fuel energy sources. The heat energy release of burning coal, petroleum, and fuel gas gave us the energy to do work faster, better, more usefully and more productively than ever before in history. The economy we have today came about from the massive expenditure of cheap energy. Virtually everything we need and use revolves around the availability of energy. The food we consume, our vehicles of transportation, our electric powered devices, our homes, our work places, our clothing, our entertainment, our EVERYTHING are available to us because of energy. In a sense, energy not only drives the economy, it currently is the source of our economy.
What will happen when our common energy sources begin to run dry? The answer to that is rather scary. If we do not find and institute substitutes for our depleted energy resources, the economy will begin to falter and then will collapse. This is one scenario predicted to begin around the period of 2040 to 2050. If this is allowed to happen, the most extraordinary die off of human life will occur in the latter half of this century. It has been forecast that world human population will drop from a peak of 9 billion in 2050 to less than 5 billion in 2100. It will continue to fall after 2100. That is a population loss of about 100 million per annum. Such a rate of loss will exceed all the worst disasters in human history.
In an attempt to avert this disaster, we will require a worldwide effort to develop alternate sources of energy such as wind turbines, geothermal heat, oil from coal, tar sands, and oil shale. In the future, our news sources will be full of stories about attempts to develop these alternative energies. Our livlihoods and our very lives will depend on this. But despite the many news items that have already appeared about hybrid cars, fuel cells, wind turbines, and the like, there is one important subject that is not being taken seriously. That is the need to end world population growth. If it is true that our population is heading for 9 billion later this century, does it not make sense to start discussing ways to limit population growth? Isn't that the other side of the energy coin? Would it not be wiser to balance the number of people with the amount of energy available 50 years hence, without the horrific die-off that might ensue?

Hydrogen

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 17:14:13 GMT

OUR HYDROGEN FUTURE
by Dave Cohen

Hydrogen will eventually be the fuel of the future. It can replace all the fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, and natural gas) for heating, surface transportation and limited types of air transportation, as well as local power production. Its only significant combustion product will be clean, harmless water vapor which eventually drops back to the earth’s surface as rainfall. Most harmful pollutants such as smoke and carbon monoxide, toxic gas products that lead to smog and acid rain, and finally persistent greenhouse gases will disappear from the burning process entirely.
As long as there is carbon in the fuel we burn, carbon dioxide (CO2) is produced in the exhaust. Removing the CO2 gas from the exhaust stacks is a monumental task, and is neither mechanically nor economically practical.
The numbers are quite simple.
• Coal produces about 300 lbs. of CO2 per million BTUs of thermal energy consumed. Wood and charcoal are similar to coal.
• Fuel Oil and gasoline produce about 175 lbs. of CO2 per million BTUs of thermal energy consumed.
• Natural Gas produces about 130 lbs. of CO2 per million BTUs of thermal energy consumed.
• Hydrogen produces no CO2, few pollutants, and no waste.
A global switch to hydrogen can help eliminate health problems due to poor air quality. It will reduce or stop acid poisoning of our lakes. It will help slow the phenomenon of global warming. Lastly, it will forever end dependence on foreign crude oil supplies.
Construction of the infrastructure needed for our hydrogen based future will produce lifelong jobs for a huge portion of the world’s population.
Hydrogen is readily available. It comes from a renewable and inexhaustible source as a component of water (H2O). Obtaining it is relatively safe and easy. The most straightforward and environmentally friendly method of breaking water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen is by passing an electric current through the liquid. In other words, it requires a source of electrical energy.
Hydrogen cannot be a practical fuel, if fossil fuel feed stock is needed as a hydrogen source or if fossil fuel combustion is required to produce the electrical energy necessary to release the hydrogen. Therefore, the energy sources for future hydrogen production will have to come from clean, renewable energy resources. A common renewable source is from hydroelectric power generated from rivers with large dams. We do not have enough hydropower resources for large scale hydrogen production. Other fossil fuel free energy could possibly come from wind driven turbines, solar collectors, ocean wave or tidal sources. Even nuclear and some day possibly thermonuclear sources may be considered. All of these should be planned and implemented only when ecological, safety, and economic considerations make sense.
Another very important possibility will be from naturally available geothermal energy. Heat removed from deep in the ground near thermally active volcanic regions should be exploited. It is by far the world’s largest concentrated pool of unused energy. It can be and is used to produce high pressure, superheated steam. Steam then drives the turbo generators needed to produce enormous amounts of electrical energy. That electricity can be fed into the national grid, or, running 24 hours a day, can be used for the continuous manufacture of hydrogen.
Interestingly, the U.S. has within its borders, the world’s largest known geothermal hot spot. It is situated beneath Yellowstone National Park. The park itself is known to be atop of the caldera of the largest ancient volcano that has ever existed anywhere on earth. Other unexploited volcanic regions exist in the cascade mountains of Washington State, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. In addition, Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and the main island of Hawaii have similar potential.
If the Yellowstone region and other known hot spots were exploited for their geothermal energy, we might be able to produce enough electrical power to provide the US with total energy independence.
The following seven point outline demonstrates the advantages of a geothermal system:
1. You don’t need fuel to burn.
2. You needn’t have to build a dam with its inherent disturbance of the ecosystem.
3. You don’t need fissile nuclear fuels, nor fuel waste management.
4. There are few waste products, and little atmospheric pollution.
5. It is nearly steady: 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
6. It uses the well known and commonly used Rankine cycle turbine power system. Most such systems expand high pressure steam.
7. No technical breakthroughs are required. We can build such systems today.

Population and Energy

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 20:12:11 GMT

Energy, Population, and Food
by Dave Cohen

In 1798, an Anglican curate by the name of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834), theorized that population growth would always exceed essential resources. This leads to an accelerated death rate by starvation and disease of the “surplus” population. He theorized this idea in the absence of easily obtained data that would support his proposition. The basis of his doctrine is quite simply stated. "Population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increase in an arithmetic ratio." He spent most of his life thereafter as a scholar and teacher.
He published his work as an Essay in 1803 and spent much of his life pursuing empirical information on the subject of human population growth.
What Malthus could not have known in the period 1798 - 1803 was that the industrial revolution was just under way, and that the use of fossil energy would revolutionize the production and distribution of food.
Did increased food production take care of the starvation problem? Actually, it did not. Human population growth took off faster than food production, exactly as Malthus predicted. In 1800, world population was about 900 million. There was also wide spread poverty in the world. The world’s agrarian economies simply could not supply sufficient food fast enough to avert disasters similar to the Irish potato famine.
In the year 2005, world population stands at 6.4 billion. The world’s industrial energy intensive economies still do not supply enough food to maintain populations in places like famine ravaged central Africa. Indeed, it is estimated that 6 million (or more) children die each year as a direct result of insufficient food. That is about 16,000 per day or one every 5 seconds.
This raises a very important question. What will happen to food production and distribution, when fuel shortages become acute? The answer to that question depends on our ability to find a suitable substitute for fossil fuel. It is currently forecast that by 2050, combined petroleum and natural gas production will have fallen by over 50% from today’s levels while world population will have simultaneously increased by 50%. If a suitable substitute fuel is unavailable, a huge population dieoff becomes inevitable and may lead to an economic catastrophe in our country as well as the whole world.
A long term solution to the problem is an implementation of a hydrogen fueled society derived from fossil fuel free renewable energy resources and water. Is this doable? Do we have the energy sources? The answer to each of those questions is, “Yes indeed!” If that is the case, I ask, “Why haven’t we yet started the project? Why are we wasting our time debating a search for 6 months worth of oil on Alaska’s north slope? We have an infrastructure to build, so why aren’t we building it?”
The politcal problem that we face is lack of informed leadership. We are not moving forward as we should be. There is no structure in place to take us there. We need a program with a clear objective, as we had in 1960 when President John F. Kennedy instructed NASA to take us to the moon in a decade. ...and they did.