Turning Oil into Salt - We must become independent — not just of imported oil, but of oil itself.

NRO ^ | September 25, 2007 | R. James Woolsey & Anne Korin

[neverdem]

A determined pack has begun to race its engines and to try to shoulder us off the road toward energy independence. It’s time for those determined to stay on the track to drive aggressively.

The energy-independence question is really about oil — the rest of U.S. energy use presents important issues, but not the danger of our being subject to the control of nations that “do not particularly like us,” as the president put it. Some of the engine racers have an economic interest in keeping our transportation system 97-percent oil-dependent. Less understandable are the authors of a recent Council on Foreign Relations report accusing those working for such independence of “doing the nation a disservice.”

[neverdem]

The printer friendly version isn't available.

[CutePuppy]

Salt = “new” oil. Back to the salt mines, then...

I like James Woolsey, but he mostly talks about
1) shifting the time of consumption of energy (night, when it’s “cheaper”) without giving consideration to the fact that it’s only cheaper now because it’s used less, and won’t be when everybody starts shifting, and

2) batteries, i.e. storage of energy, not production of energy, which is how oil, among other fuels, is used.

Better, cleaner, and probably cheaper, investment in alternative energy generation would be nuclear power :

“Nuclear Power Can Help Solve US Energy Concerns, Say Experts”
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPrint.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200709/NAT20070925b.html

(CNSNews.com) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s recent remark that the “Iraq war is largely about oil” sparked a political nerve and made headlines. It also highlighted a problem with America’s energy supply, which some analysts and policy-makers think could be solved cleanly and abundantly through nuclear power.

Nuclear energy currently provides about 20 percent of America’s electricity, with 100 nuclear plants located at 65 sites in 31 states, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. By contrast, 80 percent of France’s energy needs are supplied by nuclear power. Other examples include Belgium, 54 percent; Sweden, 46 percent; Switzerland, 41 percent; and Japan, 34 percent.

While the U.S. emerged as the world leader in nuclear power, research, design and construction in the latter half of the 20th century, the industry has been at a near-standstill since the Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979. There has not been a new nuclear plant built in America since then, largely because of environmental, political and financial considerations, according to energy policy analysts.
.....

[Alberta's Child]

I've read a number of Woolsey's articles on this subject in recent months, and his ignorance about energy is pretty remarkable for someone who is supposed to be involved with the topic in some kind of "expert" capacity.

I finally concluded that he's nothing more than a big-name hack who works for some kind of policy study group in Washington that is financed by major corporate interests that are trying to compete with the oil industry.

[CutePuppy]

Yes, since 2002 he was working for Booz Allen Hamilton, and his latest PR “projects” are plugin hybrids and ethanol from cellulose (switch grass and sugar cane, I assume), which are, at least, significantly better and more efficient than corn.

[djxu456]

a practical elecric car,
would cut the ragheads out of the deal

[sd-joe]

Yes, nuclear is a critical part of solving our dependence on oil and especially Middle East oil.

Night consumption of electrical energy is not only cheaper, but uses electrical energy that would otherwise be largely wasted.

[capitalist229]

his latest PR “projects” are plugin hybrids

Sea bed nukes ringing the country providing electricity and hydrogen but don't hold your breath.

BUMP

[bilhosty]

dogone right! But, to get things going we would have to have a leader. You know someone who proposes an aggressive agenda and a plan and then moves heaven and earth to do it. we do not seem to have that. The GOP needs to get rid of its country club passive do nothing culture and change and do it fast.

[nathanbedford]

I suppose whether we can get to plug-in hybrid cars sustained by nuclear power stations has to do ultimately with whether the rap against the greens is true: they are not so much for environmental protection as they are for destruction of capitalism.

When I first heard this indictment of the greens I was bemused and did not take it seriously but if one considers all the bizarre theories that have been spawned by The Frankfurt School and which have been so eagerly embraced by academia-critical theory, patriarchal theory, feminism, deconstruction, relativism, political correctness-one is given pause. For each of these New Age eschatologies were created explicitly to tear apart Western values to promote the success of Bolshevism.

Why not environmentalism?

[woofer]

Yes, nuclear is a critical part of solving our dependence on oil and especially Middle East oil.

Why and how is that? 3% of electrical generation is from oil fired boilers. And these are rapidly being replaced by GE and Siemens Repowering, combined cycle plants. These plants use natural gas to spin the Combustion Turbine with a direct coupled generator. You increase electrical output and the byproduct exhaust is used to boil water for the formerly oil burning boiler's steam turbine. $120 million investment pays for itself in four years, five from the time the first shovel of dirt is turned. Delivery time with GE has risen from 18-24 months AOR to the current 30-40 months in just the past year.

Night consumption of electrical energy is not only cheaper, but uses electrical energy that would otherwise be largely wasted.

So, sleep during the day? Turbines spin twenty-four hours a day, 7/365. If you're worried about "wasted electricity",just remember that there is no "electricity" on the lines until a load is added, until then it's just "potential". Ohm's Law, baby.

[woofer]

Just wanted to add that power isn’t any cheaper after dark. Production and infrastructure cost are static, all day long. Usage drops off after 2200 hrs and picks back up after 0600 hrs. The only reason utilities charge less for off-peak power is that its there, they’d like to recieve money for it so they drop the end-use cost. If more got used, there’d be no off-peak and prices would rise.

[Alberta's Child]

Why and how is that? 3% of electrical generation is from oil fired boilers.

That's a good point. One of the biggest myths in any discussion about this topic -- and this myth gets perpetuated by the silly, asinine statements by many of our elected officials (including President Bush in a speech on this subject a while back) -- is that nuclear power can somehow help the U.S. "overcome our addiction to Mideast oil."

What people don't seem to understand is that nuclear power is an alternative energy source for generating electricity, not for powering vehicles and aircraft, manufacturing petrochemicals and lubcricants, etc. (these are major uses of oil). Increasing the use of nuclear power will reduce our need for energy sources like coal and natural gas (these currently serve as major energy sources for electrical power generation), not oil.

[airborne]

a practical elecric car, would cut the ragheads out of the deal

And Chavez.

But "big oil" won't let that happen.

[larryjohnson]

print version
R. James Woolsey on Oil & Energy Independence on National Review Online
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OTlmMjFjYWRjOWI3ZGI0MzUxZDJjYTBlMmUzOTc2Mzc=

[Salvey]

to get things going we would have to have a leader. You know someone who proposes an aggressive agenda and a plan and then moves heaven and earth to do it.

This probably won't happen until some of the bright, clean, conservative, young GOP congressmen, now in their 30's and 40's, move up the leadership ladder. I just hope that the lid doesn't blow off things before their ascendancy.

[thackney]

uses electrical energy that would otherwise be largely wasted

Available capacity is not the same as wasted energy. If power isn't drawn, energy is not converted, loads are not put onto the generators and more fuel is not consumed.

[bilhosty]

“This probably won’t happen until some of the bright, clean, conservative, young GOP congressmen, now in their 30’s and 40’s, move up the leadership ladder.”

I remember how impressed I was with the young GOP congressmen in there 30’s and 40’S in the 80’s and after the ‘94 elections. What we need is a culture change. We just seem to have something that produced passive do nothing country clubbers who have no vision and spend their political capitol on getting tax breaks and ten spending the public money since they don’t have to pay so much any more.

[Old Professer]

If the engine is running at sychro speed it is using 65% as much fuel as it will use at 100% load.(about 33 gal/MW vs 50 gal/MW)

[thackney]

Yes but the units are not running on no-load conditions. There is still load and the peaking units are shut down at night.

Unless the yearly average night-time spinning reserve is greater than the yearly average day-time spinning reserve, there is no waste.

There may be some, but I doubt it is a significant percentage of load.

[RightWhale]

It would do that and if the USA is the only country with the tech to build the electrics the USA could regain the world auto industry lead.

[Old Professer]

California CARB had its sights set on the remote peaking units that were diesel-powered; they wanted them to switch to natural gas; that was a few years before I left.

[thackney]

Interesting that the the Air Board wanted diesel fueled units.

[Old Professer]

CARB wanted to phase out diesel in favor of natural gas; I knew one guy who was in charge of two 3KW peaking boxes near Reno; no way to get NG up to those sites.

[Carry_Okie]

Why not environmentalism?

"Scientific environmentalism" was part of Bolshevism from the beginning. Lenin took time out of the revolution to personally supervise the production of two documents: On Land and On Forests, in order to start using control of land use to exterminate his enemies and control the factors of production. Through that policy, he deliberately starved (IIRC) 22 million Kulaks, among others.

[thackney]

Thanks for the clarification, I misunderstood.

[CutePuppy]

Very true, most people I talk with, don’t separate the sources and uses of “energy”, to them it’s all interchangeable, like it’s all in one bag and you grab it from there when you need it... Same way as most can distinguish the storage of energy from generation and production.

Also, most people think that if something is “cheaper” now because it’s not widely used (process, product, commodity etc.) it would stay cheap once it becomes used and produced on a larger scale - hence the “renewable” corn ethanol fiasco which was predictable, if one understood the notions of scarcity of resources and scalability.

[CutePuppy]

has to do ultimately with whether the rap against the greens is true: they are not so much for environmental protection as they are for destruction of capitalism.

Hence, the moniker "watermelons" - "green" on the outside, "red" inside.

[CutePuppy]

as most can distinguish the storage of energy from generation and production.

Should be : as most can't distinguish the storage of energy from generation and production.

[Carry_Okie]

BTW, in focusing upon the Frankfurt School, you might find an interesting trail in the origins in their progenitors: Rosa Luxembourg and the Spartakusbund in Berlin (which gave justification to the NAZIs), Antonio Gramsci before them, Marx (obviously), Adam Weishaupt before him, and Shabbatai Tz'vi before him.

Tz'vi is a fascinating character, the last apostate Jewish Messianic pretender (his followers considered Jesus as Tz'vi's "return of Elijah"). Tz'vi converted to Islam at the point of a sword, which ended the messianic status with Jews in a big way, alienating them forever. That alienation empowered his eventual anti-Semitism, which has serious consequences to this day. His immediate idealogical heirs include both the Illuminati AND the Donmeh, who murdered over a million Armenians. These folks have modern idealogical heirs with strong connections to both Anti-Zionist Turks and the theosophists (therewith the UN).

Watch for Turkish accusations of Israeli collaboration with the Kurds as justification for accession of a Turk to the head of the Islamo-fascist crowd. The Ottomans rise again, the army of the north.

[RinaseaofDs]

I would agree, if the bulk of our electrical power were either coal fired or nuclear.

It’s certainly time. I know, for us, we could replace both vehicles comfortably with either hybrids, or with electric vehicles, and then rent something if we really had to go on a long trip.

Problem is, it doesn’t help if your electricity comes from an oil-fired plant.

[barb-tex]

Gas was nearly always the fuel of choice for large stationary engines in the recip days, if it was available, due to fuel cost. Most were set up as dual-fuel. Of course the GE Turbines are set up the same way. Now we must wait on the SAE. Nucs take so long to construct and are so expensive to build that they can’t be depended on for the near term. If we could shut up the Global warming crowd we have enough fuel capacity.
I think that calculating MPG using the gasoline portion is certainly misleading to the casual reader.
barbra ann

[thackney]

I would agree, if the bulk of our electrical power were either coal fired or nuclear.

It is.

[RinaseaofDs]

I hadn’t seen this!

Well, then the rest is in quick-rechargeable battery technology such that you can actually either rely on your car.

You also have to come up with the equivalent of the ‘gas can’ If an electric car runs out of juice, you have to enable it to get to some place such that it can be recharged quickly and put back on the road.

[WOSG]

Massive increase in nuclear power generation and the resulting cheap electricity would solve the oil dilemma by encouraging migration to a cheaper and better form of energy.

Some of this can be indirect. For example, the more nuclear used in electric generation, the less we need natural gas for that. Natural gas, in turn, can replace oil in transport by having LPG and CNG based vehicles. e.g. move all buses to that.

Nuclear wouldnt be ‘back’ were it not for Republican 2005 energy bill that cleared roadblocks for nuclear construction. Also, I am encouraged that some Republicans, like Romney and McCain, have explicitly called out nuclear power as a direction to go in to help achieve energy independence.

[WOSG]

I have done the math myself. Even posted it on FR in past year: Nuclear power, about 400 plants more with 5X current capacity, could eliminate the threat of global warming, or at least the US contribution to it. Replace the coal-fired plants and natural gas plants for electricity generation, displacing that CO2 generation entirely (more than 1/2 of CO2 generation). Then use nuclear+plug-in-hybrids to cut oil in transport by 3/4ths. Then use remaining nuclear for industrial and heat, etc. Result? CO2 generation can be cut by about 75-80%.

We dont need wind, solar, conservation, or freeze-in-the-dark. All we need are 400 nuclear power plants and global warming is no more. Safe, clean, environment-friendly, inexpensive nuclear power can end global warming...

This solution is a brilliant test of the real commitment of the environmentalist ideology... If they say “no” your thesis is right:

“For each of these New Age eschatologies were created explicitly to tear apart Western values to promote the success of Bolshevism.”

Interestingly, some honest environmentalists have jumped on board the nuclear bandwagon ... while the AlGore type charlatans (ie most of them) have not.

Case closed.

[Clock King]

I like James Woolsey, but he mostly talks about 1) shifting the time of consumption of energy (night, when it’s “cheaper”) without giving consideration to the fact that it’s only cheaper now because it’s used less, and won’t be when everybody starts shifting

A friend of mine used to joke about taking a trip to the Sun. "But we should go at night, because it's cooler!" People like Woolsey who are clueless about engineering and science need to shut up about "solutions".

[Alberta's Child]

Exactly.

[MNJohnnie]

a practical electric car,

How do you produce the electricity to power the cars?

Have to produce an electric car that is as efficient and as cost effective as the internal combustion engine.

Have to produce the technology and the infrastructure to support that car.

Have to produce the electric car and the infrastructure to support it as cheaply and as efficiently as gas is now produced and supplied.

EVEN if you meet all those requirements you are decades from moving off an oil based economy.

We did not become an oil based economy over night, we will not cease to be an oil based economy over night.

[MNJohnnie]

How do you produce the electricity to power the cars?

Have to produce an electric car that is as efficient and as cost effective as the internal combustion engine.

Have to produce the technology and the infrastructure to support that car.

Have to produce the electric car and the infrastructure to support it as cheaply and as efficiently as gas is now produced and supplied.

EVEN if you meet all those requirements you are decades from moving off an oil based economy.

We did not become an oil based economy over night, we will not cease to be an oil based economy over night.

[MNJohnnie]

How do you produce the electricity to power the cars?

Have to produce an electric car that is as efficient and as cost effective as the internal combustion engine.

Have to produce the technology and the infrastructure to support that car.

Have to produce the electric car and the infrastructure to support it as cheaply and as efficiently as gas is now produced and supplied.

EVEN if you meet all those requirements you are decades from moving off an oil based economy.

We did not become an oil based economy over night, we will not cease to be an oil based economy over night.

[MNJohnnie]

How do you produce the electricity to power the cars?

Have to produce an electric car that is as efficient and as cost effective as the internal combustion engine.

Have to produce the technology and the infrastructure to support that car.

Have to produce the electric car and the infrastructure to support it as cheaply and as efficiently as gas is now produced and supplied.

EVEN if you meet all those requirements you are decades from moving off an oil based economy.

We did not become an oil based economy over night, we will not cease to be an oil based economy over night.

[editor-surveyor]

We’ll never be off of oil.

It’s a near-perfect form of stored energy, and if it didn’t occur naturally, we’d have to invent it.
Everything that has been suggested to replace it presents real problems that dwarf the imaginary ones that the anti-oil clowns dream up.

[editor-surveyor]

GreenSpam needs to have his tongue cut out.

[editor-surveyor]

"a practical elecric car, would cut the ragheads out of the deal"

Putting aside the fact that an electric car cannot be practical nor dependable, just how might a car that can only use energy produced elsewhere put the ragheads out of the deal?

[editor-surveyor]

Another feather-headed liberal dreamer!

[editor-surveyor]

If you're worried about "wasted electricity",just remember that there is no "electricity" on the lines until a load is added, until then it's just "potential".

There is a flaw in that logic:
When you put a stepdown transformer into the circuit so that the juice can be used, then there are large thermal losses when a large part of the capacity is unused.

[editor-surveyor]

"3KW "

Are you sure?

[cpdiii]

What people don't seem to understand is that nuclear power is an alternative energy source for generating electricity, not for powering vehicles and aircraft, manufacturing petrochemicals and lubricants, etc. (these are major uses of oil). Increasing the use of nuclear power will reduce our need for energy sources like coal and natural gas (these currently serve as major energy sources for electrical power generation), not oil.

But it can be replacement for imported oil. We have centuries worth of shale oil in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. It take a lot of heat to crack the shale and extract the kerogen in the shale and turn it into a usable oil product. The heat would normally come from burning a percentage of your product in the cracking and distillation process. Nothing makes heat at a more economical price than nuclear power. Co-located shale oil production and nuclear power plants would be ideal. The nuclear power plant could make the high pressure high temperature steam for the shale oil plant. Any excess energy from the nuclear power plant could be used for electrical power generation.

There is only one problem. Every moon bat barking dog environmentalist wack job tree hugging left wing fool socialist radical with the total support of the democRAT party would oppose this.

I apologize for including the demoRATS in the list as that is actually redundant to the list.

[airborne]

When we run out of oil, we’ll develop the technology real fast.

Until then, let’s drill everywhere and anywhere, all across America!

Caribou love oil wells!

[djxu456]

to 30
in the US half of electricity come from coal,

higher percentage at night, when cars would be charged.

in the US VERy little electricity comes from oil.