Posted on 03/24/2002 2:09:05 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Wind. Sun. Hydrogen. They are odorless, tasteless, invisible and abundant. And they can be harnessed to generate electricity, power cars and heat homes. So, hey, let's stop dallying! Replace those shameful fossil fuels with clean renewables. What is taking so long?
That was the gist of a series of passionate editorials in The Dallas Morning News during the past several weeks. Read them, and you might wonder what is wrong with those blockhead politicians and energy executives.
But there is a reason that renewables, despite a history of generous government subsidies stretching back to 1982, haven't made a dent in the dominance of oil, gas and coal – which together account for 85 percent of the energy used in this country. The reason is cost. As energy sources, wind, sun and hydrogen are hugely expensive and inefficient. Fossil fuels aren't.
In fact, thanks to new technology and better management, oil and gas companies – many of them, of course, based in Texas – have figured out how to bring fossil fuels out of the ground and refine them more and more cheaply. That is good, not bad. Abundant, low-cost energy is the key to prosperity, and prosperity is the key to cleaner air and water, as numerous studies, including a survey of 117 countries by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, have shown.
The United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and places like Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico have tremendous potential for oil and gas exploration, which now has minimal impact on the environment. Yes, there is a lot of wind and sun here, too – not to mention hydrogen. The problem is turning those fuels into usable power.
Let's not deceive ourselves. At this point in history, renewables aren't a serious source of energy. While we should encourage more research, we shouldn't succumb to the wishful fantasy that the wind or the sun will power America's toasters.
Scientists Mike Oliver and John Hospers, writing in the American Enterprise magazine, use an apt analogy: "There are untold millions of tons of gold in the earth's oceans. Why aren't we taking this gold from the seas? It is the dilution that stops us. If we can't obtain at least $8 worth of gold from a ton of water, we will go broke from the costs of extraction."
Wind, solar and hydrogen are examples of dilution in the extreme. Wind is so intermittent and tough to harness that a wind farm that could produce 1,000 megawatts from thousands of those ungainly propeller-driven turbines ("eagle choppers," as some wags call them) would extend, according to Environmental Protection Agency research, over 400 square miles. A similar coal plant would take up just 10 acres.
Sure, the sun is bright in the California desert, and that is why a solar plant was built at Barstow a few years ago. It occupied 75 acres and cost $200 million to build, yet it generated only $1.7 million worth of energy a year – until the companies and government agencies that subsidized it shut it down.
The United States now generates 8 percent of its power from a category that the Energy Information Administration calls "renewables." But nearly all of that power comes from water and "biomass," mainly wood. Wind and solar each represents less than 1 percent – not of the total power but of the power generated by renewables!
Denmark, as The Morning News editorials pointed out, gets "a remarkable 13 percent" of its electricity from the wind. True, but the real story, reported earlier this month by the Economist magazine, is that Denmark has soured on the experiment, and "plans for three offshore wind power parks have been dropped" by its new government.
Similarly, The Morning News wants to subsidize solar cells "in the manner of Los Angeles Power and Water." But The Washington Post reported last year that this noble experiment to make Los Angeles the "solar capital" of the world, with 100,000 roofs covered by solar electric panels, has been a dismal failure. In the first year of the program, only 40 homes adopted the panels, despite subsidies averaging $8,000 per family.
Why? According to The Post, "In the real world, most systems don't pay for themselves in a few years, as some advocates claim, but take 20 years or more to return their initial cost in the form of reduced utility bills."
The truth is that, at least for the next few decades, renewables like wind, solar and hydrogen fuel cells will be boutique sources of energy – curiosities available only to the few who want to pay the exorbitant cost or to those who live in states where politicians are willing to socialize those costs by making all taxpayers shoulder them.
The economic rewards for making wind, solar and hydrogen commercially viable are immense, and many companies – often with government aid – have sunk billions into the attempt. But the science and technology just aren't there. We don't need more subsidies and special breaks for the renewables industry.
Nor should the fossil fuels that dominate the energy scene be demonized. The companies that find them and turn them into electricity, gasoline and diesel fuel aren't owed any favors, but neither should they be denigrated or embarrassed. They are fueling the main engine of the world's economic growth – growth that leads inexorably to cleaner air and water, better health and more comfortable and productive lives. Texans should know that story better than anyone else, and they should be proud.
James K. Glassman is host of the TechCentralStation website (www.TechCentralStation.com) and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
I wish I had saved a link to article here a few months ago where some wind power proponents were argueing that new advances in wind turbines had finally made wind power turn the corner and become competitive with conventional power plants. Guess that was more vaporware....
Personally, I think the only serious power that ever got generated from wind is political power.
The Saudis know this and are pumping oil like mad. We delude ourselves into thinking their oil pumping is a favor from an ally-- it is not. It is a means to extract as much cash as possible from a technology soon to be made obsolete by fuel cell technology. Oil has, at most, two more decades to be king. Were the U.S., Japan and the E.C. to fund fuel cell technology with a Manhattan Project-like priority, that time could be cut into 10 years or less.
We've all heard the saying that the next Middle Eastern war will be over water, not oil. It is probably true.
One of the reasons no strong alternative to the current power generation/allocation system is that the Powers That Be have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Big Money is invested in the current setup, not to mention the lobbying that they fund. No one wants to be the odd man out after a shake-up caused by some alternative energy source made viable.
Tuor
They are so worried about it that they recently cut production, along with the rest of OPEC, and gas prices jumped up again. Perhaps you don't drive and have not noticed?
Being an engineer who passed through my "Mother Earth News" days in the 70's, I have tried much of this stuff on a small scale. The only one of these schemes that actually has some benefit is solar hot water, and then only in the right climate.
This latest "hydrogen economy" is probably the biggest hoax yet. Until three years ago, I was involved in filling the space shuttle external tank with a few million gallons of liquid hydrogen, so I have some knowledge in that area, too.
I can only begin to list all the safety hazards of dealing with LH2.
Typical government solution........throw money at it.......make speeches pandering to emotions.........But never determine the facts and debate the options rationally
Which is exactly why the "hydrogen economy" is an important feature of the total energy package--STORAGE and transmission of energy with hydrogen solves your "demand" problem. "Load-balancing" then becomes an inherent part of the transmission system. It also is more efficient for transmission over long distances, and works for nuclear as well (no more need for load-balancing gas turbines--just design the nuke plant with a larger capacity factor).
And just what, exactly, is powering the fuel cell? Fuel cells do require "fuel".
The Powers behind The Powers That Be, to wit- the bankers and venture capitalists, will put their money into renewables or into anything else the moment they figure out that they can make more profit with the new thing than with the old thing. It's like that Super Carburetor, that TPTB have Kept Hidden. If there were such a thing the company that had access to it would make tremendous amounts of money, would own the market for cars, at least for a while. No group of Industrialists can successfully agree to sit on such an invention because that implies that it is not patented (or it would be public knowledge) and some nonmember of that cartel could learn about it and put the cartel out of business.
This world runs with a market driven economy; it is not a mercantile system with government enforced monopolies.
Learn some economics.
Fuel cells require hydrogen which can be either in the form of pure hydrogen or "reformers" can be attached to separate hydrogen from carbon. The carbon and hydrogen combinations that are feasible to use in the reformer are natural gas and crude oil derivatives such as gasoline.
The fuel cell is more efficient than the the internal combustion engine The coming widespread use of the hybrid power source in automobiles (such as Toyoto's Prius which now gets more than 50 miles per gallon in town and on the open road) is more efficient than fuel cells and will be cheaper. Therefore, I don't see widespread use of fuel cells in automobiles.
New turbines are very efficient. Modern power plant design uses steam turbines to produce electricity. The leftover heat is recovered and used to generate by thermal turbines in two stages. The resultant efficiency qppraches 80% Therefore, I don't see fuel cells breaking into that market. Neat technology but no viable application except as power in isolated places or as backup benerators.
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