[Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy - Part II

[brad haslett]

Roger,

Time does not permit a fully reasoned response since I
have to catch a flight to Manchester, NH this morning
and operate my own jet back to Memphis tomorrow
morning, lets say about 12,000 gallons of hydrocarbons
total.  However, allow me this quick comment on
electric cars.  You're right, battery power alone
won't hack it.  Two years ago the DOT had a contest
among the car manufacturers for the highest milage
vehichle and Volkswagon won it with a 87 mpg
diesel/electric hybrid with the others close on their
heels.  FedEx developed 40 diesel/electric hybrid
delivery trucks with Eaton that are currently in
service and under evaluation.  The risk you speak of,
"betting the firm", on nukes is not so much a market
risk as it is a litigation risk from environmental
groups.  When the lights start going out people's
attitudes will change.  If you've been following the
"Oil Patch" news this week you probably already know
that the Chinese are contemplating a bid for Unocal. 
The Indians are bidding for parts of Yukos.  The big
American oil companies are trimming debt, raising
dividends, and buying back stock rather than expanding
at the drillbit.  This is an ominous sign.  We are
rapidly approaching the "perfect storm" of geology,
market demand, and Middle East uncertainty in the oil
markets.  I appreciate the contribution that ethanol
and biodiesel makes to the fuel budget but there isn't
enough dirt on the face of the planet to replace our
current consumption.  More later after I'm through
burning fuel.

Brad Haslett
"CoraShen"


--- Roger Pihlaja <cen09402 at centurytel.net> wrote:

> Brad,
> 
> In general, I agree with the author's premise that
> electrical use in the
> United States is going to increase and that nuclear
> power needs to provide a
> bigger component of electrical generation capacity. 
> I do have several
> problems with the article:
> 
> Battery electric cars are not ready for prime time,
> the range is far too
> short, the batteries are too expensive, and the life
> span of the battery
> pack is too short.  An electric car which can only
> be used for short range
> commuting will never sell in large numbers, even
> though the market is
> theoretically huge.  The situation for large battery
> electric trucks is even
> worse.  The author almost glosses over this
> technical issue; but, it's a
> show stopper.  Land transportation is going to
> require a high energy density
> fuel like gasoline, diesel fuel, or ethanol and an
> on-board internal
> combustion engine for a long time into the future.
> 
> Given the age of all currently operating nuclear
> power plants, the costs of
> decomissioning & replacement, and the massive
> regulatory/political problems,
> the US nuclear industry will be doing well just to
> keep the percent of
> electrical generating capacity somewhere near the
> current level of about
> 17%.  At several billion dollars apiece, building a
> nuclear power plant is
> an intrinsically risky, "bet the entire company",
> propsition for most
> utility companies.  The author completely missed
> this issue.  Again, it's a
> potential show stopper.
> 
> High voltage power transmission lines require a big
> footprint on the
> landscape and the US public is already rebelling
> against building more of
> them.  The author completely missed how difficult
> it's going to be to build
> the necessary new power transmission lines.  Again,
> this issue is a
> potential show stopper because, without the new
> power transmission lines,
> additional electrical generating capacity is
> virtually useless and the
> growth in electical power consumption forecast by
> the author is impossible.
> 
> I also have a big problem with the author's analysis
> of GDP growth in the
> future being almost entirely driven by electricity. 
> While it's true that a
> large portion of our recent GDP growth has come from
> electrically intensive
> activities like IT and telecommunications, this
> analysis completely ignores
> a crucial underlying fact.  IT never grew one bushel
> of corn, pumped a
> single gallon of clean water, built one car, paved 1
> mile of road, moved a
> single package of goods to market, or any of a
> million other "real world"
> activities that are required for 6.2 billion+ humans
> to live on this planet.
> IT and telecommunications are enabling technologies
> that make real world
> activities run more smoothly and efficiently.  But,
> this is not the same
> actually doing these things.  IT and
> telecommunications without the natural
> resources, manufacturing sites, expertise to run
> them, and global free flow
> of goods & services is pretty useless.  Like most
> city dwellers, the author
> does not even seem to be aware of how interconnected
> and intrinsically
> fragile the system has become.  The author seems
> bound and determined to
> rush further along this path.  I would argue in a
> world of limited
> resources, regional conflicts, and global terrorism;
> that, this is a
> disasterous policy.
> 
> The author does a pretty good job of describing the
> potential of nuclear
> power.  But, at the end of the day, the article is
> pretty naive.
> 
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com>
> To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 9:50 AM
> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy - Part
> II
> 
> 
> > This is a very lengthy but pursuasive article on
> why
> > we need more nukes.  Brad
> >
> > City Journal
> > Why the U.S. Needs More Nuclear Power
> > Peter W. Huber       Mark P. Mills
> > Winter 2005
> >
> > Your typical city dweller doesn't know just how
> much
> > coal and uranium he burns each year. On Lake Shore
> > Drive in Chicago-where the numbers are fairly
> > representative of urban America as a whole-the
> answer
> > is (roughly): four tons and a few ounces. In round
> > numbers, tons of coal generate about half of the
> > typical city's electric power; ounces of uranium,
> > about 17 percent; natural gas and hydro take care
> of
> > the rest. New York is a bit different: an
> apartment
> > dweller on the Upper West Side substitutes two
> tons of
> > oil (or the equivalent in natural gas) for
> Chicago's
> > four tons of coal. The oil-tons get burned at
> plants
> > like the huge oil/gas unit in Astoria, Queens. The
> > uranium ounces get split at Indian Point in
> > Westchester, 35 miles north of the city, as well
> as at
> > the Ginna, Fitzpatrick, and Nine Mile Point units
> > upstate, and at additional plants in Connecticut,
> New
> > Jersey, and New Hampshire.
> >
> > That's the stunning thing about nuclear power:
> tiny
> > quantities of raw material can do so much. A
> bundle of
> > enriched-uranium fuel-rods that could fit into a
> > two-bedroom apartment in Hell's Kitchen would
> power
> > the city for a year: furnaces, espresso machines,
> > subways, streetlights, stock tickers, Times
> Square,
> > everything-even our cars and taxis, if we could
> > conveniently plug them into the grid. True, you
> don't
> > want to stack fuel rods in midtown Manhattan; you
> > don't in fact want to stack them casually on top
> of
> > one another anywhere. But in suitable reactors,
> > situated, say, 50 miles from the city on a few
> hundred
> > acres of suitably fortified and well-guarded real
> > estate, two rooms' worth of fuel could electrify
> it
> > all.
> >
> > Think of our solitary New Yorker on the Upper West
> > Side as a 1,400-watt bulb that never sleeps-that's
> the
> > national per-capita average demand for electric
> power
> > from homes, factories, businesses, the lot. Our
> > average citizen burns about twice as bright at 4
> pm in
> > August, and a lot dimmer at 4 am in December;
> > grown-ups burn more than kids, the rich more than
> the
> > poor; but it all averages out: 14 floor lamps per
> > person, lit round the clock. Convert this same
> number
> > back into a utility's supply-side jargon, and a
> > million people need roughly 1.4 "gigs" of
> power-1.4
> > gigawatts (GW). Running at peak power, Entergy's
> two
> > nuclear units at Indian Point generate just under
> 2
> > GW. So just four Indian Points could take care of
> New
> > York City's 7-GW round-the-clock average. Six
> could
> > handle its peak load of about 11.5 GW. And if we
> had
> > all-electric engines, machines, and heaters out at
> the
> 
=== message truncated ===



		
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