DIY Energy Policy
Energy Thinkers Ponder The Future
The NYTimes blog posed several question to a group of energy experts. In spirit with Obama's acceptance speech, I thought it would useful to try to answer the questions myself before reading someone else's answers:
My answers are below the fold:
1) What should the new administration's top three energy priorities be? What can and should the administration push in terms of energy in its first 100 days?
- Encouraging individual conservation and frugality: Stats reveal that people are already driving less, installing better windows, buying CF bulbs, and the like. Unfortunately, businesses that depend on free-spending consumers are already cutting back, if not going out of business. Obama will have to lead us through a painful period of austerity.
- Low-energy transportation planning: Fund rail & trolley systems, assign safe bike lanes along streets, etc. I'd support limited funding for alt fuel vehicles.
- Low-energy planning & development: Make it possible for people to live closer to where the jobs will be.
2) What do the election results signify for the future of renewable energy?
There will certainly be more government funding of renewable energy, but development really depends on reviving the financial markets. Ethanol is not renewable energy, and seems to be dying on the vine. I'd like to see all energy projects required to pass a thorough environmental impact gauntlet.
3) How likely is it that a meaningful cap-and-trade bill to limit carbon-dioxide emissions will pass Congress and be signed by the President in the next year?
Even with a Democratic majority, I don't think Congress has the votes. Such a bill would be seen as anti-prosperity during a recession.
4) After 4 years, will the new administration have moved us closer to severing our dependence on foreign oil?
Only higher costs or lack of availability will sever our dependence on foreign oil. Obama could raise taxes on fossil fuels, and a lot of other things, to encourage conservation, but again, such actions will be deeply unpopular during a recession.
The NYTimes blog posed several question to a group of energy experts. In spirit with Obama's acceptance speech, I thought it would useful to try to answer the questions myself before reading someone else's answers:
1) What should the new administration's top three energy priorities be? What can and should the administration push in terms of energy in its first 100 days?
2) What do the election results signify for the future of renewable energy?
3) How likely is it that a meaningful cap-and-trade bill to limit carbon-dioxide emissions will pass Congress and be signed by the President in the next year?
4) After 4 years, will the new administration have moved us closer to severing our dependence on foreign oil?
My answers are below the fold:
1) What should the new administration's top three energy priorities be? What can and should the administration push in terms of energy in its first 100 days?
- Encouraging individual conservation and frugality: Stats reveal that people are already driving less, installing better windows, buying CF bulbs, and the like. Unfortunately, businesses that depend on free-spending consumers are already cutting back, if not going out of business. Obama will have to lead us through a painful period of austerity.
- Low-energy transportation planning: Fund rail & trolley systems, assign safe bike lanes along streets, etc. I'd support limited funding for alt fuel vehicles.
- Low-energy planning & development: Make it possible for people to live closer to where the jobs will be.
2) What do the election results signify for the future of renewable energy?
There will certainly be more government funding of renewable energy, but development really depends on reviving the financial markets. Ethanol is not renewable energy, and seems to be dying on the vine. I'd like to see all energy projects required to pass a thorough environmental impact gauntlet.
3) How likely is it that a meaningful cap-and-trade bill to limit carbon-dioxide emissions will pass Congress and be signed by the President in the next year?
Even with a Democratic majority, I don't think Congress has the votes. Such a bill would be seen as anti-prosperity during a recession.
4) After 4 years, will the new administration have moved us closer to severing our dependence on foreign oil?
Only higher costs or lack of availability will sever our dependence on foreign oil. Obama could raise taxes on fossil fuels, and a lot of other things, to encourage conservation, but again, such actions will be deeply unpopular during a recession.
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I am with you on your responses to #1. One of the problems, however, is the lack of real authority on the part of the feds for metropolitan land use decisions.
They may be able to get around it by giving priority for transportation funds to projects that fit in sensibly with land use changes--i.e. make land use planning a part of the evaluation process for federal funding.
Part of Obama's infrastructure plan is to create an infrastructure "bank" that would take the politics out of funding decisions and increase the amount and predictability of infrastructure funding. Since Dodd and Hegel are the main Senate sponsors of the legislation establishing such a fund, it might be a good way to pursue his "bipartisan" cred.
Question #4 is misleading since it ignores the distinction Obama made between "foreign" oil and imports from the Middle East. Obama wants to reduce our "dependence" on Middle Eastern oil. Much of our oil imports are from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.
I can't recall the figures from Saudi and Kuwait--they are significant--but with proper efficiency standards and land use reform, we could certainly decrease the percentage.
November 6, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know I harp on this, but without question, Obama has an additional arrow in his energy/climate change quiver. Namely, he personally wants to see plug-in hybrids (and EV's) grow, shifting us from oil to domestic electricity, supplied by renewables like wind (and solar), and supplied to the cities by an improved grid.
Not only did he sponsor a major PHEV piece of legislation (and talk about it to Detroit), his interview just last week with Rachel Maddow shows he "gets" how cars-oil-electricity-renewables links to infrastructure.
I have to say I'm impressed as hell by his grasp of the possibility of new vehicles/batteries and the link to reducing oil use, but to then get that we can supply this with wind-farms (and solar), and then link THAT to an improved grid - this guy has a brain.
Chicago is a city where these sorts of ideas aren't just talk, but very real - and large - business propositions. In short, the wind resource which many major investors want to bring online in the Dakotas and Iowa (including Buffett, a major owner of Mid-American) is presently blocked from the Chicago market by grid weakness in mid-Wisconsin. This is bread & butter talk out here.
How large could this be? Well, we're in an area of 1.2 million people & plug-in's that can get just 5 miles per kwh mean a 200 MW wind-farm can supply 50% of the gas/diesel used by our passenger vehicles. That's ONE moderately-sized wind-farm.
As for the Grid & Renewables, the key thing plug-in's will ADD is "storage" capacity. Renewables vary in their output, and the grid has to manage that. If you add storage (in batteries) to it, the studies are saying we can add not just 20% wind/solar to our electricity mix, but 50%. In short, adding plug-in's vastly improves the grid and enables it to take MORE renewables. But you need the larger Grid interconnects to get it out of the windier areas and into cities.
November 6, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Harp away, that's why I posted the questions.
What frightens me about EVs is the battery technology.
Imagine having to buy one car for driving twenty miles to work, and another for driving eighty miles to Grandma's house. Batteries can be very fussy about how deep you discharge them, and discharging them the wrong way can both shorten their life and reduce their capacity for recharge.
Imagine buying a new car then replacing the engine after four or five years. The Tesla not only costs over $100K but will cost another $10K to replace batteries every five years.
Hybrids seem to work the batteries more effectively.
November 6, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The range issue revolves around the choice between Hybrids, Plug-In's (PHEVs) and All-Electric Vehicles. Hybrids & PHEVs allow you to go 5 miles or 5000, simply because they have a gas tank & ICE on-board - while EV's are limited by the distance between charges. The reason PHEVs are a game changer for most North Americans is that 60% of our trips (and mileage) are less than 40 miles/day. So you can add 8-16 kwh's of batteries (for $4-$8,000), and cover that 40 miles on a single charge. Critically, you can also drive 80 or 800 miles with a PHEV, because you still have a gas engine & gas tank.
The battery type best for each of these 3 also varies greatly, which I think is what you're getting at, Donal. Hybrids have limited batteries (1.3 kwh in a Prius), but ones with high power/Energy ratios. This gives them lots of oomph when starting or passing, but they're more expensive - and they can't give you that 40 miles every day on electricity like a PHEV.
PHEV batteries have more energy, less power, and are cheaper. The cycle life has vastly improved with the new lithium-ion batteries (with some fully capable of reaching 5-10,000 cycles, i.e. well over 10 years.) Managing the state of charge and discharge strategy is an area of huge research right now, with companies expanding the amount of discharge the system permits (to protect the battery) from 50% up to 80%. This means you'd only have to buy 10 kwh's of battery to get 8 kwh's usable, rather than 16 kwh's, right?
And these newer systems all have complex battery management systems, to ensure they're not too deeply discharged; to manage heat build-up (which is much less in the newer chemistries, like lithium-phosphate); to monitor them over time; etc.
My point is that PHEVs are now walking into a zone where they can take off in North America (as hybrids are), while EV's still face the uphill climb here, simply because they're not fully useful for people who need to travel longer distances (e.g. to the cottage.) Where they WILL surge is in large parts if Asia, in smaller European countries, on island nations etc. - i.e. where no one really has to travel more than 100 miles at a time.
November 6, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want the safe bike lanes in every city in the country. I also want safe bike lanes to extend to within a certain miles outside of any city. Also, accidents between motorists with bicyclists should carry a more hefty legal response. Bicycling as a commuting venture should be made completely safe. Just saying.
November 7, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink