Did you see the T. Boone Pickens commercial after the debates? He’s got a plan, a hell of a lot of money, and a masterful Social Media PR company (judging from the email auto-responder when I signed up at his site). Now he’s dumping millions of dollars into commercials after presidential debates. Whether it’s the best plan or not, he’s got enough money and charisma to actually make something happen! I wish more wealthy people would make big leaps on things they cared about.
So I went to his site and after watching his videos I want to cheer out the window. Finally, someone with some power and money has generated a megaphone to tell everybody that we got a problem.
I remember liking Pickens when I saw an interview with him after he donated $165M to the Oklahoma State football program. Teachers were pissed and thought he should have donated to academics. Pickens basically said, “It’s my damn money and I’ll do whatever the hell I want with it. And I want to see my team win!” I’m paraphrasing, but I thought it was awesome because he was so real about it. He said what he wanted and what he was going to do and he did it.
Now that he IS spending that kind of crazy money for good, I feel like it’s going to make a difference, since he was so real and simple about the big football donation, I feel like he can speak an honest and simple language that people will listen to. I mean hell, I dare you to watch until the end of this video and not feel moved. When you get to the end when he starts talking about cooperation, you might go ahead and do so based on his earnestness alone.
Anyway, I’m not 100% sure on all this re-routing natural gas to automobiles stuff, and Dan and I are going to dig into this over a few posts. Stay tuned. In the meantime check out Pickens and tell us what’s on your mind.
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Current cars don’t run on natural gas. Consumers won’t buy a car they can’t get fuel for. Fuel stations won’t add that capability until there are cars that run on natural gas. Automakers won’t build ones that do in any volume until they are convinced of the demand. The switch to natural gas won’t happen.
Sorry.
Honestly I’m cooling off to Picken’s Plan with RE: n.gas cars, but I like where his hearts at and that he’s serious about doing something.
I think there is a definite market for a switch to natural gas. I don’t know about you, but everyone I know can’t seem to help but complain about the price of gasoline. Why would this alternative be ruled out if it is cheaper than gas? Most cars today have electronic fuel injection, so yeah, a conversion might not be practical, but it is possible for a lot of classic cars on the road.
This is one of the first articles I saw when I googled the topic. I think it is interesting, and I doubt many people are aware of this option.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1972-05-01/Convert-Your-Car-To-Propane.aspx
T. Boone is certainly on the right track with his promoting wind power. Were 100% of our production to overnight become entirely from wind and solar generation sources, we would have a couple of hurdles to clear before we’re able to turn on the lights, or even the HVAC system at any hour of the day or night, without browndowns and surges that blow our computer-protection breakers…
In theory we could develop enough wind production infrastructure to overcome the fact that our solar production drops to nearly zero when the sun goes down, but how do we balance the wind-load to maintain a constant stream to every utility and consumer?
Yes, co-generation and the inherent banking of surplus energy to use during the day to balance wind-load, becomes even more critical at night, when half (?) the daily peak generation represented by solar production falls off to zero.
Natural gas, like coal and “East Texas Light Sweet”, is a fossil-fuel. Sure it burns cleaner than diesel or coal, but it still burns. Ergo, by definition (or as they teach you in law school ‘res ipsa loquitur’) one day there just won’t be any fossil fuels left to burn, of any kind. As in None.
The choices that we have become limited, but not necessarily in a bad way. Hydrogen and oxygen come out of water today with nearly 85% efficiency, when a pure DC current runs through a state-of-the-art electrolysis system. My engineering guru assures me that one day soon we’ll see Noryl-stack systems that are cheap-cheap-cheap and cracking water with over 90% efficiency rates.
Yeah, so what? So, when burned together, the amount of energy released from a direct HydrOx burn Waaaaayyyyyy surpasses nitro-methane fuel in a dragster, or 100 octane low-lead with a nitrous injection system… You racing fans know what I’m talking about; suffice it to say that the energy released in the process is incredible. Ergo (again) storing energy in H2 and O2 is, by definition, efficient.
OK, if we can store excess peak power, how can we get it back again. Good question, but again, pretty easy answers. When those Noryl stacks are cheap-cheap-cheap, large banks of fuel cells can generate electricity with very little heat loss. In fact, 90% efficiencies are already possible if pure O2 is used instead of ambient air (with only 21% O2).
Not to mention the direct-burn potential, of course. Our shop has designed a system to generate “instant steam” to drive the big turbines in an emergency, promising our being able to utilize all those abandoned coal-fired plants when there’s no more coal to burn in them.
Besides, the US DOD will force us to give up burning coal for electricity production just about the time jet-aviation fuel from petroleum substrate reaches the $10 per gallon mark. Anybody want a good investment on a long-term commitment, put a couple bucks into coal-to-jet-A-fuel conversion technology. Jet fighters and bombers can’t fly on hydrogen, sportsfans… the tanks would literally have to be bigger than the ones you see on the space shuttle to boost it into orbit!
OK, if we can produce the power, and keep the load balanced with renewable co-generation and an intelligent algorithm, we still have one minor issue… How are we going to get the power from the production facilities, basically concentrated in the western US, to markets as diverse and Cali and the Pacific NW, Houston and the Third Coast, Chicago and the Midwest, and oh yeah, The Entire Eastern Seaboard, from New England to Florida ??
Transmission… One of our clients suggested to me the other day that ‘He who controls the energy, controls the economy.’ My response to him was, ‘Oh, yeah? So he who controls transmission and distribution, controls the energy.’ Who controls transmission?
No One. Right, it’s essentially a free-for-all done on a handshake and a prayer, with no concept of design efficiency or planning. It was built piecemeal, one part at a time to meet immediate demand. It is old, it is falling apart, it is totally inadequate… a vestigial analog Rube Goldberg cartoon in a blossoming digital age.
It’s going to take starting from scratch. OK, sounds like a big issue, but actually another relatively easy answer… Our national renewable-energy portfolio fits in a baby-food spoon, compared to the gluttonous banquet scheme of things.
I can hear all the wheels turning already, and it warms me. Wanna get involved in the alltime most important project in the history of the planet? The one that is actually the Real Key to breaking the cycle of global warming? The one that is a WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY better way to spend $700 Billion than buying up a collective Charlie-Foxtrot of bad mortgage debt? Feel free to email me to get aboard the “Let’s Build a National Transmission System” project! (honest, kids… it won’t really be as hard as it sounds.)
@ Doug
Ummmmm email you… how?
Well, if he’d just issue a grant to install all the wind/solar needed to start my hortaculture biz in Northern NV, I’d name one of the buildings on the property after him! Love the guy …
T. Boon Pickens may do something great for energy in america, however, he is for the privatization of water resources.
Do you remember what happened in California after power was deregulated?
my name is michael sabin and I live in gardner Kansas. I have an idea that could generate a trillion dollors of investment for the renewable energy sector. This idea would cost the goverment and taxpayer nothing. The federal goverment would issue a new type of federal bond. Let’s call this an EV bond. It would be 30 year bond and function like a normal tbill with one big exception. The money generated ( 200 billion for 5 years ) would be used to purchase, install, and connect to the grid, renewable energy ( solar, wind, wave, geothermal). 99 % of the collected revenue would go to renewable energy sources. 1% would be used by the agency to administer the program. The installed renewable energy source would then be leases to a utility or private company. The lease payment would be 50% of the gross revenue that the asset produces. The payment would go to the agency administering the plan. The agency would use the revenue to pay the interest and principal on the EV bond. The agency would turn the asset over to the lesee when the total cost of the asset and it’s installation plus the interest on the EV bond have been paid. We would use the sun, wind, waves, and earth to pay for the plan and it would cost the taxpayer $0.
