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Tuesday, 31 October 2006 16:11 |
 | | Carl S. Milsted, Jr. |
There is something about energy that brings out the sillies in politicians. Everywhere you look you can find politicians and activists who think that "energy is different," that "the rules of economics do not apply to energy."
On one hand, you have the "peak oil" activists. They claim that the economy is going to be blindsided by a sudden drop in petroleum output. Since the market is too stupid to anticipate this event, the government needs to implement truly drastic measures NOW or there will be a massive die-off of humanity.
And I do mean drastic. These people believe it is time to return to a 1700s lifestyle. Some of them hold up poverty-stricken Cuba as an example of successful energy policy.
However,
the silliness is not limited to the peak oil fear-mongers. Our current
Republican administration has a serious case of the sillies as well.
Consider our current energy policy as follows:
ï Subsidized
ethanol from corn (dumb): Photosynthesis is 1 percent efficient at best
at converting solar energy. It takes considerable energy to plow,
plant, fertilize, and harvest the corn. Then we need energy to distill
the ethanol. The net energy yield is small, but at least we get to
destroy the environment in the process. Corn fields have far less
biodiversity than sprawling suburbs, and the bare ground under the corn
stalks is a cause of serious soil erosion.
ï Revive nuclear
power (less dumb): Done right, nuclear power is safe, clean and uses up
very little of the environment. Done wrong, and nuclear power
contaminates the environment with radioactive wastes and provides
unstable governments and terrorists with the materials to make weapons
of mass destruction. Do we really want nuclear power to be the solution
for the world? Thatës what we will be promoting by example if we go
this route. For reasons of national defense alone, we should look
elsewhere.
ï Keep burning
lots of coal (bleah): Theyëre blowing up the mountaintops in order to
provide cheap coal-based electricity. Enough said.
ï The Hydrogen
Economy (idiotic): Hydrogen may be clean-burning, but you need some
other source of energy to get the hydrogen. It is a difficult to handle
fuel: a low density gas, explosive when mixed with air, and difficult
to contain since the small molecules work their way through the
smallest of holes. As a gas, it must be put under high pressureǃÓwhich
uses up energy. Liquefaction uses up even more energy.
I pulled out my
trusty "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" this morning. Gasoline
has a specific gravity of around .66, liquid hydrogen .07. Hydrogen has
an atomic weight of about 1 while carbon is 12. Since there are just
over 2 hydrogen atoms per carbon in gasoline, hydrogen constitutes at
least 2 / (2 + 12) = 2/14 = 1/7 of the weight of gasoline. Multiply by
the specific gravity of gasoline, .66, and you get .66/7 = .094. A
gallon of gasoline has more hydrogen than a gallon of pure liquid
hydrogen!
We already have
hydrogen-powered cars. Should we wish to use hydrogen obtained from
solar, wind, or nuclear energy, the easy thing to do would be to use
that hydrogen to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels. The technology to do so
goes back to at least World War II.
I am not saying
this should be done necessarily. There are many other viable
technologies sitting on the shelf ready to replace petroleum and coal
once the prices go up. The market will determine which technologies are
best.
Impatient? Want
to cut back on fossil fuels now in order to stop global warming or for
reasons of national security? Just jack up the price of oil and let the
market do the rest.
Al Gore recently
called for doing just that. He advocates replacing the Social Security
payroll taxes with a carbon tax. Iëm beginning to think he is smarter
than President Bush, after all.
ï
Carl S. Milsted Jr. is chairman of the Libertarian Party of Buncombe County.
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