Energy Insanity (Molly Ivins)

[Up2Late]

(This is a very good article except for one extremely misleading sentence, where she says, "The trouble with the Bush plan to develop hydrogen cars is that while you can get hydrogen out of water, you have put energy in to get it out, so there's a net energy loss..." Anyone who fully understands the concept of the "Green Hydrogen Car" knows that this is wrong. "Green Hydrogen" is easy to make with a small electric charge from Solar, Wind, and even Geothermal sources. But, if the Bush plan does not consider these sources, her statement would not be completely false.)

Energy insanity

Just when you thought it was impossible, Cheney energy schemes get even worse

Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
03.29.05

AUSTIN, Texas -- As a general rule about Bush & Co., the more closely a policy is associated with Dick Cheney, the worse it is. Which brings us to energy policy -- remember his secret task force? In the long history of monumentally bad ideas, the Cheney policy is a standout for reasons of both omission and commission. Dumb, dumber and dumbest.

Ponder this: Next year, the administration will phase out the $2,000 tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle, which gets over 50 miles per gallon, but will leave in place the $25,000 tax write-off for a Hummer, which gets 10-12 mpg. That's truly crazy, and that's truly what the whole Cheney energy policy is.

According to the Energy Information Administration in the Department of Energy, last year's energy bill (same as this one) would cost taxpayers at least $31 billion, do nothing about the projected over-80 percent increase in America's imports of foreign oil by 2025, and increase gasoline prices. (Since every bureaucrat who tells the truth in this administration -- about the cost of the drug bill or the safety of Vioxx -- seems to get the ax, I'm probably getting those folks in trouble.)

(clip)

...And as Tom Friedman recently pointed out, it would do a lot for world peace, too: "By doing nothing to lower U.S. oil consumption, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world. That is, we are financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars and we are financing the jihadists -- and the Saudi, Sudanese and Iranian mosques and charities that support them -- through our gasoline purchases."

[patricia92243]

1. $25,000 tax write off for a Hummer? WHY???

[Up2Late]

6. Hey, it WAS a $100,000.00 write off, at least 25,000.00 is better...

...(for the non-rich).

I think it was part of the 2001 Mega-Tax Cut bill, that gave a $100,000.00 tax write off for "business vehicles" up to 6000 pounds.

It was supposed to be for work vehicles, like Pick-up trucks, full-size work vans and delivery vehicles, but that section of the bill was so broadly written (didn't specify which vehicles qualified) that every SUV qualifies too, all the way up to a 6000 lb. Fully Loaded HUMMER.:mad:

[rfkrfk]

9. a business expense is a business expense

The issue is, should this vehicle be considered
some type of 'unreasonable executive perk' {my term},
for which different rules apply, as to how
the business keeps the vehicle on the books.

[SmartBomb]

2. I've wondered about this, and the only explanation I can come up with is

they need us strung out on oil. If they advance a culture of greed, waste, and eco-indifference, they figure we are more likely to support their efforts to take it through conquest.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. No - Molly Ivins is right (even if she is a Texan)

Molly Ivins wrote:

" "The trouble with the Bush plan to develop hydrogen cars is that while you can get hydrogen out of water, you have put energy in to get it out, so there's a net energy loss..."

To which you responded:

"Anyone who fully understands the concept of the "Green Hydrogen Car" knows that this is wrong. "Green Hydrogen" is easy to make with a small electric charge from Solar, Wind, and even Geothermal sources. But, if the Bush plan does not consider these sources, her statement would not be completely false."

It's not just a "small electric charge" - continuous current flow to get a meaningful amount of hydrogen.

About 25%-27% of our energy goes for "transportation" (ref:http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/02flow.php)

To supply the equivalent amount of hydrogen solely by photovoltaic generated electricity to decompose the water would mean "glassing over" about 20% of our land area with photovoltaic cells (back of the envelope calculation).

So, the only way a "hydrogen car" makes sense is with nuclear power to generate the electricity to decompose the massive amounts of water to get the massive amounts of hydrogen we would need.

[Up2Late]

7. The data you reference is wrong, for a number of reasons

First, it was prepared without Hydrogen even represented in anyway in the chart. On the same site, their is is an updated report that does begin to include Hydrogen at: <http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/pdf/ucrlTR204891.pdf>
But even this still make the assumption that we will accept, what are currently 50 year old standards of efficiency, 50 years from now and that the non-nuclear and fossil fuels technology and their efficiency will not improve or become less costly to build (i.e. Solar panels cost X amount, and will always cost X amount, which is too expensive). It also assumes the use of Solar and Wind will not increase.

Next, it assumes a 1 to 1 replacement ratio (H2 for Fossil fuel). This is a false assumption. Electricity re-generation from Hydrogen, is far More efficient by about 10x. See the link in the box below.
Most of the data I'm referring to is from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) Info About RMI

Inflating Hydrogen Needs - In an unpublished letter to Science, Amory Lovins points out that CalTech researchers overstated by about tenfold the amount of hydrogen that would be needed to run the U.S. economy. This continues a series of technical errors by the same group, including its famous two-order-of-magnitude overestimate of how much hydrogen might leak from a hydrogen-based energy system, ostensibly endangering the ozone layer. See E03-02 (02 February 2004).

For anyone else reading this, I say Re-generation because this points to another common assumption, that Hydrogen is a "Energy source," Hydrogen is a energy storage medium, which is then used to regenerate the energy stored.

Seeing how re-writing someone else's excellent research would be pointless and a waste of time, I'll instead just recommend you or anyone else see the paper at this link:
Twenty Hydrogen Myths

Their is more good data at these links to, below:

Rocky Mountain Institute

4hydrogen.com

Fuel Cell Store

The Hydrogen Fuel Cell Institute

Hydrogenics

This page is particularly interesting, because it's inside the Hydrogen industry News that involves this Canadian company Hydogenics, which is way ahead of the competition.
NEWS RELEASES

If anyone wants to see how "Fuel Cell" works, here is a link to an excellent animation.

We're much further down the Hydrogen Highway than these Texas Oilmen are leading us to believe.:hippie:

[Coastie for Truth]

8. Some comments

I am not an amateur about fuel cells --> made one for the old Westinghouse High School Talent Search, and part of my PhD work was on diffusivity, D, of various cations through Nafion type proton selective membranes (what Hydrogenics calls the "electrode" - the "electrodes" are actually the anode and cathode, and when the anode, the membrane, and the cathode are laminated or bonded together you have what is now also called an electrode). I also know Amory (Lovins) - and Stan Ovshinsky - and Vittorio deNora - and Karl Kodesch -- and "CC" Liu --- and Bob Savinelle -- and Berekley's John Newman all personally.

I used the chart to get the total amount of hydrocarbon BTU's used in transportation, and figured that with 2nd Law Carnot efficiency versus electrochemical efficiency, and heat engine-transmission inefficiency versus electric motor efficiency (and regenerative braking), a hydrocarbon IC has only about 1/5th the overall efficiency of the hydrogen fuel cell. This corresponds to the numbers in the annual IEEE Spectrum "Automotive Electronics" issue, and to the numbers in the poster sessions at the SAE meetings.

Using numbers for state of the art amorphous Si fuel cells - that comes out to glassing over about 20% of the land area of the US. (If the total energy losses in electrolysis to get H2 and subsequent fuel cell recombination to recover electricity was as bad as the total losses in petroleum refining and burning hydrocarbons -----). That's why I said we have to accept nuclear generation of electricity to electrolyze H2O to get H2 as a carrier of energy, which is released upon recombination in a fuel cell.

I never said hydrogen is an "energy source" -- I said it is a way of moving energy from the electrolysis cell - via the fuel cell and an electric motor - to the traction wheels. I used to teach thermo!

I am very familiar with "Twenty Hydrogen Myths" -- to some extent it grew out of an Amory Lovins/Stan Ovshinsky Lecture and Seminar. When it comes to the "transportation" and "storage" myths - I am extremely familiar with the "solid state ally" solution (roughly the same alloy as in Metal Hydride batteries --- the basis of the Shell Oil and TexacoChevron systems. You may want to check out Mike Fetcenko's work in this area.)

My present contract is evaluating an on site natural gas reformer in series with an on site fuel cell and power converter (DC->AC) as a distributed generation system for an office park.

[TwentyFive]

4. Yes - but I think Molly is all wrong on this. What about the Rapture?

Look - if oil prices & demand go way up....won't that make for a more unstable world...everybody fighting over a dwindling supply of oil? This will make war & poverty much more likely.

Why should we oppose all this? I'm mean, this is just gonna bring the Rapture that much closer. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!! </sarcasm>

[TwentyFive]

5. >self-delete<