Bipartisan Support For The Pickens Plan

I blogged three weeks ago on Democrats and the Pickens Plan - a plan that includes everything from offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR to exploiting oil shale and natural gas. Its a kitchen sink plan with all of the above being in addition to pursuing development of alternative energy - something the left apparently hasn't yet grasped from their endorsements above. Unfortunately, all of the video was from Red Lasso which has now been shut down by law suits from the MSM. This you tube video from the Republicans via Hot Air makes the points just as well.

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Corrupt Big Air & Nancy Pelosi's Appearance of Impropriety

Even as Nancy Pelosi stands foresquare against exploiting our oil and gas resources, it turns out that she invested somewhere between a hundred thousand to a quarter million of her personal money in the T. Boone Pickens firm Clean Energy Fuels Corporation. That corporation is engaged now in building the largest windfarm in the U.S. I am not sure what the House ethics rules have to say on this, but the appearance of impropriety here is huge.

Beyond Speaker Pelosi's conflict of interest, there is a write-up today on corruption associated with "Big Air" in the NYT. It would seem that all the government subsidies are having a corrupting influence indeed, particularly in NY.

This from the NYT:

BURKE, N.Y. — Everywhere that Janet and Ken Tacy looked, the wind companies had been there first.

Dozens of people in their small town had already signed lease options that would allow wind towers on their properties. Two Burke Town Board members had signed private leases even as they negotiated with the companies to establish a zoning law to permit the towers. A third board member, the Tacys said, bragged about the commissions he would earn by selling concrete to build tower bases. And, the Tacys said, when they showed up at a Town Board meeting to complain, they were told to get lost.

“There were a couple of times when they told us to just shut up,” recalled Mr. Tacy, sitting in his kitchen on a recent evening.

Lured by state subsidies and buoyed by high oil prices, the wind industry has arrived in force in upstate New York, promising to bring jobs, tax revenue and cutting-edge energy to the long-struggling region. But in town after town, some residents say, the companies have delivered something else: an epidemic of corruption and intimidation, as they rush to acquire enough land to make the wind farms a reality.

“It really is renewable energy gone wrong,” said the Franklin County district attorney, Derek P. Champagne, who began a criminal inquiry into the Burke Town Board last spring and was quickly inundated with complaints from all over the state about the wind companies. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo agreed this year to take over the investigation.

“It’s a modern-day gold rush,” Mr. Champagne said.

Mr. Cuomo is investigating whether wind companies improperly influenced local officials to get permission to build wind towers, as well as whether different companies colluded to divide up territory and avoid bidding against one another for the same land.

The industry appears to be shying away from trying to erect the wind farms in more affluent areas downstate, even where the wind is plentiful, like Long Island.

. . . [C]orruption is a major concern. In at least 12 counties, Mr. Champagne said, evidence has surfaced about possible conflicts of interest or improper influence.

In Prattsburgh, N.Y., a Finger Lakes community, the town supervisor cast the deciding vote allowing private land to be condemned to make way for a wind farm there, even after acknowledging that he had accepted real estate commissions on at least one land deal involving the farm’s developer.

A town official in Bellmont, near Burke, took a job with a wind company after helping shepherd through a zoning law to permit and regulate the towers, according to local residents. And in Brandon, N.Y., nearby, the town supervisor told Mr. Champagne that after a meeting during which he proposed a moratorium on wind towers, he had been invited to pick up a gift from the back seat of a wind company representative’s car.

When the supervisor, Michael R. Lawrence, looked inside, according to his complaint to Mr. Champagne, he saw two company polo shirts and a leather pouch that he suspected contained cash.

When Mr. Lawrence asked whether the pouch was part of the gift, the representative replied, “That’s up to you,” according to the complaint.

. . . The industry’s interest in New York’s North Country is driven by several factors. The area is mostly rural, with thousands of acres of farmland near existing energy transmission lines. Moreover, under a program begun in 2004, the state is entering into contracts to buy renewable energy credits, effectively subsidizing wind power until it can compete against power produced more cheaply from coal or natural gas.

. . . “You’re talking about a poor farming community out here,” said Brent A. Trombly, a former town supervisor of Ellenburg, which approved a law to allow and establish regulations for the wind towers in 2003. “Our only natural resources are stone and wind.”

For some farmers, he said, the wind leases were their last chance to hold onto land that had been in the family for generations. Supporters also say that the wind towers bring in badly needed tax revenue.

“We see this industry coming, we see the payments coming in,” said William K. Wood, a former Burke Town Board member who also signed a lease option. The school board of Chateaugay, he pointed out, received $332,800 this year from Noble for payments in lieu of taxes, money that the district used to lower school taxes, upgrade its computers and provide a prekindergarten class for the first time. . . .

Read the entire article. There is no problem with the communities fighting this out in the public square. The problem is when the system becomes corrupted - and in this case, that starts with government subsidies. And people like Nancy Pelosi.

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Part I: The Economics of Alternative Energy (Updated)

Alternative energy forms are coming closer to being economically viable, but all still have a ways to go and some, such as wind power, have unique problems that make large scale reliance on that energy form problematic. Indeed, none of the alternative energy forms are at the point where they can substitute cost effectively and without unintended consequences for oil and gas.
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This is Part I of what is planned to be a series of four posts on our energy alternatives.

Part II - Oil & The Hostile Domestic Regulatory Environment

Part III - Why Exploit Our Domestic Oil Resources

This from Rebecca Smith writing in the WSJ in February, 2007 provides an excellent overview of the status of alternative energy forms at that time. There have been advances and, in some cases, observation of unintended consequences that I address at the end of her article:

. . . For years, the big criticism of alternative energy was cost: It was too expensive compared with energy based on traditional fuels like coal and natural gas.

Even though the fuel was often free -- such as wind or the sun's rays -- alternative-energy producers had to plow lots of money into finding the best way to capture that energy and convert it into electricity.

. . . Alternative energy still can't compete with fossil fuels on price. But the margins are narrowing, particularly since oil and gas prices have been rising. . . .

Alternative energy still faces obstacles to mainstream success. Many projects need government or utility subsidies and incentives to be viable. Generating costs have risen recently for some types of renewable resources, pushed by higher materials prices, labor costs and demand. Supply chains are prone to hiccups, and wind and solar-energy resources need backup sources of power to compensate on windless or cloudy days.

For all its promise, relatively little electricity currently comes from renewable sources, other than hydropower. According to the Energy Information Administration, renewable resources produced 2.3% of the U.S. electricity supply in 2005. Bio-mass was responsible for 1.5%, wind for 0.44%, geothermal for 0.36% and solar power for a scant 0.01%.

In contrast, coal-fired generation produced 49.7% of U.S. electricity supplies in 2005, followed by nuclear power at 19.3%, natural gas at 19.1%, hydropower at 6.5% and oil-fired generation at 3%.

. . . Here's a look at the economics of the various alternative-energy sources -- how much they cost now and what developments could make them more competitive.

WIND

Wind power stands out as one of the splashiest success stories in renewable energy. Over the past 10 years, as wind farms sprouted around the world, the cost of generating electricity from wind has fallen dramatically.

In 1980, wind-power electricity cost 80 cents per kilowatt hour; by 1991 it cost 10 cents, according to the International Energy Agency.

Today, production costs at the best on-shore sites have dropped as low as 3 cents to 4 cents per kilowatt hour, but are more typically 6 cents to 9 cents, not counting subsidies -- getting closer to the cost of generating electricity from burning coal. In fact, costs are approaching the point where wind power may be able to prosper without subsidies -- currently 1.9 cents a kilowatt hour in the U.S. -- particularly if natural-gas prices stay high.

The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration has concluded that there isn't much difference between the cost of new power plants using wind and other traditional fuels, such as nuclear, coal and natural gas, if you take into account a broad array of expenses. A plant entering service in 2015, the administration said in a 2006 report, could make electricity from wind for 5.58 cents a kilowatt hour -- versus 5.25 cents for natural gas, 5.31 cents for coal and 5.93 cents for nuclear. The report didn't quantify the differing environmental impacts.

A host of factors have brought down the cost of wind power. The materials used in wind turbines have improved, and the turbines are now much larger and more efficient: 125 meters in rotor diameter, compared with 10 meters in the 1970s. The cost of financing wind farms also has dropped as financial markets become more comfortable with the risks involved.

Governments have also given wind power a boost. In Germany, the largest wind-power producer, the government has been giving grants to builders of wind farms since the late 1980s, and requires utilities to buy electricity generated from renewable sources at premium rates. The extra cost is passed on to consumers.

In the U.S., the extension of the federal Production Tax Credit -- which gives tax credits to alternative-energy companies -- has spurred record development over the past two years, as have state renewable-procurement targets. The nation's wind-power generating capacity increased by 27% in 2006 to 11,603 megawatts, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Only gas-fired generators added more megawatts of capacity in the U.S. . . .

. . . By the end of 2005, there were about 59,000 megawatts of total installed capacity of wind power world-wide, enough for the needs of roughly 20 million homes. Two-thirds of that capacity is in Europe; Germany, Spain, the U.S., India and Denmark are the top five producers of wind power.

Wind power faces hurdles. Factors like location, wind speeds and capital costs have a big impact on the cost of generating wind power. The price of 3 cents to 4 cents per kilowatt hour only holds at sites with the best wind conditions. In some places with less wind, costs can still be as high as 20 cents per kilowatt hour. Meanwhile, a shortage of turbines the past couple of years has pushed up construction costs in the U.S., as has a weak dollar. . . .

SOLAR

For decades, solar power has endured cycles of booms and busts as investors made big bets only to watch the technology fail to achieve its promise. Solar power still accounts for less than 1% of the world's power generation, with 5,400 megawatts of capacity on line, enough for the daytime needs of 2 million to 3 million homes. (Solar power doesn't generate electricity at night, meaning backup energy sources are needed.)

One reason there's relatively little solar electricity is that traditional solar panels aren't very efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. So most solar electricity is made and consumed at a single site -- and in many cases isn't even enough to meet the needs of a single house. A recent study by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities found that it cost about $77,500 to install a 10 kilowatt-capacity system on a house. Without subsidies, it would take 50 years to pay for itself. With subsidies, it dropped to 9.6 years.

In all, the cost of generating electricity with solar panels is 35 cents to 45 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the International Energy Agency. In the U.S., costs are typically less -- 26 cents to 35 cents -- because there's better sun, says the U.S. Solar Energy Industry Association.

Now, however, a new generation of solar plants is on the cusp of being able to produce electricity on an industrial scale at competitive rates. The new plants use a technology called concentrating solar power, or CSP, which is much more powerful than the classic photovoltaic panels, which use semiconductor chips to convert sunlight into electricity. CSP plants use huge arrays of mirrors or solar dishes to track the sun and collect its heat to make electricity. The plants can generate hundreds of megawatts of power, closer to what fossil-fueled plants make.

The major hurdle remains bringing generating costs in line with those of conventional power plants. It costs 9 cents to 12 cents to generate one kilowatt hour of electricity by CSP -- not counting any subsidies -- compared with about 3 cents to 5 cents to generate the same amount of electricity by burning coal.

Tom Mancini, CSP program manager at the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratories, says three factors make CSP plants more expensive than a traditional coal plant even though the raw material -- the sun's rays -- is free. Because the technology is so new, the equipment is pricey in itself and costs more to operate and maintain. And financing such projects is costly because of the perceived risk. CSP is a young technology: Only 6% of solar energy is generated by CSP technology, with the lion's share still coming from traditional solar panels that typically are heavily subsidized by homeowners.

For now, CSP still needs government support to be viable, either in the form of tax breaks to builders of plants or subsidies to buyers of electricity. The industry scored a major coup in 2006 with the creation of a U.S. tax credit that equals 30% of a solar project's cost. A growing system of state-sponsored renewable-energy credits also gives developers a valuable revenue stream. The credits are bought and sold by businesses and utilities trying to meet greenhouse-gas reduction goals.

. . . Energy experts argue that as more CSP plants go into operation, the technology will improve and costs will come down. But with current costs high, few companies are willing to take the risk of building without significant government incentives. "It's a chicken-and-egg situation," says Mr. Mancini.

BIOMASS

Although it doesn't get much public attention, biomass is the biggest source of renewable electricity in the U.S. today -- producing more electricity than wind, solar and geothermal sources combined.

Biomass refers to the conversion of plant matter into a transportation fuel (biofuel) or electricity (biopower), usually by incinerating waste material or creating combustible gas through chemical processes. A significant amount of electricity also is made by gathering and burning landfill gas.

It's a growing area of interest because methane, created by decaying organic material, is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide -- so people are anxious to put it to use and keep it out of the atmosphere. Many cities also burn solid waste to cut down the volume destined for landfill sites, and they're eager to convert the garbage to something useful.

The biggest biomass power generators in the U.S. aren't utilities. They're forest-products companies with big sawmill and pulp operations, like International Paper Co., Weyerhaeuser Co. and Koch Industries' Georgia-Pacific Corp. Weyerhaeuser, for example, makes electricity by reusing waste heat and by burning hog fuel, or wood waste, and black liquor, a pulp-mill byproduct. It sells the power it produces -- equivalent to the annual energy needs of 140,000 homes -- to local utilities.

Because biomass plants typically are small -- usually less than 50 megwatts in capacity, or one-tenth the size of a conventional fossil-fuel power plant -- equipment costs are high relative to the amount of power produced. That, in turn, makes generating costs somewhat high -- currently, about 5 cents to 10 cents a kilowatt hour without subsidies.

Power costs are also related to the cost of fuel and the amount of heat embedded in it. As many homeowners know, there's more energy locked in an oak log than a pine log. The same holds true for biomass power generation -- some fuels make more heat and, thus, electricity. Better numbers can also be achieved by mixing plant matter with fossil fuels, like coal, and burning them together at large plants to capture the greater efficiencies.

Costs are expected to come down as technology improves and as more waste material gets redirected to electricity production, providing a cheap fuel stream. Many experts believe biomass will expand dramatically in coming years as more industries look for ways to make electricity out of their waste, diverting more material away from landfill sites.

A recent study by the California Biomass Collaborative, a government and industry group, concluded there are 80 million tons of plant material produced in California each year that could be diverted to biomass use. About 30 million tons are practically available. The study said those 30 million tons could be converted into 2,500 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to five large gas-fired plants, and 1.3 billion gallons of transportation fuel at competitive prices.

Biomass has gotten a jolt from renewable-portfolio standards embraced by nearly half the states, which require utilities to get electricity from renewable resources. In California, for instance, the state's energy agencies have set a rough goal of having biomass sources generate 4% of the state's power by 2010.

GEOTHERMAL

Geothermal energy -- tapping heat deep in the Earth to generate power -- may have more potential, at less impact to society, than any of the other alternative resources. A new study on geothermal energy, produced by an interdisciplinary team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that geothermal energy could produce 10% of the nation's electricity by 2050 at prices that would be competitive with fossil fuels.

Geothermal heat is turned into electricity through a number of methods. In general, producers drill into the ground to release steam and water that have been naturally heated and, until then, trapped. These are used to power a turbine and generator, making electricity. Liquids are reinjected into the ground to keep the process running.

Currently, geothermal energy costs about 6 cents to 10 cents a kilowatt hour, without subsidies. The main expense is actually drilling the holes and building power plants on top of them. And expertise is needed to properly manage a site to make sure the right amount of liquid is cycled through the geothermal source to extract the heat.

The amount of electricity produced depends on many things, including the size of the geothermal field, water pressure and temperature and how quickly the field can heat and release water.

Geothermal energy is especially valuable because it makes electricity around the clock, unlike solar or wind power that require backup sources of generation. Also, unlike wind and solar installations, geothermal plants have a small footprint -- smaller, even, than many fossil-fuel power plants. Advancements in equipment are making it possible to generate electricity with lower-temperature geothermal resources, and new drilling techniques let producers plumb greater depths.

Today, there's about 8,000 megawatts of installed geothermal capacity globally, with 3,000 megawatts in the U.S., the top producer. Mostly, it has been developed where heat is easily accessed and is accompanied by water and porous rock. The biggest developed field in the U.S. lies 72 miles north of San Francisco at The Geysers. Nineteen of the 21 plants at the site are owned by Calpine Corp., which makes 725 megawatts of electricity there, equivalent to one and a half large conventional power plants.

The MIT study found that far more geothermal electricity could be generated if companies -- especially oil companies -- leveraged their knowledge of drilling techniques, geology and hydrology to tackle the problem. An investment of $800 million to $1 billion in research and development would be required, equivalent to the expense of a single coal-fired plant.

The initial units would make electricity for 10 cents or so a kilowatt hour but later plants would see costs fall to 5 cents a kilowatt hour, probably within a decade, as processes became more refined. That would make geothermal operations competitive with modern gas-fired plants. But backers say that for geothermal energy to thrive, supportive policies are needed, including loan guarantees, depletion allowances, tax credits and accelerated depreciation -- things oil, gas and minerals-extraction companies get.

Still, geothermal energy does come with a caveat: Heat sources can be depleted if not carefully managed. At The Geysers, for instance, operators have had to retire at least half a dozen generating units, even though the field was developed largely only in the 1970s and 1980s.

BIOFUELS

Interest in alternative transportation fuels -- mostly ethanol -- soared following President Bush's declaration a year ago that the U.S. is "addicted to oil." Many potential fuels are being discussed, from biodiesel to hydrogen. Most of the buzz is around what's already by far the biggest alternative transportation fuel in the U.S.: ethanol made from corn.

There's lots of talk about the possibility of using ethanol as a standalone fuel to power cars. But virtually all the ethanol consumed in the U.S. today is used in a less-sexy way: It's blended into normal gasoline.

That's done mostly in parts of the country with bad air-pollution problems, because adding ethanol to gasoline reduces smog-causing emissions from the cars that burn the fuel. Ethanol also is used as a gasoline "extender."

The cost of producing ethanol depends largely on the cost of corn, ethanol's main feedstock. It also depends on the cost of the energy -- typically natural gas -- used to power the process that turns the corn into ethanol. Keith Collins, chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, estimates that today it costs about $1.60 to produce a gallon of ethanol.

Ethanol producers sell their brew on a wholesale market -- sometimes to gasoline refiners and sometimes to middlemen who sell to those refiners. The price of ethanol typically rises and falls with that of gasoline, which itself is a function of the global oil price. Ethanol typically has sold for up to 51 cents per gallon more than gasoline, because the federal government gives ethanol blenders a 51-cent-per-gallon tax break to encourage production of the supplemental fuel.

. . . Ethanol's per-gallon price premium over gasoline widened to more than $1. Margins for ethanol producers ballooned. Yet by late last year, the ethanol boom was cooling. The sudden profitability of the ethanol business, combined with increasing federal requirements for the production of alternative fuels, sparked a rush of investment in new ethanol plants.

Meanwhile, gasoline prices, and thus ethanol prices, were falling from their mid-2006 highs. The production costs for ethanol were also rising, largely because the rush to produce more ethanol had driven up the price of the fuel's main feedstock, corn.

On Friday, the price of ethanol for March delivery closed at $2.06 a gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade, and the price of gasoline for March delivery closed at $1.61 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Where ethanol prices will go from here is a matter of debate. President Bush, in his State of the Union speech last month, laid out an ambitious target for the U.S. to consume about 35 billion gallons of ethanol and other alternative transportation fuels by 2017. (The U.S. currently consumes about 5.2 billion gallons of ethanol per year.)

Reaching the numbers outlined by President Bush won't be easy. It probably would require significantly increasing the concentration of ethanol that's blended into gasoline. That, paradoxically, is a move that scientists say raises potential air-pollution problems of its own. Studies show that while ethanol added to gasoline in low concentrations helps reduce certain emissions, such as carbon monoxide, it tends to increase some other emissions.

Another option to meet the government mandate would be to increase the use of ethanol as a standalone fuel. That would require the installation of ethanol pumps at gas stations -- a move that could cost the oil industry billions of dollars.

Read the entire article.

Here are some updates to the information above:

Wind:

This is the centerpiece of T. Boone Pickens plan. He wants to see 20% or more of the countries electical generation capacity coming from wind power. As he writes:

Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains States are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world — by far.

The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America's electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country.

Today's wind turbines stand up to 410 feet tall, with blades that stretch 148 feet in length. The blades collect the wind's kinetic energy. In one year, a 3-megawatt wind turbine produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of imported oil.

Wind power currently accounts for 48 billion kWh of electricity a year in the United States — enough to serve more than 4.5 million households. That is still only about 1% of current demand, but the potential of wind is much greater.

A 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over — even if only 20% of wind power could be captured.

Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.

That's a lot of money, but it's a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it's a bargain.

I have not seen any major criticisms of this plan yet to be able to start to judge its viability. I do know that wind generated power has proven problematic elsewhere when tried at large scale. For example, this is the criticism by Christopher Booker, a columnist for the Telegraph, of an equally ambitious plan in the UK and Europe:

. . . [B]ecause wind power is so unpredictable and needs other sources available at a moment's notice, it is generally accepted that any contribution above 10 per cent made by wind to a grid dangerously destabilises it.

Two years ago, much of western Europe blacked out after a rush of German windpower into the continental grid forced other power stations to close down. The head of Austria's grid warned that the system was becoming so unbalanced by the "excessive" building of wind turbines that Europe would soon be "confronted with massive connector problems". Yet Mr Hutton's turbines would require a system capable of withstanding power swings of up to 33GW, when the only outside backup on which our island grid can depend is a 2GW connector to France (which derives 80 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power).

Nothing better illustrates the fatuity of windpower than the fact that Denmark, with the highest concentration of turbines in the world, must export more than 80 per cent of its wind-generated electricity to Norway, to prevent its grid being swamped when the wind is blowing, while remaining heavily reliant the rest of the time on power from Sweden and Germany.

The Danes, who decided in 2002 to build no more turbines, have learnt their lesson. . . .

UPDATE: No Oil For Pacifists blogs on a National Review article that analyzes the Pickens plan and finds it wanting for much the same reasons as Chris Booker articulates. Here is a part of the post:

. . . Electricity must be consumed the moment it is generated; there are no methods for storage on an industrial scale. This means that supply and demand must constantly match within about 5 percent. Otherwise there will be power “dips” or “surges,” which can cause brownouts, ruin electrical equipment, or even bring the whole system crashing down.

Traditionally, maintaining voltage balance has involved two things: (1) matching supply with demand through the normal daytime/nighttime fluctuations, with demand usually peaking around mid-afternoon, and (2) maintaining a “spinning reserve” against sudden losses of power, in case an overloaded transmission line brushes against a tree and shorts out, or a generator unexpectedly shuts down. Utilities generally build “peaking plants” to handle high daytime demand, then carry a “spinning reserve” of 20 percent of output to guard against shutdowns.

Now imagine introducing a power source that is constantly fluctuating. The output of a windmill varies with the cube of wind speed, so it can change greatly from minute to minute. Putting windmills on the grid is a little like the Flying Wallendas’ hiring a new crew member to shake the wire while they are doing their balancing act. Engineers who work on electrical grids have been quietly complaining for years, and over the last decade, grid operators in Denmark, Japan, and Ireland have all refused to accept more wind energy. In fact, Denmark — the world leader in wind generation — stopped building windmills altogether in 2007. After long discussions at numerous symposiums and in professional energy journals, a consensus has emerged that, even with very accurate weather forecasts and other improvements, a grid can at best tolerate a maximum of 20 percent wind energy. Above that, the fluctuations become too difficult to mask. That’s why DOE chose the 20 percent–by–2030 goal. . .

Oh, there’s one more rub. Bringing windmills online will require building a whole new cross-country transmission system. While wind energy is concentrated in the Midwest, consumer demand is mostly on the East and West Coasts. Normal transmission lines — of 138 kilovolts (kV) and 345 kV — lose about 10 to 15 percent of their wattage every 1,000 miles, which is not a problem when the power is generated close to the consumer. But transmitting electricity halfway across the country will require a completely new infrastructure of 765 kV lines that cover long distances without losing power. This could be an enormous problem, because utility executives now say the only thing more difficult than siting a power plant is building new transmission lines, since every property owner and municipal jurisdiction in the path gets to have a say. Ranchers who are as just as picky as Pickens about what they permit on their land could pose huge obstacles.

Solar:

There is good news on the solar energy front regarding CSP technology and other challenges. This from the blog Next Big Future:

EETimes reports that MIT has a new catalyst that makes electrolysis nearly 100% efficient in a cost effective way. This would make storage of intermittent power from solar and wind more cost effective.

CNET also has coverageMIT had recently developed special glass panels that concentrate light 40 times standard sunlight before delivery directly to the cell. They expect this technology to be commercialized in three years.

The system is so simple to manufacturer that the inventors expect it to be deployed within 3 years at little cost over standard window costs.



In other solar power news, from the New Scientist magazine, a new material could harness both visible and infrared photons, so it has a theoretical maximum efficiency of 63%, it creators say, and should give significantly better real-world performance. Current solar cells absorb visible light and have a maximum efficiency of about 40%. They add titanium and vanadium atoms into a conventional semiconductor, altering its electronic properties to create the intermediate energy level. It may prove challenging to insert enough titanium or vanadium to form a properly functioning intermediate energy level in the semiconductor.

The hard part of getting water to split is not the hydrogen -- platinum as a catalyst works fine for the hydrogen. But platinum works very poorly for oxygen, making you use much more energy," said MIT chemistry professor Daniel Nocera. "What we have done is made a catalyst work for the oxygen part without any extra energy. In fact, with our catalyst almost 100 percent of the current used for electrolysis goes into making oxygen and hydrogen."

MIT's patented formulation of cobalt phosphate was dissolved in water. When the electrical current is passed through it to initiate electrolysis, the catalyst attached itself to the oxygen electrode to increase its efficiency. When the electrical current was turned off, the cobalt phosphate dissolved back into water.

Nickel oxide catalysts are currently used to boost the efficiency of electrolyzers, and they worked equally well in MIT's formulation, Nocera acknowledged. He added that the toxicity of nickel oxide forces the use of expensive, hermetically-sealed water containers. MIT's patented catalyst formulation is "green," Nocera said, and can be used in inexpensive open containers.

Biomass:

The embrace of first generation bio-fuels has been an utter disaster in terms of food prices and environmental damage. Second generation biofuels, such as switch grass, still present the problem of using arable land for something other than food crops. There is some promising work being done, however, with bug dung and sea weed that would not require any arable land or fresh water resources.

Nuclear:

The problems with nuclear power plants are storage of the nuclear waste and construction costs. The latter are rising so fast that nuclear plants may no longer be economically viable in the U.S. according to the WSJ.

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T. Boone Pickens - Energy Plan & The New Reid/Schumer Icon

CNN and Wolf Blitzer have a great interview with T. Boone Pickens about his energy plan. Pickens wants the country to move heavily towards wind and solar and is critical of John McCain's energy proposals to date. Democrats have interpreted this as full support behind their plan not to allow any drilling. In fact, its rather hilarious to watch Harry Reid and Chuck Shumer during the video below embrace Pickens, not understanding that he is critical of McCain's plan to drill off the east and west coast because it does not include ANWR. When Pickens says "we can't drill our way out of this problem," he means we won't find enough oil to substitute for our current 70% dependence on foreign oil. But "can't drill" does not mean "don't drill."

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Overview Of An Energy Plan From T. Boone Pickens

T. Boone Pickens, now the 80 year old CEO of BP Capital, made billions as an oil man. He is well respected and a solid conservative. When he says that this energy crisis is different and we can't just drill our way out of this one, its time to listen and take notes.
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Mr. Pickens has recently begun a campaign to push a series of initiatives to attack our energy crisis. He has a series of ads on television and has recently written an article in the WSJ going into more detail. While he favors more drilling, he does not see that alone as what will meet our future energy needs:

. . . [O]ur country faces what I believe is the most serious situation since World War II.

The problem, of course, is our growing dependence on foreign oil – it's extreme, it's dangerous, and it threatens the future of our nation.

Let me share a few facts: Each year we import more and more oil. In 1973, the year of the infamous oil embargo, the United States imported about 24% of our oil. In 1990, at the start of the first Gulf War, this had climbed to 42%. Today, we import almost 70% of our oil.

. . . This year, we will spend almost $700 billion on imported oil, which is more than four times the annual cost of our current war in Iraq.

In fact, if we don't do anything about this problem, over the next 10 years we will spend around $10 trillion importing foreign oil. That is $10 trillion leaving the U.S. and going to foreign nations, making it what I certainly believe will be the single largest transfer of wealth in human history.

Why do I believe that our dependence on foreign oil is such a danger to our country? Put simply, our economic engine is now 70% dependent on the energy resources of other countries, their good judgment, and most importantly, their good will toward us. Foreign oil is at the intersection of America's three most important issues: the economy, the environment and our national security. We need an energy plan that maps out how we're going to work our way out of this mess. I think I have such a plan.

Consider this: The world produces about 85 million barrels of oil a day, but global demand now tops 86 million barrels a day. And despite three years of record price increases, world oil production has declined every year since 2005. Meanwhile, the demand for oil will only increase as growing economies in countries like India and China gear up for enhanced oil consumption.

. . . I have a clear goal in mind with my plan. I want to reduce America's foreign oil imports by more than one-third in the next five to 10 years.

How will we do it? We'll start with wind power. Wind is 100% domestic, it is 100% renewable and it is 100% clean. Did you know that the midsection of this country, that stretch of land that starts in West Texas and reaches all the way up to the border with Canada, is called the "Saudi Arabia of the Wind"? It gets that name because we have the greatest wind reserves in the world. In 2008, the Department of Energy issued a study that stated that the U.S. has the capacity to generate 20% of its electricity supply from wind by 2030. I think we can do this or even more, but we must do it quicker.

My plan calls for taking the energy generated by wind and using it to replace a significant percentage of the natural gas that is now being used to fuel our power plants. Today, natural gas accounts for about 22% of our electricity generation in the U.S. We can use new wind capacity to free up the natural gas for use as a transportation fuel. That would displace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports. Natural gas is the only domestic energy of size that can be used to replace oil used for transportation, and it is abundant in the U.S. It is cheap and it is clean. With eight million natural-gas-powered vehicles on the road world-wide, the technology already exists to rapidly build out fleets of trucks, buses and even cars using natural gas as a fuel. Of these eight million vehicles, the U.S. has a paltry 150,000 right now. We can and should do so much more to build our fleet of natural-gas-powered vehicles.

I believe this plan will be the perfect bridge to the future, affording us the time to develop new technologies and a new perspective on our energy use. In addition to the plan I have proposed, I also want to see us explore all avenues and every energy alternative, from more R&D into batteries and fuel cells to development of solar, ethanol and biomass to more conservation. Drilling in the outer continental shelf should be considered as well, as we need to look at all options, recognizing that there is no silver bullet.

I believe my plan can be accomplished within 10 years if this country takes decisive and bold steps immediately. This plan dramatically reduces our dependence on foreign oil and lowers the cost of transportation. It invests in the heartland, creating thousands of new jobs. It substantially reduces America's carbon footprint and uses existing, proven technology. It will be accomplished solely through private investment with no new consumer or corporate taxes or government regulation. It will build a bridge to the future, giving us the time to develop new technologies.

The future begins as soon as Congress and the president act. The government must mandate the formation of wind and solar transmission corridors, and renew the subsidies for economic and alternative energy development in areas where the wind and sun are abundant. I am also calling for a monthly progress report on the reduction in foreign oil imports, as well as a monthly progress report on the state of development of natural gas vehicles in this country.

We have a golden opportunity in this election year to form bipartisan support for this plan. We have the grit and fortitude to shoulder the responsibility of change when our country's future is at stake, as Americans have proven repeatedly throughout this nation's history.

Read the entire article. I do not know enough about the inner workings of energy grids to be able to speak on the viability of Mr. Pickens's plan for generating 20% of our energy needs via wind power. Where significant wind power generation has been tried, there have been problems. (I hear some indicate that feeding this wind energy into power plants would require substantial construction of power lines that have proven unpopular. As an aside to the Supreme Court, this is precisely the type of scenario in which the Fifth Amendment is meant to play a role.) I also did not see any mention of nuclear power, which we know from France can be used to provide clean, cheap and dependable energy. Beyond that . . . more and faster, please.

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