Posted on 07/30/2008 12:02:28 PM PDT by cogitator
The precipitous rise in oil and gas prices over the past year has made the debate on greenhouse gas emissions moot. The reduction in the output of those gases will move forward at warp speed, not because of rules, regulations and cap-and-trade decrees but because of free markets and economics. (...)
How have we come to this point? Blame it on oil prices and technology. The extraordinary increase in the price of hydrocarbons and coal has created a price umbrella under which competing technologies can flourish. (...)
Today, wind energy is economic at about 7 cents per kilowatt hour. (...) A few years ago, that cost was 15 to 20 cents. Compare the 7 cents for wind energy with the 12 cents per kilowatt hour required to build a gas-fired power plant, and you can see why there is a veritable land rush to harness wind energy. (...)
Across the country, the price of electricity has skyrocketed for homeowners and businesses. This steep increase is creating a wide opening for technologies such as photovoltaics. The cost of this technology has fallen over the past few decades and is about ready for prime time. That retail electricity prices are increasing by as much as 30 percent this year will only accelerate the arrival of the "liftoff" phase of photovoltaics. (...)
Within the next two to three decades, the gasoline-fired internal combustion engine automobile will no longer be sold. Since gasoline accounts for more than a third of worldwide oil demand, the rise of plug-in hybrids represents a mega-change in terms of emissions. Plug-in hybrids are dramatically cheaper to operate than today's cars. They will consume about 2 cents' worth of electricity to travel one mile, compared with the current 20- to 25-cent cost of driving a mile using gasoline. (...)
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
“Within the next two to three decades, the gasoline-fired internal combustion engine automobile will no longer be sold.”
I’d bet against that.
Sounds almost too good to be true
Does that mean that we will finally be allowed to have nuke plants in Fairbanks?
“The extraordinary increase in the price of hydrocarbons and coal has created a price umbrella under which competing technologies can flourish”
Means oil is the only cost effective solution as the others are not and expect without oil, future energy will become even more expensive.
The issue is not oil, it is government preventing us from getting it.
I don’t know about a rush to wind power, but wind and sun both have a major hurdle. They don’t produce electricity on demand. Until there is a practical and cost effective way to store electricity we won’t have a rush to build wind farms or solar generators. We might, however, see a rush to build nuclear power plants, which can deliver on demand.
Wind and solar are “crack-pipe” dreams!
LLS
The present ‘technologies’ have been out there for a while. Why do you think they haven’t taken off on their own without the outside pressures put on fossil fuels from the government? Because they don’t work! They are not reliable energy sources. Might as well stop the economy and wait for ‘exotic matter’ to be found!
Is there an engineer in the house? That’s who I’ll take advice from on these technologies.
Yes rigggght!!!!!!! same with nuclear too cheap to meter LOL
makes sense,we need oil,so build a windmill.
...this article reminds me of all the pie-in-the-sky optimism about nukes when I was a kid....remember the prediction that in the future nuke plants would make “electricity too cheap to meter”?
There will be markets for efficient electric car but it can't match the explosive power of petro.
Oh absolutely...hybrids will become more prevalent but there is no way purely gas powered cars go away from showrooms in 3 years. This guy is dreaming.
The issue is the amount and cost of oil production to the House of Saud.
The Saudi's can flood the market anytime their little hearts desire with cheap oil and put any other energy producers out of business. Their cost of production is nil and their output potential is vast.
It is in their best interest for them to determine what the true cost of energy is and then they will price their commodity accordingly.
All alternative sources of energy (even our own oil) will be more expensive than Saudi crude. What we have to do is figure out what our least expensive source of energy is and then once we start production the price of crude will fall accordingly.
Hydrogen fusion is the answer. The generator plants are large and will be expensive but the power output starts at 500 Megawatts and the fuel is just as free as wind and sunlight.
Good points. Not the only one but a good one.
If the market ruled, nuclear power would already be the primary American energy source and there would be no problem.
The lawyers for the envirowackos rule. It is called the tyranny of lawyers. Judges are the tyrants
... and compare that to the 2 to 3 cents per kilowatt hour that you typically get from Nuclear and you'll wonder why we don't already have tons of cheap energy. As long as the government is going to get involved the cheapest and "best" solution won't be the one we end up with.
True. But large-scale implementation (i.e., like Pickens has proposed) can drastically cut the amount of oil, coal, and natural gas used to generate electricity. Standard hydrocarbon power plants can be used for low power periods and peak demand times (like winter cold snaps).
There are ways of utilizing excess power, such as heating a heat storage system -- I know of houses in Minnesota that heat ceramic(?) bricks) with off-peak power, then circulating air through them with fans to heat the house during peak demand (cold nights). This could be adapted to the solar photovoltaic output cycle. Large-scale, excess power could be used to heat a heat storage medium (like molten salt), and the heat from that source could be utilized during low power periods. Once the power is available, storage concerns can be technologically addressed.
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