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Permalink Reply by CaddoKid on October 14, 2008 at 6:53

I saw Pickens present his plan at the University of Texas in Austin last week. I generally agree with the idea of converting freight transportation to CH4, especially train freight, but it's a different matter for private trucking frieght. It's the same old chicken vs egg conundrum that's kept NG passenger cars from reaching critical mass; that is, who's going to invest billions to retrofit tens of thousands of refueling stations with NG when there are so few NG vehicles around, vs who's going to invest billions to tool up for natural gas vehicles when there are few NG stations out there?

Pickens wants to remove NG from the electrical generation mix, and replace that 22% with renewables. The renewables part sounds fine, but what about this? Instead of shifting NG out of the electrical gen mix, why not INCREASE NG (and renewables) in generation, thereby displacing dirty coal, cleaning up and greening up the grid, and put the huge $ investment required to convert 18 wheeler trucks to NG instead to produce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles for passenger transportation? After all, passenger transportation accounts for far more fuel dollars leaving American shores than freight trucking.

The advantages to this are considerable. First, hybrid electric vehicles will be able to travel about 40 miles on a single overnight charge- more if parking garages are covered with PV panels and equipped with outlets. Even without daytime charging, 40 miles is within the daily commute distance for about 75% of American workers. Imagine driving back and forth to work without burning a drop of gasoline. Second, as utilities clean and green their generation, we're converting our (dirty) fossil transportation to "clean" fossil and renewable transportation, cleaning up air quality in non-attainment areas and improving the associated health-related problems. Third, carbon sequestration, while difficult, is much easier at a central plant burning NG than from millions of mobile sources. Fourth, cost equivalency of an "electric gallon of gas" is- depending on where you live and the cost of your electricity- between a third and a quarter the cost of a gallon of gasoline... in my market, about $0.90/gallon... wow! Fifth, imagine hundreds of thousands of plug-in vehicles charging their batteries overnight. Now imagine a lightning strike taking out a transformer in your area. The energy in all those batteries now acts like a capacitor, a reservoir of electrons flowing back into the grid to cover the brown or blackout. Sixth, overnight charging creates a second peak demand for electric generators, flattening out the demand cycle and dramatically improving the efficiency of these expensive machines.

Speaking of efficiency, another shortcoming of Pickens' plan is its under-emphasis on efficiency and conservation. In my market, Austin Energy subsidizes consumer investments in renewable energy, conservation, and efficiency upgrades, because it is simply cheaper to do this than to capitalize new generation facilities, or water treatment plants, to meet peak demand. Conservation and efficiency produce the cheapest resources you'll ever have.

Finally, the a priori of Pickens' plan is to stop sending $700 billion a year to foreign governments for our energy appetite. Hard to argue that this is not really, really important... for sure it is. But even more important, IMHO, is the problem of carbonizing our atmosphere, the costs of which are passed on to other sectors of society since it's currently "free" for industry to use the airshed as a conveyor belt for waste disposal. Planetary geologists, climatologists, and economists who understand the scope of the problem tell us that $700B/year will be, to use an Aubrey McClendon phase, "chicken feed" compared to the cost of doing nothing. So no matter who wins the presidential election, we will soon have Cap-and-Trade legislation. This will allow the larger players to capitalize their investments in clean technolog

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Permalink Reply by CaddoKid on October 14, 2008 at 7:26

Dang! -5 for wordiness!

I was trying to add, before the word counter stopped me, that I would also like to see a carbon tax credit to incentivize us small fries, like this: you invest $5K for a new, high-efficiency air conditioner for your home, you get to take $5K off your income tax. We need this incentive because while transportation contributes about 29% of greenhouse gases, homes and offices account for almost half.

Having offered these critiques of Pickens' plan, I salute the guy for his energy and enthusiasm for offering constructive ideas. It's clear he's in it for more than the money, and I think he'll help move the chains.

CaddoKid

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Permalink Reply by Snake Stewart on October 14, 2008 at 12:10

I agree 110% Mr. Jim
We start talking serious about alternatives to unleaded gas/diesel and all of a sudden the price of the crap goes down.When according to market instability it should be holding if not going up in price.It will slowly come down just enough for us to stop thinking of replaceing it as our choice for transportation fuel, or so they hope. God help us all if we let that happen and dont procead full steam ahead on N/G and other alternatives.I do need everyone to still use N/G until we can get it pumped out from under my place tho. chuckle,chuckle!

That 40 miles a day and the charging stations just doesn't look as promising to me as N/G Caddokid, altho you make some very good points to ponder. N/G would be much better near term and would greatly reduce greenhouse gases as a power plant alternative to coal, not as dangerous as nuclear and would solve the forty mile problem as a great hybrid choice.It is something that wont take 10 years or longer to implement either.I think we are still a long way away from fuel cell/ electric transportation of the masses. Thanks guys and have a great day.

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