Transterrestrial Musings

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All this reminds me of the hempheads, those people who believe if we only grew hemp, all our problems would be solved. Except when you look at their economic rationales, you realize that they think that closet space is unlimited and growlights don't consume any power, because that's their total experience with hemp agriculture. Of course their closet will scale up to a national program.

Just wait for the bioethanol folks to come up against dirt-worshipping tree huggers who finally figure out where corn comes from. That'll be fun to watch.

Posted by Raoul Ortega at July 17, 2007 09:02 AM

Glenn Reynolds gets this one right:

Waste-biomass ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, or similar kinds of methanol -- Bob Zubrin told me you can make methanol fuel from kudzu -- are different. But they don't have the pork-potential.

Posted by Bill White at July 17, 2007 09:20 AM

It's a bloody stupid idea, ethanol farming that is.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at July 17, 2007 09:20 AM

Actually, TnT, ethanol farming is pork farming.

Big business slipping a memetic harness on the green movement to make money. BP and Chevrolet are running national media campaigns touting the idea.

Diabolical and socially useless? Yup. But clever, nonetheless.

Posted by Bill White at July 17, 2007 09:24 AM

Yes, Big Oil really sucks. Like we need more evidence.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at July 17, 2007 09:47 AM

Someone recently turned corn husks and other non-eatable matter into ethanol. I read a few years ago some wacky German scientist turned dead cats into biodiesel. No reason to poo-poo the entire concept before the market has tried a few possible solutions.

Posted by rjschwarz at July 17, 2007 12:09 PM

Ethanol usage is subsidized and mandated by congress. The oil companies are forced to use it.

Given these facts Bill White says

Big business slipping a memetic harness on the green movement to make money. BP and Chevrolet are running national media campaigns touting the idea.

Diabolical and socially useless? Yup. But clever, nonetheless.

and Toast_n_Tea says

Yes, Big Oil really sucks. Like we need more evidence.

Somehow either through massive ignorance or simple confusion Bill White and Toast and Tea conclude that since the oil companies are forced to use ethanol, ethanol policy is the oil companies fault.

Apparently Bill White and Toast and Tea have missed the fact that The oil companies are forced by politicians to use ethanol.

Ignorance like that is a major reason ethanol has gotten so big in the US.

If you two are really interested in what "Big business" benefits from ethanol policy look at ADM and the farmers, not the oil companies.

Posted by TJIT at July 17, 2007 12:26 PM

I don't think anyone is poo-pooing the concept. Turning *waste* biomass into fuel is a fine idea if it can be done efficiently.

The problem is turning a staple FOOD crop into FUEL, and it's nowhere near likely to be enough to substantially reduce our dependency on foreign oil anyway. It's just a waste, pure and simple. So more corn is diverted to use for fuel, which drives up the price of the remaining corn. And the gov't subsidies encourage more corn growing instead of other crops, so guess what? The price of beans, 'maters, beets, etc. goes up too!

It's bad enough when this pump is being primed with gov't subsidies, what happens if it takes on a life of its own? Where does the cycle end? That's what scares me. At what point does the price of "feed" corn rise to become competitive enough with "fuel" corn?

I'm not much for imputing morality onto national psyche, but this is truly craven when you realize how much the rest of the world also relies on our crops. So we're going to hoard more and more of the world's food supply just so we can save a few cents a gallon? Why not build more refineries, explore more oil fields, and drive less?

It all makes me sick.

Posted by Pat C at July 17, 2007 12:32 PM

Yeah, the ethanol schemes all represent a net welfare loss as opposed to continued use of oil. If it were otherwise, subsidies would not be necessary to shift agriculture from food production to less-efficient fuel-production. Pork barreling, tax favoritism and subsidies make everyone poorer on average.

Subsidy boosterism in energy development is a form of the broken-windows fallacy. The general response to this fallacy is that lowering the relative cost of an activity by subsidizing it or by taxing competing activities does not make the favored activity more efficient: all it does is reduce the number of options and decrease overall economic efficiency.

Posted by Jonathan at July 17, 2007 12:56 PM

I never said "Big Oil" -- as for ADM? Yup, exactly.

Several months ago, I saw a Jim Cramer Mad Money episode. He said to buy fertilizer stocks. Why?

Election season was coming and politicians (Dem and GOP) were going to pander to Iowa farmers on this whole ethanol thing and fertilizer is a good way to extract higher yields per acre.

Posted by Bill White at July 17, 2007 01:27 PM

PS - Big Business uses K Street to make campaign donations to win those mandates and subsidies. The system is broken at several levels simultaneously.

Posted by Bill White at July 17, 2007 01:30 PM

fertilizer is a good way to extract higher yields per acre.

Stop the presses!

Posted by Crispytoast at July 17, 2007 02:29 PM

The disaster can be easily be avoided by canceling the subsidy or capping it.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at July 17, 2007 04:02 PM

Man, just think of how much bigger the famine could have been if Mao had been pursuing ethanol.

Posted by Alan K. Henderson at July 17, 2007 05:58 PM

"I read a few years ago some wacky German scientist turned dead cats into biodiesel."

Soylent fuel is people!!!

Posted by Brad at July 18, 2007 12:05 AM

Hold the outrage! After fermentation the corn leavings are turned into animal feed with very little loss in food value,

Posted by Fran at July 18, 2007 01:53 AM

Fran,

The presence of some amount of animal feed (distillers grains) at the end of ethanol production is swamped by the rise in other commodity prices caused by the ethanol mandates.

Distillers grains can't be effectively used by chickens or pigs.

If cattle are fed a ration heavy in distillers grains the quality grade of the beef produced is lowered.

Posted by TJIT at July 18, 2007 05:27 AM

I tend to think the best current solution is still nuclear power with a shift to electric vehicles to reduce reliance on oil. Space based power or tethered high altitude wind power seem like possible future alternatives to nuclear.

People who are against nuclear power should look at the whole picture and realize that, trade-off wise, it's the best way to get the energy we need without reliance on oil. Why is nuclear energy a nonstarter here but common in Europe?

I think the market is pretty rational in the following way: as long as oil is the cheapest and easiest to use, it'll get used. As it becomes less cheap and other alternatives become more easy, we'll use less oil. I'm not in the camp that thinks we invaded Iraq because of oil, but clearly problems in the Middle east have an effect on our economy because of oil. "Cheapest" doesn't always just mean money. At some point we'll consider the whole cost of dealing with the Middle East too high. I think the real trick would be to try and NOT use foreign policy to influence the international production of oil. Then the market could adjust properly (and I think we might ultimately see more rational trade-offs between different types of energy production and development of alternative power as the market need drives).

Ethanol subsidies are NOT letting the market do the job.

Also, has anyone considered the following: we're using middle east oil because it's easy to get. If at some point later it becomes much harder to get (because the peak oil people turn out to be right or because the political situation deteriorates and they stop producing), it's awfully convenient that we've avoided using our own reserves. At that point the western hemisphere will (1) have the remaining superpower and (2) be sitting on the most stable oil production system. That may not make China happy. How are they doing with internal and Russian oil if the Mideast stops producing?

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at July 18, 2007 09:55 AM

Why is nuclear energy a nonstarter here but common in Europe?

Although this is commonly thought, nuclear energy is actually pretty widely used in the US. It is 20% of our electric power, compared with 16% worldwide. Our highest usage state, Vermont, has 75% of their electricity from nukes. Comparatively, the highest usage in the world is France at 78.1% - not really that different. And of course, the US plants produce more nuclear power than is produced anywhere else in the world...

The real problem is that we are not building new plants - the not in my backyard problem. That's really hard to solve in a democracy...

Posted by David Summers at July 18, 2007 10:25 AM

Nuclear power is clearly on the upswing in the US, though. New plants are in the planning stages, and there's been considerable work upgrading old plants to increase capacity.

One notable example is Browns Ferry Unit 1, which had been offline for years after that famous cabling fire. It was unmothballed, brought back to runnable condition, and as of about a month ago is now on the grid at full capacity.

Then there's that Texas utlity that was sold private and promptly canceled eight coal-fired powerplants that were in the planning stages. The company (TXU) has since ordered two 1.7 GW nuclear plants from Mitsubishi.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 18, 2007 11:49 AM

I hadn't realized that nuclear power generation was as high as 20%. Vermont is well and good, but I'd say that 20% in the US vs. 75% in France argues that nuclear power is much more common in France than in the US.

I have indeed heard that nuclear power is on the comeback trail, but I'll really believe it when new plants actually start coming on line. Interesting about Browns Ferry 1.

If electricity is produced cheaply and without oil (as almost all of it is now), and electric vehicle technology continues to improve (see Tesla Motors and some of the other things going on), I think that is going to have a tremendous effect compared to ethanol.

I'd think all the global warming crowd would really get behind nuclear power, since cleanly burned coal seems to be the oil real current alternative to meet our power production needs.

I have the idea that lots of windmill farms all over the place really isn't going to do it. What are the other future alternatives to nuclear that are realistic? Solar power farms? High altitude wind power? Tidal/wave power? Space based power plants? That last would be a good reason to go into space a whole bunch.

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at July 18, 2007 12:22 PM

I agree the corn ethanol silliness is all about subsidizing the corn growers. When I lived in Champaign County, Illinois (source of 1% of the world's corn), a corn farmer who'd just retired remarked that the nominal (unadjusted for inflation) price of a bushel of corn was the same the day he retired (in 1991) as it was when he got into the business (in 1940 or so). The price deflation in agricultural commodities over the past century -- helped along by foolish subsidies that keep more farmers in the business than there should be -- has embittered generations of Midwesterners. They're very happy to see the price of corn rise.

Before we get all happy about switching away from liquid fuels for transportation, however, let me remind y'all that no one has yet solved the problem of how to put 30 gasoline-gallons worth of electricity into your car quickly and efficiently. Battery technology is still in the Stone Age, practically, with pathetic energy densities, and a widespread dependence on the use of toxic, expensive, and/or rare metals (lead, mercury, silver, lithium, too name a few). Just imagine the results if the industry in heavy metals ramps up drastically to supply megatons of batteries to all those cars...batteries that will have to be replaced, recycled (we hope), or buried in toxic landfills...

I think until the fuel cell has reached its promise, the idea of running cars with electric motors is folly. And even then, the most sensible way to power a fuel cell is, a ha, loading it up with a hydrocarbon like ethanol or gasoline.

Posted by Carl Pham at July 18, 2007 01:48 PM

I'd think all the global warming crowd would really get behind nuclear power, since cleanly burned coal seems to be the oil real current alternative to meet our power production needs.

Unfortunately, the global-warming-alarmism-industrial-complex are the same organizations. Very few have the courage nor the credibility to now come out and admit that they were perhaps wrong on the nuclear issue.

Posted by Adrasteia at July 18, 2007 10:59 PM

I think until the fuel cell has reached its promise, the idea of running cars with electric motors is folly.

Plug-in hybrids sidestep the fast charging problem, yet they can get most of the liquid-fuel-reduction effect of pure battery (or hydrogen fuel cell) cars, since most trips aren't all that long. Their problem now is that the batteries are too expensive. This is better than BEVs which have that problem and the fast charging problem as well.

BTW, until and unless BEVs/hydrogen fuel cells/etc. displace nearly all liquid fuel, the market for ethanol (or other bio-derived fuels) will be nearly undiminished. PHEVs will let ethanol displace a larger fraction of gasoline demand, for a given area of farmed land.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 19, 2007 08:50 AM

I think until the fuel cell has reached its promise, the idea of running cars with electric motors is folly.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 19, 2007 08:50 AM

Their problem now is that the batteries are too expensive.

I don't think so. I think their first problem is the energy density (kJ/kg) of batteries is absurdly low. Here is a little list of energy densities for various ways to power things. Note the excellent energy storage densities of diesel (14 kWh/kg) and gasoline (12 kWh/kg) compared to the abysmal energy storage densities of batteries (1.2 kWh/kg for the expensive Li-ion type down to 0.025 kWh/kg for the cheap and reliable lead-acid type).

If your goal is to reduce national dependence on oil, then replacing automobile fuel systems with something that weighs twenty to two hundred times more, for the same energy storage, is just brainless. Think about what that does to your total fleet energy efficiency. You might as well start building brick-shaped cars out of cast iron.

Sure, the cars themselves will be efficient. But national energy efficiency, including all those (typically oil-, gas- and coal-fired) power plants charging all those car batteries, will certainly drop if we all switch to electric cars.

Then there's the problems of distributing that much power as electricity. It's been said vis-a-vis the Internet that one should never underestimate the bandwidth of a rental truck full of magnetic tapes going 60 MPH. In the same sense, it would be silly to overlook the energy transportation efficiency of a gasoline tanker truck. One standard 9000 gallon tanker truck arriving at a neighborhood gas station every 24 hours is the equivalent of a permanent 12,800 kW transmission line.

Posted by Carl Pham at July 19, 2007 03:31 PM

I understand that the energy density of gasoline is much higher than what we can store in batteries right now.

However, spend some time on the Tesla Motors website. I am extremely impressed by what I see there.

Their sports car, which is going through all the normal road certification stuff, comes off the line this year (supposedly), and has it's first year production run of about 100 vehicles sold out.

It goes 200 miles or more on a single charge. They were shooting for 250, but added weight after the prototype brought it down some. Sure, it takes several hours to recharge, but 200 miles ought to handle most car use other than road trips. Their comparison is "like the cell phone." Do you know how long your cell phone takes to charge? You don't care--you plug it in at night and it'll make it through the next day.

Performance is quite impressive. 0-60 in something like 4 seconds.

I'm sure they're getting a decent amount of benefit simply by making the car quite light. However, they are by no means sacrificing performance.

And they discuss the whole energy efficiency and cost per mile thing quite a lot, including considering cost/efficiency starting at the power plant. They make claims that their energy use is far more efficient than gas engines, even considering transmission issues. They claim that their energy use per mile is better than even the best hybrid on the market. Again, that's probably partly because their car is light. I think they also have a real case that hybrids don't make a lot of sense--why carry all the weight for that extra power plant? If I remember correctly, they even make a claim that their car uses energy more efficiently even if you make the electricity with gas and transmit it over power lines to the car (which I guess would have to be the case if they can claim to use the energy more efficiently in any case).

They're slated to build the plant for their next car, a sedan, near my location in Albuquerque. I would love to buy one for our day-to-day around-town car, and hang on to our SUV for family trips or for when we need to carry something big.

I'm not thinking this is brainless. I'm thinking these are real cars, available this year, that use less energy per mile, and don't burn oil, and have great performance.

Perhaps part of the deal is that the energy storage system, battery or fuel/fuel tank, is not the whole car. Tesla is indeed using lithium ion batteries, and given your numbers, it looks to me like that's a factor of 10x heavier for the batteries, not 20x. In a gasoline car, you also have the weight of the tank and associated plumbing. The engine is bigger and heavier in a gasoline car. Even if the batteries are 10x heavier than gas, the rest of the car is still the majority of the weight, not the batteries.

I think the slow recharge is still the big issue. Some people are doing work in that area with different battery types, but the li-ion are here now. And if it comes down to it, couldn't we just swap battery packs if we really had to?

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at July 20, 2007 01:59 AM

I don't think so. I think their first problem is the energy density (kJ/kg) of batteries is absurdly low.

Carl,

I was refering to PHEVs. The energy density of existing batteries is quite adequate for PHEVs, since the batteries don't need to provide 300 miles (or whatever) ranges, they need only provide enough range to 'skim the cream' off typical driving cycles, in which most trips are short. The backup engine provides the range for those relatively infrequent occasions when longer range is needed.

What is keeping PHEVs from wider acceptance is cost (and, to some extent, durability and safety) of the batteries.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 20, 2007 09:42 AM

Further...

I went back and looked at Tesla's web site again, and they actually claim much better energy efficiency figuring from the Well to miles traveled when compared either to a 51 mpg CRX (gas only) or 55 mpg toyota prius. In their comparisons they are assuming natural gas for the electricity generation.

Most energy generation in the US is NOT gasoline, by a wide margin. As we ramp up electric vehicles, whether pure electric or plug-in hybrid, granted we'll have to produce more electricity somehow--but (1) we have non-oil options and (2) we'll be using less energy per mile as well. If tesla's figures are right, and they hold up, then we'd be using less oil even if we were using the oil to make electricity.

As an aside, I think calling something "brainless" in a discussion like this is counterproductive. It's pretty clear that people have different opinions on what makes sense--pure electric, straight gasoline, plug in hybrid, non plug in hybrid, fuel cell/battery, ethanol, flywheel (what happened to that?), just use the bus. It seems that discussions like this are best served with, um, slightly less explicit commentary. Carl's post is completely rational--he's making points about energy storage density per weight and transmission costs. Is it necessary to disparage other ideas as "brainless."

Or perhaps I'm just being touchy. "just brainless" here might not mean "only people without brains would ever have thought this," but perhaps "just brainless" is a simple euphemism for "a very poor engineering decision."

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at July 20, 2007 11:14 AM

I was refering to PHEVs.

Paul, you're right and I wasn't careful reading what you said. Sorry.

You're right about the cost problem. It's easily calculated that the present extra cost of a hybrid is never repaid over the life of the car in reduced fuel costs. As Thomas Sowell is fond of pointing out, that fact is conveying an important message about the macroeconomics of the situation which we would be wise not to ignore. (We can argue about whether the price of gasoline correctly reflects all externalities, e.g. pollution, global warming, foreign policy supposedly in thrall to the Saudis, et cetera.)

But in essence, at this point, I'm guessing the engineering complexity of the hybrid is too high to make the fuel savings worth it. Is that a surprise? Who would imagine having two complete and distinct part-time drivetrains in the same vehicle could be anything but expensive?

I still think a good fuel-cell technology will solve that problem, however, because then you can go back to one drivetrain. Further, you get the stop-n-go efficiency of the electric motor plus the inherent thermodynamic efficiency and convenience of liquid-fuel combustion. Seems like the best of both worlds.

Posted by Carl Pham at July 20, 2007 01:36 PM

Or perhaps I'm just being touchy.

Correct. Also not making the important distinction between contempt for an idea and contempt for a person.

On the merits of your response: let's stipulate that it's possible for Tesla to build a car which, considered from plant to car, uses energy from gas or oil more efficiently than does a Toyota Civic. Why not? The GE Sunraycer has an infinite fuel efficiency (when the sun is shining). With enough R&D money, you can almost always build a go1d-plated widget that outperforms every other widget on one particular figure of merit. NASA specializes in this kind of $500/hammer approach, I believe.

But this does not really address my point, anymore than the existence of the Prius with its 1% market share proves the viability of turning the entire US fleet over to hybrids. I'm not talking about whether it's technologically possible to build an electric car that is more efficient than the typical present gas car. It surely is. What I'm talking about is whether it's economically and technologically possible to build an entire fleet of electric cars that are more efficient -- including all externalities, e.g. the disposal problem of batteries vs. the climate problem of CO2 emission -- than the present fleet.

In short, the question of whether driving a Tesla saves you money is very different from the question of whether everyone driving a Tesla saves the nation money. For one thing, can everyone even drive a Tesla? You illustrate a problem with that thought right here:

I would love to buy one for our day-to-day around-town car, and hang on to our SUV for family trips or for when we need to carry something big.

In other words, even you, an enthusiast, are only willing to have this car as a second car. For most people, who only own one car (and rarely a new car at that), it's just not going to be an option. One of the difficulties in this situation is that the typical automobile serves many distinct functions, including both short-hop one-person transport (the optimal vehicle for which on sunny days is probably a bicycle or motorcycle) to long-hop many-person plus luggage transportation (where trains arguably make sense). Having several vehicles is a nice solution, if you can affort the capital investment. Heck, John Travolta parks a car and an airplane behind his house. Wish I could.

Posted by Carl Pham at July 20, 2007 02:22 PM

"In other words, even you, an enthusiast, are only willing to have this car as a second car. For most people, who only own one car (and rarely a new car at that), it's just not going to be an option."

True enough, although that's probably backwards--the SUV would be the second car, used rarely. In fact, we already have a smaller (gas) car which we use whenever we are driving around town as a family, which is the majority of our driving. It's a PT Cruiser, which was somewhat of a mistake, because the mileage on that is pretty lousy for its size. Where I live it's extremely common for families, even not very rich families to have multiple vehicles.

I think an important point here is that there is a reasonable pathway to get to where all-electric vehicles are common. If enough people buy electric cars as second (or first-but-not-only) cars, and can do it with a reasonable expectation of cost and performance, then there will be a market which will encourage further innovation. On top of that, there will probably be a developing market for making it possible for people to drive their electric cars longer distances (car battery exchange locations along I-40? more quick charge technology?). If there is a large vanguard of all electric vehicles, I think it provides a wedge that could eventually turn into a majority of all electric vehicles. What tesla is talking about for their second car is a 50k four-seater. I could envision buying that in the hope that I would actually save money in the long run on the lower cost per mile (the saves me money question you mentioned).

As to the other main issue you raise: technological feasibility and economically feasibility. I think tesla is demonstrating the technological feasibility quite well, at least for what it is doing--200 mile range, multiple hour charging time, very high performance, two seater--use it for one or two person transport around town and nearby cities. Economically, I doubt if our infrastructure could handle it if 5,000,000 of these needed to be produced (using whatever materials that probably aren't available in that quantity at this time) and then hit the road next week (and killed the power grid because we can't produce that kind of electricity). But I think we can indeed handle a steady ramp up in the number of all-electric vehicles. As for the other externalities you specifically mention: tesla claims recycleability of the batteries; I'm not a big believer in the huge danger of anthropomorphic global warming, but with all electric motors we have the option of producing electricity without carbon emissions (nuclear, wind, geothermal, hydro, space, wave) and if we do burn coal or natural gas or oil, it would be much easier to do carbon sequestration at a large electric generation site than to have some kind of trap on every single vehicle. Tesla specifically calls up global warming to hype their car, which kind of annoys me, actually.

Something you hint at in the economics is something somebody at the Colorado School of Mines mentioned to me a few months back: people think that everybody is going to drive a prius, but we don't have that kind of copper production, and nobody considers all the resources besides oil. I'm sure that type of thing would be an issue with any huge shift in technology--imagine the demand for lithium ion batteries if we made 10 million tesla roadsters. But here I have faith in the market. A steady increase in demand for the all electric cars would be joined with a steady improvement in the supply of the necessary goods, and a continuing improvement of the technology and what you would be able to do with all electric vehicles. Also, laptop batteries would get real cheap.

I realize that I am indeed an enthusiast, based on how much I've annoyed my wife. There's no way I can afford their sports car, but the sedan might just be thinkable in a few years. I'm not a shill, even thought I sound like one, since I don't work for them and have no way of investing in them (a private company). If I could buy stock, I'd probably just do that and shut up. Perhaps I should buy one of their sports cars believing I can re-sell it at a higher price? My wife will love that investment idea.

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at July 21, 2007 01:39 AM

Jeff, you're an enthusiast, no doubt about it. But you're about as rational an enthusiast as for one could wish. You could certainly be right. I hope you get that Tesla for your birthday.

Myself, I am (for the zeitgeist) curiously indifferent to electric cars. I'm not that into acceleration, which is where the electric motor really shines. My priorities are (1) reliability and long life, (2) safety, (3) low operating costs, and a distant (4) volume to move a family of 6 when necessary.

I used to be a pretty strong believer in anthropogenic climate warming -- the basic physics is straightforward and compelling -- but I've become increasingly skeptical, in part (believe it or not) because I spent a long time in the company of atmospheric science researchers, and learned that the atmosphere is way more complicated than we thought, and lots of simple arguments from the physicists don't work in reality.

This is (to ramble on beside the point) actually bad news: since the Earth undoubtably is warming, if it's not us doing it, then it must be the Sun, and unfortunately we can't do anything about the Sun. Let's hope Mr. Sun decides to stop boosting his output (if that's the problem) somewhat short of boiling all the oceans away...

Posted by Carl Pham at July 21, 2007 08:36 PM

flywheel (what happened to that?)

Well, You can't a big gyroscope in a car. Although in an american car there is a good chance that it might actually improve the steering.

Posted by Adrasteia at July 23, 2007 04:21 AM

Carl, the economic solution to reduction of global warming has always, and will always be geoengineering. Cause doesn't matter.

Posted by Adrasteia at July 23, 2007 04:22 AM

Well, first of all, Ad, I'd say you need to ask yourself about the size of the effect. If the Sun boosts its output by 20%, then I doubt any imaginable geoengineering short of moving the planet's orbit will work.

Secondly, screwing with the planetary ecology -- an extremely complicated system -- is something I'd prefer not doing unless there's a thriving colony on Mars and the Moon. You don't tinker with your transmission while you're driving down the freeway at 80. You turn your computer off before you fiddle with the motherboard -- and it would seem rational not to monkey with an ecosystem when you're living in it, and have no place to go if you mess up.

Finally, arguably a better approach is tinkering with human beings, about which we know much more, thanks to our recent progress in genetics. The advantage there is you can recover from your mistakes: if you try to engineer a human that can thrive in hot or cold climates (or on Mars), you only have to do it one zygote at a time, and if you blow it, you can try again. We only get one planet on which to experiment, by contrast.

Posted by Carl Pham at July 24, 2007 12:55 PM

I still think a good fuel-cell technology will solve that problem, however, because then you can go back to one drivetrain.

All drivetrains are not created equal, though. Fuel cell systems are frighteningly expensive compared to internal combustion engines (even if the IC engine has a generator attached to it), per unit of power capacity. If you assume fuel cells can become much cheaper, but not batteries, then you're rigging the game to reach the conclusion you want.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 26, 2007 11:26 AM

I have indeed heard that nuclear power is on the comeback trail, but I'll really believe it when new plants actually start coming on line. Interesting about Browns Ferry 1.

And now TVA has voted to proceed with Watts Bar 2, a nuclear plant that was abandoned (with great fanfare at the time by anti-nuclear activists) in a partially (80%)completed state back in 1988.

This sort of backing and filling is what you'd expect to occur first as the economics of nuclear power drives it back to prominence for new baseload capacity.

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 30, 2007 10:02 AM

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