Peak Oil For Dummies
Master Domino Are Resource Wars Coming? What are the Experts Saying? Science Can Save Us Right? How Much is Left?
The notion that massive 'free lunches' in energy efficiency will result from tweaking the market with new regulations and standards, he said, is misguided. -Dr. Robert N. Stavins
In the United States, annual federal spending for all energy research and development - not just the research aimed at climate-friendly technologies - is less than half what it was a quarter-century ago. It has sunk to $3 billion a year in 2006, down from $7.7 billion in 1979.
The laws of physics mean the hydrogen economy will always be an energy sink. No matter how much money is spent you will always use more energy to create, store, and transport hydrogen than you will ever get out of it.
It would take every single one of California's 13,000 wind turbines operating at 100% capacity (they usually operate at about 30%) all at the same time to generate as much electricity as a single 555-megawatt natural gas fired power plant.
The basic problem of hydrogen fuel cells is that the second law of thermodynamics dictates that we will always have to expend more energy deriving the hydrogen than we will receive from the usage of that hydrogen. The common misconception is that hydrogen fuel cells are an alternative energy source when they are not.
I think what people don't understand about hydrogen is that it is not a source of energy. You have to use energy to make hydrogen and it takes the equivalent of six gallons of gasoline to make enough hydrogen to replace one gallon of gasoline.
Nuclear is an alternative, but remember you're not going to have any nuclear cars and nuclear airplanes. Nuclear is not a substitute for oil.
There is no battery pack which can effectively move heavy farm machinery over miles of farm fields, and no electric battery system seems even remotely able to propel a Boeing 747 14 hours nonstop at 600 miles an hour.
Relying on corn for our future energy needs would devastate the nation's food production. It takes 11 acres to grow enough corn to fuel one automobile with ethanol for 10,000 miles, or about a year's driving. That's the amount of land needed to feed seven persons for the same period of time. And if we decided to power all of our automobiles with ethanol, we would need to cover 97 percent of our land with corn. That's a lot of corn.
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