Mom: Here’s your Earl Grey and the last slice of banana bread, and here’s a copy of the April 27 issue of the Weekly Standard. I want you to read the article by Halbert Fischel, a retired physicist and inventor, who lives in Santa Barbara, California. I know you like to read while you eat. Enjoy.
Finished? Good…have another cup of Earl Grey. Oh, yes, I’ll go to the market later and pick up some donuts.
I’d like to discuss the article now. You know…the whole country seems to be in favor of the green ideas that our new president is proposing, but I think they’re in for a tremendously rude awakening when electricity, food, and everything else costs much, much more.
Frankly, I think the proposal of cap and trade is a hidden device to get tax revenue, and how can it ever work without the inclusion of China (building two coal-fired plants a week) and India, and scientists are completely divided as to global warming.
Pop: The big push seems to be for vehicles powered with electric motors. Near-term improvements in battery storage technology seem within reach, and the possibility exists that one day all private and public transportation will be powered by computer-optimized electric motors, except for the largest diesel engines and aircraft.
Physicist Fischel envisions the benefit if the electrical power required for charging the batteries were not generated by burning hydrocarbon fuels. In order to be truly green - clean, inexpensive electricity is needed.
Okay, so let’s say I'm in the market for a car that has an electric motor. Before I make the purchase, I want to figure out how much electricity I’ll have to purchase - the cost compared to gasoline. Based on the fuel mileage and engine power of our existing fleet of compacts and sub-compacts, taking into account the ability of electric motors to recapture some of the energy of motion - as well as the inefficiency of present-day batteries- the estimate would be 40KWh (kilowatt-hours) of electricity per gallon of gas.
The cost of a KWh varies considerably with the amount used - electricity is the only commodity whose retail price increases the more you use it. Southern California Edison charges a minimum of 30 cents for every KWh used beyond a baseline amount, plus taxes and surcharges. The net conclusion is that to replace a gallon of gasoline for cars that average about 30 mpg, drivers will have to pay $12 per every equivalent gallon.
Mom: That’s a shocker! Pardon the pun, and for larger cars and trucks, the price escalates rapidly. So the idyllic world of electric transportation is nearly upon us, except for one important factor - price.
Should the idyllic move occur, dependence on foreign cartels and the oil industry could be lessened and possibly eliminated. Private vehicles consume 50 percent of the petroleum, 20 percent goes to heavier trucks, trains, buses, and machinery. The remaining 30 percent goes to aircraft and industrial uses that cannot be converted to electrical power.
Unfortunately, President Obama and other proponents only mention solar or wind power and “clean coal” as new sources of electricity. I’m guessing that cleaning the coal would emit more carbon than burning the coal, and the media tout the mythology of cheap, abundant “alternative,” “green,” and “renewable” energy. They never discuss the cost of enough electricity to replace gasoline in the bulk of the transportation system!
Recent government statistics estimate that U.S. consumption of gasoline in cars and light trucks has been about 400 million gallons per day to go a distance of six billion miles at an average of 15 mpg. If the average driver goes 40 miles per day in a compact car, optimistically yielding 30 miles per electrical gallon, 1,600 KWh of additional electricity per month would be needed. Now instead of paying an additional $500 per month the electric company, one decides to install a solar panel.
In sunny California, 750 square feet of solar panel would be needed for each compact car, a panel 25 feet wide and 30 feet long. The cost of installation would be equivalent to the price of the car, and in other states there might not be enough sun, plus the cost of maintenance must be factored in. Solar power will never be competitive for powering electric vehicles.
Pop: Wind is being touted constantly, but it is the least concentrated form of renewable energy and requires an even greater commitment of real estate. Taken together, solar and wind are not likely to ever provide more than one to two percent of U.S. power consumption.
The answer is nuclear power, which is never stated too loudly ever since Chernobyl (typical Russian disaster) or Three Mile Island, where no one was even injured. In the United States, there are 104 remodeled conventional nuclear power plants which have been operating profitably with perfect safety records for the last 25 years at about twice the efficiency of the original reactors. With an additional 200 plants, we could replace all hydrocarbon-based power plants. France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear plants.
The obstacles to rational power generation are political, not technical or scientific. Cap and trade will make electricity (and everything else) more expensive. Solar and wind are mirages, least productive of all renewable energy. If we want to be green, nuclear is the only solution. Offshore drilling is not considered by this president, and cap and trade can help pay for the plethora of new programs.
Mom: As an interesting side note, Pop, I recently read a newspaper article by Bill McAuliffe of the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the effect of wind farms on radar used for weather forecasting. It seems that wind farms give the appearance of severe weather where there is none, causing false weather alerts.
A new wind farm in Wisconsin has been appearing as a patch of severe weather north of Milwaukee since February, and radar images have suggested a tornado in Dodge City, Kansas. More disruption is expected, and weather people are trying to adjust. Are wind and solar worth one to two per cent of our electricity?
Look for the Whitman’s Pond Journal on Channel 10 Mondays at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Fridays at 7:30 p.m.
This column was written by Weymouth resident Neil Russo.
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