All right, one more and I'll let the liquefied coal thing go. For today at least.
First, note that Brad Plumer has a great piece on CTL at The New Republic.
Second, I once again want to draw attention to two bits from the much-commented NYT piece this morning.
First, this bit:
Coal executives say that they need government help primarily because oil prices are so volatile and the upfront construction costs are so high. "We're not asking for everything. All we're asking for is something," said Hunt Ramsbottom, chief executive of Rentech Inc., which is trying to build two plants at mines owned by Peabody Energy.
Got that? Not everything. Just something.
Then:
But the scale of proposed subsidies for coal could exceed those for any alternative fuel, including corn-based ethanol.
Among the proposed inducements winding through House and Senate committees: loan guarantees for six to 10 major coal-to-liquid plants, each likely to cost at least $3 billion; a tax credit of 51 cents for every gallon of coal-based fuel sold through 2020; automatic subsidies if oil prices drop below $40 a barrel; and permission for the Air Force to sign 25-year contracts for almost a billion gallons a year of coal-based jet fuel.
Then me, banging my head on my keyboard.
Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7
Comments
View as Flat
Green Granny Posted 10:39 am
29 May 2007
I understand that Grist does not endorse any product or company advertised on its site. But GE is banking on the good reputation of Grist to give its "ecoimagination" campaign credibility.
How ironic also that many comments have been made on this site about citizen apathy toward environmental and energy issues because of so much time and energy is spent worrying about paying bills and working hard . . . Why do good people continue to work for companies that do environmental harm? Why do good people accept as a group what they would not accept individually? Why do people compromise their values? For the same reason it seems that Grist accepts advertising money from GE. I find that sad. I wish I could afford to donate enough that you didn't need to do this.
I just hope that your comment on the greenwashing post http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/5/25/112455/532 was not the first sympton "compromising" your values while telling yourself you're just being "pragmatic":
"I guess I just don't understand this endless, bitter search for fakers. It reminds me of a bunch of indie kids talking about who has and hasn't sold out. Insularity and obsession with an idealistic notion of authenticity are not attractive qualities in any subculture. It's a damn good way to remain a subculture, though."
Call me idealistic all you like.
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Ghandi
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Ron Steenblik Posted 12:14 pm
29 May 2007
It pretty well sums up the state to which policy making in the United States has gotten. Congress has turned into a smorgasbord, and lobbyists are behaving like busloads of hungry tourists who have shown up at a crowded restaurant all at the same time. It is only once they have sated themselves and left that the rest of the customers realize they've been stuck with the bill.
As I've argued before, crowing about "Peak Coal" isn't going to get anybody anywhere. As long as there are companies who can prove 30 years worth of reserves for a particular mine, they are going to seek to develop it -- increasingly, it seems, with the help of government, taxpayer's money.
What is sad is that U.S. lawmakers are convinced that the public will not abide any increase in the price of the fuel they put into their cars, but are gullible enough to be willing to pay more for that fuel through taxes and environmental degradation. They then play to that sentiment by hinting that prices at the pump are higher than they should be because of price gouging by oil companies. The assumption and the message is: "We're doing everything in our power to insulate you from rising energy costs. Just leave it to us ... and our good buddies."
If leadership is the mobilization of human effort in a collective enterprise, this is its opposite.
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pcarbo Posted 5:24 pm
29 May 2007
No funny quotes.
(Dave: It IS tomorrow, so you're safe. You can talk about liquified coal again.)
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:39 pm
29 May 2007
Because if they quit their jobs, someone else would take them. Employees are just cogs in a machine. Cogs are easily replaced.
Also, nobody who comes to grist will be swayed by a dancing lump of coal. That lump is doing far more good than harm by helping finance Grist. In fact, it is probably doing more harm than good for the company sponsoring it. Half of all advertising money is wasted, problem is, nobody knows which half. Note that Grist is happy to have commenters bash the ads.
This endless market distortion by government has got to come to an end. Maybe we should introduce a bill that every congress person should have to take a course in Econ 101, and make their passing grade publis. Maybe we need a subsidy vote watch to give politicians an incentive to vote against subsidies. Maybe we should replace politicians with something better.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Ron Steenblik Posted 3:28 am
30 May 2007
Researchers at M.I.T. estimate that it will cost $70 billion to build enough coal-to-liquid plants to replace 10 percent of American gasoline consumption. A similar investment in biofuels like cellulosic or sugar-based ethanol -- which could yield substantial reductions in greenhouse gases -- would seem a lot smarter. [My emphasis.]
To replace 10 percent of American gasoline consumption (around 140 billion gallons a year) with ethanol would require ethanol capacity of 20 billion gallons a year, accounting for ethanol's lower energy content. According to an analysis published last year by Bear Stearns, "Ethanol 201: Beyond Corn" (unfortunately not available on the web), capital costs for cellulosic ethanol plants are around $6.00 per gallon of annual capacity. That translates into an investment of $120 billion. Let's say R&D and learning by doing brings the cost down to $3.50 per gallon of annual capacity. That's still $70 billion dollars, the same as for the coal-to-liquids capacity.
That is not a defense of subsidizing the building of either CTL or cellulosic ethanol plants. But I wish the NYT would run the numbers before running off its mouth.
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ethanol Posted 5:22 pm
05 Jul 2007
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Pangolin Posted 5:52 pm
05 Jul 2007
Even if we somehow demanded the auto companies produce exclusively PHEV's from 2009 on it will still take 20 years to switch over from the current fleet of vehicles.
We don't have 20 years of full production oil left. We don't have 10 years. We don't even have 5 years. If the folks at the various peak oil websites are half right oil production starts dropping this year. It's never coming back.
In addition the oil producing nations around the world, like Iran, have started to notice that giving their citizens gasoline at 30 cents a gallon amounts to burning money wholesale. Even so their populations are growing and consuming ever greater percentages of the oil produced at home. That means less for us.
If nobody else has noticed world grain production has dropped every year for the last five years. There's less grain indicating less ability to grow grain. The agricultural sector of the worlds economy is severly stressed by severe weather events (hello
Australia) that are associated with climate change.
Short of converting the last tropical rainforests to biofuels there simply isn't enough spare biomass out there to fuel our transportation sector. We will cut back useage. There is no other choice.
Put the Carbon Back
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