Comments steve s has made

  • Talking Points of No Return

    With only about 3 weeks until election day, its amazing and frustrating that both McCain, Obama, and the media (including our beloved Grist) really don't have a clue on energy and oil dependency.

    Understanding the "big picture" is pretty easy just by going to the U.S. Department of Energy's Webpage for Kids.

    In understanding the policy issue of energy and oil dependency, one has to break this issue into two components for any meaningful discussion:  (1) electricity generation; (2) transportation.

    Fact 1:  In electricity generation in the U.S., oil supplies about 1% of the fuel requirements (the majority of fuel used is coal).

    Fact 2:  Of the total oil consumed in the U.S., about 70% is used in the transportation sector (our cars and trucks).

    So, even if we put a nuclear power plant (YIKES!), or a wind turbine, or a solar panel on every street corner to generate electricity this would not do much to reduce oil dependency.  The U.S. just doesn't use much oil to generate electricity (Fact 1).

    The only way alternatives to oil (clean coal, nuclear, solar, wind power) makes sense is if dramatic technology breakthroughs are made in electric powered vehicles - and who knows how many decades this would take to achieve under "Professor Obama's Plan".

    At least T. Boone Pickens has the correct sector identified in his Plan to increase the use of domestic natural gas in the transportation sector.  What is totally unclear to me in the Pickens Plan is the cost required to create a national fueling infrastructure to use natural gas for transportation.

    It is also my understanding that the "prime" U.S. natural gas areas to dramatically increase supply are not in offshore waters, but in places like Austin, Texas.

    Of course, there are environmental concerns with extracting natural gas on-shore as the drilling process takes a lot of water.  But since Texas gave us George W. Bush, I think a fair trade would be to level Austin and make it into the world's largest natural gas field.  It would be the "patriotic" thing to do.  Also, it would achieve the Republican mantra (modified just a little) of "Drill, Baby, Drill for natural gas in Austin".

    (To understand renewable energy options better, go to our website at:  http://www.treepower.org/biomass/quickfacts.html).    
    On Candidates talk energy in the final debate, but don't stray from their usual talking points posted 1 year, 1 month ago 10 Responses

  • Biofuels can be GREAT for Florida!

    In Karen Orr's posting, numerous concerns were listed as to growing biofuel crops in Florida.  Hopefully, Karen and others can find some comfort that these issues are very much being addressed by Scientists, Bio-facility Engineers, Farmers, and Environmentalists in our State.

    The basic concept of our research and demonstration efforts is to use environmentally damaged marginal lands to grow biofuel crops through soil building via carbon sequestration and management.  Examples could include mining sites (e.g., phosphate, coal, etc.) that after mining are largely considered wastelands. Biofuel examples are fast growing trees, sweet sorghum, sugarcane, soybeans for power plant use, ethanol and biodiesel production.

    Our efforts on phosphate mined lands are directly addressing Karen's concerns as we are conserving water use and using very little fertilizer (letting the catalytic effects of increased soil organic matter build fertility such as increasing available nitrogen levels).  Environmentalists should also be encouraged that through our soil building efforts, about 50 species of native plants have now returned to pre-existing marginal lands we are using.

    Our bioenergy engineering test results are encouraging also.  Besides the obvious greenhouse gas benefits of displacing fossil fuels, research indicates that using biofuels in power plants may reduce NOx (i.e., smog) emissions between 50% and 70% by using biogas in a boiler's reburn zone.

    While there is no guarantee that we will be successful, at least we are trying.

    We have a significant library of work efforts at the website http://www.treepower.org

    Such as:

    http://www.treepower.org/soils/main.html; http://www.treepower.org/soils/soilorganicmatter.html; http://www.treepower.org/habitat/main5.html; http://www.treepower.org/waterquality/main.html  

    SteveOn Ethanol is suddenly all the rage in D.C. and Detroit posted 3 years, 9 months ago 18 Responses

  • ANWR & Hawaii's Senators

    Does anyone have information on why Hawaii's two Democratic Senators BOTH voted for oil drilling in ANWR?On Senate votes to open Arctic Refuge to drilling posted 4 years, 8 months ago 9 Responses