It’s worthwhile to note that productivity per energy unit is higher in the US than India and China, so they suffer disproportionately more when the price goes up. Another way of putting that is the cost of the energy source (oil) is a bigger percentage of the overall cost of stuff they produce than it is for us.
The economic consequences of that for China, particularly, are worth pondering. An energy-induced recession here could conceivably result in a depression there, both because of our lessened demand for their products and the more severe economic problems that higher energy prices would impose on them. |
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Written By:
Billy Hollis
URL:
http://
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Bring on the nukes! And the Heim hyperdrive.
I heard they’re planning two more plants, but really we need to build 50 or 60.
We could be doing a lot more with fuel crops, too. Brazil is reportedly close to being self-sufficient with sugar-based ethanol. |
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Written By:
TallDave
URL:
http://semirandomramblings.blogspot.com
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Yeah, the good thing to come of this are the substitute products that will become much more attractive. More nuclear plants are a must. Getting rid of the death grip regulations have on oil/gas refineries is a must. I wonder how much we will have to pay for the setbacks caused by the environmental movement of the past few decades.
Of course, no one to blame the tarrifs on Brazillian sugar cane ethanol on but our own protectionist lawmakers. |
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Written By:
Chris
URL:
http://
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Also, don’t forget synthetic liquid fuels from coal. The State of Montana wants in on that business given their abundant anthracite deposits. Of course, those processes greatly increase CO2 production/unit fuel energy produced so the anti-Greenhouse Effect crowd will certainly not like it. |
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Written By:
D
URL:
http://
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Also, don’t forget synthetic liquid fuels from coal. The US News article I cited talks about that, D. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/
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"The world’s demand for energy is doubling every 10 years and is expected to reach 230 million tons in 2010."
How do you measure enery in tons? Anyway I’ve always been a strong advocate of more nuclear power. Even the enviro-moonbats are finally getting a clue. It would not directly address oil consumption as very little of our electricity is generated from oil burning power plants. However it would reduce the use of natural gas consumption for base-line power generation and that would take the pressure off of natgas prices. Also if we ever develop an electric car demand as opposed to hybrids, then nuclear power plants could provide the electricity to charge them. In this way, nuclear would impact the amount of oil used. |
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Written By:
Paul
URL:
http://
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I browsed the comments on this thread to see if any of us Neo-libs are contemplating decentralized energy solutions. Nuclear transmission is an obvious national solution, but, as currently envisioned, it requires a centralized generation site, a vulnerable array of networks to conduct energy to peripheral users, and a vast regulatory regimen.
A better national design based on individual choice and market-driven product innovation would promote the development of a revolutionary "personal generation" economy, that could rival the dynamism to the modern Auto industry.
Loosely this idea would mean that individuals can choose from multiple, redundant sources of personal-generation technologies, while facing more accountability for their personal energy-use: two real conditons for an operable energy market that are sorely missing right now.
Imagine if our bodies’ cells lacked mitochondria, and instead, depended on an energy-source in the tonsils for sustenance. That’s what we’ve got right now.
-Steve |
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Written By:
Steve
URL:
http://
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Steve, I propose that Congress MANDATE a "Mr Fusion" in every household... your proposal was goobledy-gook... energy is produced and distributed in the manner it is, by the nature of the technolgy for it’s production. We all can’t BE energy INDEPENDENT... you propose the equivalent to the backyard steel mills of the Great Leap Forward. |
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Written By:
Joe
URL:
http://
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Hmmm... Inflation is up, oil is up - maybe Bush really is Jimmy Carter. |
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Written By:
mkultra
URL:
http://
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Joe, the reference to the GLF is not lost on me. But it’s a straw-man: obviously backyard iron-smelting (in ’50’s and 60’s China) was a BAD idea!
But your swipe, "I propose that Congress MANDATE a "Mr Fusion"...," invites comment.
You stick to the mandates, Joe. I’m a libertarian who favors pluralistic solutions.
And, if you weren’t sated suckling off the subsidized energy grid, you’d have already sampled the existing personal-generation market (and be better informed about its products).
The latest 4000W Onan stand-by generator purrs like Mao’s red cat and sips precious LP. A PV-array installed by an innovative neighbor is not a crude steel "factory" in a 60’s Beijing ’burb. And a home that incorporates geothermal heat-exchange and solar-heat exchange into its design wasn’t in the Dowager’s plans for her "Cultural Revolution."
(Duh!)
-Steve |
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Written By:
Steve
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http://
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I think higher prices of about 70-80/bbl are a good thing. They wouldnt be high enough to tank the economy, but they would encourage conservation, alternative sources, and domestic production. We have to eliminate the luddites who stand in the way of Nuclear power. And we have to some how get off of the Middle east crackpipe. |
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Written By:
kyle N
URL:
http://impudent.blognation.us/blog
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Yeah Steve...personal power generation for the masses...I think energy production does have economies of scale. That’s my point. Everyman a power station didn’t work 100 years ago, I’m not seeing it now. It was the economy of scale that led to the "Grid System" of power distribution. If you want to try to power NYC your way, OK... heck you might be right, but I’m not holding my breath. |
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Written By:
Joe
URL:
http://
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And, if you weren’t sated suckling off the subsidized energy grid, you’d have already sampled the existing personal-generation market (and be better informed about its products). No Steve the problem is that you have to have a distribution grid of one sort or another in order to get even "personal generation" working. The electrical grid happens to be the primary distribution grid we have right now. We’ve invested a lot of good money into it and it is used almost universally. Going to distributed energy generation just means you will need whole new distribution systems to get the energy feedstocks to the homes. Instead of electrical energy through power lines you need trucks or pipes full of chemical energy going to homes. Now granted photo-voltaic and wind systems will be useful and generally not suffer these problems (because nature distributes the energy to you), but they can only be counted on to provide supplemental power.
After the last energy crisis we saw lots of people building expensive "efficient" homes looking to cash in on the minute energy generation you may get from solar-heat exchange etc. Years later most had given up on it. Someone did the math and showed them that aside from investments in good insulation and a few other concepts, most of these things were crap. You were paying more to run the plant than you were making from the energy. |
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Written By:
Jeff the Baptist
URL:
http://jeffthebaptist.blogspot.com
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Guys, the scale of the economy is changing.
By now we’re all familiar with the concept underlying Glenn Reynolds’ Army of Davids. We aren’t all Davids yet, but we’re still talking about it. I’m simply applying Reynolds’ atomizing and empowering concepts to energy generation.
Jeff, your point that a distribution system would still be needed is well-taken. But it misses my "plurality" point. The Personal Generation (PG) idea allows individual consumers to choose from a plurality of energy sources, of which only a few are transported fuels. PG gives the American energy consumer an array of energy sources to choose from - tranported or onsite, distant or proximal - and let’s the consumer decide which he/she want to pay for. This redundancy of sources also protects us from the frequent universal grid failures caused by cartels, sunspots, and human failure.
And please don’t be so quick to knock solar and wind generation. If you live in a place where the sun shines and the wind blows often, you can live comfortably powered by a solar/wind system with LP backup generator - and kiss the entire grid goodbye. Fer-real!
Joe, it’s OK to love NY, but I don’t live there, and I sure hope my taxes aren’t subsidizing Hillary’s heating oil bills (I know they are, but I thought I’d be cute). Having said that, one of the problems with our nation’s current energy usage is its maintenance of enourmous urban populations in frigid temperate regions.
Which brings me to another point: if the formation of dense urban communities is fueled by a centralized model of energy distribution, it seems decentralizing these networks could force a reanalysis of our current urban model. In an energy market where a clear feed-back loop feeds a cycle of social innovation and cost-efficiency, we may find that the energetics of our northern cities were never remotely sustainable.
The resulting social revolution that America would undergo may rival that which followed the construction of the interstate freeway system; as empowered American’s abandon old constructs in a display of rational consumerism.
-Steve |
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Written By:
Steve
URL:
http://
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Ah I see Steve, the Social Engineer... I think we’ll try to keep the current urban-centred system pretty much as it is. I’d rather not risk the GNP and lives to change things so radically. |
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Written By:
Joe
URL:
http://
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"If you live in a place where the sun shines and the wind blows often, you can live comfortably powered by a solar/wind system with LP backup generator - and kiss the entire grid goodbye. Fer-real!"
And if you don’t live in such a place?
"one of the problems with our nation’s current energy usage is its maintenance of enourmous urban populations in frigid temperate regions."
What shall we do with this inconvenient population concentration?
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Written By:
timactual
URL:
http://
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Joe, cities come and go - and no-one cries a tear.
And, sure there are always nostalgics who can’t let go. But, it’s not about mandates, it’s just free people choosing to migrate to a more favorable environment.
Timactual, "And if you don’t live in such a place?"
Then move to a place with more favorable energetics. Millions do it every year. And it’s bad form to ask those who do to subsidize the construct that they fled.
(Open your minds, guys. Me thinks you’re still stuck in the 50’s.)
-Steve |
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Written By:
Steve
URL:
http://
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