Ridding our dependence on foreign oil.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Obama said he would trumpet legislation that would rid America's dependence on foreign oil in 10 years and that he would also add 5 million more 'green' jobs.

If he actually does that, gets us out of Iraq, does something about global warming and nuclear proliferation, and reverses Bush's executive power grab then I can't really give a crap about what else he does.

But I doubt he's going to actually be able to do it. Oh, well. Hope and change, yo'.

[Surgo]

Vaguely related, a fungus was recently discovered that produces certain types of oil. It does it so well that it called into question the current theory of where all our oil came from in the first place.

Not that the discovery really matters. Photosynthesis is complete crap when it comes to efficiency, and we'd be way better off dumping research dollars into solar power than this sort of thing.

[Maxus]

Very related...

It's possible to make an ethanol-like chemical from...

...Kudzu.

[Judging__Eagle]

You mean the weed plant?

[zeruslord]

Do that and mow the Great Plains and we're set.

[Maxus]

For Yankees and other foreigners...

Kudzu is this fast-growing, tenacious weed that flourishes in the climate of the American South.

http://www-aes.tamu.edu/mary/kudzu/kudzu.htm

http://www.greengeek.ca/wp-content/uplo ... /kudzu.jpg

http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/20 ... -house.jpg

http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/img/pulo1b.jpg

The stuff will grow over trees and houses if it's not kept in check. And it grows about a foot a day in the summer.

To me, that says kudzu fields with towers for them to grow on to maximize surface area.

[Surgo]

Okay, and how much ethanol can you get from one of them?

Photosynthesis sucks so badly you will have a hard time convincing me that this is worth anything at all compared to pouring research and manufacturing dollars into solar.

[Maxus]

I'm not sure of the volume output of ethanol per mass unit of kudzu.

But the thing is, you don't get just one of kudzu. You get blankets of it that can cover acres. Plus, it's pretty much sustainable because the problem is not growing it, but killing it.

[Crissa]

Yes, Maxu's plan would work.

However, it would also destroy our way of life.

Photosynthesis is very efficient - when you remember what you ought to be comparing it to, which is 'millions of geologic years to concentrate long strings of carbon'.

What I'd suggest is a no-emissions rule for any business over 50 people or n tons of output (so small emissions would be exempt, but try to have a huge output would also incur the tax.) A VAT surcharge on any light, heat, conversion unit based upon how efficient it is. (A lamp would be charged as tax * ( Lumens / Watts ) which would bump up the price of less efficient devices, and effectively kill anything completely inefficient.) Create a system by which people can claim a credit for converting their roof space / parking to greenspace or solar generation - bigger than we have now, there's acres and acres of space where we're absorbing radiant heat and using power to then cool that heated space. And a strategic Lithium reserve or reclamation; we need to make sure we have enough of the light isotopes to make tiny devices and batteries, even if it means going to space to do it.

Also, it'd be totally cool if you made a power plant carbon neutral by pumping the output gasses through algae and binding the carbon into long strings. Or pumping carbon laden gases back under the crust of the earth (they do this in Canada to extract oil). Or any number of things.

This year scientists identified a fungi that turns cellulose into a diesel simulacrum. Since it does this without an energy input - presumably just water, time, and space - this could be a way to create the dense fuel that we need.

Not importing oil isn't easy. We use tons of it for things like fueling cars and building them. If no one drove a gas-powered vehicle around town, it'd totally eliminate smog and oil imports as we know it. And that's with 1906 technology...

-Crissa

[Maj]

Would someone please explain to me why, in a global economy, the goal is to be isolationist as regards energy policy?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Would someone please explain to me why, in a global economy, the goal is to be isolationist as regards energy policy?

So we don't have to suck up to Saudi Arabia and OPEC. Also so that the United States isn't tempted to meddle in affairs over there. See Iraq War.

Now, I don't mind the United States taking a humbler stance towards the Middle Eastern nations but when Saudi Arabia/Pakistan are allies and Iran is an enemy then some serious shit is going down in Funky Town.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Sure you can make ethanol from kudzu. We currently make ethanol from corn, of which we have exactly zero shortage. It's just that the process that converts corn into ethanol require using more energy than we yield, so it's a big waste of time.

So what's the efficiency of kudzu-sourced ethanol?

So we don't have to suck up to Saudi Arabia and OPEC.

Oil is a fungible commodity, and the Saudis have the most, so they set the price no matter how much of our own we produce, unless we outproduce them, which isn't going to happen.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Oil is a fungible commodity, and the Saudis have the most, so they set the price no matter how much of our own we produce, unless we outproduce them, which isn't going to happen.

Obviously reducing our dependence on foreign oil is going to consist of more than just finding our own sources. I mean, if Obama is to be believed on his commitment towards reducing global warming, since we need to do something about that as well.

[Josh_Kablack]

Oil is a fungible commodity, and the Saudis have the most, so they set the price no matter how much of our own we produce, unless we outproduce them, or adopt protectionist trade policies

fixed.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Oil is a fungible commodity, and the Saudis have the most, so they set the price no matter how much of our own we produce, unless we outproduce them, or adopt protectionist trade policies

fixed.

That's so wrong I'm not even sure where to begin, but I'll try.

First, protectionism can only raise prices; so while you could discourage people from buying foreign oil because tariffs have made it $10/barrel more expensive than the base price, the base price is still set by the Saudis.

Second, the fungibility of oil makes it pointless in the first place. The oil will go where the demand is for close to the lowest price on the market no matter what.

[erik]

Screw alternate sources of oil, I want electric cars dammit.

I was cheering the damned price of gasoline all the way as it rose. That's about the only force that was capable of making consumers drive automotive manufacturers towards more efficient vehicles. It's utter bullshit that electric cars aren't mass produced on a serious scale yet.

[Username17]

Would someone please explain to me why, in a global economy, the goal is to be isolationist as regards energy policy?

Transporting energy costs energy. There's a reason that we put all of our aluminum smelting right next to hydro-electric dams. For every action where energy is the limiting factor, it makes more sense to put the action next to the energy production than it does to use some of the energy to push the rest of the energy over to where you would do the things.

If you want to be "competitive" in a global economy, there has to be a reason that people would go to you instead of someone else. If you don't have your own energy, that's a really hard sell if whatever we're talking about uses energy. And since everything uses energy, that's pretty much that.

As the economy becomes more and more globalized, those who don't have their own source of energy will not be able to do any manufacturing. Full stop.

-Username17

[Crissa]

No one said we can't sell energy, or trade energy, Maj.

The point is that we should not depend on foreign sources, especially foreign sources which: Are (1) limited. Are (2) polluting.

Even if Americans were banned from buying foreign oil, we'd end up buying plastic from over seas, because that would be cheaper. Chemical companies would move there, because that would be cheaper.

And people would still buy oil, because they need it to heat their houses, drive their cars, till their cropland, lubricate and repair their machines, wash their bodies... Which would mean our internal price for oil would go through the roof.

And then someone from outside could sell us their cheaper oil and not care about any sort of tariff, assuming they were allowed to.

In the mean time...

Anyhow, back in the real world, our climate is changing, island nations are looking to buy land somewhere drier, and even if climate change doesn't kill us, or the oil doesn't run out... Do we want to be trading gold and blood for oil forever?

-Crissa

[Koumei]

To be fair, the hybrids are utter shit and don't even seem to save gas due to the weight of the extra engine, so people aren't going to get hybrids, and you need to give them a reason to want pure electric. Not "we're dependant on foreign oil, and people are getting shot for it." (as they don't care), not "Global Warming looks like it actually is a problem, you know?" (as they don't care).

If they can get pure electric ones to be cheap enough and hit a decent speed (as well as being able to cover a good distance without... needing to recharge? I don't know how they work. And with recharging cheaper than filling with gas, for that matter), then we'll get people wanting them.

[ckafrica]

Sure you can make ethanol from kudzu. We currently make ethanol from corn, of which we have exactly zero shortage. It's just that the process that converts corn into ethanol require using more energy than we yield, so it's a big waste of time.

So what's the efficiency of kudzu-sourced ethanol?

Ethanol is problematic. It's production can run a higher carbon footprint than it relieves. It's production from corn was considered to be the primary cause of the massive increases in corn prices last year which seriously hurt developing nations. Production of crops for ethanol production has contributed to deforestation in countries like Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Using arable land for energy production is not ideal and can even be worse than fossil fuel consumption.

Screw alternate sources of oil, I want electric cars dammit.

Unfortunately most electricity at this point is being created through fossil fuels. All you're doing is changing where the the carbon is being emitted. You'd have to compare the carbon release from the average oil driven car to the amount emitted to produce the electricity needed to power an electric car for the same distance. You might find electric cars will be worse for the environment.

I'm not saying electric cars are the wrong direction, simply that they are a false friend without cleaning up our energy production as well.

[Username17]

First, protectionism can only raise prices; so while you could discourage people from buying foreign oil because tariffs have made it $10/barrel more expensive than the base price, the base price is still set by the Saudis.

This is not true. Protectionism can do far more than raise prices. It can put quotas and it can outright ban things. And most importantly of all, it can put down requirements on production and sales of products.

Even something as simple as an import tax doesn't merely raise prices by $10 a barrel, it raises prices on foreign oil by $10 a barrel. That means that domestic production has a $10 window to set their prices where they still beat foreign producers. If it's a $20 tax, then domestic production has a $20 window to set their prices. And since oil seems to vary by about $50 a barrel, a $50 tax would by definition allow domestic producers to set their prices to whatever they wanted and still beat foreign producers.

And recall that demand for oil is no more limitless than the supply is. There are lots of sources of energy, and lots of things that can be done with it, but there are limits. Heck, there are multiple cutoffs. If the price of ol rises above a certain amount, many oil-related activities will simply become unprofitable, and the competition for oil resources will shrink. The invisible hand doesn't move instantaneously here, it takes actual time to make factories and train workers. A drop in oil prices does not immediately increase consumption, nor does a rise in prices immediately decrease it. But to the extent that we have ever been a free market, it is reasonable to expect that people will switch to alternative fuels and non-oil consuming industries if the price rises high enough.

If the demand for oil falls low enough and the incoming tariffs on imported oil become high enough, domestic production of oil will drive out all foreign oil, and the prices in the country will be completely independent of Saudi decision making.

Second, the fungibility of oil makes it pointless in the first place. The oil will go where the demand is for close to the lowest price on the market no matter what.

Fungibility is horse shit. Oil is a physical object. It costs time, labor, and energy to move it from one place to another. Oil here is fundamentally different and less expensive than oil over there. This has always been true, and it always will be true.

-Username17

[erik]

It's a helluva lot easier to produce clean electricity than the burn gas cleanly. It's silly to try the cop-out that it's just pushing pollution onto the power plants. To try and claim they would be worse for the environment, that's outright crazy talk, and that's the nicest possible way I can phrase it.


Electric cars are the only serious solution on the table. It won't be an immediate solution for all fossil fuel driven vehicles, but just cleaning up the commuter and family vehicles would be a spectacular improvement.

For most personal needs, electric cars are already up to spec, the cost is just a wee bit too high. It's about $10k more to convert a light sedan into an electric car with a 200 mile range and decent acceleration. Given proper backing, that range will go up faster, and that cost will come down faster.

Electric motors are more efficient than combustion engines. Power plants are cleaner than cars.

Driving about 12,500 miles a passenger car getting 21.5 mpg will put out:
11,450 pounds of CO2 (1)

Electric cars can be expected currently to get something akin to 3 miles per kWhr. On average the CO2 output for a power plant is about 852 pounds/MW.
Those numbers give about 3,550 pounds of CO2 (2)

Cutting emissions to 1/3 is pretty huge. It's a big first step that should be followed by a second step of using cleaner energy. I'm all for cleaning up our energy production as well, but please don't try and insult us with a boogeyman of electric cars being worse than the disease.

references:
1.http://www.epa.gov/oms/consumer/f00013.htm
2.http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/modules/k6/elec/elec.html

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Cutting emissions to 1/3 is pretty huge. It's a big first step that should be followed by a second step of using cleaner energy. I'm all for cleaning up our energy production as well, but please don't try and insult us with a boogeyman of electric cars being worse than the disease.

Your electric car is compared to a gasoline fueled car that gets 21.5 mpg. That is a false equivalence when you want to compare best case scenarios. The best gasoline fueled cars get 40mpg or even 50mpg. If gasoline fuel efficiency was heavily researched, and you give the gas fueled car the same extra $10k, the carbon footprint difference between the electric car and gasoline fueled car is negligible.

Additionally, with electric cars, you have huge toxic batteries with a lifespan significantly shorter than that of a gasoline fueled car. The possible pollution for hundreds of millions of short lifespan batteries creates a huge problem in its own right.

I personally also want environmentally friendly vehicles. However, electric cars are currently not the best option.

[angelfromanotherpin]

This is not true. Protectionism can do far more than raise prices. It can put quotas and it can outright ban things. And most importantly of all, it can put down requirements on production and sales of products.

Quotas and banning restrict supply, which raises prices.

Even something as simple as an import tax doesn't merely raise prices by $10 a barrel, it raises prices on foreign oil by $10 a barrel. That means that domestic production has a $10 window to set their prices where they still beat foreign producers. If it's a $20 tax, then domestic production has a $20 window to set their prices. And since oil seems to vary by about $50 a barrel, a $50 tax would by definition allow domestic producers to set their prices to whatever they wanted and still beat foreign producers.

Sure, but the country that supplies the most oil to the U.S. is Canada. And the country that supplies the third most oil to the U.S. is Mexico. Unless we plan to screw over both our neighbors for no good reason, we'll probably grant them exemptions. And as soon as un-tariffed oil comes over the border, that oil could come from basically anywhere.

And recall that demand for oil is no more limitless than the supply is. There are lots of sources of energy, and lots of things that can be done with it, but there are limits. Heck, there are multiple cutoffs. If the price of ol rises above a certain amount, many oil-related activities will simply become unprofitable, and the competition for oil resources will shrink.

True, but until the alternatives become viable, there's also a definite floor for demand, and the floor isn't that low.

If the demand for oil falls low enough and the incoming tariffs on imported oil become high enough, domestic production of oil will drive out all foreign oil, and the prices in the country will be completely independent of Saudi decision making.

Even if there is no Saudi oil actually in the country, the world market price is still set by the people who have the most, and the American oil companies are international companies who can charge what the market will bear. The only way I can think of to get around that is to nationalize U.S. oil production.

Fungibility is horse shit. Oil is a physical object. It costs time, labor, and energy to move it from one place to another. Oil here is fundamentally different and less expensive than oil over there.

Unfortunately the gas-guzzler that is the U.S. military is frequently over there. Oil-demanding companies based in the U.S. frequently have demand over there. The same transport costs you mention make it impractical to ship domestic oil to our fleet in the Gulf.

Improving self-reliability is different from isolationism. The economy is global, and the most effective solutions to economic problems are also going to be global.

[IGTN]

If we're independent from foreign oil over here, we won't need a huge gas-guzzling military presence in the gulf, and so we won't need much of their oil over there, either.