Ideas for making the U.S. more energy independent.

Lets brain storm some ideas to make the U.S. more energy independent. Perhaps we could write some letters and try to get action done with some of these ideas. :)

1) Utilize trains more instead of using semi-trucks for long range trips. Trains are much more efficient than trucks are for transporting goods.

2) Change the gas mileage rules. Currently if I remember, auto manufacturers have to offer an average rating of 20.7 miles to the gallon. It should be made so that all SUVs and Light trucks have to get 20.7 miles to the gallon. Do the same with cars 27.7 miles to the gallon.

3) Lift the 8500 pound limit for light trucks and SUVs to something higher like 10,000 or 12,000 so that Hummers also get caught in the fuel mileage rules.

4) Mandate better filters for car engines.

Short term

Partner with the EU and aggressively invest in 4th generation nuclear power plants.

Pursue Hybrid automobile technology. NG, electric, H2, ethanol, diesel, etc to decrease the need for oil.

Biodiesel is very interesting.

We really need to find a way to address our power needs in a costructive ways. Semantics and hyperbole rule on both sides of the issue. We need to use natural resouces and somewhere there is a balance between the needs of society and the cost to the environment. Oil is here to stay. It is the chemical foundation for just about everything produced in the world that is not made of wood or a metal alloy.


Long term

Keep working on solar, wind, wave and geo power. The technology may evolve to make any of them far more practical.

A colleague of mine suggested this. Methane is much easier to store than H2, but it still burns clean. It does produce CO2, but the overall cycle is carbon-neutral, since the CO2 is consumed by production of methane.

Of course, any cycle needs an energy source to drive it. We can use anything available. Wind, Solar, fission, fusion (if we ever get it working).

I think we might make a finish-line dash for tokomak fusion. It's been out of the limelight ever since the "cold fusion" fad, but steady progress has been happening.

In my opinion, it's the only way.

It would be nice if we didn't need to drive all over a 30 mile radius for our life's necessities. If that could be cut to, say a 5 mile radius, all of a sudden, a lot of potential technologies start to make sense.

It would also be nice if our houses were a more efficient with respect to insulation, so we didn't have to expend as much energy to heat and cool our living spaces.

Personally, I traded my '92 V8 Ford Bronco (11 mpg), for an '03 TDI New Beetle (45 mpg). Even on biodiesel at $3.00/gallon, I spend less per tank of fuel, and go over twice as far on that tank. That's my big contribution for last year...

and let the market do the rest.

The technology is already available to monitor productivity for employees working from home. Why we need millions of people driving to offices to do work that can be performed frmo a home-office is beyond me. If wew had a system where people worked from home 3 days a week, we would save a ton of fuel, cut pollution, and reduce the billions we spend on road maintenance a year. Doing this also makes it much more difficult to take out businesses with a terrorist strike on an individual building.

Understandably, not all jobs can be done from home, but there are many that can. Our company doesn't have an office. We all work from home and we pay a receptionist. She forwards calls...

JM

Telecommute 1 day a week, and that is an instant 20% savings in fuel, wear-and-tear, etc.

I've telecommuted full time for about 8 years now. Having done it both ways, I can say that there are advantages to working in an office. It psychologically separates work from home, it gives face-to-face time with coworkers, etc. These are important (although I've managed to work without them).

But I think that just about anyone with an office job could telecommute 1 day a week, if businesses reorganized their scheduling a little bit. And that would be very significant.

Once the gas prices really go up ($2.50 avg), I think employers may see it costs them less in the long run giving lower raises and letting people work from home to save money.

JM

Our Uranium and Thorium reserves are enormous. We could become energy "independent" and remove billions of tons of pollutants in the process.

This is only as an adjunct to your suggestions, all of which are excellent.

For example they are thousand of miles of four lane non-expressway highways in major cities. If you were to convert these to two lane roads with a central turning lane you would have space for a bike lane on both sides of the road. This way traffic will still flow. Remember One of the biggest tie ups on such roads are people turning left AND other people breaking down in the right lane. With a central turning lane traffic in not stopped when a car has to turn left. With the bike lane on each side, if a car breaks down it is possible for the traffic to get around it.

On top of this you have provided a wide lane for biking. Not so wide as cars may be tempted to drive on it, but wide enough for bikes to be used without cars coming to close to the bike.

...that the cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys are likely to get a 500Mw fusion reactor in the next few years, while they're still digging stuff out of a hole and setting fire to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3735017.stm

Then see how they feel about fossil fuels...

At present, we build these billion dollar behemoths that generate megawatts of power. The power has to be sent of thousands of miles over power lines that bleed anywhere from 10%-20% of the power generated before it ever gets to the consumers.

There is technology available (like Stirling Engines) that can generate enough power for a residential city block and can use any external combustion source like Natural Gas. Most cities already have a natural gas infrastructure.

By distributing generation closer to the consumer, we achieve several things.
1) Reduce the cost of construction for power generation. Using economies of scale, hundreds of thousands of these city block units could be built, which brings the cost down.
2) We reduce power loss.
3) Down time is reduced since a unit could easily be replaced and taken to a shop for repair instead of taking an entire section of the grid offline.
4) This would make it MUCH more difficult to interrupt the power supply.

JM

if power generation is distributed, it becomes impossible to cripple a city by targeting a few well-chosen generators.

The sterling engine is a wonderful design. Being an external combustion engine it can use any energy source to run, and is more efficient than other external combustion engines (with the exception of the steam turbine, which is is more complex and needs to be larger than a sterling to work properly).

The problem is NOT the Sterling engine (The Sterling Engine has been used extensively since the 1800s for various jobs when power was needed, The Sterling Engine can be used no matter what you have to burn, but the problem is NOT production of power but the energy needed to produce that power.

Oil is peaking (Sometime in the next 6 years mostly likely as I write, for exact date of peak is unknown even to the producers of Oil). Natural Gas is also peaking for the US (Natural Gas is expected to last longer in Europe given the large reserves in Russian and Iran, thus you hear of 2030 peak date for Natural Gas but that includes Russian and Iranian Natural Gas deposits). Natural Gas is best shipped by pipeline for to ship Natural Gas by ship you have to compress the Natural Gas first. Compression of Natural Gas to Liquid Natural Gas takes up to 1/3 of the energy provided by the Natural Gas being compressed. The net result is Liquid Natural Gas is ALWAYS going to cost at least 1/3 more than Natural gas shipped by pipeline. Thus given that North American Natural Gas production is peaking this year (Best calculation, may have been last year) to replace the Gas means buying Natural gas from Africa, Asia or Europe and than shipping it via ship with its 1/3 increase in costs. The net result is Natural Gas will NOT be available for production of Electricity.

The third energy source is coal, with all of its problems of pollution and carbon production (i.e. Global Warming). The best way to handle the soot from coal is with very large scrubbers to remove most of the pollution and that is best done in a large plant (Smaller pollution controls are effect on small Natural Gas and oil plants, with coal you need the larger pollution controls and that sets up coal plants as large plants).

The fourth Choice, bio-mass, will NOT produce enough energy to replace ANY of the above. Bio-mass will be part of any solution to the energy mess, it will only be to aid other efforts to replace the above three sources of energy. (The Sterling Engine can help in this regards, for given its size, the Sterling is the most efficient engine for small energy production).

Thus the problem is NOT the Sterling engine, but what to run the Sterling engine on. Two of the possible energy sources are in acute short supply, the third has HUGE pollution problems in small plants, and the fourth where the Sterling can do the most good, can only supplement other means to address the upcoming energy problem.

LTAs are Lighter Than Air craft. Basically, a new generation of airships.

Here is a list of the things LTAs could do for considerable energy savings:

Transportation over 50 miles (replacing many jet aircraft)
Food and Cargo transport (replacing soon-to-be-expensive trucks)
Construction (replacing some work done by cranes)
Evacuation
Public safety

Contrary to popular belief, hydrogen gas can be safely used for LTAs with modern containment, fire-suppression, and safety equipment.

--bkl