Letter from Stephen Glover
Energy – December 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I feel compelled to write to you with regard to the energy crisis coming our way. I guess the last mention I heard of hydrogen as the “fuel of the future” finally did it.
Hydrogen has no chance of playing a significant role in our nation’s energy crisis for decades. First, everyone needs to understand that hydrogen is not a source of energy like oil or wind. When we pull oil out of the ground we gain far more energy from that oil than we expend in getting it above the ground.
Hydrogen can only be a fuel in the sense that it is used to transfer energy from one place to another. The production of hydrogen consumes energy. In order to generate hydrogen you need to expend more usable energy than you end up with contained in the hydrogen you make. Hydrogen is the gaseous equivalent of an electric power line.
So if you make hydrogen from electricity, you lose usable energy in the process. Which makes it extremely irritating to watch “futurists” and car companies tout “plug-in” cars as something special. At present, they would be worse net polluters than standard gasoline cars.
How can that be possible? Well, a large percentage of the energy contained in fuels like coal is lost when it is burned to make electricity. Then there is a further loss of energy in the transmission of electricity across the energy grid. Believe it or not, by the time you plug in that “car of the future”, the net overall efficiency of the vehicle (assuming 100% engine efficiency) is about the same as a standard gasoline engine. The really bad news is that our energy mix in making electricity is about 50% from coal on a national level. And coal is the most concentrated source of pollutants and CO2 per unit of energy produced; the burning of gasoline gets a lot of its energy from the hydrogen in the gasoline (a hydrocarbon). Final result: plug in that electric car, drive it, and you’re a worse polluter than a regular gas vehicle!
So at this juncture the most ecologically correct car to drive is the gas/electric hybrids that are available today. In the distant future our mix of electricity energy sources may make the “plug-in” car the better choice, but that day is far in the future. And the hydrogen car is that much more of a distant fantasy. Sort of like fusion energy; it may work in someone’s lifetime.
In the meantime, there is an energy crisis barreling our way. George Sibley makes reference to “peak oil” frequently — that is the source of the coming crisis specifically in transportation energy. It’s timing is the source of much controversy, but in my estimation the best minds have the “peaking” start in earnest in less than 5 years at the outside.
Everyone should read the 2005 Hirsch Report, paid for by our DOE. It shows how long it will take, under the best of conditions, for us to mitigate the coming peaking of oil production. Bottom line, given a five-year lead time and an all-out assault on the problem, the US will experience at least ten years of disruptions or worse due to the problem. The implication is clear; a meaningful, painful set of crash actions now would probably mean more than ten years of high and volatile fuel pricing ($85 oil will soon look cheap), shortages, goods distribution troubles, etc. Every year we do little or nothing, we add an additional year of pain. Of course, a deep recession or depression would buy us more time by destroying oil demand, but is that a desirable alternative?
So please, no more talk of “hydrogen fuel” as an answer to anything in the foreseeable future. Let’s understand where our electricity comes from. It’s only clean (in a CO2 sense) at your wall outlet. It will take many years for solar and wind to really make a significant difference, and most of that will be lost in just mitigating the decline in world oil production. Let’s educate ourselves about the question of peaking oil production. If we don’t truly understand the basis of the coming troubles we will be that much worse for our inability to mount educated responses. And the problems with energy are going to impact all of us far faster than global warming or the Social Security “crisis.” If we’re lucky we may get a pricing break in oil for a year or two, but after that I see very little room for optimism.
Conservation in all ways is the best immediate, proven way to cut oil demand and hence prices quickly. As much as I hated the 55-mph speed limit, lowered highway speed limits work. Purchasing vehicles with better gas mileage will pay off, though the Hirsch report shows just how slowly this fleet turnover will take to make a real difference. Wind energy is coming on strong but we need to understand that it is not a source of transportation energy and will do little to directly help with the peak oil trouble. King Hubbert, Shell Oil’s chief geologist, outlined the peak oil scenario and a plan for its mitigation way back in 1956. It recognized the coming peaking of oil production and recommended adding electricity production through nuclear power over time to keep the US independent of foreign oil. Having ignored the predictable coming of peak oil for the next 50 years, there will be a huge price to be paid for our neglect — regional resource wars, depressed economic growth or worse, the debasing of our currency, expensive energy, etc. But even late action is better than doing nothing. As the Hirsch report shows, every year of inaction just adds another year of pain.
Give it a thought! One notion that occurs to me in Chaffee County is that most alternative energy schemes result in more production of electricity. Some electric companies, Sangre de Cristo included, will supply very inexpensive off-peak energy to residential customers. And there are now practical heating systems that store the cheaper energy and release it when energy costs are high. It’s one way, especially in new construction, where we can personally lower our direct use of hydrocarbons and save money as well. Right now it’s not a lot better than a hypothetical hydrogen car would be for global warming, but it will always be a better way to use electricity than making hydrogen. And we have to lessen our direct personal use of hydrocarbons and increase our use of electricity if real alternative energy sources (wind, solar) are to help us past peak oil.
In the end, we will all need to do our best to use less energy and be prepared to pay far more for it in all it’s forms. Perhaps the picture will be different in 20 years; it would be nice to think so.
Stephen Glover
Nathrop
