Why go from fossil fuel to fossil fuel?
What benifits would come from using natural gas? I understand it would stop our need to import oil, its cheep (er than oil) and its cleaner than oil. I just don't think its worth it. By the time natural gas stations are as plentyful as gas stations are today (there is one natural gas station in the entire state of Florida) and when everyone gets a new natural gas-using car, we're going to be in another energy crisis.
I think we should stop using fuel in our cars. We've all heard of electric cars, Clean, Cheep, Cars that use $50,000 batteries to take them 300 miles. Stupid Right?. But imagin a slot car. A track, with two metal strips to transfer power to the cars. Imagin that on the Highways. Simple electric cars that receive energy from the roads. The power strips would be placed on highways and major roads, and the cars would have smaller (say 100 mile) batteries to power them on minor roads.
This system, altough it will cost a lot, it will employ thousands to update the roads, as well as build wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power facilities. And, driving will be cheep, probobly the equivalent to $0.50/gal. Prices could be taxed to say about $1.50/gal, to help pay for building the whole system.
I think we should stop using fuel in our cars. We've all heard of electric cars, Clean, Cheep, Cars that use $50,000 batteries to take them 300 miles. Stupid Right?. But imagin a slot car. A track, with two metal strips to transfer power to the cars. Imagin that on the Highways. Simple electric cars that receive energy from the roads. The power strips would be placed on highways and major roads, and the cars would have smaller (say 100 mile) batteries to power them on minor roads.
This system, altough it will cost a lot, it will employ thousands to update the roads, as well as build wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power facilities. And, driving will be cheep, probobly the equivalent to $0.50/gal. Prices could be taxed to say about $1.50/gal, to help pay for building the whole system.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Andy-Paul on -
Jacob;
First and foremost, the whole slot car idea gets into trouble because the amount of electricity that would be required to move say, half the cars going through the Holland Tunnel in and out of NYC during rush hours would be enough to melt the metal. Also, how would you keep that metal from rusting out (oxidizing)?
Your concerns about natural gas as a fossil fuel are both reasonable and justified. However, methane is a byproduct of every landfill in the world, and can be made from sewage using technology that is already in heavy use throughout India. What this means is that natural gas can be supplied more readily as the number of people in an area increases.
This is one of the things that makes it a viable solution both today and in the long run. Today, we can pump it from the wells and continue using the gas that is already being harvested from local landfills. While we are doing that--let's say from now through 2020--we build nat gas staton infrastructure and tune up that part of the system to support the largest number of drivers most efficiently. Starting about 2015, a reasonable date to expect the beneficial effects of the fuel switch to start showing, we start building the diversions and the chemical reactors necessary to get the methane out of the sewerage and into the pipeline system. Mr. Pickens' plan is a starting point: where it really goes will up to those who choose to do rather than wait for the axe to fall again.
I personally do not expect nat gas vehicles to take over the planet, nor do I want any other single source of fuel or technology to do so. From my perspective, the idea would be to have at least three transport fuels in use all over the country in order to innoculate our economy from the price shocks that we have experienced every time something makes the petroleum markets go haywire.
Andy
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Permalink Reply by Jacob on -
Andy, Thank you for your response, The strips could be divided into smaller manageable sections, say 100'-300' sections in more busy areas, and around 1000' in less busy areas. This way, it's less susceptible to failures. And if a section does fail, a car could easily make it to the next section and continue getting power. For the rusting issue, metals like stainless steel or aluminum could be used and cleaned anualy.
Also, I think if electricity 'takes over' no one group or country could monopolize, there will be many different companys creating electricity from many different ways (ex. solar, wind nuclear, etc.) in every country.
Continuing from that, other transportation, such as boats and planes obviously could not use this system and would have to use fuels like nat. gas, which, like you said, would stop any single source of fuel from taking over.
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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Koch on -
I think our economy needs a solution soon. There is a LOT (hundreds of years worth) of NG in the US. That gives us the time to develop our alternative technology without having to hand over 700 billion per year of US assets to foreign countries. I like the Pickens plan.
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Permalink Reply by Jacob on
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I agree with the Pickens plan in which we need to become indipendent from foreign energy, and using natural gas is the most immediate solution. but once we are indipendent, we should work, and invest the most money, towards a more ecological solution
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Permalink Reply by SJC on -
As Boone says, it is a bridge fuel. Maybe for the next 10-15 years we will need to do a lot of things to get some time to work out EVs, fuel cells, biofuels and other personal transportation alternatives. Perhaps we should have started 30 years ago and we might be there by now, but we did not so this is what we will have to do.
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Permalink Reply by DubleDeuce on -
What benifits would come from using natural gas?>>
Your title question is a good one. The answer is this; we as a society AND as a nation, have placed our energy bet on a thing called crude oil. Our cars use it. Our electric generating plants use it. We use it for 99.9% of our on highway personal transportation requirements.
Because of this bet we are trapped now and are faced with fewer and fewer choices going forward as we look for a solution to our IMMEDIATE problem of gasoline and heating fuel prices. Do NOT confuse the relatively new impetus ($4.00 gas) to consider a national energy program (we have had the opportunity for 29 years to have this discussion and we have not done it) with THIS discussion proposed by T. Boone Pickens.
TBP has a plan. Not fully fleshed out. Not readily available for prime time markets. And certainly not ready for adoption by the masses. His plan is more of a ROADMAP or to be more specific, a proposal to clear a path to the future. Sorta like a Jim Bridger or a D'nial Boone (any relation?)
It is QUITE obvious that our NON transportation energy needs in this country come out of the end of copper wire strung to our homes and businesses. This cannot change. The only thing that MUST change about that observation is that in the future we will need MORE and MORE of it. This means MORE generating power. Currently, that idea generally means a coal, nuclear, or high water dam construction. The political Left has nixed coal as dirty and a carbon generator. The scaredy cats have nuclear off the map along with the ground hugger's (they don't want ANYTHING coming OUT of the ground or GOING INTO the ground) and the Society of Friends of the Snail Darter have the high water dams aced out. This leaves us with only ONE possible fuel source for electrical power generation and that is natural gas.
Now for decision time. It is a SMART man who knows WHEN it is time to put options on the table and press for a decision. THIS is TBP's brilliance. The decision to be made is this. Remember, I said that TBP's plan is more of a pathway through the wilderness earlier? Well, EVEN if any or ALL of the verboten fuel source methods were to be adopted NOW, (nuclear, coal, and water dams) we would STILL be in trouble because of the money needed to procure all of those new infrastructure plants. At the end of the day, (and the day would be 10-15 years long) the money spent, we would be no better off technologically than we are today. The decision inherent in TBP's plan is simply this, do we change course in out thought process as we race forward into the future and PLAN for our eventual relief from fossil fuels, or do we turn our heads on the matter as we had done repeatedly for 29 years, and go for that which we know how to do. Before you make a rush to that decision, remember this, new way or old way, the build out TIME and the build out MONEY are going to be enormous. At the end of the day will be be better prepared for the future by choosing column A or column B?
With all of the more conventional sources of electrical power generation taken off the table, (save maybe for rubbing two sticks together) we are left with NO means of generating electricity except for the wind turbine and natural gas. Neither of these fuel sources are currently sufficiently capable of handling the demands of our electrical grid. BUT!
If we MOVE the future increased grid demand over to wind turbines NOW by putting into place a priority towards the wind turbine, this will release us from using natural gas as a significant source of energy to build new electric generating capacity. Natural gas can then be used to power our automobile fleet, reducing pollutants, greenhouse gases (not by a tremendous amount) and most importantly, keeping petrodollars HERE at home.
Building out the NG infrastructure is NOT a big issue. All major (and minor) population areas already have pipe line service and home tapping of NG for the family car is already a fact of life. This existing NG infrastructure can THAN be turned over to hydrogen transport in 15-25 years when that technology becomes ripe for exploitation.
The bottom line here is THIS. The US energy market is on par with the Titanic in terms of size. As was so tragically demonstrated on that April night in 1912, it is a HARD ship to turn, especially when confronted with the like of an iceberg and having waited so long before taking action. We cannot just STOP what we have been doing (no matter how repulsive, damaging, expensive it is) and go down another path overnight.
NG will be a transition fuel for or cars while the wind turbine will be the transition fuel for our electrical grid. The future will tell us what the transition fuel will be in 25 years. Who knows, we may not have even discovered it yet. Why made a decision with no choices in front of us yet.
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Permalink Reply by Walter Wood on -
Using natural gas will buy us some time until we can develop a stable alternative energy source. Anything that is worthwhile is worth waiting for. USA citizens must learn to be patient on this matter. There are billions of dollars being spent right now on the extraction and movement of natural gas, so therefore I can assure you that natural gas will play a large roll in the energy markets for the next few decades if not longer.
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Permalink Reply by SJC on
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Natural gas is clean and domestically produced. We can make CO2 neutral methane from biomass. The car/fuel situation is so HUGE that it will take decades to change it. We should have started in the 1970s, we did not so now we have to catch up and this is a way to do that. When you look for value you look for the least expensive way to do the best job. On balance, this is that value.
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Ward on -
I agree-- Everything should be on the table--
The reason I am backing Boones plan is--- It is a plan-- Unlike congress who left for vacation--
OH-- except the 40 or so that are in the Halls of Congress every day for the past 10 days -The media won't tell you about)
But it is a plan-- Is he 100% right --probably not! But he has a short term--mid term and long range plan-- Congress has not done a damn thing and if we let them debate it it will take another 10-20 years of arguing.
Boones plan-- has short term for drilling & freeing up the natural gas we have
Remember under Ronald reagan (like him or not) less than 25% of our oil was imported--Now it is 70% come on ----$700,000,000,000.00 is going to foreign countries for oil - many of them hate us. So lets open up some land for deilling and expand a little to buy us another 20-30 years for Solar, Wind, Hydrogen and ????? whatever else we have not discovered or dreamed of.
Remember-- America is great! We always come up with great ideas & inventions when pressed. Lets not let Congress get in the middle and screw it up.
Take a look at this short term idea for $aving Gas! http://4ourfuture.com/renuco
Jeff at re_nu_co@yahoo.com
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