Circularity
Gas prices too high in California? No problem: buy a hybrid car. Dan Turner at the LA Times writes:
Walking the dog the other morning, I heard an odd whistle and hum behind me; it was one of my neighbors returning home (I happened to be standing in front of his driveway at the time), driving his new Nissan Leaf electric car.
“How do you like your Leaf?” I asked, while dragging the pooch out of his path.
“Man, I absolutely love it. I haven’t been to a gas station in, like, two months.” …
Unless he’s been reading the news, my neighbor probably has no idea that California is enduring a sudden, surprising and, for other people, very painful spike in gasoline prices, which in some parts of the Southland have crossed the $5-a-gallon mark.
Until the recent gas price spike Dan Turner thought gasoline powered cars might be a better deal. But now he’s changed his mind. “The original version of this post contained a final paragraph saying that gas-powered economy cars were often a better deal than electric cars, but in consideration of the … $7,500 federal tax credit offered for the Leaf and other all-electric vehicles … that conclusion has been deleted.”
Part of the reason why California gas prices are so high is because the Golden State requires a special blend of fuel to meet is environmental requirements. But since electricity is electricity unlike fuel, which if the wrong blend cannot be imported from out of state, voltage can. Hence the rising fuel prices advantage electrics which can use generic electricity unlike California car’s which can’t use generic fuel.
What could go wrong? Well you might run out of electricity. It can happen. In the UK consumers have been warned that “millions of households are at risk of power black-outs within three years because coal stations are being replaced with wind farms”.
In its strongest ever warning, Ofgem said there may have to be “controlled disconnections” of homes and businesses in the middle of this decade because Britain has not done enough to make sure it has enough electricity.
The regulator’s new analysis reveals the risk of power-cuts is almost 50 per cent in 2015 if a very cold winter causes high demand for electricity.
It predicts Britain will face power shortages because old coal and oil plants are being forced to shut down under the European Union’s environmental regulations. This will partly be replaced by wind farms, but they are less reliable and can only generate electricity in the right weather conditions.
Ofgem believes the lack of spare power generation “could lead to higher bills”, which are already at record high of £1,300 per year.
Electric cars are dependent on electricity. Rush Limbaugh dared Washington DC electric vehicle owners during the recent blackout to get out of town but the Green Auto blog points out that gasoline powered vehicles would be similarly immobilized.
We’re not going to mention that gas stations require electricity in order to pump gas… oh, wait, we just did. Rush goes on to attack windmills and solar panels … We’re not going to mention that the D.C.-area storm didn’t single out windmills or solar panels, leaving all other power-generating plants and equipment intact. Um, oops.
Older readers may remember when electric pumps at antedeluvian gasoline stations were equipped with a socket for a crank on the side which enabled the attendant — or anyone — to draw the fuel up manually for the reservoir in the event of a power failure. Apparently they don’t have those things much any more.
Should West Virginia’s 1,392 gas retailers be required to have a standby power source in the event of another long-term power outage? …
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va, expressed concern.
“I would hope some of our area learned the necessity of having backup generators, especially gas stations,” the Third District congressman said.
“That’s been a surprise to me, the number of gas stations that have not had backup generators, therefore unable to pump gas. Some had generators, but they didn’t do any good.”
So buy generators. But the Green Auto blog might object that you can’t fuel the backup generators either unless you can get the gas from the service station in the first place.
Glenn Reynolds points out that America is more vulnerable to disruption in some respects than India. Why? Because it is so dependent on the grid.
Modern civilization is astoundingly dependent on electricity. If the power goes out for very long, pretty much everything stops: water (you need pumps), gasoline (most gas stations don’t have backup generators to pump the gas), traffic (no stoplights), sewage (pumps again), and, eventually, even things like natural gas supplies (more pumps) and cellphone service (cell towers usually have backup power, but for most it’s only short-term). Stop the electricity for a day and it’s inconvenient; stop it for a few days and people die; stop it for a week or more over a big area and civilization itself is in peril. …
Where do people get food if the grocery stores don’t have power? For outages of a few days, this is a nuisance; for longer ones, it becomes a serious problem.
How many post-apocalyptic movies have you seen where the heroes escape from zombies in an electric car? But nobody ever explained how the folks in those Mad Max movies filled up without without electricity to run the pump. So buy a Chevy Volt. They don’t need gas.
Belmont Commenters
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
I know a guy with a Leaf. It only goes 85 miles without a full recharge, which takes hours. Forgetaboutit.
It’s all part of Michelle Obama’s plan to get everyone on bicycles.
“Electric cars are dependent on electricity. Rush Limbaugh dared Washington DC electric vehicle owners during the recent blackout to get out of town but the Green Auto blog points out that gasoline powered vehicles would be similarly immobilized.”
Actually, they wouldn’t be immobilized until they ran out of gas. Some vehicles can go up to 500 miles on a full tank. On top of that, there are other ways of obtaining gasoline from a storage tank when the power is off. Many people still have hand pumps and enough mechanical skill to rig them up properly to extract the liquid. It would be relatively easy to get some gasoline from a big tanker truck if the driver turned entreprenurial and decided to sell it. Remember on Apollo 13 in 1970, there was enough creativity in the space program to devise a way to provide clean air to astronauts sealed in a capsule thousands of miles away in space using only common articles they had on board. I would wager there is still enough everyday genius out there to get gasoline out of a tank in an emergency. Would there be similar creativity available to recharge electric cars? Possibly, but the nature of the beast would make it a much more time-consuming and difficult task.
Remember, Spain is the model: 25 percent unemployment. That is what crony capitalism, massive subsidies, hyper regulation, and top down bureaucratic incompetence buys you. Oh, right, it will work better when a different set of idiots try it — even though the evidence says it won’t (oops, shouldn’t mention the epic fails).
If electric cars are so wonderful, why do we have to subsidize them so massively? We should tax them. Gas cars pay a lot of tax. The affluent who buy electric cars don’t build the roads they drive on (or at least they don’t pay for them). They should pay their fair share. But they cry and complain at the suggestion. Then they want the poor to spend 4 hours taking the bus to work.
We need to tax electric cars and stop subsidizing them. It is only fair.
Waiting on CA to ban the purchase of ‘dirty electricity’, that generated outside the state with fossil fuels and other non-green sources. Can’t be morally green to simply ship the pollution just across the state line.
I spoke to an ardent environmentalist named Verdi the other day, and he was quite sanguine about the prospect of no electricity. He said he didn’t like the way his neighbors despoiled the earth by consuming huge amounts of coal plant generated electricity.
I have my new electric car
And solar panels too
And geo thermal is by far
The best that you can do
My bike I’ve fixed to generate
Electric power when
The Gaia whom we venerate
Gets mad at us and then
She shuts down all the power plants
And leaves us in the dark
And so you see it takes one glance
To see that it’s a lark
To live again as we once did
With sunlight as our guide
We didn’t have a power grid
And no one ever died
Because the hospitals were closed
No operating rooms
Back then it never was supposed
There’d be electric looms
To weave the cloth to make the shirts
To wear to work the fields
The spinning wheels were run by skirts
With low production yields
And yet the folks were happier
Much closer to the soil
Although their lives were crappier
They loved the life of toil
So that is why I want to close
The coal plants and rely
On wind and solar and who knows
I’ll watch my neighbors die
Electricity is tier priced in California; that is to say, the more you use, the more you pay per unit, as you use more units of energy (kw). I always think of that when I see those ‘clever’ Volt commercials. Maybe they haven’t been to the gas station in a while, wonder what their Edison bill is? Paid $4.59/gal yesterday at a Shell in OC. Don’t drive much, but I filled up my tank. I suspect next time I gas up, that will be a bargain price. Thanks.
Hey Green Auto blog: derp! Yes, fuel pumps run on electricity as well, but it takes orders of magnitude less electricity to get fuel out of a underground tank and into a car compared to the electricity needed to charge an EV. A $500 generator will get people with gasoline/diesel vehicles (and those evil big rigs which do stupid stuff like deliver food to the grocery store) going. That same generator ain’t going to be able to charge even one little crappy EV death trap tin can. But other than that, it’s exactly the same.
On a more serious, yet OT subject:
Downed drone: Iran testing Israel’s capabilities
I may be wrong (often am) but I think that CA prohibits the transmission of electricity to CA that comes from coal fired plants.
The bright guy with the electric car forgets where the electricity comes from. In DC it is coal. Enviros want to stop fracking, but want natural gas to generate power, and to heat their homes.
Here CO there is a new ad from a wind power generator worker who lost his job making generator parts when the tax breaks were stopped. He mentions that means more oil being imported. Since when is wind power replacing oil. Only place I know is North East that uses oil for heating, but stopped wind power because it might ruin the view.
Idijts
Just an amazing CBS Evening news broadcast.
First they cover the California gas price story, of course no mention that no new refineries can be built for green and anti-business reasons, and paralysis by the state’s 1000% Democratic government.
Then the amazing thing, they cover Romney “breaking with his character and telling a personal story about himself”, helping a dying 14 year old boy to make out his will. Hey CBS, that was featured at the Republican convention, too bad your political reporter nor anyone on the weekend national editor’s desk HAS ANY IDEA THAT IT HAPPENED.
Propane. Can pump itself. Nearly the same energy density as regular gasoline and higher octane than any gasoline grade. So with a properly designed engine it can compete very well in the mileage category. Very clean emissions, mainly CO2 and water vapor. Creates no sludge inside the engine and the oil comes out almost as clear as it went in. Loads of positives, very, very few negatives.
LA dude is willfully ignorant.
You got that right, brother!
The people who are so innocently exuberant about their little toy electric cars don’t seem to have devoted so much as a single tick of the clock to considering how the electricity they need is actually generated.
Dumb-masses.
In this country, a major fraction of our electricity is from coal-fired plants, another big chunk from diesel-powered plants, and the remainder from either hydroelectric (dams impounding chancy melt and rain water) and fission-based nuclear power.
The EPA is killing the first two; we haven’t had a NEW Nuclear plant come online for decades, few hydroelectric dams have been added to the inventory that existed as early as 1940.
(How DO they get all that electricity into a flashlight battery, anyhow?)
How many people who’ve bought an electric car have ever actually visited or driven through a field of windmills? There are reported to be about 5,400 windmills in the vicinity of the Altamount Pass – the main artery past Livermore from the Bay Area into the Central Valley. In the decade I lived there I drove through that “windmill farm” hundreds of times, and every time, it was clear that a subtantial number of the structures were INOPERATIVE, shut-down, still, non-productive. I estimate the idle fraction was consistently on the order of 10-15 percent WHEN THE WIND WAS BLOWING, and it could be much greater.
Additionally, the people of the Bay Area are a stiff-necked and contrary lot. In 2005, residents of Marin County, just a little north of the Golden Gate Bridge vigorously rejected the application of one of their neighbors for a permit to build a 660Kw windmill. At its planned 210 feet, even parked on S.F. publisher’s 550+acre olive ranch, it seemingly made the normally environmentally-sympathetic neighbors chuck all their good will out the window. Perhaps if the tower were doing anything to lower their utility bills…
Last time I checked, most Northern CA municipalities require a waiver from their local government in order to erect ANY structure higher than 35 feet.
Even before I escaped from the nut-farm, the California state legislature had begun penalizing (with value-added taxes to their property) the people who had invested significantly in various sorts of “green energy systems.” That legislature had previously been encouraging California residents to make those investments, promising substantial tax benefits.
California society is distilling itself by self-selection and legislative punishment of the sane to a state of universal imbecility. And the Federal government is doing likewise to the nation.
“We’re not going to mention that the D.C.-area storm didn’t single out windmills or solar panels, leaving all other power-generating plants and equipment intact. Um, oops.”
Well, uh, yes, it did. With solar arrays and windmills the storm can take out both the generating equipment and the transmission lines. I have never heard of a storm taking out a coal, natural gas, or nuke plant; it just takes down the transmission lines. With “alternative” or “green” sources, windstorms can take out both the source of the power and the transmission lines, and probably will. Even worse, those sources need a collection network to gather them, since they are so spread out and are usually distant from the areas needing the power, and then they still need a distribution network to deliver it. Double your pleasure, double your fun.
I have been without power for days on end after hurriances on more than one occasion. But whaddya know, the natural gas still worked just fine; hot water and heat were available. So did my portable electric gnerator. And I could go up to the local mall, which had a big old diesel generator providing power, and get a bite to eat. I even considered taking in a movie so I could sleep in air conditioned comfort.
And I have a friend who has gone solar for his home electricity. Cost him $50K to put in the solar cells, but he still has no power at night unless the power company delivers it. That capability would have been next to useless when we were without power, unless you wanted to sleep all day and then sit around in the dark all night.
hdgreene 4,
Spot on.
Let us give the Green crowd what they want. That is give them what they say they want. Set federal excise taxes to reflect the environmental cost of units of energy consumed. Set them to reflect some arbitrary probably bogus but agreed upon measurable metric. We can use carbon consumed or carbon released or energy consumed producing each unit sold to the retail consumer. Think of it as a form of VAT that accumulates at each stage of production. In fact it will be a particularly bad VAT that will bias and deform the market while providing no information or incentives for efficiency that do not exist in a freer market without that tax and administrative burden. If such a regime were to be adopted then the Volt or Leaf owner would have to pay a lot more. The cheapest and sanest sources of energy, nuclear gas hydro and coal, would eat electric wind.
The GOP should announce 20 small modular reactors to start, scaling up to 100, and 2 big nuke plants will be approved each year, starting in year 2 A.R., America Restored.
We’re starting to see what the End will look like.
Isn’t hydrogen more available, nay limitless than petrol?
Why not fuel cell technology rather than hybrid or battery-based electric vehicles?
Wouldn’t it be smarter to shoot some venture capital into the construction of hydrogen fuel refineries, to say nothing of a chain of liquid hydrogen refueling stations?
To this un-tutored driving enthusiast, the Honda FCX Clarity appears to be the way forward. The car’s fuel cell technology is proven, as is the technology used in dispensing the fuel.
Heck, Top Gear’s James May, ol’ “Captain Slow” himself, can operate and service a Clarity. Mr. May said the FCX was the vehicle that would cause the less social disruption if widely adopted, much less than the Prius, the Leaf or that appalling Volt thingie. With a range of 250 miles or so, you drive it, you pull into a fueling station, top off the tank, and drive another 250 miles, just like a petrol powered car does. The Clarity’s currently avilable in Southern California, with less than 50 available for lease, not sale, at $600 per month. Honda’s doing this because California is the only state with liquid hydrogen fueling stations installed, and more on the way.
Something to think about, no?
LYNNDH
You are 100% incorrect.
The Four Corners plant ( actually a five-plex ) is 100% coal and it is massively dedicated to the LA electric market.
It is the Obama EPA that is throttling back Four Corners.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_Generating_Station
Even though these plants are in the sticks — with essentially no human impact — the Warmists are colluding to shut them down.
Here’s how windmills handle high winds:
http://dailypicksandflicks.com/2011/12/09/wind-turbine-explodes-in-flames-at-ardrossan-scotland-picture-gallery/
blert @ 18: Sticks? The Navajo Nation may wish to differ with you. It is rural. Nearest city is Farmington, NM. Not a big place. New Mexicans would be glad to not send power to LA. They have Californicated Santa Fe too often.
But, hey, we really appreciate the opinions of our coastal masters. Not.
Wretchard has mentioned three things about the Benghazi raid. 1.)that it was done to blind US intelligence. 2.) that it was aided by an intelligence agency working on behalf of AQ 3.)that it was a precursor to something much bigger.
So what scenerio would fit all three of those stipulations.
Here it is.
The benghazi raid was most likely supported by the egyptian intelligence that supported AQ in libya so as to blind the US to an upcoming Egyptian invasion of Libya whose oil the Egyptians desperately need to pay their bills.
(the one problem with this scenario is that the USA provides egypt with arms. an egyptian invasion of libya would first result in the immediate cut off of arms followed by the active expulsion of egypt from Libya. However, egypt will soon be in dire financial shape. desperate people do desperate things.)
The Pentagon is currently working on getting portable nuclear reactors for their military bases around the USA so as to get off the grid which is considered too vulnerable man caused blackouts espionage attacks and really big solar storms–(two of which have occurred in the last 200 years or so.)
Military bases are not subject to the same regulation as the civilian economy.
That will end badly for Egypt and there is no telling how much damage it will do in the end. But it can’t be helped. They are driven. To destruction, it’s true, but that’s what they want.
What of the rest of the world? By simply governing competently a ‘President Romney’ could set the stage for new American century and in the process, save the world from catastrophe and midwife a resurgence.
The world is now in the throes of a crisis. Without a center there is a real danger that it will collapse into conflict and chaos instead of overcoming it. For you need a center in which to preserve what is precious and from that vantage to rebuild.
And where could that center be? Not the Middle East, which will be convulsed with upheaval, demographic crisis and a collapsing economy. Israel will be lucky to survive in a purely defensive mode in that soup
It will not be Europe. It’s southern half threatens to collapse and the trouble will spread north. Europe will survive and in the long term it will be renewed but only if it is not completely burned out by the storm from the southeast. Much that is valuable is in the old continent that must not be lost. Europe is at the bottom of its historical cycle. One day it will re-emerge in greatness. For now it is helpless.
Russia cannot hold things together. It’s power potential is too diminished. Nor can China, itself about to be overtaken by events. Japan, India and Australia by themselves are too weak. By themselves they can have no decisive influence on events.
That leaves North America as the hinge of fate. Properly run it could provide the anchor around which the world will eventually recover. But only if it is properly run. The real danger posed by the Obama administration is that it threatened to destroy the “last best place on earth” and leave the world with no unburned core from which to regenerate.
He was going to screw the pooch, fritter away the last reserve; cast it aside simply because he did not know the value of anything. It could have been so different for him.
This was Obama’s historical opportunity to seize. He could have been the greatest American President of the last 150 years if he had only been big enough to see his chance. All he had to do was govern halfway decently and the natural advantages of North America would accrue.
But he grabbed at baubles, speeches and glitter and his moment passed him by. He canceled pipelines. Blockaded energy development. Sank the economy in debt. Put an American Army in a dusty, landlocked place. He wrapped everything in red tape. He was too small a man for the ball history pitched at him.
I do not think Romney has that sense of potential destiny, but he will fulfill it simply by being halfway competent. He’ll do it simply by showing up and fielding things as they come. He’ll hit the ball, even if only a single because he knows what the game is.
Romney’s challenge is threefold. To throw off the chains which shackle the US economy; to keep the nation together after it emerges divided from a traumatic 2012 presidential contest; and lastly to use American power to keep the world from completely shaking itself apart. There is not enough power to quell every disturbance. But properly used there is enough American power to preserve the core functions of the world.
Romney will see this because he can’t help but see it. He’ll do the uninspired but the logical thing in response to it. And that’s all you need to do. That’s all Obama needed to do. How he missed doing it will puzzle historians in future decades. But the obvious is not always obvious in contemporaneous time.
Would there be similar creativity available to recharge electric cars? Possibly, but the nature of the beast would make it a much more time-consuming and difficult task.
Doesn’t take too much creativity Buck. You just open the trunk of your Volt, grab the tire iron, clock the driver of the nearest gas-power car over the head, and take his keys.
Wait, do Volts come with tire irons? Not sure the average Vold driver would know what to do with one?
Hmm, may be a tougher problem than I thought.
I think the Romneys and the Ryans are very well aware of the magnitude of the civilizational crisis facing us.
Evidence? This interview of Ann Romney with Brian “I Bowed to Obama” Williams.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: ‘You said, “I believe in my heart that Mitt is going to save America.”
And that jumped off the screen to me. Someone who knows you conceded that if Mrs. Obama used words like that – “Barack was going to save America” – there’d be all kinds of hubbub. What do you mean? Those are powerful words. [If??? she said he was going to save the freakin' world, and put all of us to work: but Lickspittle Williams slides right past that detail. . . .]
ANN ROMNEY: I think what it means, it comes right down to why we decided to get in the race. When I was deciding and Mitt was deciding, Mitt was reluctant.
I said, “I need to know one thing: is it too late basically to do the things, to fix the things for the direction this country is headed in?”
He said, “No, it’s getting late, but it’s not too late yet.”‘
[He knows. She does, too.]
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2012/08/29/brian-williams-reprimands-ann-romney-saying-mitt-romney-going-save-amer#ixzz28aoUbYBY
Here is Brian Toady Williams actually bowing to Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTaFJJgYftg . Nauseating, isn’t it?
@JMH – I think a Volt owner would only do that to siphon someone’s gas… Since, you know, it does have a gas generator.
Re: power-generation
I was in the gigantic Northeast blackout of 2003, right in Manhattan. My neighborhood was blacked out for 27 hours. Now, this is a mere bagatelle compared to what people in hurricane country deal with, as far as its duration is concerned, but it underlined how thin the line is between civilization and the jungle. We were lucky: Giuliani’s crime cleanup was still in force and effect, in spite of Milquetoast Bloomberg, so the city didn’t turn feral this time like it did in 1978.
Even so, things were veering towards the Lord of the Flies in Thompkins Square Park in the Lower East Side, and they definitely went to pieces in Queens. Bonfires and crime, thugs on the loose. Taxis stalled for hours with hapless riders crammed in them, watching the meter tick past $80.00 for four blocks’ progress. Food going bad in grocery stores, which were cleaned out of their durables in a matter of hours. Batteries were nowhere to be had. Candles, ditto. Most New Yorkers keep stores of supplies that we schlepp on foot to our apartments, often up the stairs (no elevators for most of us), so we don’t keep a lot on hand or have much storage room. Everything depends on the constant, corpuscular flow of goods on a daily basis.
I was the heroine of the hour because I had a flashlight, a simple thing most Manhattanites apparently don’t have (not many Scouts here!). A battery-powered fan (from my sailing days) kept me from broiling overnight. But we all would have been in real bad shape had the power been out much longer. That little fan, for instance, is only good for 2 nights on four D batteries.
Same with the 9-11 attacks: no trucks allowed into or out of the city for three days; bare shelves in the stores; the bridges and tunnels to the island closed for the first time in our history. Military men armed with machine guns at our corner deli, carding us for proof of residence. It was surreal: but it was just a taste of how the shite can go down.
22. wretchard
He’ll hit the ball, even if only a single because he knows what the game is.
Thank you for that baseball analogy; I’m heartened by the knowledge that three World Series (1991,1997,and 2001) were decided by bloop singles at the end of the final game. Romney is in good company. And I’m sure he’s also better on the mound than Teh Won: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2MVSahGxE
(C’mon: the mom jeans are still good for a much-needed laugh).
wretchard @22: Shades of the old Leonard Cohen haiku – “Oh and one more thing… you won’t like what comes after America”
Re #17 Ed Ostermeyer – Unfortunately, although hydrogen may be useful for other reasons it doesn’t solve the energy supply problem. There are no natural sources of free hydrogen; if you are going to use hydrogen as a fuel, you have to make it first and that takes energy.
It is, however, true that hydrogen may well be useful as a store of energy that’s superior to batteries. Recharging would be as simple as filling a tank with petrol or diesel, although different; and however you get the energy out of the hydrogen, the only immediate product is water. (Depending on how the hydrogen is made, there might be a waste product cost for the manufacture of the H2 in the first place.)
There are, however, some problems with hydrogen as a fuel. Fuel cells are rather easily poisoned by traces of various metals. Hydrogen has rather poor energy density as a fuel, and is difficult to store; the only two ways right now are liquid hydrogen (which is a deep cryogen that is going to need pressure-relief valves and so on, and some will be continuously lost) and high-pressure tanks, an obvious hazard in a road vehicle. And lastly, hydrogen/air mixtures are violently explosive. Despite Hollywood, gasoline explosions are actually rather rare; not so with hydrogen.
#29. Fletcher Christian – There are no natural sources of free hydrogen; if you are going to use hydrogen as a fuel, you have to make it first and that takes energy.
I always liked a proposal I read in a John Mcphee book about twenty years ago. The scientist proposed using geothermal in the Alaskan islands to generate the power for producing hydrogen. If I recall correctly, that was viable but as you mention the problem was storage/transport. It’s a version of the Underwear Gnomes…
1. Energy
2. Blank
3. Energy
After Katrina, truck stops kept their fuel pumps running with gas powered generators, which, of course, may be banned in LA.
Let’s see, I can carry 5-50 gallons of gasoline in a container in the back of the truck. That is say 100-1000 miles in truck getting 20 mpg. Can you carry 100 miles worth of battery recharge in your EV? If I pull up to a fuel station that doesn’t have power, I can bucket lift the gasoline from the tank’s fill port, I can disconnect the electric motor and rig some sort of manual operator (hand/foot crank, etc.), I can start a siphon from the tank, etc. If the power goes out, they have to have ICE powered generators to get the big generators going. In any case, at the local fuel station there is not a store of electricity that can be used to fuel the EV.
What they don’t deal with in the apocalypse movies is the fact, that while there is a large remaining store of gasoline if you suddenly kill off 99% of the population, it degrades over time. Old gas is poor fuel.
OT: Hey Wretchard, I used to enjoy your bloggage on the MILF insurgency in the Philippines. Did you see where they signed an accord recently with the national government? If the PJ editors would allow it in this busy election season, I’d be very much interested in hearing your opinion on these developments.
@Wretchard 22
I seldom disagree, but I think I got Obama right in 2007 when asked what I thought about his presidential potential by a leftie friend. Great speaker (ie 2004) but no way does he have the experience for the job. In short i don’t think he ever had the potential be a great president. I don’t disagree that the opportunity was there, but just because ‘all the notes are there on the keyboard waiting to be played’ doesn’t make anyone a great pianist.
Fletcher #29:
Yes. The industrial process for making hydrogen fuel is not electroloysis but uses natural gas. So why not just use the natural gas directly?
I did a study for NASA. A current commercial technology composite tank holding the equivalent of 10 gallons of gasoline in the form of 3600 psi natural gas is 3 ft long, a foot in in diameter and weighs 50 lb empty – a poor comparison to a tank of gasoline, perhaps, but the natural gas is plentiful, much cheaper than gasoline, and burns cleaner, so it is an attractive alternative for certain applications.
But that same kind of tank, full of 5000 PSI pressurized H2, has only the equivalent of 2 gal of gasoline.
Just use the Natural Gas.
By the way, propane requires not only natural gas but also oil to produce.
Blert #18:
Recently they refurbed the San Onofre nuke plant only to discover that the reactor cooling tubing was eroding at a high rate. They then started looking a reactivating a coal fired plant they had shut down and started to dismantle, so they can keep things going until San Onofre gets fixed again, if it does get fixed.
Wretchard #22:
Romney has said that if he gets done what he sees needs to be done, he’ll be happy to be a one term president. How many have ever even said that? And I believe him. He knows how big the problems are and how he will be savaged for pulling the airplane out of the power spiral. Capt Scully saved his passengers and crew and then retired. Mitt likely will do the same.
I question the timing of this MSM piece.
1. The election is fast upon us.
2. Gas prices are sky high.
3. The LA times is in the tank for 0bama.
4. “Dan Turner is an editorial writer who covers international news (with a particular focus on Africa…), transportation… and lives with his wife and dog in the Hollywood Hills…”
See LA times editorial board
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-edboardbios23oct23,0,4130157.htmlstory
5. Dan Turner “interviewed an unnamed neighbor” with the quote “Man, I absolutely love it. I haven’t been to a gas station in, like, two months.” … That is over the top!
Can you say bird cage liner and Jayson Blair?
I am living in the Beach area south of Los Angeles proper and Thursday or so we had a brown out. I am pretty sure it is the brown out that wiped out the local refinery that helped cause the gas price spike. Imagine what 60V 30Hz with occasional spurts in band does to thousands of PLC controllers. Apparently brown outs destroy Compact Fluorescent Lamps as well because after the brown out I had to replace all of our lights. The commies want us to sit in the dark and dream of electric cars. Meanwhile,all of the politico’s of the area are trying to get the oldest power plant shut down… others are agitating against geothermal and solar in the deserts east of San Diego. F’ing blowhards.
We trust government to ensure that utilities are run properly and can provide service 24/7. Well, we used to.
Engineers will always find it usefull to return to first principles. In this case, Entropy lives. Each time a fuel is converted to work, there are losses. The best ever single cycle fossil power plants are 35% or so efficient. That is only 35% of the energy in the fuel gets to the generator terminals (note, not your end use, just the exit terminals of the generator). Thus when power actually gets to your electro-car charging station you are down to about 20% net. After charging (more losses, note the heat) and then running the car…net to wheels gets to about 10%.
So a unit of energy in, say, natural gas, gets about 10% applied to your wheels.
A natural gas vehicle, allowing for less effeciency than a central station power plant, gets about 25% to the wheels.
So, if anyone, anyone, did the math, it is cheaper on the macro-consumption level, to have natural gas cars. (no only doable, but done…most every local gas company uses NatGas vehicles and have for years)
The Operatve First Principles are: Always consume fuel as close as possible, both physically and mechanically, to its end use and minimize the number of conversions from fuel to end use (i.e. avoid the make power, transmit power, charge batteries, use batteries, convert to mechanical motion.) DUH.
Finally, this same Entropy based idea is happening in MENA. There isn’t enough cultural energy to sustain sanity much longer. Insanity is coming.
ta
Today’s available technology of micro-nuke electricity generation and 3-D printing fabrication lead to the day when people will gather in polis-size communities adequately self sufficient to drop off the grid and remove themselves from the mandate of the central authority.
The brainiacs at MIT say the day is not too far off when 3-D printing will be superseded by 3-D assemblers. Push a button and out pops a complete and functional irrigation pump or complicated piece of electronic circuitry complete with microprocessors. The possibilities are endless.
People of character are not going to continue in live in places like California where greed, incompetence, and ideological stupidity make “normal” living not just a hardship but an impossibility. There are alternatives.
Mitt said he would look at every federal agency and ask the question; “Is it worth borrowing money from China to fund this?”
God bless.
Lorenz Gude – I think Wretchard’s point was that, in effect, that the North American economy was a very large machine that worked without a lot of government intervention. Had Obama not tried to rest the train from the tracks to change the course of history and made a few rational decisions instead, he would have done well. All he had to do was keep in front of the parade. Seems he didn’t like where America came from and where it was going and thought he could do better as a man. Hubris you say?
If only R. Heinlein were still with us; what would he say about California? -’Gaia is a harsh mistress’?
What would he make of a Dept. of Energy that uses every ounce of its authority to block the production of enegy?
What could he say about Californians, living above on a sea of untapped oil, paying six bucks a gallon for fuel?
“3-D printing fabrication”
I have been using 3D printers since the early 90′s. They are useful for a lot of things but they are not really good at production quality parts. Not yet anyhow. The one thing though that I have been impressed by in recent years is the growing community of open source parts and designs. I have plans for an open source project of my own that I expect to get going on after the depression that uses Arduino processors and uses 3D printed parts for weather vanes, anemometers, and paddle wheel speed sensors to use on water navigation systems. The design for the plastic parts would be posted online for all to use around the world but the most important thing with this kind of project (most of the electronics is generic when you consider that GPS’s and flux-gate compasses are ubiquitous) is the software and you can save man years by using .NET libraries and a community of coders. Jeesh, was that off topic?
Peter Boston #39:
Makes you think that maybe all those Zombie and Vampire movies about people barricaded in a community where they can live a normal life despite the rest of the world going to hell have an actual point to make.
If we are lucky and pretty smart then that will describe North America.
If we are a little lucky and pretty dumb then that will describe isolated enclaves in the Red States.
38. Mr. Hoskins,
Yes, that ol’ man entropy is sure a bitch, but how do you ever communicate these things to leftist lemmings, who really think electricity comes from the wall.
Can you imagine how much energy you lose converting unicorn farts and pixie dust to anything useful?
Green Energy is today’s equivalent of perpetual motion, “I’ve almost got it! Just need to tweak this one dimension a bit more…”
Alas, first, or even tenth principles are always just out of reach for almost everyone. Perhaps that’s due to entropy, too.
The Bitch.
I have this mind picture of a Leaf owner during a blackout/brownout struggling to get his generator started to recharge his car. Blindingly obvious to those who are not blinkered is the waste in energy conversion. Use 3-5 gallons of gasoline over a half-day process to fuel a car that can travel a maximum of 85 miles. With a late-model Chevy, one can go from 120-200 miles or more on that same fuel.
But, with the innumerate “I don’t do math…” crowd in charge, plain common sense is not so common. Any more. As if it ever were.
California will ooze along until it stops. The goal of the rest of us is to not let the stop kill the rest of what economy that remains.
The Governator can mandate H2 filling stations along the potholed 99 freeway all he wants, but he cannot mandate the laws of physics which are so in synch with Mother Nature. She is cruel and unstoppable. Hydrogen leaks out, it is the smallest molecule, after all. A fully fueled hydrogen-powered BMW will be out of ‘gas’ in two weeks if left to sit. A fully charged Tesla will discharge over time, and it is the owners’ responsibility to keep the ‘pack’ charged. When damaged permanently by ignoring that ‘one liner’ in the owners manual, it is not the factory which eats the $40k to replace the batteries.
The Leaf is a gross polluter. Battery manufacturing just happens to be in another country. Battery disposal, on the other hand, will likely be local and expensive. Replacement cost will send many a Leaf to an early graveyard. The subsidy and not having to pay any of the costs of road construction or upkeep are the only things making 1903 Baker Electric technology approach modern values. After over 100 years, the Volt and the Leaf approach what the Baker could do back then. There has been no significant advancement in range. Top speed, perhaps, but it cuts the range.
When I traveled the Altamont 20+ years ago, I would have said 85% were still. The Palm Springs area is currently ‘alive’ with windmills of all sizes and styles. As I passed through two Holiday Seasons in a row, the number at work was significantly less than 50%, more like 20-30%. Crossing the Texas panhandle, I counted the windmills in a row that paralleled the interstate for several miles on the North side of the highway, keeping track of how many were idle. I think they were in the 80-90% active range. T Boone Pickens at work? The only thing keeping some windmill farms active is the tax subsidy, and when that vanishes, the farm is allowed to deteriorate and shut down. From readings, it is very difficult to control a fire in a windmill powerhead. Up 100 feet, no access, and in a windy area. Perfect conditions for firefighters to do their thing successfully. Not. If they have an overheated gearbox, and it catches fire, the remoteness of the site would be significant, but the added physical features ice the cake. They burn.
tom
Outrageously high gas prices in California are a very good thing. What better way to demonstrate the liberating consequences of Californication? Something has to break before people notice that the machine isn’t working. If only California could innovate its way to $20 gas prices. Tanker truck rustlers and a black market in gas, might illuminate all that empty space between so many Californian ears.
That great Californian skull void in which the only thought is that personal celebrity is the path to self validation, might gain a companion thought; “We are truly a bunch of silly buggers.” There’s an even chance that many would think being a silly bugger is cool and they would keep going on their nutty way, but if not they might wake up and start working on their survival.
To defend the remnant of sane and sensible Californians put Mickey Mouse in charge – he’d do a better job than Governor Brown and the Sacramento Circus. Grump, grouch, bah humbug.
“A power failure last week at an Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance, Calif. was the immediate cause of the spike, though the plant had resumed normal operations by Friday.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/us/gas-prices-rise-again-overnight-in-california.html?_r=1
#23 JMH
Perhaps not in California, but in America, a statistically significant portion of the vehicles contain a “truck gun” or a “car gun” that the vehicle operator is ready, willing, and able to use to protect themselves or others. If the Beta driving a Volt does find a tire iron, and/or other blunt instrument, and can lift it … the outcome may not be as desired.
#26 beverly
“We were lucky: Giuliani’s crime cleanup was still in force and effect, in spite of Milquetoast Bloomberg, so the city didn’t turn feral this time like it did in 1978.”
Roughly 3% of any statistically significant population group [in Western civilization; different cultures have different standards and they do not always compare] are hopelessly sociopathic or psychopathic. This is what is meant by the “lunatic fringe”. That group has a disruptive effect far beyond their numbers. That disruptive effect is only controlled within the bounds of what society can absorb due to diligent and consistent efforts of those charged with keeping the disruptive effects within those bounds.
They are spread across the Bell Curve of abilities. Larger population groupings mean that there are more of them in a concentrated area; requiring even more diligent and consistent efforts to make life bearable or possible.
Even since 2003, we have seen a deterioration bordering on collapse in the ability and willingness of governments in urban areas to make those efforts due to fear of violating the prerogatives of political elites or political correctness. One would be hard-pressed to name an urban area off the top of one’s head where such efforts are made consistently, let along diligently. We have recently seen the Federal government itself direct and protect urban disorder [the #Occupy Movement], at times over-riding and suppressing the efforts of local authorities to enforce the law against politically protected offenders.
We have lost our design margin for stability and survivability in crisis in urban areas. When the blackout/supply interruption/civil disorder hits, regardless of trigger point; it is not going to be pretty.
I am fortunate enough to live in a small town, with its own power plant and supply of coal, and potable water. I would not live in a city if paid to do so. My children and their families who live in nearby cities know that if I say it is time to come home, it is really time to get home.
Beverly, if you can’t leave NYC, you might want to prepare a fallback position far outside the city with friends and family if you can. And look around for those who are worried about these kind of things. And if they start disappearing during a time of increasing crisis, it might be a good idea to take a rural break for a while.
#39 Peter Boston
“Today’s available technology of micro-nuke electricity generation and 3-D printing fabrication lead to the day when people will gather in polis-size communities adequately self sufficient to drop off the grid and remove themselves from the mandate of the central authority.”
That does assume that they can overcome the inevitable coercive efforts of that central authority to physically keep them in.
#43 RWE
I rather suspect that much of the current fashion for dealing with “Zombie/Vampire Apocalypse’” is a politically correct way for some in the prepper community to expand the ability to discuss such without triggering a PC reaction. Strip away the fantasy elements, and the unrealistic fanboi aspects of the discussion of weaponry, and there are some serious points being made.
#46 stevesmith
This will happen. California is one “Gray Swan” event from energy infrastructure failure, and the cascading sequalae. Not even a Black Swan that is not forseeable, but a Gray Swan that everybody can see coming but pretends won’t. If I can get the small segment of my family that is out there, back to this country; the Swans can start flocking at will.
Subotai Bahadur
California is the model for Democrat, big-government at its ‘finest’. This is how social democracy will look for the nation.
If gas stations are shutting down, prices are too low.
You ought to be able to buy all the gas you want, just wanting a lot less.
Otherwise lines and even/odd days ration gasoline. Somebody’s limiting the price if anybody is running out.
Owing to “inelasticity,” prices have to change a lot to change consumption. So that’s what they do.
That applies to a “shortage” for any reason. There’s no such thing as a shortage in a free market.
Compare California’s water shortage. It’s all regulation.
All solar and wind power sources must be matched, megawatt for megawatt by conventional power generation. This must be done for two reasons: 1. to supply power when the sun or wind does not and 2. the conventional power generators must operate in the motor mode when the solar or wind is generating power to absorb (i.e throw away) the excess power surges if the grid is to operate correctly. These secondary conventional power generators _must_ operate 24/7 and most often, they are operating at less than maximum efficiency.
Thus, solar/wind power is but a burden upon our power grid. At times it doesn’t harm the grid, rarely does it help the grid and mostly it is a drain on the grid.
Wretchard @ 22.
“But the obvious is not always obvious in contemporaneous time.”
The obvious is not obvious when all information, knowledge and actions are driven by and filtered to suit an artificial, self-constructed and self-serving narrative. Obama’s fatal flaw is he bought and will always buy his own narrative.
Lorenz Gude @ 34.
“In short i don’t think he ever had the potential be a great president. I don’t disagree that the opportunity was there, but just because ‘all the notes are there on the keyboard waiting to be played’ doesn’t make anyone a great pianist.”
Precisely. Obama not only can’t play the piano, it’s possible he can’t identify one in a lineup. (metaphorically)
The fundamental differences between Obama and Romney? Romney shows up. Every day. What he doesn’t know today, he will learn. That’s who and what he is. He’s a listener, learner and leader. Obama is a talker, story-teller and “lead from behind” kinda guy. He already knows all he needs/wants to know. That’s who and what he is.
The former inspires confidence and optimism. The latter? We’ve all seen what the he inspires.
39. Peter Boston said:
“The brainiacs at MIT say the day is not too far off when 3-D printing will be superseded by 3-D assemblers. Push a button and out pops a complete and functional irrigation pump or complicated piece of electronic circuitry complete with microprocessors. The possibilities are endless.”
This sounds very much like Star Trek’s Replicator as envisioned by Gene Roddenberry way back when. All you need is the raw material to molecularly reorganize and you’d be able to create everything from a hand grenade to a cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot.
Do you know what’s so delicious about the fuel shortage in California? Those morons voted for O and got his EPA which is doing its darndest to make America energy-free (by which I mean, having no energy at all). What is also delicious is that there is all this oil sitting off the coast of California, but you can’t take it out of the ocean because of California’s environmental laws. The people who live in LA and SF think the magic they see on the screen is transferrable to real life. Sorry guys – the production of energy is not clean, but if you want to leave in the a first world country, you’ll have to live with the pollution.
#50 rhhardin
If I may quibble, I accept most of your larger point:
“You ought to be able to buy all the gas you want, just wanting a lot less.
Otherwise lines and even/odd days ration gasoline. Somebody’s limiting the price if anybody is running out.”
There is inelasticity, but it is primarily in supply at this point. Only gasoline refined to California standards [meaning in reality from California refineries which already cannot meet demand] can legally be used in California. The supply available [solely due to political fiat] is sufficiently short that while we are in the first phase of price run up, the system can not respond to the pricing signals. Phase two, bidding the price higher still, in a desperate attempt to obtain part of the limited supplies remaining will be soon; perhaps by next week as the cost starts effecting deliveries, business operations, and the ability to get to work. As the shortages start affecting the economy, that stage will kick in and accelerate. Right now, the prices are just p*****g people off. When the secondary effects hit, it will be Katy bar the door.
The price restrictions will be possible after that. There are three variables in play: consumption, price, and supply. There is a soft floor on consumption where it effects economic activity. The inclination of TWANLOC is going to be to try to enforce price controls; kind of like a profiteering decree. I’m looking forward to watching that from a distance. It will instantly create a black market. And every customer of that black market is going to become more hostile to the government creating the shortages and trying to suppress the black market.
Back of the envelope, I figure with my old Chevy Suburban and its stock 40 gallon tank I could make better than $1000 profit a day totally tax free in a black market if I lived near a border with California. A lot more if I could use containers or a trailer.
Then there is the matter of supply.
The supply could be augmented by a signature [or actually a couple of signatures] allowing the sale of non-California refined gasoline imported into the state. But that has some major political risks. If they wait too long, it will cause sufficient economic damage to really hack off a bunch of locals and businesses. If any more of the productive class leave, California is in a world of hurt. If the shortages start affecting the parasite class, they may be angry enough NOT to vote. If they sign off on allowing the “inferior, deadly, polluting gasoline” into the state too soon; the Moonbat class which is really, really powerful there may be angry enough to NOT vote. One problem is that the Moonbat definition of “too soon” is long after the rest of the population has passed their limits of tolerance. Either means Democrat losses.
And given the ineptitude of the regimes in DC and Sacramento, I am guessing that they get the worst of both worlds out of it.
Gotta go get more popcorn for while I’m watching.
Subotai Bahadur
Wretchard, I think in passing at 22 you have encapsulated Obama’s “I coulda been a contender” moment.
However I am so tired of living with scenarios that seem constrained by the blind dictates of Hanlon’s razor. Heinlein advised not to overlook malice entirely.
Were Obama aiming to bring upheaval and destruction to the country, he surely was doing everything he could get away with. Romney can’t (and no SKUNC would ever) run saying that is the case; but it seems many more have had their blinders torn off by the cruelty of his “failures” and are coming to the conclusion that we cannot risk whatever his motives any longer. Will there be enough by November 6 to overcome voter fraud?
“By the way, propane requires not only natural gas but also oil to produce.” RWE
Actually Propane and its Liquified Petroleum kin are by products of the Natural gas and Petroleum refining processes. For Natural gas the refining process is very simple and involves the compression of the raw gas column as pumped. When the vapor pressures in the column reach approximately 150 psig the propane and ISO-propanols drop out as liquids and are drawn off. This has to happen as the Natural gas pumps are designed to handle vapors not liquids and will destruct if the liquid is allowed to pass through the pump.
Propane does not suffer from storage and requires only minimal storage protocols. The U.S. stores a vast majority of LPG in salt mines. When burned in an oxygen rich environment the products of combustion are CO2 and water vapor. You can run a gasoline engine on LPG with almost no ill effects as long as you keep the stoichiometric ratios on the lean side.
LPG manufacture does not require any petroleum if you are willing to design a refining facility to optimize for LPG. The flares you see at the petroleum refineries are burning off LPG and methane.
The tanks required for LPG have been in use and certified for use in road going vehicles for decades. I have a 1982 Ford P/U that has never used anything else but LPG. It will run even after a Nuclear event. There are no electronics to burn out and I keep a new set of points and condensers along with a Hi output spark generator in a Faraday cage just in case.
Lynndh – in my New England town, the wind turbine already bonded by voters was eventually rejected by the town council. That was an economic decision, although many people did object on the aesthetics. Wind power didn’t make dollars and cents sense 40 years ago and still doesn’t today. The ultimate deal killer was a newish (5 years old +/-) broken wind turbine a few miles away – manufacturer bankrupt. Early on, the proponents brought in an industry booster. He mentioned the long history of wind in New England (no, not Teddy Kennedy) citing the first installed turbine. A little googling produced the fact that that manufacturer was bankrupt years ago. What a nice bookend to the newish turbine and it’s bankrupt manufacturer. Wind. Does. Not. Work. The turbines aren’t reliable, the required infrastructure is expensively oversized to account for power level fluctuations and the generated power isn’t baseline dependable.
#35 RWE:
I’m sure you’re right about the current main method of making hydrogen (another method is reacting steam with coke, IIRC) but it doesn’t have to stay that way; especially if you have cheap emission-free power from (perhaps) a nuke or hydroelectric plant, H2 can be made by electrolysis.
As a matter of fact, one way of solving some of the serious problems with wind and solar power (and to a lesser extent wave power as well) might be to use the power to make hydrogen while the plant is running, and distribute the hydrogen. However, one then still has the problem of the rather volatile nature and poor energy density of hydrogen.
Another idea I’ve seen discussed is to use the hydrogen on-site and react it with CO2 to make methanol (and water as a byproduct) for fuel use. Methanol is fairly easy to store, has better energy density than hydrogen because it’s a liquid, and doesn’t tend to blow up. And the CO2 released in its oxidation merely replaces the CO2 used in making it. Leaks are easier to deal with than gasoline or diesel leaks, too, for obvious reasons.
In addition, methanol fuel cells are easier to make and less susceptible to poisoning than hydrogen ones.
All this goes to support the statement that if you have cheap, clean power then you can make liquid fuel. If the power is cheap enough then it might even compete with oil-derived fuels without subsidy.
re: “Active windmills”
A spinning windmill is not necessarily an active, power generating windmill. I’ve read documentation (no reference; do your own research) that 50% to 75% of installed windmills in California are permanently idled due to need for unaffordable maintenance. Windmills are not economically scalable in any degree but for government subsidies. They probably represent the most expensive KWH’s available.
re: Electric auto’s in California.
California’s power grid resembles some third-world, or at least, second-world countries. You don’t dare hook up anything with out a surge protector, and computer technology must be protected by battery backup with quality voltage regulators. I burned through about one cable modem or router every six months due to, I am confident, dirty power.
Considering the power grid AND lack of local generation capability, the thought of electric vehicles in widespread use in California is a joke, and California politicians well know this.
Look at our local Costco anywhere in Southern California, a place with few real natural risks to power generation (i.e. no hurricanes, no ice storms, etc.). Whole house Diesel generators are selling like hot cakes. I’d consider one, but where would I put my 5,000 gallon Diesel tank. Ditto for survival prepping as well. Unless I’m willing to shoot starving neighbors, having more than a 3 week to 3 month backup supply of food is nuts in the suburbs. (Now, on the other hand, having 5000 to 10,000 rnds of .223, .40, .357, and shottie shells makes a whole lot of sense.)
I’ve been saying that I’m getting to hell out of California for 10 years. Can’t, until my mid-20′s kids are gone. The Obama economy has stopped that cold. They are all working, college grads or soon to be, but there is little hope of financial independence for them any time soon.
It’s all a huge, funny joke.
The Obama term was not something filled with potential gone wrong. It went right. As well, his voters also believe America is a taker, and that she can better hide in insignificance.
We fear disasters; the left only sees opportunity in them, including the ones they make. This is evil, not irrational.
Romney intends to straighten the omnipotent state, as Reagan once did. Which bridged us to an even more omnipotent state. He’s got my vote. ABO. But I am a weak man. Still I am old enough to leave my illusions in my dreams. If there is a solution, it will be found in the wreckage of a second Obama term.