As expected feared, the supporters of the energy bill could muster only 53 votes for cloture (i.e. for ending the filibuster), well short of the 60 needed.
This doesn’t mean we’ll have no energy bill, but it probably dooms the tax package that was aimed at boosting renewables/conservation at the expense of fossil fuels.
The renewable portfolio standard may have 60 votes in the Senate, but not the same 60 votes that CAFE has, so it may also be salvageable, but that isn’t certain.
The Senate moves on to the distinguished Sen. Akaka (D-HI) remembering the 66th (!) anniversary of Pearl Harbor. I wonder if anyone will be speaking so eloquently and positively about this generation 66 years from now….
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Meanwhile, is it smart to use concentrated sunlight to make carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide?
This doesn’t mean we’ll have no energy bill, but it probably dooms the tax package that was aimed at boosting renewables/conservation at the expense of fossil fuels.
That isn’t what voters of either party want, so it’s time for those who voted against
their constituents interest hear about it – loud and clear!
http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/Poll_Shows_Bipartisan_Support_111207.html
Darryl, there is unfortunately no estimate of the possible efficiency of this method in the Sandia page you cite, and that more than anything is critical to whether it makes sense or not. High insolation locations receive around 2800 kWh / m^2 / year. From this and the efficiency of conversion, and the efficiency of use, you can calculate the number of square miles of land required. Let’s run two examples: solar thermal running plug-in vehicles, and solar biofuel running diesel vehicles. Stirling Energy claims 30% efficiency at conversion into electricity. The grid is 92% efficient at getting it to our garages. Plug-ins should get in the neighborhood of 300 Wh/mi. To drive 2.7 trillion miles / year (a recent U.S. statistic) via this pathway therefore requires 440 mi^2 of land. The most efficient biofuel is likely to be algae biodiesel. The algae convert sunlight into oil at 7.5% efficiency (4x less than Stirling). In addition, diesel engines are much less efficient than electric motors. Even ignoring the other factors on this side of the calculation, one is starting with a 12x disadvantage. A more detailed calculation would be 15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year, and 45 MPG, yielding 6250 mi^2, or 14x disadvantage compared to solar electricity and plug-ins. Once you know the possible efficiency of Sandia’s method, you could calculate the number of mi^2 to handle the U.S. VMT. IMO, the lower square mile methods have a significant cost advantage.
Of course, I believe we’ll have plug-in hybrids (perhaps plug-in hybrid diesels) before pure electric vehicles, and the backup liquid fuel (e.g. biodiesel) has to come from somewhere. Perhaps the Sandia method will beat algae for that purpose.
Of course, the Sandia story says it will take 15 years, so this is not something we’ll be doing for a long time.
Thanks, Earl. At the age of 47, I’ve been hearing “clean energy within 15 years” for about … oh, thirty-five years now.
But, it seems our problems will be solved from a lot of different directions rather than a “quick fix.”