I have written an article that I would appreciate feedback on: Its published on this website: link
The fiinal 2 paragraphs say:
Transportation is not rocket science. To address the global warming and the Opec issues requires the same set of policies – improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles, encouraging diesel for cars, encouraging dual-fuel natural gas diesel for trucks, running buses on biomethane, introducing hybrids and supporting biofuels where they are sustainable.
It also means we have to be more assertive in challenging the nonsense of hydrogen internal combustion engines, GTL, and hydrogen fuel cells. All these PR fuels do is give us an excuse to do nothing – which is no longer acceptable. They should be placed on the ‘naughty step’.
Does anyone think my analysis is wrong, if so, where and how?
PeakOil is You
Weighing up the options for road fuel
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Weighing up the options for road fuel
by baldwincng » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 05:20:25
Last edited by baldwincng on Fri 28 Sep 2007, 09:16:01, edited 1 time in total.
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baldwincng - Peat
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Re: Weighing up the options for road fuel
by jbeckton » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 08:31:06
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baldwincng', 'D')oes anyone think my analysis is wrong, if so, where and how?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he NPC also says that we are running out of easy to access oil, but the natural gas picture is a lot healthier, maybe another 20 years to peak gas after peak oil.
Does this 20 year assesment take into account a global switch to NG powered vehicles? If not that is a pretty big hole in your argument. The countries that control most of the worlds NG are not going to be much better business partners than OPEC.
Also, why spend the money and energy to switch the the next FF to peak? Your article is obviously geared to sell NG and downplay the other alternatives, which is ok, but you really didn't make your case with hybrids, or even mention EV's.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baldwincng', 'T')he case for plug-ins is weaker as the vehicle will have a petrol engine, an electric motor and a means of capturing braking energy – all adding significantly to weight, which hits efficiency. In addition, the overall efficiency of centrally generated electricity is not great
It's much better than an ICE.
Besides, if you are trying to make a case for NG over then next several years (because it would indeed take several years if not a few decades) you need to show that the full potential of NG is better than the full potential of an EV.
You didn't account for the switch from hybrid (or plug in hybrid) to EV's. That is where hybrids are heading, and I don't think that NG vehicles will be able to compete with the operating price of EV's when batteries gain efficiency, and price drops.
Electricity can be generated in many ways (such as nuclear if your readers are concerned with CO2), so you have a diverse fuel source. NG would be guiding us down the dark alley of being completely dependent on a single source of fuel once again.
The price for NG will only rise.
I think that NG is a dead horse.
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Re: Weighing up the options for road fuel
by baldwincng » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 08:42:09
Bio-methane is the resource, large volumes are available, made in the UK, not fossil. At present UK produces 18.6 TWh of biogas, used to generate electricity (mostly with no chp, so inefficient). This equals 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas equal to 1,200 million kg of bio-methane CNG.
A CNG Caddy will travel around 20km on 1 kg, so, if there were 100,000 Caddy’s on CNG, each doing 20,000 km in a year, they would consume 100 million kg of bio-methane CNG which is around 8% of the existing UK bio-methane resource. There is a lot of bio-gas available.
We need to start using this gas first.
A CNG Caddy will travel around 20km on 1 kg, so, if there were 100,000 Caddy’s on CNG, each doing 20,000 km in a year, they would consume 100 million kg of bio-methane CNG which is around 8% of the existing UK bio-methane resource. There is a lot of bio-gas available.
We need to start using this gas first.
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Re: Weighing up the options for road fuel
by jbeckton » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 09:36:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('baldwincng', ' ')At present UK produces 18.6 TWh of biogas, used to generate electricity (mostly with no chp, so inefficient). This equals 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas equal to 1,200 million kg of bio-methane CNG.
Well, what are you going to use to fuel your growing electricity demand?
Can bio-methanne be produced fast enough to supply enough fuel for every vehicle in the UK and it's portion of the electrical demand?
I estimate that ther are ~26 million cars in the UK, so if each drove 20,000km/yr and you get 20km/kg you need something like 260 billion kg of methane but you say that you only produce 12 billion.
Can thr UK increace production by 22 times?
And that is not accounting for increaced consumption OR electricity generation.
This is my 666th post, I think it's a sign.
Last edited by jbeckton on Fri 28 Sep 2007, 09:43:01, edited 1 time in total.
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