Energy - Market Forces or Politics?

[rgraham666]

I would direct your attention to the book The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.

In that airships are in very common use because of nano-technology. Instead of hydrogen or helium the lifting bags are mostly vacuum. They start as a solid block and expand leaving vacuum inside. They can change their volume to decrease or increase their lifting capacity.

Aways off and dependent on nanotech becoming a viable technology, which I have some doubts about this happening, but an interesting idea.

 

[oggbashan]

...Between the R101 and the Hindenburg heavy-lift airships have a very much undeserved reputation for crashing -- Add the Akron and Macon disasters to US sensibilities.

Heavy-lift airships -- even filled with flammable hydrogen -- are a technology that could definitely save tons of carbon emmissions from the transport sector. They're far safer than the general perception would suggest.

I've even suggested on other threads like this that robotic/remote-controlled hydrogen airships would be an ideal method of transporting hydrogen from remote, mobile, hydrogen production rafts to fixed local distribution systems or even point of use installations like generating plants or industrial customers.

I agree. If the R100 had been supported instead of the R101 then airships might have become more used in the UK. The R101 should never have been allowed to take off. It was inherently unsafe and the R100 was vastly superior but the "committee of experts" daren't admit their incompetence. Several of them died in the disaster.

We have a few airships in the UK now and I enjoy seeing them in flight.

Og

 

[Weird Harold]

Look Harold, you can't have it both ways, wanting people to change behavior and convert to a non-fossil fuel economy, without anyone ever changing behavior or do any coverting. I've described a system that makes the mechansim for causing the shift powerful and transparent, and therefore alligns the incentives of everyone in the society with the policy goal in a way that will generate a tremendous amount of experimentation, innovation, and dynamism.

I don't want it "both ways," I just want a proposal that doesn't destroy the budget by taxing something I can't do without to try and force me to do without it. Far better to make alternatives affordable than to make existing necessities unaffordable.

You don't seem to have any sort of grasp on the concept of unintended consequences. For example:

We have gas stations a lot closer than 150 miles even in the most remote areas, and the technology will only get better. The infrastructure is no great challenge. Nukes, power lines, batteries, rechargers - that's it. It's a bit more costly than internal combustion, but we're a wealthy society and getting wealthier ...

Specifically in regard to your suggestion of interchangeable battery packs for long-haul trucking:

How big are the battery packs?

How big a substation or local generating plant will be required?

How will the battery packs be stored/charged?

How many battery packs will need to be charged at one time?

How long does it take to charge each battery pack?

Those seem like nit-picking questions, but they are make or break questions for a gas station considering converting to a battery charging station.

A typical automotive battery installation seems to be about four feet wide, eight to ten feet long and a half foot thick -- or about 20 cubic feet. They also seem to run about 1,000 pounds.

The Flying-J truck stop just down the road a bit (one exit north of the nearest exit to me) has over-night parking for 150-300 trucks and fuels probably twice that many each day.

The Pilot Truck stop one more exit further north of me only has 30-50 parking spots, but serves a higher percentage of "fuel-and-go" traffic than the Flying-J, maybe 250-400 trucks each day.

Figure a truck needs four times the batteries that an auto does (it's probably much more than that, but four is an easy number to work with.)

That means that The Flying-J or Pilot truck stops have to find room to store at least one thousand 20 cubic foot battery packs weighing one million pounds -- that's just to service 250 trucks on a slow day.

A typical US long haul truck is 60 feet long, 11 feet high and 8 feet wide for a total of 5280 cubic feet -- one slow day's worth of battery packs takes up as much space as nearly four trucks.

Figure a truck stop would have to keep a thousand battery packs on the ready line to service trucks, another thousand on the charging system, and a third thousand discharged packs waiting for time on the chargers just to service a slow day -- that's twelve trucks worth of space, minimum. (a third of Pilot's total yard space.)

That's just for a slow day, but truck stops don't survive on slow days, they survive on the average days and being able to handle the busy days: Figure they'll need anywhere from three to five times the storage and recharging capacity with the concurrent reduction in space to park their customers. (a bigger problem for fuel-and-go suppliers like Pilot than for overnight stops like Flying-J.)

That scenario doesn't address the issue of how to bring a few millions watts of power into the charging system without browning out the surrounding neighborhoods.

Sure, recharging stations every 50 miles are possible and may even happen, but it is NOT as simple or cheap as you make it sound and increasing the day-to-day operating costs of the people who have to make it happen with a punitive tax is no way to make it happen faster -- it provides incentive, but it restricts the means.

 

[Weird Harold]

Trains are efficient enough that it may actually make economic sense to use of some kind of artificial biofuel when fossil fuels are no longer available at a price where it makes sense to burn them. The definition of "makes economic sense" is that no subsidy or coercive mandate is required to make the thing profitable. (The definition of "doesn't make economic sense" is that subsidies or mandates are required. When you see pols handing out subsidies think, "doesn't make economic sense.")

You made more sense before you added the political rant.

Trains are more economical when the track run where the tranport is needed. However, railroads have always benefitted from government support and subsidy -- especially in the US where competition from Truck and plains would have eliminated even freight haulage without a government declaration of railroads as a "strategic resource."

Even in the US (and presumably China and the former soviet union's asian expanses) electrification of the rails would be far more economical than biofuels in the long run. Converting diesel electric to gasturbine generator technology and using hydrogen, acetylene, or other renewable flamable gas as fuel would make even more economic sense because the additional maintenance costs of electrified rails would go away.

 

[neonlyte]

Much of the cross-country freight in the US moves in "inter-modal containers" which don't require transporting the tractor along with the cargo.

Maglev is a neat technology, but I'm not sure how energy efficient it is. It's definitely a much bigger investment in infrastructure than electrifying 3,000 miles of track for a single trans-continental route.

Converting the interstate system to a "fixed guideway" system (rail, maglev, driverless control, etc) runs into problems with "grades" -- the interstate system has much steeper grades and tighter swithchbcks than rail or maglev can handle.

The two operating MagLev's (Japan and China) are reported as having lower operating cost than electric rail. Infrastructure cost is $25m per mile roughly half highway cost, and 6 time overhead electrification cost. Maglevs can climb 10% gradients, it would be unlikely to encounter steeper gradients on most highways, they also corner tighter than one might imagine, most MagLev test tracks have a looped end to return the train back down the track.

It is expensive, it's a culture change in transport, the kind of development Roxy's Carbon Tax ought stimulate.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

You made more sense before you added the political rant.

Trains are more economical when the track run where the tranport is needed. However, railroads have always benefitted from government support and subsidy -- especially in the US where competition from Truck and plains would have eliminated even freight haulage without a government declaration of railroads as a "strategic resource."

Even in the US (and presumably China and the former soviet union's asian expanses) electrification of the rails would be far more economical than biofuels in the long run. Converting diesel electric to gasturbine generator technology and using hydrogen, acetylene, or other renewable flamable gas as fuel would make even more economic sense because the additional maintenance costs of electrified rails would go away.

I always make sense!

US railroads have benefited from two kinds of subsidy. The original ones were the big land grants, which I have no problem with since the government was essentially giving away something that was available in "unlimited" supply at the time. The other kind of subsidy is for operations, like what Amtrak gets up the wazoo. I'm not aware of such subsidies to US freight lines today, but there may be some. They are not necessary as far as I can tell - it's a profitable business. Naturally I would oppose sticking it to taxpayers to make particular firms more profitable than otherwise, just as I oppose making taxpayers pay for discounts granted to fortunate train riders.

As for whether in the long run electrification or biofuel powers the locomotives, I don't care so long as the choice is made by market players operating on a fair field with no favors (ie, no subsidies). That applies to all these proposals - maglev, car-on-train, etc. Neither me, you nor anyone else (including politicians and bureaucrats) are smart enough to know in advance which (if any) make economic sense. As long as providers and customers are operating in a competitive market without any subsidies we don't have to know - the voluntary choices of buyers and sellers will sort it all out.

 

[oggbashan]

I always make sense!

US railroads have benefited from two kinds of subsidy. The original ones were the big land grants, which I have no problem with since the government was essentially giving away something that was available in "unlimited" supply at the time. The other kind of subsidy is for operations, like what Amtrak gets up the wazoo. I'm not aware of such subsidies to US freight lines today, but there may be some. They are not necessary as far as I can tell - it's a profitable business. Naturally I would oppose sticking it to taxpayers to make particular firms more profitable than otherwise, just as I oppose making taxpayers pay for discounts granted to fortunate train riders.

As for whether in the long run electrification or biofuel powers the locomotives, I don't care so long as the choice is made by market players operating on a fair field with no favors (ie, no subsidies). That applies to all these proposals - maglev, car-on-train, etc. Neither me, you nor anyone else (including politicians and bureaucrats) are smart enough to know in advance which (if any) make economic sense. As long as providers and customers are operating in a competitive market without any subsidies we don't have to know - the voluntary choices of buyers and sellers will sort it all out.

Who built the roads? Who maintains the roads?

Are roads unfairly subsidised?

Og

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Who built the roads? Who maintains the roads?

Are roads unfairly subsidised?

Og

In the US gas taxes pay for them, plus state vehicle registration fees. It's about the closest thing in government to a pure user fee. About 10 percent of the loot is siphoned off to subsidize (mostly empty) city buses and taj majal urban mass transit systems, but for the most part transportation tax dollars go into concrete and asphalt.

It is possible that there is some minor cross subsidization from general taxes - I don't know. Roads also benefit from use of government's power of eminent domain. It's mostly pretty clean, though. Unusually so.

 

[amicus]

Perhaps someone can put a name to what I am going to attempt to describe...


I admire and appreciate Oggbashan, always have, but reading and imagining hearing his petulant whine, "My God, how would we ever have roads without the power of government...?

Apply that to public education and of course, socialized medicine and a host of other, mainly regulatory agencies thought to 'guarantee' the quality and safety of products and services.

The 'statist' mindset cannot conceive of a market place functioning without the direction of government. They ofter try to appear to be enlightened and quickly state, 'oh, we don't hate capitalism and the free market; it just needs to be controlled!"

How very generous of them.

We just want to control your life a little bit and only for your own good because you are too fucking dumb to begin with.

Gee, thanks folks...

I think it is just not ignorance of the workings of the marketplace and the need of all humans to be free and unfettered in their pursuits.

I think it is deeper than that; I have attempted to broach this before with little or no success.

My conclusion is that many people do not trust their own nature to deal fairly and openly with others. I think they have a poor opinion of mankind in general, fearing the evil beast within, an almost Xtian moral play in real life.

Thus hating the very nature of the characteristics of human kind, they advocate and accept control over their lives.

It is such a shallow and pathetic mindset.

Someone put a word to it?

Amicus...

 

[oggbashan]

We in the UK had roads built by the Romans.

They weren't improved until the 18th Century when toll roads were introduced by private enterprise.

Then the government took over and we had the worst main roads in Europe. Of course we didn't have Napoleon Bonaparte, Mussolini, Hitler or Franco to build our roads.

We have been paying taxes to maintain and build roads since the 1890s. Our WWII hero Winston Churchill diverted some of our road taxes to the general tax fund. Since then the amount spent on roads as a proportion of the road taxes collected has dropped. We have some of the highest road fuel prices in the world.

You, Amicus, are the ignorant one. You don't read what I post. You read what you think I write.

Og

 

[The_Fool]

Perhaps someone can put a name to what I am going to attempt to describe...


I admire and appreciate Oggbashan, always have, but reading and imagining hearing his petulant whine, "My God, how would we ever have roads without the power of government...?

Apply that to public education and of course, socialized medicine and a host of other, mainly regulatory agencies thought to 'guarantee' the quality and safety of products and services.

The 'statist' mindset cannot conceive of a market place functioning without the direction of government. They ofter try to appear to be enlightened and quickly state, 'oh, we don't hate capitalism and the free market; it just needs to be controlled!"

How very generous of them.

We just want to control your life a little bit and only for your own good because you are too fucking dumb to begin with.

Gee, thanks folks...

I think it is just not ignorance of the workings of the marketplace and the need of all humans to be free and unfettered in their pursuits.

I think it is deeper than that; I have attempted to broach this before with little or no success.

My conclusion is that many people do not trust their own nature to deal fairly and openly with others. I think they have a poor opinion of mankind in general, fearing the evil beast within, an almost Xtian moral play in real life.

Thus hating the very nature of the characteristics of human kind, they advocate and accept control over their lives.

It is such a shallow and pathetic mindset.

Someone put a word to it?

Amicus...

Predatory?

 

[Weird Harold]

The two operating MagLev's (Japan and China) are reported as having lower operating cost than electric rail. Infrastructure cost is $25m per mile roughly half highway cost, and 6 time overhead electrification cost.

That $25M/Mi figure doesn't sound right. There has been a lot of discussion about putting a maglev passenger service between LA and LV and I'm pretty sure they've been talking more like $250M/Mi -- of course a bit over two thirds of that would be in California and subject to California's environmental impact regulation in addition to the federal environmental impact rules and that's going to drive up the cost a bunch.

Which brings up another problem with government interference in the energy economy: conflicting regulations and rules. The government tax breaks for alternative energy production don't offset even the legal fees for applying for permission to build new nuclear generation capacity, let alone offset any actual cost for new generating capacity. It's worst for Nuclear generation capability, but legal challenges and environmental impact studies have killed far more sustainable generating capacity than either subsidies or market pressure have enabled.

It's been forty years or more since the last hydroelectric dam has been built in the US -- although as many as thirty were planned before environmentalist lawsuits killed them

It is expensive, it's a culture change in transport, the kind of development Roxy's Carbon Tax ought stimulate.

"Ought" is the key word. It would definitely create a desire for un-taxed alternatives, but it would do so by absorbing much of the cash-flow required to actually do something.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

We in the UK had roads built by the Romans. . .

Those statist bastards!

 

[Weird Harold]

US railroads have benefited from two kinds of subsidy. The original ones were the big land grants, which I have no problem with since the government was essentially giving away something that was available in "unlimited" supply at the time. The other kind of subsidy is for operations, like what Amtrak gets up the wazoo. I'm not aware of such subsidies to US freight lines today, but there may be some. They are not necessary as far as I can tell - it's a profitable business.

I don't know what sunsidies freight lines are getting at the moment -- probably no more than a federal excise tax break on fuel costs.

I was thinking more of the near total bankruptcy of the railroad industry in the sixties and various government bailouts and diversions of road taxes to repair and upgrade tracks under the guise of making them safer for AMTRAK to use.

Part of what drove railroads to the brink of bankrupty was government regulations that required them to provide regular passenger service long after the arilines had stolen their paying passengers, but there was mostly just a business as usual attitude that ignored the freight losses to the trucking industry.

It took a fairly hefty government subsidy (and the oil crisis in the seventies) to get railroads to gear up for "piggy-back" service hauling loaded truck trailers and then inter-modal containers. Rail freight service is profitable now but it wasn't always and US railroads were very nearly reduced to coal/ore trains running between open pit mines and foundries.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

(A carbon tax) would definitely create a desire for un-taxed alternatives, but it would do so by absorbing much of the cash-flow required to actually do something.

You appear to be missing some key information about the way a market economy works, and I think it is this: The opportunity to make billions of dollars generates investment all by itself, with no need for further government involvement, including spending tax dollars on direct subsidies. If a carbon tax creates an environoment where the producer of something like a car that doesn't use fossil fuels can sell it at a price that's more than the price of conventional vehicle, but less when the operating costs are considered, then investors will be there to make the thing possible.

Part of what drove railroads to the brink of bankrupty was government regulations that required them to provide regular passenger service long after the arilines had stolen their paying passengers, but there was mostly just a business as usual attitude that ignored the freight losses to the trucking industry.

Don't forget union featherbedding. In part that was the product of bad, lazy management, but more than that I think it was caused by federal labor laws that tilted the playing field outrageously in the direction of the unions. The same dynamic has nearly done for the (former) Big Three carmakers, and has been the reason than almost every car plant built in the US in the last few decades has been in a "right to work" state. "Right to work" laws are themselves an interference with voluntary market agreements between workers and managers, but they partially level the playing field tilted out of whack by those same federal labor laws.

 

[Weird Harold]

You appear to be missing some key information about the way a market economy works, and I think it is this: The opportunity to make billions of dollars generates investment all by itself, with no need for further government involvement, including spending tax dollars on direct subsidies.

I guess what I'm missing is just exactly how a punitive tax on "carbon" or "fossil fuels" fits into a "free market" philosphy.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I guess what I'm missing is just exactly how a punitive tax on "carbon" or "fossil fuels" fits into a "free market" philosphy.

I'm not the one who's established the policy goal of reducing the consumption of fossil fuels. As far as I'm concerned this can happen at it's own pace, with fossils beginning to be gradually supplanted by alternatives starting 20-40 years from now,as the easily extracted sources are consumed.

But, if we are going to have this policy goal jammed down our throats for whatever reasons (including some that I consider bogus), then I will do my damnedest to ensure that the goal is accomplished in a manner that does not wreck the economy, enrich unscrupulous rent seekers, and further empower politicians and bureacrats at the expense of citizens and the private economy. It so happens that there is a mechanism that can bring about this policy goal in a manner that avoids all those things, and along the way also generates a lot of excitement and neato-keeno innovation, too. So why not promote it?

 

[Weird Harold]

But, if we are going to have this policy goal jammed down our throats for whatever reasons (including some that I consider bogus), then I will do my damnedest to ensure that the goal is accomplished in a manner that does not wreck the economy, enrich unscrupulous rent seekers, and further empower politicians and bureacrats at the expense of citizens and the private economy.

So a repressive, punitive tax to raise the price of fossil fuel technology to the current cost of alternate energy technologies won't wreck the budget of every person on a fixed income or working for minimum wage? It will somhow magically make alternate energy technologies affordable as well as more attractive to people who worry about cash-flow being sufficient to buy groceries after the rent and utilities are paid?

I simply don't see where a punitive tax is going to do what you claim it will. It will encourage more rich people to emulate Ed Begley and buy electric cars, (but I don't think many will copy his excercise bike powered toaster oven. )

For anyone living paycheck to paycheck, your "carbon tax" proposal is going to ruin them -- possibly forcing them into bankruptcy.

Positive, tax incentives -- rebates, write-offs, exemptions, etc -- can be applied without direct subsidies to specific technologies or companies to bring the price of alternate technologies DOWN to meet fossil fuel technology prices and bring them within reach of the fixed income and low income citizens. AND it can be done in such a way as to frustrate those horrible rent-seeking bogeymen you're so frightened of.