BIKE: Re: Energy update

[rcbaker]

On 3 Dec 2003 at 14:40, Jeb Boyt wrote:

> The methane hydrates in the Gulf of Mexico are a promising source of
> energy for the late 21st Century.
> 
> Jeb

This methane hydrate thing is off-topic, but representative of many utopian 
energy misconceptions. 

Lets examine your statement. Why would methane hydrates be a 
promising energy source late in the coming century, but not now?

Its probably because getting methane this way is really hard to do. And 
good proof of that is that nobody does it this way now. So the visionaries 
put the task far off into the future when it is assumed that probably gas will 
be more costly and technology improved. Thus harvesting a layer of
methane hydrate from the sea floor might concievably seem worth the 
effort some day. But the hydrate is a solid and only present as a thin layer 
as compared to most terrestrial mining. 

I will suggest that one approprite approach might be to spread a huge 
electric blanket on the ocean floor and have a gas burning generator in the 
ship above to power the electric blanket that would warm the ocean floor -- 
and thus liberate the methane using only a fraction of what is harvested as 
a gas. Then the ship could lower a very large inverted funnel to catch the 
gas bubbles as they rise and channel them into a long tube leading up to 
the ship (where maybe huge compressors operated with part of the gas 
liquify it and store it in large cryogenic globes for shipment to the new LNG 
terminals we may build on the US coast at some point?). 

Has anyone run the numbers on the price tag for this approach to solving 
our natural gas problem via underwater hydrates? Its far far cheaper to go 
to another part of the world like the Persian Gulf where abundant natural 
gas is easily had for the drilling cost, but it has been stranded by the high 
cost of transportation. The important thing about gas is that in relation to 
oil, gas production is not costly because there are lots of cheap isolated 
sources, but the transportation cost of gas is ten times that of oil. 

If you add to that the near-certainty a high production cost, which is partly 
concealed by putting the hypothetical production date far into the future, 
then you can make hydrate look like more reasonable than I think it is. 

I think the reasonable big picture outlook is that outlined in Richard 
Heinberg's book "The Party's Over". Also George Monbiot, whose essays 
are stockpiled at the Guardian, is a consistant voice of reason in response 
to the craziness of human civilization. Comprised of humans in the grip of 
the irrational instincts of a global empire of capital whose economic DNA 
demands that it must always expand, at all costs. And if we change the 
weather in the process, it was all worth it in terms of making the billionaires 
even richer.  

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Now back to something more cheerful. Like how the CTRMA -- Central 
Texas Regional Mobility Authority is being created by with effective control 
of TxDOT to function as a legal firewall. The process pushed by Perry is to 
give unelected local officials the right to issue debt for toll roads built to 
TxDOT specs, without TxDOT having to bear any of the financial or 
environmental responsibilities, according to the draft rules awaiting public 
comment by the Texas Turnpike authority, a division within TxDOT. 

Can anyone possibly expect alternative transportation proposals like bikes 
to get a fair shake when the transportation planning is being run from the 
top down by a good 'ol boy network that seem vitally interested in issuing 
debt for roads to serve future sprawl growth? To ask this question is 
virtually to answer it. -- Roger


-- Roger

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