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<DIV>
<H1 class=inline>Hot clean power under our feet</H1></DIV>
<DIV>
<P>America can kick its addiction to fossil fuels by drilling more wells, says a
panel of experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not for oil, but
to tap Earth's heat.</P>
<P>Converting geothermal heat into electricity by pouring water onto hot rocks
underground and using the steam to turn turbines is arguably the most promising
- and renewable - source of "green" energy on the planet. So concludes the MIT
experts' report, released on Monday, which examines what geothermal energy could
do for the US in the 21st century.</P>
<P>The 18-member panel calculated that there is more than enough extractable
hydrothermal energy available to generate the entire 27 trillion kilowatt-hours
of energy consumed in the US in 2005. In fact, a conservative estimate of the
energy extractable from the hot rocks less than 10 kilometres beneath American
soil suggests that this almost completely untapped energy resource could support
US energy consumption, at its current clip, for more than two millennia to
come.</P>
<P>Developing a new generation of geothermal plants is thus a top priority for
tackling global warming, the panel says. "By any kind of calculation, this is an
extremely large resource that is technically accessible to us right now," says
the study's lead author, Jefferson Tester. "It doesn't require new technology to
get access to it. And there's never going to be a limitation on our ability to
expand this technology because of limits of the resource."</P>
<DIV class=straptext>From issue 2588 of <STRONG><EM>New Scientist
magazine</EM></STRONG>, 27 January 2007, page 4</DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=starbliss@gmail.com href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">Ted Moffett</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=godshatter@yahoo.com
href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">Paul Rumelhart</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, February 06, 2007 2:18 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] who killed the electric car?</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>All-</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I do not doubt that the corporate manipulations regarding the electric car
in California were obstructive to improving and implementing consumer use of
these cars...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But the bottom line on electric car/trucks being practical for widespread
use (even ignoring the limited range of these vehicles before needing
recharging, which has been a significant negative in many consumers minds) is
the huge amount of electricity that would be needed. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>California has problems supplying enough electricity for current
needs. To implement widespread electric car use in California would
require huge increases in electricity generation.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Paul's suggestion that electric cars make it possible to turn off coal
fired electric plants that might power these cars en masse, by replacing
the coal fired plant with nuclear, wind or solar plants, is not a practical
solution. The need for the massive amounts of electricity involved would
require adding more coal, natural gas and nuclear plants, plus adding wind
and, well, maybe solar, though solar is currently too expensive. We
need to cut back on coal electric generation as it is, due to CO2 output, or
switch to CO sequestered coal power, yet we still get 50% of our electricity
from coal, and there is tremendous resistance to cutting back on cheap coal
generated electricity, cheaper than nuclear, wind or solar. New nuclear
fission plants have many drawbacks also. Wind and solar electricity to
power widespread use of electric cars can be a part of the solution, but not
enough to turn off coal plants. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>To solve these problems nationwide would require a massive
reorganization of and expansion of electricity generation requiring cooperation
across numerous sectors of the economy. Even if the oil and auto industry
pushed the electric car option for widespread use, they might not succeed.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The elephant in the room of the energy/fossil fuel depletion/global warming
crisis is the fact that our current consumption of energy for
transportation needs of all kinds uses too much energy, and increases in
efficiency and implementation of new technology will not sufficiently solve the
problems quickly enough, even if they can eventually be solved, given our
current economic and lifestyle demands on energy consumption. It is hard
to get around the need to radically downsize transportation energy
consumption. Almost no one wants to face this fact, the economic and
lifestyle implications. It is assumed we can have our energy cake and eat
it to... </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is no patent that the oil or auto industry is hiding (though they may
be hiding some) on electrical generation sources or super efficient electric
motors that will make solving these transportation energy problems easy, nor is
lifting corporate control over the work of engineers going to
make the problem less daunting, though that might help. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We could use more coal combined with CO2 sequestration
to generate some of the extra electricity needed to power electric
cars, but coal will deplete, and coal electricity with CO2 sequestration is
more expensive, though absolutely necessary to avoid catastrophic climate
change. We could expand natural gas generated electricity, but this source will
deplete. We could build 100s of new nuclear power plants to power electric
cars. Good luck with that idea, with the nuclear waste problem, the
expense of nuclear plants, and the storage of dangerous nuclear material in a
world of terrorists threats. More hydro could be implemented, as if our
rivers are not damned enough already. Wind power is being expanded and is
a realistic option, but will eventually be needed to replace coal and natural
gas energy... Solar is currently too expensive, though hopefully it will become
less. What else? Hydrogen fuel for electric fuel cell
cars...? Some of the options for generating large amounts of hydrogen fuel
suggest building more nuclear plants. Again, good luck!: </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/kiss.htm">http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/kiss.htm</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=blue size=2>Third, hydrogen
? unlike electricity ? can be stored, and so the tremendous value of nuclear
power can be translated into energy for the transportation energy system, a vast
market into which nuclear power can now penetrate. Professor Paul Kruger of
Stanford University has estimated that requirements for meeting this demand, but
avoiding carbon emissions, will require hundreds of nuclear plants in the coming
decades, unless one believes that renewable energy systems can grow at
staggering rates [ <A
href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/kis-ref.htm#[point16]">Ref
16</A>].</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>-------</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What else? Biomass, biofuel, geothermal, tidal or wave electric
generation? Probably not solutions for powering a nation wide fleet of
electric cars.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The development that might make electric cars practical for widespread use,
even hydrogen fuel cell electric cars, that could be the energy breakthrough of
human history, fusion, is currently just a gleam in the eyes of the physicists
and engineers building ITER in France, a 10 billion dollar project that is the
largest internationally funded scientific project after the International Space
Station: </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2005/ITER_Host.html">http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2005/ITER_Host.html</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Ted Moffett</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 2/5/07, <B class=gmail_sendername>Paul
Rumelhart</B> <<A
href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">godshatter@yahoo.com</A>> wrote:</SPAN>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Bill London wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=http://mid00d601c7498e$f45763a0$0200a8c0@techlab
type="cite"><SPAN class=q>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Yes, engineers likely could design more
efficient vehicles and better power sources -- but will they be allowed to
do so?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>That is the lesson of the electric car fiasco
in California.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>When the gas/auto industries were able to
destroy the state mandate for zero emission cars, they stopped their
engineers from improving the existing electric cars, stopped their customers
from buying any (or transferrring their leases to purchases), and destroyed
all existing vehicles. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>BL</FONT></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I think
they will eventually be allowed to do their designs. What I can't tell
you is if they will be allowed to do so by the forward-thinking progressives
or by those who will be picking up the pieces after the oil runs dry and the
economy comes crashing down. <BR><BR>I definitely want to watch the DVD.
I am entertained by watching self-serving billionaires ruin everything for us
because they have a level of greed most people stamp out of their children by
the time they are four. Gives me faith in humanity.
<BR><BR>Paul<BR> </DIV><BR>=======================================================<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet,<BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.<BR>
<A onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"
href="http://www.fsr.net/" target=_blank>http://www.fsr.net</A><BR>
mailto:<A
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"
href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</A><BR>=======================================================<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>=======================================================<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet, <BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
<BR>
http://www.fsr.net
<BR>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>
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title="New Scientist Environment logo" alt="New Scientist Environment"
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href="http://environment.newscientist.com/">Home</A> <SPAN
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href="http://environment.newscientist.com/news.ns">News</A>
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<DIV>
<H1 class=inline>Hot clean power under our feet</H1></DIV>
<DIV>
<P>America can kick its addiction to fossil fuels by drilling more wells, says a
panel of experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not for oil, but
to tap Earth's heat.</P>
<P>Converting geothermal heat into electricity by pouring water onto hot rocks
underground and using the steam to turn turbines is arguably the most promising
- and renewable - source of "green" energy on the planet. So concludes the MIT
experts' report, released on Monday, which examines what geothermal energy could
do for the US in the 21st century.</P>
<P>The 18-member panel calculated that there is more than enough extractable
hydrothermal energy available to generate the entire 27 trillion kilowatt-hours
of energy consumed in the US in 2005. In fact, a conservative estimate of the
energy extractable from the hot rocks less than 10 kilometres beneath American
soil suggests that this almost completely untapped energy resource could support
US energy consumption, at its current clip, for more than two millennia to
come.</P>
<P>Developing a new generation of geothermal plants is thus a top priority for
tackling global warming, the panel says. "By any kind of calculation, this is an
extremely large resource that is technically accessible to us right now," says
the study's lead author, Jefferson Tester. "It doesn't require new technology to
get access to it. And there's never going to be a limitation on our ability to
expand this technology because of limits of the resource."</P>
<DIV class=straptext>From issue 2588 of <STRONG><EM>New Scientist
magazine</EM></STRONG>, 27 January 2007, page 4</DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=starbliss@gmail.com href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">Ted Moffett</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=godshatter@yahoo.com
href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">Paul Rumelhart</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, February 06, 2007 2:18 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] who killed the electric car?</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>All-</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I do not doubt that the corporate manipulations regarding the electric car
in California were obstructive to improving and implementing consumer use of
these cars...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But the bottom line on electric car/trucks being practical for widespread
use (even ignoring the limited range of these vehicles before needing
recharging, which has been a significant negative in many consumers minds) is
the huge amount of electricity that would be needed. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>California has problems supplying enough electricity for current
needs. To implement widespread electric car use in California would
require huge increases in electricity generation.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Paul's suggestion that electric cars make it possible to turn off coal
fired electric plants that might power these cars en masse, by replacing
the coal fired plant with nuclear, wind or solar plants, is not a practical
solution. The need for the massive amounts of electricity involved would
require adding more coal, natural gas and nuclear plants, plus adding wind
and, well, maybe solar, though solar is currently too expensive. We
need to cut back on coal electric generation as it is, due to CO2 output, or
switch to CO sequestered coal power, yet we still get 50% of our electricity
from coal, and there is tremendous resistance to cutting back on cheap coal
generated electricity, cheaper than nuclear, wind or solar. New nuclear
fission plants have many drawbacks also. Wind and solar electricity to
power widespread use of electric cars can be a part of the solution, but not
enough to turn off coal plants. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>To solve these problems nationwide would require a massive
reorganization of and expansion of electricity generation requiring cooperation
across numerous sectors of the economy. Even if the oil and auto industry
pushed the electric car option for widespread use, they might not succeed.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The elephant in the room of the energy/fossil fuel depletion/global warming
crisis is the fact that our current consumption of energy for
transportation needs of all kinds uses too much energy, and increases in
efficiency and implementation of new technology will not sufficiently solve the
problems quickly enough, even if they can eventually be solved, given our
current economic and lifestyle demands on energy consumption. It is hard
to get around the need to radically downsize transportation energy
consumption. Almost no one wants to face this fact, the economic and
lifestyle implications. It is assumed we can have our energy cake and eat
it to... </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is no patent that the oil or auto industry is hiding (though they may
be hiding some) on electrical generation sources or super efficient electric
motors that will make solving these transportation energy problems easy, nor is
lifting corporate control over the work of engineers going to
make the problem less daunting, though that might help. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We could use more coal combined with CO2 sequestration
to generate some of the extra electricity needed to power electric
cars, but coal will deplete, and coal electricity with CO2 sequestration is
more expensive, though absolutely necessary to avoid catastrophic climate
change. We could expand natural gas generated electricity, but this source will
deplete. We could build 100s of new nuclear power plants to power electric
cars. Good luck with that idea, with the nuclear waste problem, the
expense of nuclear plants, and the storage of dangerous nuclear material in a
world of terrorists threats. More hydro could be implemented, as if our
rivers are not damned enough already. Wind power is being expanded and is
a realistic option, but will eventually be needed to replace coal and natural
gas energy... Solar is currently too expensive, though hopefully it will become
less. What else? Hydrogen fuel for electric fuel cell
cars...? Some of the options for generating large amounts of hydrogen fuel
suggest building more nuclear plants. Again, good luck!: </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/kiss.htm">http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/kiss.htm</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=blue size=2>Third, hydrogen
? unlike electricity ? can be stored, and so the tremendous value of nuclear
power can be translated into energy for the transportation energy system, a vast
market into which nuclear power can now penetrate. Professor Paul Kruger of
Stanford University has estimated that requirements for meeting this demand, but
avoiding carbon emissions, will require hundreds of nuclear plants in the coming
decades, unless one believes that renewable energy systems can grow at
staggering rates [ <A
href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/kis-ref.htm#[point16]">Ref
16</A>].</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>-------</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What else? Biomass, biofuel, geothermal, tidal or wave electric
generation? Probably not solutions for powering a nation wide fleet of
electric cars.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The development that might make electric cars practical for widespread use,
even hydrogen fuel cell electric cars, that could be the energy breakthrough of
human history, fusion, is currently just a gleam in the eyes of the physicists
and engineers building ITER in France, a 10 billion dollar project that is the
largest internationally funded scientific project after the International Space
Station: </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2005/ITER_Host.html">http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2005/ITER_Host.html</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Ted Moffett</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 2/5/07, <B class=gmail_sendername>Paul
Rumelhart</B> <<A
href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">godshatter@yahoo.com</A>> wrote:</SPAN>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Bill London wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=http://mid00d601c7498e$f45763a0$0200a8c0@techlab
type="cite"><SPAN class=q>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Yes, engineers likely could design more
efficient vehicles and better power sources -- but will they be allowed to
do so?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>That is the lesson of the electric car fiasco
in California.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>When the gas/auto industries were able to
destroy the state mandate for zero emission cars, they stopped their
engineers from improving the existing electric cars, stopped their customers
from buying any (or transferrring their leases to purchases), and destroyed
all existing vehicles. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>BL</FONT></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I think
they will eventually be allowed to do their designs. What I can't tell
you is if they will be allowed to do so by the forward-thinking progressives
or by those who will be picking up the pieces after the oil runs dry and the
economy comes crashing down. <BR><BR>I definitely want to watch the DVD.
I am entertained by watching self-serving billionaires ruin everything for us
because they have a level of greed most people stamp out of their children by
the time they are four. Gives me faith in humanity.
<BR><BR>Paul<BR> </DIV><BR>=======================================================<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet,<BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.<BR>
<A onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"
href="http://www.fsr.net/" target=_blank>http://www.fsr.net</A><BR>
mailto:<A
onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"
href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</A><BR>=======================================================<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>=======================================================<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet, <BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
<BR>
http://www.fsr.net
<BR>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================
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