In “Energy: Why We Need to Drill No Matter What: Part One”, I pointed out that in making decisions about the oil-drilling question and the energy crisis in general, we need to have a certain background of information as a start. Part of that background is that there is a extraordinarily vast world infrastructure for petroleum and its products, and the world uses over 80-million barrels of oil a day. This amount is increasing rapidly.
Now, the second of the background issues is electricity. Just as with petroleum, there are extraordinarily vast infrastructures for the generation and transportation of electricity. The following is part of what you should know to make educated decisions about energy policy.
The non-petroleum power capabilities that people are talking about now—solar, wind, nuclear, along with hydro-systems like dams and geothermal energy—are only means to generate electricity. Petroleum products, natural gas, and especially coal are also used in copious amounts to generate electricity. And you can’t store electricity except in extremely small amounts by using it to charge-up short-term batteries. Vehicle batteries that act to propel the vehicle, as opposed to lighting its headlights or running its radio, not only have to be recharged after a given distance traveled by the vehicle, but these batteries also cost, at this moment, thousands of dollars. (Surprise!)
Once generated, electricity has to travel by wire from its point of generation to its point of application, usually traveling across a distance, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where it will be used by people who plug into that delivered electricity.
These wires from a power station to the home or business have to travel through the air or underground, between powerline structures (like between those tall metal towers that march across the land, or like telephone posts). Not only does the generated electricity attenuate as it travels, but that weakening must be strengthened by the functioning of other equipment, such as transformers, at given distances along it travel.
In order to use electricity to power vehicles, the electricity will have to come through a wire capable of transmittion to a heavy-duty power outlet next to the car to be charged. This means that everywhere you use, or want to use, electric cars, the physical area has to be properly wired, and there has to be electric wiring to every location where an outlet is needed. (Or you can use a gas or coal powered generator to produce the electricity, but that introduces gas and coal back into the equation.) All this is a problem here in the United States, because millions of people live where their cars are parked in unwired lots at night. This is even more of a problem in China, India, Africa, South America, Central America, and so on, where there are vast unwired distances that must be traveled by vehicles, and thus where there are no power outlets for charging or recharging batteries.
What about “charging stations” in cities with parking lots, and along the roadways, the way there are gas stations now? How big will they have to be to accommodate many, many times more cars for a few hours each? There is another complication because there is a significant difference in time-frames needed to fill a car engine with gas—a few moments—and an electric car with a charge—a few hours.
If we want to use electricity to power vehicles, we will have to vastly increase the number of electricity generating plants (including nuclear) and have vast numbers of new powerline wires and transformers over countless miles to application outlets. (For instance, look at T. Boone Pickens’ plans for wind farms, and how he’ll send the electricity generated in the middle of the country through wires to the rest of the country, including the coasts, at www.pickensplan.com).
As food for thought, imagine the more than 240-million cars and light trucks at this moment in the United States alone. Imagine the number of vehicles we’ll add to that with increasing population. How much more electricity will have to be generated to allow a couple hundred million cars to charge up overnight, even if it is just a portion of those cars at any one time? Try to imagine this increased, and ever more increasing, demand for electricity, added to our current production of electric power. (And, this does not include the millions of freight trucks, trains, aircraft, boats and ships here, that would still need non-electrical power.)
And that’s just the U.S. alone.
But all this merely touches the surface of the situation. This is just background knowledge. In Part Three, I want to start discussing some of the serious implications of Part One and Part Two with respect to our desire both for non-polluting energy usage and to be free from the need for petroleum. (And why we won’t—can’t—succeed in those desires. We will still need to drill petroleum in vast amounts. For decades to come.)
Trackposted to Perri Nelson's Website, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
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