What would it take for the U.S. to bring Brent crude to $68./bbl? (Newt Gingrich on energy, part 2)

In a previous post I made my case that, in order to bring Newt Gingrich's campaign promise to bring gasoline prices to "$2.50/ gallon or below," the U.S. would need to bring enough crude production to market to bring the price per barrel (for Brent crude; WTI, or West Texas Intermediate is the figure most often quoted on the radio and typically is quite a few dollars lower) of around $68.00. The spot price of Brent crude closed Friday, April 20 at $118.52/bbl (as contrasted with WTI at $103.88/bbl).


Can the U.S., with all regulatory hurdles removed, supply sufficient oil to the market to bring the price down by 42%? And would the extraction be economically viable at a price of $68.00/bbl? Let's take a look.


This will only be from a 30,000 foot level - there are many subtleties involved in U.S. gasoline prices, else how to explain the huge difference in price per gallon between Tulsa, OK and Chicago, IL ($3.459 vs. $4.464)? But crude oil is sold into a worldwide market. If there's a significant discrepancy (with quality taken into account) between the price that willing buyers will pay in disparate geographic regions, arbitrageurs will quickly step in to profit from the difference and equilibrate the prices.


This is one of the purposes of the various Commodities Exchanges (the others are things like the ability to hedge and to speculate) and they provide a very efficient market. The discrepancies above can be attributed to proximity to refiners, proximity to pipelines, specific blending requirements and taxes of states, etc. It wouldn't be possible to buy 20,000 gallons in Tulsa for $69,180, truck them to Chicago and sell them for $89,280 and pocket the $18,800 difference (after paying about $1,300 for the trucking).


In any case, the price of oil is demonstrably very sensitive to small changes in either demand or supply. An economist might say that price elasticity of both supply and demand are, at least in the short term, very low. That is, the graphs that show price on the vertical axis and quantity demanded or supplied on the horizontal axis are close to vertical. In an efficient market, the point where these lines cross sets the so-called "clearing price," that is, where the price is that which causes supply and demand to be equal.


What we want is the price elasticity of supply (PES) so that we can figure what amount of additional supply would cause the price to decrease from $118/bbl to  $68/bbl. This is, of course, a simplistic analysis in that it assumes assumes that "all else is equal." Among other things, this assumes that demand doesn't rise as prices drop (though, since the demand curve is inelastic, this might not be a bad approximation in the short run), that OPEC and non-OPEC suppliers don't react by lowering production (they might not since they count on the foreign exchange income), and other considerations.


PES is defined as % change in Quantity supplied divided by % change in price. Estimates range from 0.1 to 0.01. Using a baseline of 85 million bbl/day and plugging in the numbers represented by a decrease in price from $118/bbl to $68/bbl, it can be calculated that the increase in production needed would be about 3.6 million bbl/day at an elasticity of 0.1. At 0.01, it would be a mere 600 thousand bbl/day.


The second number is highly unlikely to be correct in that it was calculated by using production figures as prices rose at a time when most producers were unable to increase production (regardless of their protestations to the contrary). There are a few more seemingly authoritative sources that use the 0.1 figure and this excellent essay discusses the interaction between supply and demand in recent history and suggests (through implication) that the interaction leads to an effective doubling of elasticity.


In any event, the sharp eyed will have noticed that the implication here is that a price decrease would result in an increase in quantity supplied. This is, of course, not what's implied in a discussion of supply elasticity. But the supply elasticity is so close to vertical that what we're really looking for is the rightward shift of the quantity supplied curve that, in combination with the quantity demanded curve, would clear the market at $68/bbl. I simply used the negative of the PES in the calculation.


This very informal (and, no doubt, flawed) analysis indicates that an increase in world production on the order of between 3 and 4 million bbl/day, ceteris parabus, could cause a decrease in crude prices sufficient to drive the cost of gasoline to $2.50/gallon or less.


Next I'll discuss whether the U.S. technically recoverable reserves and the available equipment would allow such an increase.

More of the same, but worse

On Intrade.com, as far as I know the best and most extensively used prediction market, it's estimated that President Obama's chance of being re-elected in November, 2012 are at about 60% and the chances of the Republican Party adding control of the Senate to its existing control of the House of Representatives are about 65%.

Say what you will about prediction markets' accuracy in comparison to other forms of prognostication, they've typically exhibited accuracy at least as good as poll results (though the markets are heavily influenced by poll results) and it's awfully easy to get moment by moment snapshots as trading takes place.

Of course, the voting results for President and for the Senate are far from independent but, if they were and if the chances above could actually be treated as probabilities rather than betting odds (see below*) then there's about a 40% likelihood that we'll have a Democratic President and that both houses of Congress will have Republican majorities.

This is not atypical of the second term of a President, but with the level of toxicity exhibited by present-day political discourse and a significant degree of public discontent (cf. the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party Movement) this seems to me to be a recipe for increasing levels of public disorder and chaos.

And, on a subject near and dear to my heart and that which is the foundational area of concentration of this blog, this is not a political environment in which the energy Sword of Damocles hanging over all of our heads will be able to be blunted.

*The salespeople in my Company must enter a "probability of win" when they log a proposal into our CRM database. We all know what we mean by this but, logically, it makes no sense. It's a one-time event and the probability is either 0 or 1, and we'll know what it was when the results are in. It's not as if we can say "in 100 similar opportunities that we've pursued in precisely this way in precisely similar environments we have won 60 of them." In order to reconcile this to the logical framework within which my thought processes operate, when a salesperson enters 60%, I interpret this to mean that he or she would take either side of a 3 to 2 bet where the bettor against us was offerred 3 units if we fail, and we win 2 units if we succeed.

Image credit: Felix Auvray via allposters.com

Newt Gingrich on energy, part 1

In a half-hour long video (also embedded below for your viewing pleasure) Newt Gingrich outlines his energy policy that, according to him, will result in gasoline prices for US consumers of "$2.50/gallon or below."


Can Gingrich make this happen? I'm talking about technically and economically, never mind politically. His fundamental premise is (unsurprisingly) that burdensome regulations stifle production of otherwise ample fossil fuel (oil, in particular) resources on public lands. He contrasts production from the Bakken formation in Montana and North Dakota, which takes place on private lands and is, in fact, thriving to the decreasing production on public lands. Gingrich states that the benefits of deregulating oil exploration and extraction on public lands would reduce dependence on foreign oil imports, dramatically reduce our balance of trade deficit, and reduce our budget deficit (via collection of royalties for production on public lands).


It's certainly true that increased production, should it be possible, would have those salutary effects but the key questions are: what reserves are technically recoverable?; what reserves are economically recoverable?; what production rates can be achieved? and; with this information, what is the likelihood of such production reducing the average price per gallon of gasoline to the level claimed by Gingrich?


I'd like to go backwards first and determine an estimate for what price of crude might lead to $2.50/gallon gasoline and then determine what sort of U.S. crude production might lead to such a price. I'll use the methodology (and some of the numbers) from Geoffrey Styles' very interesting and informative Energy Outlook site. Starting at $2.50/gallon, we take out $0.488 for federal and state taxes and $0.15 for retailer/distributor margin. This leaves $1.86 or (at 42 gallons/barrel) about $78 per bbl for pre-tax wholesale. Now we need to correct for the difference in gasoline vs. light crude prices (since there are many other products that come out of a barrel of crude). I'll use Skyles' figure of $9.67/bbl for this number and we're looking for crude at about a bit under $70/bbl as our magic number.


Let's check and see if this is in the ballpark. I'll again defer to Skyles as to which crude price follows gasoline most closely and go with Brent Crude. At this page from the Energy Information Agency we can look at monthly historical spot prices for Brent crude, and this page gives us monthly U.S. regular conventional gasoline prices. I downloaded the relevant spreadsheets and plotted Brent crude as a function of gasoline price. The "visual" impression is of a very good linear correlation. Excel gives Brent=36.76*gasoline-23.768 with an R^2 of 0.9717. Plugging in $2.50/gallon yields a predicted Brent price of $68.13. Not bad, I think we're on to something here.


Thus, Gingrich's plan must produce a sufficient supply (accumulated production minus consumption) sufficient to drive Brent crude down to around $68/bbl. In my next post, we'll look at what level of production in the U.S. might lead to such a price and whether it's reasonable to expect that any policies Gingrich might undertake could lead to such a rate of production. Finally, we'll look at whether the economics justify the expense of production from any technically recoverable reserves that could potentially lead to such rates.

Gingrich Wants Secretary of Energy Chu Fired Over High Gas Prices

Demagoguery at its finest and most despicable.

Gingrich Wants Secretary of Energy Chu Fired Over High Gas Prices: 'via Blog this'

Rick Santorum carries on the lie

In the video embedded below, GOP Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum speaks to the Iowa Energy Forum about his proposed energy policies. While I'm not going to address his capsule version of the history of the interaction between the Islamic peoples of the Middle East and the "Western" peoples of Europe, I do want to address his contention, starting at about 4:30, that (paraphrasing slightly) at current rates of extraction the US has proven reserves that will last 263 years.

I'll get to the numbers in below, but let's think about his logic. The point he's trying to make is that, if only the environmentalists and regulators would get out of the way, we could produce our way to lower energy prices. Again, I'm not going to address the fact that crude is a world market and whether OPEC would reduce production to offset our increase. But we currently import about 13.6M barrels of oil per day and produce about 5.5M barrels per day. So, if we doubled our output, something no sane individual contends we could do in any kind of short time span, we'd still import over 40% of our oil. Keep in mind that the producers of oil in the US will sell into a world market - it's not as if they'll sell it cheap here.

Now, on to the numbers. Santorum states that, at "current rate of extraction" we have 263 years worth of proven reserves in the US. At the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration) we find that, in 2010 the U.S. "produced" 5.512M bbl/day. Thus, Mr. Santorum is claiming that U.S. proven reserves are (365.25*263*5.512M) 529 billion barrels. But at this EIA page the U.S. proven reserves are stated to be 20.6 billion barrels - about 3.9% of Santorum's number. Houston, we have a problem.  

What could explain this discrepancy? To start, I can imagine that he might include the so-called "oil shale" in CO, among other states. According to this Wikipedia article (I've cross checked with some other sources), there may be about 1.9 trillion barrels of "shale oil" reserves (oil derived from the kerogen in shale formations as distinguished from "tight oil" which is conventional crude trapped in shale formations). If this is what Santorum is referring to, current extraction would deplete this plus the conventional reserves shown previously in 954 years. A more conservative estimate by the RAND Corporation is that 800 billion barrels of shale oil may be technically (not to say economically) recoverable.

I was able to find an article that I believe to be what Santorum was trying to quote, it's by Daniel Horowitz in the Redstate.com web site. Pulling figures from this report by the Congressional ResearchService, Mr. Horowitz states the following:

Parenthetically, the cessation of Libya’s mere 1.7 million barrels of production per day has caused chaos in the global market.  Were we to pump our oil reserves at a similar rate, the oil would last for 263 years.  This would presumably have a commensurately positive effect on oil prices.

The "263 years" figure seems unlikely to be a coincidence. What Horowitz did was divide the 163 billion barrels that are "proved" plus "undiscovered technically recoverable" in the Congressional Research Service report and divide by 1.7 million barrels per day times 365.25 days per year. I suppose his point was that, were we to go after these reserves, we'd eliminate the market turmoil caused by issues in unstable producers. How Santorum got from there to "we have 263 years worth" is a reflection either of his willingness to baffle his audience with... bull puckey or his inability (or that of his staff, who no doubt gave him the talking point) to interpret reports.

The key to modern American politics: the Right-Wing Id Unzipped « Fabius Maximus

The key to modern American politics: the Right-Wing Id Unzipped « Fabius Maximus: 'via Blog this'

One of the more interesting essays I've read regarding those who like to refer to themselves as "conservatives" but who have chased me (I believe myself to be a conservative in the classical sense - conserve financial means, conserve natural resources, conserve civil liberties, etc.) out of the Republican party.

I call shenanigans on Rocket City Rednecks

There's a show on the National Geographic Channel called "Rocket City Rednecks." The basic idea revolves around one Travis Taylor who, apparently, "has worked with the Department of Defense and NASA for the last 25 years." Taylor lives in Huntsville, Alabama and, with his father (who, apparently, worked in the Apollo program in the 1960s), a nephew (who, apparently, has a high IQ), a brother in law (who, apparently, holds a Ph.D. in physics), and some other guy whose background and qualification are unstated, get together on weekends and create wacky science projects and experiments. Some seem to be simply for grins, whereas others are represented to have some component that would, in some way, serve humanity. An example of the latter is their "Tornado-Proof Outhouse." You can see synopses for some (but not all) of the episodes here.


Unfortunately, the one I have in mind is not listed there. I recorded it on my DVR and then recorded that on my iPhone so the video here is not... um .. of pristine quality. But that's not necessary to make my point. The episode is called "Power My Party Boat" and involves attaching two paddle wheels to a pontoon boat, anchoring the boat in the Tennessee River, and having the passing current generate electricity by turning the paddle wheels.


They utilized automobile alternators (one, with which they had problems, from a salvage yard and the other new) to actually generate the electricity, ran the current (the electrical current, not the river current) through a voltage regulator into a set of batteries. The electrical current was thus used to charge the batteries. They then used a pair of inverters to supply energy to a "kegerator" (a refrigerator with a keg of beer inside and a tap). a flat screen television, a laptop computer, and a string of lights.


Here's a video clip:

I was extremely dubious when they described the plan, the video cinched it. But let's run a plausibility analysis. I'll list the items they claimed they were powering, and a very conservative estimate of the power consumption of each. We have the following:

1. A "kegerator": 100 watts
2. A flat panel television (I'll assume 32", Energy Star qualified): 77 watts
3. Laptop computer: 20 watts
4. Light string (20 lights, incandescent, at 0.4 watts per light): 8 watts 

The total is 205 watts and I've been VERY generous.

In order to determine the plausibility, we need to know the size of the paddles and the speed of the river. While I can't find definitive data for the speed at the location the Rednecks utilized, this paper mentions "there are some sites with velocities in excess of 5 fps (feet per second)." The show mentioned 3 fps, I'll average the two and go with 4 fps or 1.2 meters/second.

As to the size of the intercepted stream, I'm estimating that each paddle wheel intercepts about 2 square feet (again, generous) or 0.19 meters^2. I'll round to 0.2 meters^2 and multiply by two for two wheels. Thus, the intercepted stream is 0.4 meters^2.

The basic equation for determining the power in a stream of moving water is P=(rho*A*V^3)/2 with A the area, V the speed (assuming the area is perpendicular to the velocity of the stream flow), and rho the density of the water. Here we have rho=1000 kg/m^3; V=1.2 m/s; A=0.4 m^2. Thus, the total power in the stream intercepted by the paddles is about 690 watts.


Now, a paddle wheel is not the most efficient way to extract energy from passing water. The best sources I found were here and here. The Rednecks seemed to have built an "undershot" water wheel, whose efficiency seems to top out at 25%. Considering the slapdash nature of the construction, I'm going with the 20% listed in the second article. This means that, before the alternators, the voltage regulator, the batteries, and the inverter, the system could deliver about 0.2*690 or 138 watts.

And yet the lights were on, the beer was cold, the television and computer were working. What gives? I suspect that the batteries were supplying the power at the rate of 205 watts (or likely more), and the paddle wheel system was simply slowing the rate of discharge. I'll concede that, if I were on the boat, I'd be able to live with intermittent operation of most of those appliances, so it's possible that the river could supply my energy needs in such a circumstance. And the wheels could certainly have been built much bigger - available power scales directly with area. But I'm disappointed because the show, as presented, was quite misleading.

Bell Laboratories and incentives

For decades, Bell Laboratories and innovations in fundamental research leading to commercial production were nearly synonymous. Claude Shannon and information theory, Shockly, Bardeen, and Brattain and the transistor, Tibor Rado's amazing 1962 paper "On Non-Computable Functions" which introduced us to the busy beaver function, radio astronomy, the C programming language, the laser, and a truly incredible variety of geniuses and inventions owe their origin to Bell Labs. Seven Nobel prizes stem from work at Bell Laboratories.

Unfortunately (imho, ymmv),  in 1982 AT&T entered into a Modification of Final Judgement pursuant to an antitrust suit filed in 1949 which required the divestiture of the Bell Operating Companies from AT&T. Bell Laboratories is now the R & D subsidiary of a French-owned firm, Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel-Lucent announced in 2008 that it was withdrawing from basic research in materials science, physics, and semiconductors to direct its research investment to more "immediately marketable areas."

This is a symptom of the incentive system built into capitalism in its current implementation. Obviously, I'd rather have a dollar in this quarter than a dollar in a year. Even given the choice of, say, $1.00 now versus $1.10 in a year I need to determine the likelihood that the contract to give me the $1.10 in a year will be honored, that the entity promising the $1.10 to me will have the means to pay it, that my assumptions regarding what $1.00 will buy today versus what $1.10 will by in a year are valid, etc.


When adjusting for investment in basic research, I must add to this the likelihood that marketable results will follow from the funded research. And, if I'm on a board of directors for a publicly held company (or even a closely held company) then I must satisfy the owners (to whom I owe, by law in theory if not in actuality, a fiduciary duty) that my research and development investment should provide the largest return on the invested capital. If I don't satisfy them, there's a body of attorneys ready and willing to sue me on a contingency basis.

So who's to fund basic research? The Federal Government has had an active role in this research both through the system of United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and through the funding of research at various Universities. Of course, prospective President Rick Perry, among others, will do away with the Department of Energy (at least if he can remember or, perhaps, write it on his hand). And Republicans (a party of which I used to be a member) cast a very wary eye on the National Science Foundation - the governmental agency that provides the lion's share of basic research funding (leaving out the National Institues of Health, which funds much medical research but is, course, also under attack, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - particularly hated due to its support of research on anthropogenic global warming).

So non-governmental industry is highly incentivized not to undertake basic research and the government not only has the Republican hatred for objective research but also startlingly large budget deficits and an enormous debt thwarting its ability to provide funding for this research. No wonder we're falling behind.

Government can't or won't do it, private industry can't or won't do it - whom does this leave? I would propose that a few fundamental changes in the structure of incentives would go a long way. I advocate the following:

• Amend the antitrust laws to allow consortia of companies to work together through an organization funded by the participating organizations
• Change the tax structure on capital gains to significantly reduce the incentives to pursue short term results at the expense of long term gains.
• Litigation reform to make the losing party responsible for court costs and legal and expert fees of the prevailing party.
• For suits that would require massive expenditures to defend, require plaintiffs to post a bond.
• A "basic research risk bank" under the direction of arpa-e with 10 figure funding.
• Reconfigure and then make permanent the Research & Experimentation Tax Credit. This reconfiguration would be toward applying the credit to basic research and eliminating the requirement that it be "useful in the development of a new or improved business component" of the taxpayer.

Over the next few weeks, I'll try to hang some meat on the bones outlined above since I'm certain that Congress and the President are reading.


Update: on the other hand, maybe all is not lost.

Worst phish bate ever

I can take a joke as well as the next guy but this phishing attack was so unbelievably bad that it's insulting.

Click either jpeg to embiggen

Come on now. At least give it the old college try.

The arrogance of engineers

Apologies for the lack of posting. Between a large business deal, my starting of graduate school, and attempts to become conversant, if not fluent, in Mandarin, time has become quite precious. I even thought of abandoning my blog for a while but decided against it. For those who do take the time to read my thoughts, thanks!

So, back to work!

There have been many blog posts and articles written alleging the arrogance of physicists when it comes to believing that their superior understanding of the basic forces, energies, and interactions of our universe gives them the ability to quickly synthesize all of the pertinent information in any field in which physics is involved.  They then, it is said, feel entitled to make authoritative pronouncements that those who've devoted as many years to the study of their own field (say, climatology for example) have it all wrong. The iconic example is Freeman Dyson, a truly brilliant man.

While there's likely a kernel of truth to this accusation of arrogance, there's another field whose practitioners can give physicists a run for their money. I speak of engineers (mechanical, structural and aerodynamic seem to be the worst offenders).

As my regular readers will know, I'm a pilot. Everyone I know who's involved in any way with aviation will acknowledge that Burt Rutan is one of the most original thinkers, brilliant designers, and skilled fabricators in the field of aircraft design in the last, say, 50 years if not more. Rutan retired from the firm he founded, Scaled Composites, in November of 2010. 

In the U.S. general aviation world (i.e., non-scheduled flying including corporate, private, etc.) there is no bigger event than the annual EAA Airventure  gathering. Many attendees have built kits designed by Rutan. On July 29, 2009 ( coincidentally, my birthday) Rutan made a presentation entitled "Non-Aerospace Research Quests of a Designer/Flight Test Engineer." A pdf of the presentation can be found here (though the title is different - "An Engineer's Critique of Global Warming 'Science'" and subtitled "Questioning the CAGW theory," the essentials are the same).


The document comprises a full 98 pages and is replete with graphs (many of the usual ones, some of his own), photos, and quotations. It's a superb example of the "it's not happening, and if it's happening we didn't cause it, and if we caused it's probably good anyway, and if it's not good we can adapt because we've been to the moon and the bottom of the ocean and we fly in the stratosphere" line of argument.


Rutan has been quoted as saying that “If someone is aggressively selling a technical product whose merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit." He is convinced that his engineering skills enable him to understand climate science as a "hobby" in a way that enables him to debunk the accumulated knowledge of those who've made the study of climate their life's work.

In the presentation linked above, Rutan includes on page 95 a quote (or at least I think it is - Rutan's use of quotation marks is sporadic) from one James P. Hogan (more in a moment) as follows: "Science doesn't really exist. Scientific beliefs are either proved wrong or they quickly become engineering. Everything else is untested speculation." Hogan, who was a prolific writer (he died in 2010), authored a tome entitled "Kicking the Sacred Cow," described on his site as "A Collection of nonfiction essays questioning scientific issues that I believe have become dogmatized, where institutionalized science rejects or ignores evidence inconvenient to preconceptions and established theory."

Among the topics covered by Hogan, as shown in the "Summary" page, are intelligent design,  "Did Relativity Take a Wrong Turn?," "Catastrophe as Ethics" with subtitle "The Case for Taking Velikovsky Seriously" (seriously???), and a variety of essays on "Environmentalist Fantasies." I ask you.

Now, it might be said that I'm painting with a broad brush - Rutan's excessive zeal in celebrating his depth of understanding shouldn't tar all engineers and I don't mean to do that any more than the authors cited above mean to tar all physicists. But I've spent more time than I should have reading the comments on skeptical blogs, and a frequent theme is "I'm an engineer. We design things that have to work or lives will be lost. We're much smarter and better equipped to understand climate than a bunch of computer modellers." Of course, there's no way to know if these commenters are actually engineers.

My firm employs eight registered engineers and none of them obviously exhibit this characteristic so I suspect that it's a small minority, just as with physics. But it's worth thinking about the tendency for experts in some fields to think their knowledge base and skill sets transcend the boundaries of their own field and enable them to become experts in unrelated or tangentially related fields without putting in the time to learn from first principles. An excellent complementary personality characteristic to brilliance is humility. Or, quoting that well-known liberal, Dirty Harry Callahan, "A man's GOT to know his limitations."

CO2 and the Nissan Leaf

Image Credit: Biomass Technology Group

In an earlier post I gave a few of the details of the Lexus CT 200h I've been driving for a few weeks now. Then, in my immediate predecessor post I discussed the fact that a much larger portion than I'd have thought of the electricity supplied by Anaheim Public Utilities, my electrical provider, comes from the burning of coal. Finally, in a much earlier post, I discussed the Nissan Leaf. The question to be addressed here: given my driver profile, which of the two vehicles would have the smaller carbon footprint with Anaheim Public Utilities supplying my electricity?


Starting with the CT 200h, let's calculate the CO2 emissions per mile (for my driving style). I'm averaging 51.16 m.p.g., and from this EPA site I find that running a gallon of gasoline through the internal combustion engine in a car (see the site for the assumptions which seem very reasonable) results in the emission of 8.8 kilograms of CO2. So dividing 8.8/51.16 yields 0.172 kilograms (172 grams) of CO2 emitted per mile.


I'm not sure of the accuracy, this site says a Prius, at 51 m.p.g. city and 48 m.p.g. highway, emits 127 grams/mile. I achieve mileage this good, so I should have a similar number. On the other hand, here at Grist we read that the Prius emits 238 grams per mile. These are large discrepancies. Since the EPA site lists its assumptions and since these seem reasonable, and since the number calculated from them is intermediate between the other two, that's what I'm using.


The Leaf would have gotten most of its energy from my home and thus, as best I can determine, 65% from the burning of coal, 20% from the burning of natural gas, and 15% from renewable sources (hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, and biomass in that order - I'm assuming no emissions from these). Here we find that the Leaf uses 34 kilowatt hours per 100 miles or 0.34 kilowatt hours/mile.


I'd need to supply this electricity, and I'll assume that the charging system is 85% efficient and that the transmission from the power plant is 80% efficient. That means that the output of the sources of my electricity need to supply 0.34/(.8*.85) or 0.50 kilowatt hours to propel my hypothetical Nissan Leaf for a mile. 65% of this half a kilowatt hour, or 0.325 kilowatt hours would be supplied by burning coal. From the same site I used in the previous post, I find that a typical 500 megawatt coal power plant will emit 3.7*10^6 (short) tons of CO2 to produce 3.5*10^9 kilowatt hours. Thus, the production of a kilowatt hour entails the emission of 1.06*10^(-3) tons of CO2. This is 0.962 kilograms, so the burning of coal to charge the Leaf will result in 962*0.325 or 313 grams emitted per mile.


For the 20% of my electrical energy supplied by natural gas,  this site shows (after some calculations, from the details of which I will spare my patient readers) that the 0.2*0.5=0.1 kilowatt hours that will derive from that source will produce 59.6 grams of CO2.


Thus, driving a mile in the Leaf will entail the emission of 313+60 or 373 grams of CO2. This is higher even than the high Grist site estimate for a gasoline powered Prius and over twice the estimate I derived for my CT 200h from the EPA site. I'd, without a doubt, spend less money on electricity in the Leaf at $0.14 per kilowatt hour vs. $3.899 (today) per gallon of gasoline in the CT 200h but my CO2 footprint would be over twice as high. And this is in the allegedly green state of California.


Finally, I'm now driving about 21,000 miles per year, thereby emitting 3.6 tonnes or 4.0 short tons (US tons of 2000 pounds) of carbon dioxide.

A tonne of coal

It's been a hot few weeks in Southern California and, unfortunately, I like it chilly. Thus, my air conditioning system has been quite busy lately. I received my utility bill yesterday and, though I knew it would be high, it exceeded my expectations. Anaheim Public Utilities bills on a bi-monthly basis and my current bill represents 62 days of consumption. The total electrical usage was an eye-popping 4,473 kilowatt hours. This is an average rate of a bit over 3 kilowatts continuously. Ouch!

Along with our bill, we receive a "power content label" that tells us the energy resources used to supply our electricity and the percentage (estimated for 2010 and I used these estimates for the information to follow) of electricity supplied by each.


Let's take a look at coal: I entered the query "how much coal is burned to produce a kilowatt hour of electricity?" into Google and followed a link to this site. It could be that I should look at a variety of sources but, for my purpose in this post, this is close enough. There I found that a ton (a short ton) of coal, burned in a modern generating facility, will yield 2,460 kilowatt hours of electricity. I will assume that its transmission to my house is 80% efficient, so that ton will yield 1,968 kilowatt hours at my service entrance (where the meter is). This converts to 2.169 kilowatt hours/kilogram of coal burned.


Looking at the Power Content Label, 65% of my 4473 kilowatt hours, or 2,907 kilowatt hours were supplied by burning coal. Yes, I understand that, for these particular 62 days that might not be the right percentage, but it's the best number I can find. In any event, these 2,907 kilowatt hours required the burning of 1,340 kilograms, or 1.34 metric tons ("tonnes" - note that this is 1.48 "short tons" or 2,954 pounds) of coal. This is 21.6 kilograms/day of coal being burned to keep me cool, pump my pool water, light my house, entertain me, etc. Looking here, I see that a reasonable approximation (not knowing the nature of the coal being burned) of the density of the coal is 1000 kg/m^3 so, during the 62 days, about 1.3 m^3 of coal was burned to supply me with 65% of my electricity needs.


Frankly, I was surprised by the high percentage of coal estimated to be used by Anaheim Public Utilities to supply electricity. We have two large nuclear generating facilities in Southern California as well as a huge plant west of Phoenix, AZ. Further, Hoover Dam is about 300 miles away.


Before I purchased the Lexus CT 200h, I'd contemplated, among other vehicles, the Nissan Leaf. While that vehicle would definitely have reduced my driving costs per mile, I'm now suspecting that it wouldn't have reduced my vehicular carbon footprint. That estimate will be the subject of my next post.

CT200h

In a previous post I mentioned that I'd purchased (more accurately, my Company purchased) a Lexus CT200h hybrid. I've now run a few tanks full of fuel through the vehicle and, to a certain extent, gotten accommodated to its driving characteristics (not so good) and its technology (adequate but nothing special in 2011). One thing the photo at left doesn't reveal is that this car is SMALL!


The vehicle's propulsion system consists of a small (1798 cc) Atkinson cycle internal combustion engine with a maximum power output of 73 kilowatts (98 horsepower) and two motor generators - one that's engine driven and can charge the battery or provide additional power to the other, a drive motor. It features four "modes": Normal, Eco, Sport (amusingly), and EV. In the EV mode the car can go a bit under two miles at a bit under 30 m.p.h. on battery power alone.


The CT200h incorporates a couple of features that obviate some of the fuel economy measures I employed in the Land Rover LR3 HSE I previously drove. The internal combustion engine shuts off at stops. It also shuts off on downhills, converting gravitational potential energy to charge the battery. It also employs regenerative braking.


With all that, stated candidly, the vehicle is a dog. Why, then, did I select it? It's comfortable, it has a reasonable technology platform, it's quite reasonably priced (by Lexus standards - I got out the door for less than a Chevy Volt would cost before the tax credit), and it's capable of excellent fuel economy. It's EPA rated at 43 m.p.g. city and 40 m.p.g. highway using regular gasoline. In my five tanks full I've averaged about 52 m.p.g though I'd hoped for better. I've not tried the "pulse and glide" method - it's simply more work than I want to devote to fuel economy.

Above is the output of a (trivial) Mathematica program I use to estimate fuel economy. Its prediction in the case of both the LR3 that I used to drive (and my wife now drives) and the CT200h are pretty close to the numbers I actually achieved at the pump. Of course, the calculation is for 55 m.p.h., the fastest I drive.


In the news in the last month, we see that President Obama and "Detroit automakers" reached an agreement to raise the CAFE standards to 54.5 m.p.g. by 2025. Of course, this resulted in an outcry that this is another example of big government interference in the free market and an example of creeping socialism. Maybe it is. But impossible, or even impractical, to achieve, it is not. I'm driving a comfortable vehicle that, while by no means quick or fast, comes close to this without any radical driving techniques (I haven't even tried drafting). As you may have noted, it's currently 2011.

Anaheim Energy Field

The City of Anaheim, using a $350,000 grant together with internal funding, has taken what was previously an unused three acre (what's three acres? think three American football fields, including the end zones, and you'll be close - this helps me to visualize it) site beneath power transmission lines and installed a park facility with a walking path, a lunch/picnic area, and some open field area for recreation. The facility is now called Anaheim Energy Field.

56 kW Solar array

The unique aspect of this facility is the installation of two sets of solar photovoltaic panels. One set, consisting of 385 panels, is in a fenced off area and at ground level. The other set is integrated with the three sun shades for the picnic and play area. It also utilizes artificial turf and drought resistant plantings. I went to visit this park a couple of weeks ago to see how it looked and how it was being utilized.

Across field viewing shade structures

I was there on a beautiful Sunday afternoon from about 2pm until 3:30pm, and during that time I was alone for all but 15 minutes. For those minutes, one individual came by and did some pull ups on one of the park's installations. I took a bunch of photos (on my iPhone, so the quality is low) and explored the park. I'm not sure why it isn't being utilized, the artificial turf is quite nice, the picnic areas are well maintained, and it's altogether a nice place to spend some time. Perhaps people are afraid of the power lines, though I hope not.

The movers and shakers getting iCeL tour
(Photo credit: City of Anaheim)

When I got home, I dove a bit deeper into the park and its technology. As it happens, the City of Anaheim (where I live) and scandal-prone former Anaheim mayor Curt Pringle had worked out a deal with a "green energy startup" called iCeL Systems, Inc. This firm was to supply a system of "smart batteries" that can both charge and discharge simultaneously (don't ask me) and that would enable Anaheim Energy Field to deliver energy continuously rather than only when the sun shone. Anaheim paid iCeL nearly $100,000 for the pilot project. I won't link to their site as Google reports that there is a risk of virus infection by visting.


Unfortunately, the iCeL system was never implemented and the firm itself had an involuntary petition for liquidation under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code filed against it in May of 2010. As it happens, Chaz Haba, iCel's founder and CEO has what could be described as a colorful history as an energy and electronics entrepreneur. 


In any event, I wondered if the solar panels were operational. I sent an inquiry on the "Anaheim Anytime" web site and received a phone call the same day from Dina Predisik of Anaheim Public Utilities. Ms. Predisik was very open (though she couldn't speak on the iCeL matter) and assured me that the panels have been generating electricity since 2009.


The panels on the sun shades are rated at 20 kilowatts, and those in the field at ground level are rated at 56 kilowatts. They are expected to deliver 114,000 kilowatt hours/year, thus the "capacity factor" is 18%, not bad at all. Looked at another way, this is the power available from about a 22 kilowatt (NOT megawatt or gigawatt) generating station operating at 60% capacity factor (fairly typical for fossil fuel generating stations). Clearly, they are not massive energy providers. Without a doubt though, they're a good example of "distributed generation."


While I'm proud of my city for installation of what is clearly a positive development with respect to turning a vacant and overgrown field into an environmentally friendly recreation area, the cautionary tale here is that where non-expert governmental officials become enamored with cutting edge and ostensibly "green" technologies, the opportunity for malfeasance is great.

I used to be a Republican

For those who are used to posts with hypermiling, energy, or physics content, my apologies for the following political rant.


I consider myself to be conservative. I believe in conserving natural resources. I believe in conserving the rights affirmed in our Constitution and its amendments (in particular, the Bill of Rights). I believe in personal responsibility. I believe in living within my (and our) means. I believe in granting others the right to differing opinions and acknowledge that, while I can campaign and proselytize for my beliefs, I must grant that same right to those with different beliefs and compromise with them. I believe that, on occasion, I will not get what I want and that that's OK. I believe that a mature individual accepts this. To me, these beliefs represent true conservatism and used to be the positions represented by the Republican party.


But now, the Republican party is a party of extortionate thugs. In order to change an existing policy (with respect to FAA funding) to the liking of those in whose pocket they dwell, they are willing to hold thousands of people hostage economically and flush millions of dollars down the toilet. I might even agree with the owners of the pockets on the specific policy issue (it revolves around unionization) but I don't believe in scorching the Earth to get my way at the point of a metaphorical gun.


The Republican party is now the party of ignoring evidence. "If it doesn't fit with my belief system/philosophy, it doesn't exist. Don't confuse me with facts." This leads to the possibility of ignoramuses such as Michelle Bachman, Rick Santorum, or Rick Perry  becoming the Republican nominee for President of the United States. These are people who reject science in the name of letting students decide and support a false balance between evidence based science and facts on the one hand and faith-based superstition on the other. Quoting Professor Steven Dutch of the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, "If your religion says something that conflicts with objective evidence, your religion is wrong." Governor Perry's response to the drought in his state? Pray for rain.


The best that they can come up with for the crying, aching, desperate need for a coherent, far-reaching energy policy is "drill baby drill." This shows all the depth of understanding of third graders. Worse yet, they may understand it all too well but venally sacrifice sound long-term policy for short term political gain.


Further, the Republican party has decided that, no matter what concessions are made by Obama and the Senate Democrats (for whom I have no love whatsoever), it's more important to pander to their so-called base than to honor the obligations of the United States. It grieves me that this is what has become of their vaunted "American exceptionalism," i.e., in their minds we are the exception to having to pay debts. To make this point, they are willing to create an unpredictable amount of turmoil.


I am no longer a Republican. It's saddens me that the party has chased me away. On the other hand, don't confuse me for a Democrat.

Embarrassed to be conservative guest post

I can't come close to the piquancy (great SAT word) of Baratunde Thurston's torpedoing of Michelle Bachmann's ludicrous signing of the FAMiLY LEADER pledge (the lower case i is, sadly, not a mistake).


Michelle Bachmann is running for president on a pro-slavery, anti-porn platform? - Blog - baratunde.com

My government loves me and only has my very best interests at heart

My government loves our Constitution, and its only goal is to Constitutionally protect my life, my liberty, and my pursuit of happiness. Of course, that's why they have prohibited me from playing poker for actual money online. I know that this can only be because their love and regard for me is so very high that they must do all in their power to prevent anyone, including me, from being able to engage in any activity that could conceivably cause me harm.

They are able to provide this desperately needed action of protecting me from myself by implementing the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, a document that is erroneously believed to have the purpose of limiting their powers. But such beliefs are foolish - it's clear that the Commerce Clause is applicable to stopping me from harming myself and others by playing poker online for money because there is no conceivable activity or lack of activity to which that Clause cannot be applied by our benevolent protectors in Congress.

Fuckers.


Note: In my 218 posts, this is my first (and hopefully last) f-bomb.

New car, minimal carbon reduction

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been contemplating replacing my Land Rover LR3 HSE with a new vehicle - something much more fuel efficient (despite the fact that I've gotten about 28% better fuel economy than the EPA rating for the LR3). Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, my hand was forced.


In the post linked above, I contemplated the Chevy Volt and the Ford Fusion Hybrid. Which did I purchase? Neither. Instead, I drove away with a newcomer, the Lexus CT 200h. This is a well-appointed, VERY small hybrid. Its EPA ratings are 43 m.p.g. city, 40 m.p.g. highway, and 42 m.p.g. combined. This exceeds the Ford Fusion Hybrid and will enable me to save something like 575 gallons of fuel per year and $2,400 on fuel costs (the number is greater than simply gallons times price because the LR3 requires premium while the CT 200h needs only regular).


This is certainly happy news, so why has my family's carbon footprint not decreased significantly as a result of this change? The unfortunate circumstances referred to above involved the total loss of the vehicle my wife had been driving (thankfully, no injuries occurred to any of the involved parties). The decision was to take the insurance settlement and purchase the LR3 from my Company and make it my wife's vehicle. Now, she does absolutely no hypermiling and puts a spectacular number of miles on a vehicle (on the order of 60,000 per year). Her previous vehicle was no fuel miser at 14 m.p.g. city, 23 m.p.g. highway, and 17 m.p.g. combined but many of her miles are highway miles where she'll get about 18 m.p.g. by my estimate. Thus, she'll add about 500 gallons per year for a net reduction in fuel consumption for my family of a mere 75 gallons.


Now, moving on to the CT 200h, this is a vehicle that shares the drivetrain of the Toyota Prius and is thus amenable to some of the more exotic hypermiling techniques such as pulse and glide. I will certainly run through a few tank fulls of fuel prior to experimenting with that technique so that I have a baseline for comparison. Frankly, I'm not so sure that I want to work that hard to drive. And with respect to another technique - drafting - the CT 200h is very small and very low. Thus, the danger level is increased (not to mention not wanting to damage a new vehicle's finish by rocks being thrown).


I'll make another post at a later time with some specifics of the CT 200h (Cd, weight, engine and motor sizes and ratings, etc.)

Hierarchy of qualifications to evaluate research-like information

I habitually listen to Radio Paradise when working (or playing) at the computer. The station's web site is equipped with a comment facility for the music Bill Goldsmith plays, and with listener fora where all manner of topics are discussed. There's a denizen of the fora with screen name "nuggler" with whom I've exchanged barbs in the song comment areas. In the fora, nuggler is about as rabidly anti (Israel, "big Pharma," American military, Republican, "big oil," etc.) as anyone with whom I've ever interacted.


Nuggler is also fairly tin foil hat conspiracist with respect to HIV-AIDS, GMO crops, "allopathic" (i.e., done by actual doctors) or "Western" medicine as opposed to CAM (complimentary/alternative medicine), etc. He believes the strain of E Coli recently determined to be responsible for multiple deaths in Germany was genetically engineered. He had a long rant about one Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who has supposedly developed an effective cancer cure involving "antineoplastons" that big Pharma and the FDA have brutally squelched.


So, I read a little bit about Dr. Burzynski and some of the material regarding him from his own site and from sites like Quackwatch and Science Based Medicine. I'm obviously ill-equipped to digest material from the primary medical literature both by background and by opportunity cost of time. So again, I have to decide whom to believe. I went into this a bit in a previous post regarding Anthropogenic Climate Disruption. Thus, it's back to a "who seems most credible" situation which is not at all easy (or at least it hadn't ought to be).


So I decided to propose a little hierarchy of how much confidence to have in one's ability to trust one's interpretation of research conclusions (especially conflicting conclusions) based on background and proximity to that research. This is what I came up with, I welcome suggestions and criticisms.

1. I did the research.
2. I am an expert in the specific subject area of the research and, though I didn't do the research, I have fully read and understood it.
3. I have some specific knowledge in the particular area and deep knowledge in the general area of the research.
4. I have a reasonable background in the general area of the research.
5. I have done formal research, but not in any area related to that being evaluated.
6. I have studied this area in depth, but not in any formal venue.
7. I have completed a formal program of study though not one related to the topic at hand (this shows, at least, some ability to absorb and synthesize complex information).
8. I have evaluated the coherence of the arguments propounded with respect to agreeing and disagreeing viewpoints.

These levels are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But, if I'm at any level less than this, the fact is that I simply should not allow myself to have an opinion. "It fits the way I'd like the world to work and believe it to be" simply will not suffice.

Wait... what? Fox News "poll"

This is a screen shot of the result (after I "voted") of a Fox News Poll. I find it confusing. The response gathering the most votes is "No, it's purely a scare tactic." The implication is that running into the so-called "Debt Ceiling" is not a real problem. But, if that is the case, then why would raising it be a big deal to the typical Fox News reader? That is, if not raising it would not have dire consequences, then what purpose is it serving? I suppose that it could be quibbled that "no, it's not the ceiling we're saying is merely a scare tactic, it's the date. We think it's really September 4, (or whatever)." Because, you know, the average Fox News reader is well-attuned to the details of when specific obligations will be unable to be met. Is this really the level to which political economic debate has sunk?