http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVrwHQ9-6...

I'll second the recommendation. Come on in, the water's fine!

I keep trying to convince you to come down to east central Florida like the rest of the snowbirds.

I'd been thinking about what could be done to circumvent the purposes of the EPA regs closing down coal-fired power plants. We all know the reason for the closings is not environmental concern, GW has proven to be a hoax as near as I can tell, so that only leaves a government control grab over who gets what and when. If a power source could be available when the plants shut down, it would thwart the feds plan.
Of course, the feds would attempt to stop any production of power outside their control. Maybe it is time for you to revisit your abilities as an entrepreneur in energy. Just thinkin'.

We're not denying the problem. This was my area for a decade, and I made a decent amount of money off of liberals' desire to absolve themselves of guilt. Most of us are not deniers of climate change, but are deniers of anthropomorphic climate change. Humans are little more than specks compared to the grand size of Earth, let alone the solar system or the universe. One good volcanic eruption much smaller than Mt. St. Helens spews out more CO2 than two decades of concerted carbon savings efforts.

The 2 to 2.5 times is the cost of getting energy via electrolysis of water, the only really "clean" source of hydrogen (used for storage at night or when the sun isn't shining). Hydrogen is the most convenient carrier of all the so-called clean forms of energy, but if you get it from a hydrocarbon source, then all you are doing is concentrating the cleanup of the waste products to a central location (which actually is a big help, but not big enough). If you go that route, then buildings and trucks/buses can be rough off of hydrogen as cheaply as off of diesel, but cars are about 1.5 times as expensive because the weight of the fuel cell and hydrogen storage capacity is that much of a penalty on the energy savings associated with the more efficient fuel cell engine. That was my research and development area for 10 years from 97 to 07.

After all, Brenner means one who burns. My ancestors were among the first to mine and burn coal in Germany. My grandfather owned Brenner Oil (now a few wells owned by Total up in mid-Michigan). My dad was Mobil's first environmental engineer. I started in coal- and wood-to-liquids, then solar, then moved into developing catalysts for upgrading of heavy crudes, then hydrogen, then the biofuels company, and then I shrugged.

Dear Wanderer,

If you have problems with the coal-fired power plants, I have been on just about every side of the energy equation. If worse comes to worse, I'll start a new waste-to-energy, fuels, and chemicals company back up like the one I sold to some across Florida. I know how to store up energy better than just about everyone else, too,
and could make a pretty penny doing it for Gulchers in a true emergency. Ahh, but then again, I'd probably get sued by moochers and looters from profiting off of others' calamity. There's a law against that in Florida because of the occasional hurricanes.

Robbie,

Your scientific ignorance is amazing. The energy comes for raising the water comes from the SUN. If you don't know that then perhaps you need to take basic physics.

No it is not a hypothesis, it is known to anyone who understands Nucleosynthesis

Maybe what I'm buying is subsidized. Does the 2-2.5 times include the cost of maintaining backup capacity for the when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing. I think that is a big chunk of it. If that problem magically disappeared, the figure of electricity costing twice as much from solar doesn't ring true at all, unless you mean the portion of the costs due to fuel or solar equipment. I think distribution is a bigger share of the cost, so going to solar (if the storage problem were magically solved) would not be significantly more expensive.

People who accent scientific evidence are just not "believers". Belief is a religious thing.

My gut feeling is that simply limiting emissions will cost more than the costs of climate change. There must be another approach. In the mean time, we're stuck with undesirable options. This is far outside my areas of expertise, but I think going back to a bronze-age level of burning stuff will never people possible. There has to be another solution.

It blows my mind how people are willing are either stupid enough or short-sighted enough to simply deny the problem.

Simple, where do you think the energy comes from that raises the water in the air to fall on the ground? The Sun.

Where do you think the Uranium came from? It comes from expired stars.

JBrenner;

Trouble at the rig. Ellis might be away for a bit, keeping your lights on and your house warm, or cool, depending on where you are.

Remember, Jan 1st dozens of coal fired power plants will go offline due to new EPA carbon regs. Not sure whether or how quickly they can be converted to natgas, but I'm guessing around Jan 2nd you're all going to be knocking on my door with your empty bowls asking for "more hydrocarbons, sir", and I wouldn't want to disappoint you.

However, I will be disappointed if you haven't caused a great deal of social networking unrest before I get back.

I would like to see our government and liberal media disparaging Nuclear Power. Besides, the uranium is recyclable for use in these types of power plants. There is considerable information about redesign of such plants to make them safer, better power output, and would do less harm to the environment, Our federal gov't and the media they have in their pocket has scared the public with alot of misinformation. There are new designs that don't have to use water for heat transfer and fuel rods that are made of cheaper more effective case materials that would only melt at extremely high temperatures which would never be seen in in new type of designs. All our natural fuel will run out in the long run. The some what safe fusion power plant is still several decades away to become commercial. Green energy is only good for about .01% for the U.S. needs. Our federal legislators all have their heads in the sand with their own preconceived idea's and can't see nations future energy needs.
The other thing is to put all the environmentalists up against the wall! They are the ones who stifle progress with there ignorance and anti-tech philosophies.
One last thought, the citizens of the US should say to the President and environmentalist if they believe in global warming "Go plant more trees!", that should keep them busy for a few years.

Hear, hear! This is a great thread.

Amazing discussion in comments on this article. I'd forgotten that it was about a T-shirt.
That's why I come to the Gulch. I get "edjumacated", as a friend of mine would say.
I learned more about GW and oil production by reading through the comments than I have learned in all the research I have done on my own by searching the net.
I attribute that to the intelligence of the contributors and their ability to put most of their posts in plain language for everyday guys like me. I could understand what they were posting almost immediately.
Thank you, wanderer, jbrenner, et al. for increasing my knowledge base of the subject.

Pay the small yearly fee to become a producer, and you can post all you like. You're a nice addition to the Gulch, Wanderer (I mean Ellis Wyatt).

If we were to go with solar energy without subsidy, electricity costs would be 2.0 to 2.5 times higher. The ratio of solar to coal-based electricity costs has remained constant to +/- 15% for the last 50 years.

Totally.

Circuit;

Re the sounding impossibility of CO2 being nonthreatening; what do you know of the history of the theory of relativity? Someday, if I gather enough of these points that appear next to my name (whatever they are) so I can post something, I'll post my lecture about the consequences of refusing to believe your data.

The control crowd will always need a cause, an emergency, the fear of which they can use to keep us herded in the direction they choose. Since we have given 80% of the earth's population a bye on carbon emissions we will learn whether anthropogenic global warming is real. I believe it is not. If it comes to pass that most people lose faith in AGW then the control crowd will need a new cause, a new deadly threat against which they can rally the herd. By then we'll be cranking out highly toxic chemical storage devices for electricity at a rate an order of magnitude higher than now. The pollution caused by that manufacture will become the next threat against which we will be rallied.

Mankind might be able to destroy itself, but it doesn't have the ability to destroy the earth.