Thoughts on Energy

I'm hopeful that a decade from now America will have progressed on our energy situation in the following ways;

More efficient transportation
I have no problem always getting over 50 miles per gallon in my car the last 27000 miles, despite still seeing advertising by American auto makers that their new vehicles are gas misers at a whopping 30 miles per gallon.  My car is a Civic, not designed for ultra-high  miles per gallon but it does have an optional hybrid drivetrain.  There are a lot of autos in the works that will be on the market in the next two years that will give consumers choices of vehicles that will be at least as cheap as mine and able to get better miles per gallon than I get.  The public should not tolerate hearing that 30 miles per gallon is efficient, or that hybrids are too expensive or high on maintainence.  My vehicle maintainence, including tire rotation  has been 468 dollars in 27500 miles and all hybrid stuff is warranted for 8 years anyway.  Are you going to keep your car over 8 years?, If so, remember that the net present value cost of car maintainence costs that far off won't be the deciding factor on new car choice.  My hybrid drivetrain wil pay for itself in another 18 months if gasoline does not increase in cost, as we know it will.  Fuel savings after that will easily pay any maintainence costs.  I think the hybrid Toyota Camry has the highest dependability rating by Consumer Reports of any vehicle manufactured, conventional or hybrid.   This month, May 2009, in Japan, Honda's new Insight was the best selling vehicle, period.  Here in the US, Toyota's Prius was their third best selling vehicle in 2008, beat out by Camry and Corolla.  All the trucks and SUVs brought up the rear.
Click here and go to car #6606 to see my mileage records.

Better and cheaper biofuel
I expect to eventually see a lot of auto fuel someday coming from biologically derived products like butyl alcohol(not ethanol), produced by hybridized or bioengineered bacteria from cheap source stuff like sawdust and organic waste and cultured algea.  I expect the butyl alcohol or other light to medium weight biologically produced  liquid fuel to go into either hybrid auto gas tanks, or used directly as the fuel for fuel cells or electric power plants.  This will be a lot easier than trying to come up with economical portable hydrogen.  This will be superior to diesel since the light to medium weight liquid will not use the high 22 to 1 compression ratio of diesel and hence not be prone to forming nitrous oxides from the air intake, which is the problem with all newly designed "clean" deisel engines as well as all older ones. (Air plus diesel compression ratios equals nitrous oxide and it has nothing to do with
the fuel itself)

Electricity
As a petroleum geologist I believe there is still a pretty good amount of undiscovered natural gas around the US, in both the Gulf of Mexico and on the onshore Gulf Coast.  This is good because natural gas is a lot cheaper on a BTU basis than oil and its carbon footprint is lower than oil or coal. Natural gas has about a 4 to 1 ratio of hydrogen to carbon while oil has around a 2 to 1 ratio of hydrogen to carbon ratio. Coal has a dismal ratio, being almost pure carbon.   Because natural gas has no practically nomercury as some coal does, and because it has a very low carbon ratio, it makes an excelent fuel for electricity generation with less impact on global warming than those other fossil fuels.

I expect our nation will be able to increase its electricity generation from wind turbines a lot more than many believe.  The issues seem to be mostly with site selection that minimizes harm or conflict to birds, animals, and scenic aspects; as well as transmission hurdles.  Having read extensively on turbine-caused Golden Eagle fatalities, it seems the turbine manufacturerers have altered the blades placement and rotation speed to be relatively harmless, to not just eagles, but other birds as well.  Boone Pickens is addressing the transmission issue by requesting the government aid in aquiring right-of-ways for transmission arteries from wind turbine sites to where the electricity is needed.  I expect these arteries can be placed where there is minimum impact on the rural landownders that would be affected most.

I expect solar energy to expand a thousandfold or millionfold in about a decade due to recent breakthroughs in the solar cell and semiconductor technology that not only improves the efficiency of generation, but drastically lowers the cost of the hardware.  The discoveries and improvements have already been made and should only take a little time to scale up to large scale manufacturing.

But we have a ways to go.  A high mileage auto is a very good start for this interem period.  Consider this:
By switching from driving my SUV to and from work; I have cut my carbon footprint in half, paid less than half what I used to pay to to Chavez and the arabs for oil, and I have just about paid off the fancy drivetrain from the first 14 months of driving it.  The remaining 6 to 10 years of the auto's life will be saving me 800 dollars a year if gasoline stays down at two dollars a gallon, more if it creeps up.

Summary
I am very optimistic America will have a greatly improved and more stable energy supply in about a decade.
I expect much more efficient vehicles at reasonable cost in just a few years, not at luxury car costs.
I expect domestic natural gas will be able to play an increased role in keeping electricity both affordable and keeping the carbon footprint from increasing in the near future.
I expect more diversified and affordable fuel sources for vehicles in a decade that are less dependent on the middle east.
I expect, through greatly increased solar and wind produced electricity, that the cost of electricity will not become unreasonable in the future .
I expect  your next vehicle choice to be one that cuts your fuel costs in half as mine has.  Make it so and not only will you save, but ou country will be more independent and our planet more pleasant.  Our kids would like that.