The oil companies want to make money period, if we increase tax on oil imports and subsidise ethanol, (whether that is the best soluion or not) business we react by buying into ethanol production. BP is the world largest solar producer (or one of the largest), why - they went green? No they see it as the next big thing when the oil stops and they want some else to do for work.

If we want to conserve oil ie make what we have last longer giving us more time to find and perfect alternatives and reduce CO2 consumption at the same time then the best way is the market.

From 2009 in Australia no electrical appliance (fridge, freezer, cooker etc) can be sold unless it has a minimum efficiency rating of 4 stars and this raises to 5 stars in 2011. In an instant the business world will push R&D to improve eficiency in it appliances.

Want to reduce fuel - (if ethanol is part of the answer even better) - as of 2011 all cars using over 12L/100km are subject to a pollution tax. This starts at $500 p.a. and increases to $2,000p.a. as the consumption of the vehicle decreases. All farmers and approved users that need 4×4 are exempt, but no office workers in the city centres.

All houses when renovating must was a minimum of R3.5 insulation in the walls and R7 in the ceiling. Any new house built after 2011 over 150 m2 is subject to a pollution tax, this is added to rates. Say the tax starts at $500 p.a. and increases to $2,000 p.a. OK there will be a flood of large houses to beat the exemption, but that will be only a small % of overall housing stock. Inside of 3-5 years house design will come up with ways to use the space much more efficiently.

The tax is then given 50% to industries as grants to improve energy eficiency and 50% for re-forestation, water tanks in houses (rates reduced $100 p.a. if have a tank), $100 p.a. if have full insulation and so on.

OK the car industry in Australia would cry, but they are over now. It is a shame, but China is cheaper and if it were not for Government sales they would be gone now. Australia has excellent engineers, we can use grants to re-employ the workers probably in engine manufacture, which are shipped to China and Thailand (Ford Mondeo factory there now) where the lower technology assemble can be done more cheaply. Australia then concentrate where it can compete in engineering anddesign, plus assembly of the high tech parts like engineer. The UK and Germany assemble the engines for the Ford Mondeo made in Thailand.

Housing will cry and so will the electrical retailers and distributors, but not for long. Then we will have to stop being hypocrits. How many sits in old trendy Footcray, with appalling insulation, eat out all the time from foods from all over the world - so we can have whatever we like rather than what is in season. Get taxis home from the city when we are drunk and then say we ride a bicycle, so it is all OK. It is as if the taxi and food from the other side of the word, like all our imported gadgets from Asia “flew to Australia on Angels wings without CO2″.

Want to stop CO2 stop buying gadgets, stop eating out so much, buy local food and products, only buy what you really need. My Tasmanian wife got me to come and visit, and meet her family five years ago from London and on the plane back form that holiday I asked her two things in Singapore - 1, would she marry me and 2. when are we coming to live in Australia - and I love Hobart and Melbourne where my trendy and even more hypocritical brother in law lives.(There are some real hypocrits in Sneddon and Footcray re-CO2 and business).

Australia has everything it could ever want. I don’t earn what I did in London, but I have learnt you don’t need much to be happy. I live like my Grandparents did in some ways, large veggie patch, walk the dog twice a day, have barbies in our or friends houses. Think what it would be like if we got the train to the coast or filled one or two cars(or walked 10 mins to the beach for me). Walked with family and/ or friends for a couple of hours, eat a picnic on the sand with a couple of bottles of wine, walked some more and then got the train home. Did that most saturdays, rather than driving round shops in the traffic buying things we don’t need.

Big business is not so evil, I worked as a Financial Analyst, I admit I hated it and did it only for the money. As I was not happy I blew it all on drinking too much on friday and saturday nights, shopping for clothes I hardly wore, gadgets I hardly used and holidays to exotic places that I shopped, drank and ate in all day. Then went to the gym three times a week to try to reverse the bad living. But I didn’t spend my time planning what third world baby to eat next, we had to make the maximum return on the resources we had. I teach business now and run a small company renovating and developing houses. I buy on projected profit , but I put in well above the minimum insulation, low water use shower heads, low water use tiolets etc and I get higher prices on re-sales or rents. Everyone wins, business just needs to have the guidelines altered.

Sorry for the rant, but I hear it so much in the college I work at “business bad; social work good”, then the first thing the same people do is buy the cheapest offering in the shop - well that is why business has to be so price conscious and wants to cut all costs it can. People say they want to reduce CO2, but then they buy the cheapest products and have more gadgets than they need.

I doubt if some aspects of the Swedish plan will work, like getting industry to use less energy…I know they are implying industries will use energy more efficiently and hence less of it for the same amount of value generated, but even then…

I think the Swedish plan looks mathematically nice on paper, but will face enormous difficulties in implementation. I think a more sensible approach would be to agree that energy conservation and efficiency can do only so much during the next 20-50 years and look for very efficient alternative energy sources.

To give an example of this approach: I co-ordinate Oilgae, a site that explores use of algae as a feedstock for biodiesel, and I can say with some amount of confidence based on my researches that algae appear to be one of the most qualified candidates for biodiesel production.

While the math certainly appears to favor algae as a highly efficient feedstock that has the theoretical possibility of providing us with fossil fuel independence, there are a number of issues to be overcome. These have to do with (1) choosing optimal algal strains, (2) issues faced in cultivation and harvesting (believe me there are some serious bottlenecks here), and (3) cost-effective methods to extract oil and transform it into biodiesel.

So yes, there is still a long way to go before it can be proven with certainty that algal biodiesel can be cost-effective on a large scale, but it is gratifying to see brilliant minds (not to forget VC money) getting into this field. And with institutes like MIT (Boston) getting into the act, I’m optimistic most of the above-mentioned issues will be overcome.

My take on the issue is, while countries stress on energy conservation and efficiency, they should pump in enough investments in researching these new possibilities - such as oil from algae, or wood-based ethanol etc…

Narsi from Oilgae - Oil from Algae

But he brought wanking into it.

I come here under my own name.

He comes here anonymously with his smug ignorance and he brings masturbation into it.

Either wipe his insult or let me through.

This is not acceptable. And the drip-feed censorship is not good either.

Half the time I come on with more abuse then I would if I knew I could get through with some sort of despatch.

This science-gone-bad is a serious subject. And people should know the truth of the matter.

For you only Mark. Check out this conversation I had with a famous scientist. And read between the lines here:

http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/12/arxived.html#comments

Now I’ve calmed down a little bit.

But I tell you the truth. If someone is coming in under their own name and is insulted it seems a violation of natural justice not to get quick access to a reply. And that strikes me as being doubly the case if the insulter is maligning the other person in a grubby way as well as just being ignorant and smug. And as well if that person is anonymous.

[abusive comments deleted]

And because you have so obviously tried to derail the truth of the matter with your smug dishonesty, ignorance and leftist projection I have not choice but to repeat the lecture.

This time you [deletion]. If you wish to criticise what I say act like the scientist you are pretending to be.

The fact is you don’t know anything about this.

OK. Here it goes again. This time don’t be so dishonest Nabakov:

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CATASTROPHIC WARMING.

With the North Pole almost surrounded by land….

And North and South America fused cutting off the circulation from one ocean to the other. And with these two continents going most of the distance from Pole to Pole.

And with Antarctica being such a massive Continent and sitting right on top of the South Pole ensuring that this Pole is a long way from the water and almost none of the continent can ever hold water vapour….

With this continental arrangement we have a setup that is highly restrictive to the circulation of water.

No amount of CO2 or Methane that we puny humans could put out there could possibly hope to overcome this basic fact.

This poor oceanic circulation gives the planet a permanent one-way bias towards catastrophic COOLING.

And this realisation follows pretty much directly from taking a marginalist (like an ‘Austrian’ Economist) approach to the problem and combining this marginalist approach with the Stefan-Boltzmann law.

This whole AGW biznis is being sold completely the wrong way. Fuck the planet, would you as an energy-intensive operation like to cut your operating costs by up to a third? Bit of capital investment up front which will be amortised within 36 months through tax breaks and lower outgoings. And then it’s just extra profit.

Hey even the dim bulb scion of a major hydrocarbon clan, Dubya, is right into it personally and at the office.

Or maybe he knows something about peak oil we don’t.

And this would probably piss off folks of all political persuasions but I’d love to be there when Dudya falls off the wagon properly. Damn you’d see some serious Texas-sized drinking then. Speaking as another loudmouthed arrogant male drunk, I’d reckon he’d be a great drinking partner. Supersizedly appallingly lousy POTUS though. Even makes James Buchanan look good.

The trouble with our market based economy is that a need to conserve energy to reduce CO2 emissions represents a conflict of interest for the power generators and distributors. What business is going to attract shareholder support by saying “next year we will reduce our output by 30%”? How do you get around that one Johnnie?

.. and almost none of the continent can ever hold water vapour….

You see Birdy, this is one of the main reasons why you’re such a major laughing stock in the blogosphere. Not so much because of your appalling bad manners and amazingly low emotional IQ. But because mainly of your blithe disregard of reality in the service of your paranoid and self-stimulating theories.

If you’d announced the sun wouldn’t rise tomorrow, we’d shortly all be treated to several thousand words about how daylight is a commie/fascist conspiracy.

If only you’d entered the blogosphere making it it clear you were a crazed glittering poet first (which you are in a weird kinda way) and a deep thinker last - a la Ezra Pound, then you would have got much more of the kind of quality attention you really really crave.

But no. Now you’re a punchline. And other people are writing the jokes.

How many times does it take Graeme Bird to change a light bulb?
Always one more time than it takes others to point out it’s actually a leaky tap.

In order to insure energy and economic independence as well as better economic growth without being blackmailed by foreign countries, our country, the United States of America’s Utilization of Energy sources must change.
“Energy drives our entire economy.” We must protect it. “Let’s face it, without energy the whole economy and economic society we have set up would come to a halt. So you want to have control over such an important resource that you need for your society and your economy.”
Our continued dependence on fossil fuels could and will lead to catastrophic consequences.

The federal, state and local government should implement a mandatory renewable energy installation program for residential and commercial property on new construction and remodeling projects with the use of energy efficient material, mechanical systems, appliances, lighting, etc. The source of energy must by renewable energy such as Solar-Photovoltaic, Geothermal, Wind, Biofuels, etc. including utilizing water from lakes, rivers and oceans to circulate in cooling towers to produce air conditioning and the utilization of proper landscaping to reduce energy consumption.

The implementation of mandatory renewable energy could be done on a gradual scale over the next 10 years. At the end of the 10 year period all construction and energy use in the structures throughout the United States must be 100% powered by renewable energy.

In addition, the governments must impose laws, rules and regulations whereby the utility companies must comply with a fair “NET METERING� (the buying of excess generation from the consumer), including the promotion of research and production of “renewable energy technology� with various long term incentives and grants. The various foundations in existence should be used to contribute to this cause.

A mandatory time table should also be established for the automobile industry to gradually produce an automobile powered by renewable energy. The American automobile industry is surely capable of accomplishing this task.

This is a way to expedite our energy independence and economic growth. (this will also creat a substantial amount of new jobs) It will take maximum effort and a relentless pursuit of the private, commercial and industrial government sectors commitment to renewable energy – energy generation (wind, solar, hydro, biofuels, geothermal, energy storage (fuel cells, advance batteries), energy infrastructure (management, transmission) and energy efficiency (lighting, sensors, automation, conservation) in order to achieve our energy independence.

Jay Draiman
Northridge, CA. 91325
1-7-2007

P.S. I have a very deep belief in America’s capabilities. Within the next 10 years we can accomplish our energy independence, if we as a nation truly set our goals to accomplish this.
I happen to believe that we can do it. In another crisis–the one in 1942–President Franklin D. Roosevelt said this country would build 60,000 [50,000] military aircraft. By 1943, production in that program had reached 125,000 aircraft annually. They did it then. We can do it now.
The American people resilience and determination to retain the way of life is unconquerable and we as a nation will succeed in this endeavor of Energy Independence.

Solar energy is the source of all energy on the earth (excepting volcanic geothermal). Wind, wave and fossil fuels all get their energy from the sun. Fossil fuels are only a battery which will eventually run out. The sooner we can exploit all forms of Solar energy (cost effectively or not against dubiously cheap FFs)the better off we will all be. If the battery runs out first, the survivors will all be living like in the 18th century again.

Every new home built should come with a solar package. A 1.5 kW per bedroom is a good rule of thumb. The formula 1.5 X’s 5 hrs per day X’s 30 days will produce about 225 kWh per bedroom monthly. This peak production period will offset 17 to 24 cents per kWh with a potential of $160 per month or about $60,000 over the 30-year mortgage period for a three-bedroom home. It is economically feasible at the current energy price and the interest portion of the loan is deductible. Why not?

Title 24 has been mandated forcing developers to build energy efficient homes. Their bull-headedness put them in that position and now they see that Title 24 works with little added cost. Solar should also be mandated and if the developer designs a home that solar is impossible to do then they should pay an equivalent mitigation fee allowing others to put solar on in place of their negligence..

Why Robert? Why?

The last thing we would want to do is to sequester CO2. And the first thing we should be doing as a matter of utmost urgency is setting up these coal conversion plants.

Kate there is no problem with CO2.

There isn’t. You have never seen valid evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming. You haven’t read any such evidence because there is no such evidence.

No-one here will come up with any such evidence. And if you went looking for such evidence you will not be able to convince anyone to give you the evidence.

In fact it cannot happen. We have a planetary bias for catastrophic cooling only.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CATASTROPHIC WARMING.

With the North Pole almost surrounded by land….

And North and South America fused cutting off the circulation from one ocean to the other. And with these two continents going most of the distance from Pole to Pole.

And with Antarctica being such a massive Continent and sitting right on top of the South Pole ensuring that this Pole is a long way from the water and almost none of the continent can ever hold water vapour….

With this continental arrangement we have a setup that is highly restrictive to the circulation of water.

No amount of CO2 or Methane that we could put out there could possibly hope to overcome this basic fact.

This poor oceanic circulation gives the planet a permanent one-way bias towards catastrophic COOLING.

And this realisation follows pretty much directly from taking a marginalist (like an ‘Austrian’ Economist) approach to the problem and combining this marginalist approach with the Stefan-Boltzmann law.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.html

More on architecture ((no, I’m not an architect))…. how about the thermally-efficient traditional multi-storey dwellings in Yemen and nearby countries?

Mark:
You are right about Queenslanders being a bit cool in winter but you can always put on a jumper. One of the big differences I noticed between the United States and Europe in wintertime was that houses in the US were a steady tropical 25~30 degrees inside whereas houses in Europe were 10~15 above the outside ambient temperature and everyone wore warm clothes inside.

BilB:
From what I’ve heard, no worries with well-designed bermed earth dwellings.

Biodiesel is relatively simple to make by transesterification, ie. adding some alcohol to vegetable oil and allowing the compounds to settle and separate and does not require a lot of energy or expensive equipment to process. A side issue would be as BillB already pointed out, a potential cottagisation of the fuel industry, now controlled by gigantic cartels. This is both a Good Thing and the main reason why it hasn’t already happened in the US. But that’s another topic.

First, to summarise: There are two distinct pushes in the US for moving away from petroleum-based energy sources. 1. The realisation that transferring massive petrodollar amounts to the Gulf and Iran doesn’t do the US security any good. 2. Green politics.

The “Peak Oil” concept is I think hyped up beyond reality - while it may cost a bit more, no shortage of petroleum oil will eventuate in the next 50 years, with the Siberian and Caucasus reserves of crude yet literally untapped and the massive Canadian shale oil, petroleum crude reserves and bituminous sands still to be utilised, with some 100 billion barrels of near-surface recoverable hydrocarbon fuel waiting to be tapped.

If green politics were to truly take hold in the US, as they have in Europe and may yet in Australia, biodiesel is an interim energy technology that could within 5 years largely wean the US from its reliance on Middle East oil sources and provide a less environmentally damaging fuel on a massive scale. (The emissions from a properly designed bio-diesel engine with turbo compression and intercooling are surprisingly low albeit still producing C0-2. Exhaust soot is non-existent.)

Biodiesel can be made from any oil-producing biomass, be it leaf, seeds, stalk or whatever. The key is real estate. While common oil producing crops such as coconut will yield up to 70% oil from the interior of the coconut, it takes a long time to grow coconut palms and they take up a lot of space so the actual yield per hectare is not good enough for industrial scale oil for energy.

Look at some comparisons of vegetable oil in litres per hectare: peanuts=1000L per ha; olives=1200L per ha; jojoba=1800L per ha; macadamia=2200L per ha; coconut=2700L per ha; oil palm= 6000L per ha. At these figures, none are serious players. But, wait, there is a biomass that is just right and what’s more, it will grow on damaged land, on salinised land, on brackish water and it loves carbon dioxide. We’re talking about algae, a sun battery par excellence. It it will yield 95,000 to 100,000L of oil per ha. And instead of geo sequestration to uselessly bury C02, take the C02 from the coal fired power station and feed it to algae to make diesel fuel.

Diesel from algae is the only economically viable way of producing an alternative fuel. No other feedstock has the oil yield to produce such large volumes of oil. Michael Briggs of the University of New Hampshire physics department, SEE http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
has worked out that about 10 million acres of land would have to be used for biodiesel cultivation in the US to produce biodiesel to replace all the petrodiesel used currently in that country. This is about 1% of the total land used today for farming and grazing together in the US (about 1 billion acres). Note, this is to replace the current diesel sourced from petroleum crude, not to replace petrol. But it’s a start. If that were to happen, the arse would fall out of the Middle East oil price and the feudal kingdoms would not be able to pay to keep themselves in power or in arms.

I think this will happen sooner rather than later, once the Bushies go.

Governments have done quite a bit of work on energy efficiency regulations, but most of that good work has been eaten up by the ever-increasing size of the average new-build house. The simple fact is that for many people, the best house is the biggest house they can afford, and if it costs a fortune to heat and cool so be it.

The best way to change the envirornmental impact of that is to place a carbon charge on the electricity and gas they use to heat and cool the place. It might turn out that people buy more energy-efficient houses. But, then again, they might continue to buy montrosities and use renewable energy to run their air conditioners. While you and I might find it unsatisfying, as long as they don’t emit CO2 in the process, it doesn’t really matter what they do instead.

The Government and the Government Offices of Sweden

“The Government governs the Realm. It is accountable to the Riksdag.”
Chapter 1, Article 6 of the Instrument of Government

What a brilliant idea! Maybe we can get a government here that is accountable to the Parliament …. then a lot of our troubles will be solved.

Architecture? Where’s architecture in all this discussion? I’ve spent a lot of my life in Central and North Queenland, where the traditional architure was heavily influenced by the native houses and structures of the Indian Empire, of Malaya and Java and of the Pacific Islands.

Try living in houses on wooden stumps (usually 600mm to 2300mm high) where breezes flow freely under the floorboards and with lap-nailed hardwood weatherboard siding. Houses that have fairly steep high-pitched corrugated iron roofs ventilated by soffits that keep birds out but allow the rapid flow of air (the roofs just don’t become aerofoils in cyclonic winds) then add “chinaman’s hat” passive hot-air exhausts on the rooftop (modern whirleybirds are even better). Houses that have verandahs (usually 1.8 but up to to 3 Metres wide)on more than one side to shield the walls from the blazing sun and also galvanized-iron high and deep window hoods over each exposed external window. Put in ornamental passive ventilator holes in the ceiling of each room and hot air will not be trapped inside. You are 7 to 10 degrees cooler already ….. and that’s without looking at interior lining (usually tongue-&-groove pine boards), curtains, home-made insulation, shady shrubs, vines and trees. Still too hot? Well, if it’s a high-set house then go downstairs, under the house and lay down on your shearers stretcher with its coir (coconut husk fibre) mattress.

And all of this without a nanowatt of electricity for fans, punkahs, coolers, airconditioners or iceblock makers.

Banks and other housing financers are delighted about lending for horribly expensive, grossly inefficient, very badly designed, money-wasting monstrosities but are dismayed at the idea of financing low-cost, low-impact, low-energy, well-designed, efficient and comfortable houses that meet OUR needs, not theirs.

Time to get off that fools’ merry-go-round and take our business elsewhere …. to financiers who are willing to lend for better and cheaper and far more efficient houses.

“http://www.wou.edu/las/physci/GS361/electricity generation/HistoricalPerspectives.htm”