Recently Rep. Randy Forbes, a republican from Virginia, released an energy policy that I believe has great potential and even espouses many of my ideas, which I have outlined previously. His bill, H.R. 6260 entitled, New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence, I believe will begin the process of shifting toward a more environmentally friendly and economically beneficial energy solution.
There are several main steps, which the representative outlines to achieve the ambitious goal of becoming energy independent within 20 years. While I would prefer a more environmentally minded goal, effectively I think that this bill will drastically reduce emissions while also gaining conservative support with its aim of energy independence.
First he would create a prize program, similar to the X-Prize foundation, which would grant prizes for the successful fulfillment of 1 of 7 categories. These prizes would range from 250 million to 10 billion dollars, which are much greater than any prize program that I know of. These prizes will stirrup innovation and lots of investment into these new technologies. The Ansari X PRIZE was a 10 million dollar prize for launching a private spacecraft, which was won by SpaceShipOne in 2004, however over 100 million dollars was invested by 26 teams in the competition. Therefore, the 14 billion dollars in prize money could easily produce 140 billion dollars in investment into these technologies. These are the goals for the program:
1) A Vehicle that costs no more than 10% more than a normal car that has equal performance, can travel 750 miles between refueling and get at least 70 MPG if it is gasoline powered.
2) A Green Building that uses 50% of the energy of a similar building and can be reproduced anywhere and costs no more that 15% more than a traditional building.
3) A solar power plant that generates 300 megawatts of power at a cost of 10 cents/kilowatt-hour.
4) A biofuel that when mass produced costs only 105% as the energy equivalent of gasoline.
5) A carbon sequestration system that only ads 15% to the cost of the power and will store the CO2 for 5000 years
6) A nuclear waste solution, which will remediate the waste so that it will not be harmful for at least 5000 years.
7) A sustainable fusion power plant that can produce 300 megawatts.
The other steps, which are outlined, are more traditional and include a 10 billion dollars grant program, and the development of a summit to discuss the various technical problems and solution dealing with energy independence. He also wants a commission to be established to develop recommendations to fulfill the goal of energy independence.
I have some minor criticisms of the bill like I think that 750 miles between refueling is unreasonable. I also am not a fan of carbon sequestration because I do not think capturing all the CO2 coming off a coal plant and then storing it in the ground is a good idea in the long run. Also I wish there was an emphasis on nuclear waste reprocessing. I further think there should have been a prize for developing an economically effective way of developing hydrogen. But overall I really like this plan as a start toward a greener energy solution.
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2 comments:
I like this plan. Does the bill give any other requirements for the 70 MPG vehicle? I'm interested in seeing designs for it that are more mindful of things like wind resistance. We could get some interesting shapes...
Why isn't storing CO2 in the ground a good idea?
These are the full specifications for the vehicle:
"1) VEHICLE FUEL EFFICIENCIES AND ALTERNATIVE FUEL SOURCES- Development and manufacturing of a plug-in hybrid vehicle, alternative fuel vehicle, electric vehicle, hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, or other alternative technology vehicle--
(A) that is not more than 10 percent more expensive than a comparable model vehicle of the same model year;
(B) with--
(i) equal acceleration, horsepower, and top speed performance; and
(ii) not more than 20 percent reduction in cargo space,
as compared to a comparable model vehicle of the same model year;
(C) that meets or exceeds Federal safety standards;
(D) that can travel at least 750 miles between refueling; and
(E) in the case of a gasoline powered vehicle, that can travel at least 70 miles per gallon of gasoline."
So any way that can satisfy these conditions I am sure would be tried, which probably would include more aerodynamic cars. But the problem with that is that that usually when you see really aerodynamic cars they have very little cargo room. So it is a trade off.
Concerning carbon capture, the problem is that it will increase the cost of the energy to levels, which are higher than many other cleaner forms. Also some day that carbon will leach out of the ground and make its way into the atmosphere. This bill mandates that that time is very far off, only a 1% chance in 5K years. Finally, fundamentally the burning of fossil fuels likes coal and oil is wasteful because hydrocarbons can be used for much useful things (e.g. plastics) and by burning them we limit our ability to use them in the future.
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