Bush: U.S. on Verge of Energy Breakthrough

[BlackRain]

Bush: U.S. on Verge of Energy Breakthrough

Feb 20, 4:44 PM (ET)


MILWAUKEE (AP) - Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would "startle" most Americans, President Bush on Monday outlined his energy proposals to help wean the country off foreign oil.

Less than half the crude oil used by refineries is produced in the United States, while 60 percent comes from foreign nations, Bush said during the first stop on a two-day trip to talk about energy.

Some of these foreign suppliers have "unstable" governments that have fundamental differences with America, he said.
"It creates a national security issue and we're held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us," Bush said.


Bush is focusing on energy at a time when Americans are paying high power bills to heat their homes this winter and have only recently seen a decrease in gasoline prices.


One of Bush's proposals would expand research into smaller, longer-lasting batteries for electric-gas hybrid cars, including plug-ins. He highlighted that initiative with a visit Monday to the battery center at Milwaukee-based auto-parts supplier Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI (http://finance.myway.com/jsp/qt/short.jsp?symbol_search_text=JCI))

During his trip, Bush is also focusing on a proposal to increase investment in development of clean electric power sources, and proposals to speed the development of biofuels such as "cellulosic" ethanol made from wood chips or sawgrass.

Energy conservation groups and environmentalists say they're pleased that the president, a former oil man in Texas, is stressing alternative sources of energy, but they contend his proposals don't go far enough.

They say the administration must consider greater fuel-efficiency standards for cars, and some economists believe it's best to increase the gas tax to force consumers to change their driving habits.

During his visit to Johnson Controls' new hybrid battery laboratory, Bush checked out two Ford Escapes - one with a nickel-metal-hybrid battery, the kind that powers most hybrid-electric vehicles, and one with a lithium-ion battery, which Johnson Controls believes are the wave of the future.

The lithium-ion battery was about half the size of the older-model battery. In 2004, Johnson Controls received a government contract to develop the lithium-ion batteries.

While Bush is highlighting his budget proposals to help wean America from foreign oil, the lab he visited is meeting a $28 million shortfall by cutting its staff by 32 people, including eight researchers.

"Our nation is on the threshold of new energy technology that I think will startle the American people," Bush said. "We're on the edge of some amazing breakthroughs - breakthroughs all aimed at enhancing our national security and our economic security and the quality of life of the folks who live here in the United States."

Later Monday, Bush was visiting the United Solar Ovonics Plant, which makes solar panels, in Auburn Hills, Mich., outside Detroit. The company also works on hydrogen fuel cells to power autos.

"Roof makers will one day be able to make a solar roof that protects you from the elements and at the same time, powers your house," Bush said. "The vision is this - that technology will become so efficient that you'll become a little power generator in your home, and if you don't use the energy you generate you'll be able to feed it back into the electricity grid."

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., questioned Bush's energy policies Monday, saying the administration also supports subsidies for luxury SUVs.

"This single tax subsidy dwarfs anything being done for hybrid batteries," Markey said in a news release.

On Tuesday, Bush plans to visit the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., to talk about speeding the development of biofuels.

As a complement to Bush's travels, six Cabinet officials are crisscrossing the nation this week, appearing at more than two dozen energy events in more than a dozen states.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060220/D8FT3GH02.html

[pathfinder82]

Well, ok. Would have been nice to see the guy get such a ***** over this crap a handful of years ago. Im not paying that much more now than I was in '01.

[Greek soldier]

Then why Bush urges to exploit Alaska's fields??

[remo williams]

i think what many people are missing is the practical application of "such an astounding breakthrough."I'm all for a car that runs on garbage/piss etc..but as things are now,you'd have to either replace or convert the actual energy consuming prod before such energy would be usable..can most americans afford to go buy the new piss powered car/heater etc? i'm gonna say it'd be a stretch for many,impossoble for most..except those raking in the dough..that's the reality.it's like when they said that hd /digital would be the new communications standard by whatever yr,and that analog(which is slowly/steadily)being replaced would be obsolete.besides didn't he say during his first debate in 2000 that this was his goal? he had at least 3yrs bfore 9/11 to get going on this...i'll believe/use it when i see it..till then it's a nice sales pitch

[Kilgor]

Then why Bush urges to exploit Alaska's fields??

That is the discovery :)

and we can use baby seals for oil too.

[Laworkerbee]

Then why Bush urges to exploit Alaska's fields??

Part of it is residents of Alaska each recieve a check once a year from oil revenue, so everyone in Alaska wants to open up drilling to keep those checks rolling.

[SHAM]

"New energy technology" put 1.8ltr engines in your cars, and 2.0ltr td in your pick ups... eureka!
That would half it overnight.

[Igor01]

Hmmm, Operation Alberta Freedom is in the works? Well, whatever superbreakthrough this may be, the Russian idea of mining Helium-3 on the Moon still beats the crap out of it and is probably just as plausible :)

[ogukuo72]

New Engery Technology could mean anything, from better batteries and more efficient internal combustion engines to Mr Fusion on the back of the car. As with announcements like this, I would wait and see, and then react after finding out what it is.

I'm not an American consumer, but if I were one, I would hope that lesser oil dependency is not achieved through "higher efficiency standards" or "gas taxes", which would hurt my pocket for no gain, but technology to lower the prices of alternative energey sources and hybrid cars, etc..

[Kitsune]

I really hate to say it...but I tend to agree with Ogukuo. These statements of Bush's seem to be a bit vague, do they not? Or the passage about the "solar roof that protects you from the elements and at the same time powers your house"...that's like twenty year old talk of Greens here in Germany! So, to say that one should wait what is behind this (assuming there IS anything behind it) is a good call.

[Laworkerbee]

I think the government wants to push a huge technology offensive towards this matter, akin to the space race....I'll get back to you if there is any money budgeted towards this new "space race" though :roll:

[Kilgor]

New Engery Technology could mean anything, from better batteries and more efficient internal combustion engines to Mr Fusion on the back of the car. As with announcements like this, I would wait and see, and then react after finding out what it is.

..

Here is one example

"TOKYO -- Toshiba Corporation today announced a breakthrough in lithium-ion batteries that makes long recharge times a thing of the past. The company's new battery can recharge 80% of a battery's energy capacity in only one minute, approximately 60 times faster than the typical lithium-ion batteries in wide use today, and combines this fast recharge time with performance-boosting improvements in energy density. "

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr2901.htm

But of course this is the work of the japs ;)

[Speaker of the House]

"New energy technology" put 1.8ltr engines in your cars, and 2.0ltr td in your pick ups... eureka!
That would half it overnight.

I dont think that will move my 71 Lincoln

[ogukuo72]

The only real revolutionary breakthrough will be a fusion reactor. It's pretty much a holy grail, but there isn't much incentive for private power companies to pursue it due to the high research and construction cost.

Fission nuclear reactors seemed to be coming back in vogue again, but the problem of what to do with the waste is still there, and no one has figured out a way to recycle the spent fuel. If they find a way to reprocess and reuse old fuel rods, then this would be a great breakthrough as well.

In terms of cars, better batteries, fuel cells, etc. are good, but they really are not the true solutions. They will still require fuel to be burnt to produce electricity, albeit less of it. Their energy efficiency - no matter how good - is still way below par of the internal combustion engines.

[ElHombre]

folks, this is bush talking about science. the odds of him actually having an understanding about what he's talking about are as remote as an eskimo understanding the need to buy a fridge. don't forget that his own energy secretary took back bush's promises about energy independence within 24 hours of the SOTU speech.

i think we can chalk all this talk of energy independence right up there with 'mission to mars' of a couple of years back.

[Kilgor]

In terms of cars, better batteries, fuel cells, etc. are good, but they really are not the true solutions. They will still require fuel to be burnt to produce electricity, albeit less of it. Their energy efficiency - no matter how good - is still way below par of the internal combustion engines.


I really think better battery technology will help. Yes, its only a storage medium and the energy will have to come from somewhere else. But it allows more portable applications.

Plus id love to charge up my bike lights in less than a minute flat.

[pathfinder82]

Upon further reading, these are just proposals. They make it sound as if tommarow somebody is going to announce some breakthrough. Nothing has really changed at all.

This administration budgets a good amount every year for this. Yet we still need to sit down and weigh the options and finally pick a alternate energy source and run with it. I know that we might discover something along the lines thats better than what we choose. However if we sit around and wait for the best possible thing to come along we might be sitting doing nothing for a very long time.

[ogukuo72]

Well, I tend not to be as pessimistic as that. I think a reason why things hasn't really changed (by that I mean development of new sources of energy) was that oil has been really dirt cheap since the 1980's. With fuel that cheap, there isn't really any incentive for the consumers to demand and switch to other sources of energy.

Another reason is the heavy regulation of the nuclear power industry. This has made the nuclear power industry non-viable. This also cuts down on the incentive for the industry to innovate into more efficient forms of producing nuclear power (including better and cheaper ways of processing spent fuel rod, a major component of the cost to power companies).

[KB]

I thought he was announce bullsh*t was a new alternative energy source. That would give some near term hope.

[ElHombre]

Another reason is the heavy regulation of the nuclear power industry. This has made the nuclear power industry non-viable. This also cuts down on the incentive for the industry to innovate into more efficient forms of producing nuclear power (including better and cheaper ways of processing spent fuel rod, a major component of the cost to power companies).

it's regulated for d*** good reason. no one wants the spent fuel to spend the next several thousand years anywhere near them and no one can figure out a good way to reduce that danger.

[Kekkonen]

folks, this is bush talking about science. the odds of him actually having an understanding about what he's talking about are as remote as an eskimo understanding the need to buy a fridge. don't forget that his own energy secretary took back bush's promises about energy independence within 24 hours of the SOTU speech.

i think we can chalk all this talk of energy independence right up there with 'mission to mars' of a couple of years back.

Yeah what happened to the "mission to Mars"? The war is too costly or what?

[ElHombre]

Yeah what happened to the "mission to Mars"? The war is too costly or what?

it was a political red herring in the first place, a way to make bush look like a 'bold, visionary leader'. needless to say, no one took the bait and it's never been mentioned again. i imagine we'll see the same thing happen here.

[ogukuo72]

it's regulated for d*** good reason. no one wants the spent fuel to spend the next several thousand years anywhere near them and no one can figure out a good way to reduce that danger.

There are regulations, and then there are regulations, just as there are standards and then there are standards. There are regulations and standards that can actually cripple an industry and lead to disincentives to innovate.

The disposal of spent fuel rods is only one technical aspect, but a very important one. What has happened over the past three decades is that the US government had been convinced to set not only very strict standards on the disposal of fuel rods (which is the right thing to do), but to dictate HOW the spent fuel rods are to be disposed of (which is not the right thing to do). The industry is told HOW to dispose of the fuel rods by defining "standards" as "steps to be taken" (behaviourial conformity standards) rather than "outcomes to be met" (outcome or consequence standards).

To illustrate this difference, let's say that your dad set the test standard that you are suppose to meet before he let's you go out to play. He would say you need to score an C. That's fair. But if by standard, he additionally means that you have to score C by working so many hours, by studying at this part of the house where you can be monitored, by watching no television, etc, then standards don't just mean what you need to score. The problem begins if you could actually study better in your own room with heavy metal music playing loudly in the background. You might not do as well as if you followed his behaviourial standards.

A consequence based system of disincentive would create a situation where power companies would try to avoid the disincentive. Indeed, they will find ways of doing things such that they would lower the cost of avoid the disincentives. They will develop cheaper and better ways of disposing of nuclear waste. They might even have developed ways of recycling spent fuel rods, that will effectively eliminate the need for expensive storage spaces for useless material.

A behaviour based system of dictating what is to be done would prevent innovation. They have to stick to the "rules" even if they become outdated, and even if there are better ways of doing things.

[ElHombre]

but the incentive to innovate runs up against laws of physics. no matter how innovative anyone gets, those rods are toxic nuclear waste for millenia and the public rightly doesn't want to trust companies to use the excuse of 'innovation' as a cover to cut costs.

[ogukuo72]

There's actually no physical or chemical reason why spent fuel rod could not be recycled. Indeed, this is one of the major issue with regimes like Iran and North Korea having a nuclear industry - plutonium, a highly fissible material, is often a by-product of spent nuclear fuel rods, and could be harvested to turn into bomb material.

Here's a quote from a nuclear chemistry website:


Three options are available for cooled spent fuel rods; they can remain at the sites from which they have been removed from service, be moved to a more permanent site for storage or they can be reprocessed to remove the uranium and plutonium. In either case, these fuel rods must cool in storage ponds near the reactor for several months in order to reduce their short-lived radioactivity and to allow them to dissipate their initial high thermal energy. Reprocessing involves chopping up the fuel rods and dissolving the pieces.

The plutonium and uranium are then removed and chemically separated. The byproducts of reprocessing, transuranic elements and fission products can be encapsulated in glass and disposed as waste. Gaseous diffusion or other processes can be used to enrich the uranium. The plutonium can be mixed with enriched uranium to make mixed oxide (MOX) reactor fuel. Purified plutonium can also be used for nuclear weapons. Great Britain and France have built large reprocessing plants to produce MOX fuel. They reprocess spent fuel not only from reactors in their respective countries, but also from reactors in other nations.

At one time, the United States planned to use a plutonium-uranium extraction (PUREX) process to for this separation. But no spent fuel from nuclear power plants has been reprocessed in the US. In 1977 President Carter established national policy that prohibited reprocessing based on the premise that limiting plutonium would limit the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. Although President Reagan reversed this policy, reprocessing has never been initiated in the US.

http://www.chemcases.com/nuclear/nc-13.htm

Government regulation CAN impede the development of technology that will lead to greater safety, greater efficiency, and reduced use of resources. The right approach of regulation is important so as to maintain a high degree of safety and yet does not impede innovation.

The US nuclear power industry went through a period of over-regulation during the Carter years following the Three Mile Island scare and a spate of environmentalist panic (embodied by such inaccurate movies as the China Syndrome). But while the reactor at Three Mile Island was destroyed, there was no "melt-down". No one was killed in the accident, and there was no major radiation leakage at all. Indeed, background radiation did not go up for nearby residents.

This is in contrast to the Chernobyl Disaster that led to a renewed spate of concern in the 1980's. In this case, there was a major meltdown (the only instance of its kind since nuclear power started to be used), and the badly designed and constructed reactor blew its cap, spreading heavy doses of radiation into the atmosphere. 75 persons were killed UP TO NOW, most of them the plant technicians and the initial responders. The mass panic that there would be hundreds of thousands of deaths through out Russia, Ukraine and Europe proved to be unfounded. The long term radiation damage to the environment proved to be negligible. The abandoned area around Chernobyl is now a thriving natural reserve - with no five legged or three-egged animals.

Again the public and Congress panicked in the aftermath, and again hysteria replaced science in terms of the regulation imposed on the nuclear industry.

Up to now, the only cases of nuclear waste dumping and sloppy safety standards are NOT in the private power industries of the west, but in the government run power industries of the former communist states.

[Will938]

"New energy technology" put 1.8ltr engines in your cars, and 2.0ltr td in your pick ups... eureka!
That would half it overnight.

Not really with a truck, then you'd have to have mean gears to produce enough torque to get the truck moving which would eat more fuel and you'd be back to or worse off then where you started.

Cars are the same way to a lesser extent. Take the S2000 for example vs the Z06, the C5 Z06 had like over 3 liters more displacement yet it got much better gas mileage and produced more power...this is because it has enough torque to push the car using 1500 RPM going 60 mph.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

it was a political red herring in the first place, a way to make bush look like a 'bold, visionary leader'. needless to say, no one took the bait and it's never been mentioned again. i imagine we'll see the same thing happen here.

Yes, never mentioned again. $12 billion in additional funding over the next 5 years. Back to the Moon by 2018 for a one week stay. A new crew exploration vehicle. Construction of a semi-permanent base. The media no longer cares so it doesn't exist?

What the hell do you people expect - Bush to walk out on stage with a fusion reactor sticking out of his *ss like Cartman with his alien satellite dish? Bush announces Mars plans with a 20 year timespan, and when we aren't juggling Mars rocks in 6 months it's "never mentioned again".

Think of the challenge that Bush faces. He has to stand there and tell a society drunk on cheap oil that he's going to make it more expensive for them because it's what's good for them in the long run. He's contravening two of the founding principles of our society i.e. free markets determining price, and property rights. We're not held over a barrel because we can't do without the oil, it's because we won't do without the oil. We like huge vehicles with 300hp, and we are willing to pay for them. When oil spiked post Katrina - and gas shot up by a dollar a gallon...instead of conserving and economizing - we just paid the extra buck a gallon and went on our merry way (and gave oil companies record profits too).

No matter what technology is invented, nothing in the next 25 years will be able to compete with gasoline as a portable energy source. We will not be able to extract 400hp from anything light enough and durable enough to compete with it's gas counterpart. All the new solar panels and energy cells are great and all, but if we want to really take this seriously, we need to stop driving cars that weigh 6000lbs and are more "heavy duty" than commercial vehicles in most parts of the world.

So he has to convince us that we should no longer live this way. He has change things so that we don't want the Harley Edition F-350 quad cab 4x4, but instead want Honda Emasculator 1.1L diesel-hybrid. How do you do that - hike gas taxes? But that hits the people who are already conserving. Tax the living sh*t out of the "wrong" vehicles? Ban them outright? That impacts the already-struggling auto makers, who's SUVs are their most profitable segment. This is not going to be easy.

I give the guy credit for at least telling us what we need to hear - that energy is a national security issue, and that our foreign policy would be vastly simplified if we didn't need the oil. Every other president has had the opportunity to do the same, but none have done a thing. (Carter was forced into his energy plan by the very thing we are afraid of - energy blackmail, so one can hardly credit him for being proactive.) I'm continually impressed with some people's ability to take the lemonade, and extract whole lemons to suck on.

[Laworkerbee]

More tax incentives for solar might be a good start

[Will938]

More tax incentives for solar might be a good start

That would be cool, I really wanna look into solar panels and such.

[caridon]

but the incentive to innovate runs up against laws of physics. no matter how innovative anyone gets, those rods are toxic nuclear waste for millenia and the public rightly doesn't want to trust companies to use the excuse of 'innovation' as a cover to cut costs.

Actualy not. You can cheat with the laws of physics too.

There is new type of reactor in the line that can run on the spent rods (or plutonium or thorium or a lot of other stuff) and that will as its waste delliver stuff usable in "normal reactors" and only shortlived (less than 400 years) waste.

google for energy amplifier for more info.

/C