By Carl S. Milsted, Jr.

There is something about energy that brings out the sillies in politicians. Everywhere you look you can find politicians and activists who think that “energy is different,” that “the rules of economics do not apply to energy.”
On one hand you have the “peak oil” activists. They claim that the economy is going to be blindsided by a sudden drop in petroleum output. Since the market is too stupid to anticipate this event, the government needs to implement truly drastic measures NOW or there will be a massive die-off of humanity.

And I do mean drastic. These people believe it is time to return to a 1700s lifestyle. Some of them hold up poverty stricken Cuba as an example of successful energy policy.

However, the silliness is not limited to the peak oil fear mongers. Our current Republican administration has a serious case of the sillies as well. Consider our current energy policy.

Subsidized ethanol from corn (dumb): Photosynthesis is 1% efficient at best at converting solar energy. It takes considerable energy to plow, plant, fertilize, and harvest the corn. Then we need energy to distill the ethanol. The net energy yield is small, but at least we get to destroy the environment in the process. Corn fields have far less biodiversity than sprawling suburbs, and the bare ground under the corn stalks is a cause of serious soil erosion.

Revive nuclear power (less dumb): Done right, nuclear power is safe, clean and uses up very little of the environment. Done wrong, and nuclear power contaminates the environment with radioactive wastes and provides unstable governments and terrorists with the materials to make weapons of mass destruction. Do we really want nuclear power to be the solution for the world? That’s what we will be promoting by example if we go this route. For reasons of national defense alone, we should look elsewhere.

Keep burning lots of coal (bleah): They’re blowing up the mountaintops in order to provide cheap coal-based electricity. Enough said.

The Hydrogen Economy (idiotic): Hydrogen may be clean-burning, but you need some other source of energy to get the hydrogen. It is a difficult to handle fuel: a low density gas, explosive when mixed with air, and difficult to contain since the small molecules work their way through the smallest of holes. As a gas, it must be put under high pressure—which uses up energy. Liquefaction uses up even more energy.

I pulled out my trusty CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics this morning. Gasoline has a specific gravity of around .66, liquid hydrogen .07. Hydrogen has an atomic weight of about 1 while carbon is 12. Since there are just over 2 hydrogen atoms per carbon in gasoline, hydrogen constitutes at least 2 / (2 + 12) = 2/14 = 1/7 of the weight of gasoline. Multiply by the specific gravity of gasoline, .66, and you get .66/7 = .094. A gallon of gasoline has more hydrogen than a gallon of pure liquid hydrogen!

We already have hydrogen powered cars. Should we wish to use hydrogen obtained from solar, wind, or nuclear energy, the easy thing to do would be to use that hydrogen to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels. The technology to do so goes back to at least World War II.

I am not saying this should be done necessarily. There are many other viable technologies sitting on the shelf ready to replace petroleum and coal once the prices go up. The market will determine which technologies are best.
Impatient? Want to cut back on fossil fuels now in order to stop global warming or for reasons of national security? Just jack up the price of oil and let the market do the rest.

Al Gore recently called for doing just that. He advocates replacing the Social Security payroll taxes with a carbon tax. I’m beginning to think he is smarter than Bush, after all.

Carl Milsted is a senior editor for The Free Liberal.