THE TRANSITION TO FUTURE LAND TRANSPORT

There are fanciful speculations about our transport future.  As for example, from gizmag:

• superconducting vacuum trains
• string theory
• reversing roles
• sharing the street
• human-powered mass transport (28 MPH)
• high-speed alternative energy, like the SolarBullet (220 MPH, below from Arizona)

• power from the road
• ditching the driver
• orbital maglev
• space elevator

The latter two apply to outer space, but those ground travel alternatives are mostly too expensive and way into the future.

Let's face it, Peak Oil will come.  It might not have been last year, but it will happen within a decade or two, if not sooner, especially if Israel bombs Iran and the Middle East explodes into a major and long-lasting conflagration.  Thus, gasoline powered internal combustion engine (ICE) systems will slowly phase out.  

The transition will be a mix of compressed/liquified fossil gas ICEs, biofuel ICEs, electric cars and fuel cell vehicles.  My gut sense is that, for the next decade, biofuels will continue to be too expensive, the lithium battery will not be good enough to take over and hydrogen will be too expensive for fuel cells.

Mind you, there is no greater advocate for hydrogen than moi, for I drafted the first hydrogen legislation when I worked for the U.S. Senate.  Plus, only yesterday, Honda and GM said they would team to produce  hydrogen fuel cell powered cars by 2020.  They cost a million dollars each today, with hopes of approaching $69K by 2020, like the Tesla EV.  Sure, a few thousand can be produced, but not many millions, for the price and basic supply infrastructure hurdles will be formidable.

I still think that biomethanol and the direct methanol fuel cell system is the most sensible option, but no one of sufficient importance agrees with me.  So I did not even include this on that list.

What is left is the product from fracking, natural gas. (CLICK TO READ THE DETAILS.)  It was a third of century ago--before global warming was being mentioned, mind you--that as a staffer on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we worked to pass a series of bills to promote this option.  It was highly controversial, and Senator Spark Matsunaga held the controlling vote on passage or not.  Most of the decisions were made at hearings, Sparky gave his proxy to Chairman Henry Scoop Jackson, who told me he would look in my direction, and if I discreetly had my thumbs up, that was in the affirmative, etc.  Matsunaga rarely made those sessions.  You can blame me!  As we were domestically running out of oil and are the Saudi Arabia of oil shale, it made a lot of sense to me then.  

However, as climate change began to be of concern, it horrified me that what we initiated then would come back to haunt us.  Yes, natural gas emits half the carbon dioxide compared to coal in the generation of electricity, and, yes, natural gas can reasonably easily be converted into a form that can be utilized by vehicles, unlike coal.  However, both are fossil fuels and they both add Greenhouse gases to our atmosphere.  Plus, there will most probably be serious environmental consequences from fracking.

I can finally add that the most dangerous doomsday gas for the survival of humanity is methane, which is 25 times worse than carbon dioxide in inducing global warming.  Methane is 90% of natural gas.  Read my VENUS SYNDROME.  This was my antidote to ignorance and stupidity more than three decades ago.

So what will then be this transition?  Hawaii should be different than the world.  Electricity prices are far too high (300% of the U.S. average) today, but we are great at delaying or opposing large windfarms, undersea electric cables and such, so electric vehicles will just not make it.  Biofuels will be too expensive unless the price of oil doubles.  But this is the problem.  What makes no economic sense could well be brilliant in 24 hours.  My gut sense, though, is that we will join the U.S. and begin leaning in the direction of LPG (liquified petroleum gas).

Alicia Moy, new CEO of HawaiiGas, has a transition plan, something T. Boone Pickens has been touting for some time.  They say renewable energy will take time to develop.  They are right.  We then need a transitional fuel that is cleaner than coal, domestically available and cost effective.  Frankly, I have qualms about the total cost of LPG for Hawaii, as the current BTU cost will escalate with time, and it will literally take billions to pay for a safe and effective infrastructure.  Once in place, we will be stuck for a generation.

The nation at large and globe?  Current gasoline cars will dominate for a couple more decades.  Oh so slowly will come gas (confusing, but it will highly compressed or liquified, which adds considerable cost)-powered and EVs.  By 2025 there will be a sorting out.  By then gasoline will cost more than $10/gallon, electricity 50 cents/kWh (the carbon tax will also then be in place, doubling the electricity price from coal fired powerplants) and some of those crazy ideas at the top will gain some traction.

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