Obama's energy plan does not compute

Robert Bryce and Michael J. Economides:

...

According to the Energy Information Administration, during the first half of 2008, the United States imported an average of 13.2 million barrels of oil per day. Of that, 6.1 million barrels came from OPEC suppliers and 2.5 million barrels came from inside the Persian Gulf.

So what will Obama do to free the United States from the scourge of foreign oil? Well, let's assume that he plans to replace those 6.1 million barrels of OPEC crude by electrifying a major segment of the U.S. auto fleet. If you assume a fleet of electric power plants operating with 30 percent efficiency, replacing that quantity of oil would require about 1.4 million megawatts of electric power capacity. (The same 30 percent efficiency rating would also apply if the electric supply came from wind turbines, which are available about one-third of the time.)

That's a huge amount of production capability, particularly when you consider that the entire U.S. power grid has about 986,000 megawatts of capacity. Thus, if Obama wants to replace OPEC supplies with electric cars, then, in just 10 years, he plans to: a) more than double America's existing power production capacity; and b) overhaul the power grid so that millions of cars can be recharged without causing blackouts.

Obama said he wants to invest heavily in solar power. That's fine. We're in favor of solar. So what would it take to replace OPEC oil if Obama wanted to just use electric cars supplied by solar power? If you assume a conversion efficiency of 12 percent, the United States would need about 3.5 million megawatts of installed solar capacity. That's more than three times the existing electric capacity in the country. It also translates into about 35.5 million acres of solar collectors, or an area about the size of the state of Illinois. and that assumes no room for roads or power lines or maintenance areas.

In his speech in Denver, Obama — a longtime supporter of the corn ethanol industry — didn't mention ethanol. These days, he prefers to talk about "advanced biofuels." Or, as he did in his acceptance speech, his desire to support "the next generation of biofuels." For people in the industry, that usually means cellulosic ethanol; that is, fuel made from biomass like switchgrass, wood chips or other plant matter.

So let's take a modest approach and assume that Obama wants to use cellulosic ethanol to replace the 2.5 million barrels of oil per day that come from the Persian Gulf. That would mean creating a domestic industry capable of producing 38.3 billion gallons of motor fuel per year. Sounds reasonable, right? Not so fast.

Companies that are trying to commercialize cellulosic ethanol are claiming that they can produce about 100 gallons of ethanol per ton of biomass. (That's about the same yield that can be obtained by using grain as a feedstock.) Thus, to produce 38.3 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol would require the annual harvest and transport of 383 million tons of biomass — enough material to fill 25.5 million semitrailers. Assuming each trailer is 48 feet long and holds 15 tons of biomass, the column of trailers (not including any trucks attached to them) to hold that volume of feedstock would stretch about 231,800 miles. That's long enough to encircle the Earth nine times.

It gets worse.

Remember that ethanol's energy content is only about two-thirds that of gasoline. So to produce the energy equivalent of 38.3 billion gallons of conventional motor fuel, the United States would actually need to produce about 49.7 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year. (And remember, that's just to replace the oil we get from the Persian Gulf, which supplies about 12 percent of U.S. needs.) What would that mean in terms of biomass? It would require a line of semitrailer loads that would cover some 301,000 miles — a span that would easily stretch from here to the moon, with enough room left over to get about one-fourth of the way back.

...

I hope the NY Times Editorial Board looks at these figures and takes back their editorial complaining about the McCain energy plan which makes much more sense. The liberals are so fixed on getting off of carbon based energy they have lost perspective on the cost of doing so. It may happen someday, but forcing us into a lower standard of living to make it happen will not work and politically it is a loser.

It is hard to work numbers into an ad, but the examples given here need to be worked into a YouTube on the energy issue. The McCain team has become very good at riducling Obama positions and there is a lot of material for that in this piece. I hope they get on it. Energy may be the biggest issue in this election and showing how out of touch teh Democrats are would go a long way toward winning.