Precisely How Will the Obama Team Solve Global Warming?

I am retired Designer Engineer with 25 years of experience. In my life I worked 5 years as teacher of Physics in High School. I have eleven patents and ideas for more than hundred new patents, which can revolve Economy of USA, Mexico and Canada.
More than 4years I am studying Global Warming, Peak oil production, Dependence of our economy from foreighn oil, Weather disasters in North America. I solved these problems three years ago. You can read 100 of my articles in willyoujoinus.com under user name mioffe_2000. Last year I stopped published my notes on this site of Chevron Company, because I understand it was lost of my time. Chevron Company used this site only for public relationship.
I can't understand why so many smart persons in the world support absolutely unscientific ideas about Global Warming.
Please read next my article and I am will answer on any of your question.

Michael Ioffe

How we can use knowledge about global warming for huge profit
In economy, energy independence and reduction weater disasters.

We can look on problems with global warming, prices for barrel of oil, and weather disasters in North America as correlated with each other and found very profitable solutions to be winners in all these directions.

Global warming.

Our efforts in fighting global warming can be more productive if we will reevaluate what we are writing and speaking about it. I found interesting that mass media:
1. Very often changed carbon dioxide equivalent of all greenhouse gases only on carbon dioxide.
2. Forget that " Forests contain much more carbon than does grass, and they also absorb more sunlight (having different albedo) and produce more water vapor, which affects cloud formation". Mature forests don't take in much CO2 for they are in balance, releasing CO2 as old vegetation rots, then absorbing it as new grows. For these reasons the world largest forests-the coniferous forests of Siberia and Canada, and the tropical rainforests are not good carbon sinks, but new vigorously forests are."
3. Mention only that greenhouse gases absorb heat in the atmosphere.
4. More important processes that cool the atmosphere and they are completely ignored by mass media.
5. Absolutely misunderstand role of water vapor in cooling of the Earth, despite that it is also greenhouse gas.
6. Misunderstand that any source of energy - nuclear, wind, hydro, solar cells, hydrogen, geothermal in condition when greenhouse gases anyway will increased by others processes will heat the atmosphere as heat pollutant.
7. Misunderstand possibility of conservation of energy and its limits.

If we will look carefully on result of these misunderstanding we will found dangerous situation when high respectful authors asking us to do what in reality will bring more harm than good things.

Let look in Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2007 (126 Edition) page 577, table 897.
"Energy consumption by End-Use sector in quadrillion British thermal Unit (BTU).

Total-1970 year -67.84 (67,840,000,000,000,000)---2004 year-99.74

Residential --------1970 year -22.112004 year-38.638.6/22.11=1.745
and commercial

Industrial-----------1970 year -29.642004 year -33.2533.25/29.64=1.121

Transportation-----1970 year -16.102004 year -27.7927.79/16.10=1.726

Our consumption of energy in the 2004 compares with 1970 almost double in residential and commercial, and transportation. Industrial energy did not grow in the same rate only because most industrial production moved to China and others developed countries.
Without any doubt to live better we need more energy.
In the world media idea of conservation of energy by increasing efficiency of all equipment and appliances prevail.
Is it true?
If we will increase efficiency of our motors, equipment, appliances, home heating and cooling systems, etc. from average 25% right now to impossible 100% it will mean only that four times more people will live on the same level as middle class in USA today. It is not enough even for USA population, not mention all countries in the world.
Demand for better living in the world will increase faster than our ability to increase efficiency of our equipment, etc.

If carbon dioxide is main factor for global warming we have very narrow way how to escape global warming? It is only one way-conservation of energy!

Conservation of energy is not a solution. It is always good direction but not enough.
Nuclear energy, geothermal energy, wind energy, solar cell energy even if they will emit zero carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the Earth (everyone knew that it is not true) still will heat air in situation where greenhouse gases in the air will be increased anyway by others processes.
It is possible to use these energy sources, but it is not true that solutions to fight global warming are nuclear, geothermal, wind, solar cell, hydrogen cell or many others or very expensive or not so effective sources of energy.
Nuclear and geothermal source of energy will additionally to Sun heat air of the Earth.

By David Fleming, April 2006:
"It takes a lot of fossil energy to mine uranium, and then to extract and prepare the right isotope for use in a nuclear reactor. It takes even more fossil energy to build the reactor, and, when its life is over, to decommission it and look after its radioactive waste.
As a result, with current technology, there is only a limited amount of uranium ore in the world that is rich enough to allow more energy to be produced by the whole nuclear process than the process itself consumes. This amount of ore might be enough to supply the world's total current electricity demand for about six years.
Moreover, because of the amount of fossil fuel and fluorine used in the enrichment process, significant quantities of greenhouse gases are released. As a result, nuclear energy is by no means a 'climate-friendly' technology".
http://www.uow.edu.au/eng/phys/nukeweb/index.html
http://www.feasta.org/documents/energy/nuclear_power.htm"

Many scientists can confront David Fleming opinion, but they still need to agree that nuclear source of energy will additionally heat the air and will work as heat pollutant.

As you can read in Tim Flannery book "The Weather Makers," 2006:
1. " Forests contain much more carbon than does grass, and they also absorb more sunlight (having different albedo) and produce more water vapor, which affects cloud formation".
2. "Mature forests don't take in much CO2 they are in balance, releasing CO2 as old vegetation rots, then absorbing it as new grows. For these reasons the world largest forests-the coniferous forests of Siberia and Canada, and the tropical rainforests are not good carbon sinks, but new vigorously forests are."
If we will follow Tim Flannery, we can say, that all one-year vegetation wills rots during one year. In nature they are rots slowly, providing during vegetation period nutrition for new growing plants. Together with others vegetation on the Earth they create balance during millions years, when in air we had 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide.
Growing population, industrial revolution changed this balance. It is inevitable: we harvest food from almost all land in every states and bring it to huge cities, where rots of waste haven't enough plants to take back carbon dioxide.
If we will grow corn, grass, etc. for ethanol or others so called "green sources of energy" we will bring to ethanol production place every year increasing amount of plants from which we extracting ethanol. We need energy to plant and harvest these sources.
Research shows that it takes about 0.75 BTUs (British thermal units - a measure of energy content) from fossil fuels to create 1 BTU of ethanol, compared to 1.23 BTUs to create 1 BTU of traditional oil-based gasoline (Dr. Wang, et al). So ethanol is a more efficient energy source than oil.
This research does not include energy to harvest corn, grass etc and bring it to plants for ethanol production and also does not include energy to produce oil and bring it to gasoline production plants.

It will increase amount of carbon dioxide in the air despite our good intentions. "Green sources of energy" is a disaster for environment and as soon we will agree on that we will not spend money and efforts in wrong directions. Green sources of energy will not save civilization from global warming.

Wind and solar cells energy are very expensive and need batteries to store their energy in times when we haven't wind or Sun.
If we still want to use them it is better for windmills directly found job, perhaps pump water from places where we have flooding to places where we need water. This will reduce significantly price for wind energy (we no need devices to change kinetic energy of the wind to electrical energy, electrical transformers, lines, motors etc). It also will increase efficiency of windmills. It is not so important timing of pumping water.

Solar energy is better to use to feed population-to grow vegetables, corn, wheat etc.

The best way to use Sun for energy is to grow forests.
Trees are the champion in the world between all plants and grow faster than any others plants. They collect Sun energy during hundreds of years. Wood from the trees can be the cheapest source of energy for power plants and will give all their energy for electricity and heat production.
All emissions from these power plants can be without any harm sequestrated back to the land by water and will be together with ash the best nutrition to grow the same trees.
Instead of harvesting every year corn, grass etc for ethanol production we will harvest wood for electricity production from forest in area at least 100 times less than in case of harvesting grass, corn, etc for liquid fuel. It will be the closest to customer source of energy and therefore cheaper than coal. Coal right now the cheapest source of electrical energy.
It takes one ton of coal to generate an average of 2500 KWH of electricity.
It takes less than 1.6 ton of wood to generate the same amount of energy.

Needs for energy in the world will grow despite all good resolutions.

We intensified style of our life. We need to intensified process of cooling air in the Earth.

From Earth Science, Baron's Educational Series, Inc, 2001
"Solar radiation reaches the upper atmosphere at a fairly constant rate of about 200
kilocalories per minute/square meter. About 1/3 of this radiation is reflected back into space mostly by clouds. Ozone, carbon dioxide, and water vapor in the atmosphere absorb or reflect most of Earth's infrared radiation; the rest go through the atmosphere and out into space. Solar energy reflected back into space by thick clouds - 75-90%, thin clouds - 30-50%, water - 10%, grassy field - 10-30%, fresh snow - 75-95%, forest - 3-10%...
The atmosphere consists mostly of gases, but also contains water, ice, dust and others particles. In dry air we have 78% of Nitrogen, 21% of Oxygen, almost 1% of Argon. In air we have traces of another gases: Neon, Helium, Krypton, Xenon, Hydrogen, Ozone, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Methane.
Molecular mass of N2 = 28, of O2 = 32, of H2O = 18. Since the lighter water molecules displace heavier air pressure decreases as humidity increases. HUMIDITY UP, AIR PRESSURE DOWN, HUMIDITY DOWN, AIR PRESSURE UP
Wind blow from region of high air pressure to region of low air pressure as in sea breeze, land breeze.
Climate influences a REGION'S NATURAL VEGETATION.
The roots of plants absorb water that has seeped into the soil. Then the water is transported to their leaves, and released back to the atmosphere, as water vapor. Each day an estimated 15 trillion litters of water in the form of rain or snow fall on the United States alone.
The atmosphere which now has a total mass about 5,000 trillion tons is held in place by Earth's gravity and extend several hundreds kilometers into space.
A number of factors control the amount of solar energy that an area absorbs or reflects including the angle at which incoming solar radiation-insolation-strikes the surface, the length of time each day, that insolation is received, and a nature of the surface.
Most insolation passes right through the atmosphere to Earth surface, where it is absorbed and changed into form of energy that atmosphere can absorb by conduction, convection and radiation.
Most of the energy radiated by Earth's surface is infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases absorb or reflect most of Earth's infrared radiation; the rest goes through the atmosphere and out into a space.
Thus short-wavelength can readily enter the atmosphere, but long-wavelength cannot readily escape a phenomenon known as greenhouse effect."

What are the most important lessons from these two books?

1. Clouds reflect huge parts of solar energy back to space: thick clouds-75-90%, thin clouds-30-50%;
2. Forests contain much more carbon than does grass and they also absorb more sunlight and produce more water vapor, which affect cloud formation.
3. Water vapor is one of the lightest gases and has tendency to go up to cloud level. Water has another properties it takes a lot of energy to evaporate water. To evaporate one kg of water we need 339 kcal of heat. We need one kcal to increase temperature of 1 kg of water on 1ºC. Evaporation of water will cool air temperature. Despite that water vapor is greenhouse gas, it tendency to go up bring them on cloud level, where distances between molecules bigger and heat will go to space more easily than on ground level. No others greenhouse gases have these properties. Drop of rain when falling down partially evaporated and go back to cloud level, but more important they dissolve a lot of carbon dioxide and others "heavy" greenhouse gases from the air and soil and feed all plants on the Earth.
4. Of course, reduction of carbon dioxide in the air will cool the Earth. Water vapor will produce the same effects of cooling the Earth. We need increase evaporation of water. It is significantly cheaper then other efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Drops of rain at the same time will clean air from carbon dioxide better than any efforts of conservation of energy.
5. Sun is the best source of energy to evaporate water from growing trees, and not only cool the air of Earth but also produce the cheapest, really "green" source of energy, which can be used in any time during hundreds of years.
6. White fresh snow reflects to space 75-95% of Sun radiation. White cars, houses, roads will do the same.

According to Tim Flannery only new forests collect carbon. Tim Flannery wrote also about absorbing sunlight to grow and also produce water vapor. Trees are the best and cheapest pumps in the world. They use Sun energy to evaporate huge amount of water. It is the cheapest way to cool the air of the Earth. Drop of rain on cloud level is the cleanest and the best solvent of carbon dioxide and will reduce amount of carbon dioxide in the air better than any others human efforts in these directions.
Increasing of evaporation of water will do more to reduce carbon dioxide in the air than any attempt of conservation energy.

How we use energy?

For economical and profit reason we are building our power plants so huge that more than 80% of their overall energy - heat energy - we can't use.
"The Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine is the most powerful and most efficient prime-mover in the world today. At maximum economy the engine exceeds 50% thermal efficiency. That is, more than 50% of the energy in the fuel is converted to motion.
For comparison, most automotive and small aircraft engines have BSFC figures in the 0.40-0.60 lbs/hp/hr range and 25-30% thermal efficiency range.
The maximum power theorem applies to generators as it does to any source of electrical energy. This theorem states that the maximum power can be obtained from the generator by making the resistance of the load equal to that of the generator. However, under this condition the power transfer efficiency is only 50%, which means that half the power generated is wasted as heat inside the generator. For this reason, practical generators are not usually designed to operate at maximum power output, but at a lower power output where efficiency is greater.
Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995, and in the UK at 7.4% in 1998."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_generator

If we will calculate waste of energy to produce electrisity as source of energy together with waste of energy when we using electrical energy we can conclude that more THAN 80% OF ENERGY WE ARE LOOSING IN VAIN.
If we will start new energy policy to make small power plants where we can use not only electrical energy but also heat energy we will increase efficiency of using fuel energy at least three-four times. In this situation wood will provide more useful energy than the same amount of oil products or coal, which we using right now in big power plants.
Small power plants surrounding by forests will use the cheapest and closest source of energy. Ash from burning trees can be used as the best nutrition to grow these forests. All carbon dioxide of these plants can be solved in huge amount of water to watering these forests. Additional nutrition from that water as evaporation of water by forests will provide us with energy sources and cooling of the air of the Earth. Here we need to remember that rain in Amazon Basin over 120 inches per year. It means than more water we will use to watering these forests than more rain will be in area of these forests. Watering trees under some conditions can provide more water in form of rain than we use to start process. Watering trees also will prevent forest fire.
We can start harvest trees for wood after 5 years widening distances between trees as they are growing. We can use coal and gas as additional to wood source of energy. Coal, gas, and power plants Companies will willingly pay for growing forest instead of paying for carbon dioxide emmission.

We need to pay attention that most automotive and small aircraft engines have 25-30% thermal efficiency range. Because this efficiency apply to move not only passenger but and heavy cars, real efficiency of cars where we are mostly alone moving to job and back will be less than one percent.

Mass transportation will not help, because we are increasing distance to place where we are going and most important- time. Mass transportation takes more energy on short distances between stops for one or two persons.

Perhaps mass (m) of car 2,000kg, mass of driver 100kg, and speed (V) of car 65 miles per hour, or 110.5 km per hour, or 30.7 m per sec.
Kinetic energy of this car will be:

E=1/2mv2=2100x30.7x30.7/2=1/2x2100x942.

As you can see in this case mass of car and driver change amount of kinetic energy twice time more than speed.

It is not so important when cars drive on strait road long distance. If cars will stop on every block reduction of mass for car is very important.

In case of public transportation mass of bus will be around 10,000kg. If this bus will held perhaps 100 persons with average mass 100kg it will be additional 10,000kg. If bus will stop on every light and on every bus stop after few blocks, situation will be almost 20 times worse than for usual cars.

Public transportation is not good solution to save energy or reduce emmission.

If we will remember that resistance from air for every moving object increased proportionally area of it greatest section including tires we will found easily weapons to increase mileage per gallon:

It is small (10 kg) cart for one person and roads without intersection.

Huge amount of concrete needed for nuclear energy better to spend on second and third levels of roads, without intersections. Truck and cars with huge mass will be on first existing right now level. Small carts will be on next levels.

Let again make analysis how we make all liquid biofuel, where we extract small parts of energy, from corn, grass, sugar cane etc., and trough away wet waste material which will almost simultaneously oxidized. We will understand that liquid biofuel is disaster for environment and not so green as advertised. All plants take half of carbon from the air CO2, another half they take from the soil. How we can make liquid biofuel green in these conditions?

Why we need liquid fuel to loose 99% of that fuel in vain?
Why we need hydrogen fuel cell with the same efficiency?

We need to grow instead of corn for ethanol - forests in USA, Canada and Mexico.
If we will pay attention to growing trees in the same level as growing corn we will increase production of wood in one acre of forests many times.

Sun is only one nuclear power plant, which will work for millions years and mankind no need to worry about its waste, or proliferation, or others form of disasters.

Trees will work as huge pumps to evaporate water-using energy of sun. Water vapors as lightest than most others gases will go up to clouds levels, where latent heat capacity of producing droplet of water will easily escapes to space. This is natural source of cooling the Earth surfaces. More clouds will reflect to space more sun energy and additionally cool the Earth.
North America is only one huge land from France to Japan. Cooling air with help of forests in places where we growing corn or grass for ethanol production all around USA, Canada and Mexico will mild climate in North America. It will reduce power of weather disaster and more important reduce movement of air from south to north-main reason of melting ice in Greenland.
It is more easy to move millions tons of water, to watering these forests, than millions tons of cars and people, what we did because of hurricane Gustav, or Katrina. Insurance Companies will willingly pay for systems to relocate water from flooding areas.

We will create source of energy to power plants-wood energy-the cheapest and closest to consumer source of future energy.
If we will build small power plants to use not only electricity, but also heat we will use almost 100% of energy of the wood, not 20%. That means we will need to use three- four times less energy sources.
Of course we need time to build these small power plants, but we can grow trees as fuel for these plants right now all across USA. They will start evaporate water immediately.

From "Atmosphere. Clouds. Rain. Snow. Storm" Vincent J Schaefer/John A. Day, 1981:
"The remarkable "year without a summer" of 1816 is thought to have been caused by massive volcanic eruption and is an indication of what could happen-volcanic ash particles serve as excellent nuclei for ice crystal formation. This factor, plus the reduction in solar radiation caused by volcanic dust cloud in the stratosphere and upper troposphere is thought to have been responsible for the widespread change in the weather America and Europe experienced in that time."

We can provoke volcanic eruption. We can send mirrors particle on the orbit, by the rockets. What we will do depend of our common sense and willingness to spend money on projects. Growing forests for evaporation of water is cheaper and more controllable way to stop global warming. Woods, as source of the cheapest energy will pay all our spending bills in future. Pumping of water from flooding area to watering these forests will pay our spending bills right now. Instead of distribution of tax relief money to support our economy it is better to create new jobs for thousands of scientist, engineers and millions of workers. They can design and build water distribution systems, plant new forests, build new small power plants, new roads for small (10 kg) carts, new carts industries. Coal companies, power plants companies will pay bills right now, because nobody will ask them to participate in stupid projects of carbon dioxide reduction.
It is future of our energy and transportation systems, which will give result right now!

Conclusion.

We need to change our transportation systems. Cars are perfects, but they are relicts of previous century.
We no need spent Government money to improve cars industry. Simple Physics against it.
It is impossible to collect greenhouse gases from millions of cars. We have only one environmentally friendly direction of transportation-electrical transportation. We know that efficiency of electric motors more than 85%. In this direction we can make instead of car weighting more than 2000 kg cart with weight around 10 kg. It is correct-10 kg cart for one person.

Of course we need to use everything what we have right now till time when it is economically working.

As our strategy goals:

1. We need to reduce size of power plants, which we will build in future to use not only electricity, but also heat energy for industry and greenhouses to grow food.
2. We need in nearest future use electricity as only one source of energy for heating (cooling) of homes and for transportation.
3. We need change transportation system.
4. We need grow trees around small power plants as only one source of renewable energy and solvent all gases from power plants in water to watering growing forests. Instead of supporting liquid fuel production - a disaster for environmental, our government need to support growing trees.
5. We need to build systems to relocate water from flooding areas to watering these trees. Instead of spending money on result of flooding we need spend them to prevent flooding.
6. We need start design small power plants with mandatory of using not only electricity but also heat. These power plants can use any kind of energy sources but after some time need to use mainly wood as source of energy. All greenhouse gases from power plants need to be solvent in huge amount of water to watering forest. Of course quality of water for watering need to be checked by scientists.

5-10 years is more than enough time to make this happen.

In these directions we have possibilities to create new industries with 100% of employment for scientists, engineers, farmers and workers despite that many jobs positions goes abroad. It is normal process of globalization.

Here's how some of our major energy sources stack up based on the average cost in dollars per million Btu for 2007 (annual average for the full year):
Coal -- $1.78
Petroleum liquids -- $9.21
Natural gas -- $7.45
(You can take a look for yourself at www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm.pdf)
Net Generation Shares by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors),
Year-to-Date through March, 2008
Coal- 50.4%
Hydroelectric Conventional-6.5%
Natural Gas-19.0%
Nuclear-19.8%
Other Energy Sources-3.3%
Petroleum-1.1%
Facts and Figures
Even if all possible arable acres of land in the U.S. (~427 million acres) were devoted to growing corn for ethanol production, at current yields ethanol would satisfy only 12% of transportation fuel demand;
Similarly, if all soybean crops currently produced were to be refined into biodiesel, only 6% of U.S. diesel demand would be met;
Ethanol currently represents just over 2% of gasoline sold;
Studies indicate full scale CELLULOSIC (not corn-based but developed from switchgrass, woodchips, etc), ethanol could be produced for 60 cents per gallon (NRDC Biofuels Study);
Research shows that it takes about 0.75 BTUs (British thermal units - a measure of energy content) from fossil fuels to create 1 BTU of ethanol, compared to 1.23 BTUs to create 1 BTU of traditional oil-based gasoline (Dr. Wang, et al). So ethanol is a more efficient energy source than oil.
Pros of Use
Biofuels can be domestically produced from a number of available agricultural products (e.g., swithgrass, woodchips, animal waste, etc);
Biofuels burn cleaner than most traditional fossil fuel sources;
Biodiesel can utilize current distribution systems and run in current diesel motors.

Cons of Use
At some point (arguably happening currently), food supplies are compromised and food prices rise as a result of additional agricultural products being sold for the creation of biofuels;
Limitations in the total transportation fuel supplied by biofuels exist using current technology;
There is not a readily established, high volume distribution system in place for the transport of ethanol as there is for oil (which currently enjoys a national pipeline system);
Ethanol requires the use of slightly modified, "flex-fuel" engines.

When we completely understand all previous let look on "Picken Plan", and try to understand where he is wrong?

"Picken Plan"
America is addicted to foreign oil.
It's an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and a people.
The addiction has worsened for decades and now it's reached a point of crisis.
In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil.
Today it's nearly 70% and growing.
At current oil prices, we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone -- that's four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.

Projected over the next 10 years the cost will be $10 trillion -- it will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.
America uses a lot of oil. Every day 85 million barrels of oil are produced around the world. And 21 million of those are used here in the United States.
That's 25% of the world's oil demand. Used by just 4% of the world's population.
Can't we just produce more oil?

World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn't enough of it to keep up with demand.
The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.
What's the good news?
The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power.
Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains states are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world -- by far.
The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America's electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country.
Today's wind turbines stand up to 410 feet tall, with blades that stretch 148 feet in length. The blades collect the wind's kinetic energy. In one year, a 3-megawatt wind turbine produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of imported oil.
A 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over -- even if only 20% of wind power could be captured.
Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.
That's a lot of money, but it's a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it's a bargain."
An economic revival for rural America.
A cheap new replacement for foreign oil.

Natural gas and bio-fuels are the only domestic energy sources used for transportation.
Cleaner
Natural gas is the cleanest transportation fuel available today.
According to the California Energy Commission, critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline.
Natural gas vehicles (NGV) are already available and combine top performance with low emissions. The natural gas Honda Civic GX is rated as the cleanest production vehicle in the world.
According to NGVAmerica, there are more than 7 million NGVs in use worldwide, but only 150,000 of those are in the United States.
The EPA estimates that vehicles on the road account for 60% of carbon monoxide pollution and around one-third of hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions in the United States. As federal and state emissions laws become more stringent, many requirements will be unattainable with conventionally fueled vehicles.
Since natural gas is significantly cleaner than petroleum, NGVs are increasing in popularity. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach recently announced that 16,800 old diesel trucks will be replaced, and half of the new vehicles will run on alternatives such as natural gas.
Cheaper
Natural gas is significantly less expensive than gasoline or diesel. In places like Utah and Oklahoma, prices are less than $1 a gallon. To see fueling stations and costs in your area, check out cngprices.com.
Domestic
Natural gas is our country's second largest energy resource and a vital component of our energy supply. 98% of the natural gas used in the United States is from North America. But 70% of our oil is purchased from foreign nations.
Natural gas is one of the cleanest, safest and most useful forms of energy -- residentially, commercially and industrially. The natural gas industry has existed in the United States for over 100 years and continues to grow.
Domestic natural gas reserves are twice that of petroleum. And new discoveries of natural gas and ongoing development of renewable biogas are continually adding to existing reserves.
While it is a cheap, effective and versatile fuel, less than 1% of natural gas is currently used for transportation.
We currently use natural gas to produce 22% of our electricity. Harnessing the power of wind to generate electricity will give us the flexibility to shift natural gas away from electricity generation and put it to use as a transportation fuel -- reducing our dependence on foreign oil by more than one-third.
How do we get it done?
The Pickens Plan is a bridge to the future -- a blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by harnessing domestic energy alternatives, and buy us time to develop even greater new technologies.
Building new wind generation facilities and better utilizing our natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years. But it will take leadership.
On January 20th, 2009, a new President will take office.
We're organizing behind the Pickens Plan now to ensure our voices will be heard by the next administration.
Together we can raise a call for change and set a new course for America's energy future in the first hundred days of the new presidency -- breaking the hammerlock of foreign oil and building a new domestic energy future for America with a focus on sustainability.
You can start changing America's future today by supporting the Pickens Plan. Join now."

I am sorry to tell that, but Mr. Picken you are on wrong directions:

Mr. Picken are writing about peak oil production (2005), huge price for oil - $700 billion dollars this year.
Solutions: wind power for electricity, Natural Gas Vehicles for transportation.
Will it work? Of course it will it is working right now in small scale. If we will put billions in these directions we will work in huge scale as huge monuments all around our country for our stupidity and misunderstanding of global warming.

Let look how Picken plan correlates with global warming?

Mr. Picken as many others very famous persons in the world and mass media did not understand role of wind to cool the air. Wind energy evaporates a lot of water from any surfaces of rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans. It evaporates water from the grass, bushes and trees. Any uses of wind energy will reduce these cooling effects of wind.
Kinetic energy of the wind in the atmosphere send hot air from the land or water surface to the high level of atmosphere where it is easy for heat to escape to the space.
Kinetic energy of the wind met the small droplets of water in fog, clouds, and all green vegetables, especially in leaves of trees around all atmospheres on the Earth. These processes produce water vapor that invisible greenhouse gas, which always go up to cloud level and cool the Earth better than anything else.
Mr. Picken think that wind power did not produce pollution. It is not true. Production of millions wind turbines, batteries need energy. Electricity from these turbines is also pollutant -heat pollutant. In case when others processes in human activity will add greenhouse gases in the atmosphere any heat sources- wind, or nuclear, or geothermal and many others will increase amount of heat that will heat air and will be reason for global warming.
Any our attempt to produce source of energy without production additional sources of water vapor will heat the atmosphere and increase risk of global warming.

Let look how Picken plan uses energy sources?

Natural Gas Vehicles for transportation need huge investment to change our cars, where real efficiency in most cases will be less than 1%.
We need destroy all power plants and their distribution lines, which right now produce electricity-using energy of natural gas.
If windmills produce electricity we are loosing around 50% of wind energy on resistance of batteries, when we charge them. When we use batteries around 50% of their energy will be loosing when power from batteries will go to customers. Efficiency of this process around 25% in best case.

We still have room for cooperation with Mr. Picken.

Windmills can work directly pumping perhaps water to grow forests. Efficiency of using wind power will be increased at least tree times. We will have useful job without complication of electrical energy production.
GE can design and build small power plants (for ten-hundred thousands of people), which will use natural gas, where we can use as electrical, as heat energy and look forwards to use in the same power plant as natural gas as wood as source of energy.
GE can design and build 10 kg electrical carts for one person as main transportation system of our future (I have ideas how to make it happen).
GE with cooperation with Companies which specialized in building road systems, working together to build new completely automated transportation systems in North America with three levels without any intersection on second and third level.
These directions can not only solve independence from foreign source of energy, but also global warming problems and reduce weather disaster problems.
These directions will give jobs and new opportunity for all North America citizens with 100% of employment for nearest hundred years.
Of course it will be the best example to the world.

Everybody who understand that, who have power to reach Mr. Picken, or mass- media, please tell them about these possibilities. I am sure that these directions are working and need less investment with huge profit possibilities than anything else.

Let look at "How Siemens does it."
Wind power is the fastest-growing energy source in the world. Siemens is rapidly expanding its manufacturing capacities in this exciting new business with powerful offshore wind parks, growing much faster than the market. With more than 6,300 wind turbines around the world, Siemens helps to save up to 10 million tons of CO2 emissions per year. As the market leader in offshore wind energy, Siemens offers the largest serially produced offshore wind turbines, with rotor blades sweeping an area bigger than a football field.
The world's largest gas turbine, the Siemens SGT5-8000H, is also the most powerful. Its capacity of 340 megawatts roughly equals that of 13 jumbo jet engines. In combined cycle operation, plants powered with this new gas turbine will generate 530 MW - enough to supply three million people with energy. A higher than 60 percent efficiency rate in combined-cycle applications (an increase of two percentage points) sets a new benchmark for efficient power generation and results in a reduction of CO2 emissions by up to 40,000 tons per year.
Superior technology for long-distance power transmission is key to generating the thousands of gigawatts of electricity required by our growing planet. But how can we efficiently transport it from remote power plants to populated areas, where it is needed? To overcome the limitations and energy losses of conventional alternating current (AC) transmission, Siemens built high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission links, which are a more economical and ecological means of transporting electric power over distances of 600 km or more.
Buildings account for nearly 40 percent of global energy consumption. To address this massive challenge, Siemens offers measures that help reduce energy costs by 20 - 40 percent, on average. Through energy performance contracting, Siemens plans and installs new intelligent building systems that guarantee savings in cost, energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Under such a contract, Siemens identifies the potential for saving energy in a building through modernization and energy services. The investment pays for itself through the energy savings, with no added costs incurred."

The same as Mr. Picken, Company Siemens make mistakes in wind production. Please read everything, what I wrote in my answer to Mr.Picken.
The world's largest gas turbine even with higher than 60 percent efficiency rate (Congratulation for that achievement) will loose more than 70% of gas energy in vain.
To use as heat as electricity energy we need design not more efficient huge power plant, but smaller power plants. Power plants, which served to area around 15 km will use as heat as electrical energy. We can transfer electrical energy on 600 and more km we can't do the same with heat energy. The world's largest gas turbine will be one of the many others huge heat pollutant, which will prevail reduction of carbon dioxide emission.

Sincerely, Michael Ioffe.

Cap and trade.

Great line from Chu: "The manufacturers had to assign the job to the engineers, instead of to the lobbyists."

I favor a Cap-And-Dividend approach (return auctioned revenue directly and equally to all citizens, akin to a tax credit) rather than a pure cap-and-trade, even though it doesn't have to be a 100% dividend (i.e. keep 40% for cleantech investment, refund 60% to taxpayers or whatever). The idea here is that, while cap-and-trade encourages industry to keep its emissions low, there's very little reason for the individuals to follow suit, and if the cap-and-trade results in raised prices for consumers, it just creates political opposition. With cap-and-dividend, all citizens recieve an equal amount from carbon trading -- meaning that a wealthy person with a huge carbon footprint likely takes a loss while the poor with relatively tiny footprints get a boost, which encourages those with larger footprints to reduce their emissions to a point where the increased cost is roughly balanced with the income from the dividend.

I understand this is probably politically impossible in the US, since "socialism" is a four-letter word, but I don't have a better solution to encourage individuals to reduce their footprints. Two important parts in both cap/dividend and cap/trade, though -- auction 100% of the permits with no handouts, and do NOT allow offsets to factor in. Offsets create a regulatory nightmare to make sure they're legit -- meaning we either get what Joe Romm calls "rip-offsets" or we get even more big-government attached to this.

(Regarding offsets, I've wondered recently if we can't get legitimate offset providers registered similar to charities -- offset providers voluntarily register with the government, and if they pass muster donations to them are considered tax-deductable. This makes the regulators I mentioned above less intrusive, and gives the lay individual or corporation incentive to buy from the legitimate offsets while avoiding the false ones in the form of a tax credit. This isn't actually part of a cap-and-trade system, but runs parallel to it -- and it would also work in a carbon-tax system, in the off chance Obama's team goes that way.)

On the flipside, though, a massive investment in "green collar" jobs (someone's got to weatherize those homes) and policies against lobbyists (this is going to be exceedingly difficult to build without serious loopholes) might accomplish the same thing, by emphasizing performance and economic benefits.

Mind you, I have a poor understanding of economics (never could quite wrap my head around the mainstream idea of cornucopianism or maximizing GDP instead of quality of life), so these may be pretty poor, but...

It will be very important to assess the carbon totals of various biofuels' programs, and favor the ones that have a favorable balance. There's no substitute for jet travel, and it takes 10 years to replace most of the cars even if we rolled out all-electric cars next years.

There will be a lot of complaints about putting a carbon tax on fossil fuels, but that's just returning the environmental cost from the commons to the user as it should be. It will throw the "high cost" of sustainable energy into the right perspective.

I would pay attention to the work of Dr. Mark Z. Jacobsen, Stanford. His recently peer reviewed and published study tells us all where we get the real benefit and where many of those hidden CO2 leaks are located.

"Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security"

However, it will be hard to eliminate the high costs of nuclear since the previous name for DOE was the Atomic Energy Commission.

It's a moot point. Obama can't do anything, unless he's just been elected president of China and India and I missed the news. The day is long past where the US could do anything remotely like set global emissions standards. At best - at best - he can encourage the development of emissions-free power and hope it's adopted in the developing world.

Hi Chris...I notice you have a book about Republican's "war on scince." Well I'm a republican and I would like to debate you about evolution. Please go to Carm in the intelligent design/evolutoin forum and see the "Stump the Creationist" OP. Also please identify yourself.

http://www.christiandiscussionforums.org/v/forumdisplay.php?f=47

Matt Springer identifies the show-stopping reality. I would add that oil depletion and general energy scarcity (not to mention related economic deterioration) will likely become of far greater concern, resulting in all-out, desperate measures to tap all possible fuel sources for transportation and for electrical generation. Still, I suspect that there will be a lot of electrons spilled over various schemes, a lot of lip service, and no doubt even a policy initiative or two. I doubt that the CO2 concentration curve will transition into a decline phase by anything other than topping over the production peaks of the resources.

Hey Tom, how do you spell science?... There, stumped.

@Matt:

While it is true that India and China are the most likely culprits to drive emissions based impacts in the future, that doesn't mean the U.S., as an industrialized nation, has no need to act. That's like saying that if you witness a bank robbery, and the robber is your neighbor, you shouldn't call the police because it will upset the annual block party.

And, there are pretty strong reports that China, at least, gets it. Especially in light of their experiences with air quality at the Beijing games this year. This is especially important to watch, because their current emissions standards, enacted in 2007 are supposedly 10 time more strict then current U.S. standards. If that is so, then the U.S. is behind China (again).

The News Hour on PBS had a segment with Dr Michael Oppenheimer (IPCC) saying Obama would be aggressive and quickly start an extensive plan while Scott Segal (Electric Reliability Coordinating Council) said Obama would be cautious and take a step-by-step approach.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec08/obamateam_12-15.html

And if China does not join in?

Hey, Tom, how do you spell "evolution"?

There, stumped again.

Evidence points to a carbon tax as an effective way of reducing carbon output. It's so simple even creationists can understand it: if you want less of something, tax it. The problem comes with making it less regressive: modifying energy use behavior while not reducing the ability of the poor to buy, for example, food because their energy costs have gone up. Thus payroll tax rebates, as proposed by candidate Obama.

Whether cap-and-trade works is another problem. I remember there being a study in 2006 or 2007 that pointed to problems with making cap-and-trade successful, but I can't find the link. The nearest thing is a Science editorial by William H. Schlesinger that points out that both cap-and-trade and carbon taxes had best be limited to fossil fuel sources.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/314/5803/1217

To those who point out the looming China and India problem: They have not complied because the US has not shown the leadership necessary to confront the problem. Once the US regains its moral authority in this area, the successor to the Kyoto accords can address the problem of emerging economies.

China, India, The United States, and just about everybody else is not a looming problem. It is a current problem. The United States may or may not show leadership, or may show leadership, but still fall hopelessly short of its own goals or of bringing anybody else along. There's a lot of chicken counting going on.

There are forces at work of tremendous strength and inertia, some of which trace their origins to the immediate post-glacial era. They are mostly forces which drive population and energy flow within intensifying systems of production, which has only accelerated in the past 500 years. Science itself has been a recent accomplice. Currently, the entire industrialized world is powered by a 200-year drawdown of ancient sunlight. We are not a civilization of alternative energies, quite the contrary and despite the fervent desire by some to be otherwise.

What is looming is energy scarcity on a gargantuan scale. The odds of dealing with this problem alone are dismal.

Here's a fun exercise, even though the implied assumptions are oversimplified: Take the total energy of combustion in the oil--or even just the gasoline (by the way, global warming is primarily a coal, not an oil issue--but hey, play along) used by the USA in a single year and find the equivalent in kilowatt-hours. Determine how many average-sized nuclear reactors (or any other technology) it would take to generate that amount of energy. The result is astounding. That's what we mean by "scale."

Implement the Princeton Stabilization Wedges:

http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/stabwedge.htm