California's zero emission rules will bankcrupt everybody

Good question. Production of the hydrogen is the major problem with using
it as fuel.
Otherwise it is a spectacular fuel.

Statoil has launched a campaign for hydrogen enriched gas as a fuel, and
plan to support
a Hydrogen Highway in Norway where you can get hydrogen fuel along along the
path.

We probably need to be a bit more positive about projects like alternative
fuels. I think that
eventually we will have to make them work.

 

That and the storage density problem. I lurked at a hydrogen forum a couple
years back to see if I was missing something, and even the enthusiasts admit
those two problems - production and storage - are big hurdles.

Mostly hydrogen is an energy storage medium, as is a battery. Even setting
aside the storage density problem, it is a poor second to batteries in cycle
efficiency. Take even a very efficient 60% electrolysis efficiency, 80%
efficiency in storage and recovery from storage, and 60% fuel cell
efficiency, and the cycle allows less than 30% of the original energy to be
recovered. Cut those numbers down to what we realistically have now (as
opposed to the experimental methods that offer those high efficiencies) and
the loss is over 90%.

Mike

 

You mean the fact that you have to put more energy in to "produce" it
than you get out of it?

That's like saying banks would be great if they would let me wander in
any time I wanted to and take all the money out that I wanted without
paying it back.

Once again, does the additional anergy you get out of the enriched fuel
exceed the energy (and $) that you had to put in to enrich it? If not
at this time, is it pysically possible to do so (by the laws of physics)?

Even if we have to violate the laws of physics and economics to do it.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Correction: Production of the hydrogen is *a* major problem with using it a
fuel.

Other problems including creating a distribution system, perfecting fuel
cell technology and the carbon emmissions from producing all the hydrogen
(which is either made from hydrocarbons or using hydrocarbons as an energy
source).

Only alternative fuels which improve the situation. I don't see any
advantages to a hydrogen economy compared to a oil economy that warrant the
investment.

Jeff

 

Every single energy "source" we have works like this Bill. Even gasoline.
Far, far more energy was put into creating oil than we ever get out of it.
The only difference is we didn't put in that extra energy, nature did, so
we like to make up these silly terms like "positive net energy value" or
some
such rubbish.

Just about every single form that you obtain energy from - be it fossil
fuel,
electricity, heat, kinetic, etc. etc. is nothing more than a carrier of
energy
that mostly originates from the Sun. The rare exceptions are nuclear and
geothermal - since geothermal heat mostly comes from frictional heat
generated
by different rates of spin of different levels of the Earth's iron core, and
nuclear materials (uranium and such) were around before the Sun ignited.

All that matters is since we have to source the original energy from
the Sun, (or nuclear or geothermal), do we have enough energy available
to do the conversion at all.

With solar, we do. Why - because there is so darn much solar energy.

If you spend a million dollars in manufacturing a giant solar array that
produces $500,000 worth of electricity over it's operating lifespan then
are you running "backwards" and are such economic systems impossible?

Hell no. Why? Well you cannot power your car with a million dollars nor
can you heat your home with a million dollars or do anything else with
that money.

What is actually going on here is that the values of things are screwed up.
That $500K worth of electricity should have actually been sold at $1 M
not at $500K. If it had been, then the economic system would work.

The day will come when there will be no other sources of power than
solar (and the minor nuke and geo) and on that day Solar will be
all that we have. On that day, liquid fuels will get a hell of a lot more
expensive - but we will still have them. All that will happen is big
lifestyle changes for a lot of people as the economic system readjusts
to make economic sense to produce those liquid fuels at their price
points, since clearly most people will not be able to afford to buy
as much of those fuels as they once could.

Really, the only thing that is stupid about pushing the alternative
fuels today is that most of the people doing it have deluded themselves
into thinking that overall, alternative fuels would be cheaper than oil
if we could just get people to use more of them. They are not,
they are more expensive. Any alternative fuel that doesen't use
energy stored up by nature is going to be more expensive than a fuel
that does use energy stored up by nature. Thus, direct photovoltiac
conversion, or reflected concentrated energy to produce steam is the
most expensive, (since it has the lowest energy density) Wind and tidal
generation will be less expensive (since it uses some stored energy
in the water and air that is stored as heat) alcohol, biodiesel, biomass
(wood heat) will be less expensive, and geothermal, nuke, and fossil
fuel will be the cheapest (since it uses a lot of stored energy)

But, just because the alternative fuels are more expensive doesen't
mean there will never be a market for them. A nylon coat with nylon
batting will keep you as warm as a mink coat but the mink coat is a
hell of a lot more expensive - but they still sell them, even though you
can buy a nylon coat anywhere.

Ted

 

A distribution system is not a technological problem. It will just cost
money
to initiate, as it did with oil and gas distribution. If money were the only
problem,
then there is no real problem.

Fuel cell technology is pretty far advanced as it is. But nobody said you
have to use fuel cells to make hydrogen fuels work. It is one way, but not
the only way.

And last, production of hydrogen doesnt have to come from hydrocarbon
sources. That is why I said that production is THE major problem. If we
key
hydrogen production to oil and gas, then the battle is not worth waging. We
would be just transferring carbon dioxide emissions one step back in the
process.
And as oil and gas increase in price, hydrogen will increase in lockstep.

 

Very well said, Ted

 

I agree. The OP doesn'ty appear to realize that.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Oh - sorry. Regulations that forced any companies who did not want to
be forced into taking losses into pulling out. Since insurance
companies are in business to make profit, and definitely not lose
business, I don't have a problem with saying it the way I did. Assuming
they are averse to losing money intentionally, the ridiculous
regulations forced them to pull out. Yes.

No. The rules were as I said. You think an insurance company can make
a profit if they are required to drop no one and are forced to charge
everyone the same rates regardless of history - without punishing
everyone with high rates? Point is, everyone (the consumer) is hurt by
such foolish laws - not just the mean old insurance companies that they
were trying to punish. Once again, unintended consequences hurt the
innocent.

Yes - and everyone's rates go up to support the bad "must be insured"
(at everyone elses expense) driver. In the same way that rent controls
force decent landlords out of business and you are left with slum lords
because there is no incentive to keep property conditions up - the good
landlords simply close up shop. Same with forced insurability.

A generalization. Bottom line is it created huge problems for the
consumer - the regulations were reversed because that became clear even
to the idiots after the fact. Think, man, think!

I don't have time, nor do you, to cover every side and every aspect of
an issue when making a point. CA does stupid things. I can say that
without having to express my opinions about the energy industry, the
insurance industry, or the price of bread.

Not sure where you're going with that, but OK.

I don't recall mentioning that that was only a recent phenomenon.
"Prevalent" means frequent or commonplace, making no specific reference
to the past one way or the other. Not sure why you're reading that into it.

That is not my philosophy. If it takes that to sway someone, then that
person's swaying is not worth accomplishing. If that is what it takes
for sensiblity to rule the day (i.e., for the masses to be swayed for
legistlation to be enacted, for needed action to be taken, etc.), then
all is lost anyway (maybe we are in fact at that point, in which case, I
refuse to play that game anyway since all by definition will have been
lost).

You are correct. Hence politicians deliberately muddying the
distinction between "stem cell ressearch", "adult stem cell research",
and "embryonic stem cell research". The dishonest refuse to distinguish
and continue to try to obfuscate the difference. One example.

I had nothing to do with anything you said there.

I had nothing to do with that either. For the record I am against lynching.

Perhaps I was hasty on that one - I assumed it was continuation of CA's
historical behavior. Perhaps that type of thing is more tempered now
since Gray Davis is gone. But Arnold can't do but so much.

Perhaps it is a more sensible initiative not designed to hurt everyone
and accomplish nothing. Or perhaps it will do more damage than good as
is the pattern with these sort of things.

Pardon me if I say that that is a mindless philosophy. Certainly not
acceptable to me if it were my state government. But maybe you have
defined the CA mentallity, which would explain a lot, and would only
justify the ridicule that state recieves for things like that.

You said it - I didn't. Is that a racist statement?

God help the politician who made such a statement. He would be labeled
a racist

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

The OP cut an run from this thread ages ago when he realized he'd
been outclassed.

I just don't like to see people pooh poohing alternative fuel
experiments. Right now we really don't know what the oil and gas
replacement is going to be, it could be giant fields of marijuana (hemp)
for all we know. As such, anything is worth trying, even though we can
see there's obvious problems with certain fuels (do you want to be within
5 blocks of a hydrogen service station that a semitruck crashes into
by accident, for example?)

Ted

 

I'll repeat: "...Unless it was a situation were no drivers at all could buy
insurance, because there were absolutely no insurance companies
writing new policies..."

Is there some problem in your comprehension of this?

Did all insurance companies pull out? No. Then what is the problem?

Ahhh OK here we go. I get it now. Your objection is that the insurance
companies that decided to stay in CA remained profitable by raising
everyone's rates. You don't like this so your going to blame the state of
CA for this and call them rediculous and such.

Now, let me first say that what I'm going to say is NOT an endorsement of
any kind of "no fault" insurance but I am simply illustrating a point.

Suppose we have a state that allows very limited regulation of car insurance
but requires liability auto insurance.
The car insurance companies respond like you would expect car insurance
companies to do. People that have ZERO accidents or tickets on their
records get very very low rates. Everyone else who has more and more
tickets get higher and higher rates.

So, along comes blue collar Joe Schmoe who gets 3 speeding tickets in a 2
year
period. The insurance companies jack his rates up sky high. Joe can't
afford that but he has to drive to his job, so what does he do? Simple, he
drives without insurance. If he gets pulled over for a moving violation he
hands the cop an old proof of insurance and makes an excuse and 9
times out of 10 the cop won't write a non-insurance ticket (as a point of
fact here, I have done this myself, not intentionally, but when I checked
the
proof of insurance later that I had handed the cop I noticed that it's date
was expired, and no I didn't get ticketed for non-insurance) or if Joe
doesen't
want to risk that he just simply uses a computer and prints up a proof of
insurance form with fake policy number and such.

No problem, everything is fine. This goes on for a couple years. One day
Joe T-bones a new Lexus and it's his fault.
No problem for Joe, he was driving a $500 beatermobile anyway. Nobody
got hurt in the accident so when the Lexus driver angrily calls it into
the cops, the cops tell him to exchange information and quit bothering them
they have more important crimes to go out on. (and yes that has happened
to me once, I was T-boned in a suburb, and the cops literally would not
come out, even when I and later my father, called) Joe gives the Lexus
driver a
pile of fake insurance data and drives off with the front end of his car
caved in, or if his car can't run, just leaves it by the side of the road
where
the city tows it off as an abandonded vehicle a week later. The Lexus
gets towed to an adjuster who totals out the $30,000 vehicle.

Who pays for the Lexus? That drivers policy.
Specifically, the uninsured motorist clause of that policy. Joe has no real
assets to speak of and the best the other insurance company can do is
garnish his wages if they can ever get a judgement against him, which might
be
difficult if he just skips town.

So what you end up with is you let the insurance companies jack rates
up on what they claim are not as good drivers, and you just get more people
running around without insurance. And the people running around without
insurance are the most likely to have accidents. So, the policies of
everyone
else end up paying, anyway. To keep profitable, the insurance companies
have to raise rates.

And the end result is the exact same, either way you have it. Everyones
rates go up.

Oh, I'm sure you can get some satisfaction that the people who get into
accidents and don't have insurance get a ticket for failing to have
insurance.
Big fucking deal. All that happens is the traffic court suspends the ticket
fine if the defendant can show proof of insurance. So rather than paying
a fine the person just pays for an insurance policy that they show the court
and the ticket is dismissed. An insurance policy that they should have been
paying for anyway. Some deterrent!!

Now, I don't know the specifics of the rules that CA enacted (I've only
asked you for them 3 times) so I cannot say exactly what they were doing.
But I can say that there is only ONE way to get insurance rates down,
and that is to do 3 things. First, regulate the companies and force them
to keep rates as close to their actual costs as can be to make a reasonable
profit. Second, to get as many drivers on insurance as possible. Last, to
prevent as many high-risk (people with DUI's etc) drivers as possible from
driving -at all-.. It is a catch-22. Rates won't drop unless more people
get
insurance, but more people won't get insurance unless rates are lower, and
save physically confining people, you can't pry the steering wheel away from
them.

Obviously, CA must
have created these regulations you don't like that are forcing lower rates,
with these 3 things in mind, with the idea that it would help increase the
number of
policyholders. Maybe it did, maybe not. Maybe CA fell down on the
enforcement end of it, maybe not. Maybe the implementation was fucked
and so they had to abandon some of them. I don't know because you haven't
given a reference in this discussion to point to this story of yours being
as you
told it.

But I think if you consider it more carefully
you will realize that the TOTAL rate cost in a given group like a state
that is passed on to the policyholders of that state is going to be the same
whether many or few people are on insurance, and whether rates are
equalized for everyone or are allowed to vary. Total rate costs are
dependent
on what the insurance companies pay out, and that is dependent on
the rate of accidents in the group. If you want to drop rates, then you
can only do it by decreasing the accident rate, and the quickest way to do
that
is to remove the high risk drivers from driving. NOT from insurance -
because then the uninsured clauses cover them - but from DRIVING.

Mandatory 1 year jail time for DUI would probably go a long, long way
to doing this, you know. Not practical for many reasons. Do you have any
answers on how to keep people from illegally driving?

No not at all, that is an apples to oranges comparison.

What regulations? Be specific.

Regulations can be reversed for a lot of reasons, including bribes to
politicians
(excuse me I mean campaign contributions) The simple fact a reversal
happened
(a fact you still have not established) is no proof of anything.

Sure, and I can say that President Bush has never made a decision that
WASN'T stupid. Am I going to have any credibility? Not unless I
make a case for it. Just like your statement that "CA does stupid things"
has no credibility unless you make a case for it. Which you have not done
since you have not ever mentioned these specific regulations that you
claim are stupid and that were revoked.

What you have done is setup what is called a "straw man"

Humanity has always been at that point, at least in the conservative vs
liberal or whig vs republican or whatever you want to look at. Review how
consensus developed on slavery, for example. Uncle Tom's Cabin was
a pack of incendiary lies, most slaves were not treated that way - but it
dragged the country more liberal, so more and more people were willing
to countenance outright abolition. The
South would never have succeeded from the Union if they had thought that
reasonable centrist discussion would have preserved the status quo. Most of
the people in the South did in fact NOT want to succeed and regarded it
as only a last ditch effort to preserve status quo, and politicians on both
sides were frantically trying to broker a compromise right up to the day
the Civil war was declared.

Look again at the whole Gay Marriage thing. For damn near 30 years gays
have
been trying to get some kind of civil recognition so they could do legal
things
like have inheritance of property, etc. Argument after argument on fairness
and such was made, whereupon both the right and the left nodded their heads
and said I know what your talking about, it isn't fair, and we will do
something
about it. Then of course, nothing ever was done.

Finally the gay community said **** it and started pushing ultra-left
agenda,
and managed to get some gay marriage laws in a few minor states. Panic,
panic, oh God the sky is falling. But guess what - now we have real action
on
the civil union legal recognition thing. Never would have happened if not
for
the ultra-left.

Reaganomics did exactly the same thing, except from the right. Taxes on the
ultra rich under Carter were so cockeyed that after a certain income level,
earning more income would actually reduce your take home pay below that
of someone earning less income. So what was the point of continuing to
make more money? The same thing was on corporations. Ronnie and friends
realized to make a change they would have to argue from the rediculous
positiion
of let's get rid of all taxes entirely, on the rich that is, so that supply
side economics
would work. Ultra right wing arguments intended only to drag the center
more
right, to get things back to functioning.

Yes but - the problem is that this argument has ALWAYS been used,
throughout history.

Undoubtedly the Romans used it when they built a road through the
provences.

It is nothing more than fundamental mental laziness. People do not change
their opinions of anything without being needled into using their brain.
Politicians
use the 5 minute sound bite to get people emotionally worked up, so they
actually will get off their mental duffs and start thinking.

Look at the movie Farenheit 911. Some facts wrapped in a huge amount of
emotion. The classic 5 minute sound bite. The conservatives were scared to
death it would swing the election, but in the end it didn't. Or, did it?

Well, here's the deal. What the movie did was suddenly start putting both
the hawks and the people that called themselves moderates into the position
of trying to defend against the seemingly wild accusations made in the
movie.
And it was that process of working up the defence was when the minds of
the hawks and of the moderates were opened, and they suddenly started
seeing things that didn't jive with their opinions of how things were. So
the
defence when it came, wasn't solid and wholehearted. In fact it was the
beginning of the end. That movie was, in many ways, the modern Uncle Toms
Cabin.

Bill, I live in OR and there are land use regulations like this all over the
map.

For example, the state recently passed, via initative, the property
compensation law. Meaning that if government does anything that
decreases property value - such as institute a new regulation that
for example bans building within 100 feet of a stream in order to
preserve habitat - that the property owner can sue for compensation
from the government.

So how does the state handle it if they want to prevent someone
from building 100 feet of a stream? Simple. They pass a regulation
that specifies where toxicidity levels must be measured in a stream.
Such as no more than 3 inches from the outflow of any storm drain
into the stream. Then they measure the toxicity of the water at that
point and declare the entire stream contaminated. Since federal
regulations prohibit building within 100 feet of a contaminated stream
the property owner has no recourse under the law to sue since
the new regulation did not directly limit the property rights.

And that is just a quick made up simple one. I could dig up a lot
more interesting and complex ones with some time. Some from your
own state, I'd imagine.

Government has learned it is risky to out and out ban things that
are permitted. Such as, smoking. But, you can ban things that
make the permitted activity almost impossible to do, and achieve
the same result. Like banning smoking in buildings. Or better yet,
set minimum smoke sensitivity levels for building smoke detectors
so high that any cigarette will set them off.

You want to limit handguns? Sure. Ban carrying them exposed (frightens
the public - New York has this ban) then never issue concealed weapons
permits without an extreme fight.

You want to limit the speed limit to 55Mph? Sure - set the national limit
to 75Mph with the stipulation that the limit can only be 75 on a class -A
freeway - then underbuild roads so that the congestion on the only class A
freeway is so bad that the speed is limited anyway just due to that.

No, it wasn't.

It is my fervent hope that all people, black and white, turn their backs on
ALL
government efforts to rebuild housing in any of the under-sea-level housing
in
New Orleans, even if the government is giving away the housing for free. I
would
be very contented to never hear again any pleas for disaster assistance from
New Orleans due to flooding there. If the black advocates in New Orleans
had
any brains they would tell all their constituants to hold back, and let the
flood areas
fill up with poor dumb white crackers, then the next flood would get more
whites
than blacks. But I will bet you money that they won't - instead, all the
groups
will go rushing back there like hogs with both trotters in the trough once
the free
money shows up. Stupidity is just as prevalent among whites as blacks.

Ted

 

Enough pulled out that it was a hardship on the consumer. The problem
with it is that an unreasonable law was passed. You seem to think that
if a law is passed that causes all but one company to leave, then it, by
definition can't be a problem since there was one company that decidied
to stick around. The law was repealed when it was clear that it was
hurting everyone - primarily the consumer.

Ummm - yes. Everyone suffered - therefore - yeah - I object to it.

Certainly am. They created a problem out of stupidity.

I won't call them rediculous, however, I will call them ridiculous.

OK - so Mr. Schmoe breaks the law.

There'e the problem. No need to go forward with the hypothetical. Fix
that problem first.



One day

That's why the whole system needs to be managed fairly. You're throwing
in multiple problems to say that one particular aspect is bad that may
or may not be bad.

And if they do damage or cause injury or death while uninsured they
should go to jail or prison, depending. If that's not happening, then
make sure you blame the correct causes.

Sorry - I can't give them - I only remember what was on the news at the
time of it happening. I'm not going to waste my time on a Google search
for something that happened so long ago. I can say this for sure: The
state of CA passed legislation that mandated insuring the uninsurable at
the same rates as everyone else causing the major players to pull their
business out of the state. The state realized it had made a mistake
when everyone started suffereing and bitching. End of story.

Maybe that's your problem with this - you are thinking present tense.
This happened early to mid 90's. This particular problem is not
something that is ongoing at this time. I used a past event as an
illustration that CA does not learn very well from its mistakes of not
anticipating unintended consequences.

Total rate costs are

I don't have the references. Does that mean it didn't happen? All that
means is worst-case: You don't believe it. No problem. You want to
argue that CA didn't allow people to build houses in areas and
simultaneously made it illegal to clean brush from around those
properties so they wouldn't burn down? I'm not citing references for
that either. But it happened - and most people remember it from the
news stories 3 years ago. The insurance thing happened too. Believe it
- or not - I don't care.

You apparently don't know what straw man means. There are many examples
of CA repeatedly doing the same type of thing (i.e., putting blinders on
to unintended consequences which should be obvious and in the process
injuring innocent people - excedpt how innocent are the people if they
keep voting in ways that allow it?).

A fallacious (no pun intended) argument. Any person can will anything
to anyone else. Perfect example of dishonest politics - i.e., acting as
if it is a given fact that a person - gay or otherwise - can't will
something to another person - gay or otherwise.

And the definition of "it" is the problem, eh?

God bless the states that have "must issue unless..." laws!

You can call me crackA, but you can't call me crackER (from Mike Birbiglia)

then the next flood would get more

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

But, these are systems, with lots of aspects, and you cannot understand them
unless you treat all of the aspects together.

It is like taxes. The government finds that it's difficult to extract tax
money from
the citizenry if they take it out in large lumps, like a once in a year
property
tax payment. So they lower the property tax and stick in a sales tax that
takes the money in nickles and dimes. Either way the citizenry pays the
same amount of taxes, it is just the entire tax systems are different.

You can't argue that since one state has no sales tax that they all ought
not to,
since your not comparing the 2 states' tax systems, your just comparing
one aspect. You have to look at the entire systems and all aspects of them.

Why? These are accidents, not intentional things. Why should someone
who kills another driver by accident get out of going to prison just because
they happen to have a lot of insurance?

Whether or not they are insured has nothing to do with a finding of
criminal liability.

A 10 year old issue is not relevant as to how CA behaves today, that is too
old.

The brush clearance issue is a conflect between
the FEDERAL Endangered Species Act and what the CA homeowners
in those areas want. And as I said, the homeowners can simply choose
NOT to own homes in a habitat reserve, and those that do can carry plenty
of fire insurance.

Except that guess what - the gay community is now getting what "it" wanted
for years, the fortune 1000 are all putting gay/straight neutral language
in their health insurance policies, states are moving to enact civil
recognition
laws, etc.

All due to what you call dishonest politics. Maybe so, but it worked.

In the final analysis of this emissions thing, here's the deal. When you
can
step off the plane onto the tarmac in LAX and look straight up, and see
-orange-, not blue, sky, well then obviously the pollution rules are not
working there. And if they aren't working there, how are they working
everywhere else? How are you going to argue that there's such a thing
as an acceptable level of pollution? OK, so it's acceptable if we can't
see it?

Well, so CA is going to take steps to get that sky blue again. They are
going to use their population as the muscle to force very tight emissions
rules to get their own skies blue again. And damn everyone else in every
other state. How else are they supposed to act? Is there any other way
to get their skies blue again? Or are you going to just say that since they
have a high population density, that all those people are just going to have
to suffer and suck up more pollution so that the rest of the country
doesen't
have to spend some extra money?

It isn't CA's responsibility to worry about the rest of the country.
They must make an extreme decision because the reasonable approaches
have been tried and aren't working there.

Ted

 

But different taxes target different groups too. For example, senior citizens
might prefer high income taxes and low property taxes than the converse.
Although the systems may differ (and some states may leave certain services to
counties, while other states may have no county governments/taxes at all), the
total tax burden for all taxes combined can vary widely too. Justice Brandeis
called the states 50 laboratories of democracy, and it's great that each state
can choose its own destiny. It's not great when the federal government steps in
and tries to micromanage items that they have no constitutional duty to control.

True. Although you can look at a state like New Hampshire which has no sales
taxes AND no income taxes and conclude that their property tax must be sky
high. While it is higher than many states, the total tax burden for New
Hampshire residents is relatively low compared to almost every other state.