When is Clinton detailed Energy Program coming? - Vilsack's is excellent after Obama's coal disaster

[papau]

Clinton says all the right words in a short energy statement - but has no details. Obama has details but the coal to oil idea will both work and is an environmental disaster, while also being a pandering to the Illinois soft coal mining rich folks. Gov. Tom Vilsack's energy program - seems excellent - missing only DME that Asia is developing into a dimethyl ether infrastructure. DME is superior to oil as a fuel and can use the existing liquid infrastructure now set up for cars with gasoline motors.
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Vilsack's program:

A 25-cent per-gallon credit for ethanol from cellular fiber production.

Cut carbon emissions from "new" coal-fired plants by 20 percent via the forced use of the existing technology IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle), with all new power plants built after 2020 required to produce zero carbon emissions by using wind, solar, geothermal, safe nuclear, and coal plants that use carbon capture and sequestration as in the Federal Governments current demonstration project FutureGen, which by 2012 is scheduled to build the world's first zero-emissions fossil fuel power plant, using integrated sequestration and hydrogen production.

Incentives for consumers to purchase petroleum-free cars.

Eliminate petroleum from the U.S. transportation system by 2040.

Cut greenhouse gas emission by 75% by 2050 over 2000 levels.

Set a renewable fuel goal of using 60 billion gallons of renewable fuel per year by 2030, with 45 billion of the 60 billion gallons be cellulosic ethanol and/or biobutanol made from cellulosic materials or biodiesel.

U.S. Department of Energy to be renamed the Department of Energy Security

Include carbon emission standards as part of trade agreement negotiations (e.g., India, China).

C.A.F.E. fuel efficiency standards 50% higher by 2030, with no set intermediate dates by which U.S. automakers must "retool" to achieve this, using the new and developing technolgy of fuel cells, biofuels, plug-in biofuel hybrids or other technologies, and by giving consumers significant incentives to then purchase the petroleum-free automobiles.

By 2010, all fuel providers reduce carbon production by one percent a year.

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http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070214/NEWS09/702140374/1001

(Commonwealth Club San Francisco, California February 13, 2007

Democratic candidate will try to cancel greenhouse gas emissions
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO -


Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said Tuesday that corn-based ethanol will fail to meet the nation's renewable-fuel needs, and he proposed tax incentives to promote other sources as part of a long-term national energy plan.

The outsider candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination said in a speech in San Francisco that if elected, he would propose tax credits to improve the technology to produce other types of ethanol.

"The reality is corn-based ethanol will never be enough to reach our long-term goals," Vilsack told the Commonwealth Club, in remarks prepared for delivery.<snip>

He said cellulosic ethanol - produced from a wide variety of plant and forest waste products - holds the most promise...."The only way we can produce enough renewable fuel domestically is if we greatly improve the technology to create cellulosic ethanol." <snip>


http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070214/NEWS09/702140374/1001
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THE PROBLEM WITH OBAMA'S COAL TO OIL

Surface mining (1) eliminates surface vegetation, (2) can permanently change topography, (3) permanently and drastically alters soil and subsurface geological structure, and (4) disrupts surface and subsurface hydrologic regimes. Secondary mining impacts range from urban development in support of mining to creation of offroad networks for exploration activities. Surface subsidence following long-wall deep mining can dewater stream reaches and divert flows into different surface stream channels that are not adjusted to such increased flows. Altered patterns and delivery rhythms can be expected as well as changes in water quality.

Off-site impacts such as stream pollution can be significant. Water quality impacts can generally be controlled during active mining, but many acid-potent coal reserves cannot be mined with current technology without "residual acid seepage" requiring "uninterrupted perpetual treatment" in order to protect large river systems. Backfilled, reclaimed surface mine sites thus constitute artificial, porous "geological recharge areas" where infiltrating water percolates through the fill and emerges as very acid seeps or springs that often flow even during drought when natural waters dry up. Many receiving streams have low alkalinities (<10 mg/L), and great volumes or distances are required to neutralize even small mine flows that may carry 1,000 to 2,000 mg/L of acid.

he Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S.-based environmental advocacy group, estimates that the production and use of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and other fuels from crude oil release about 27.5 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon. The production and use of a gallon of liquid fuel originating in coal emit about 49.5 pounds of carbon dioxide, they estimate. Even some boosters of the coal-to-oil plants describe them as carbon-dioxide factories that produce energy on the side.

"Before deciding whether to invest scores -- perhaps hundreds -- of billions of dollars in a new industry like coal-to-liquids, we need a much more serious assessment of whether this is an industry that should proceed at all," said David Hawkins, director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, at a recent U.S. Senate hearing.

carbon sequestration - storing excess carbon dioxide below the ground:

While it seems like a good idea, a study has shown that there are serious environmental problems with such a process:


Following CO2 breakthrough, samples showed sharp drops in pH (6.5-5.7), pronounced increases in alkalinity (100-3,000 mg/L as HCO3) and Fe (30-1,100 mg/L), and significant shifts in the isotopic compositions of H2O, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and CH4.

Geochemical modeling indicates that brine pH would have dropped lower but for the buffering by dissolution of carbonate and iron oxyhydroxides.

This rapid dissolution of carbonate and other minerals could ultimately create pathways in the rock seals or well cements for CO2 and brine leakage. Dissolution of minerals, especially iron oxyhydroxides, could mobilize toxic trace metals and, where residual oil or suitable organics are present, the injected CO2 could also mobilize toxic organic compounds.

Environmental impacts could be major if large brine volumes with mobilized toxic metals and organics migrated into potable groundwater.