1) They must have started this years ago.

2) As elsewhere, once big projects get started, they can be really, really hard to stop, and the USA has plenty of those too. Of course, China, being China, has *big* projects. Three Gorges comes to mind, for better or worse. Obviously, it would be far, far better if they burned the coal and ran PHEVs, and even better if they didn’t burn the coal.

3) It’s been a few years since I’ve been there [I value my lungs], but I used to deal with some fairly senior people, and while I have no idea what they’re really thinking these days, I was quite impressed by the number of people in government with science and technology backgrounds. Of course, the politics is far less visible than here.

But, put another way, there might be at least some modest hope that this won’t be a widespread Chinese thing. ~20 years ago, gave a talk to the Chinese Petroleum Ministry’s research group, about 100 people. Maybe half of them had never met an American. The other half were wearing sweatshirts from Stanford, U of Michigan, etc, where they had done their graduate degrees. There were lots of smart folks.

4) Needless to say, it might help if the US government were leading the charge, rather than doing what it’s been doing.

I love reading your blog; thanks so much for the terrific information, analysis, and opinions.

In this post, though, I think you went too far in your final paragraph, specifically in calling the Chinese “dumb.” As a Westerner working on climate change-related issues in China, I am quite sensitive to China’s receptiveness - or lack thereof - to Western perspectives, especially on energy and environmental issues.

Insulting or otherwise demeaning Chinese policies (or people) bolsters two trends: China ignoring the opinions of foreign experts and xenophobic Westerners blaming all of the Earth’s problems on China. Neither is the direction we want to be working towards.

It’s true that the Chinese government has confusing and sometimes contradictory statements and policies on CTL. Let’s work constructively on understanding and reconciling these contradictions, rather than dismiss them with insults.

Best regards,
Vance Wagner
Program Manager, Low Carbon Fuels Program
The Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation
Beijing, China

I thinkit is clear to anyone who reads this blog or even this post that I don’t blame all the earth problems on China — though it is now clear that the United States and China together will either solve this problem or destroy the planet. I don’t think China pays attention to foreign experts, honestly. If they did, they wouldn’t have so many climate-destroying policies.

I believe the Chinese have a perception of themselves as wiser than the rest of the planet — and many of us have admired them for the ancient wisdom of their culture. Their actions on global warming will forever destroy that image — and I think they ought to know that.

the irony is that they are taking all of these actions in order to become a world economic leader — if not the world economic leader — but by the time they do so they will, like us, be a pariah nation for having destroyed the climate in their single-minded pursuit of “wealth.”

http://www.govtrack.us/ congress/ bill.xpd?tab=summary&bill=s110-154

Just like GM, you say, “In all-around driving, plug-ins could thus get between 80 m.p.g. and 160 m.p.g., compared to about 45 m.p.g. for today’s Toyota Prius,” as if you want us to believe that electricity is free. If it is generated by natural gas, the co2 from the necessary electricity generation is a little better than corresponding Prius operation. If it is generated from coal, it will be quite a lot worse. If this use of electricity ends up with coal power enabling large SUV’s, with electric motors to help them meet the CAFE requirements, then the disaster.

The problem with reliance on the electricity grid, is that it “puts the environmental policy focus squarely on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, where there is the greatest opportunity to make high-volume” (my view) disaster. If we can simply ban coal fired power plants, my point is invalid, but our mining, railroad, and power generating infrastructure based on coal is not easily banned. Were that what could happen, what would be the political effect of US electric bill tripling, or more.

Even ethanol, in its various forms, does not seem to hold up as a real and significant path to co2 reduction.

I listened to your Berkeley speech with that of Art Rosenfeld, where you asked “why students aren’t marching over this?” I provide some strong, potential answers at http://www.miastrada.com. I ask, “isn’t this worth getting over pre-conceived notions about how cars should look?” Up to this point, I sense that the Detroit fashion industry is still in control.

I also make a complaint that the misleading representation of plug-in hybrid mileage has the effect of lulling the public into complacency. The public generally sees only the MPG. When you leave out the electrical energy, it makes it look like there is a real answer there.

BTW, the same process can be used to turn TRASH into fuels. See the web site for Rentech ( see http://www.rentechinc.com ). The same process can be used for good or for ill. I would be happy to see our landfills emptied. This is not a hypothetical, they are doing it. They can also use biomass and have a project in N. California to do so. FT can be a green solution.

Syntroleum (http://www.syntroleum.com/main.aspx) has a joint venture with Tyson to turn left over chicken “junk” into fuels. Again, a much better use for trimmings than a landfill.

It is quite feasible to convert a coal driven plant to consuming trash (or biomass) at a later date. I would rather rail against the coall than against the process, since the process can help make a cleaner world or use biomass.

Also, BTW, the last time an oil crisis came about (’70s) Volkswagen engineers figured out a way to replace the coal process heat in F-T fuels creation with nuclear process heat. To the extent Nuclear becomes acceptable, this becomes acceptable. That cuts the CO2 down by about 75% if I remember it right. Yes, you can put a nuke in your fuel tank.

I would also point out that your PHEV will still need some amount of motor fuel from some source for longer trips. I’d rather that be made from recycled trash via FT than that it be OPEC oil.

One last minor point: AGW (human caused global warming) is having a Reality Check right now. The debate will be settled one way or the other (and not just by shouting that “THE DEBATE IS OVER!!!!” when it isn’t.). How? Solar cycle 24 has failed to start. This is a Big Deal. See: http://www.solarcycle24.com for the current state of the sun.

If this continues, we get a Dalton Minimum or worse, a Maunder Minimum type event (see the wiki on sun spots). That would be a Very Bad Thing in that one of these was the Little Ice Age and the other was “1800 and froze to death”. We would be one volcano way from “froze to death”. For a description, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

In the next 2 to 5 years we will have a definitive answer. Either we start to freeze or we don’t. If we don’t, and it gets hotter, then it’s time to “duck and cover” and embrace AGW. If we start to freeze, then it’s time to burn coal. Lots of it and fast. (And start talking about the AlGore Cold Period

I’d rather have the FT plant built and the ability to switch between coal and trash than to have nothing and to be staring at mountains of trash and the harbor frozen around New York… as it was in the past.

BTW, the present non-start of Cycle 24 was predicted many years ago by a guy named Landscheidt. It will be interesting to see if he is proved right. When it does start, it is expected to be very short with few spots. Cycle 25 is predicted to be even weaker. If the prediction is correct we get very cold fast.

So we are at a cross roads: In the next few years we find out if “We Did It” is right or if “The Sun Did It” is right. I see no reason to panic until we know for sure. Until then we ought to build for a flexible future and FT lets us do that.

Political Bias:

My bias is toward PHEV with an onboard small Diesel engine fueled with Diesel derived from algae. I own a few thousand shares of stock in Global Green Solutions (GGRN) who have the fuel process and in Quantum Fuels World Wide (QTWW) who make the powerplant for the Fiskar Hybrid coming Real Soon Now and make the hydrogen fueling systems going into Norway and Iceland.

I trade into and out of SYNM, SYMX, and RTK as the market moves them and have no particular emotional / political attachment to them though I like the trash recycle aspect. Sometimes I own SSL (SASOL - the folks in S. Africa who have been doing FT for more like 30 years since the ’70s oil embargo, not 6 years as stated above) but have avoided them since the electrical and coal supplies in S. Africa became political footballs.

I *want* a PHEV future with algae derived Diesel sucking CO2 out of the air, but accept that FT may be the right solution especially as a bridge solution away from OPEC. It will take 10 to 20 years to retire the existing vehicle fleet, since trains, trucks, and ships are not re-engined very often and cars last about 10 years in the fleet. Fleet change is a decades process, just like drilling. So we make FT plants to get off OPEC oil, then cut them over to trash / biomass feedstock if AGW is proven in the next couple of years. It’s the coal that’s the issue, not FT.

We cannot grow enough switchgrass to feed inefficient ICEs, whether it be by cellulosic ethanol or FT processes. We could however easily power PHEVs with electricity from wind or solar, using a tiny fraction of the land area. FT liquids are a dead end.

One can also put a “nuke in your tank” using the Los Alamos GreenFreedom process. Doing so is as stupid as using nukes for FT because the ICE is so inefficient that you waste most of the energy that went into making liquid fuel. Producing electricity and feeding it to PHEVs is much wiser (as you suggest at the end–one of the few points on which we agree).