Electric vehicles are already incredibly cheaper than liquid fuel vehicles to operate. Let their range climb a bit and prices come down (as they should with increased manufacturing levels) and we’ll quickly flip off of gas for the majority of our driving.

There’s another factor that may come into play – a demand by the majority of people that we do something about climate change. Already a large majority of Americans recognize that climate change is real and a majority want something done, even if it costs them some money.

We’re watching the Arctic melt this summer, almost certain to set a new ice volume record and fairly likely to set an extent record. If things continue as they have been going we could see a summer melt-out within the next few years. That and a couple more years of extreme weather events like we’ve been experiencing could create an acceptance for a carbon tax or other mechanism that would make fossil fuel use more expensive.

To date all the ‘heat and steam’ output is what one would expect from the electrical input to the system.

The problem is that we do not have the baseline data to show if this is an increasing amount of methane release or normal. It will take a few years to gauge rate.

If we warm up the far north and oceans enough to cause significant methane release then it’s “game over” for us.

All this would do is to increase our global warming problem.

This is sequestered carbon. Leave it where it is or further risk making our planet uninhabitable for life as we know it.

Jacobson and Delucchi have laid out the solution for you in very plain English. All you have to to is to click on the link and read.

They have shown how we can get to an essentially 100% “COMPLETE RENEWABLE ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE” in 20 years if we develop the political will to do so.

Your post is foul. You give us a way to make our future even worse. There is no way that we should be looking for more ways to increase our global warming problem.

One potential alternative fuel that produces greenhouse gas but may be an oil alternative is methane hydrate. This substance is located in vast supplies deep in the ocean in a frozen state

Two main extraction methods have been successfully tested at an experimental site on Canada’s Mackenzie Delta. The first, called depressurization, involves drilling a hole into the hydrate layer to draw down the pressure, causing hydrates to dissociate and gas to flow up the pipe. Thermal injection, the second technique, destabilizes hydrates by pumping hot water into the deposit. Because depressurization requires less energy, Wilson calls it the “lowest-hanging fruit.”
A third method appears promising, too, but has so far only been tested in a lab. Injecting carbon dioxide into a hydrate formation displaces methane, and has the added benefit of locking away an abundant greenhouse gas.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 100,000 to 300 million trillion cu. ft. (tcf) of methane exists globally in hydrate form–most of it in the ocean floor. “There’s more energy potential locked up in methane hydrate formations across the world than in all other fossil energy resources combined,” according to Brad Tomer, director of the Department of Energy’s Strategic Center for Natural Gas and Oil.
Up to 200,000 tcf of methane is in hydrates in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. Two Rhode Island-size areas in the Blake Ridge, east of the Carolinas, contain a total of more than 2012 tcf–110 times the country’s annual natural gas consumption.

But a caution: If methane gas escapes directly to the atmosphere–as a byproduct of extraction, an earthquake or warming ocean waters–the consequences could be dire. Methane is a greenhouse gas 21 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Today, 3000 times more methane exists in hydrate deposits than in the atmosphere. Releasing even a fraction of this amount would amplify global warming(Source: Popular Mechanics,October 1,2009).

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: Anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com.

Bull. Shit.

How can someone writing for this site make such a stupid statement?

Read this…

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030