Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Aeronaut]

All I’m going to say about Obama is that he’s a charismatic leader in a time when that is sorely needed. While I didn’t vote for him, he is my President, so there is no point in bickering about that drift.

I researched the US energy consumption sources and conversion efficiencies last week for a special report aimed at selling FF by the numbers. The idea is to repackage that core data for a relentless article marketing campaign aimed at highly emotionally charged issues such as global warming, energy independence, and clean water for developing countries. Here’s the breakdown:

40% of US energy comes from oil, much of it for transportation fuels;
60% from electricity

Charging and discharging batteries is 90% efficient;
Electric motors are 85% efficient;
Burning fuels for heat is 80% efficient;
Internal combustion engines are only 30% efficient.

Coal provides 50% of US electricity;
Nuclear provides 20%;
Natural gas provides 18%;
Other sources provide 12%;

Due to inefficiencies of a crumbling grid, coal-fired electricity sent long distances can end up using only 10% of the BTUs used to produce it as useful electricity when you flip the switch. This means that after we divert farmland and water to growing bio fuels to burn for thermo-electric power we should be locked up in the loony bin.

Sure, wind and solar have free fuel. Once we’ve paid for the installation and accepted their problems with uneven supply and transmission losses through the grid. They are best suited for powering a house with direct current (RV) appliances through a bank of batteries.

Anybody who ignores the bigger picture of how many BTUs are required to produce and deliver a kilowatt hour, let alone how many gallons of water and how many tons of carbon dioxide are produced in the entire process is leaving himself open to merciless ridicule in a skeptical press ruled by entrenched special interests.