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The Monitor 
November 10, 2008 at 1:59 am
I suppose you realize it, but the KPFT archives, since at least Wednesday has only dead links, that is the station identification is there, but there is nothing but silence for the rest. At least that’s the case for me, here in Japan. I’m having no problems with archives from the other other Pacific stations. If you’ve noticed the problem, you might put a mention on the website. Thanks
June 28, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Mark,
Since your signal was off the air today I took the liberty of streaming it. I’m glad I did. While I realize you don’t take callers because of your time constraints and I wouldn’t quarrel with that in the slightest one of your guests, Robert Bryce provided an incomplete picture of the energy crisis that engulfs us.
He starts off with very sound reasoning. He argues, for instance, that ethanol is a net energy looser and it uses crops for food instead for fuel. I would add, though he didn’t mention it, that ethanol could only replace 17% of the oil we use in transportation even if the all arable land were devoted to ethanol production.
He also argues that fossil fuels are far more energy dense than batteries and that’s why the gasoline car wins and, again, who could argue with that although he fails to mention how efficiency trumps that advantage. There will be more on that later.
Where he goes off the rails is when he off hand dismisses the very real threat of peak oil without qualifying that remark. Peak oil is real and it has nothing to do with running out of oil. It has to do with the production peak and decline in the steady abundant availability of cheap, easily extracted and refined light sweet crude oil. The top oil industry executives from Royal Dutch Shell, Elf Total, and the Defense Department acknowledge this threat. Even a private report like the SAIC Hirsch Report 2005 http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/oil_peaking_netl.pdf assesses the threat of peak oi, its implications and how there will not be an easy out of this coming energy crisis.
While Bryce acknowledges that operating costs of gasoline cars beat electric cars because they are cheaper, in up front consumer costs, he ignores the externalities that make these cars affordable and cheap oil, relative to electric cars, possible. No where does he mention the cost in defense dollars to secure access to future oil reserves which all point to the Middle East. No where does he acknowledge the all too obvious cost to gulf coast fisherman who’s economic well beings are sacrificed on this artificial alter of cheap oil. He fails to mention the costs of propping up petro-dictators who abuse human rights and commit human rights crimes.
One thing Bryce never mentions when he discusses energy density which is a very real consideration is that electric cars make up for that lack of energy density substantially because the cars’ electric motors are anywhere from 80% efficient, for series DC motors or 90% efficient for AC induction motors. The efficiency of gasoline powered cars is 12%. 50% of a car’s fuel consumption is simply wasted as heat. This is why car heaters have been a standard part of automobiles for at least 70 years. Once straw man that Bryce sets up is the need for infrastructure for these cars without acknowledging that infrastructure for these cars is as close as the nearest electrical outlet. While there are no commercial electric vehicles yet they will be hear in a matter of months and not years. The Nissan Leaf goes on sale in 5 months and I am on that list of potential buyers. The Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid electric vehicle which gets an all round trip distance of 40 miles all electric before the battery kicks in will be on sale in November as well. Yes these cars are expensive but the chief component that makes these cars more expensive is the batteries but the cost of lithium batteries has dropped remarkably in the past 3 years making lithium ion batteries cost competitive with lead-acid on a total cost of ownership basis. Further the air and the environment don’t car if the rich, the middle class or the poor buy the cars if the emissions of CO2, VOCs, oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide go down.
Finally Bryce’s faith in nuclear power, which is badly misplaced, demonstrates his failure to comprehend the efficiency end of energy. While it is true that no fuel known to man that we can harness is as dense as uranium 235, the nuclear reactors that harness it are some of the best models in energy inefficiency available. The problem is that they produce far too much heat. This compounds the inefficiency of nuclear power with the need to keep the reactor cool at all costs. The problem is as global warming makes itself felt in ever more substantial ways the water these reactors rely on to cool off will be less available because the water temperatures will exceed environmental limits on heat pollution, the water itself becomes to warm to use or it’s availability is not there due to drought. This actually happened in the southeast during a recent severe drought there and also in France where France’s national government shutdown one of its reactors.
As for cost, nothing kills your local economy quite like nuclear-power because while coal costs about 5 cents a kilowatt hour nuclear power costs about 20 to 25 cents per kilowatt-hour. Take the amount of power you use and calculate the monthly charge for the power you use. It costs between $8 billion to $10 billion to produce a single power plant. This makes them too expensive to build and many utilities have simply cancelled their projects. Wall Street simply refuses to finance these projects because, as they witnessed during the 3 Mile Island accident, they will simply not fund a project where a $2 billion asset becomes a several $100 million liability (in late 1970’s dollars) in a fortnight. This is why nuclear power can not survive without direct government underwriting and most importantly indemnity from accidents. Well that’s going to be a tough sell, particularly in the light of the gulf oil spill, to a public that is increasingly skeptical of industry insiders making claims that their technology is safe. These projects also take anywhere from a decade to a decade and a half to complete. Benefits of nuclear power, if any, are a long way off indeed.
So Bryce is right about gasoline, electric cars and nuclear power as long as you don’t examine these technologies too closely.
The good news is that he is mostly right about natural gas but it will only be at best a transitional energy strategy because like all fossil fuels it is a finite resource. Eventually, like a balloon popping, there will be little to no natural gas to exploit in North America. So it is best to make the switch to renewables while the lights remain on and the supplies are steady and stable.
Sincerely,
Rick
October 11, 2010 at 10:34 pm
If honeybees die from Bayer’s Imidacloprid, probably earthworms will go, too. (Read labels of Bayer products.) A study of honeybee colony collapse disorder (CCD) reveals that bees allowed to work on only organic crops do not have CCD. Parts of Europe have banned insecticides based on Imidacloprid. EPA has acknowledged, in court, wrongly approving Imidacloprid.
A person qualified to discuss beekeeping is (Mrs.) Wendy Reed of Reed Family Honey up in Montgomery, Texas. She works at Urban Harvest Farmers’ Market; her phone is 936-449-4188.
Two or 3 generations ago, farmers’ kids moved to the cities for better pay; now we have forgotten how to care for soil and fauna. However, we humans are DEPENDENT on clean soil and innumerable tiny creatures. I hope you will discuss CCD, pesticides and honeybees’ importance on a program.
October 19, 2010 at 7:54 am
Thanks for the comment and the letter. I will be discussing this on a show in the near future.
August 2, 2011 at 8:42 am
First of all, thank you for making this content available – I’ve been following “The Monitor” for about a year now and it’s become my favorite source of news. I really enjoy the views and the debates!
But I’m afraid my motive for posting is a more selfish one: I suppose you know, but the podcast list hasn’t been updated in a while (at the moment the past two shows are missing). Would it be possible to do something about that? Since I live in Europe it’s inconvenient to stream live and I rely on the podcast.
Cheers and keep up the good work
August 12, 2011 at 1:31 pm
I, too, am a faraway Monitor fan who must rely on internet communications. Let me echo the previous commenter with a plea to update the site for easy listening to the latest shows!
Thanks.
November 19, 2012 at 10:06 pm
I can’t find you in I-Tunes. What happened?
July 13, 2015 at 2:27 pm
If you use iTunes to podcast you can enter this link to subsrcibe: feed://archive.kpft.org/pa_rss.php?id=monitor
January 15, 2013 at 8:15 am
Is there any way to get your show on ITunes?
July 13, 2015 at 2:31 pm
Try this in itunes: feed://archive.kpft.org/pa_rss.php?id=monitor