Editor’s note: This is Part II of a five part series that provides an essential basis for the understanding of energy transitions and use. The opening post on definitions was yesterday.

Baseline calculations for modern electricity generation reflect the most important mode of the U.S. electricity generation, coal combustion in modern large coal-fired stations, which produced nearly 45% of the total in 2009. As there is no such thing as a standard coal-fired station I will calculate two very realistic but substantially different densities resulting from disparities in coal quality, fuel delivery and power plant operation. The highest power density would be associated with a large (in this example I will assume installed generating capacity of 1 GW_e) mine-mouth power plant (supplied by high-capacity conveyors or short-haul trucking directly from the mine and not requiring any coal-storage yard), burning sub-bituminous coal (energy density of 20 GJ/t, ash content less than 5%, sulfur content below 0.5%), sited in a proximity of a major river (able to use once-through cooling and hence without any large cooling towers) that would operate with a high capacity factor (80%) and with a high conversion efficiency (38%).…

[Editor’s note: This is Part I of a five-part series by Vaclav Smil that provides an essential basis for the understanding of energy transitions and use. Dr. Smil is widely considered to be one of the world’s leading energy experts. His views deserve careful study and understanding as a basis for today’s contentious energy policy debates. Good intentions or simply desired ends must square with energy reality, the basis of Smil’s worldview.]

Energy transitions – be they the shifts from dominant resources to new modes of supply (from wood coal, from coal to hydrocarbons, from direct use of fuels to electricity), diffusion of new prime movers (from steam engines to steam turbines or to diesel engines), or new final energy converters (from incandescent to fluorescent lights) – are inherently protracted affairs that unfold across decades or generations.…

[Editor note: Bryce’s Power Hungry, released today, is his second book on energy after Gusher of Lies and fourth book overall.]

In his brand new book Power Hungry, energy journalist and Austin apiarist Robert Bryce marshals many numbers to plainly show how modern culture exacts power from energy to save time, increase wealth, and raise standards of living. Bryce also dispenses common sense to citizens and policy makers for an improved environment, a more productive economy, and a more enlightened civil society.

Inspired by enegy writings of Rockefeller University’s Jesse Ausubel, and the University of Manitoba’s prolific Vaclav Smil, he makes the case for continuing down the path of de-carbonizing our machine fuels—a process begun two hundred years ago when we turned from wood to fossil fuels and huge reservoirs of impounded water.…

Word on the political street is that a 15 cent increase in the federal gasoline tax may well be included in the final draft of a bill being prepared by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and John Kerry (D-MA) to address global warming.   Shell, British Petroleum, and ConocoPhillips – are said to support the tax because it’s a less costly intervention in the transportation fuel market (for them anyway) than alternative interventions that might otherwise find their way into this prospective legislation.  Shell et al. may be right about that, but be that as it may, this would still constitute lousy public policy.  A gasoline tax hike ought to be resisted.

Higher Taxes Will Not Alter Climate Under Anyone’s Math

The proposed gasoline tax increase will have no significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. …