Excellent report even if many of us (ICE lovers) would rather continue burning liquid fuel (from all sources) till the last drop.

The solution has been around for almost 150 years.

Progressive but massive and widespread electrification of most (if not all) ground transportation vehicles, industrial processus, commercial operations, agricultural operations, domestic HVAC etc is the best way to reduce GHG while retaining productive land for food crops to feed the 10+ billions of us in the near future.

Sometime between 2020 and 2050, current + improved ICE machines and burning liquid fuel could be curtailed or simply taxed out on existance.

Jack, when did I say I know it all? If I knew it all I would spending my time ruling the universe.

Harvey, you're forgetting a few basics: electricity is pretty dirty (coal), complete electrification would melt the planet and cause the destruction of all nature and life, and it's not very feasible, unless you use... carbon-negative bioenergy, the only renewable form of energy that can be stored, traded and that reduces carbon emissions (all other forms of energy, including wind, solar and nuclear, are all carbon-positive).

In short, if we want to fight climate change, there's no escape from biomass. People don't seem to understand this.

Harvey:

Unless the engineering shortcomings of battery technology are corrected, I doubt we'll see complete electrification. ICEs may be comparatively inefficient, but pure EVs can't match the portability and energy density of liquid fuels without fast-charging batteries and longer ranges (A123, Altairnano?). Perhaps as pure commuter vehicles, but not in farming or long-distance applications.

I'd love to think otherwise, because electricity is fairly easy to produce. But I haven't seen any signs that we're on the verge of a sea change in personal transport. Maybe in a 2020-2050 timeframe you could be right (even without piling on carbon taxes), but I'm not willing to predict anything that far ahead.

Jonas:

There's some very exciting developments in geothermal energy going on that could displace a lot of natural gas and coal. All part of a diverse energy portfolio.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/08/volvo-demonstra.html is where a comparison, using Volvo trucks, and that includes hydrogen, can be found. It looks as if hydrogen does well from an environmental perspective, yet fares poorly in terms of energy value and infrastructure.

Jonas,

In the states it is mostly coal, but in France it is Nuclear and in Iceland it is geothermal. By the way what is "carbon negative" by your definition?

One of the other fond memories of being a 24 year old is feeling clever by saying things like "I didn't say that" even when my actions, words, and attitudes already speak indicated my attitude quite clearly.

It's really exciting using one's brain for the first time. It's scary thinking about the day the training wheels come off.

Ah, the memories.

Jonas,
Clearly PHEV will be the stepping stone, to get that range. Cover 40 miles/d with grid derived power and you have the vast majority of driving covered. More if you need it on occasion as a decent hybrid. Coal may not be pristine, but the inefficiency of ICE's creates results in 3 to 5x more carbon than EV's running on electricity from even a 100% coal generated source (which we are far from). Meanwhile other sources, including renewables, increase their share. And clever approaches to decrease the carbon emission of coal plants are coming on board. Alliant is working with cofiring biomass (switchgrass) with coal, which not only lowers the emission per unit energy produced, but, thanks to an extensive root system, the grass actually captures more carbon than it emits! Another approach is being taken by NRG working with GreenFuel - testing capturing the carbon emission in algae bioreactors and converting the algae into biofuel (although there is no reason that they couldn't also use it to create omega three fatty acids for human or aquaculture consumption). Biomass for electricity production is plain and simple a much more efficient way to get energy from the resource. And need not compete with food. Pass a carbon tax or cap and trade and they'll roll it out in a bigger way faster.

The infrastructure for electricity is here. The capacity is here. The source is mainly domestic (some imported NG from Canada). The savings in dollars per mile travelled and in carbon emitted dramatic. The batteries are here. The cars are being released over the next two to three years.

It really bothers me when people look at the economics of first generation ethanol and canola oil and say that in general "biofuels can't work". In a time just before transistors, they might as well have looked at a valve and said electronic computers will never work.

Don,

I would rather use nuclear and renewables for electicity. As oil get more expensive so do oil products, only biomass can replace those (well coal can too but coal can't solve GW as well).

For those interested, the OECD is a remnant of the Cold War, emanating from the Marshall Plan. Now that there's no USSR, it's purposeless, outdated and redundant. It's Secretary General, Angel Gurria, recently got into scandal over his elaborate public-funded expenses. So it's a little humorous to hear this outfit damning biofuels as a waste of capital.

Be that as it may, oil is still expensive and the biofuels train has really left the station at this point, and there's nothing OECD can do aside from denouncing it, assuming anyone's listening to them. They are also being glib by not specifying their own preferred alternatives. One could read this as a general argument for the free market, but the driving force is against this specific oil alternative altogether. To kill all subsidies to folks delivering biofuels now in favor of "research" on second generation techology in the distant future looks to me like a recipe for ridding the oil industry from a pesky competitor.

Jack,

I don't see a problem with my age: I honestly don’t believe I know everything (or even much) precisely because I’m young, I’m certainly not so assure of my knowledge base to attack others with rude and insulting language.

@Ben:

"Carbon-negative" means that you take historic CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere.

Wind, solar, nuclear and other energy concepts are all slightly carbon-positive, carbon-neutral at best, over their entire life-cycle. That is, they add small amounts of CO2.

Socalled 'Bio-energy with Carbon Storage' (BECS) systems on the contrary take CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it away. You grow energy crops, utilize them as fuels in power plants, and sequester the CO2. Alternatively, you grow biogas crops, clean out the CO2 and store it (this can be done independently of power plants), and ship out the ultra-clean, carbon-negative biomethane. This biomethane can then be used in CNG cars and power plants.

The concept was developed by the Abrupt Climate Change Strategy group. If implemented on a global scale, BECS can take us back to pre-industrial CO2 levels by mid-century.

No other energy system is carbon-negative.

So the question becomes: is it ethical to invest in solar, wind or nuclear - all carbon-positive -, when that very money could be invested in BECS systems?

The feasibility of the concept is backed up by some good science (and by the many developments in CCS).

Jonas,

Solar/wind/water/Nuclear are barely carbon positive, they produce carbon due to how they are constructed, which can be changed to be carbon neutral. Biomass and biofuels can supply some of our energy needs but definitely not all of it, I believe in biofuels but believe they are best suited to replacing industrial oil uses that no other renewable energy source can replace. Carbon capture can use either biology or artificial means to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, as long as a carbon sink larger then a carbon producers is made there will be a total carbon sink, this means the carbon made from setting up solar/wind/water/etc can be negated by carbon capture. We simply cannot remove all carbon positive sources but we can reduce them and make larger carbon negative systems to negate them.

I don't see a problem with my age

Naturally.

I honestly don’t believe I know everything (or even much)

You may think you believe that, but your words here indicate otherwise.

I’m certainly not so assure of my knowledge base to attack others with rude and insulting language.

Right, you just troll and pretend like things that have been discussed and settled haven't, make things up completely about what you or others have claimed, and enter into discussions like finance, which you clearly know nothing about, yet unrelentingly hold to your ignorant position -- all while claiming you believe you don't have a "know-it-all" attitude that stems from your narrow-minded "magic bullet" approach that is unfortunately fairly prevalent here.

This behavior, done persistently enough, is what leads me now to treat you as a troll, which you are. If you don't like being treated as a troll, stop acting like one. You needn't get in the last word, since it won't make you "win," you can defer to other people's expertise (people here have a wide variety of it), and you can make attempts to realize that nothing is black-and-white and there are no magic bullets. You can also start being honest about what you've claimed, what others have claimed, and whether something has been covered already and needn't be brought up again.

You can pull that off then you'll be treated as an equal. Otherwise, you'll get treated exactly as you should be.

Back to ignoring you.

What my words indicate about my personallity is subjective. I have stating things in gray, stating the pros and cons of a technology and that there is no single solution (mixed economy), I have also stated the "last word" does not mean victory, I'm not trying to win arguments here (apparently you are), most of us here are trying to have respectful discussion so we can learn and develop collectively.

The rule with trolls is: don't feed them. Any time you "feed" a troll with any comment at all, the troll wins. So you can't ignore a troll sporadically, you have to ignore them completely. You said you believe I was a troll awhile back and that you would ignore me but you haven't kept to that policy. I hope you do now.

Ben: It's ok to be young, Your personality is just fine with me.

It's ok to be young

It sure is. What's not OK is to forget that you are and therefore don't know much.

"I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance."

Ben, the IEA Bioenergy Executive Committee just published a new report on the global potential for bioenergy and biofuels.

Here:
Potential Contribution of Bioenergy to the Worlds Future Energy Demand
http://www.ieabioenergy.com/MediaItem.aspx?id=5586

Pretty impressive numbers:
-under an optimal scenario, bioenergy can deliver 1100 Exajoules by 2050 (world currently consumes 380EJ of fossil energy)
-more reasonable scenario: between 200-400EJ
-of this: 130-260 EJ liquid biofuels for transport
-over the longer term (2100): land availability increases (as efficiency in agriculture increases and global population declines), bioenergy can meet up to 1100 EJ, under the high demand scenario

You see, people underestimate the sustainable biofuel potential. They start from current technologies and agronomic principles, whereas they forget that science and technology deliver ever better bioconversion and production techniques.

Moreover, there is vast untapped potential in developing countries.

Anyways, I know no media will report on that analysis, because it happens to offer an optimistic picture.

I hope GreenCarCongress will report on it, though.

"I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance."

Says someone who proudly can't understand the word "affordable," but will go on and on about affordability and confounding it with profitability.

Jonas,

Now that looks like an interesting report, you'll have to give me awhile to digest it.

Looks like someone has turned to spoofing my ID now.

Perhaps if you didn't post so many snide and dismissive comments, you wouldn't be so easily parodied.

I'd also like to add that anyone denying a confirmable fact gets one free pass along with a hotlink to the information which proves them wrong. After that, they're fair game for any epithet you like.

I reserve the right to make an abundance of snide and dismissive comments if someone is clearly wading into deep waters without a life vest and tries to pull me down with them.