For my first entry into this grand site I wish to discuss this mess we call the future and why I feel current tech research and development in short and long term eras beats fantasies about "Clean Coal" "Coal 2 Oil" "300 years of oil from a Saudi sized Field" (I know anybody with education knows this is not possible but the right wing uses it anyway)
etc...
One of the best things to keep in mind is that any statement that we can reasonably make oil and coal last centuries without massive destruction to the environment is an outright fabrication or fantasy. Either by those who know their industry in on its knees or by those who can't think outside of being a neocon.
Now before I go on let me just state that I do not believe in the conspiricy theory of speculation and yes it is a conspiricy theory because the whole idea of speculation is these "dark market forces who want nothing but money conspire to get oil and drive the price up to do nothing but sell it for mega profits later" All and all it is nothing but an excuse in my view to lay the blame elseware. Congress is quick to blame on speculators to pass the blame away from decades on inaction when gas was plentiful and cheap.
However, That argument is falling away. Replaced with a realistic notion that cheap oil is limited when the demand is so high. And that is the challenge that will not change for as long as we are addicted to Texas Tea.
So here is the problem. Oil is the remains of prehistoric algae that have died and stored the carbon chains for all these years. It is thick and full of energy. As one barrel of oil replaces a whole team of men for an entire year.
So in any normal energy source you would normally try to conserve and ration out its use so that it lasts for many years. However, With us it was not so. Society decided it wanted to trade MPG for power. The Model T got upwards of 21 MPG!! Today we celebrate when a car gets 35!!! A century later!!!
So naturally all those decades of driving like a nutjob and caring less about 8 MPG sucked most of the reserves to near bone dry levels.
So what is the industry response? DRILL FOR MOAR!!!! Have a look at this topic to see what kind of junk in my view is being posted on other forums http://www.subsim.com/... WHOOPS seems like all that oil that is just going to magically appear will last at most 3 years Cue FAIL music Note the responses this "SUBMAN1" gives in a topic on how much a large oil company makes in a second http://www.subsim.com/...
If anyone tells you we ought to drill "in our backyard" to save the economy. Let them know that it will take upwards of 10-20 years to extract 3 years worth of oil. If they say you are nothing but a treehugging idiot for bringing that up you will know they are lost in my view. Thankfully thanks to Bush, these idiots in my view are being heard less and less.
So we know that you will not drill out of this mess.. What is left?
What is left is R&D but I will go more into that later.
There are those who say the solution is current solar and wind tech. Well, Sadly there is a problem with that line of thought. Mainly with solar... As you see.. The giant solar panels you see hanging on the houses of the rich aren't actually making that much power. Decades of little research have given us a system that is VERY toxic and VERY expensive and VERY poor performing. These systems are designed to power that Dish Network bird you get Sunday NFL from or the GPS bird you are using to drive to grandma's house. Not to pump the large amount of current needed to run a modern home.
So here is the problem. Installing an average system today would take upwards of 10-20-30 years to break even depending on make and model. And in 10-30 years if we aren't sitting in massive energy depression, we will obviously have better and cleaner tech.
So what "is" a better solar system? Well in my view it needs to capture the energy from IR to UV, cost a 4th per watt as current high power systems, be able to be reasonably manufactured in the USA, Environmentally safe, and be able to be applied without a large support structure. Why the big goals? Because in the meantime Coal use is exploding. To power the electric cars initially we will have to plug in on average to a big coal plant that will start to see more activity at night thus even more pollution (Tho with the onsite emission controls MANY times better than a converter on today's cars it is not as bad) The coal industry with its newfound wealth will start to put more pressure on .gov to move the funds to fake "clean coal" and "Coal 2 Oil" So being able to beat it on a cost per watt is not enough. We have to be able to outright make a new coal plant look economically stupid.
This is where R&D comes in. Instead of sitting on their rear ends and waiting for the Bush kissrearends in Congress to start getting some real funds into research. They are devoting time to cracking this egg of solar energy. The most promising in my view is NanoTechnology which has the possibility of not just absorbing IR to UV but deep in the spectrum at FAR less cost and environmental destruction than current methods. The straw that will finally break the back on fossil fuels for a few decades.
Now the next problem is storage. This one is thankfully almost gone as an issue due to three BIG developments recently.
#1 Is EEstor (The most l33t storage breakthrough in decades) http://en.wikipedia.org/... Recently they have actually gone public with some reviewed info. http://media.cleantech.com/...
#2 Cheaper Li-Ion batteries http://www.dailytech.com/... While not as impressive as EEstor due to the lower energy density.. The vastly lower cost can still mean those 40 mile trips to work will be possible. Which is important in the US market.
#3 A LARGE breakthrough in fuel cells! http://uk.reuters.com/...
Along with continued molten salt and nanotechnology research I will say that within a few years we will have solved the storage crisis which is a BIG factor in solving the energy crisis.
Now let us talk about solving the energy crisis itself. The problem is what do we consider "victory" As you could dig up a ton of tons of coal. Burn it to power EEstor batteries and say you have solved the crisis without doing anything....
This is a long term goal because despite the hopes of Al Gore... You will not be able to close down all coal plants by 2020. Reason? Because even if we found fusion tomorrow. There is no way to get enough reactors online in a year or even a decade to feed this monster grid. And that is talking with EMC2 Fusion which I support http://www.emc2fusion.org/ If you are talking about heat fusion or ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/... Forget it! You will have coal plants online in 2050...
So we have to think long term and learn how to deal with the problems in the meantime! The biggest obviously being WAYYYYYYYYYYY too much CO2!! However, Thankfully that can be managed... As you see Oil was Algae at first. So there is no reason to say that storing dead algae where the carbon can't escape can't slow or even attempt to reverse the growth of CO2 in the air...
So it works out overall to something like this.
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Short Term:
Raw Power = Alt, Solar, Wind, Coal, (Oil plants are first to be replaced with new solar tech)
Storage = Molten Salt, EEstor, Fuel Cells
Algae: Used to either remove CO2 in Large .gov projects or to produce diesel for trucking fleets or jet fuel for the airlines and military.
Long Term:
Raw Power: Fusion
Storage: Nanotechnology
Algae: Almost 100 percent devoted to CO2 removal.
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Anyway in conclusion I will say that this post was hopefully to educate you on why it is so wrong to believe the BS coming from those with an agenda from the established energy industry or with a lack of education or care. Please do not be fooled when REAL solutions are right around the corner!
In future blogs I hopefully will detail my views on the impacts of some of these pieces of tech.