As a nontechnical
citizen-blogger with growing concerns about climate change, I have my
civilian binoculars out for signs of hope on the horizon. I’m especially
on the lookout for potential breakthrough projects in
the fields of renewable energy and battery storage that show promise of
hastening the world’s critical transition from a carbon economy to a
more sustainable one.
Here are a few hopeful signs I’ve found in a recent search for articles on renewable energy breakthroughs. Why not familiarize yourself with these and follow up on the ones that especially intrigue you? Then pass on what you learn to fellow citizens who want to know more about promising developments on the frontiers of green energy.
Because we’re living through the Great Acceleration, these advances are happening faster than the carbon industry ever anticipated. Some attempts will fizzle, no doubt, but others will fly. If we can’t realistically hope that a silver bullet will soon end the world’s reliance on a carbon economy, at least we can hope for silver buckshot.
We might begin with a list of 13 major clean energy breakthroughs of 2013 at Grist.org (“A Beacon in the Smog”). The Grist list includes solar salt batteries that keep producing energy even when the sun isn’t out; underwater tidal turbines; a carbon-free desalination process that uses the force of ocean waves to force water through a desalination membrane; ultra-thin solar cells that can power small electronic devices; crowdfunding and other innovative ways to finance clean energy projects; and more.
Then have a look at the Harvard School of Engineering’s metal-free battery that stores energy (including solar and wind power) in organic chemical fluids that flow into an external storage tank instead of holding energy within the battery container itself. This offers hope of vastly expanding the storage capacity of batteries.
Across town, the MIT Energy Initiative is working on a great myriad of projects. One lab is working on fabricating flexible, transparent solar cells that combine microscopic nanofibers with electrodes made of sheets of one-atom-thick carbon, known as graphene. Another lab is working on energy-efficient air conditioning. Still other MITei projects focus on mitigating environmental impacts of energy consumption and water use and optimizing the investment of scarce research dollars in renewable research and development.
MIT and many other research centers are helping to create the next generation of fuel cells. “How Stuff Works” explains that fuel cells work through a chemical process that converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity and an ‘exhaust’ of water. Fuel cells “generate electrical power quietly and efficiently, without pollution. Unlike power sources that use fossil fuels, the by-products from an operating fuel cell are heat and water.”
The Bloom Energy Server and other fuel cell technologies are already in proven use, and Toyota is expected to put a fuel cell car on the market as early as 2015. Gizmag.com reports, with hopeful skepticism, that the vehicle may have a range of 300 miles and be refueled in 3 minutes. We’ll see.
Meanwhile in Europe, Iceland has become the world’s leader in geothermal energy, largely because its underground magma (molten rock) lies close to the surface, releasing underground steam that can be harnessed to produce energy. Recent innovations in geothermal technology include the promising Icelandic Deep Drilling Project (IDDP).
You may also have heard the news that Navy scientists have discovered a way to turn seawater into jetfuel through a process that may be commercially available within ten years.
And while many of us (including me) are skeptical regarding the viability of nuclear energy, we shouldn’t dismiss the possibility that generating nuclear energy from thorium, more plentiful, safer and less weaponizable than uranium, may be part of the solution to the greenhouse crisis. Whatever its limitations may be, its carbon footprint is small.
This is just a first pass on my part. Surely there are scores of other promising projects on the frontiers of sustainability. Those reported here represent just the tip of the melting iceberg.
As global warming continues to bear down on us, creative and constructive minds have their work cut out for them. These thousands of anonymous lab research and development pioneers are, in my view, among the great champions of our time, even when their research journeys end in blind alleys. Knowledge of what doesn't work is sometimes just as valuable as knowledge of what does.
For you energy detectives out there whose appetite for promising leads is insatiable, look here, here, here and here for more news about the falling costs of solar energy, the quickening of wind, learning to think of efficiency as an energy source, fusion, and more. I hope to report on these and other developments in my next installment.
Please add your own scouting tips to this growing list of hopeful signs on the renewable energy horizon, so that we may consider adding them to this post on a continuing basis, sustaining this article as a blog-within-a-blog.
Thanks, and may the forces of nature be with you.
--originally posted in Danagram
P.S.: Shouldn’t someone with more technical expertise (and money) than I have start up a magazine called “Renewable!” to keep the non-technical world alert to signs of hope on the horizon of sustainable technology and civilization? Just a thought.
Here are a few hopeful signs I’ve found in a recent search for articles on renewable energy breakthroughs. Why not familiarize yourself with these and follow up on the ones that especially intrigue you? Then pass on what you learn to fellow citizens who want to know more about promising developments on the frontiers of green energy.
Because we’re living through the Great Acceleration, these advances are happening faster than the carbon industry ever anticipated. Some attempts will fizzle, no doubt, but others will fly. If we can’t realistically hope that a silver bullet will soon end the world’s reliance on a carbon economy, at least we can hope for silver buckshot.
We might begin with a list of 13 major clean energy breakthroughs of 2013 at Grist.org (“A Beacon in the Smog”). The Grist list includes solar salt batteries that keep producing energy even when the sun isn’t out; underwater tidal turbines; a carbon-free desalination process that uses the force of ocean waves to force water through a desalination membrane; ultra-thin solar cells that can power small electronic devices; crowdfunding and other innovative ways to finance clean energy projects; and more.
Then have a look at the Harvard School of Engineering’s metal-free battery that stores energy (including solar and wind power) in organic chemical fluids that flow into an external storage tank instead of holding energy within the battery container itself. This offers hope of vastly expanding the storage capacity of batteries.
Across town, the MIT Energy Initiative is working on a great myriad of projects. One lab is working on fabricating flexible, transparent solar cells that combine microscopic nanofibers with electrodes made of sheets of one-atom-thick carbon, known as graphene. Another lab is working on energy-efficient air conditioning. Still other MITei projects focus on mitigating environmental impacts of energy consumption and water use and optimizing the investment of scarce research dollars in renewable research and development.
MIT and many other research centers are helping to create the next generation of fuel cells. “How Stuff Works” explains that fuel cells work through a chemical process that converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity and an ‘exhaust’ of water. Fuel cells “generate electrical power quietly and efficiently, without pollution. Unlike power sources that use fossil fuels, the by-products from an operating fuel cell are heat and water.”
The Bloom Energy Server and other fuel cell technologies are already in proven use, and Toyota is expected to put a fuel cell car on the market as early as 2015. Gizmag.com reports, with hopeful skepticism, that the vehicle may have a range of 300 miles and be refueled in 3 minutes. We’ll see.
Meanwhile in Europe, Iceland has become the world’s leader in geothermal energy, largely because its underground magma (molten rock) lies close to the surface, releasing underground steam that can be harnessed to produce energy. Recent innovations in geothermal technology include the promising Icelandic Deep Drilling Project (IDDP).
You may also have heard the news that Navy scientists have discovered a way to turn seawater into jetfuel through a process that may be commercially available within ten years.
And while many of us (including me) are skeptical regarding the viability of nuclear energy, we shouldn’t dismiss the possibility that generating nuclear energy from thorium, more plentiful, safer and less weaponizable than uranium, may be part of the solution to the greenhouse crisis. Whatever its limitations may be, its carbon footprint is small.
This is just a first pass on my part. Surely there are scores of other promising projects on the frontiers of sustainability. Those reported here represent just the tip of the melting iceberg.
As global warming continues to bear down on us, creative and constructive minds have their work cut out for them. These thousands of anonymous lab research and development pioneers are, in my view, among the great champions of our time, even when their research journeys end in blind alleys. Knowledge of what doesn't work is sometimes just as valuable as knowledge of what does.
For you energy detectives out there whose appetite for promising leads is insatiable, look here, here, here and here for more news about the falling costs of solar energy, the quickening of wind, learning to think of efficiency as an energy source, fusion, and more. I hope to report on these and other developments in my next installment.
Please add your own scouting tips to this growing list of hopeful signs on the renewable energy horizon, so that we may consider adding them to this post on a continuing basis, sustaining this article as a blog-within-a-blog.
Thanks, and may the forces of nature be with you.
--originally posted in Danagram
P.S.: Shouldn’t someone with more technical expertise (and money) than I have start up a magazine called “Renewable!” to keep the non-technical world alert to signs of hope on the horizon of sustainable technology and civilization? Just a thought.
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