Our Technology Future - Energy, Part Three

Sorry I missed my post on Friday, family stuff got in the way, but as you can see, I’m back and everything’s alright. So, back to the matter I left off with; my final estimation of the future of energy in the United States and around the world.

I’ve covered nuclear, solar, wind, water… next up is biofuels.

Biofuels are very basic to understand in the abstract sense – they are mostly direct replacements for oil. Ethanol is the most famous of these. Technically ethanol is simply any alcoholic fuel (alcohol by chemistry, not the topical or the ingestible one). Corn based ethanol is the most common, but in reality ethanol can be made from many other plant sources, particularly ones with high sugar content such as sugar cane.

Biofuels are most attractive because to the fact that they can currently be added to common fossil fuels. They fit an existing standard for energy delivery, i.e. a liquid easily poured into an internal combustion engine.

The problems with biofuels are substantial. For one, the most common form, corn-based ethanol, is the large amounts of space needed for growing the corn, which means less farmland for growing food for consumption. Mass growing of corn can also lead to desertification of the land as it saps up much of the nutrients in the soil, making it unsuitable for growing anything. This can be somewhat mitigated by use of other sources of the biofuels, such as the common waste product such as with sugar cane, or with algae.

Secondly, as mentioned previously, they are not entirely without cost. Most viable biofuel setups require a lot of space and are based around food products. This makes actual food costs go up as the farmland and farm product are redirected to energy production.

Third, biofuels tend to be less energetic than fossil fuels. That means you need more of the biofuels to get the same relative performance. Add to that the relative complication and expense that is currently involved in creating biofuels, particularly the more environmentally friendly ones like algae, it would be very difficult to create enough biofuel at the necessary levels needed to offset the entire U.S oil demand.

Finally there is a significant amount of energy needed to facilitate the process of creating biofuels. This is usually achieved by way of burning fossil fuels of some sort (oil or natural gas) but as I noted with several of the other fuel alternatives, this has the potential to be offset later on by the generation of the fuel itself – use the biofuel to make more biofuel.

Every other probable fuel source that can be currently imagined is an extension of one of these previously discussed energy paradigms – nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar, biofuels. The difference is in the execution in terms of creating the energy, creating the means of harnessing that energy, storing, and distributing that energy.

It almost sounds like a cliché to repeat this now, but the energy future that rests in front of us is some combination of most if not every single one of the energy forms I’ve covered in the last three posts. That is the situation we have now – a mix of nuclear, water, and all the rest.

But the point of this was to pick the best option. If the choice was given to pursue a single energy future, what should that future be?

It is undeniable that nuclear has the greatest potential. It is the very process that creates this universe. It is the power of the sun. There is a tremendous amount of power that is possible through nuclear energy. What’s more, if we dedicate ourselves to devising brilliant means of storage, you can easily envision a future where electric cars charge in seconds and can run for a very, very long time due to improved battery technology.

But the ideal of creating a miniature sun to provide perpetual energy for the entire planet is a technical challenge we hardly know how to handle. Making bets on that right now is a bit foolhardy. We need to get the waste problem under control long before we can even think about nuclear energy as a much more robust part of the energy future than it is now.

My choice does, however, rely on the sun. Solar energy is highly abundant. The sun does beam down on the planet every day more than enough energy to satisfy all of our needs. Harnessing even half of that would be all we need if we could transmit that power or store that power in a readily accessible form. It is what we would otherwise need to do in any nuclear technology – though again this is a matter of technical challenge.

Nevertheless, solar panel technology seems to already be the most suitable option. As I noted last Thursday, there are already theoretical design applications that hope to boost the gains of photovoltaic cells to as much as 50%. Furthermore if these are deployed intelligently, they can harness large amounts of sunlight without being as obtrusive as something like the wind turbines of a wind farm. It is already possible for many homeowners in the U.S to install enough capacity of existing solar panels to power their own homes, so this would thereby make that matter all the more minimalistic both in implementation and presentation.

Unlike the nuclear option, there is not the creating of waste. Unlike fossil fuels or even biofuels there is not the need to use up so much land or potentially pollute it, or burn the fuel and potentially release greenhouse gasses – which is the point of this exercise. And finally, solar power provides much more energy than water or wind.

The biggest challenge at the moment may be the battery technology. We have the means to expand solar energy production to much greater lengths, but lack a means of storing it for very long, meaning the idea of a large solar farm in Alaska to collect copious amounts of energy in the summer months can’t work. It’d need to be used as it was collected, and no excess could be stored.

Speaking of use, there also needs to be an upgrade of the energy infrastructure regardless of which energy regime is selected. Much of the nation’s transmission lines are old and decrepit. They are terribly inefficient relative to today’s standards and technology. They similarly can only barely handle the energy demands that currently are placed on them, making them highly susceptible to failure. It should be a priority at the national level to have this matter addressed.

Of course in the short term we can all do what we can to help. It’s as simple as not gunning it on the roads, making only a couple trips to the store instead of ten, turning off lights that aren’t in use, not running the heat too much in the winter, or the AC too much in the summer, and buying energy efficient light bulbs and appliances when it’s time to replace your old ones. It may be a bit costly upfront, but it will help not only the planet, but your bank account as well. Everyone would like to have a lower electric bill and being smarter and more savvy about how you personally use electricity will help there too. No need to lose your mind over it, just try to do what you can.

That's the energy future that's out there. Tomorrow I start my wrap-up for the summer anime season, so I hope to see you then. For now, a sample track. Later.