Energy Independent

How would you like to make 100% of your energy (car and home)? This man did and he is starting a business. I know the first round of things cost him $500,000 to complete his ideas and he had significant help from industry, but I also know that the first of many things costs a significant amount of money to make before we figure out how to do them economically (I know the first calculator developed by Hewlett-Packard was almost $5000).

The ideas here are the most significant things -

What do we do when there is no sun?

"The remaining 80 kilowatt-hours recharge the batteries—which provide electricity for the house at night—and power the electrolyzer, which splits the molecules of purified tap water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is vented and the hydrogen goes into the tanks where it is stored for use in the cold, dark winter months."

What about my TV and microwave and washer/dryer?

"On a typical summer day, the solar panels drink in and convert sunlight to about 90 kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to Strizki. He consumes about 10 kilowatt-hours daily to run the family's appliances, including a 50-inch plasma television, along with his three computers and stereo equipment, among other modern conveniences."

Where do I get the fuel to make all this happen?

"I can make fuel out of sunlight and water—and I don't even use the water," he notes. "If it's raining, it's fuel. If it's sunny, it's fuel. It's all fuel."

Don't fear! For those of you who happen to be rich - lets get on this and set an example so we poor folk can get into this energy creation business.

The Light in the Middle...

Normally I am quite pessimistic about certain paths. Random little spikes of optimism seem to sprout through on a continual basis though. Various topics poke through the clouds of dark. Sometimes I am motivated by stories of human spirit. Sometimes I am happier with an achievement or maybe just me that day. At times I can get excited over performance at my job. And then there is the whole universal potential thing - since I don't believe in fate and since everything in the universe is causal then the potential is damn near infinite as there are no things that aren't bound by rules and thus unable to be manipulated.

Today Solar Power makes me happy. Does it make you happy? It should. First off, it will power your existence. I have commented a couple of times in the past and I do think that we will become individual energy creators. It seems to obvious that everything will move away from centralized production to individual production as we become more able with technologies. Even complicated items will become localized as we create better fabricators and transfer of IP becomes more secure and efficient. The USA has begun the slow move away from general manufacturing because of the high costs. The small business factory world is gaining huge ground as our quality on the lower volume level is high enough and efficient enough to compete with the world.

42%+ is a good number. Energy from the sun. Machines that use it cleanly. A society that creates so much more because its focus is moved from the support of itself to the furtherance of thought. Individuals may have been able to progress beyond Maslow's hierarchy of needs - but I don't imagine any societies have just yet (except maybe some of those Norwegian countries...but that is another day).

My thoughts on the news this evening...

We live in space. For limited periods of time and under very defined and limiting set of rules. In time, probability willing, we might master the process and make it a commodity to be accepted as commonly as floating in a boat. A little farther down the larger number of us might live in the sky and look at land based existence as the aberration. The pictures to the left show some amazing thing. Makes me think of something else I once watched on the tube...human spirit (and maybe stupidity). We humans do random incomprehensible things in random instances. We build upon each other.

I stare at global climate change and I think about our species pushing along and trying to get into space maybe as an escape. Maybe (as many of these scientists like to think) there are a multitude of universes and our universe happens to have a set of properties which makes it very costly to get into space and as a result no other race in the universe has gotten there yet and the future is peering back hoping we are to be the first.

You see us building pretty neat things these days hoping to keep from killing ourselves. Our houses have finally become more important. They are off to a good start. These gentlemen have a carbon neutral house. Why only neutral? Why not build the house that has a negative carbon footprint? The technology, tweaked here and there (big tweaks of course, nonetheless tweeks), is already here. Solar power. Wind power. Biomass energy. All making hydrogen stored in tanks spread in small volume tanks (just in case anyone begins to worry about blowing up their neighborhood).

I have confidence. I am wary. I wonder of the true potential and what we will find once we get there. Will we skip over it as we learn to leap beyond it?

New Skyscaper Uses Zero Total Emissions

Zero Emission Building

The first thing one must do when speaking about an idea like this is first throw out that the building is still in the planning stages. Computer simulations have shown that the ideas work. But..let us leave that now.

The building has a wind turbine built on the top. It's air movement system allows hot air to be sucked out of the top and cold air to be pulled down inside. Custom made window coverings to shield from the HOT desert sun. A floating island of solar panels to power the building. Hydrogen storage tanks to allow for energy storage. Internal mirror system which pumps real sunlight throughout the building. And I am sure a whole host of other ideas.

These concepts that are being tested all over the world by ultra wealthy countries will slowly filter down to you and I. In the near future you will create your own energy. Your home will have some of these tools. Your car will run on hydrogen (or electricity) created by you on your land. You will sell power to those companies and individuals who have chosen not to partake in the revolution.

I am happy this Sunday morning. :-)

The Green SocioEconomic Machine Rolls On...

The Power of Green

The changes that will occur in the future always give me a bit of apprehension. I have an aversion to change I guess. Humans in general have been know for their ability to adapt themselves and their environments to make living agreeable. Maybe we need a big roll back...

They argue that the world needs to deploy any seven of these 15 wedges, or sufficient amounts of all 15, to have enough conservation, and enough carbon-free energy, to increase the world economy and still avoid the doubling of CO² in the atmosphere.

Here are seven wedges we could chose from: "Replace 1,400 large coal-fired plants with gas-fired plants; increase the fuel economy of 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 miles per gallon; add twice today's nuclear output to displace coal; drive 2 billion cars on ethanol, using one-sixth of the world's cropland; increase solar power 700-fold to displace coal; cut electricity use in homes, offices and stores by 25 percent; install carbon capture and sequestration capacity at 800 large coal-fired plants."

Coal Based Cars?

A new take on an old resource...

Human intuition. Kinda neat we are. We look at every system and search for a potential benefit. We have turned into evolving our environment for us. Our human evolution is creeping along. We are taller and smarter these days. Our collection of ideas is growing. Maybe we will attack this thirst of future energy with a rainbow of solutions, all eating tiny bits away.

If we can survive...

"For cars, he says the company's processes can be used to produce barrels of "oil" for car fuel that will cost about half of what conventional oil costs today, which is around $50.

What's the secret? Coal , a word that makes most people's flesh crawl. Silverado takes low-grade coal, pulverizes it and cooks it under pressure with water until it develops a waxy coating. The waxy coal particles are then reunited with carbon-infused water removed at an earlier part of the process to make a liquid fuel. So think of it as a coal latte. "


Coal latte, eh?