In search of the perfect solution to our energy problems, everybody wants something for nothing, is it possible?
Chemistry (or is it chemical fiction?) is the science that investigates the composition and transformations of matter. Like it or not, life in this universe all boils down to chemistry.
What we are interested in is the category, "transformations of matter". You might argue that it should rightly be placed in the camp of the physicist, but physical chemistry covers this under a rather broad umbrella, or is it a blanket. Or you might suggest that the majority of ideas in this realm are properly engineering feats to be performed by electrical, mechanical, &c. engineers. Rightly so, but the precision and designs of engineers will have to await the discoveries of a chemist. (Engineers are great at designing a car door that fits snug and swings free, but it's the chemist with their elastomeric compositions that paint the door, provide a nice water-proof seal all around and lubricates the hinges so well. Not to mention the safety glass sandwiches and vinyl coverings inside.)
Man discovered how to control fire. First how to use it, then how to start it; he was on to something big. History does not teach us when the different tribes made use of fire but none of the aborigines were or are without fire as an essential element in their bag of tricks that separates them from other animals.
"Randell Mills a Harvard University-trained medical doctor who has done postgraduate studies in physics and chemistry, claims to have an exclusive approach to solving the energy conundrum. More than that, he claims to have devised a grand unified theory of classical quantum mechanics, a holy grail sought after by physicist for most of the century.
This is bigger than fire, " he says. The energy solution is just a spinoff.
Dr. Mills says he has discovered a way; to cause the electrons of ordinary hydrogen atoms to drop to lower orbits, in the process releasing energy in the form of ultraviolet light. He founded BlackLight Power, Inc. Of Cranbury, N.J., to pursue his efforts. Two big electric utilities, Conectiv in Wilmington, Del., and PacifiCorp in Portland, Ore., have provided millions of dollars to BlackLight, whose capitalization Dr. Mills says is now $20 million.
In addition to energy, Dr. Mills says, BlackLight Power experiments have yielded "novel" compounds from these shrunken hydrogen atoms, which he calls hydrinos, that could have commercial applications. One possibility, he says, is a battery with "at least 10,000 times" the power of conventional batteries.
Mills booster Shelby T. Brewer, a nuclear engineer and physicist, former chief executive of ABB Combustion Engineering and an assistant secretary in the U. S. Energy Department from 1981 to 1984, says the hydrino work is "meritorious and warrants development and investment." Dr. Brewer, who has formed a nuclear-energy company of his own, says, "I think he has something here worth taking forward commercially."
Leave it to the poo-poo artist: A noted scientist says that Dr. Mills has produced more white noise than black light. "It's extremely unlikely that this is real, and I feel sorry for the funders, the people who are backing this," says Steven Chu a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Stanford University."
WSJ, Monday, September 13, 1999 pp R16.
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Anti-matter engines - When antimatter and matter collide (a fact that has been known for sometime) the two cancel each other out with the release of pure energy. (You have to get more energy out of the system than you put in before this idea will pan out. This approach is typical of Government problem solving, but not of the real world.)
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Gravity shields - It is possible that when an object is suspended above a rotating ceramic disk which is a superconductor that the object loses some of its mass. If so, then a perpetual motion machine could be built that would permit gravity to act on an object allowing it to fall to earth only to be propelled away from earth with the gravity shield to repeat the cycle.
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Solar power from space - Mirrors would focus energy and the intense beam would be collected and used.
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Connections - Between energy in space and earth by means other than mirror/light conduction. Sort of like a long extension cord.
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(Not mentioned was the concept of dragging a long tether through space. Friction would generate electricity. With the tether above the space craft, the craft would be propelled further into space, with the tether closer to earth, the drag would pull the craft toward earth.)
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Cold fusion - The Pons and Fleischmann (U of Utah) project is still alive and well although mostly discredited. I am aware of at least one engineer that has persuaded the U. S. Patent Office that he has a means of taking advantage of the cold fusion(?) technology. And perhaps more significant, he has funding to build at least one plant!
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Nuclear energy from spent reactor rods - The subject of an article in the September Economist. Raises the possibility that by using "breeder" rods to excite rods that are considered spent, the spent rods can be enticed to begin a chain reaction. By in-and-out movement (pumping) the breeder rod into the cavity, the reaction is controlled and thought to be able to derive appreciable energy from the spent rods for ten or more years.
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Small self contained electrical generators - that are essentially "on-demand" sources of electricity. Using propane, methane, furnace gases, or gas from waste sources, the generator which is essentially a jet turbine engine with only the rotor as a moving part can produce electricity at a cost below that at which municipal supplies currently charge. WSJ Monday September 13, 1999.
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Geothermal energy - where available can be trapped and used to generate electricity.
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Wind turbines - still may make an appreciable contribution.
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Solar cells are becoming more efficient and less expensive as amorphous silica becomes a reality for material of construction.
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Nuclear energy - still the best source of energy in the long-run. Driven by pollution control measures, it can and will get better.
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Fuel cells - Touted as being the ultimate clean machine just moves the source of pollution from the automobile, etc. to a "far-away-place" where the hydrogen or other sources of fuel for the fuel cell is produced. Inefficiencies of conversion remain, they're just out-of-sight, out-of-mind..
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Lest we forget, the hybrid electric car is still awaiting us in the wings. This is just a combination of the internal combustion engine and an electric motor/battery combination that does the work. Automobile manufacturers have a somewhat similar concept in mind when they use a fuel for a small motor driven generator to charge batteries which provide current for an electrical motor which provides propulsion for the car. On braking, the motors are able to recover energy which can be stored in a battery for reuse.
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Time and tide wait for no man so, why haven't we been able to harness the energy of the sea? The bay of Fundy among others offer a great opportunity for such an endeavor.
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Biomass still is there for those so disposed to find a use for it. Unfortunately collection, grading, and use continue to limit its benefits. The sugar industry long ago recognized that bagasse could be used to fire their boilers, but then if they didn't burn it they would have drowned in the piles of the stuff.
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Automobile tires still represent one of man's most difficult waste product. >From time to time, a tire "mountain" will catch fire and cover an area with dense smoke for weeks before the millions of tires finally burn out. ITI has one invention that reduces a tire to useful chunks, a process unlike any other. The chunks are then used for light weight aggregate in construction materials.
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Energy efficient homes, businesses, offices and plants have come a long way since man lived in caves and tepees. Now if one chooses to do so, one can live in a thermos, protected from the environment outside, but stewing in one's own juice inside (second-hand smoke, formaldehyde from the carpets, walls and furniture, bad breath, perfumes and duct mites, &c.) Well you gotta kiss a few frogs before you find your Prince Charming.
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Tinkering with the Carnot cycle. Nothing comes to mind but I am sure that there is something awaiting us in the next episode.
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Lest we forget the potential contributions of the Genetic Engineer (a.k.a.
biologist.)
Most of the worlds energy problems would be solved by modification of one
genetic trait of mankind. All that need happen is to tweak the gene (or
genes) that is responsible for the mature size of the human. Shrink us all to
Gulliver's Travels size and we will have almost unlimited energy resources.
In transportation, Imagine a 747 with ten thousand passengers. Or, Thanksgiving dinner that would truly feed the multitudes. Housing? No problem, the entire city of New York in one block. &c.
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Another approach not necessarily involving Genetic Engineering could be wrought by the Pharmaceutical Industry. Imagine, medical adventures that permit one to control the mini-environment in which one lives. If you could be comfortable in a room with a temperature below freezing, how much energy you could save. Medical science, in recognizing that the body adapts, could with the aid of a simple pill, make us comfortable with fewer or no clothes. How much cheaper this would be than heating (or the converse - air-conditioning). Lest you scoff at this idea, remember that Eskimo children run around naked in their igloos!
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Abiotic fuels. Somewhere deep within the earth, hydrocarbons are being formed from the elements and trickling to the near surface where they are collected advantageously in pools for the oil companies to discover. Is this fact or fiction? No one really knows. But if true, we actually have an unending renewable resource.
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Methane hydrate is also a possibility for unending energy supply. The hydrate does exist under the right temperature and pressure. These conditions exist in the deep ocean. Now how to recover this resource.
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The difference between temperatures of the ocean waters, surface and deep , if exploited could result in an endless supply of energy. Proposals not unlike the "engines" used to temper the oil pipelines of the north, have been made to cycle a liquid, perhaps ammonia, between its gaseous state to recover the differential energy.
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These may appear to be the products of deranged minds, but before you scoff,
remember that ubiquitous polyethylene did not exist until the 50's. (As we
are so often reminded from references to The Graduate.)
Non-stick skillets wouldn't be with us today if the chemist hadn't wondered
why a cylinder of gas containing fluorocarbons which was suppose to be under
pressure wasn't. When he looked inside he "discovered " the substance we now
know as Teflon.
To misquote Jim Moore, they're (ideas) "There for the
Taking".
Feel free to add you own ideas to the list, or, as a chemist friend once said; "it's easier to steal than to invent", so go ahead, help yo'self.
jsw/wp
fire.
990922c
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