With oil nearing $100 a barrel and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations steadily rising, the U.S. must commit seriously to a long-term plan that will improve the nation’s energy security and address climate change threats. To date, national leaders have expended a lot of rhetoric on the importance of those goals, but relative to the country’s magnitude as both a consumer of energy and a producer of carbon dioxide, they have taken few meaningful steps to reach them. The U.S. needs to get off the sidelines and put some skin into the game.
A business-as-usual approach will not work. Over time, economies and policies may spontaneously migrate to more efficient, more environmentally benign energy technologies, but those responses will almost certainly be too slow to stave off massive climate disruptions, which require that greenhouse gas emissions be capped within 50 years. This magazine has long taken the position that the best strategy will probably require calling on every available option: not only solar, wind, nuclear and other sources of power but also cleaner coal and more extensive conservation. Still, if only as an exercise in showing what might be possible, it is sometimes worth contemplating how much a single brace of related technologies can do.
In “A Solar Grand Plan,” beginning on page 64, Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis sketch out how the U.S. could build a solar energy infrastructure that might provide two thirds of its electricity and one third of its total energy by 2050—enough to make the nation independent of overseas oil and to drop carbon dioxide emissions to a bit more than a third of what they are now. The authors do not invoke hypothetical breakthroughs in solar technologies; they rely on existing technology and incremental improvements to it. By their estimate the scheme would require $420 billion in subsidies over 40 years. But that sum could be a bargain in terms of energy and environmental security—as they point out, it is in line with other major expenditures, such as farm supports (and, we might point out, funding for the Iraq War). Whether their analyses are correct and whether such a solar plan is really the best choice available are open to debate, but that is rather the point: it behooves all of us to think boldly about what should be done and not to be intimidated by the problem’s large scope.
Zhong Lin Wang describes a very different approach to obtaining and conserving energy in “Self-Powered Nanotech,” starting on page 82. The systems of tiny piezoelectric elements he and his colleagues are developing could be ideal for powering microscale devices. They can tap into the ambient energy in their surroundings—for instance, future medical appliances might draw power from the rush of blood through veins. Expect such self-powered systems to play a pervasive role in tomorrow’s technology. Wang’s article is a good counterpoint to that of Zweibel, Mason and Fthenakis: to deal with our energy and environmental challenges, we can’t be afraid to think big, but we also should not overlook the small.
John Rennie
Editor in Chief
This article was originally published with the title Big and Small Solutions.
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3 Comments
Add CommentYour editorial, like the article by Zweibel, et. al., ignores the biggest obstacle to implementing alternative energy solutions. It is not a failure to think boldly. Rather, as presidential candidate John Edwards would no doubt point out, powerful fossil fuel interests who contribute large amounts to political campaigns, will fight tooth and nail to avoid change, our country be damned. We need to elect political leaders willing to stand up to them and lead the public in another direction!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you mount a parabolic dish on a north south axis through the focus, you can track the sun the whole day and the focus remains in the same place. BUT parabolic dishes are a pain! However if you just have the part of the dish near the axis, it looks like a twisted satalite dish You can mount it comfortably to shine light from below and you can have a tracking solar accumulating barbecue! The curves can be made with the "mechanical mathematician"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI will put up more videos shortly to better explain it.
Brian
2 clean and renewable energy ideas:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1.) Why not use capillary action to move water up, collect it into a basin, then use a turbine to harvest the potential energy. Picture an oil rig with tubes sticking in the water moving the water up to the platform. A small self-contained smaller scale unit may be mounted alongside a chimney at every home. It is free, clean, and can run 24/7 thereby replacing fossil fuels.
2.) Second idea involves magnetic field. Float a large wooden disk on the water to isolate the gravitational force. House the disk in a circular pool. Then use magnets arrayed on the disk edge and/or on the outer edge of the pool to create a magnetic field thereby turning the wooden disk. If the magnetic field can overcome the weight of the disk, you can harness the force-free, clean, and easy. The water could be used as a lubrication means to mitigate friction on the center pole which would be attached via ropes, chains, or directly connected to the disk. Again this would be 24/7 virtual movement using magnetism.
Both ideas use non-normal energies means-capillary action and magnetism to harness natural forces.
I read this Dec 2007 SciAm version after reading similar articles while station in Iraq. The dilemma of oil and fossil fuels became more personalized to me. I have ask others to seed discussion on the topic, but have not been able to move forward on the ideas. At this point, I hope somebody with resources may inquire about the idea. I want to share the ideas and discuss the topic. I don't want to be bought out by big money or oil companies. I just want to contribute to brainstorming non-conventional energy options.
I have related ideas, pictures in my head, and have a Mechanical Engineering degree, but don't care about patents or intellectual property.
If anybody has similar thoughts, or related ideas, I'm all ears (or eyes in this case).
Bill Hamann