Drift Correct But Details Bit Askew
For economic, practical, technological, climate and practical reasons the energy paradigm shift is well underway. However, few things note clarification.
- World war three, should it come, will not be about energy. Under the worse circumstances there’s enough fossil fuel to last for 100s of years. The issues are unit cost, pollution and climate.
- There’s no such thing as clean coal. It’s an industry/special interest myth.
- When all costs are incorporated cane ethanol is no cheaper or less polluting than oil.
- Hydrogen fuel has storage and distribution problems because the basic molecule is so small it leaks out of most storage containers and isn’t adaptable to the current fuel pipeline distribution system.
It is true that alternative energy, notably solar, is going to become far more ubiquitous. The primary bottlenecks are better battery storage technology, both at individual and power plant scale.
Fusion remains to be seen. It’s promise is great but scaling up and making it economical are still probably decades away, at best.
The key development to come, both for individuals and power plants, may be the reengineering of algae or bacteria to effectively “sweat” the equivalent of clean, nonpolluting oil. This synthetic biology project is already well underway by Craig Venter and others with major funding by oil companies.
As it stands there appears to be few technical hurdles, but nothing anywhere near as daunting as fusion. It would be easy to distribute and he economics for individual systems, distribution through existing pipeline and storage systems, and power plant scale systems all appear extremely attractive.
Doc Huston
