Professor Takahashi was born and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, is Director Emeritus with the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute of the University of Hawaii, former professor of engineering and the recent author of two SIMPLE SOLUTION:

for Planet Earth
for Humanity

best sellers, reported in the May 18, 2008 issue of the Honolulu Advertiser:

He was for 15 years director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and co-founder of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, where his team initiated projects in open cycle OTEC, which will power the Blue Revolution (Chapter 4 of Book 1), and methanol from the gasification and catalysis of biomass (Chapter 2 of Book 1), which provides a more sensible biofuel option than ethanol from food.

Nearly three decades ago he helped draft original bills in the U.S. Senate on hydrogen, wind power, ocean thermal energy conversion and related sustainable resource topics. The hydrogen bill established the guidelines for the national hydrogen and fuel cell program, and is reported in Chapter 3 of Book 1. He managed the Hard Minerals Act (which featured strategic minerals and marine methane hydrates from the seabed).

Professor Takahashi worked for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion (Chapter 1 of Book 1) and sustainable resources, and for the NASA Ames Research Center on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Chapter 4 of Book 2).

He was awarded the Bechtel Energy Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Spark Matsunaga Memorial Award by the National Hydrogen Association and Ocean Pioneer Award by the Ocean Energy Council. Details on the rest of his life can be found on the 10May08 edition of his blog.

Blog Entries by Patrick Takahashi

How To Roast A Turkey

4 Comments | Posted November 23, 2009 | 06:46 PM (EST)


[In July, the day after my wife passed away, The Huffington Post published my article on "Gratitude, Not Grief." With all the trauma now fading memories, I have entered a new and rather exciting phase of my life.]

For some of you looking for a reasonably safe adventure,...

Read Post

How Serious Is Our National Debt?

23 Comments | Posted November 23, 2009 | 11:37 AM (EST)


Maybe not as serious as you might think. Let me tell you why, looking at three sources, beginning with the October 24, 2009 issue of The Economist. The issue shows a projected American government debt as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about 100% in 2010....

Read Post

Biofuels from Microalgae (Part 1)

25 Comments | Posted November 9, 2009 | 11:05 AM (EST)


The United Nations Environment Programme recently published its first Biofuels Assessment Report ever. Much of this assessment dealt with conventional biomass, and mostly, the report did a fine job saying some bio systems are good, some are not so, and much depends on how you do it. Global...

Read Post

World 2.0

2 Comments | Posted October 15, 2009 | 02:40 AM (EST)


The United States is the greatest country ever, and there will be no threat to our supremacy for a century and more. The Cold War brought our civilization to the brink. But that was almost two decades ago. There are no more threats. Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea are mere...

Read Post

The Future of Sustainable Aviation

43 Comments | Posted August 28, 2009 | 04:57 AM (EST)


Hawaii just celebrated our 50th birthday as a State in the Union. Just about two years after attaining statehood, Barack Obama was born in Honolulu. Today, he is President of the United States, and, thirty-seven years his senior, Daniel Inouye, is Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Arguably, Hawaii, then,...

Read Post

Gratitude...Not Grief

10 Comments | Posted July 20, 2009 | 05:26 PM (EST)


My best friend, and wife, of almost 47 years, Pearl, just passed away, and it was both the saddest day of my life, and, surprisingly enough, still, joyfully blissful. We had discussed at some length the matter of death, and we both agreed that there should be no mourning period,...

Read Post

Are We Getting Too Old?

10 Comments | Posted July 1, 2009 | 12:48 PM (EST)


BACKGROUND

I am currently featuring Eternal Life in my daily report, which is Chapter 2 of Simple Solutions for Humanity. Globally, almost 60 million die each year. This total could well drop by a huge fraction if the aging gene is found and checked. Developed countries are already getting...

Read Post

The Carbon Dioxide Credit Program

12 Comments | Posted June 29, 2009 | 11:57 AM (EST)


We all know now that the House of Representatives barely passed a global warming remediation bill last week, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. I should be rejoicing, for compared to the Bush Administration, the Obama White House has been remarkably progressive about renewable energy...

Read Post

A Simple Solution for Crime: Background

6 Comments | Posted June 11, 2009 | 11:50 AM (EST)


Purpose

I've been wondering why some of my postings draw no comments, and a rather tedious one, "Why is there No National Energy Policy?" attracts more than a hundred. My first year with the Huffington Post focused on energy, the environment and the economy, more or less the subject...

Read Post

A Pandemic Worse than the Swine Flu

10 Comments | Posted June 3, 2009 | 06:33 PM (EST)


Five billion are killed by a virus. Sound familiar? Think the reaction to swine flu. The 1995 science fiction film starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt called 12 MONKEYS identifies a terror group implicated in this plot. This was a red herring (diverted attention).

Willis failed in his...

Read Post

My Year With The Huffington Post

11 Comments | Posted May 13, 2009 | 06:48 PM (EST)


My very first posting, on May 29th 2008, was written during the heat of the Obama-Clinton race for the Democratic nomination, and was entitled "Well, Barack, We have a Problem." I suggested that he was the only individual capable of ameliorating the economic cataclysm to come. Well, two for...

Read Post

A Solution for the American Auto Industry

Posted March 31, 2009 | 01:51 PM (EST)


President Barack Obama took steps to re-invent General Motors and Chrysler for the better, hopefully. The current focus is on survival. Unaddressed was how to regain American leadership in the automobile industry.

President Obama earlier this month visited the Edison Electric Vehicle Center located in Pomona, California, where he spoke...

Read Post

Extraterrestrial Intelligence?

Posted March 31, 2009 | 10:28 AM (EST)


America has a fascination for extraterrestrials (ET). ET, the 1982 movie, was the most financially successful film of all time released to that point. Thirty-two years ago -- can you believe it was that long -- Steven Speilberg wrote and directed Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Monsters vs. Aliens,...

Read Post

The USA: A Good World Citizen?

Posted March 16, 2009 | 02:08 PM (EST)


In a word: NO! I was amused when I recently read that French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France will return to full membership of the North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO). What, they have not been a full member? It turns out that in 1966, President Charles de Gaulle...

Read Post

Evolution, Global Warming, Doomsday and the Afterlife

Posted February 23, 2009 | 05:58 PM (EST)


About that title, Carnac the Magnificent would pause because he would at least be mildly confused as to his possible response. In time, he utters, "Not the life progression for Americans" and opens the envelope. There is only a trickle of laughter because the audience does not quite understand the...

Read Post

The 10% Solution

Posted February 20, 2009 | 03:50 PM (EST)


President Ronald Reagan jacked up the defense budget, and it worked, for the strategy bankrupted the Soviet Union, we won the Cold War, and we now have no major enemy. There is every good reason, thus, to drastically change our spending priorities. The threat of nuclear holocaust has shifted to...

Read Post

Blue Revolution

Posted February 16, 2009 | 05:04 PM (EST)


A few months ago, my Huffington Post article on "The Dawn of the Blue Revolution" reported on the potential the ocean provided for humanity. The world has been wrestling with the economic collapse and worried about the dual hammer of Peak Oil and Global Warming. Almost never is the...

Read Post

Will Oil Prices Remain Low for Two Years?

Posted February 12, 2009 | 01:00 PM (EST)


Most probably yes, which will significantly affect the cost-effectiveness of most renewable energy projects, but perhaps not, as we shall see. First, what is low? Let me arbitrarily say low is $55/barrel (which is $1.30/gallon). Pardon me for this very tedious posting, but that's the way it has to be...

Read Post

America, Don't Copy...Build Something Better!

Posted February 11, 2009 | 05:11 PM (EST)


About a month ago I wrote an article in The Huffington Post, wondering if there was a better option than the plug-in electric vehicle. Evidence indicated that the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) was worthy of exploration. To quote from that posting:


Per unit volume, a...

Read Post

Renewable Electricity is Our Only Viable Option

Posted January 30, 2009 | 03:24 AM (EST)


First, a quick tutorial (details can be found in Chapter 1 of Simple Solutions for Planet Earth accessible through one of the boxes on the right):

1. In reference to producing electricity, there is really dirty coal (remember acid rain and the Clean Air Act?), dirty coal (what is largely...

Read Post