The Sun will Continue to Shine...

...at least for another 5 billion years. The survival of humanity as we currently know it will, however, be tested. This is the feedback I received from a stream of collegues to my most recent article on Simple Solutions for 2009. However, interestingly enough, they chose not to comment in the Huffington Post. At the end of this posting, I suggested that my article be shared with their contacts, and it is this "chain-letter" like strategy that stimulated dialogue. The thread of communications particularly focused, not on the economy, but on Peak Oil and Global Warming.

To summarize, a few felt that it is already too late, doomsday is destined to come, and maybe soon. A few more are reconciled to a lower standard of living. Some believed that monumental changes might still be possible, but we need inspired leadership and major structural adjustments to government. My latest response to one such input follows:

Dear XXXX:

You're, of course, absolutely right. In my second Huffington Post article on June 2, entitled, Why Is There No National Energy Policy?, I went so far as to say that we shouldn't blame George Bush, nor the U.S. Congress, and not the oil companies. We have no energy policy because we don't feel it is important enough. The problem is us, as Pogo could have said. There were more than a hundred comments.

It's like education. We grumble and complain, but generally do nothing much about the poor scores of our students in those K-12 international test. Why? Because, as a nation, we are doing fine. We are the greatest nation ever, and the reason why is that we have by far the best higher education system, spending more money than any other country where it does make a difference. You need 5% of the populace to lead the way, but maintain an adequate core of followers, sort of what we are doing. So don't expect any sudden increase in salaries for lower education teachers because that's the smart thing to do for our future. We might, though, look closer at Finland and Singapore, and borrow as necessary.

Essentially, we need a serious crisis. Hitler and the fear that Germany would develop the A-Bomb first was the reason for the Manhattan Project. Sputnik resulted in the Apollo Project, leading to the end of the Cold War. I thought we reached the energy equivalent with $147/barrel oil a few weeks after the above article. Alas, crude oil at less than $50/barrel will make it all but impossible for any drastic and accelerated change. Global Warming? Many millions will need to perish for any real movement.

So, I'll maintain my pontification crusade to continue the education process, awaiting the day when $200/barrel petroleum or that really hot summer arrives so that we are better prepared to make that crucial difference. In the meantime, I still think there is something to the direct methanol fuel cell and the biomethanol economy as a necessary bridge, plus the Hawaiian Hydrogen Clipper. For now, enjoy life as best as you can. The Doomsdayers might turn out to be right, but I'll continue to valiantly plug on hoping for the best.

Aloha.
Pat

Is the inability of our leaders to act with decisiveness on a matter of global significance in the absence of a major crisis the fatal flaw of our current society? Are we destined to soon be crushed by the dual hammer of Peak Oil and Global Warming, crippling our civilization forever? Is there anything about the incoming Obama Administration that provides any confidence for Planet Earth and Humanity, especially as that other brushfire known as the economy will almost surely occupy most of their time and political capital? However, as time is of the essence, let's just hope that the trigger will not be a catastrophic crisis. The Sun will continue to shine, but will you be part of the solution?

Comments

[ObjectiveRealist]

In the past eight years, the Solar cycle suggested we should expect cooling, but instead all eight have been among the ten hottest years ever, totally confirming global warming. I do not believe many people consider global warming not important enough, any longer. Unfortunately, just as we received definitive enough confirmation to decisively turn public opinion, we have been obstructed by the worst President in US history. His suppression of global warming science fooled nobody but his idiotic support of corn ethanol instead of switchgrass or jatropha and tens of billions of dollars of direct government gifts to oil companies earlier in his term have stifled every entrepreneurial avenue that would have flourished in a free market.

Americans know much better than George Walker Bush's and Richard Bruce Cheney's energy policies suggest. We may tend to be lazy and selfish, but we are not stupid. We have, however, been stunned by their utter depravity. We will get over it.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1176967,00.html

[Patrick Takahashi - Huffpost Blogger]

Most would agree with you, I do. However, as this posting speculates, nothing much will happen to remediate global warming until there is a severe crisis. Sea level rise is not it, because the increase is miniscule/year. Temperature is not an impacting factor, because the rise/year is minimal. Very few have any personal empathy with the extinction of an obscure frog. If, however, a truly hot summer kills 10 million or more, then action will be initiated. Absent a crisis, are you confident that the Obama Administration will transcend convention and actually take monumental steps? I need someone like Barack Obama to respond by saying...Patrick, you are wrong, we will take action to make a difference. I'm waiting. There has got to be a better way, but I don't know what that is and what you and I can do. That is my frustration.

[DavidRedstone]

(part 2)

Advocating methanol as a renewable fuel is useful. Government policies should be encouraging the replacement of as much oil/gasoline with methanol as possible as rapidly as possible. But there is no need for DMFCs to accomplish this. Suggesting, as you do, that DMFCs are required or even desirable to make good use of methanol only obfuscates the issues, wastes time, and if anything delays the replacement of oil with methanol.

Have you done any research at all on any of this? (You might start at my web site.) Why do you insist on advocating DMFCs as a solution to anything when you appear to know little if anything about DMFCs?

[Patrick Takahashi - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes, you are absolutely correct that the direct methanol fuel cell is nowhere close to reality. But this is because support for the DMFC has been forbidden by the U.S. Department of Energy. Their current focus is only on ethanol/biodiesel. The fact that:

1. On a volumetric basis a DMFC has the potential to be five times the energy density of the lithium battery.

2. Given biomass, the gasificati­on/catalys­is into biomethanol should be a lot cheaper to produce than hydrolysis­/fermentat­ion to ethanol...and terrestrial biodisel is absolutely ludicrous.

3. Methanol will probably be the only liquid biofuel capable of being directly utilized in a fuel cell.

4. One gallon of methanol has more accessible hydrogen than one gallon of liquid hydrogen,

are compelling enough for the Obama Administration to consider this option. We at least need the due diligence to be accomplished.

I'm sorry that your sodium borohydride fuel cell was not accepted by government and industry. Maybe you should shift your efforts to develop a DMFC. You won't have much competition today.

[DavidRedstone]

The reason DMFC is nowhere close to reality is not that DoE has "forbidden support" for it, which DoE hasn't. The reason DMFC is nowhere close to reality is its thermodynamics.

1. Theoretical energy density doesn't matter. What matters is what can actually be built.

2. I agree completely. But a fuel cell is not needed to make excellent use of biomethanol. Insisting otherwise only delays greater use of methanol as a transportation fuel. Probably forever.

3. Again, why bother with or insist on the fuel cell? Just burn the methanol in an ICE. No one has ever demonstrated a DMFC that is much more efficient than a good ICE.

4. Utterly irrelevant. A gallon of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a gallon of hydrogen. So what.

Obama needs to focus on technologies that can work in the very near term, not pie in the sky.

I only write about fuel cells. I am not engaged in developing any. No one, as far as I know, has ever proposed a direct borohydride fuel cell as a car engine.

You are thoroughly uninformed about this entire subject.

[DavidRedstone]

(Part 1)

Methanol is an excellent renewable fuel that can be made out of agricultural waste (both plant and animal), garbage, sewage sludge, pretty much any organic feedstock. Pure methanol can be burned in current car engines with minor modification. Methanol blended with gasoline can be used in current car engines with no modification of existing engines required.

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), after decades of R&D effort by some of the biggest companies in the world, remain nothing more than lab experiments. No one has ever demonstrated a commercially viable DMFC that is even capable of powering an iPod. Motorola gave up on this idea years ago. Start-ups that have been trying to do this for years are now going out of business. Powering a car is thousands of time more difficult than powering an iPod.

DMFCs remain entirely dependent on platinum. The cost of the platinum required to build a DMFC capable of propelling a car (thousands of dollars) is close to the cost of an entire current car engine. One whiff of carbon monoxide or SOx will irreversibly poison a DMFC, rending it useless. No one in the world is even trying to develop a car based on a DMFC engine.

(see part 2)

[sheila]

since the sun is shining, why are we the LAST COUNTRY TO GET FEED IN TARIFFS?

why does Big Energy get to totally, completely dominate the (ahem) "renewable" energy paradigm, when the sun shines on nearly every rooftop in this country? what happened to the pioneering spirit, energy independence and the locavore movement? WE should be generating the first 33% of this nation's energy on our OWN PROPERTIES and should be PAID for doing it.

why are we allowing Industrial Wind and Solar to destroy or publicly-owned open spaces and fragile, functioning ecosystems so they can recentralize power that is best generated at point of use? why are we letting them force us from our homes, steal our tax and rate dollars, and ace us out of a magnificent opportunity to be REWARDED for doing the right thing?

For Chrissakes, Albania has feed in tariffs and California doesn't. They have proven to be the BEST method for increasing rapid scaleup of renewables and increasing conservation, but we are stuck in some Utility Robber Baron RPS crappy model that hurts our planet, and all of us. WHY?

[Patrick Takahashi - Huffpost Blogger]

You must re-read my above posting, and also click on that National Policy article provided in the first paragraph of my message to XXXX. We don't check global warming, we don't have a national energy policy, we have a semi-crummy educational system ad nauseum because of people like you and me. The PEOPLE just don't care that much to help make a difference. We elect those people who do nothing or maybe help the oil industry too much (to gain access to their contributions). What is the solution? Read my next posting on HERE IS THE SIMPLE SOLUTION, coming someday soon to The Huffington Post. Humanity needs your help, and my next article will suggest a pathway.