Searching for a Green Ending to the Energy Crisis

In the current issue of Economist Magazine, Joseph J. Romm offers a smorgasbord of low-carbon energy technology as a solution to both global warming and the energy crisis. Here's his recipe:

* Concentrated solar thermal electric: 1,600 gigawatts peak power
* Nuclear: 700 new gigawatt-sized plants (plus 300 replacement plants)
* Coal: 800 gigawatt-sized plants with all the carbon captured and permanently sequestered
* Solar photovoltaics: 3,000 gigawatts peak power
* Efficient buildings: savings totalling 5 million gigawatt-hours
* Efficient industry: savings totalling 5 million gigawatt-hours, including co-generation and heat recovery
* Wind power: 1 million large wind turbines (2 megawatts peak power)
* Vehicle efficiency: all cars 60 miles per US gallon
* Wind for vehicles: 2,000 gigawatts wind, with most cars plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles or pure electric vehicles
* Cellulosic biofuels: using up to one-sixth of the world’s cropland
* Forestry: end all tropical deforestation

Research at MIT a Breakthrough in Green Energy

Daniel Nocera, a chemist at MIT, has made a breakthrough discovery for green energy. Mimicing the way photosynthesis works in plants, he has discovered an inexpensive way to store solar energy for use when the sun is not shining. Here's a quote:

He said the discovery could have major implications for the uptake of solar photovoltaic technology. One of the reasons, he said, why solar panels have not penetrated the consumer market properly is that no one has found a way to store energy in a way that, when the Sun is not shining, people still have electricity. "You can't think about an energy economy or a global energy system only when the sun is out."

Batteries could do the job but they cannot store anywhere near as much energy per unit mass as chemical fuels. Nocera's technique would allow the storage of excess energy from sunlight during the daytime. "You could imagine, during the day you have a photovoltaic cell, you take some of that electricity and use it in your house, then take the other part of that electricity for my catalyst, feed the catalyst water and you get hydrogen and oxygen."

At night, the hydrogen and oxygen could be recombined in a fuel cell to produce an electrical current to power a home or recharge an electric car. "So I've made your house a gas station and a power station. It's all enabled because we can use light plus water to make a chemical fuel, which is hydrogen and oxygen."

Podcast: How Sabre Rattling Effects the Price of Oil

Dr. Bruce Prescott's 6-22-08 "Religious Talk" (27 MB MP3) radio program. I talk about plans for the New Baptist Covenant Midwest Region Meeting, about the ADF's challenge to the IRS by encouraging ministers to endorse candidates from the pulpit, and about the effect that American and Israeli sabre rattling against Iran is having on the price of oil.

Listeners are encouraged to contact their Congressional Representatives to oppose House Resolution 362 authorizing a land, sea and air blockade of Iran.