Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....

Today's post: Wednesday, 4-6-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 3 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post:

Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....

This week’s post is about what conceptual approach is needed to get to clean energy solutions in time to prevent catastrophic problems from warming or severe economic disruption from that or fossil fuels becoming too scarce and expensive before we have enough alternatives in use.

Tom Friedman and others have suggested that we use the Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon as a conceptual model to get enough clean energy solutions in place soon enough. The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon were things ignited the public imagination or get very serious government funding or both and got successful results. They also got successful results in the shortest possible time.

They do inspire the imagination; suggest speed of execution is essential, and by implication suggest a successful result.

But the massive size, multiple aspect, and complexity of the energy situation needs a comparable model to emulate that had these characteristics I think.

The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon had complexities but not at the very multiple level of complexity that the energy crisis does.

However, there WAS a historical event that compared well with the energy crisis. It had multiple aspects and locations and kinds of stakeholders just as the energy crisis does.

That was the focused effort of the United States and its allies to win World War II. It was also successful. But even better, it had several models of the components of that success that also may be helpful.

Yes, it may have won the war to have had the Manhattan project. And, it certainly shortened the war and saved hundreds of thousands of deaths of the Japanese people and the soldiers and other military forces of the United States that an invasion would have produced.

But a review of the progress of the war shows that the war was close to irrevocably won by that time.

It was the strategies that won the war in Europe and were winning in the Pacific war until that time that truly won the war.

These included having the key interest groups work together and support each other at least to some degree. And, it included multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time. And a real spirit of public support across our society supported that and helped us win the war.

So, I think what we need is a world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.

The good news first is that we are beginning to have part of this in place. We are beginning to have the needed, “multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and have multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time.”

Here are just a couple of examples.

For example, if a safe and doable way to supply vehicles with hydrogen was developed. We could use wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear power located close enough to water – lakes, rivers, oceans, etc to use the electricity from those sources to provide the hydrogen and release back into the air some the oxygen we’ve already used and the oxygen the fuels cells in the vehicles powered then use by turning the water into hydrogen and oxygen. (These renewable sources near oceans could desalt the water and use just part of that to produce hydrogen.)

Now it seems we may have that technology. This time I seem to have lost my notes on who developed it; but I saw a recent story that explained that there is a new way to store and deliver hydrogen by encapsulating hydrides from which hydrogen can be extracted for fuel cells and which uses nanotechnology. These encapsulated hydrides can be safely stored, transported, and even piped into vehicle fuel tanks much as gasoline and diesel fuel is now.

Another technology we have posted on before is by the Swedish company that now has an office in Sunnyvale, California in the silicon valley, GLO AB.

They use nanotechnology to make manufacturing LED lights something like a fifth as expensive as the manufacturing of LED lights now requires.

Now, I’ve replaced most of the incandescent bulbs we use for lighting with compact fluorescents which use only 25% of the energy of the incandescent bulbs they replaced. But so far, despite their far greater safety to me and my family and using only an eighth of the electricity of incandescent bulbs & half that of compact fluorescents I’ve only replaced two of the compact fluorescents with KED bulbs.

The reason is that I had to pay over a hundred dollars for just those two LED bulbs!

If they only cost a fifth as much. I would have replaced 10 compact fluorescents for the same money. And with only a bit over $10 each, by now I’d have replaced several more compact fluorescents with LED bulbs.

And, at that price level, utilities facing the need for electricity for electric cars or rising prices for electricity from fossil fuels could make LED bulbs available to their customers for ALL their lights at no charge to their customers and still be money ahead themselves.

There are literally hundreds or thousands of such efforts now in every part of energy savings and energy efficiency and clean energy production. Even nuclear may stay around though with much better and more reliable safety features. And, the venture capital firms are beginning to put some serious money into expanding the companies that are successfully deploying those technologies according to a story this week here in the Silicon Valley.

What we are so far missing is the spirit and energy and mulitple buy-in from all kinds of people that the United States, England, and Russia had during World War II.

We need more leaders with that vision and who know how to sell it to all of the stakeholders involved, not just some of them.

I’m out of time today but will list some potential ideas to solve that problem next time.

Until then I challenge you to commit yourself personally to do what you can for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.

What can you already do in your home or at work?

How can you help get support from everyone for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources?

Even a single new LED light or more replacing a single energy using device with a more energy efficient one will help.

Even getting one other person to also commit to winning the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources -- will help.