There are a number of irritating conceits and half-truths in this Nuclear Power Briefing by Greenpeace on the government's decision to endorse the manufacture of new nuclear power plants.
Comments like this, from the Greenpeace Nuclear Power Briefing:
"“We need baseload, and renewables can’t supply that.”
We also need what’s known as baseload – guaranteed electricity to meet
constant demand - and Britain can generate it with low-carbon technologies like
CHP [Combined Heat and Power] and some renewable technologies like tidal, biomass, biogas and hydro.
More efficient use of fossil fuels also has a part to play."
They don't seem to offer any evidence to support this assertion. Tidal projects are very admirable but there aren't many places that lend themselves to use in the this way. The Severn Barrage is one example, but I don't know if tidal and biomass methods can account for a large fraction of our electricity consumption, yet alone a large fraction of our energy consumption.
Is it not also possible that we could use different designs of nuclear power plant, like the Chinese or South African pebble bed reactors? These address the safety concerns and concerns about productions of weapon grade enriched uranium. Because the Chinese models are intended to be "mass produced" and don't require elaborate safety measures they could also be much cheaper than conventional nuclear reactors.
Surely the solution to the problem is to increase efficiency, increase the proportion of our energy sources that are renewable and low in carbon dioxide emissions? Nuclear power helps fulfill the latter of these points.
Greenpeace seem uninterested in providing figures to support their arguments. I'd like realistic estimates of how much of our energy needs could be met by low CO2 emission renewables and how much our energy needs could be reduced before I dismiss nuclear power.
More from the Briefing:
"“If we don’t go for nuclear we’ll be dependent for gas on unstable regimes
like Putin’s.”
The real threat to our energy security is interruptions to our oil supply. However,
essentially all of Britain’s oil is used for transport and cannot be replaced by
nuclear electricity.
Much has been made of the threat of becoming over-dependent on imported gas,
particularly from Russia. Unfortunately, half of our gas is used directly for
domestic space and water heating and cannot be replaced by electricity.
More is used for industrial processes, leaving under a third that is used for
electricity generation.
Much of that third is used to generate electricity at peak
times because gas turbines can be easily switched on and off to meet short term
spikes in demand. Nuclear power stations must be run continuously. This
considerably limits the role nuclear electricity can play in reducing our
dependence on gas, from wherever it is imported."
OK. So wouldn't it make more sense if our cars and buses and trains didn't run off oil? The stuff is going to be running out soon anyway, and we have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with hydrogen or cell-powered cars.
Shouldn't our intention be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? Nuclear power stations could be set up to provide electricity at peak times and spend the rest of their time producing hydrogen via electrolysis that could be used to power transport infrastructure.
As to the problem of heating homes - surely we can come up with some solutions based on electricity and greater efficiency? Combined heat and power has a lot of potential in this area.
We're going to have to switch from an oil-based transport infrastructure to an alternative at some point.
"“We can have nuclear AND renewables.”
In reality going nuclear would squeeze out renewables. Indeed, then Secretary of
State for Business Patricia Hewitt said in Commons debate on 2003 Energy
White Paper:
“It would have been foolish to announce …. that we would embark
on a new generation of nuclear power stations because that would have
guaranteed that we would not make the necessary investment and effort in both
energy efficiency and in renewables.”
Since then nothing has changed."
Huh? We're saving the world here. Can't we ditch Trident and pay for both? Again Greenpeace gives no figures and does not give any concrete evidence that we couldn't or wouldn't pay for development of both renewable and nuclear power.
I find myself in a situation where I don't know whether to believe the government or the greens. This is frustrating and counterproductive.
Showing posts with label hydrogen economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hydrogen economy. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Monday, November 26, 2007
The Hydrogen Hoax
In Robert Zubrin's latest book Energy Victory he argues that liberal, wealthy countries should wean themselves off oil as a prime mover because OPEC and most specifically the House of Saud funds Muslim terrorism and radicalises moderate Muslims.
The money to fund this radicalism comes from oil revenues that come from us in Europe, North America, and Asia. This money is then used to radicalise the Muslims amongst us.
Also, because OPEC sets the price of oil over what the free market would set it at, OPEC prevents developing countries from accessing the cheap energy they need to develop.
A line quoted in this article on Zubrin's book at The Register concerns the "hydrogen economy" - something I've always felt was a canard:
"It’s all pure bunk. To get serious about energy policy, America needs to abandon, once and for all, the false promise of the hydrogen age... Hydrogen, therefore, is not a source of energy. It simply is a carrier of energy... an extremely poor one."
It's nice to have my own opinions vindicated by people who know what they're talking about.
The money to fund this radicalism comes from oil revenues that come from us in Europe, North America, and Asia. This money is then used to radicalise the Muslims amongst us.
Also, because OPEC sets the price of oil over what the free market would set it at, OPEC prevents developing countries from accessing the cheap energy they need to develop.
A line quoted in this article on Zubrin's book at The Register concerns the "hydrogen economy" - something I've always felt was a canard:
"It’s all pure bunk. To get serious about energy policy, America needs to abandon, once and for all, the false promise of the hydrogen age... Hydrogen, therefore, is not a source of energy. It simply is a carrier of energy... an extremely poor one."
It's nice to have my own opinions vindicated by people who know what they're talking about.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Hydrogen Production
Interesting article here at PhysOrg, entitled "Engineers perfecting hydrogen-generating technology". Judging from the article, an alloy of aluminium and gallium (which is conveniently produced as a byproduct of aluminium production) could potentially be used to convert water into hydrogen, whilst oxygen bonds with the aluminium to form alumina, which can be recycled back into aluminium.
When water is added to the alloy, the aluminum splits water by attracting oxygen, liberating hydrogen in the process. The Purdue researchers are developing a method to create particles of the alloy that could be placed in a tank to react with water and produce hydrogen on demand.
From the article:
"The gallium is a critical component because it hinders the formation of an aluminum oxide skin normally created on aluminum's surface after bonding with oxygen, a process called oxidation. This skin usually acts as a barrier and prevents oxygen from reacting with aluminum. Reducing the skin's protective properties allows the reaction to continue until all of the aluminum is used to generate hydrogen, said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process.
I wish they made an effort to give more context to these articles: it would help if someone who knew more about this sort of thing were to draw up a "score sheet" showing the relative energy-densities, cost, benefits and problems with each of the various auto-powering technologies.
Lots more quotations:
"The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of developing alternative fuels that possess a "hydrogen mass density" of 6 percent by the year 2010 and 9 percent by 2015. The percent mass density of hydrogen is the mass of hydrogen contained in the fuel divided by the total mass of the fuel multiplied by 100. Assuming 50 percent of the water produced as waste is recovered and cycled back into the reaction, the new 80-20 alloy has a hydrogen mass density greater than 6 percent, which meets the DOE's 2010 goal.
Aluminum is refined from the raw mineral bauxite, which also contains gallium. Producing aluminum from bauxite results in waste gallium.
"This technology is feasible for commercial use," Woodall said. "The waste alumina can be
recycled back into aluminum, and low-cost gallium is available as a waste product from
companies that produce aluminum from the raw mineral bauxite. Enough aluminum exists in the United States to produce 100 trillion kilowatt hours of energy. That's enough energy to meet all the U.S. electric needs for 35 years. If impure gallium can be made for less than $10 a pound and used in an onboard system, there are enough known gallium reserves to run 1 billion cars.""
One of the problems with the predicted hydrogen economy is the difficulty of transporting and storing hydrogen safely and efficiently. Because this aluminium/gallium alloy can be transported as easily as oil: ""Particles made with this 80-20 alloy have good stability in dry air and react rapidly with water to form hydrogen.""
Another interesting idea is the possibility of converting conventional internal-combustion engines into hydrogen burning engines.
It also has obvious applications for boats: you wouldn't have to haul the raw water around with you.
"The Purdue researchers had thought that making the process competitive with conventional energy sources would require that the alumina be recycled back into aluminum using a dedicated infrastructure, such as a nuclear power plant or wind generators. However, the researchers now know that recycling the alumina would cost far less than they originally estimated, using standard processing already available.
"Since standard industrial technology could be used to recycle our nearly pure alumina back to aluminum at 20 cents per pound, this technology would be competitive with gasoline," Woodall said. "Using aluminum, it would cost $70 at wholesale prices to take a 350-mile trip with a mid-size car equipped with a standard internal combustion engine. That compares with $66 for gasoline at $3.30 per gallon. If we used a 50 percent efficient fuel cell, taking the same trip using aluminum would cost $28.""
So the energy is generated somewhere, and "stored" in the aluminium/gallium alloy, which would produce hydrogen when needed, which could be used to power an engine.
This solves the problem of safely and efficiently storing and transporting hydrogen. For automobiles it does mean you'd have to lug around water and metal. 6 % hydrogen mass density doesn't seem like much to me, but it'll be interesting to see how this does genuinely compare with petrol.
When water is added to the alloy, the aluminum splits water by attracting oxygen, liberating hydrogen in the process. The Purdue researchers are developing a method to create particles of the alloy that could be placed in a tank to react with water and produce hydrogen on demand.
From the article:
"The gallium is a critical component because it hinders the formation of an aluminum oxide skin normally created on aluminum's surface after bonding with oxygen, a process called oxidation. This skin usually acts as a barrier and prevents oxygen from reacting with aluminum. Reducing the skin's protective properties allows the reaction to continue until all of the aluminum is used to generate hydrogen, said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process.
I wish they made an effort to give more context to these articles: it would help if someone who knew more about this sort of thing were to draw up a "score sheet" showing the relative energy-densities, cost, benefits and problems with each of the various auto-powering technologies.
Lots more quotations:
"The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of developing alternative fuels that possess a "hydrogen mass density" of 6 percent by the year 2010 and 9 percent by 2015. The percent mass density of hydrogen is the mass of hydrogen contained in the fuel divided by the total mass of the fuel multiplied by 100. Assuming 50 percent of the water produced as waste is recovered and cycled back into the reaction, the new 80-20 alloy has a hydrogen mass density greater than 6 percent, which meets the DOE's 2010 goal.
Aluminum is refined from the raw mineral bauxite, which also contains gallium. Producing aluminum from bauxite results in waste gallium.
"This technology is feasible for commercial use," Woodall said. "The waste alumina can be
recycled back into aluminum, and low-cost gallium is available as a waste product from
companies that produce aluminum from the raw mineral bauxite. Enough aluminum exists in the United States to produce 100 trillion kilowatt hours of energy. That's enough energy to meet all the U.S. electric needs for 35 years. If impure gallium can be made for less than $10 a pound and used in an onboard system, there are enough known gallium reserves to run 1 billion cars.""
One of the problems with the predicted hydrogen economy is the difficulty of transporting and storing hydrogen safely and efficiently. Because this aluminium/gallium alloy can be transported as easily as oil: ""Particles made with this 80-20 alloy have good stability in dry air and react rapidly with water to form hydrogen.""
Another interesting idea is the possibility of converting conventional internal-combustion engines into hydrogen burning engines.
It also has obvious applications for boats: you wouldn't have to haul the raw water around with you.
"The Purdue researchers had thought that making the process competitive with conventional energy sources would require that the alumina be recycled back into aluminum using a dedicated infrastructure, such as a nuclear power plant or wind generators. However, the researchers now know that recycling the alumina would cost far less than they originally estimated, using standard processing already available.
"Since standard industrial technology could be used to recycle our nearly pure alumina back to aluminum at 20 cents per pound, this technology would be competitive with gasoline," Woodall said. "Using aluminum, it would cost $70 at wholesale prices to take a 350-mile trip with a mid-size car equipped with a standard internal combustion engine. That compares with $66 for gasoline at $3.30 per gallon. If we used a 50 percent efficient fuel cell, taking the same trip using aluminum would cost $28.""
So the energy is generated somewhere, and "stored" in the aluminium/gallium alloy, which would produce hydrogen when needed, which could be used to power an engine.
This solves the problem of safely and efficiently storing and transporting hydrogen. For automobiles it does mean you'd have to lug around water and metal. 6 % hydrogen mass density doesn't seem like much to me, but it'll be interesting to see how this does genuinely compare with petrol.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Evidence of Aeroplanes
The new Boeing 787 is a step in the right direction as far as the organisers of Live Earth are concerned (although I suppose they'd probably prefer that no one flew at all unless it was absolutely necessary).
However it is interesting that the two big players in aircraft manufacture seem to be traveling in opposite directions as far as solving the problems facing air travel are concerned. Boeing is going for a smaller, lower carbon-dioxide emitting, aircraft, and Airbus are going for a bigger-is-better approach.
Airbus claims the A380 is more "fuel efficient" than a car, averaging an equivalent of around 90 mpg.
Meanwhile Boeing claims the Dreamliner offers "unmatched fuel efficiency, resulting in exceptional environmental performance".
Of course my preference for a 21st century aeroplane would be a scaled-up version of the non-polluting Smartfish hydrogen-powered plane.
I've commented before that I feel that the idea of a "hydrogen economy" is overrated as far as automobiles are concerned. I reckon there is a great deal of potential in electric cars of various types.
However for aeroplanes hydrogen-power makes sense. It is light-weight and as kerosene (which is normally used as aircraft fuel) is fairly hazardous, there would be less of a jolt as far as transport and storage are concerned compared with replacing petrol in cars.
Anyway the Smartfish looks great.
However it is interesting that the two big players in aircraft manufacture seem to be traveling in opposite directions as far as solving the problems facing air travel are concerned. Boeing is going for a smaller, lower carbon-dioxide emitting, aircraft, and Airbus are going for a bigger-is-better approach.
Airbus claims the A380 is more "fuel efficient" than a car, averaging an equivalent of around 90 mpg.
Meanwhile Boeing claims the Dreamliner offers "unmatched fuel efficiency, resulting in exceptional environmental performance".
Of course my preference for a 21st century aeroplane would be a scaled-up version of the non-polluting Smartfish hydrogen-powered plane.
I've commented before that I feel that the idea of a "hydrogen economy" is overrated as far as automobiles are concerned. I reckon there is a great deal of potential in electric cars of various types.
However for aeroplanes hydrogen-power makes sense. It is light-weight and as kerosene (which is normally used as aircraft fuel) is fairly hazardous, there would be less of a jolt as far as transport and storage are concerned compared with replacing petrol in cars.
Anyway the Smartfish looks great.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Electric Cars
There are three basic problems facing the nascent electric car industry:
As far as getting energy in and out of an ECSD is concerned the most obvious choice is the ultracapacitor. Capacitors are basically two sheets of conducting material held a short distance away from each other, with a layer of insulator between them. The two conducting sheets are attached to a circuit, connected to a potential difference.
The electrons flow into one of the sheets, so that each plate has an equal and opposite charge. The magnitude of the charge grows until the capacitor reaches a critical threshold and a current forces its way between the two plates.
Ultracapacitors (AKA: hypercapacitors, or supercapacitors) are simply capacitors capable of storing a very, very large charge in a small volume (compared to traditional capacitors). As there is no chemical reaction involved, as in cells, the discharge and charge times can be very short (so capacitor-based cars would be very powerful and very quick to charge).
Capacitors are the basis of the company EEstor's project to produce a low-cost, high energy-density, rapid-recharging, and rapid-delivery capacitor.
Meanwhile elsewhere, lead-acid batteries are being given a new lease on life by a company called Firefly Energy. Their idea is to take the 19th century technology and use 21st century manufacturing and processing methods to make the surface area of the lead electrode greater, whilst also making it more stable (traditional lead-acid batteries tend to crystallise over time, particularly if they are not being used). Firefly have replaced the lead plates found in traditional lead-acid batteries with a carbon graphite foam that contains the lead.
The company boasts that the greater surface area afforded by the lead-impregnated graphite foam means recharge times are smaller, energy delivery times are smaller, and the whole shebang is more stable.
The soon-to-be-more-famous Tesla Roadster uses lithium-ion batteries, the kind (I assume, wait... yes, hang on... yeah) used in my laptop and many other portable electronic devices.
Li-ion batteries also have problems, as they sometimes catch fire.
So there are three different technologies competing for the title of automobile ECSD:
"The first commercial application of the EESU is intended to be used in electric vehicles under a technology agreement with ZENN Motors Company. EEStor, Inc. remains on track to begin shipping production 15 kilowatt-hour Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) to ZENN Motor Company in 2007 for use in their electric vehicles. The production EESU for ZENN Motor Company will function to specification in operating environments as sever as negative 20 to plus 65 degrees Celsius, will weigh less than 100 pounds, and will have ability to be recharged in a matter of minutes."
Neat. At the moment, if I'm asked to place a bet - I'd say the inheritor to the internal combustion engine automobile will be hybrid-electric/electric cars, rather than vehicles based on hydrogen, bio-ethanol, or other biological sources. And I'll also wager that the successful technology out of the ECSD set will be the super/ultra/hyper-capacitor.
Ultracapacitor-based electric cars strike me as much more elegant, and much more sensible. I suspect that when people turn to bio-diesel and bio-ethanol, they're thinking about what fluid they could use to replace petrol in their tanks - rather than what is the most effective way of storing energy.
But the best technology isn't always the most marketable technology. I look forward to finding out how things pan out.
- How to find a device to store electric charge that can be charged to full capacity so that the time taken to provide a full charge is comparable to the time taken to full a tank with petrol.
- How to find a device to store electric charge that can deliver energy rapidly enough to the motors of our hypothetical car so that the car can accelerate as well, and haul loads as well, as cars powered by internal combustion engines.
- How to find a device to store electric charge that has an energy density and longevity similar to that of the same mass and volume of petrol.
As far as getting energy in and out of an ECSD is concerned the most obvious choice is the ultracapacitor. Capacitors are basically two sheets of conducting material held a short distance away from each other, with a layer of insulator between them. The two conducting sheets are attached to a circuit, connected to a potential difference.
The electrons flow into one of the sheets, so that each plate has an equal and opposite charge. The magnitude of the charge grows until the capacitor reaches a critical threshold and a current forces its way between the two plates.
Ultracapacitors (AKA: hypercapacitors, or supercapacitors) are simply capacitors capable of storing a very, very large charge in a small volume (compared to traditional capacitors). As there is no chemical reaction involved, as in cells, the discharge and charge times can be very short (so capacitor-based cars would be very powerful and very quick to charge).
Capacitors are the basis of the company EEstor's project to produce a low-cost, high energy-density, rapid-recharging, and rapid-delivery capacitor.
Meanwhile elsewhere, lead-acid batteries are being given a new lease on life by a company called Firefly Energy. Their idea is to take the 19th century technology and use 21st century manufacturing and processing methods to make the surface area of the lead electrode greater, whilst also making it more stable (traditional lead-acid batteries tend to crystallise over time, particularly if they are not being used). Firefly have replaced the lead plates found in traditional lead-acid batteries with a carbon graphite foam that contains the lead.
The company boasts that the greater surface area afforded by the lead-impregnated graphite foam means recharge times are smaller, energy delivery times are smaller, and the whole shebang is more stable.
The soon-to-be-more-famous Tesla Roadster uses lithium-ion batteries, the kind (I assume, wait... yes, hang on... yeah) used in my laptop and many other portable electronic devices.
Li-ion batteries also have problems, as they sometimes catch fire.
So there are three different technologies competing for the title of automobile ECSD:
- Lithium ion batteries.
- Improved lead-acid batteries.
- Ultracapacitors.
"Among EEStor's claims is that its "electrical energy storage unit" could pack nearly 10 times the energy punch of a lead-acid battery of similar weight and, under mass production, would cost half as much.
It also says its technology more than doubles the energy density of lithium-ion batteries in most portable computer and mobile gadgets today, but could be produced at one-eighth the cost.
If that's not impressive enough, EEStor says its energy storage technology is "not explosive, corrosive, or hazardous" like lead-acid and most lithium-ion systems, and will outlast the life of any commercial product it powers. It can also absorb energy quickly, meaning a small electric car containing a 17-kilowatt-hour system could be fully charged in four to six minutes versus hours for other battery technologies, the company claims."
EEstor seem to be very secretive (if they can back up their promises they have every reason to be suspicious of someone stealing a march on them), but I am attracted to the elegance of the ultracapacitor. It is the hydrogen-fuel-cell problem writ on a smaller scale: why go to all the trouble of juggling chemicals (hydrogen for fuel cells and lead-acid and lithium for electrochemical batteries) when you can store the charge directly?
"The first commercial application of the EESU is intended to be used in electric vehicles under a technology agreement with ZENN Motors Company. EEStor, Inc. remains on track to begin shipping production 15 kilowatt-hour Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) to ZENN Motor Company in 2007 for use in their electric vehicles. The production EESU for ZENN Motor Company will function to specification in operating environments as sever as negative 20 to plus 65 degrees Celsius, will weigh less than 100 pounds, and will have ability to be recharged in a matter of minutes."
Neat. At the moment, if I'm asked to place a bet - I'd say the inheritor to the internal combustion engine automobile will be hybrid-electric/electric cars, rather than vehicles based on hydrogen, bio-ethanol, or other biological sources. And I'll also wager that the successful technology out of the ECSD set will be the super/ultra/hyper-capacitor.
Ultracapacitor-based electric cars strike me as much more elegant, and much more sensible. I suspect that when people turn to bio-diesel and bio-ethanol, they're thinking about what fluid they could use to replace petrol in their tanks - rather than what is the most effective way of storing energy.
But the best technology isn't always the most marketable technology. I look forward to finding out how things pan out.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Space, Global Warming, and Technology
Sorry I haven't written anything for a while. As I mentioned before I've spent most of the past few weeks doing exams, revising for exams, and dealing with the usual stresses that accompany these activities.
As always, an awful lot of stuff has happened over the last few days. Gordon Brown got to be Prime Minister. I'm looking forward to seeing what he'll do.
NASA is planning to launch a spacecraft called Dawn this July to study the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. When it comes to space development asteroids are the first logical source of real cash. They are large reserves of useful materials and aren't sitting at the bottom of massive gravitational wells, like most of the useful material in the solar system.
Charles Stross recently blogged a long and interesting article on space exploration and the economic difficulties of delivering cans of apes to distant star systems. I suppose we can only assume that when human civilization starts to really affect matter beyond our immediate solar system it will be through star-wisp style probes, rather than massive generation-ships, as Stephen Baxter imagines in this month's edition of Focus Magazine.
The star-wisps would carry a small payload that would be capable of "bootstrapping" itself to a more useful state using energy and material it would find when it arrives at its destination star system.
Stross makes a very good point that living in space (even in habitats like O'Neill cylinders) will probably be as difficult and uncomfortable as living on oil rigs or in the Arctic or in the Gobi Desert.
I think it's fair to say that when and if civilization begins to have a large material impact on the solar system it will not be through homo-sapiens living in bottles. It will be through artificial machines controlled by homo-sapiens living in comfort on Earth.
Global warming: From my point of view, I don't mind (in fact I would welcome) giving up personal automobile transport, but cheap international flights is one area where I feel resentful of the necessary sacrifice. A recent article at Physorg suggests the development of an electric plane. I can only assume from the article that it does not refer to an electrical jet engine, but rather to an old-fashioned propeller.
This is disappointing: currently I think the best possibility for have your cake and eat it air travel is alternative fuels, like Richard Branson has been plugging recently.
There is also the wonderful Smartfish project. The sketches of the plane look wonderful.
As for cars, driving on today's roads is an affront to the dignity of man. A sensible, low-cost/free, integrated, information-saturated and nationalised public-transport service is a necessary component of any developed nation seeking to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
I'm still cynical of hydrogen-gas as an alternative fuel. It seems wasteful to produce electricity to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen (assuming you don't use fossil fuels), transport the hydrogen, and then use the hydrogen to power a car or bus. It would be simpler to generate electricity and use it to charge a more conventional battery or super capacitor. There's a fascinating story on Wired about the Tesla electric sports car.
With the current hype surrounding Web 2.0 (Twitter, for example, which I have failed to use and will probably remove if it doesn't become more interesting) there have been a number of articles on the future, and how you predict it. This fascinating article on Slate about the future of the computer is an example. For all the recent advances in computer technology and communications technology we haven't even started to scratch the surface of how these two areas will transform our lives.
As computational devices ooze into the background and interfaces become more intuitive and ubiquitous (for example, Microsoft Surface) the potential for Black Swan events will increase.
All this makes predicting exactly what life will be like in the future difficult. An interesting book Imaginary Futures - From Thinking Machines to the Global Village by academic Richard Barbrook suggests that our ideas of imminent utopia have more to do with Cold War spin than any realistic analysis of potential future technology.
My own feeling is that the world is likely to get better for everyone over the next century, even as we find new and ever more cunning ways of making ourselves miserable. I suspect that at some point over the next 50 years the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, like the Sudan, Namibia, and others will experience an enormous surge in quality of life, which will make things better for everyone. Global Warming is just crammed with potential Black Swans.
I read an inordinate quantity of science fiction. I've never been able to identify precisely what I like about it: it's probably to do with the mix of optimistic escapism and extraordinary ideas.
Another interesting component is looking at what people in the past thought the future was going to be like. It seems to me that we here in Britain started the 20th century with the spectre of a European War between colonial powers hovering over our heads.
Following several decades of predicted global catastrophe (WWI, WWII, the Great Depression, the rise of dictatorships of various flavours, the creation of atom bombs and the start of the Cold War) people turned to science and technology to create a bright new future.
After this there came various waves of science fiction, dealing mostly with how people felt at the time of writing. Now that the future seems bleak again, with global warming, climate change, peak oil, and all the usual problems of Getting Along, it will be interesting to see how our view of the future changes.
With regard to this, Henry Jenkins writes about how this change in our perception of the future has affected science fiction.
I can't wait for it to be the future!
As always, an awful lot of stuff has happened over the last few days. Gordon Brown got to be Prime Minister. I'm looking forward to seeing what he'll do.
NASA is planning to launch a spacecraft called Dawn this July to study the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. When it comes to space development asteroids are the first logical source of real cash. They are large reserves of useful materials and aren't sitting at the bottom of massive gravitational wells, like most of the useful material in the solar system.
Charles Stross recently blogged a long and interesting article on space exploration and the economic difficulties of delivering cans of apes to distant star systems. I suppose we can only assume that when human civilization starts to really affect matter beyond our immediate solar system it will be through star-wisp style probes, rather than massive generation-ships, as Stephen Baxter imagines in this month's edition of Focus Magazine.
The star-wisps would carry a small payload that would be capable of "bootstrapping" itself to a more useful state using energy and material it would find when it arrives at its destination star system.
Stross makes a very good point that living in space (even in habitats like O'Neill cylinders) will probably be as difficult and uncomfortable as living on oil rigs or in the Arctic or in the Gobi Desert.
I think it's fair to say that when and if civilization begins to have a large material impact on the solar system it will not be through homo-sapiens living in bottles. It will be through artificial machines controlled by homo-sapiens living in comfort on Earth.
Global warming: From my point of view, I don't mind (in fact I would welcome) giving up personal automobile transport, but cheap international flights is one area where I feel resentful of the necessary sacrifice. A recent article at Physorg suggests the development of an electric plane. I can only assume from the article that it does not refer to an electrical jet engine, but rather to an old-fashioned propeller.
This is disappointing: currently I think the best possibility for have your cake and eat it air travel is alternative fuels, like Richard Branson has been plugging recently.
There is also the wonderful Smartfish project. The sketches of the plane look wonderful.
As for cars, driving on today's roads is an affront to the dignity of man. A sensible, low-cost/free, integrated, information-saturated and nationalised public-transport service is a necessary component of any developed nation seeking to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
I'm still cynical of hydrogen-gas as an alternative fuel. It seems wasteful to produce electricity to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen (assuming you don't use fossil fuels), transport the hydrogen, and then use the hydrogen to power a car or bus. It would be simpler to generate electricity and use it to charge a more conventional battery or super capacitor. There's a fascinating story on Wired about the Tesla electric sports car.
With the current hype surrounding Web 2.0 (Twitter, for example, which I have failed to use and will probably remove if it doesn't become more interesting) there have been a number of articles on the future, and how you predict it. This fascinating article on Slate about the future of the computer is an example. For all the recent advances in computer technology and communications technology we haven't even started to scratch the surface of how these two areas will transform our lives.
As computational devices ooze into the background and interfaces become more intuitive and ubiquitous (for example, Microsoft Surface) the potential for Black Swan events will increase.
All this makes predicting exactly what life will be like in the future difficult. An interesting book Imaginary Futures - From Thinking Machines to the Global Village by academic Richard Barbrook suggests that our ideas of imminent utopia have more to do with Cold War spin than any realistic analysis of potential future technology.
My own feeling is that the world is likely to get better for everyone over the next century, even as we find new and ever more cunning ways of making ourselves miserable. I suspect that at some point over the next 50 years the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, like the Sudan, Namibia, and others will experience an enormous surge in quality of life, which will make things better for everyone. Global Warming is just crammed with potential Black Swans.
I read an inordinate quantity of science fiction. I've never been able to identify precisely what I like about it: it's probably to do with the mix of optimistic escapism and extraordinary ideas.
Another interesting component is looking at what people in the past thought the future was going to be like. It seems to me that we here in Britain started the 20th century with the spectre of a European War between colonial powers hovering over our heads.
Following several decades of predicted global catastrophe (WWI, WWII, the Great Depression, the rise of dictatorships of various flavours, the creation of atom bombs and the start of the Cold War) people turned to science and technology to create a bright new future.
After this there came various waves of science fiction, dealing mostly with how people felt at the time of writing. Now that the future seems bleak again, with global warming, climate change, peak oil, and all the usual problems of Getting Along, it will be interesting to see how our view of the future changes.
With regard to this, Henry Jenkins writes about how this change in our perception of the future has affected science fiction.
I can't wait for it to be the future!
Friday, February 09, 2007
A Hydrogen Economy
One of the problems with the idea of a hydrogen economy as an alternative to an oil economy is that the comparison implies that hydrogen will take the place of oil. This is not true: most of the hydrogen on Earth is already oxidised and as such requires more energy to liberate than could be gleaned from hydrogen as a primary power source.
Putting aside nuclear fusion (not because it is totally unfeasible or anything, just that there is no guarantee of a workable solution soon enough to solve our impending global warming and peak oil difficulties, either from ITER or various other interested parties in aneutronic fusion).
But if you're talking about hydrogen as an alternative to gasoline in cars then hydrogen is a bit of a roundabout way of doing things. Hydrogen fuel cell cars would function in a similar way to electric cars. A report from Ulf Bossel (organiser of the European Fuel Cell Forum and general fuel-cell bod) last December points out some of the problems with hydrogen in this context. Another criticism of GWB's presidential initiative comes from Robert Zubrin's book The New Atlantis.
So far my favourite option for the automobile of the future is the ultra-capacitor. This way electricity from the mains (generated by nuclear power and space-based solar-power-beaming stations) could be used to "fuel" autos. The most compelling (i.e. the only one I've come across) of these schemes is EEStor Company of Cedar Park Texas. I think that right now we should concentrate on electric-petrol hybrids and then, depending on how soon ultra-capacitors can be made to work, gradually migrate to an electric-based transport paradigm (Eeew, sorry, but I just had to use paradigm - it's the RIGHT WORD damnit!).
Transport accounts for around 10 % of European carbon dioxide emissions. Removing our requirement for petroleum to fuel cars would be a big step in the right direction, even if it only means the problem of energy production is elsewhere.
Putting aside nuclear fusion (not because it is totally unfeasible or anything, just that there is no guarantee of a workable solution soon enough to solve our impending global warming and peak oil difficulties, either from ITER or various other interested parties in aneutronic fusion).
But if you're talking about hydrogen as an alternative to gasoline in cars then hydrogen is a bit of a roundabout way of doing things. Hydrogen fuel cell cars would function in a similar way to electric cars. A report from Ulf Bossel (organiser of the European Fuel Cell Forum and general fuel-cell bod) last December points out some of the problems with hydrogen in this context. Another criticism of GWB's presidential initiative comes from Robert Zubrin's book The New Atlantis.
So far my favourite option for the automobile of the future is the ultra-capacitor. This way electricity from the mains (generated by nuclear power and space-based solar-power-beaming stations) could be used to "fuel" autos. The most compelling (i.e. the only one I've come across) of these schemes is EEStor Company of Cedar Park Texas. I think that right now we should concentrate on electric-petrol hybrids and then, depending on how soon ultra-capacitors can be made to work, gradually migrate to an electric-based transport paradigm (Eeew, sorry, but I just had to use paradigm - it's the RIGHT WORD damnit!).
Transport accounts for around 10 % of European carbon dioxide emissions. Removing our requirement for petroleum to fuel cars would be a big step in the right direction, even if it only means the problem of energy production is elsewhere.
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