Hughesair (Inflection Point)

Long ago Europe elected to bury their electric grid underground. This strategy, while expensive, saved money in the long run. The decision, however, came about as a direct result of the risk to life caused by downed power-lines during the bombings of WWII. Historians claim that downed power-lines caused more deaths than the bombs. Our electric grid is dysfunctional, not for lack of capacity, but for lack of coordination between private electric power companies. I would think this super storm with the wide-spread electric failure might afford an opportunity to bury our highly vulnerable grid and coordinate its planning on a broader scale. It seems to me that electricity is the ultimate infrastructure for the common good. Electric power should be cheap, untaxed, abundant, clean and totally reliable. By clean, I mean free of surges, brown-outs and variations from the standard, safe for computer use. The economic benefits would be enormous not to mention the reduced cost of r...

OK, I can’t stand this. Once again the price of gas skyrockets and all we can think about is “drill baby drill.” So drilling short term for petroleum and methane makes good sense for the economy, but long term petroleum is obviously a dead end. Natural gas is cheap and abundant. It’s a cheap abundant exploitable energy resource that the economy desperately needs, but long term we can do even better. Like it or not, we are in competition with other potential super powers. We need to retain leadership not politically, militarily and wasting our resources, but economically and technologically. Whichever nation makes the transition to an advanced energy source or sources will dominate economically. Energy is, to a basic extent, a critical common infrastructure. That is, warmth and shelter remains a common need and must be affordable for all no matter the circumstances. So, energy must first and foremost be cheap, abundant and exploitable. MIT has done marvelous research in developing an...

Huricane Irene leaves much of the East Coast without power, again. After WWII much of Europe, due to the devastation and danger from downed power lines during the war, went to underground cables for their electric grid. Much of our critical public infrastructure lags far behind - to wit our electric grid. Unfortunately the strategy of privatization and deregulation lead to utilities prioritizing profit in favor of, keeping up with the rest of the world, never mind leadership and innovation. Underground cables buried beneath interstate highways might provide a convenient avenue for unobtrusively extending the power grid and bringing it up to the level of today's science: super conducting, DC strategies, etc. etc. Furthermore, cables beneath the highway could afford supplemental power to trucks and automobiles by direct induction while spreading along the roadway above.

Thorium- 232 offers a cleaner, safer, cheaper source of nuclear energy. The reason we do not use Thorium involves the Pentagon's need for fuel to make more nukes. Hello!

Joule Unlimited in Cambridge, Mass. produces diesel fuel directly from sunlight CO2 and water. A great stunt and nearing a demonstration of commercial viability, but instead of a Ferrari as the dream for the founder, Bill Sims, why not a Tesla? The same technology makes protons; it's only a question as to what to do with them. While on a biological strategy to produce energy, why not feed the protons (hydrogen ion) into an animal storage chemical like ATP (adenosine triphosphate) in the mitochondria. Feed electrons directly to electric motors with a much higher efficiency and thus lower cost. In this way, one would also sequester carbon dioxide. Call it something sexy like "Proton Drive." Diesel is so noisy, dirty and old hat, besides, I don't think a Ferrari runs on diesel anyway. All of our long haul trucks may soon convert to natural gas for lower cost and lower diesel demand. http://www.springerlink.com/content/j1414q2u5w25h788/fulltext.html

T. Bone Pickens on Bloomberg TV cited our present lack of an energy policy, a lack extending back over the last 40 years. Regrettably, it may be worse than that. Every oil crisis resulted in futile admonitions to conserve energy without commitment to new low cost sources. Remember the nation wide 55mph speed limit, extended daylight savings time, swizzle stick light bulbs? The list goes on and reflects the shallowness of legislative and executive thinking. The above New York Times article suggests mammoth new energy needs as computers become increasingly more powerful. It doesn't end there, however. Energy is the life blood of economic growth, cheap, exploitable abundant energy --- clean reliable electric energy for increasingly sophisticated and sensitive productive equipment. And what is it that leaders do not understand about energy independence. During WWII energy independence was a strategic credo as inviolate as Bill of Rights. Drill baby drill -- for oil...

This month’s Technology Review / MIT published “10 Emerging Technologies,” inventions that will shape the future. Number 2 was “Solar Fuel” touting a synthetic photosynthesizing `designer` microbe. Under sunlight, these genetically engineered microbes convert CO2 directly into diesel fuel. Noubar Afeyan of Jouel Biotechnologies in Cambridge, MA is the inventor. Bio-fuels made from corn drive up the price, and farmers become addicted to the subsidies. Apparently, this synthetic microbial process does not require farmland, water, fertilizer or the multistep process of growing and harvesting crops. More importantly, generating diesel fuel from these microbes, CO2 and sunlight, does not detract from the food supply. I’ve never understood the enthusiasm for bio-fuels. You still end up with the CO2 product of combustion -- with a thermodynamic inferior to methane or hydrogen. I would bet the byproduct of the microbial generation of diesel is in fact a little hydrogen and a lot of oxygen. The...