I think we must try

[goku]

i just love the thought of gore preaching about global warming while he flies in his private jet

 

isn't oil the natural solar energy?

 

seems to me that releasing carbon from it's oily state would allow for more life on the planet.

 

if the government changes anything they'll have nothing to campain on for the next term

 

harvest the radiation from nuclear waste to produce electricity

 

just a few thoughts

[InfiniteNow]

i just love the thought of gore preaching about global warming while he flies in his private jet

 

isn't oil the natural solar energy?

 

seems to me that releasing carbon from it's oily state would allow for more life on the planet.

 

if the government changes anything they'll have nothing to campain on for the next term

 

harvest the radiation from nuclear waste to produce electricity

 

just a few thoughts

 

A well thought out, deeply considered, and oft repeated position goku.

 

I take it that you'd rather attack old targets than try to make things better with the rest of us?

[REASON]

Well, obviously it won't work for everyone, I just think it could work for a lot more than those who are currently doing it.

 

Hey, don't get me wrong. I love the idea. I think every little bit helps too. Some of us just aren't able to work for a company as progressive as INow's.

 

I really like Freezsicle's idea too. I've often thought of the benefits of a three day weekend. :phones:

 

 

goku?................nevermind.

[goku]

I take it that you'd rather attack old targets than try to make things better with the rest of us?

 

i think it'd be great to drill in anwr and use allternative fuels.

but a question keeps poping in my mind, why would the ones with the power to change (ex: gas prices), change anything?

 

everything now is exactly the way that someone wants it to be, a few crazy people on a science site isn't going to change that.

 

that being said, it's still fun to speculate

 

in a different thread someone had the idea of useing the tides to produce energy. in alaska the tide change is about 15 ft.

[InfiniteNow]

Here's the full 27m speech from which the highlights in the OP were brought together:

 

 

YouTube - AL GORE: Green Energy by 2018 (7/17 Speech) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt9wZloG97U

 

 

 

And the transcript is available here:

 

Al Gore: A Generational Challenge to Repower America | We Can Solve It

[CraigD]

Here's another interesting project that shows promise.

For the bandwidth limited :), a non-video link: Valcent Products Inc,. - High Density Vertical Bioreactor - HDVB - Sun Jul 27, 2008.

 

Though my business technology predictions have a history of being worth about the disk storage they’re written on, I predict that more than a few amoral, apolitical capitalists are going to make a lot of money on this technology. It’s enough to temp even an market-ignorant old pinko hippie like me to throw a few K$ that way in the hope of future wealth not earned by the honest sweat of my brow. :)

[palmtreepathos]

It’s enough to temp even an market-ignorant old pinko hippie like me to throw a few K$ that way in the hope of future wealth not earned by the honest sweat of my brow. :)

Hey! I resemble that...:doh: So what is the name that I throw my $$ at?

Valcent Products Inc (VCTPF)? :)

The more I see that clip the less "pie-in-the-sky" it seems, especially in comparison to new grids, wave energy etc. All good but the matrix is set up for oil and this could supply it. And I think he said they can capture CO2 to feed it with at the same time? very cool... I wonder how they filter out the green stuff? some type of centrifuge? Hmm..have to research this a bit....

 

Oilgae.com - Biodiesel from Algae Oil - Information, News, Links for Algal Fuel, Alga Bio-diesel, Biofuels, Algae Biofuel, Energy

Biodiesel production from heterotrophic microalgal oil

 

here is a combo algae/hydrogen

Algae: Power Plant of the Future?

[freeztar]

This method would sequester carbon as long as the lipids are not converted to fuel and burned. They failed to mention that part. :evil:

 

Nonetheless, it is still much better than using "black gold" oil because it's recycling the CO2 rather than adding new carbon into the atmosphere.

[C1ay]

So what is the name that I through my $$ at?

Valcent Products Inc (VCTPF)? :evil:

 

Yes, and their stock is down at the moment :hihi:

[REASON]

Yes, and their stock is down at the moment :(

 

RREEAAALLYY! :coffee_n_pc:

 

What say we just keep that little nugget to ourselves? ;) :hihi:

[TheBigDog]

I would use electricity from solar and wind to produce Hydrogen. The Hydrogen would be used as the next generation auto fuel but would be done in the cleanest manner. Imagine owning and using a car as you do today, but you have a solar array on your house which fills up a Hydrogen tank. Every couple of days you pump it from the tank into your car. When the tank is full it switches to pushing electricity into the grid. The new oil companies would be Hydrogen farmers who have large scale solar plants which feed filling stations. So you can spend a few thousand for a home station, or fill up retail, or use a combination if your needs exceed your home supply.

 

The beauty of this is that solar and wind are inconsistent sources. The Hydrogen produced acts like charging a battery; keeping the energy produced as potential rather than kinetic. This lets us get the energy when it is available and use the energy when we need it.

 

Bill

[REASON]

I would use electricity from solar and wind to produce Hydrogen. The Hydrogen would be used as the next generation auto fuel but would be done in the cleanest manner. Imagine owning and using a car as you do today, but you have a solar array on your house which fills up a Hydrogen tank. Every couple of days you pump it from the tank into your car. When the tank is full it switches to pushing electricity into the grid. The new oil companies would be Hydrogen farmers who have large scale solar plants which feed filling stations. So you can spend a few thousand for a home station, or fill up retail, or use a combination if your needs exceed your home supply.

 

The beauty of this is that solar and wind are inconsistent sources. The Hydrogen produced acts like charging a battery; keeping the energy produced as potential rather than kinetic. This lets us get the energy when it is available and use the energy when we need it.

 

Bill

 

What a great idea! I can really see that happening.

 

How difficult do you think it would be to generate the hydrogen from solar and wind energy sources? What would be the production method?

[TheBigDog]

What a great idea! I can really see that happening.

 

How difficult do you think it would be to generate the hydrogen from solar and wind energy sources? What would be the production method?

Every few months I spend an hour or two thinking about this. There have been startups trying to do this since the 70's. I would take the most basic approach of using electrolysis, which does not need any sort of catalyst. This would be slow, but slow and steady might be all you need. Probably worthy of its own thread.

 

Bill

[palmtreepathos]

This method would sequester carbon as long as the lipids are not converted to fuel and burned. They failed to mention that part. :)

 

Yes, sequestering carbon is a totally different game... Here I think the purpose is to make it do a second job before it fouls the air. Beneficial in lowering the pollution output of the source involved but not a CO2 solution. Still, if the algae oil is used for transportation, instead of exploiting the sequestered carbon of the petroleum type, it would become carbon neutral as it is reusing CO2 already out there.

Other caveats may apply, uses hexane etc. Can it be done w/o the govermental support that artificially supports the Biofuel from corn fiasco?

I wish there was link that shows how much it "costs" to produce in comparison to other natural oil sources. That may be why the numbers are down. No one investing in it w/o a decent return.

[InfiniteNow]

Every few months I spend an hour or two thinking about this. There have been startups trying to do this since the 70's. I would take the most basic approach of using electrolysis, which does not need any sort of catalyst. This would be slow, but slow and steady might be all you need. Probably worthy of its own thread.

 

Bill

 

Well, Bill... I think someone may have been listening. Check this out:

 

 

nsf.gov - News - Water Refineries? - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

 

"

New method extracts oxygen from water with minimal energy, potentially boosting efforts to develop solar as a 24-hour energy source

 

Using a surprisingly simple, inexpensive technique, chemists have found a way to pull pure oxygen from water using relatively small amounts of electricity, common chemicals and a room-temperature glass of water.

 

Because oxygen and hydrogen are energy-rich fuels, many researchers have proposed using solar electricity to split water into those elements--a stored energy source for when the sun goes down. One of the chief obstacles to that green-energy scenario has been the difficulty of producing oxygen without large amounts of energy or a high-maintenance environment.

Now, Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemist Daniel Nocera and his postdoctoral student Matthew Kanan have discovered an efficient way to solve the oxygen problem. They announced their findings July 31, 2008, online in the journal Science.

 

"The discovery has enormous implications for the large scale deployment of solar since it puts us on the doorstep of a cheap and easily manufactured storage mechanism," said Nocera. "The ease of implementation means that this discovery will have legs..." <more at link>

 

 

 

A snapshot showing the new, efficient oxygen catalyst in action in Dan Nocera's laboratory at MIT.

 

Credit: MIT/NSF

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+ -- Kanan and Nocera, 10.1126/science.1162018 -- Science

 

In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+

 

"The utilization of solar energy on a large scale requires its storage. In natural photosynthesis, energy from sunlight is used to rearrange the bonds of water to O2 and H2-equivalents. The realization of artificial systems that perform similar "water splitting" requires catalysts that produce O2 from water without the need for excessive driving potentials. Here, we report such a catalyst that forms upon the oxidative polarization of an inert indium tin oxide electrode in phosphate-buffered water containing Co2+. A variety of analytical techniques indicates the presence of phosphate in an approximate 1:2 ratio with cobalt in this material. The pH dependence of the catalytic activity also implicates HPO42– as the proton acceptor in the O2-producing reaction. This catalyst not only forms in situ from earth-abundant materials but also operates in neutral water under ambient conditions. "