Today marks my inaugural post at a brand new Seed Scienceblog called Next Generation Energy: An evolving interactive forum on alternative energy. Each week my co-bloggers and I will dissect which ideas are real contenders and what will be practical (and affordable) at the start of the 21st century. We'll separate fact from hype and ponder how the heck to get ourselves out of this pesky energy crisis and back on our feet... errr, tires. I'm passionate about this subject from a conservation perspective and looking forward to participating in the dialog. Here's a peek:
Corn ethanol isn't the solution. Instead, think of it as paving the way for alternatives.
You see, what most folks don't realize is that corn ethanol is a means to get the infrastructure in place for second generation cellulosic biofuels, made from the leaves, stems, and stalks of a plant. Actually, it's estimated that about two-thirds of what we throw into our landfills contains cellulose that may be potential fuel. Sources like switchgrass will be practical because they're good for the land, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and will not compete much for food resources. And get this... estimates suggest it may be less that $1/gallon on a per-mile basis and it will work in today's flex-fuel vehicles already capable of running on E85.
Intersection readers are typically on top of their game, armed and ready to jump into the forum... but before taking sides, head over the new blog and read my full post which does address critical next steps like funding, development, market competition, and infrastructure. Cellulosic ethanol will not be the only answer, but has the potential to contribute to a significant percent of our energy budget--helping us along on the road toward a more sustainable future.
More at NexGen...
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Well I was going to read it, and then I saw a Shell logo next to it, and now I'm left wondering what exactly ScienceBlogs are smoking.
Wow. The comments over there certainly blew up quickly. I don't know if a post that short can really qualify as a dissection...
In case you haven't seen it already, Steve Chu (Physicist, Nobel Laureate, and head of Lawrence Berkeley Labs, where BP is investing half a billion dollars in biofuels research) gave an interesting and optimistic hour long talk at Google on biofuels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snuzWU4-gjc
Vinod Khosla (biofuels venture capitalist) did too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpaKlyyGJLU
But there are also cooler heads in the lab, like Frances Arnold here at Caltech, who are working on engineering bugs to do the cellulose-to-liquid-fuel conversion. She gave this hour long talk last fall:
http://nrg.caltech.edu/video/arnold_bb.ram
Cellulosic biofuels are clearly the way to go, but I'm not sure we're as close as you suggest to making it happen.
Other good talks from that series at Caltech:
Harry Atwater on solar electricity and heat options:
http://nrg.caltech.edu/video/atwater_bb.ram
Nate Lewis on the real magnitude of the energy problem we face (trails off into his own lab work at the end...)
http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
We really need to get someone in to talk about solar-thermal.
Steve Koonin (former Caltech physics prof, now chief scientist for BP) also looking at the magnitude of the problem:
http://nrg.caltech.edu/video/koonin_bb.ram
A lot of the NRG talks are unfortunately not very good - usually too narrowly focused on someone's own research, instead of explaining the context we're working in. Oh, and the occasionally uninteresting industry pundit... like the guy from the Nuclear Engineering department at Texas A&M. Ugh.
It's definitely a wonderful topic for an online forum and the coming months will be extremely interesting. As for dissection... well, just wait ;)
Sheril,
I passed the URL for Next Generation Energy on to a friend of mine working in the field. His comments: no member of the team with a background in chemistry, physics, thermodynamices, etc. This sounds like a challenge.
With that one proviso, it was a good start.
However, about the name. NextGen sounds like a bad policy idea for the erroneously named "clean coal".
Heh, I'm still preaching on the Sugar Fuel Cell bandwagon; using enzymes to break down non-combustible bio-fuels to power an electric car chassis. The Acceleration and quiet operation of electric cars, the convenience and range potential of liquid fuels, while being comparatively friendly for the environment compared to batteries or smog-generating combustion fuels.
I think Electric cars are still excellent ideas, but I haven't heard of any interesting breakthroughs lately in greener/denser batteries.
Wes:
Your friend is mistaken. Joe Romm, for example, has a Ph.D. in physics and I have worked on energy policy in Congress. We represent a wide range of perspectives and experiences that should encourage an interesting exchange. That said, there are few degree-granting programs in energy and those who end up in the field come from very diverse backgrounds.
From Wes: "no member of the team with a background in chemistry, physics, thermodynamices, etc. This sounds like a challenge."
Yes, there is a challenge, but not to ScienceBlogs. The challenge is to the energy research community. There are plenty of energy blogs out there from enthusiasts, retired engineers, and some policy wonks, but there is not a large supply of popular, readable blogs from people working within the industry. Those of us who actually are doing energy research need to get off our duffs and get typing. ScienceBlogs can only pull from the whose already out there.
It would help if having an informative blog were more encouraged by industry and funding agencies.
There are literally dozens of highly informative blogs out there written by energy experts, they just aren't well know to the ScienceBlogs community - places like The Oil Drum, Energy Bulletin and so on.
OK. It is good that you have a physicist. At least that is one solid thing. Joe Romm's bio stresses his policy credentials, not his scientific ones and that was easily missed.
The problem with many of the "climate change" that I have seen where the owners were not adequately versed in the specific science topics is that it was easily apparent that there was a difficulty in separating the chaff from the wheat (grass)... for biofuel use, of course.
It is the same problem with organizations like NRDC who are not far off from the laughable G8 agreement in their acceptance of targets that are too low. They claim that they are agreeing to what is politically palatable. Thank goodness with have James Hansen.
Anyone from the Agricultural sector on this blog?