Fueling Our Future: Opening
Coming 2009 ...
Oct 31, 2008
Oct 30, 2008
Sun + Water = Fuel
With catalysts created by an MIT chemist, sunlight can turn water into hydrogen. If the process can scale up, it could make solar power a dominant source of energy.
By Kevin Bullis
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| Leaf envy: MIT chemist Daniel Nocera has mimicked the step in photosynthesis in which green plants split water. Credit: Christopher Harting | ||
MULTIMEDIA
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"I'm going to show you something I haven't showed anybody yet," said Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, speaking this May to an auditorium filled with scientists and U.S. government energy officials. He asked the house manager to lower the lights. Then he started a video. "Can you see that?" he asked excitedly, pointing to the bubbles rising from a strip of material immersed in water. "Oxygen is pouring off of this electrode." Then he added, somewhat cryptically, "This is the future. We've got the leaf."
What Nocera was demonstrating was a reaction that generates oxygen from water much as green plants do during photosynthesis--an achievement that could have profound implications for the energy debate. Carried out with the help of a catalyst he developed, the reaction is the first and most difficult step in splitting water to make hydrogen gas. And efficiently generating hydrogen from water, Nocera believes, will help surmount one of the main obstacles preventing solar power from becoming a dominant source of electricity: there's no cost-effective way to store the energy collected by solar panels so that it can be used at night or during cloudy days.
Solar power has a unique potential to generate vast amounts of clean energy that doesn't contribute to global warming. But without a cheap means to store this energy, solar power can't replace fossil fuels on a large scale. In Nocera's scenario, sunlight would split water to produce versatile, easy-to-store hydrogen fuel that could later be burned in an internal-combustion generator or recombined with oxygen in a fuel cell. Even more ambitious, the reaction could be used to split seawater; in that case, running the hydrogen through a fuel cell would yield fresh water as well as electricity.
Storing energy from the sun by mimicking photosynthesis is something scientists have been trying to do since the early 1970s. In particular, they have tried to replicate the way green plants break down water. Chemists, of course, can already split water. But the process has required high temperatures, harsh alkaline solutions, or rare and expensive catalysts such as platinum. What Nocera has devised is an inexpensive catalyst that produces oxygen from water at room temperature and without caustic chemicals--the same benign conditions found in plants. Several other promising catalysts, including another that Nocera developed, could be used to complete the process and produce hydrogen gas.
Nocera sees two ways to take advantage of his breakthrough. In the first, a conventional solar panel would capture sunlight to produce electricity; in turn, that electricity would power a device called an electrolyzer, which would use his catalysts to split water. The second approach would employ a system that more closely mimics the structure of a leaf. The catalysts would be deployed side by side with special dye molecules designed to absorb sunlight; the energy captured by the dyes would drive the water-splitting reaction. Either way, solar energy would be converted into hydrogen fuel that could be easily stored and used at night--or whenever it's needed.
Nocera's audacious claims for the importance of his advance are the kind that academic chemists are usually loath to make in front of their peers. Indeed, a number of experts have questioned how well his system can be scaled up and how economical it will be. But Nocera shows no signs of backing down. "With this discovery, I totally change the dialogue," he told the audience in May. "All of the old arguments go out the window."
Oct 28, 2008
How Oil Prices Impact the Cost of Bottled Water
Bottled water is one of the best examples of energy waste and environmental pollution. Mayor Newsom in San Francisco encouraged restaurants to ban the service of bottled water. Few complied. If consumers were more aware, the US could easily waste much less.
Let's analyze that cost in detail.
A case of water with MSRP of $4.00 at retail might cost $1.00 at wholesale. Let's compute the fuel cost to move the water from Reno to San Francisco.
- A container holds 1,440 cases of bottled water.
Shipment Description
| Commercial Freight Listing Information |
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From Wikipedia: A highway trailor combination, pulling a 53 foot trailor, with a full legal load, and equipped with a commercial diesel engine of 300 to 400 hp, will get about 5 to 6 miles to the US gallon of diesel fuel, less in the mountains.
- The container travels 200 miles, a distance from Reno to San Francisco; or from Bakersfield to Los Angeles - and consumes 40 gallons of diesel. It consumes another 40 gallons as the container is distributed from the warehouse to retail stores.
- At $5 per gallon, that's $400 of gasoline or equivalent.
- Spread over 1,440 cases, the gasoline cost $0.28 per case.
- Add the energy cost of making the bottles, filtering, bottling, and loading trucks, energy costs are over 30%. It's the largest non-labor expense - more than water, chemicals, filters, plastic, and depreciation.
- For the environment, don't forget the energy cost to dispose and recycle the plastic bottle.
| Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update | ||
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Crude oil prices have dropped more than 50% from it's height. Wholesale prices of gasoline have dropped and retail is sl0wly dropping. At 50% lower gasoline costs, producers save $0.14 per case; and shaves $0.56 from the MSRP - a 14% savings. We should see this savings soon in grocery stores.
If oil dropped another 50%, the savings is $0.07 per case - which would have a less significant impact on the retail price. This is the non-linear impact of price change that we first observed at MIT in 1972. No other historic data has been available to substantiate the non-linear impact of large price changes until recent history. Even with two data points, the fitted curve may still be statistically inaccurate.
It is sufficient warning that dependence on imported oil endangers the stability of our economy - all developed economies.
If we eliminated bottled water, we'd save even more - for ourselves, our nation, and our environment.
Conclusion
Generally, the price of every product and service is impacted by high energy costs. Products that are bulky and travel a long distance are more adversely affected. Conversely, when oil prices drop, MSRP should also drop significantly.
In time, the 50% oil price drop stimulates the US economy dramatically - a fact that many 'chicken little' pundits have overlooked.
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