My girlfriend wants to solve the energy crisis.

[Guaranteed]

Where would be a good place to begin research on alternative energy?

Career-wise, she's well-placed to have access to those who, in theory, could do serious work for both our country and world in this area. She works in computer technology, but she's in management nonetheless, and could actually have the ear of some powerful individuals working for a multi-multi-billion dollar company that is already outfitted in many ways to create energy-producing products.

I'm of the opinion that this energy crisis is nowhere near as bad as it will eventually become, and that, even before then, visionary corporations, particularly this one, will be willing to put what it takes into R&D to save, and MAKE, billions upon billions when the energy crisis hits in full stride. I think that with the right vision, in fact, the truly greatest and most successful companies will jump at the chance, if given it.

So, anyway, anyone have any ideas as to where she could start, perhaps on the internet, looking into the viability of different alternative energies?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. What she needs to do ...

... is to get involved with progressive business leaders who have decided to actually do something about it.

Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute is one place to start. There are also a number of Peak Oil related organizations, especially ASPO, which appears to be the oldest.

And she could put together an organization herself, especially if she has management and executive credentials.

Good luck to her -- the world needs more people like her in her position.

--p!

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Some links

ASPO: http://www.peakoil.net

Rocky Mountain Institute: http://www.rmi.org

Post-Carbon Institute: http://www.postcarbon.org (associated with the Meta Foundation, see below)

Meta Foundation: http://www.metafoundation.org

Institute for the Analysis of Global Security: http://www.iags.org

American Solar Energy Society: http://www.ases.org

Rewnweable Enegy Policy Project: http://www.crest.org

Between them, there are several hundred "white papers" available for reading, and there are even a few job openings. This list ought to give her a place to start.

--p!

[Lexingtonian]

2. eat more beans

...America needs the gas.

(a 1974 Oil Crisis bumper sticker my dad refuses to forget :D )

[benddem]

3. Waves

have her start checking on that and research who is working on that.

[JVS]

5. She should work for Big Oil!

[Guaranteed]

9. Hey, you've met her.

She could be an alternative-energy baron someday. :)

[BikeWriter]

6. There will be billions more people cursing * in ten more years...

He should have invested in alternate energy five years ago, as Gore would have done!

[Floogeldy]

7. Remember those dinking birds from the fifties?

They automatically move up and down after their beaks hit the water.

Well, I ask myself, why can't we just have giant fucking dinking birds all over the place, generating electricity everywhere?

Sure, they're ugly. But we could charge people to ride them.

And they would cause no pollution. All we would have to do is keep water in the great big huge container in which their beaks will dip.

What's the problem?

:smoke:

[electron_blue]

15. LOL!! You made me laugh, thank you!

[MrScorpio]

8. Friction and lots of it

Try to generate some personal static electricity

[Guaranteed]

10. Hee hee that's what I'M sayin! nt

[The Traveler]

11. Possible solutions

Orbital solar power. A lot of work has been done on that over the past 30 years. I am unconvinced about the low estimates environmental impact. A huge number of launches is required ... and in my opinion the long term effects of low density microwave radiation on the atmosphere have been inadequately studied. Still ... it is worth looking at. Moderate risk technically and environmentally.

Zero point fields. Check out the work of Bernard Haisch. (Haisch is an astrophysics with a radical theory of zero point energy fields ... if he is on the right track we'll have to rewrite the physics books. He also writes country music songs. But I don't like country. I like melt yer face off rock.) High risk technically. Low risk environmentally.

**shudder** Nuclear. Low risk, technically. High risk, environmentally. Might be the only real option at our disposal. Cringe.

"Davis Mechanics". Very high technical risk, because the work hasn't been replicated. But then, no one has tried. Near zero environmental risk. Davis Mechanics posits a third term to the Newtonian equation of motion. It was prompted by an examination of the "Dean Drive", an alleged "reactionless drive system", by a physicist named Davis and the engineer/writer G. Harry Stine. The fuel economies a reactionless drive system suggests are staggering.

Davis was previously instrumental in the design of supersonic jet fighter ejection seats ... the guy who figured out that under certain circumstances stress is not proportional to strain. At the time, they were working in the research department of a paper company. Using their theoretical results, they were able to significantly improve the performance of pulp pressess. Their work also influenced tire design, to reduce hydroplaning.

It would cost probably in the ball park of $10M to do the work ... if they (Davis and Stine) were right, it would trigger a new industrial revolution and make travel within the solar system dirt cheap. See orbital solar power ... the number of launches is no longer a factor because rockets would not be necessary.

[Dogmudgeon]

12. The Big Problems (actually, my comments)

Alternative and Zero-Point Energy (and Davis Mechanics): There's a dense phalanx of CSICOP members and fans, and risk-averse physicists and engineers to contend with, all of whom will denounce such ideas in unison -- "Extraordinary Claims ... bzzz ... Peer Review ... bzzz ... Occam's Razor ... bzzz" and all that. The field of alternative energy has been plagued with charlatanry for decades, and it's easy pickings for the second-year-man Skep movement. Even if a rock-solid, scientifically unimpeachable demonstration of a new source of energy was presented, thousands of junior scientists would denounce it until the "real scientists" (read: bean-counters) figured out how to monopolize the funding and game the patent proceedings.

As it is, most alt-energy researchers can't even get a hearing unless and until the debunkers figure out how to defeat it. So we really don't know what's going on with this research, and we won't know until one of the devices can achieve a "Grand Slam".

Orbital Solutions: Why not simply move industry into space, instead of beaming microwaves down to the surface?

Nuclear Energy: It may have its risks, but I don't think it's quite as risky as most people believe. The problem is that the nuclear industry was criminally lax until Three Mile Island and Chernobyl sensitized the public -- but the response may have been way too extreme.

Newer reactor designs and improved attention to safety make nuclear an attractive option again. However ...

Improved Technological Savvy: We simply must improve energy efficiency of as many energy-using systems as we can. ALL of them, if possible. And I believe it is possible.

LED illumination will soon be cheaper than fluorescent light, and the industrial processes for making LEDs have become cheaper and much cleaner. Computers do not absolutely need a 200 W power supply, and efficiency-driven design could even bring the power requirements of VLSI chips like the Pentium down to earth.

I've also written of the need for an intermediate form of personal transportation, essentially a micro-car or an unsexy, rider-friendly, high-MPG motorcycle. Maybe a Dymaxion design vehicle.

Agriculture is probably the biggest crying need. No way should we accept that it takes 5-10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food value. Even imposing absolute veganism on the population would only reduce this number marginally. The problem is our reliance on factory-farming methods.

--p!

[Squeech]

13. Yeah, but

I actually agree with nearly everything you say, but there are a couple points I want to address.

Re zero-point energy and such, I'm not saying it ain't so, but I want to see a working model, just because it's been such a fertile field for charlatanry and con-men. I'm convinced that the guy that really does solve the problem won't ever tell anybody about it, he'll just use the technology to grow marijuana in a cave somewhere with an untraceable power source :-)

Re nuclear, the big problem as I see it is that there's all this excess radiation, and it eventually contaminates the whole site. The plants they're decommissioning now, and the Chernobyl site, won't be usable for anything for centuries-- the ultimate brownfields.

Re computers, I'm not offended by their power requirements. I heard something once to the effect that the internet was responsible for the energy crisis-- all those servers and surfers burning all that electricity to sell Virgin Mary sandwiches on eBay-- and I thought it was hogwash. There are two computers in my house, versus two dozen light fixtures, a refrigerator, two air conditioners, etc. The net energy savings of fluorescent lights, if I got around to changing every bulb, would allow me four more computers.

Re more efficient personal transport, you're exactly right. The main reason we need fossil fuels is the gas tank-- everything else could be run with solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc. But we need a high calorie portable fuel source to get around. They use alcohol in Brazil, and (unlike Archer Daniels Midland's ethanol) they appear to brew it without expending more energy in the process; I think they get it out of bagasse, which is the waste products of sugar cane.

Re agriculture, again I completely agree. Our vertically integrated food businesses have decided to optimize for economies of scale, so they run a super-centralized model where they grow all our grain in Kansas, all our fruit in California and Florida, etc., and just ship as needed. Expenses include intensive treatment of increasingly exhausted soil as well as transport Turns out every state in the union could be self sufficient if we valued our local farmers. Food would be fresher and taste better too. I do my bit by patronizing farmers' markets.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. These are excellent points

My own focus on computers is a little outsized because I'm beginning to think that computerization and the Internet will be key factors in any mass-disaster survival effort. They will allow communication, social organization and commerce to continue after large institutions and companies go under. And the educational potential of the Internet, which today has been overshadowed by multi-level marketing scams, corporate ad fluff and boner pills, will be hard to deny as millions of people learn how to build improvised solar ovens, install extra insulation, and practice emergency-response field medicine. Since uninterrupted electrical service will probably not be possible within five years of an oil supply downturn, low-energy computers should be a personal priority, if not a priority of the entire computer industry.

Zero-point energy remains buried beneath a mountain of insanity, and I'm not sure I'd like to see it unearthed any time soon. The main proponent of ZPE seems to be Tom Bearden, whose non-ZPE writings range from "interesting" to "bat-guano crazy" (e.g., he opines that the KGB and the Yakuza are going to launch a pre-emptive strike on the USA next year, using ZPE weapons; also see Fer-de-Lance). And the way we behave now, with ZPE we would use so much energy that we'd turn the Earth to a ball of molten rock in a few decades. But even so, a number of less outre methods of energy production are not getting the attention they should. Biodiesel from high-oil algae is one such technology, and it can be scaled down to community-sized enterprises.

We're also not thinking enough about a first-line response in domestic energy use. Although industry can't be easily powered on wind and solar energy, they provide enough potential for domestic use, and again, they scale down easily. All of our current efforts concentrate on replacing oil and providing as much, or more, than we use now. But we will also need a response to keep as many people alive and healthy as possible in an age with both severe climate crises and a loss of cheap energy and food resources.

Still, when you look at it, living in an age of crisis is similar to living in an age of calm: intelligence, determination, and a sense of shared danger and opportunity are required if we are to make material and "spiritual" progress. Peak Oil and Climate Crisis will only alter the urgency of that program, not its necessity.

--p!

[NawlinsNed]

16. Just get women to towel dry their hair

That'll save millions of barrels of oil a year!

*ducks*

[LeftyMom]

18. no need to duck

I don't blow dry. It seems silly to blow hot air on your head to dry it out, then massage a bunch of oils back in to replace all the moisture blow drying takes away. Also blow drying my hair takes *forever.* If I can towel dry my hair, most people can- I have a lot of hair!

Little wastes like that add up! Minor changes like air drying clothes and hair, washing more things on cold, letting the dishes air dry rather than using the heated drying cyle, CF lights, smaller fridges, etc add up to substantial savings.

Sure we need no technologies, but saving the power we do generate for real needs rather than minor conveniences and luxuries we barely notice would be a good start.

[neuvocat]

17. Solar energy in California is starting to take off.

However I read somewhere here in DU that the Bush family is beginning to invest more in it.

:(

[Old_Fart]

19. The bedroom

:shrug: