Where are the breakthroughs?

[bluestateboomer]

I keep reading about the latest technological breakthrough which will help solve our energy and environmental problems, but they always seem to be just around the corner. Only it always seems to be the next corner, not the one we're at right now. Two examples come to mind: The Nanosolar corporation's process to make cheap solar panels (http://www.nanosolar.com /)and the Hydrogen Technology Applications, Inc.(http://www.hytechapps.com /)process to get energy from water. Will we ever see these breakthroughs, are we getting chain yanked or is it the corporate conspiracy keeping us from progress?
:think:

[elocs]

1. There will never be "a" break through that is as cheap and easily obtained as oil

and provides as much energy as oil provides per unit. Nothing. No one thing.

[TheWraith]

5. Not at all. There are vastly higher energy solutions available than oil.

And "easily obtained" depends on the infrastructure. You can't just wave a hand an have oil appear out of the ground, or turn into gasoline. The same goes for things like the fusion reactors that Bussard is building. He-3 may not seem as easy as oil, but when you really analyze it, it's not that different of a principle.

[elocs]

7. Compared to alternatives there is nothing as easily obtained as has the energy of oil. Nothing. n/t

[TheWraith]

11. Broken record much? NT

[elocs]

13. If you haven't been paying attention,

DU is full of broken records on many different subjects because some just do not get things without repetition.

[Nederland]

14. Perhaps that's because

...rather than posting thoughtful explanations demonstrating why something is true, people just repetitiously post their beliefs without any proof whatsoever.

[brokensymmetry]

20. Exactly.

But don't expect people to admit it.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Well...

1. Many breakthroughs turn out to have problems that keep them from fulfilling their promises. Perhaps a amazing new solar cell turns out to degrade quickly when exposed to humidity, and it's darned near impssible to seal them properly. Or something like this.
2. Almost all breakthroughs have factors that make them unsuitable for all uses. In the case of a solar cell, it requires up-front cost, and an enormous amount of real estate - so good for John Edwards, bad for most of the rest of us.

In reality, progress is evolution through many breakthroughs.

[mrcheerful]

3. The break through is congress wants to increase vehicles gas mileage up to 65 mpg's

reality is auto manufacturers will have until 2025 to get it done. Also according to CNN this morning the answer to high gas prices is to run out and buy one of those new fangled hi Byrd's. Go out pay $40,000 plus taxes and interest for a new car. Then pay higher insurance costs for the new auto, don't forget you also have to pay for mandatory oil changes, etc. So this is saving me on gas prices how? Sure you'll use less gas, but you won't save enough to make up the difference of the cost of the new auto. Is it me or is that how americans think today? I don't get it. I'm not saying Hy byrds won't reduce ones gas costs in the long run, but then again as long as your using gasoline to power a vehicle your still at the mercy of oil companies. Besides the fact that most americans will use the same amounts of gas as they do now, the Hi Byrds will just mean they can drive more on the same amount of gas.Wait a minute I am saying that these Hi Byrds won't save money either in the short or the long run, it just allows americans to pay more and think they are making a difference, unless they change their driving habits nothings changed.

[bluestateboomer]

4. Maybe the fault lies with ourselves (apologies to Shakespeare)

I think we tend to take negative views about things. if it doesn't fit in conventional solution many tend to shoot an idea down. I tend to be an early adopter. Not everything I try succeeds, but most of the time I'm on the side of progress. If we can't get the technology right, I guess we get rid of it and go back to the farm. I am not sure I'm ready for that.

[Gregorian]

6. I hate to break the news to people, but 6 billion people can't live like this.

And therein lies the answer.

There have been several revolutions of energy sources. Wood, petroleum, nuclear. Each one has had it's successively increasing degree of difficulty in achieving.

Fusion might be one avenue that pans out.

But here is the problem as I see it. We are way out of equilibrium with nature. People are looking for a solution to sustaining a lifestyle that is unsustainable. There are too many people. Period. Where do we put the garbage? Immediately people start replying that garbage can be this and garbage can be that. Yes, they're right. Sort of. Then water. Then wood. Then transportation. Then energy. Each one has a solution. Maybe. Perhaps one has a total solution. Perhaps one has a partial solution. Food? What about food? And then there's global warming. If we already had a renewable source of energy conversion then maybe we could begin to equip the world with photovoltaics, or some other such personal or communal energy conversion devices. But how are we going to beat this giant problem we have with global warming if everything we do has a carbon footprint?

It looks to me like we've run the gamut of modern living. Instead of bigger, faster, growth, we are going to have to start retreating to smaller, slower, communal.

It sounds so threatening. But it's only the way humans lived on this planet for all of eternity, except for the last 100 years.

There is one very big problem as I see it. We've backed ourselves into a corner. I laugh every 4th of July. We are so far from independent it's dangerous. Bush said we are addicted to oil. We aren't addicted- We're dependent!

It's time to turn our thinking around.

Nanosolar has been around a few years. I've been watching them. Google seeded them with a hundred million bucks. They're good. There will be new developments. But I'm afraid the truth is far more serious than people realize.

So after saying all of that, I want to emphasize that what I'm saying is exactly the opposite of doom and gloom. To the extent that we can liberate ourselves from dependency upon the corporations, we have much of what we need right now. Granted there isn't much in the way of wild abundancy like there used to be. But we do still get sunlight. We can still return to what we had before. But it's very far from easy. I just sold a beautiful farm. Creeks, bears, salmon, apple orchards. And I'll be damned if I know how to farm. And who does? We've got a lot of relearning to do.

[elocs]

8. 6 billion people is a number that is unsustainable on this planet.

All of the clever technological developments that can save this country will not help the billions of people currently surviving in 3rd world countries today. They have only been able to survive this long because of oil and the oil is running out. We do not have anything that has the energy available in a barrel of oil given the cost and effort that it takes to obtain that barrel of oil and is available to people all over the world. Compare the energy available from a barrel of oil to the energy it takes to obtain it. Oil is cheap and easy.

It is absolutely true that we are addicted to oil, exactly. Big oil are the pushers. We claim we will kick the habit, but if they drop the price we willingly embrace our addiction once again. In the end, we will pay the price the pusher asks to supply our fix. Currently gas in this country is at a record high, yet demand is up over a year ago. Big cars and SUVs still sell well. We have met the enemy and he is us.

[skids]

12. Unfortunatley...

...the gene that makes one mindful of one's impact on the rest of the world and the sustainability of one's culture seems to have become self defeating at this point, leaving the most selfish and aggressive to reproduce the most. One wonders how it has managed to survive this long. Maybe our minds are so addled by toxins we're missing some higher order brain functions that used to serve to reinforce and reward civilized behavior. I don't expect people to voluntarily curb their living standards. That will likely be done via a return to forced labor and servitude with a small, warring, ruling class. Oh wait. I guess we are there already.

If no deus ex machina sails in to save the day, we are well and truly "screwn."

[skids]

9. Engineering is much more costly than physics...

...and therein lies the problem. We can figure out how to build things in the lab, and tout them as "breakthroughs", but rarely do we give anywhere near that amount of praise to our industrial and process engineers who figure out how to take those things past the prototype stage to economical mass production. So we're a bit low on talent there.

Fortunately we are finally seeing an influx of real levels of investment in these endeavors now, and I think you'll actually, for a change, find an accelerated rate of new products in the energy area going forward. Even now there is a gradual improvement in solar cell efficiencies across every type of technology. Whether future progress will be accelerated enough to mitigate the coming crunches, that is another question. And whether a nation of people who are so attached to their luxuries that they run up a negative national savings rate borrowing to buy junk will be in any position to take advantage of any advances, that's also an open question. Heck we even have a good number of contrarians who will waste just to spit at the "hippies," so even just ideologically there are still major challenges, forget culturally.

Nanosolar started their factory build already, and several of the CIGS/thin film/concentrator companies say they will be shipping product this year or next (the first DSSC plant has been planned for construction.) Evergreen isn't really a quantum leap but they have scaled up pretty fast and are starting to push on price points. We have seen some more reasonably priced wind turbines out now, but not the leap that is needed in that area. Solid state thermophotovoltaics seem stalled when it comes to getting the quantum well prototypes out of the lab and into production, same with thermophotovoltaics unless you believe the Chinese claims. Stalled also are MEMs thermoelectrics and thermoacoustics (as well as macro-scale thermoacoustics.) Flow batteries, ultracaps, and flywheels seem to be making progress getting to market but it is slow progress -- at least though it is beyond just prototyping. Wave power seems to be doing a bit better than that with several companies coming to production scale in a very short time period, and the windmills are getting bigger though VAWTs are still garage projects for the most part. I don't know enough of partical physics to even comment on fusion/advanced fission/whatnot. Fuel cells, well, for the amount of investment they've gotten progress has been underwhelming, but at least there has been some. LEDs will be overtaking CFLs in production quantity in the next few years, and I guess if Philips really intends to put its shoulder to the wheel there progress should be brisk.

With all these options all capable of "competing" it's easy to see how investors, cautious and fearful lot they be, have been reluctant, but it seems given everything else is either a con-job or doomed to failure without an energy solution, I think they are beginning to see there is no safe place for their money so they may as well go for it.

[TheWraith]

10. It's an old story: the claim is a headline, the retraction is on page C9.

This happens in almost every industry you care to name. Somebody develops something which is a potential breakthrough, and they want to get exposure for it, whether that's to get increased funding, investors, or simply an ego boost. But when development gets somewhat further along, and they find out that it's not as effective as they'd hoped, or it has some major drawback that makes it impractical, and which can't be worked out in development the way they thought it could.

Take an example from a related industry. Back in 2004 or so, there was talk about these new alkaline polymer batteries that were supposed to have three times the capacity of the lithium ion polymer cells that are usually used in laptop computers, cell phones, etcetera. They were billed as likely to hit the market next year. It never happened, presumably because they discovered some reason why it wouldn't work. Same goes for all the potential cures for cancer or AIDS that you hear about coming out of the medical community almost every other week. Potential breakthroughs get attention, but when they implode, nothing.

[Javaman]

15. Everyone is waiting on a tech breakthrough that will never happen

what we need is a social breakthrough. Once people get it into their heads that we have to lay down some major conservation laws, nothing will change.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. "Aquygen"? Oh please.

This is just another "discovery" that you can make H2 from H2O. Every few years another would-be "inventor" pops out of the woodwork, makes up some phony name for H2, and claims it's an energy "breakthrough". It's been known since the 1830's that if you put enough energy into the process, you can electrolyze H2O to H2. It does absolutely squat to answer the question of WHERE the energy comes from.

MAGIC FUEL FROM WATER! It's true. H2 is energy-rich and nonpolluting, suitable for fuel cells and rocket engines. But it's also true that it takes gobs of energy to create this magic fuel, and no breakthrough will change that.

[hunter]

17. I'm hording hamsters.

They are the power source of the future.

Hamster-Powered Night Light With Custom Low-RPM Alternator

http://www.otherpower.com/hamster.html

[Dogmudgeon]

19. One word that makes all the difference: Flatus

There is gold in them thar hamster farts. A special gas-collecting cage and bean-based feed are all you need.

Collect their little farties, compress to about 500 atm, and you've got biogenic natural gas suitable for powering an LPG car, a steel mill, or packaging into little ampules for cigarette lighters and/or party gags.

We must use every resource at our disposal. Anything but demonically-possessed nuKKKular energy!

--p!

[philb]

18. Lots of energy options available better than coal & to partially replace oil

There appear to be lots of energy options available, I don't see any major energy problems coming other than
environmental problems related to bad choices.

There are a huge amount of energy efficiency measures to reduce use of problematic options.
Fuel cells are highly efficient and low polluting, offer efficiencies over 80% using the waste heat for heating, cooling, refrigeration, hot water, etc. And prices are coming down rapidly. And they also provide hydrogen for your vehicle.
They can use natural gas, methane, sewer gas, landfill gas, ag waste gas, biogas, or coal syngas or liquid as fuel.
Huge amounts of cost effective applications becoming available. Malls, apartments, commercial applications, homes, boats, RVs, 18 wheelers, etc. Best for loads with high load factors.

Solar hot water is cost effective most places, solar PV using concentrators or thin films prices are coming down.

distributed power using microturbines that drive chillers provide electricity, heating, cooling, refrigeration, hot water, etc. at efficiencies as high as 80%. Can be used for apartments, malls, wall marts, etc.

But ocean power seems to be coming on the fastest of all.
At least 11 commercial or pilot projects currently being installed in U.S. and at least 20 more going through permitting.
And Electric Power Research Institute says the price of the power produced will likely be less than for other power options. Ocean power appears to have much more promise than wind, since it has much higher energy density.

The big coal companies like Arch Coal in Powder River country are already building big facilities to liquify coal, which
can be used as liquid fuel like diesel for vehicles or for fuel cells or power production. Avoids the particulate and toxic problems.

[bluestateboomer]

21. Here's Another one!

Right on the home page.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2851312

More pie in the sky I supposed.
:shrug: