Comments on: Fire, Water, Wind or Sunshine, a Watt is a Watt

By: Fire, Water, Wind or Sunshine, a Watt is a Watt « Bob Higgins

Fire, Water, Wind or Sunshine, a Watt is a Watt « Bob Higgins — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:01:31 +0000

[…] Originally posted at Clean Technica: Fire, Water, Wind or Sunshine, a Watt is a Watt […]

By: Why Some Think Fossil Fuels are the Only Real Source of Energy (Reader Comment) | CleanTechnica

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:54:13 +0000

[…] Energy Policy & Politics, Fossil Fuels nRelate.domain="cleantechnica.com";In reply to a recent editorial here on CleanTechnica by Bob Higgins, a regular reader and commenter left an excellent comment […]

By: Breath on the Wind

Breath on the Wind — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 02:15:00 +0000

Nice article Bob. Just a few points.

Reaching out, to try and understand someone who feels that fossil fuels provide a “kick,” it is easy enough to correct this and appreciate that fossil fuels are a more dense source of watts than sun or wind. Nature, time and gravity concentrated fossil fuels. We must concentrate the sun and wind with area: more wind turbines and a larger space for solar. Of course when we consider the area taken up by mining, processing and transportation of fossil fuels there may be some balance.

Fossil fuels also have an advantage of inexpensive storage that we attempt to emulate with electricity directly, compressed air, thermal and chemical energy storage.

With respect to the military, I have never seen any official reference to any military opinion on climate change. There are however comments about approaching peak oil which they are extremely concerned about: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/peak-oil-production-supply and http://cleantechnica.com/2010/09/17/peak-oil-this-year-leaked-german-military-report-says/

We can argue about the reasons for climate change. Some might insist that high fuel prices are only due to greedy speculation, but if we come again to a time when there is simply no fuel at the pumps, people will demand electric cars and electricity to supply them. If at that time the electricity can be more cheaply supplied with the sun than the Earth then this is where we will go.

By: Origo1

Origo1 — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:37:00 +0000

Water is our only source of portable, renewable fuel available in the huge quantities needed to supplant gasoline and diesel oil. Water is carbon-free, is non-flammable, does not consume atmospheric oxygen, nor does it pollute the atmosphere. Water requires no investment in exploration, drilling, mining, refining, transportation, service stations, or disposal of coal fly ash or nuclear waste. I have developed two concepts that utilize water as a fuel, both of which are in the public domain. The details are in a book that I wrote.
One concept uses a photocatalyst and light to dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen onboard motor vehicles. Burning hydrogen in oxygen produces water. By recycling the water byproduct, vehicles will have unlimited range. Hydrogen can be burned in purpose-built internal combustion engines, so Detroit would not have to change much in their IC engines. Vehicles with fuel cells and electric motors can also use this system.
The second concept combines the physics of diesel, steam, and Stirling engines. I have sent this concept to ARPA-E–Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy of the U.S. Dept. of Energy. No word yet from them. I am working on yet another concept the uses water as a fuel, but the concept is not yet complete.
Origo

By: Bob Higgins

Bob Higgins — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:10:00 +0000

The fossil fuel and nuclear industries not only can spread disinformation about the safety of their particular industries they do it with a vengeance .

They spend hundreds of millions lobbying and bribing every federal and state legislator they can find by turning over every rock at every cocktail party in every capitol in the country.

By: Bob Higgins

Bob Higgins — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:31:00 +0000

Zach

Sure, what do you have in mind ?

Bob

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 06:33:00 +0000

Jeez, Bob, this could very quickly and easily be turned into a short op-ed. Interested?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 03:26:00 +0000

Where the belief started was probably based on the reality of the time at which it originated. If we go back even a couple decades wind turbines were still somewhat crude and we hadn’t grasped the fact that the wind does not rise and fall at the same time over modest geographic areas. Solar was very much too expensive and batteries were not capable of giving us usable electric vehicles. (If you’ll allow me to bring in another antiquated myth.)

Many people have not kept up with the technological advances that have made wind turbines major producers of electricity, solar affordable, and EVs a reality. If one does not know what is possible they will find it easiest to support what worked in the past.

Other people have personal or financial reasons to support ‘old tech’. Clearly fossil fuel interests push the idea that we could not operate our grid without their flaming inputs. Nuclear engineers fight for inclusion of their technology because if we build no more reactors then they are going to have to retool themselves.

Fossil fuels and nuclear energy have very deep pockets. They can flood the zone with inaccuracies and spread doubt about the ability of renewable energy to do the job. They can hire armies of lobbyists and make hefty campaign contributions. They can enlist the aid of their buddies in other industries.

It’s going to be hard to fight through these myths, but it’s starting to happen.