That is of course just one man's opinion. Thankfully the scientific community has taken up President's Bush's challenge on alternative energy sources. This video is also a continuation of the MIT Energy Research Council announced earlier and is a part of the excellent series on the challenges of energy.
The problems are derived from the energy security point of view. This video provides an understanding of the challenges that are faced in using hydrogen as an alternative energy source. This Professor stands out as being one of the recognized leaders in physics and electronic engineering and has a great delivery. As with many of the videos presenters, she identifies the problems that we face in terms of the global energy challenge from her own particular point of view. The growth in populations that are increasing their standard of living, China and India to name a few, are where the demand is increasing. Professor Dresselhaus mentions that this demand is not linear. Noting also that the U.S. consumption does not change necessarily with respect to the GDP increases.
As we are aware, the higher quality fossil fuels, are mostly located in the difficult areas of the globe. The use of coal by the U.S. and China are probably going to continue and may increase as demand for energy increases and the supply becomes more constrained. It is also projected that fossil fuels will supply 30% of the energy in the future, down from 80%, however I find that to be a surprising reduction. Some interesting points in the discussion include hydrogen provides twice the "power" of gas.
Professor Dresselhaus talk is mostly on working with hydrogen, and particularly the storage challenge it provides, and how Nano Structures provide a fresh look at these hydrogen issues. What is required in order to use hydrogen is a variety of catalysts to produce it, to store it and then to use it. The Nano Structures change the properties of catalysts. This provide three benefits during the catalysts phase. They increase the volume of hydrogen storage, they reduce the storage temperature requirements, and "borazene" gets trapped. Professor Dresselhaus also notes that gold is a catalyst in nano application even though gold is not normally a catalyst for hydrogen. She also draws a parallel to the benefits that Moore's law has provided in terms of computer processing capability. This she notes is this scope of benefit that is necessary to solve the worlds demand for energy in the future.
Hydrogen is a transmission agent of energy that were inspired by fuel cells. The use of hydrogen today is specific to its application and the U.S. produces 9 million Tonnes per year. The source of this hydrogen is from hydrocarbons and therefore limits its upward growth opportunities. What is needed is to extract the hydrogen from water which requires a catalyst and hence is very costly and difficult to do, particularly at what would be expected as commercial volumes.
Many of the areas that progress is beginning to be made seem to be more on the energy demand side of the equation. Light can be provided for half of the energy demands by using LED's and Photonics. The demand side is the area where most of the scientific advances are of benefit at this point in time. Professor Dresselhaus stresses again that the most critical issue here is the storage of hydrogen, noting that Hydrogen needs five times the storage size of gasoline. Hydrogen molecules are separated quite far apart. What is needed is a Nano particle as a binding agent to reduce the storage requirements. One binding agent Ammonia was shown to be benign and inert as a storage medium.
One can clearly see the issues that storage of hydrogen makes. The costs of these materials, the energy they consume themselves and their safety has prioritized the science community to focus on these first and foremost. One opportunity Professor Dresselhaus notes is the recent discovery in sunlight conversion multiples. Soon the output of solar cell could increase from its current 12 -13% efficiency, and with nano technologies, this can be brought up to a 30% efficiency. Professor Dresselhaus noted that an ideal application of solar may be in the production and storage of Hydrogen, this would reduce the hydrocarbon footprint of production. And a surprising comment that all of these scientific findings have been discovered since the Presidents 2003 announcement of a new energy initiative.
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