Don't Count on Replacing Oil Just Yet!
MIDDLE EAST TIMES
February 6,2009
The transition away from oil and other fossil fuels would appear to be much further distant and far more technologically challenging than most conventional wisdom now suspects. Three of the most eminent American scientists this week suggested that real breakthroughs in alternative energy supply will depend on fundamental scientific breakthroughs that have yet to be made.
The three are: professors George Crabtree of Argonne National Laboratory; Marc Kastner, dean of science at MIT; and John Hemminger, physical sciences dean at University of California Irvine.
Between them, they chair the Basic Energy Sciences advisory committee of the U.S. Energy Department.
Crabtree is an expert on super-conductivity, Hemminger is a star of nano-sciences and Kastner's expertise is solid state and materials science.
They are not pessimists. Far from it. They just stress that the basic science has a very long way to go.
Their first conclusion was that even at recent high investment growth rates, solar cells using current technology will not be able to provide more than 5 percent of U.S. carbon-free energy needs by 2050. New technologies are emerging, but at unit costs 200 times higher than existing solar cells.
Their bottom line is blunt: "We still don't know how to make the cells that show the promised high efficiency and low cost sufficient to beat the cost of electricity from coal."
Their second conclusion was that nuclear power could only really be effective when the operating efficiency of power stations was raised to operate not at current rates of 330 degrees centigrade and 34 percent efficiency, but at 1,000 degrees centigrade and 50 percent efficiency. This would require new materials that have yet to be invented. (All three of them believe that nuclear power should be part of our future energy solutions.)
Their bottom line is ambitious: "The key is both new reactor concepts and new complex materials capable of withstanding more intense radiation damage, chemical corrosion and higher temperatures. Underlying all of these areas is the basic scientific challenge of discovering and designing materials and chemical processes that can perform under extreme conditions."
Their third conclusion was that continued use of coal to generate electricity will require methods yet to be invented - to dispose of the carbon.
Their bottom line is clear: "What is needed are major scientific advances that will allow us to control the injection of carbon dioxide fluids into rock formations so that it goes where we want it to go, and stays there permanently with minimum negative effect on the subsurface environment."
Their fourth conclusion is that both to power non-polluting cars and to manage demand on the electricity grid, we need batteries that are by orders of magnitude bigger, better and more advanced than anything currently in sight.
Transformational advances in battery science remains a key barrier they say. For research breakthroughs in advanced energy storage, both new materials and novel approaches are essential.
In short, the post-oil future has to be invented.
