Wild Green Yonder

Boeing recently announced that it will have a hydrogen plane in the air later this year. The Boeing Fuel Cell Demonstrator Airplane is scheduled to fly at an altitude of about 2,000 feet (610 meters). The plane has a wing span of 16.3 meters (53.5 feet) and can fly at a speed of about 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour.

The technology is identical to what is used in hydrogen cars such as the Ford HySeries, GM's HydroGen4 and Kia's 4×4 Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle, i.e. tanks holding hydrogen in the form of compressed gas, fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries and electric motors, in the case of this plane a single motor coupled to a conventional propeller.

Just like cars can (and already are) getting their electricity and hydrogen from the solar panels on top of parking lots, planes could similarly be powered from clean energy, such as from solar or wind power facilities in our backyards.

Boeing first announced the electric plane project in November 2001, when it said the first test flights could begin in early 2004. At the time, there was even speculation that the first flight would coincide with the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first powered flight back in December 17th, 2003. Those plans have since been pushed back several times, but it now looks like it is finally going to happen.

Planes like this have the potential to reshape the face of the world. Imagine if we all used personal aircraft instead of cars. We no longer needed any roads, nor large, noisy airports. Instead we could use small airstrips to take off and land, perhaps in our backyards.

Communities without roads constitute a dramatic change in urban design. Houses could be smaller, as there's no need to put cars in garages. Without roads, houses could also be built much closer together - that in itself could reduce travel time. Simple pathways would be sufficient, connecting all such houses with a center comprising of shops, restaurants, medical specialists, lecture theaters, all within walking distance. Imagine the cost savings on cars, roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, railway tracks and railway stations, on gasoline and service stations. People could largely work from home and meet at facilities of the center closeby, resulting in further savings on office buildings and their car parking facilities.

There would also be huge time savings; given an abundance of small landing strips, planes could take us in a more direct line from one place to another, as opposed to the congested road system where cars line up for a multitude of traffic lights. GPS-navigation and radar technology could also result in a spectacular drop in traffic accidents; after all, there is much more space in the (three-dimensional) sky than on the (two-dimensional) ground.

To help such developments take off, we need to tax items that cause greenhouse gas emissions, such as fossil fuel, meat and fertilizers, with the tax proceeds going to local supply of better alternatives, such as solar and wind power, agrichar and vegan-organic food served in restaurants in communities without roads.

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References:
Into the Wild Green Yonder - Boeing’s super-clean fuel-cell aircraft will create history this year with aviation’s first zero-emissions flight
http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2007/july/ts_sf06.pdf

Boeing's fuel cell-powered electric demonstrator airplane - August 2003
http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2003/august/i_atw.html

Boeing Announces Partners for Fuel Cell Demonstrator Airplane Project - July 11, 2003
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2003/q3/nr_030711p.html

The Hydrogen Economy - articles featured in this group
http://www.gather.com/viewArticles.jsp?filter=feature&grpId=3659174697249995&nav=Groupspace

Change the World - articles featured in this group
http://www.gather.com/viewArticles.jsp?filter=feature&grpId=3659174697250134&nav=Groupspace

Solar-Hydrogen Demo Project in Sacramento - by Steve B.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977163811

Tax the sale of meat! - by Sam Carana
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977123673

Agrichar - by Sam Carana
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977155102

Communities without roads - by Sam Carana
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977128488

Agrichar

Most households only use one or at most two different rubbish bins, one for recyclables (paper & packaging) and one for general waste. It makes a lot of sense to add a third type of rubbish bin, for biowaste, i.e. kitchen waste, soil and garden waste.

Many people already compost such biowaste in the garden, but all too often such biowaste disappears along with the general waste in the rubbish bin. As displayed on the picture below, analysis in Waikato, New Zealand, shows that about half of household waste can consist of kitchen waste, soil and garden waste. Such waste ends up on rubbish tips, where the decomposing process leads to greenhouse gases, such as methane. And all too often, farmers burn crop residues on the land, resulting in huge emissions of greenhouse gases.

All such biowaste could deliver affordable energy by using the slow burning process of pyrolysis to produce agrichar or bio-char, a form of charcoal that is totally black. Organic material, when burnt with air, will normally turn into white ash, while the carbon contained in the biowaste goes up into the air as carbon dioxide (CO2). In case of pyrolysis, by contrast, biowaste is heated up while starved of oxygen, resulting in this black form of charcoal.

This agrichar was at first glance regarded as a useless byproduct when producing hydrogen from biowaste, but it is increasingly recognized for its qualities as a soil supplement. Agrichar makes the soil better retain water and nutrients for plants, thus reducing losses of nutrients and reducing the CO2 that goes out of the soil, while enhancing soil productivity and making it store more carbon.

When biowaste is normally added to soil, the carbon contained in crop residue, mulch and compost is likely to stay there for only two or three years. By contrast, the more stable carbon in agrichar can stay in the soil for hundreds of years. Adding agrichar just once could be equivalent to composting the same weight every year for decades.

Agrichar appears to be the best way to bury carbon in topsoil, resulting in soil restoration and improved agriculture. Agrichar has the potential to remove substantial amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, as it both buries carbon in the soil and gets more CO2 out of the atmosphere through better growth of vegetation. Agrichar restores soils and increases fertility. It results in plants taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere, which ends up in the soil and in the vegetation. Agrichar feeds new life in the soil and increases respiration, leading to improvements in soil structure, specifically its capacity to retain water and nutrients. Agrichar makes the soil structure more porous, with lots of surface area for water and nutrients to hold onto, so that both water and nutrients are better retained in the soil.

In conclusion, recycling biowaste in the above way is an excellent method to produce hydrogen (e.g. for cars) and to bury carbon in the soil and improve production of food. Agrichar is now produced for soil enrichment at a growing number of places. The top photo shows agrichar in pellet form from Eprida. Australian-based BEST Energies has built a demonstration pyrolysis plant with a capacity to process 300 kilograms of biowaste per hour. It accepts biowaste such as dry green waste, wood waste, rice hulls, cow and poultry manure or paper mill waste. The plant cooks the biomass without oxygen, producing syngas, a flammable mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The agrichar thus produced retains about half the carbon of the original biowaste (the other half was burned in the process of producing the syngas).

Also important is to compare different farming practices. Carbon is important for holding the soil together. Farmers now typically plough the soil to plant the seeds and add fertilizers. This ploughing causes oxygen to mix with the carbon in the soil, resulting in oxidation, which releases CO2 into the atmosphere. Ploughing leads to a looser soil structure, prone to erosion under the destructive impact of heavy rains, flooding, thunderstorms, wind and animal traffic. Given the more extreme weather that can be expected due to global warming, we should reconsider practices such as ploughing.

Furthermore, the huge monocultures of modern farming have become dependent on fertilizers and pesticides. The separation of farming and urban areas has in part become necessary due to the practice of spraying chemicals and pesticides. Instead, we should consider growing more food on smaller-scale farms, in gardens and greenhouses within areas currently designated for urban usage. Vegan-organic farming can increase bio-diversity; by carefully selecting complementary vegetation to grow close together, diseases and pests can be minimized while the nutritial value, taste and other qualities of the food can be increased.

An issue of growing concern is nitrous oxide (N2O), which is 310 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas when released in the atmosphere. Much release of N2O is related to the practices of ploughing and adding fertilizers to the soil. Microbes subsequently convert the nitrogen in these fertilisers into N2O. A recent study led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen indicates that the current ways of growing and burning biofuel actually raise rather than lower greenhouse gas emissions. The study concludes that growing some of the most commonly used biofuel crops (rapeseed biodiesel and corn bioethanol) releases twice the amount of N2O, compared to what the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates for farming. The findings follow a recent OECD report that concluded that growing biofuel crops threatens to cause food shortages and damage biodiversity, with only limted benefits in terms of global warming.

All this is no trivial matter. Soils contain more carbon than all vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Therefore, soil is the obvious place to look at when trying to solve problems associated with global warming. By changing agricultural practices, we can add carbon to the soil and can minimize release of greenhouse gases.

References:
- Soils offer new hope as carbon sink
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/research/updates/issues/may-2007/soils-offer-new-hope/

- Surprise: less oxygen could be just the trick
http://tinyurl.com/ywalt4

- What we throw away
http://www.waikato.govt.nz/enviroinfo/waste/whatwethrowaway.htm

- The Carbon Farmers
http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/soilcarbon/

- Living Soil
http://www.championtrees.org/topsoil/

- BEST Pyrolysis, Inc.
http://www.bestenergies.com/companies/bestpyrolysis.html

- Eprida, Inc.
http://eprida.com/hydro/

- Biofuels could boost global warming, finds study
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/September/21090701.asp

- Biofuels: is the cure worse than the disease?
http://tinyurl.com/yq9t8o

More Wind Power!

Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006. But while wind power is making steady progress in Europe, the U.S. gets less than 1% of its electricity from wind power,

Spain now gets 9% percent of its electricity from wind power, with turbines generating 44% of electricity in the province of Navarra. In Germany turbines generate 7% of electricity, 36% in the coastal state of Sleswig-Holstein. In Denmark, wind turbines produced an average of 18.5% of electricity in 2004. Denmark aims to have 50% of its electricity demand supplied by wind turbines in 2025.

So, are the Danes wrong, or is the US public being fed the wrong ideas? Those with vested interests in the status quo have gone to extraordinary lengths to fabricate arguments against clean technologies such as hydrogen and wind power. They claim that wind power was unreliable as the wind does not blow continuously. Indeed, the contribution of wind power fluctuates with the wind, so when it is windy, the contribution of wind power can increase. On September 15th, a particularly windy day, wind turbines accounted for 70% of Denmark's electricity measured around midday. On windy nights, Denmark transfers excess electricity along interconnected grids into Germany and Sweden.

Wind power works best in combination with other technologies, such as solar and hydro-power. Furthermore, electricity can be stored in many ways, such as by pumping water back uphill. Do wind turbines make too much noise? Virtually noiseless systems can be installed in your backyard. Storage of water, heat and electricity can result in huge savings. For household hot water usage, there are low-tech thermal solar systems that heat up domestic water tanks, requiring no electricity. Many other 'low-tech' alternatives are being tested for use in developing countries, such as flywheels, springs and weights. Mobile phone and other electronic devices can be powered by hand cranks.

Using more advanced technologies, electricity from wind turbines can be stored by compressing or heating substances in tanks. One of the most promising ways to store surplus wind power is by producing hydrogen. Hydrogen can be stored under pressure in tanks, to provide fuel for industrial or domestic use or in cars, all without creating pollution. As discussed in more detail in an earlier article, electric vehicles can also run on Lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged from the solar panels on top of the roofs under which they are parked.

Anyway, more electric cars means that we need to generate more electricity, and wind power is one of the easiest and cleanest ways to do so. We can choose the times when best to recharge the batteries or produce the necessary hydrogen, so we can do so when it's windy and when there's little further demand, so it will take little or no electricity away from other usage. Look at it this way and claims that wind power was unreliable and that hydrogen was inefficient do not hold.

Once you look at the wider picture of a mix of technologies, the 'problems' that opponents of wind energy and hydrogen like to bring up will quickly evaporate. Similarly, many perceived problems are purely the result of the way the power grid is currently organized. A more distributed and intelligent system will allow a multitude of points to act as suppliers, with net-metering allowing households to earn money for feeding surplus electricity from their wind turbines back into the grid.

Oh, and do wind turbines kill birds? Does nuclear radiation kill birds? A recently completed Danish study using infrared monitoring found that seabirds steer clear of offshore wind turbines and are remarkably adept at avoiding the rotors.

Wind power does deserve more attention and should get more marketshare, while the share of fossil fuel should be reduced. The quickest and most effective way to achieve this is by taxing fossil fuel and using the proceeds to subsidize supply of wind power and other clean and renewable alternatives.

References:

- Wind power in Denmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark

- 50% Wind Power in Denmark in 2025

http://www.windpower.org/

- On a windy night, Denmark exports elctricity

www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22500426-23850,00.html

- European wind power companies grow in U.S.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18310987/

- Wind power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power

- Massive Offshore Wind Turbines Safe for Birds

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18167/

- Solar power and electric cars, a winning combination!

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977115548

- Tax greenhouse gas emissions!

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977030740

The Hydrogen Economy

Hydrogen fuel cells constitute an efficient way to store energy and as such they form an important component in our struggle to contain global warming. Hydrogen fuel cells are a convenient and clean way to power cars and supply electricity on demand virtually everywhere. The importance of hydrogen as a technology is huge, as it constitutes the clean and renewable storage compliment to clean and renewable ways to capture energy, such as solar, wind, geothermal, wave and hydro-power.

The Hydrogen Economy is much more than that; it promises to change the fabric of our society. Hydrogen, holds the promise to break up the current cartel of energy suppliers that works hand-in-glove with a military-industrial complex that holds the entire world in a suffocating stranglehold. Hydrogen can clean things up and set the economy free. Hydrogen is the elixer that can remedy our polluting habits to create a better society, without the monopolies, the pollution, the taxes, regulations and the military controls that come with the current ways of supplying energy. Currently, energy is largely obtained from sources that centralize the economy around a single supplier, such as a huge nuclear plant or coal-powered plant. Similarly, oil is pumped up under monopoly conditions and transported in huge tankers, which has created these allmighty oil companies that extend their grip over society through services stations and political lobbying to keep cars polluting the world.

We should look forward to a world in which anyone can capture energy for free in their backyards, from renewable power sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydro-power. This energy can be directly stored in fuel cells that are built into heating and cooling systems of buildings, lights, TV-sets, stereo equipment, computers, cars, mowers, scooters, power tools, etc. Wherever you now see rechargeable Lithion batteries used, such as in mobile phones, think hydrogen and you'll get a preview of the bright future that awaits us. Hydrogen fuel cells will enable us to cut the wires through which the puppetmaster controls us now. Hydrogen fuel cells hold the promise to set us free. Let's take a serious effort to give this technology a chance!

The Future is Electric Cars!

Who killed the electric car? It's an excellent documentary video, a must see! It was released on DVD to the home video market on November 14, 2006.
http://earthissues.multiply.com/video/item/16http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

There's more great footage at the Earth Issues website, such as a race between an electric car called the X1 against a Ferrari and a Porsche, and underwater recharging of an GM EV1 battery. http://earthissues.multiply.com/video/item/14
http://earthissues.multiply.com/video/item/15

The electric car dates back to the 1830s, when Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first crude electric carriage. Around 1900, electric cars outsold all other types of cars in America. Why? Because they did not have the vibration, smell and noise of gasoline cars and required neither gear changes to drive nor much manual effort to start (as with the hand crank on gasoline cars). The only good roads then were downtown and most car travel was local, perfect for slow electric vehicles with a limited range.

Now it's time to reinvent the electric car, for its convenience and for the positive contribution it can make in terms of the environment and global warming. Solar power and electric cars is a winning combination. Let me explain. Wind and solar power is not continuous, and this is where car batteries can help out, by storing electricity at times of high supply, to feed electricity back into the grid when supply is low. I can well imagine car batteries both drawing and feeding power to/from the grid at night. Intelligent net metering will assist with this.

How much solar power is needed for all this electricity? How much surface does it take to supply solar energy? The following URL displays an image with red squares showing how much surface needs to be covered in theory by solar power facilities to generate enough electricity to meet the entire demand of respectively the World, Europe (EU-25) and Germany.

 edited from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec - image origin, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fullneed.jpg

In fact, "how much surface" should be rephrased into "how little surface". Solar power alone could well provide enough energy for both our current electricity needs and can supply the additional energy needs to run our cars as well. Indeed, cars need not be bad from an environmental perspective. In fact, the combination of cars and solar power can be a winner for both. Again, let me explain.

Electricity can be stored in car batteries during the day, when cars are parked under roofs that are covered with solar panels that recharge the batteries. That could easily recharge the car battery enough for the owners to drive home and still leave sufficient power in the battery for other use. Note that 70% of Americans drive less than 33 miles per day. Late afternoon, when most people return home, they can plug their cars in at home for their own power use in the evening. Many will even have sufficient energy left to feed power back into the grid, selling electricity at top rates due to peak demand for power in the evening. Even if the battery became fully discharged in the evening, this still makes economic sense, as one can recharge later from the grid (during the night or early in the morning) when rates should be cheaper. Imagine there's a lot of wind during one part of the night. The meter will indicate that this is a good time for empty batteries to recharge. Conversely, when there is no wind in the evening, one will be able to get top dollars for feeding electricity back into the grid, pre-setting the battery to keep enough charge to get to work in the morning. As discussed, the car can then fully recharge from the solar panels on the roof of the parking place at work.

Sounds far-fetched? I'm very impressed with the Tesla Roadster, which has specs that many don't expect from electric cars, specifically an acceleration from 0 to 60 in about 4 seconds and a top speed of over 130 mph. It also looks great! You can recharge the battery at night in your garage and it will cost you as little a $2.50 in electricity for a full recharge.

With the Tesla, you'll be able to drive up to 250 miles on one single charge. This radius is achieved partly with regenerative braking that stores energy produced when braking. Recharging an empty battery with an EVSE system (operating at 70 amps) takes as little as 3.5 hours, but it also comes with a mobile-charging kit that lets you charge from any standard electrical outlet, e.g. in case you get stranded with an empty battery. Anyway, this short recharge time allows one to feed power back into the grid in the evening (when demand is high and supply from solar power sources is low) and still recharge later at night or early in the morning. Indeed, later at night rates are low, so it makes sense to recharge then. If sufficient wind is blowing, supply from wind turbines may be abundant in your area.

Electric cars requires less maintenance, since there are very few moving parts; you don't need to change engine oil, filters, gaskets, hoses, plugs, belts, there's no catalytic converter or exhaust pipe to replace. However, cost still is an issue, the Tesla Roadster 2008 model has a pricetag of $92,000 and the battery pack warrenty is limited (I think it's only warrented for 100,000 miles, while it does cost thousands of dollars to replace). But battery cost is expected to come down in future, while at the same time battery capacity and performance is expected to increase over time.
http://teslamotors.com/

Also have a look at Google's initiative on plug-in cars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDjSbWTJbdo
Google still uses plug-in hybrids, but it sets a trend away from using fossil fuel. There are also ethanol-electric hybrid cars; more than a year ago, Saab (General Motors Swedish car unit) already showcased such a car, combining an electric motor with an E85 Ethanol engine.
http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2006/03/23/afx2616065.html
Google.org has issued a request for proposals to the tune of $10 million in order to advance sustainable transportation solutions.
http://blog.google.org/2007/09/drivers-start-your-batteries.html

Let me also pass on some links to the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, at:
https://www.rmi.org/
They envisage a "Hypercar," made of ultralight, super-strong, carbon composite material, which is 12x as strong as steel on impact. Manufacturing cars and trucks using these materials would dramatically increast the range of electrical cars.
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid191.php
http://www.fiberforge.com/
Hydrogen is another way to store energy and is also promising in expanding the range of electric cars.
https://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/U02-02_CleanerGreener.pdf (1.59 MB)

In conclusion: Just like we shouldn't rely on any single source of power (we should use wind, hydro, solar power and more), we shouldn't rely on a single way of storing power either. Apart from using car batteries for storage, we could use the Great Lakes as a reservoir not only of water, but also of power. At times of peak supply of wind and solar power, surplus power could be used to pump water back from a lower to a higher lake, in order to use hydro-power at times when supply of other types of power is low. Free markets are good in sorting out which technology works best where and when. I have no doubts that the nuclear alternative will be prohibitively expensive once risk factors are better taken into account (accidents, waste management, terrorism, etc).

Cheers!
Sam Carana

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Originally posted under the title: Solar power and electric cars, a winning combination!
at: http://global-warming.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977115548

Also posted under the title: The Future is Electric Cars! 
at: http://groups.google.com/group/greenhouseeffect/browse_thread/thread/cc002e38e9b2bf9e