Comments on: Multibillion-Dollar Push Into Energy Research

By: bman

bman — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:07:35 +0000

Lots of nitpicking naysayers here on this thread. I think any money that is spent on Bankers, Wall Street traders, Iraq, and Aghanistan is a waste. spending money on engineers and engineering projects is where our long term hope lies, That said here’s some thoughts and counter thoughts.

@Ironman Consistancy is not a requirement for energy production. If you have adequate efficient means of storing the energy. Transmitting energy from space is pointless, go up there and make use of it if you want to gather it up there, there’s plenty energy already on the surface, above and below.

@SuperTrooper umm what is your point?

@FrancoisT TaDa!! who says it can’t be done :)

@SBrennen Did you hear about the Three Mile island nuclear release last week? they were just sawing through some pipes when *Alarm* Forget nuclear, what is needed is distributed clean energy production, storage and redistribution.

@Jojo If you bash the Large Hadron Collider, you’ll never understand anything.

By: CTB

CTB — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:56:36 +0000

Having flown over vast tracts of uninhabitable, sunny desert land on the way to Las Vegas, I’m fairly certain there is a lot of potential in solar.

By: MSimon

MSimon — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:07:36 +0000

Carbon nanotube wire would be an extremely good place to put some money. We are one or two production breakthroughs away from wire that is cheaper than aluminum or copper. Stronger than either and about 5X as conductive. It could greatly lower the cost of long distance transmission. If it was strong enough (and it very well might be) it could greatly reduce power outages from downed transmission lines.

By: patfla

patfla — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:45:37 +0000

This is an almost futuristic grid-related project that’s occurring now (it also has the appeal of being huge – people like that):

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Superconductor-Electricity-bw-1358093940.html?x=0&.v=1

One (of many) applications would be to transfer intermittent Texas wind power to locations in the US distant from Texas.

By: sinomania

sinomania — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:51:41 +0000

@william

The reactor of choice was designed here – the WEstinghouse AP1000 – but it will benefit the rest of the world since our politics gets in the way. China is building another 4 AP1000 reactors in the next year or so and plans to generate 400 Gigawatt with nuclear power plants or over 20% of its electricty by mid century. Where will the USA be then? Let’s hope wind and solar do take off here…

By: DL

DL — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:06:25 +0000

So Iguess there was something useful amid all that pork.

By: prismatic_prism

prismatic_prism — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:33:03 +0000

Good news indeed! However there are techologies that are ready to go, like the Desertec project where private German banks and other companies will pony up 400 billion euros to make it happen. Have to hand it to those Germans, when they believe in something they are all in… Now where is the US equivalent ? I sorta miss the moonlanding mentality…

http://www.desertec.org/

By: constantnormal

constantnormal — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:17:12 +0000

No mention of Dr Bussard’s Polywell fusion reactor? It has quietly received a trickle of funding from the Navy for years, and the latest incremental effort puts them at the brink of a 100 MW powerplant …

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

http://deanesmay.com/2009/09/12/polywell-fusion-wb-8-gets-8-million/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

If the W8 incremental step is successful, and the W9 is built, every nuclear powerplant under construction or operating today suddenly looks very old, very inefficient. The Polywell fusion design produces little/no hard radiation (with the proper mix of fusion fuels), is reasonably compact, and inherently fail-safe.

By: Wes Schott

Wes Schott — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:20:25 +0000

we need nuclear for electricity

peak oil was in 2005

it will be a long time and expensive before we could convert the surface transportation fleet to electric

we need an alt fuel for transportation. interesting is anhydrous ammonia – apparently can fuel a combustion engine with little or no modifications

http://www.ammoniafuelnetwork.org/

By: ashpelham2

ashpelham2 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:42:38 +0000

Want to really know why we don’t have a solution to those problems? Look no further than many of the stocks you and I currently hold, as long as we are willing to hold them.

We expect returns from those investments, appreciation, dividends. If a cure for cancer is found, many of those drug companies that have THE drug that helps during the treatment of cancer go away. Solution found, the drug is obsolete.

What about energy? I own XLE, and that fund would be in bigtime danger if we stated we found the ultimate alternative to fossil fuels. That fund heavily owns Chevron, Texaco, et al. Make no mistake: BP Amoco says they are committed to a cleaner, more efficient future, but only if it makes them money. Oil is their main revenue. That’s not going away.

What we are all asking for is a utopian society where we all work for non-profits, and all of our needs are supplied by the giant Orb in the Sky. It’s Sci-Fi, it’s unrealistic, and it’s not going to change markedly for another 100 years.