Tag Archives: Solar Energy

Big Island, Geothermal, Hydrogen, Renewable Energy Sources, Science, Sustainability

Toyota Shifts Focus to Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles

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Richard Ha writes:

Toyota made a major announcement today: It will stop focusing on pure electric vehicles, and begin focusing its attention on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. This is huge.

Do you know that here on the Big Island we throw away (“curtail”) tons of electricity from geothermal and wind every night? We can turn this energy into hydrogen fuel cells, for transportation, and this can help us solve our transportation fuel problem. It can also be used for nitrogen fertilizer.

Solar energy projects do not provide curtailed electricity. We need to think about the big picture and be careful about running like lemmings after solar.

Hydrogen fuel cell for transportation is a very good opportunity for the Big Island to use its curtailed electricity. It’s a free resource that already exists; currently, we are just throwing it away.

From Audioguide.com:

“Toyota will forgo further development in pure electric vehicles in search of what it sees as more promising alternative fuel vehicles.

The automaker will focus on the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles according to Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz….”

 Read the rest

Food Security, Government, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Science, Sustainability

Bill 113: It’s Not ‘Who’ Is Right, It’s ‘What’ Is Right

Richard Ha writes:

All of this hullabaloo about Bill 113, the anti-GMO bill – What it’s really about is that we need to take a little more time, so we can be sure we are making good and informed decisions.

It’s not “us against them.” It’s not “GMO against organic.” It isn't “who” is right, so much as it is “what” is right.

It’s significant that a group of farmers and ranchers who, between them, grow 90 percent of the food produced on this island, have banded together to say the same thing: We need to think this through more carefully.

These farmers and ranchers opposed Bill 113 because the bill was rushed and its consequences were not considered. We didn’t take the time to think it all through and come to the best decision for everyone.

Bill 113 looks through a very narrow prism; there is a much bigger picture that is not being considered. We are not taking into account the risk of rising energy prices. We live in the humid subtropics, where there is no winter to kill off bad insects. Our solution has been to use petroleum products to fight them off and also to make fertilizers – but now, the price of oil has skyrocketed and this is becoming unsustainable.

Use solar energy, some say. But solar energy is only sustainable right now because of subsidies, and we cannot expect that subsidies will always be there.

A leaf, though, is also a solar collector, and it’s free. Being able to leverage our sun energy year round –  assuming we have a way to control our pests – would make our farming and ranching industry, and our local food production, more than sustainable.

A solid solution to the extensive problems caused by rising oil costs is to use scientific advances. Biotechnology. It’s comparable to how we use iPhones now to replace the big walkie-talkies we used before.

This would help us get off oil, and would also give us the advantage of a year-round growing season, among other benefits. It would help us all.

We need to think through all of this in great detail. All of us need to be open to the fact that our research might prove a certain favorite plan of action unsustainable. If that's the case, we need to move on to the next idea and research that one carefully, getting input from every side.

We need to consider unintended consequences of legislation. We need to slow down, and research, and make carefully informed decisions.

Geothermal, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

A Humorous Look at How This Could All Play Out

Sun

Since the start of the industrial revolution, our energy use has grown about 2.9 percent per year. This article says that to keep growing at even 2.3 percent per year beyond 275 years, we would have to put solar panels on every square meter of land.

Considering the sun’s energy seems limitless, what happens if we could maximize its use?

The article, from Energy Bulletin (July 12, 2011), is Part One of a series that tries to bring large concepts into view by using simple estimations to their logical, and sometimes humorous, conclusions.

Galactic-scale energy

by Tom Murphy

…Surely in 275 years we will be smart enough to exceed 20% efficiency for such an important global resource. Let’s laugh in the face of thermodynamic limits and talk of 100% efficiency (yes, we have started the fantasy portion of this journey). This buys us a factor of five, or 70 years. But who needs the oceans? Let’s plaster them with 100% efficient solar panels as well.

Another 55 years. In 400 years, we hit the solar wall at the Earth’s surface. This is significant, because biomass, wind, and hydroelectric generation derive from the sun’s radiation, and fossil fuels represent the Earth’s battery charged by solar energy over millions of years. Only nuclear, geothermal, and tidal processes do not come from sunlight—the latter two of which are inconsequential for this analysis, at a few terawatts apiece…. Read the rest

Plant leaves are mini solar collectors. Can we convert the product of leaves’  work and convert that result into something that yields more usable energy than what the leaves manufactured in the first place? So far, we have not been very successful.

Most of the processes that involve biofuels have a low net energy result — energy-in versus energy-out. In fact, because there are fossil fuel inputs, there is a term that describes the result. It is called the “receding horizon.” The break-even point recedes into the horizon as fossil fuel prices rise.

While I am for using sun energy to help solve Hawai‘i’s food and fuel problem, I am also for emphasizing geothermal energy as a way to give Hawaii a game-changing energy/food/social advantage relative to the rest of the world. This is about positioning future generations for survival and prosperity all at once.

My Pop would say: Find three solutions for every problem and then find one more just in case. Now is the time to implement that special, geothermal solution.