Energy Is Wasted Everywhere. Inability to Store It Is the Problem

Under this scenario, virtually all the remaining fossil fuels would eventually be converted into aviation fuel, with some needed for smaller ships and boats. Eventually, we will need to deploy synthetic gasoline made from natural gas, coal and even biomass.

      We all know that batteries store electrical energy nicely. But, they are heavy and expensive, so literally hundreds of projects are underway now around the world to make them cheaper, lighter and more safely disposable. We applaud these efforts, but do not believe they will be sufficient. Instead, we detect a need to store electricity vastly more effectively, perhaps the way nature stores the sun's energy, through photosynthesis. Interestingly, there are signs that we are doing this. MIT scientists have a promising new catalyst that uses electrical energy to make hydrogen from water, oxygen and carbon dioxide. (sound familiar?.....synthetic photosynthesis).
      Details can be found here, at "MIT Scientist..."
      This may not be "the one" but we believe someone will get it right, eventually. And when they do, we can convert electricity that is not needed at that moment into hydrogen which can then be moved to other places and times for use in fuel cells to power cars, trucks, trains, and ships.
     In the end, we will have abundant energy from renewables, very little carbon dioxide produced, and ample capacity to store valuable energy for when we need it, and where.
      The writer was struck forcibly by visiting Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River in Oregon this past summer. Over two thirds of the more than one million kilowatts available on that July day were being dumped through the spillway because there was no then-current need for the power. If there had been a facility for turning one hour of that wasted power into hydrogen, it could have powered thousands of cars for a year, according to officials at the site.
      And they were not embarrassed to admit it, even with the monetary value of the wasted power being about $75,000 per hour. (The financial value of a flow of cash like that would be "worth" well over three billion dollars, rivaling the cost of the dam itself.) What an incredible opportunity lost!
      This example of available energy being wasted is duplicated hundreds of times all over the country in wind farms, solar energy farms, hydroelectric plants and geothermal sites. The missing elements are: 1) transmission capacity, and 2) storage capacity.
      If we conserve a large part of the half of our energy we are wasting, build a better electrical grid, and (most importantly) create means of storing electrical energy as hydrogen when the demand for electricity is below the supply, we can deal with these problems, keep our economy growing, control damage to the climate and reduce our dependence on other nations for our energy needs. In fact the program we need to make this happen may be just the economic stimulus we need to get out of this impending recession.       - Douglas Ayer