One of the reasons I don't lose sleep over Peak Oil is that there is such a broad range of alternative energy sources under development. The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Nuclear Fission
Solar
Concentrated Solar
Ethanol -- from switchgrass, cornstalks, etc.
Ethanol -- from waste
Methanol -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from shale
Synthfuel -- from tar sands
Biodiesel -- from waste
Biodiesel -- from algae
Nuclear Fusion

Progress is being made on all of these fronts. And if oil shoots up to $200, $300, $400 per barrel over the next couple of years, we can expect interest in these (as well as funding applied to them) to skyrocket.

Let's look at just the second and third items on the list, the two major forms of harnessing energy from the sun. What we normally think of as "solar energy" is the application of photovoltaic technology -- turning the sun's power directly into electricity. "Concentrated solar" power, AKA solar thermal energy, involves concentrating and capturing heat from the sun, which is then used to create steam and move an electricity-producing turbine.

We wrote about the tremendous promise of concentrated solar power just a few weeks ago, so I won't rehash all that here. Suffice it to say that, even if photovoltaic technology had hit some kind of peak of its own, meaning that we wouldn't expect much more from it than what we're getting now, concentrated solar would remain as a major potential energy source that we have barely even begun to exploit.

But the truth is that photovoltaic solar energy is far from any peak. Ray Kurzweil has repeatedly stated his assessment that solar energy is on a Moore's-Law-style trajectory of its own, and that all the worlds energy could be supplied by solar in as little as 20 years. So if Moore's Law is leading us to The Singularity, is this acceleration of solar power capability leading us to a solar singularity?

Some probably wouldn't like that term, seeing as it could make the whole question as to what exactly we mean by "singularity" even murkier than it currently is. But it has a ring to it, doesn't it?

Solar Singularity.

Anyhow, if we are going to get to the point where solar really does (or even could) supply all the world's power within a couple of decades, we are obviously going to have to see:

Accelerating progress in solar energy technology culminating in a fundamental shift in how the world's energy needs are met.

And that, then, can be how we define the solar singularity. It seems unlikely that it could be confused with any other kind of singularity, doesn't it?

We talked briefly on the most recent FastForward Radio about how we would know when we've reached the solar singularity. One suggestion was "when solar is cheaper than anything else." Another was "when they don't even bother to drill any more." Those are both good candidates. But how could we ever get to that point?

Continue reading "The (Solar) Singularity is Near" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

They certainly produce more visually pleasant light than compact fluorescents. And you don't have that pesky toxic-cleanup issue if one breaks. But are LED-lightbulbs ready to take on the incandescent bulb?

Lighting Science Group says they are. And to back it up, they're introducing a new line of LED-based lightbulbs that plug into a regular light socket. Check out the bulb shown here.

Looks pretty neat. And as we can see from this page, it can be had for a mere $110.

What the...$110???

For a LIGHT BULB?

Well, hang on. LSG has an answer to that:

At $40 to $110 apiece, the LED "in-screw" bulbs may still seem too pricey for a lot of consumers. But Lighting Science Group's pitch is that a 50 cent Edison bulb will last for 750 to 3,000 hours, while an LED has to be replaced only every 50,000 hours (or 10 to 30 years). The company says the cost savings is almost $740 over a lifetime due to much lower energy consumption.

That's the same argument that's made in favor of the compact fluorescents, but these bulbs last longer and are even easier on the old electric bill.

Plus, I think I already mentioned -- no mercury.

Bring 'em on, I say.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 04:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Writing for Salon, Joseph Romm says that concentrated solar power (CSP) is the key to solving our energy problems.

One of oldest forms of energy used by humans -- sunlight concentrated by mirrors -- is poised to make an astonishing comeback. I believe it will be the most important form of carbon-free power in the 21st century. That's because it's the only form of clean electricity that can meet all the demanding requirements of this century.

Romm argues that CSP, which uses heat from the sub to move an electricity-generating turbine (as distinct from photovoltaics, which convert sunlight directly into electricity) can produce energy more efficiently coal or oil or even nuclear power. He claims that CSP can provide power at a cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour or less. Concentrated solar power's big advantage over conventional solar power has to do with storage:

The key attribute of CSP is that it generates primary energy in the form of heat, which can be stored 20 to 100 times more cheaply than electricity -- and with far greater efficiency. Commercial projects have already demonstrated that CSP systems can store energy by heating oil or molten salt, which can retain the heat for hours. Ausra and other companies are working on storing the heat directly with water in the tubes, which would significantly lower cost and avoid the need for heat exchangers.

Romm provides a number of interesting examples of CSP applications throughout history. Before the invention of photovoltaics, CSP was the only real model for generating solar power. He even gives an example of a CSP-powered pumping station that was built and put into operation in Egypt in 1913. It was shut down during WWI, and then never reopened once cheap oil established itself as the dominant energy source.

So it's interesting to see CSP making such a striking comeback. It reminds me of the recent news about production of automobiles running on compressed air - another idea that was experimented with a century or so ago, then pretty much forgotten, and which has now found new life. New technologies and new market conditions provide the opportunity for abandoned and all-but-forgotten ideas to re-emerge. My favorite example of this has to be the idea of building a Charles Babbage-style difference engine at the nano scale -- a model of computing that would have been awkward and clunky to implement using 19th century industrial technology, and which was deserted in favor of 20th century electronics technology, now finds new life with 21st century nanotechnology.

Continue reading "Concentrated Solar Power: Another Great New-Old Idea" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Hydrogen has a long (if somewhat spotted) history of making things go up. For starters, hydrogen gas is lighter than air. In fact, it's even lighter than helium, which is why -- along with a US embargo preventing the German government from getting their hands on sufficient quantities of the inert gas that today we use to lift children's party balloons and to make our voices squeaky -- the ill-fated airship Hindenburg was put aloft by hydrogen gas. Sadly, hydrogen's extra boost of lift power came with a high level of volatility and flammability, and I think we all know the rest of that story...

But there are other ways that hydrogen can make things fly. For example, Boeing has recently announced that, earlier this year, the aircraft manufacturer demonstrated the first-ever manned flight of an airplane powered entirely by a hydrogen battery. NASA tells us that aircraft account for "up to 4 percent of the annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels near the Earth's surface as well as at higher altitudes (25,000 to 50,000 feet)," so there is definitely something to be said for airplanes with a carbon footprint of zero. The question is, how close does this initial 20-minute demo flight get us to a future of zero-emission aviation?

Not very, according to Boeing:

The director of the Ocana research centre, Francisco Escarti, said the hydrogen battery "could be the main source of energy for a small plane" but would likely not become the "primary soruce of energy for big passenger planes".

"The company will continue to explore their potential as well as that of all durable sources of energy that boost environmental performance," he said.

But Boeing is not the only game in town where hydrogen-powered flight is concerned. As we reported a couple of months ago, the European Space Agency is looking at an idea called LAPCAT (Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologie) which promises not only to deliver large-scale, hydrogen-powered commercial aviation, but to return us to the era of supersonic commercial aviation. UK-based Reaction Engines, who have proposed LAPCAT and are currently working with the ESA to study its feasibility, claim that their jet will deliver cruising speeds up to Mach 5, making it possible to fly from Sydney to Brussels in about four hours.

Consider the possibilities: a jet that can fly faster than the Concorde -- with a much greater range than Concorde's, too -- which will have none of the Concorde's negative impact on the atmosphere. Moreover, Reaction Engines claims that the greater range means that LAPCAT will be able to fly routes that can minimize or avoid "supersonic overflight of populated areas." So we can once again travel faster than sound, this time with less worry about potential resulting noise pollution.

Of course, there's a hitch to hydrogen-powered aircraft. In fact, it's the same hitch that you get with hydrogen-powered anything. Hydrogen is a means of transporting energy; it is not itself an energy source -- at least not when burned like a conventional fuel. So if we want truly zero-emission aircraft, we need to make sure that whatever is serving up LAPCAT with hydrogen fuel, or charging the batteries of Boeing's more modest offering, is itself a green and emission-free energy source. Solar, wind, and hydroelectric would all be good ways to produce energy for zero-emission aviation. But if we were to look to look to a future in which all aviation becomes zero-emission, we will need something more scalable and reliable than any of those.

For the near- to mid-term, that probably means nuclear energy. For the longer term, fusion energy will eventually supply us with cheap and abundant power without the risks or drawbacks associated with nuclear fission reactors. (Although it's important to note that those risks and drawbacks have been considerably reduced in the more recent versions of nuclear fission reactors, which has significantly broadened the appeal of these low-emission power plants.) Mimicking the process by which the sun itself is powered, fusion is perhaps the ultimate natural energy source. And it's fueled by hydrogen -- meaning that a future of zero-emission aviation may be hydrogen-powered in more ways than one.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Without looking, what would you guess is the subject of the Wired article "'Misinformed Craze' For Hybrids Delays Greener Technology?"

Guess 1:

I was sure initially that the author was suggesting that standard hybrids are delaying plug-in hybrids.

Thanks to the nickel batteries in standard hybrids, there's a good argument that these "green" cars are worse for the environment than my Ford Explorer. This is tragic because, well, it exposes my witty title as a lie.

Plug-in hybrids will be doubly better for the environment. We will be able to drive emission-free for most commuting and the batteries necessary to power a plug-in hybrid are environmentally friendly too.

But it doesn't look like plug-ins are being held back by the standard hybrids. Most major car companies, plus a few upstarts, are getting into the plug-in business as fast as they can. In ten years we'll probably look back at standard hybrids as a brief, necessary bridge to plug-ins.

Prediction: the word "standard" won't describe non-pluggable hybrids for much longer.

But that's not what the Wired article is about.

Guess 2:

Perhaps the author is arguing that somehow hybrids as a whole - standards and plug-ins - are holding back the development of full EV's.

Now this would be an interesting article too. But hybrids aren't holding EV's back any more than standard hybrids are holding back plug-ins.

EV's are being held back by a chicken/egg problem. Few people will buy EV's until they are comparable to gas guzzlers in range, speed, and the ability to fuel up quickly at convenient stations. No EV's, no infrastructure. No infrastructure, no EV's.

Plug-ins will, I think, serve as a proving ground for the EV’s that follow. They could also provide the infrastructure for EV's. Plug-in owners will buy gas for long trips until enterprising station owners offer quick charge service that's cheaper than gas. Once that service is widespread, we'd have a network of stations that full EV's could use. Perhaps Congress should mandate standardized quick charge jacks in plug-ins to encourage this.

But no, that's not what the Wired article is about either.

The Big Reveal:

The article states that hybrids are holding back other technologies like...hydrogen. This according to two French researchers who also concede that hydrogen won't be commercially viable until 2025 at the earliest.

If we ever do get hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (a rather big if) they will also be electric vehicles. A hydrogen fuel cell would power a car with electricity. Wouldn't it be beneficial to have already perfected electric vehicles? Right now the best path to electric vehicles is through hybrids.

There's no need to wait to 2025 to do something. We will experiment with many possibilities between now and then.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In a recent post Phil asked, "So are we better off strictly recycling, or with a mix of recycling for metals and plastic, while reclaiming energy from paper and other organic waste?"

There's an interesting parallel between recycling and "reclaiming energy." Recycling allows you to use the same raw materials over and over. Reclaiming energy allows us to use carbon over and over.

Fossil fuels release carbon that's been sequestered since the fossils they were made from were living. Ethanol releases carbon too, but it's the product of plants that sequester carbon while they grow (paper and organic waste sequestered carbon recently). Instead of a one-way release of carbon, we'd get to take advantage of a carbon cycle. This makes it closer to being carbon neutral.

But NPR reported today on a study that apparently shows that ethanol is worse for the climate than gasoline. Their reasoning: when we devote more of our corn crops to ethanol, world food production is shifted to places like Brazil where rain forests are slashed and burned for farm land. And burning of rain forest releases a lot of carbon.

This highlights the importance of using things other than food to make ethanol. Making cellulosic ethanol from biological waste (like corn stalks) or switch grass could be carbon neutral. Using land that's not being used for crops wouldn't be a problem. Algae for diesel and ethanol can be grown in the desert.

Unfortunately that's not the message that most people will take away from that study. "Ethanol is worse than gas." Well, no. Ethanol can be much better than gasoline for the environment. We just have to be careful about unintended consequences. Perhaps it's time to end corn ethanol subsidies.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 07:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Per Bylund writes about the Swedish government's coercive recycling regulations:

...[E]verybody is recycling. But that is the result of government force, not a voluntary choice. The state's monopolist garbage-collection "service" no longer accepts garbage: they will only collect leftovers and other biodegradables. Any other kind of garbage that accidentally finds its way to your garbage bin can result in a nice little fine (it really isn't that little) and the whole neighborhood could face increased garbage collection rates (i.e., even larger increases than usual — they tend to increase annually or biannually anyway).

So what do you do with your waste? Most homes have a number of trash bins for different kinds of trash: batteries in one; biodegradables in one; wood in one; colored glass in one, other glass in another; aluminum in one, other metals in another; newspapers in one, hard paper in another, and paper that doesn't fit these two categories in a third; and plastic of all sorts in another collection of bins. The materials generally have to be cleaned before thrown away — milk cartons with milk in them cannot be recycled just as metal cans cannot have too much of the paper labels left.

The people of Sweden are thus forced to clean their trash before carefully separating different kinds of materials. This is the future, they say, and it is supposedly good for the environment.

What is interesting about this Soviet-style planned recycling is that it is officially profitable. It is supposed to be resource efficient, since recycling of the materials is less energy-consuming than, for instance, mining or the production of paper from wood. It is also economically profitable, since the government actually generates revenues from selling recycled materials and products made in the recycling process. The final recycling process costs less than is earned from selling the recycled products.

However, this is common government logic: it is "energy saving" simply because government does not count the time and energy used by nine million people cleaning and sorting their trash. Government authorities and researchers have reached the conclusion that the cost of (a) the water and electricity used for cleaning household trash, (b) transportation from trash collection centers, and (c) the final recycling process is actually less than would be necessary to produce these materials from scratch. Of course, they don't count the literally millions of times people drive to the recycling centers to empty their trash bins; neither do they count, for instance, energy and costs for the extra housing space required for a dozen extra trash bins in every home.

Not to get into the politics of whether the Swedish government should or should not enforce such a vigorous model of recycling, I wonder how reclaiming refuse for biofuel production might fit into such an environment? All the wood, paper, and organic waste which is currently going for recycling or trash disposal might be converted into energy instead. I'm not sure this would make things any easier, but I would venture to guess that (at least) folks wouldn't have to sort paper into different varieties or wash out their milk cartons before disposing of them.

There has been quite a bit of interest in cellulosic ethanol lately; I wonder how enthusiastically its widespread production from waste materials would be received by environmentalists? While you would no longer have paper ending up in landfills, you would have it being "used up" in the form of energy production. Whereas, with recycling, the paper will last a lot longer -- although certainly not forever.

So are we better off strictly recycling, or with a mix of recycling for metals and plastic, while reclaiming energy from paper and other organic waste?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday, in response the the latest Better All the Time post I commented:

I do have one prediction about hydrogen. We will find much more efficient ways to get it than water electrolysis. For example, green plants get hydrogen from water as part of the process of photosynthesis. This is done very efficiently (and why would nature bother to get hydrogen from water if hydrogen were useless?). We are beginning to understand how this works and we might use that method to get hydrogen.

Or, we might use John Kazius' microwave method.

Or there might be some other way that that I won't know about until... today. According to Technology Review, scientist have known since the 70's that a material called titania serves as a catalyst for breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen in the presence of light - specifically ultraviolet light.

The problem is that sunlight is only partly UV. The process would be much more efficient if titania split water with visible light too.

Nanotech to the rescue. Scientists with the startup company Nanoptek have just announced that putting titania on dome-like nanostructures stretches the bonds between the titania atoms so that it begins splitting water with visible light.

This process is said to be as cost effective as the current cheapest way of obtaining hydrogen - from natural gas. But since the natural gas process releases a significant amount of CO2 and this method releases only oxygen, this is the environmentally friendly approach.

One way this could really be useful is in storing solar power for night use. These dishes could produce hydrogen during daylight for powering fuel cells 24/7.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

...well almost.

This is the Karma plug-in hybrid. It's fast, its beautiful, and it will go 50 miles before burning a drop of fuel. The one feature that I could do without is the $80,000 sticker price.

Maybe if I planned an eco-friendly mid-life crisis...

Nah. I'll wait for others to pay for the R&D that went into this car and then purchase the $30,000 Honda Accord plug-in that will follow in 3 or 4 years.

On the other hand, that Accord probably won't go 0-60 in 6 seconds. Sigh.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Saturn has announced that it will sell a plug-in version of the Saturn Vue in late 2009. Toyota will sell a plug-in Prius in 2010. The Chevy Volt will also have a plug-in version in 2010.

Plug-ins will be compared to each other on how far they will be able to travel as electric vehicles per charge. The Saturn plug-in will run 10 miles on electric per charge. The Prius will only go 7 miles. The Volt (pictured above) will go 40 miles per charge.

That 30 mile advantage for the Volt over the other plug-ins will make a huge difference at the pump. Running as an EV is the equivalent of paying $.75 cents per gallon for gasoline. And being able to go 40 miles per charge means that many people won't have to burn gas at all during their daily commutes. I wouldn't. But I would burn some gas with the Saturn and Prius plug-ins.

Of course I'm burning gas with my current vehicle. Plug-ins, even ones with modest EV ranges, will be a huge step forward.

UPDATE: GM is calling the Volt their "Moon shot." And, just in case you're not convinced that this is a race...

There's nothing magic about the technology. Two or three years after the Volt is introduced, everybody will have something like it. We'd just like to be first for once.

-GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Take a look at part of the reason that petroleum will never be cheap again:

This is Tata Motors "Nano" car. It will seat four adults comfortably and will sell for about $2,500 US in India and other developing countries. A version of this cute car might even make it to the US. This is the 21st century's answer to the VW Bug.

A car this cheap will allow millions in India, China and elsewhere to purchase a car for the first time. As more people demand petroleum the price of that resource will continue to climb - even without the peak oil nightmare.

We as a country have to get serious about flex fuel vehicles, ethanol and biodiesel production, battery R&D, and nuclear power. The quicker we push the alternatives, the less the pain of transition.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Not to get a whole thing going again, but one of the arguments offered against flex fuels is that any flex-fuel program requires ethanol and ethanol (if it could ever work at all) is problematic in that its production requires making energy production competitive with food production, which can drive up the price of produce such as corn which is applicable to both.

One solution, as I noted in the comments section of that lengthy discussion, might be to open up other agriculture markets for fuel production, while relegating corn back to what it's best at -- feeding us and our livestock. At the same time, we might look at crops that would give us a bigger bang for our buck in terms of domestic ethanol production. As reader Odograph pointed out, it would be next to impossible for the US to match Brazil's successful ethanol program, partly because corn just doesn't crank out energy as efficiently as sugarcane, and partly because we're such pigs when it comes to energy consumption.

Solutions such as plug-in hybrids might at least cut down our rate of consumption of liquid fuels for powering cars (if not our total energy footprint). I mentioned crops such as sugar beets, fodder beets, and sweet sorghum which yield ethanol at about the same rate as sugar cane. And here's another possibility, which we discussed briefly on our most recent podcast -- switchgrass:

Previous studies on switchgrass plots suggested that ethanol made from the plant would yield anywhere from 343% to 700% of the energy put into growing the crop and processing it into biofuel. But these studies were based on lab-scale plots of about 5 square meters. So 6 years ago, Kenneth Vogel, a geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Lincoln, Nebraska, and colleagues set out to enlist farmers for a much larger evaluation. Farmers planted switchgrass on 10 farms, each of which was between 3 and 9 hectares. They then tracked the inputs they used--diesel for farm equipment and transporting the harvested grasses, for example--as well as the amount of grass they raised over a 5-year period. After crunching the numbers, Vogel and his colleagues found that ethanol produced from switchgrass yields 540% of the energy used to grow, harvest, and process it into ethanol. Equally important, the researchers found that the switchgrass is carbon neutral, as it absorbs essentially the same amount of greenhouse gases while it's growing as it emits when burned as fuel.

Switchgrass looks promising, but it's no panacea. As a natural part of the North American prairie ecosystem, this plant has been touted by some as a crop that could solve all our energy needs with minimal fertilizer, herbicides, or other inputs. But the research says not so fast:

A final significant finding, Vogel says, is that yields on farms using fertilizer and other inputs, such as herbicides and diesel fuel for farm machinery, were as much as six times higher than yields on farms that used little or no fertilizer, herbicides, or other inputs to grow a mixture of native prairie grasses. That result contrasts sharply with a controversial study published just over a year ago in Science that suggested that a mixture of prairie grasses farmed with little fertilizer or other inputs would produce a higher net energy yield than ethanol produced from corn (Science, 8 December 2006, p. 1598). Instead, the current study--published online today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--shows that switchgrass farmed using conventional agricultural practices on less-than-prime cropland yields only slightly less ethanol per hectare on average than corn. "The bottom line is that low-input systems are not economically viable," Vogel says.

Switchgrass may be part of the overall solution, but it's going to take some real effort to make it work.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 05:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Robert Zubrin is featured on the most recent Glenn and Helen Show, talking about his book, Energy Victory -- which is apprently doing quite well. (He was also a guest on FastForward Radio not long ago.) Now Glenn reports that a member of John McCain's campaign staff has contacted him to point out how Senator McCain is all about Flex Fuels.

Here's hoping that some (or all) of the other candidates chime in. Before Christmas, I started a list of people who I think need to read Zubrin's book. Let's add all the candidates' names to that list. A sane energy policy could be closer then we think!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Some great alternative energy ideas are emerging around our two most recent posts on the subject. Stephen has us powering our homes with either miniature nuclear reactors or nano-solar panels. Reader Da55id, in the comments section of the earlier post, suggests using those some solar panels to launch a potentially workable version of the hydrogen economy:

1.) Water is delivered via current water pipes (no charge)

2.) Solar power cracks the water to yield hydrogen (appx $15k investment)

3.) The hydrogen is stored to be used by fuel cell that the govt funded to ensure that critical infrastructure can be "battery powered" for months at a time AND this same tech can backup whole houses...and now for the final piece.

4.) The electricity generated by the hydrogen runs your Tesla of Chevy Volt (saves you about $3,000 in gasoline costs per year)

I like this. It seems a reasonably workable model for hydrogen, using it to store solar energy, which has this little not-always-available issue associated with it.

Meanwhile, Will Brown is offering up a veritable smorgasboard of new battery technologies and new approaches for solar, nuclear, and hydrogen power.

Everybody wants their electric car now, it seems -- and I'm right there with you, guys -- but if I were a betting man, I would predict that we'll still be using internal combustion engines for at least a couple more decades. Rarely does Phil Bowermaster want to err on the side of caution when it comes to the roll-out of new technologies, but what with this whole thing going on, and all...

President Bush on Wednesday signed an energy bill designed to cut U.S. dependence on overseas oil by imposing the biggest increase in fuel-efficiency standards in 32 years and mandating a fivefold increase in the use of home-grown biofuels.

"Today we make a major step toward reducing our dependence on oil, confronting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations of our country a nation that is stronger, cleaner and more secure," Bush said in a ceremony at the Department of Energy.

...I think we have to be (and again, nobody hates this word more than Yours Truly) realistic. The new law requires that cars become 40% more fuel-efficient (in 12 years) and that we make some modest progress in ethanol and other biofuels. Clearly, the US Government is not on a Speculist time schedule.

Baby steps, guys. Baby steps.

We'll have electric cars in a few years, but we're going to muck around with hybrids for a while until we get it right. And, yes, I think we'll have mini-nukes or hydrogen fuel cells or nano-solar collectors powering nano-wire batteries to generate electricity for our homes and cars, but this is all going to take a while. In the mean time (building on a all of these various ideas), I would like to see us work towards a scenario where every new vehicle built is either:

1. A flex-fuel plug-in hybrid, or

2. A diesel plug-in hybrid

Today we have a lot of cars running on gas, a few plug-in hybrids running on gas and grid power, and a few vehicles out there running on biodiesel. Petroleum is still dominant. But if every new car fit into one of those two categories, we would eventually see our vehicles powered by:

Fuels
Petroleum
Methanol
Ethanol
Diesel
Biodiesel

The Grid
Fuel Oil
Coal
Hydroelectric
Nuclear
Wind

Off the Grid
Nano-Solar
Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Compact Nuclear

Most of these different approaches to fueling cars actually work together -- so you can have a flex-fuel car burning any combination of gas and alcohol while getting its battery power from the home system, which is half nano-solar and half coal power from the grid. Or you could have your biodiesel car with its battery charged from a compact nuclear power source or a hydrogen fuel cell charged by nano-solar. Choices!

Sooner or later, the less environmentally friendly options (standard gas and diesel, and coal) have to start being phased out in favor of the lower-emission options. But in a world where just about anything you can think of can power your car, that shouldn't be that hard to do.

UPDATE: Then again, maybe the future isn't that far away. Glenn directs us to a video of a test drive of the 300MPG Aptera, which we recently blogged about.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Electricity is the ultimate commodity. Whether it comes from a coal burning plant, wind mills, or from a hydroelectric plant; an electron is an electron. When powering your toaster, one is as good as the next.

This commodity problem - from the point of view of those who are producing power - is compounded by the fact that customers can't choose where their power comes from. If you'd rather your power came from a clean source - well, tough. You don't get that choice. If you're on the grid your electricity could come from basically any source anywhere in the country - clean or dirty.

Power sources compete on one basis - price. And, unfortunately, environmental impact is a cost that usually falls outside of price. There are a couple of ways out of this trap. We could tax dirty power. But, right or wrong, we've usually lacked the political will to put the cost of environmental impact back on the energy consumer.

The less painful way out is to find ways that clean power can compete with dirty power on the basis of price. Putting filters on smoke stacks can't do that. Any effort to clean up a dirty process makes that power more expensive than the dirty original - just like taxing. We need entirely different clean power sources.

Hydroelectric power is cheap and clean, but we've basically maxed out on that in this country. Wind power can compete with grid power on the basis of price and this resource has not been fully exploited; but there is a limit to the amount of power that the wind can provide.

There are two more cheap and clean sources of electricity that I read about just today. First, the Nanosolar Company has begun selling new advanced solar panels that are actually cheaper than grid power.

The company, which has raised $150 million and built a 200,000-square-foot factory here, is developing a new manufacturing process that “prints” photovoltaic material on aluminum backing, a process the company says will reduce the manufacturing cost of the basic photovoltaic module by more than 80 percent.

Nanosolar, which recently hired a top manufacturing executive from I.B.M., said that it had orders for its first 18 months of manufacturing capacity. The photovoltaic panels will be made in Silicon Valley and in a second plant in Germany.

...

Nanosolar’s founder and chief executive, Martin Roscheisen, claims to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to profitably sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. That is the price at which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal.

“With a $1-per-watt panel,” he said, “it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems.”

According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said.

Another possibility is the mini-nuclear plant. Phil mentioned these in a recent Better All The Time entry. But Glenn Reynold's link today points to an article with this fact about mini-nuclear plants:

The whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

We may live to see dirty power plants mothballed for the most practical of reasons - the price.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

To use a cliche from a few decades back, I think my "consciousness has been raised" by reading Robert Zubrin's new book, Energy Victory. It seems that everywhere I turn, I encounter someone who says something that reminds me of the book, and that makes me want to give them a copy. So I'm starting a last-minute Christmas list of people I want to share the book with.

For example, yesterday I followed a link over at Jerry Pournelle's site to the text of a speech by Newt Gingrich entitled Sleepwalking into a Nightmare. In the speech, Gingrich lays out one of the major propositions of Zubrin's book -- a sound and sane energy policy, one that gets us off Saudi oil once and for all. But he blows it almost immediately, to wit:

And let's be honest: What's the primary source of money for al Qaeda? It's you, re-circulated through Saudi Arabia. Because we have no national energy strategy, when clearly if you really cared about liberating the United States from the Middle East and if you really cared about the survival of Israel, one of your highest goals would be to move to a hydrogen economy and to eliminate petroleum as a primary source of energy.

Emphasis added. One thing Zubrin makes very clear is that the "hydrogen economy" is simply not a workable idea. Hydrogen burns clean and would be a terrific alternative to gasoline if it were available on its own. Unfortunately, on this planet it comes packed with oxygen in the form of water. In order to free up hydrogen atoms to burn as fuel, we have to expend energy to release them from their bond with the oxygen atoms. In fact, the amount of energy we have to expend is, at best, only equal to the amount of energy we'll get burning the hydrogen. There's no net gain.

So somehow we have to generate the energy required to free up all that hydrogen. And that needs to be a clean and non-foreign source of energy. So naturally the question becomes --once we've figured out what that is, why not just use it instead of hydrogen? Cut out the middle man, as it were.

The hydrogen economy is, if anything -- according to Zubrin -- a diversion backed by the oil companies. It allows President Bush and other politicians to take the position that they are in favor of getting us off oil while backing a proposal that is very unlikely to do so. Meanwhile, we just keep chugging the oil.

So for Christmas, I want to give Newt Gingrich a copy of Energy Victory. In fact, I'd send him two copies if I thought he could get his friend President Bush to read one of them.

But I don't just want to give the book to my friends on the right. Oh, no. Others need to read it, too.

Last night I'm sort of half-watching Boston Legal. I don't really follow that show much any more (believing that it jumped the shark somewhere around the halfway point of the first season), but the lawyer who lives here at Casa Speculist is still a pretty big fan, so it was on. Anyhow, John Larroquette is making this closing argument about how hard it is to know what to do about saving the environment. As a throwaway, he mentions that ethanol is an attractive approach, except for the fact that filling the tank of a Hummer one time requires using the same amount of grain that would feed a human being for a year.

I'm not sure that I'm quoting that correctly, and -- even if I am -- considering the source, let's just say that there is some chance that it might be a bit exaggerated. Be that as it may, the problem with that argument is not the merits of the case, it's the assumption that energy is a zero-sum agricultural game. Zubrin points out that much of the developing world is starving not because we're burning all our grain in the form of ethanol, but because we refuse to import their agricultural products. If we want to help raise the developing world out of poverty, a huge step forward is to create a worldwide market for their agricultural produce -- for example, the ethanol market that Zubrin argues can free us from dependence on foreign oil.

So let me offer the book Energy Victory to Boston Legal executive producer David E. Kelley. Merry Christmas! (Or happy what-have-you.) Dave, this business about helping out third-world farmers is right up your alley. And I have a sneaking suspicion that making our energy economy dependent on their efforts would do more to help them than we have been able to do so far through clever manipulation of, say, the coffee or brazil nut markets. Plus, you could write one of those heavy-handed closing arguments for Alan Shore (James Spader) to deliver, and for once Denny Crane (William Shatner) would be standing by cheering!

I also want to give a copy to whoever it was in the Blog Talk Radio chat room while we were interviewing Robert Zubrin who claimed that ethanol requires more energy to manufacture than it produces. This is another oil-company talking point. Zubrin clearly demonstrates in his book that while this is a valid argument against the 'hydrogen economy," it is utter nonsense when applied to ethanol. Brazil has demonstrated that you can get a net energy gain from ethanol for decades, now. (And I'll throw in another gift copy of the book for the first oil-company stooge who leaves a comment arguing that Brazil is different because they use sugar cane rather than corn.)

Finally, I want to give a copy to Dr. John Marburger, a science adviser to President Bush who is quoted in the book as well as to a member of Marburger's senior staff whose meeting with Zubrin is described in some detail. Zubrin meets with Marburger and outlines how one simple federal requirement -- that all cars manufactured in the US and imported into the US be flex-fuel-capable -- could help us to:

• Achieve energy independence

• Break the grip of OPEC on global energy markets

• Help to de-fund terrorism

• Drastically decrease carbon emissions

• Improve economic conditions for some of the poorest of the poor worldwide

Zubrin argues that putting enough flex-fuel cars on the road can create a market for ethanol (not to mention methanol) both of which can free us from dependence on foreign oil. He explains elsewhere in the book that making a car that can run on either gasoline, ethanol, or methanol is not the huge retooling task that most people would expect it to be. You need a recalibrated fuel injection system -- one that responds to whatever mix of gas and alcohol you happen to put into your tank -- and fuel lines that won't break down when exposed to alcohol. That's it. This is well-established technology. Compared to building a hybrid or making a car that you can safely run on hydrogen, this is child's play.

Put enough of these flex fuel cars on the road, Zubrin argues, and gas station owners will have an economic incentive to put in ethanol or methanol pumps. More people buying flex-fuel cars and greater demand for alcohol fuels eventually puts price pressure on OPEC. This economic solution would put the consumers in the driver's seat and would create a competitive environment that would drive down the price of gasoline, ethanol, and methanol. It's a win-win-win.

Marburger's response?

"We don't believe in mandates."

His staffer, when meeting with Zubrin some time later, explained that the costs involved in making the switch to flex-fuel cars would simply be too great for us to bear. Not the cost of actually changing the vehicles -- which apparently he concedes would be minimal -- but the cost of certifying all these new flex-fuel cars. That would cost us a whopping $150 million dollars or, as Zubrin points out, about what the US spends on foreign oil every five hours.

You know, I'm a pretty free-market guy, and Zubrin's solution passes my 80-20 test: 20% of the initiative (or less) needs to come from the government, while 80% (or more) should be market-driven. I haven't seen anything else proposed that comes close to meeting that ratio. The "hydrogen economy" certainly won't.

You would think that a government that "doesn't believe in mandates" would leap at the chance to do something effective that requires so little government involvement. Unless, of course, "we don't believe in mandates" really means "we don't believe in doing anything that will annoy the oil companies," which of course, is another way of saying, "we don't intend to do anything about this at all."

So come to think of it, I don't think I'll waste two copies of the book on Marburger or his staff member. I think there must be some other folks out there who would benefit more from reading it. Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments area as to who I should give the book to.

And don't forget to buy your own copy:

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Ronald Bailey has written an interesting article weighing our future fuel options. The problem - our green alternatives aren't cheap enough and the cheap alternatives aren't green. He's not impressed by ethonol or hydrogen.

He is excited by next generation (nanotech engineered) lithium ion batteries. Also:

Biotechnology is another possible pathway to a post-petroleum future. For example, the privately-held biotech company, LS9, based in San Carlos, CA. aims to use synthetic biology to skip over ethanol to directly produce gasoline. LS9 co-founder and Harvard University geneticist George Church describes synthetic biology as "treating biology the way you would treat large-scale integrated circuits. We've been dealing with one part at a time or a small number of parts. Synthetic biology is engineering of new systems using parts that we trust." Another way to think about it is that biologists want to do to biology what engineers have done to electronics and chemists have done with chemistry.

I had similar thoughts back in June.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As luck would have it, my cobloggers Phil, Kathy Hanson, Michael Sargent, Ben Young and I all won golden tickets to tour the super-secretive EEStor factory in Cedar Park, Texas.

Only I, being pure of heart, was allowed to see the entire factory...

Okay. Obviously frustration has sent me a little over the edge. Is EEStor about to change the world, or is this all an elaborate tease? Since January we've been waiting for EEStor to deliver their supercapacitors for use in ZENN electric cars. If what they've claimed is true, it will be a real game changer:

The Achilles heel of [currently available] ultracapacitors is their specific energy density -- they don't hold nearly as much energy per unit weight as batteries. Lithium ion batteries produce around 120 watt hours per kilogram, whereas commercially available ultracapacitors produce around 6 Wh/kg, some 20 times less. That won't cut it for vehicles, much less for industrial-grade renewable energy storage.

...

[But EEStor] system claims a specific energy of about 280 watt hours per kilogram, compared with around 120 watt hours per kilogram for lithium-ion and 32 watt hours per kilogram for lead-acid gel batteries.

Forget hybrids, if EEStor delivers this, we'll all jump straight to 100% electric vehicles. Supercapaciters are environmentally clean, charge as fast as you can fill a tank with gasoline, and would be cheap to operate.

EEStor has not produced (at least for the public) a working prototype. Perhaps they're worried about the Slugworth's of the world who could steal their invention. But they do have a patent. Comeon guys, show your cards!

Maybe they don't feel the need to demonstrate their technology because they have sufficient investment already. ZENN Motor Company has invested $3.8 million and the venture capitalist firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (known for wise early investments in Google and Amazon) has invested another $3 million.

These high-end investors must know more than the public. But other critics are publicly doubtful that EEStor's announced breakthrough is even technically possible.

I remain hopeful and optimistic because the guys that founded EEStor have a good track record. When a prototype is delivered we will learn either that EEStor is living in a world of pure imagination, or that we've all got a golden ticket.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

1. You'll look like some kind of 007 badass and the chicks will be all over you.

2. It's got a futuristic, Jetsons quality that goes well with your forward-looking image.

3. That '91 Taurus of yours is just so over, man.

4. Rig it with a flux capacitor and you might just pull off that time-machine conversion you've been plotting all these years.

5. It gets 157 miles per gallon.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

All right, really they're an organic chemist and a couple of engineers. But they got the idea for their Greenbox -- a device that captures a vehicle's carbon emissions and stores them for eventual processing as biofuel -- while fiddling around with carbon dioxide in order to grow algae as apart of a fish-farming project.

If the system takes off, drivers with a Greenbox would replace it when they fill up their cars and it would go to a bioreactor to be emptied.

Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel.

This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again.

The process also yields methane gas and fertilizer, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain's auto emissions would take up around 1,000 acres.

Seems like a technology such as this -- if it pans out -- could be a big helping in cutting emissions during the long transitional phase from gas-powered vehicles to hybrids to plug-in hybrids to fully electric vehicles. And then once we're fully electric, all we need is something to power the electric grid.

More squishy green algae goodness here.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

…apparently so. Utah physicist Orest Symko has developed a way to turn waste heat into sound which is then converted into electricity.

"It is a new source of renewable energy from waste heat."

...

Using sound to convert heat into electricity has two key steps. Symko and colleagues developed various new heat engines (technically called "thermoacoustic prime movers") to accomplish the first step: convert heat into sound.

Then they convert the sound into electricity using existing technology: "piezoelectric" devices that are squeezed in response to pressure, including sound waves, and change that pressure into electrical current. "Piezo" means pressure or squeezing.

...

Devices that convert heat to sound and then to electricity lack moving parts, so such devices will require little maintenance and last a long time. They do not need to be built as precisely as, say, pistons in an engine, which loses efficiency as the pistons wear.

...

The research is funded by the U.S. Army

Symko thinks that these devices can be shrunk for use in laptop computers. They could reduce heat and extend battery life at the same time. Also he thinks they might be used as an alternative method for getting electricity from sunlight. You could put these devices in a small greenhouse box on your roof and plug in. No word yet on whether this could provide more electricity per dollar invested than photovoltaic cells.

If our country moves to hybrid vehicles, why not use our hot cars to charge those lithium ion batteries? Both engine heat and cabin heat could be used. We southerners could get some serious mileage out of cabin heat. Just sitting in the parking lot my truck typically gets over 120 degrees Fahrenheit in August.

The interim sound step is important. It serves to organize the energy in preparation for a conversion to electricity:

"You have heat, which is so disorderly and chaotic, and all of a sudden you have sound coming out at one frequency," Symko says.

And they won't drive us crazy with their noise:

Symko says the devices won't create noise pollution. First, as smaller devices are developed, they will convert heat to ultrasonic frequencies people cannot hear. Second, sound volume goes down as it is converted to electricity. Finally, "it's easy to contain the noise by putting a sound absorber around the device," he says.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Enough about the X-Files. Let's talk about the X Prize...the automotive X Prize, that is. From Slashdot:

The [X Prize] Foundation now plans to offer millions for the first practical car that increases mileage five-fold. The specs for the competition are out in draft form amd call for cars in two categories that are capable of 100 MPG in tests to be run in 2009. The categories are: 4-passenger/4-wheel; and 2-passenger/unspecified wheels. The cars must be manufacturable, not "science projects. The prize is expected to top $10 million. The X Prize Foundation says that so far it has received more than 1,000 inquiries from possible competitors.

More info here. The requirement that it be a truly manufacturable car is important. On the other hand, a 100 mpg car doesn't have to be all that cheap compared to a 20 mpg car. There's plenty of room to make that extra cost up on the back end.

The winning entry will almost certainly be a hybrid, but what kind? We've spent a lot of time pondering hybrids at the Speculist. Stephen is a big fan of plug-in hybrids. Personally, I don't think enough attention has been paid to hydraulic systems which "recycle" braking into acceleration. Who knows? The winner might exploit more than one of these ideas.

Then again, there was this tidbit on L2si the other day:

If this guy is legit, he may deliver the environmentally friendly Hummer that I asked for on the most recent FFR.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Pond scum is only the beginning. Over on L2si, you've got your choice of wacky energy sources: do you want power from sugar or power from water? If it works, I think the latter will be the way to go.

But that's a fairly sizable "if."

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday Popular Mechanics published an article on commercial algae production. The key points:

• Algae produces oil. Lots of it. Up to 50% of the volume of algae is oil that can be directly converted into biodiesel. The carbohydrate content can be fermented into ethanol (or a really strange martini). Both biodiesel and ethanol are environmentally friendly fuels. After harvesting these two fuels, the remaining plant bulk - mostly protein - can be used in feed stock.

• Algae is subject to exponential growth under the right conditions. It can double its volume in a day. Therefore, it can be harvested everyday. This sets it apart from every other biodiesel crop. Algae is expected to produce 10,000 gallons of oil per acre per year. The next best biofuel crop - palm - produces 650 gallons per year per acre.

• If we had to grow all our country's diesel this way, it could be done "on an area of land that’s about one-half of 1 percent of the current farm land that we use now."

• Algae grows well in brackish water. This could be particularly useful in the deserts of the American southwest. Much of the available ground water there is salty.

• The startup company that is featured in this article is moving forward quickly:

  Solix plans to complete its second prototype by the end of April and to begin building a pilot plant this fall. That plant will take advantage of CO2 generated from the fermentation and boiler processes of New Belgium Brewery, also in Fort Collins. The company’s initial target is to be competitive with biodiesel, which historically sells for about $2 per gallon, wholesale. They believe they can reach this goal within a few years, and are ultimately aiming to compete with petroleum.

Here's my original March 11 "Pond Scum" post. And, don't miss the FastForward Radio discussion on this topic.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My last post on commercial algae production mentioned the importance of CO2. Without additional CO2 - in densities greater than what's found in the atmosphere - algae farms would not be commercially viable.

There may be another way to get energy from CO2. The Max Planck Institute has developed a catalyst that breaks the stable CO2 bond much like algae and other plants.

In photosynthesis, the CO2 molecule is initially bonded to nitrogen atoms, making reactive compounds called carbamates. These less stable compounds can then be broken down, allowing the carbon to be used in the synthesis of other plant products, such as sugars and proteins.

In an attempt to emulate this natural process, Goettmann and colleagues Arne Thomas and Markus Antonietti developed their own nitrogen-based catalyst that can produce carbamates. The graphite-like compound is made from flat layers of carbon and nitrogen atoms arranged in hexagons.

The team heated a mixture of CO2 and benzene with the catalyst to a temperature of 150 ºC, at about three times atmospheric pressure. In a first step, the catalyst enabled the CO2 to form a reactive carbamate, like that made in plants.

The catalyst's next useful step was to enable the benzene molecules to grab the oxygen atom from the CO2 in the carbamate, producing phenol and a reactive carbon monoxide (CO) species.

From there it is relatively easy to refine fuel. When oil supplies were limited during World War II, Nazi Germany made fuel from carbon monoxide derived from coal.

Now these researchers are attempting to further increase efficiency by using light as the energy source to split CO2 - again, like plants.

It seems that one way or another, excess CO2 will be less a problem than a solution.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In our last FastForward Radio show Phil and I discussed the possibility of oceanic plankton being used to sequester the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. As an aside I mentioned that plankton makes a good bio-diesel. In other words, we could get a twofer out of the deal. We sequester carbon AND we harvest some of the plankton for energy.

It's not a bad idea, but ramping up a major offshore project with unproven technology would be difficult. Fortunately there is an easier way to get started. Last week The New York Times published an article about a related venture:

A few companies are in a race to be first to convert [freshwater] algae to fuel on a commercial scale, and it will require not a small amount of money, luck and biotech tweaking…

[The goal] is to find an energy-efficient way to convert algae into fuel [pdf link], which is why she [Venture Capitalist Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones] was visiting a catfish farm here that was for sale. Farmed catfish could provide a useful source of carbon dioxide for the algae, as well as a critical revenue flow to keep research going…

By comparison to plankton, algae is lower hanging bio-diesel. Working onshore would eliminate much risk - to people and to the project. And lessons learned could further offshore plankton projects later.

According to the US Department of Energy, algae can produce more bio-diesel than any other plant. Algae doesn't have to waste energy drawing water and nutrients from the ground. Algae's advantage is that it is suspended in the aqueous solution of the carbon dioxide and nutrients it needs to grow.

Using catfish as a source of CO2 helps in a small-scale experimental pond, but commercial algae production would not be huge catfish farms. On larger scales catfish would be more of a distraction than a revenue source. Scientists are recommending using the desert:

Geothermal activity under the desert could provide a free source of carbon dioxide to bubble up for the algae to absorb and convert into organic matter to process as fuel...

"If the U.S. put 15 million acres of desert into algae production, we could produce enough volume of liquid fuels to get us off the Middle East oil addiction and give Iowa back to the songbirds," said B. Gregory Mitchell, an algae research biologist at the University of California , San Diego, who is a friend of Ms. Morgenthaler-Jones and Mr. Jones.

Gregory Mitchell's calculation is based on a theoretical production of 20,000 gallons of bio-diesel per year per acre of algae.

One requirement that would be in short supply in the desert is water. It would have to be piped in from elsewhere. Perhaps algae wouldn't require potable water. Runoff water and even sewage from desert cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix might be usable. Such water would have to be treated because algae ponds are subject to contamination which would reduce bio-diesel yields.

Obviously there is much work to be done. But if we can do this we would be harnessing desert solar power and CO2 for our energy needs.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Almost two years ago I wrote about a certain self-replicating nano-machine that works at the nano-level and quickly produces macro-level results. This machine is yeast.

Yeast hasn't eaten the world Grey Goo style because they either die of starvation (because they quickly eat all sugar in their area) or they are poisoned by the product of their work – alcohol.

This fact - that yeast is killed by alcohol - places an upper limit on the amount of alcohol in beer and wine. If you want something much stronger than 10% alcohol, it will have to be a distilled beverage.

Brewers have been working with yeasts for generations to bred yeasts that can produce higher concentrations of alcohol. In an effort to improve the efficiency of ethanol production (ethanol being simply an alcohol we can burn in our cars), a group at MIT has joined this effort with their own super-yeast:

The work by MIT chemical-engineering professor Gregory Stephanopoulos and his colleagues focuses on the second part of this process: fermenting sugars to make ethanol. The yeast strain they made can tolerate ethanol concentrations as high as 18 percent--almost double the concentration that regular yeast can handle without quickly dying. In addition, the new strain makes about 20 percent more ethanol by processing more of the glucose, and it speeds up fermentation by 70 percent.

H/T to FuturePundit.

Futurepundit Randall Parker points out that this will result in an exponential improvement in efficiency because each fermentation produces more ethanol, AND isolating that ethanol will require less distillation.

These researchers also want to genetically engineer the yeast to break down cellulose into simple sugars. Then yeast could perform the two biggest steps in making ethanol from biomass…

Ethanol is less than ideal as a liquid fuel because it has much less energy per gallon than gasoline.

True, but a plug-in hybrid vehicle could probably be engineered to get acceptable range and power burning pure ethanol. This could potentially be a step toward energy independence.

Of course if we get an 18% alcohol beer, we'll need autodri