Issues 2004 - Energy (continued)

My dad, who is way smarter about stuff like this than I am, pointed out in an email to me that the second law of thermodynamics is a bitch and that its going to be hard and expensive to replace what we get from carbon-based fuels with something else anytime soon.

But my new mantra on this topic is really simple - wind, water, and sun. We need to spend the money to make those resources deliver the energy we need. Why? Because they aren't likely to be depleted.

Comments

[Rob Anderson]

Wow, right after I posted on the “day after tomorrow” blog, you make another one I want to comment on, grin.

Wind, water, sun, and thermal energy, is all possible today. You can make your house or office building 100% self-sufficient right now.

The problem is not the big energy companies, it’s us. People have this misconception that it will take the oil companies to change over into a cleaner energy before we do.

It’s all just bad PR and marketing. We’ve always had the power, but barely use it. If the companies that produced clean energy were marketed correctly to the masses, we would start solving the problem today.

[Helmar]

Rob and Fred, the issue is not only about harnessing renewable and sustainable energy sources, but also about not wasting what is available. You know better than I that the US is a massive waster of energy and polluter of the elements - totally disproportionate to its size and population. And it's all done in the false belief and illusion that more material possessions make for a better life and a more enjoyable human existence. As long as this unfettered consumption prevails, no amount of renewable energy sources will make _any_ difference to the current political and economical problems the world is facing.

Last but not least, the US is part of the whole, not separate from "the rest of us". But as long as this egocentric, condescending and separatist (hence illusional) attitude of "we can/will do it our way" or "if you are not for us, you are against us" persists, the US will continue to alienate and isolate itself from the apparently slightly more enlightened international community.

[hey]

thermodynamis is a bitch...

i think i mentioned this earlier, though not succinctly or elegantly

anyways, fred, the reason that we haven't been using wind or sun is that they aren't dependable, and our battery technology sucks... it is very hard to find good chemicals to do this (though GM technology applied to plants and blue-green algae might work wonders), as nice chemicals are already in low energy points and are hard to rip apart, while nasty chemicals including the results of ripping nice ones apart, have nice energy characteristics. This is all due to electron availability, energy and number and the ease with which a chemical can react (see hs or undergrad chemistry for more).

Essentially its another effect of 2nd law...

the other issue limiting these sources is that they create massive landscape costs, either through industrialization of wilder places or by flooding regions of wilderness or habitation. This don't go over well with enviros...

Can these things be improved and less oil used? Yes, especially now that you can likely make money if oil prices stay this high. But oil has owned things for 100+ years as it is energy dense, low in investment and steady... Waves, usun and wind are unsteady and can't supply energy without backup gas generators.. some savings

[Pierre]

Given this new mantra Fred, is your fund prepared to invest in start-ups doing development in these areas? One of the notable problems w/these sources of energy is that there's still a lot of money that needs to be invested development of these. Start-ups need support and investors w/a longer term horizon. Where will this money come from? Where are the longer term outlook VCs? Answer these questions and we might just have a path to liquidity w/these companies.

/p