Sustainables That Keep On Giving
Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another.
—Albert Einstein
In the global effort to fight climate change, cities have some of the greatest potential—and the greatest need—to make a difference. Cities consume three-quarters of the world’s energy and dispense 70 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. World experts agree that cities have no choice but to transition into low-carbon or zero net systems if they’re going to lower greenhouse gases and slow climate change.[1]
The good news is the International Energy Association believes that world use of renewable energy will grow from 8 percent of total energy use in 2009 to more than 13 percent by 2035. The bad news is coal and natural gas will also grow—energy generation from coal will increase by 25 percent from 2009 to 2035, and shale gas production will grow nearly four times during that same time frame.[2]
The good news is that in the United States, coal use has been declining at about 8 to 9 percent a year.[3] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the final version of its Affordable Clean Energy rule in June 2019. It’s supported by the coal industry, but it is not clear that it will be enough to stop more coal-fired power plants from closing.[4] Another piece of good news is that the use of natural gas has replaced the use of many petroleum products for generation of electricity.[5] The bad news is that fracking, one of the main methods for mining natural gas, is not friendly to the environment, as noted by the EPA.[6]
The additional bad news is that the facts about climate change are being stripped out of EPA information and dialog by Trump. Thousands of web pages with climate change information that were once provided by the US EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, and elsewhere across the government have been removed or buried, according to reports by the Scientific American, the watchdog group Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, the Washington Post, and Time magazine.[7]
It’s unlikely, but a Stanford research team believes that we could power the planet entirely with renewable energy by 2050. But we would have to mandate that all new energy production plants use renewable energy by 2030 and convert existing petropowered plants to sustainable energy sources by 2050.[8]
It’s quite a wish list to believe that 90 percent of our energy production would come from wind and solar energy and that the other 10 percent would come from hydroelectric, geothermal, wave, and tidal power. Cars, trains, ships, planes, and other forms of transportation would use solar-powered electricity and hydrogen-powered fuel cells.[9]
The only problem is that somehow beating back the fossil fuel industry to a point of significant change is a pipe dream at best. Petro power companies will squeeze the last drop of oil for profits before they abandon it for alternative energy, because no one can claim rights to the power of the sun and the earth. And in 2017, the world subsidized fossil fuels by $5.2 trillion, equal to roughly 6.5 percent of global GDP. That’s up half a trillion dollars from 2015, when global subsidies stood at $4.7 trillion, according to an IMF (International Monetary Fund) working paper on fuel subsidies.[10] If governments had only accounted for these subsidies and priced fossil fuels at their “fully efficient levels” in 2015, then worldwide carbon emissions would have been 28 percent lower, and deaths due to toxic air pollution 46 percent lower.
The IMF report suggests a morally grim situation: As the planet careens toward climate catastrophe, governments are forking over trillions of dollars—one-fifteenth of the global economy!—directly to oil, coal, and gas companies. But the challenge of combating climate change through politics is much more difficult than some tidy math can make it seem.[11]
The petroleum industry has enormous resources bound up in fossil fuel infrastructure futures—something like 1.5 trillion barrels of crude and untold trillions more of other shale and tar sand deposits worth hundreds, maybe thousands, of trillions of dollars—not to mention at least one hundred years of natural gas deposits in the United States. Fossil fuel companies are not going to leave that kind of money on the table or under the ground.[12] As far as petroproducts and fossil fuels in the near and far future are concerned, oil company attitudes go something like this: “Solar is great, and we’ve looked into investing in alternative forms of energy.” But until then, every drop of petroleum represents profits. So it pays to delay.
Taking advantage of other alternative energy sources, improving and expanding clean and green transportation systems, and increasing the energy efficiency of buildings are solutions that cities will, however, have to embrace in the future.
Global energy demand is expected to double or even triple by 2050. Hopefully, at the same time, energy demands from unsustainable sources will decrease and a greater source of alternative power will be mined.[13] The scale and rate of this change are major challenges and also present enormous economic, social, and environmental incentives to invent new ways to manage energy and make it more effective and efficient. Some of the following will be quirky, unbelievable, useful, and outright outré, but mostly inevitable.
Depending on their locations, climates, existing infrastructures, and available resources, different cities will likely end up using different approaches to tackle their energy needs and to reduce their carbon footprints. When these approaches are used together, the result is a multifunctional physical and socioeconomic landscape of which energy systems are an integrated part.[14]
New York has created a program by which buildings will save energy via sensors, smart meters, and big data analytics (big data refers to managing information from traditional and digital sources on a mass scale to increase productivity and efficiency via automation). One of the recent tests was in the Empire State Building, which was retrofitted with new technology—to the tune of saving almost 40 percent of building energy use and $4.4 million annually.[15]
Some of the following are practical and in use, others are in R&D, and others have been forming in the minds of researchers and scientists looking into the next several decades or into the next millennium for new, clean, and sustainable sources of fuel and energy to power the future.
Atmospheric thermal energy conversion (ATEC—the process of converting one type of energy into another form, like solar power to electrical power), will come from built-in windmills; photovoltaic solar cells; self-regulating window shades and solar glass; ground-level waterfalls in buildings for air cooling, humidity control, and power; aerodynamic window systems; and open garden areas on each floor of a building.[16]
Scientists are trying to extract hydrogen from waste materials like vegetable oil or glycerol, the by-product of biodiesel.[17] Replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed garbage could cut global carbon emissions by 80 percent. It’s estimated that eighty-three billion liters of cellulosic ethanol can be produced by the available landfill waste in the world. The resulting biofuel can reduce global carbon emissions in the range of 29.2 percent to 86.1 percent for every unit of energy produced.[18]
Every year the poultry industry tosses out 11 billion pounds of chicken waste. Employing that up-to-now unused resource is a process for developing biodiesel fuel from “chicken feather meal”—converting protein and nitrogen and 12 percent fat content into an alternative biofuel.[19]
Eighty percent of body power is given off as excess heat. A resting male can put out between 100 and 120 watts of energy per day, enough to power a Nintendo (14 watts), a cell phone (about 1 watt), and a laptop (45 watts). But so far current technology for converting body heat into electricity is capable of producing only a few milliwatts (thousandths of a watt), which is only enough for small things such as heart rate monitors and watches. When thermoelectric materials can convert low-grade heat into electric energy and charge wearable technology at home, the result will be a reduction in plug-ins at home and lower utility bills.
How about a new technology that can take electricity, convert it into sound and send that audio through the air over ultrasound. A receiver attached to a portable electronic device catches the sound and converts it back into electricity.[20] The vibrations created by noise can be converted into electrical energy through the principle of electromagnetic induction. Transmitters could be embedded in all sorts of materials and places, including wallpaper and other household objects.[21]
One surprising, but not novel, way of storing energy is by dropping bricks. When a wind or solar farm makes more energy than the grid needs, an automatic crane on the battery uses the extra electricity to lift a giant brick, weighing 35 metric tons, up to the top of the tower. “When that tower’s stacked, that’s all potential energy,” says Energy Vault CEO Robert Piconi. When the grid needs power, the crane automatically lowers a brick, using the kinetic energy to charge a generator.[22] It’s like pumping water and releasing it back down, which creates hydroelectric power.
In one second, our sun generates all the power that humankind has ever used; it radiates 380 billion billion megawatts of energy per second.[23] By 2015, thirty-seven states had some form of renewable portfolio standard (RPS) goals mandating a percentage of total electric generation from renewable sources. California’s RPS is the most aggressive, mandating 50 percent, about 36 percent solar, of total electric generation to come from renewables by 2020.[24]
Solar electricity has reached grid parity (occurring when an alternative energy is less than or equal to the price of power from fossil fuels) in almost half the states in the country.[25]
Getting more work out of the sun via a generator prototype called the beta ray allows twice the yield of a conventional solar panel on a much smaller surface. The design is suitable for inclined surfaces, walls of buildings, and anywhere else with access to the sky. The beta ray can even be used as an electric-car charging station.[26]
The immense surface area of buildings begs for the sheathing of photovoltaics. Solar panel tiles (that absorb solar energy as well as moisture from the surrounding air, splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen and then collecting hydrogen for use in fuel cells) can cover most parts of a building.[27] Solar paint can convert brick walls into solar energy sources and fuel production for fuel cell autos.[28] Ultrathin film solar cells have now been manufactured that are quite flexible and can fit into or over many materials.[29]
Transparent electricity-generating veneers can be applied to existing windows. If used in the skyscraper market, which consumes 40 percent of the electricity generated in the United States, this technology could cut energy expenditures by 50 percent and supposedly provide fifty times greater energy than rooftop solar systems.[30]
Scientists have been working on creating more powerful solar cells by developing low-cost, efficient materials that are similar to the anodes in a battery. That is, they increase the production of solar fuel by aiding the flow of electrons.[31]
There has been intense interest in crystals called perovskites that are filled with tiny electric dipoles (a separation of positive and negative charges). When such ferroelectric (having variable electric polarization) materials experience temperature changes, their dipoles (a measure of the separation of positive and negative electrical charges within a system, that is, a measure of the system’s overall polarity) “misalign” and cause an electric current. Newly discovered KBNNO, is one such perovskite, which effectively can turn sunlight, heat, and movement into electricity.[32] Someday perovskites could be used to produce solar cells that will have the potential of achieving even higher efficiencies with very low production cost—they’re cheaper than silicon—but presently they aren’t as physically stable as silicon solar cells[33] and won’t be ready for commercial use for several years.[34]
A satellite with a 1-kilometer-long wire and a sail 8,400 kilometers wide could generate roughly 1 billion billion gigawatts (1027 watts) of power, “which is actually 100 billion times the power humanity currently requires,” says researcher Brooks Harrop, a physicist at Washington State University in Pullman.[35]
One gigawatt of power is thought to provide enough energy for about seven hundred thousand homes, and it is estimated that a typical home uses about 11,000 kWh per year. A baseline 1 gigawatt power plant with an uptime of 88 percent (typical for coal plants) will provide 1 GW times 365 days times 24 hours times 0.88 for a total of 7,700 gWh of energy over the year.
Scientists feel that if some of the practical issues are solved, solar wind power will generate amounts of power that no one ever expected. A satellite equipped to tap solar wind power would use a blade attached to a turbine rotated to generate electricity, capturing electrons from the sun at several hundred kilometers per second.
Guide people to your front door at night with an inviting glow from LED patio pavers powered entirely by the sun—meaning no burnouts or bulb replacement. One day of charge provides each Sun Brick with eight hours of amber-colored illumination, more than enough time to get all of your visitors in and out of the house.[36]
Scientists are already proposing that microorganisms that do not exist in nature may someday light and power our cities. Synthetic biology techniques enable the creation of bioluminescence in organisms by manipulating their DNA. Think about creating trees that produce a natural lighting usually found in jellyfish by manipulating the genes of trees. Not only would we be able to enjoy a mellow light at night in town but also, at home, we’d avoid stubbing toes in the dark and have nightlights for cranky kids and added security. We would also benefit from not having to totally rely on fossil fuels or central power grids to provide lighting for streets or buildings.[37]
The innovative Hydrelio Floating PV system allows standard photovoltaic panels to be installed on large bodies of water such as reservoirs, lakes, irrigation canals, estuaries, bays, and the seas. This simple and affordable alternative to ground-mounted systems is particularly suitable for communities or industries that cannot afford large land use or don’t have commercially viable and consistent sunlight.
The main float is constructed of high-density HDPE thermoplastic (used in the production of plastic bottles, corrosion-resistant piping, and plastic lumber) floats linked together, providing a platform for maintenance and added buoyancy. Microwave lasers would then transmit the energy to a city’s grid.[38]
Thermochemical technology can trap solar energy and store it in the form of heat in chemical molecules. This heat energy can be converted and utilized whenever the need arises.
Researchers are looking into a chemical-electrical process that makes it possible to produce a “rechargeable heat battery” that can repeatedly store and release heat gathered from sunlight or other sources into energy.[39]
There is still energy waiting to be harvested out of our food, even after digestion and exit. Thanks to purple photosynthetic bacteria, we can convert human poop by hijacking a bacterium’s ability to turn light into energy—and use it to break down waste into useful fuels. When scientists stimulated the bacteria with a weak electric current, it made the purple microorganisms suck up the hydrogen from fecal matter.
The chemical process extracted the carbon, preventing any greenhouse gas emissions and raising the possibility of new nonpolluting material and an energy source that is currently literally being “dumped.”
Extracting hydrogen from organic waste materials, like livestock manure, can be achieved by photofermentation, capturing almost all the methane from the waste products and storing the fuel.[40]
The termites of the sea, crustaceans called gribbles that feed on wood, could hold the key to sustainably transforming cellulose into a liquid biofuel. Research led to the discovery that hemocyanin proteins, which transport oxygen through the bodies of invertebrates, play a major role in the crustacean’s ability to extract sugars from wood. When wood was pretreated with hemocyanins, it broke down just as easily as wood that was pretreated thermochemically, a costly process. This discovery may be useful in reducing the amount of energy required for pretreating wood to convert it to biofuel. We could one day convert otherwise unusable wood products (like insect-ravaged forests) into biofuels to power our world.[41]
With the help of sunlight, water, titanium, and the use of nanotubes as an energy source, surplus CO2 can be transformed into methane, and when splitting molecules, it releases hydrogen from water (a power source) and creates oxygen (for the atmosphere) as a by-product.[42]
Pyromex Waste-to-Energy technology consists of an ultrahigh temperature gasification process that converts organic content of a waste stream into a high-energy synthetic gas, while the inorganic content is converted to basalt brick for building—a great two-fer.[43]
New technology has provided us with more ways to utilize the abundant resources of water and hydrogen. One method is to produce hydrogen by splitting water atoms, creating a tremendous source of energy that is completely renewable, can be produced on demand, and does not produce any toxic emissions. Its only by-product is water.[44]
Anyone who sails can tell you that the stronger winds are atop the mast. Swarms of kite-like airborne turbines spinning at high altitudes will send power via nanotube cable tethers back to Earth or to the moon if need be. The stronger winds can generate eight to twenty-seven times the power produced at ground level.[45]
Although we think we know how to handle nuclear power plants (that make up about 20 percent of our energy) most us are scared of them. In addition, high costs and bad press remind us of past catastrophes, no matter how rare. Europe runs on nukes, but there have only been two new reactors under construction in the United States in the last several decades while thirty-four reactors have been permanently shut down, and at forty years old, nukes look like a dying breed.
This clean source of power holds the promise of eventually producing clean, inexhaustible electricity using a fuel derived from the limitless supply of deuterium from seawater. But decades of research have not solved the problem of fusion not producing as much power as it consumes, and scientists have to continue work on preventing heat from melting the materials that form the fusion chamber.[46]
Some progress has been made. The shedding of heat from inside a fusion plant can be compared to the exhaust system in a car. In a new design, the “exhaust pipe” is much longer and wider than is possible in any earlier fusion plant designs, making it much more effective at shedding the unwanted heat. But at an estimated cost of $25 billion, it seems that fusion has a lot of problems yet to be solved in the near future. According to a World Nuclear Association report, it’s more important than ever for the United States and the world to explore practical fusion power—and boost spending on research by $200 million per year—by constructing an experimental reactor and using it to see if the process really does work.[47]
Every year six hundred billion cups of coffee jump-start the world. The average coffee shop tosses out 22 pounds of coffee grounds a day, the oils of which can actually be used to make biodiesel fuel—to jump-start our vehicles.[48]
Chocolate factory waste fed to E. coli bacteria results in the formation of hydrogen, which, as we’ve seen, may be used for producing clean biodiesel fuel for powering vehicles.[49]
When the Sun’s energy moves through space, it reaches Earth’s atmosphere and finally the surface. This radiant solar energy warms the atmosphere and becomes heat energy. This heat energy is transferred throughout the planet’s systems in three ways: radiation, conduction, and convection. It can then be stored, but it cannot be called heat. Thermal energy can be stored by taking a substance, using energy to heat it, and then placing it in a thermally insulated container.
Pacing power is produced by flooring that converts the kinetic energy from a footstep into electricity. The energy is stored within batteries and then used to power lighting when needed. Pavegen Systems makes a product that looks like a regular floor tile until you lift the surface and see the hub of circuitry within. Soon you’ll able to regularly power nightclub lights by boogying down on floors of kinetic tiles.[50]
Elevators will power themselves by collecting energy from their up and down movement and braking. Any excess power can be either stored in proton batteries or put back into the electrical grid of a single building or an entire city.[51]
Solar power and wind power account for the majority of all potential electrical capacity in the country. Skyscrapers provide ideal locations for roof-mounted wind turbines thanks to nearly constant air currents at higher altitudes. A whole new generation of small, ultralight, highly efficient wind turbines can be installed anywhere there is a breath of wind. Industrial giants are racing to build skyscraper-size turbines that can generate ten megawatts or more apiece (enough to power more than one thousand homes). The more powerful the turbine, the cheaper it can generate electricity from a single location. The Haliade-X, a proposed turbine, would stand nearly three times as tall as the Statue of Liberty (or 915 feet) and harness wind with blades that sweep an area the length of two football fields. It would produce enough power for around sixteen thousand households.[52]
A potential storage technology is the conversion of electrical energy into chemical energy (e.g., in the form of gaseous hydrocarbons), which can be easily stored and distributed in an existing natural gas grid.
Several companies are trying to prove that molten salt can save or generate electricity just as effectively as solar and wind. Facilities that utilize molten salt can operate at any time of day and store energy for up to ten hours. This form of power comes from sunshine concentrated onto a tower by a field of mirrors that heats salt in the tower to over 1,000°F, which can then be used to generate steam and turn a turbine. But it will take some time before it is perfected to save energy reliably and safely.[53]
One of the biggest problems is the difficulty of designing a device to capture the energy of waves, “We may not have even invented the best device yet,” said Robert Thresher, a research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Building offshore wind installations, for example, tends to be significantly more expensive than constructing wind farms onshore. Saltwater is a hostile environment for devices, and the waves themselves offer a challenge for energy harvesting as they roll, bob, and converge from all sides in confused seas. No one seems to have settled on a design that is robust, reliable, and efficient.
Despite some steady technical progress scientists say that it might take until 2035 to realize substantial amounts of grid-connected wave power. Hydroelectric (dam) power produces 35 percent of the total renewable and inexpensive electricity in the country. It’s readily available, and engineers can control the flow of water through turbines to produce electricity.[54] However, unless you’re a beaver, dams have fallen out of favor with environmentalists as damming rivers may destroy or disrupt wildlife and other natural resources. It’s doubtful that dam construction proposals, at least in the near future, will overcome environmentalist pressure.[55]
A source of overwhelming power is available but at present impossible to control. It comes via hurricane winds, storm surges, tsunamis, tornados, lightning strikes, the jet stream, volcanic energy, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, avalanches, and landslides, among other catastrophic events.[56]
But if you want to talk dollars, take lightning, for example. In 2009 the world used around 20,279,640,000,000 kWh—more than forty times the electrical energy that all the hypothetically harnessible land strikes contain. So, basically, all the lightning we can capture will give the world enough electricity for only nine days!
To capture each and every lightning strike on land, tall towers (think the nine-hundred-foot Eiffel Tower) around a mile apart in a grid formation covering the entire globe would be needed. That is one tower for each of the almost two hundred million square miles of the earth’s surface. The cost for each tower and electrical circuitry storage would total about $82 trillion.[57] Solar is a lot cheaper.
Super capacitors can store a large amount of charge and release it at a moment’s notice. This makes them extremely useful. Capacitors store static electricity between two insulator plates. Their ability for rapid charge and discharge makes capacitors particularly suited for use in microgrids to stabilize variations in energy sources. However, they can be dangerous when releasing power uncontrolled.[58]
As gadgets become more sophisticated, there’s one technology that seems to be left behind: batteries. Renewable energy sources are likely to become more competitive as storage technology improves and when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.
The US Department of Energy has stated that building a battery with the capacity to store energy for less than $100 per kWh would put this source on a par with solar and wind energy.[59]
Engineers are designing a tiny, solid electrolyte battery that allows a charge to flow between two nanoscale electrodes, which could revolutionize portable power supplies and lead to the production of lithium-ion batteries that are smaller than a grain of salt.[60]
Batteries never seem to last quite long enough—and their environmental footprint is toxic. A team from Caltech, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Honda are considering new fluoride-ion batteries to offer a promising new chemistry with up to ten times more energy density than currently available. Apparently, they do not pose a safety risk due to overheating, and obtaining their raw materials has less environmental impact than current extraction processes. But in the best-case scenario, it might take years to bring these batteries to market.[61]
A working prototype proton battery combines the best aspects of hydrogen fuel cells and battery-based electrical power. When charging, the carbon in the electrode bonds with protons and electrons generated by splitting water to form a power supply. The protons are released again and pass back through the fuel cell to combine with oxygen to form water to generate power, with no emissions in the process.[62]
The rare earth metals that go into lithium batteries are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive, and mining them can have environmental consequences.[63]
This proton battery can be plugged into a charging port just like any other rechargeable battery. Basically, the carbon footprint left by the battery would be the source of the electricity used to charge it, and the results of mining for the chemicals.[64]
There has always been a kind of social compact with power companies and their customers: pay your bill and, when you hit the switch, the power will be there. The US national power grid is a Frankenstein-like creation, grafted and sutured together on an outdated electrical framework. It is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines regulated and monitored by the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and serves more than 334 million people from Canada to Baja California.[65] This system has kept us out of the dark for some time, but it’s succumbing to senescence and overload. Meanwhile, a renewing light at the end of the tunnel could cost as much as $2 trillion.[66]
Electrical energy is regulated in terms of demand, the system powering up when one region peaks and lowering when demand is lessened. In addition, the country’s copper-wire-based electric grid is basically inefficient. But the grid might not have to be completely rebuilt; it could be replaced by a series of minigrids. For separate buildings, towns, or states, future microgrids may be a way to simultaneously address energy security, affordability, and sustainability through dispersed, locally controlled, independent energy systems tailored precisely to end-user requirements. Each building would operate its own small smart grid that can be connected to larger grids, whether state or national, via the internet of things (IoT), and excess power would be stored in alternative ways for later use.[67]
Wireless power transfer, with little or no loss of power in contrast to copper wire power distribution, has been the brass ring of power transmission since Nicola Tesla tried to introduce it at the turn of the twentieth century. It is technically complicated, but in simplistic form it works like this: There are two coils, a transmitter coil and a receiver coil, involved in wireless power transfer. An alternating current (AC) in the transmitter coil generates a magnetic field that creates a receiving voltage in the receiver coil. Stanford researchers have discovered a practical method through which wireless transmission of electricity may be possible. If the method can be scaled up, that will mean much lower costs in creating and transmitting electricity. Unfortunately, this is a fairly complex process at present and has not been possible on a large scale.[68]
The Chinese plan to launch an “artificial moon” satellite in 2020 that will be eight times as bright as the real thing—with enough brightness to replace all the streetlights in a large city. The artificial moon isn’t just some giant light bulb in the sky. A coating on a satellite’s adjustable wings will simply reflect sunlight. Both the location and brightness of the human-made moon can be changed or completely shut off if necessary. And since the satellite is mobile, it can assist in disaster relief by beaming light on areas that lost power, potentially saving billions in energy costs and aiding in emergencies.[69]
Bill Gates was working on a pilot project to develop safer and cheaper nuclear power near Beijing that recently came to a screeching halt, thanks to restrictions imposed by President Trump and regulations from the Department of Energy that restrict nuclear partnerships between the United States and China, according to the Wall Street Journal.[70]
TerraPower, cofounded by Gates, is trying to build something called a traveling-wave reactor that would be capable of generating fuel out of depleted uranium. While this process would give rise to an era of cheaper, cleaner, and safer nuclear power, the reactor itself would cost about $1 billion to build. “The world needs to be working on lots of solutions to stop climate change,” Gates said.[71]
Whatever the choice, there seems to be a bright future for many renewable and friendly energy-source options.
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