True Progress

This data from the EIA shows that only 7.2% of the nearly 7 billion barrels of oil consumed in the United States each year is used for manufacturing that includes lubricants and plastics and asphalt among other things, while ~93% is burned and converted to energy. For natural gas, with a total of 335 billion cubic feet consumed, ~97% is burned, and only 3.3% is used for manufacturing (predominately plastics). Using more oil and gas for manufacturing uses and in general saving it for future uses is a valuable investment strategy that outperforms many alternative financial investments we could make. Read the rest of this entry »

Fuel cells offer many advantages over batteries, but the design challenges faced when implementing fuel cells for portable application are substantial. High temperatures, tempermental catalysts, and fuel sources that can be difficult to handle pose problems for any kind of fuel cell system. However, the design solutions available when constrained by the needs of a portable hand-held device quickly dwindle. This article describes one particular solution developed by myself and Yildiz Bayazitoglu at Rice University. Read the rest of this entry »

We generally understand efficiency when considering different options to the same problem, for example, how to get from point A to point B, by running, driving, or flying. One method will use more energy than the others and will therefore be less efficient. One refrigerator will chill the same amount of food as another and use less energy and will therefore be more efficient.

We also implicitly understand a trade-off between time and energy (less time to do the same task usually requires more energy). But, when we start to compare different activities, say having steak for dinner versus buying a DVD player or taking a 3-day vacation versus buying a new bicycle we often lack the information to compare the overall efficiency between the two different options in terms of energy or materials or really any possible standard that might interest us. Read the rest of this entry »

In the next century, the progress of humanity will proceed on the basis of how successfully we address the following six needs. They are not the typical needs of world peace, ending world hunger, or stopping environmental destruction that so often are vaguely thrown about in the press these days. Those are but symptoms of the real challenges that we must attack in the next 100 years. While they are related to some of those subjects, in different ways they are directed at more concrete, more measurable factors that will enable or inhibit our achievement of broader goals this century. Read the rest of this entry »

…Continued

Environmental issues such as conservation and biodiversity are often seen as peripheral to our lives or the problems we face, but nothing could be further than the truth. This world is habitable because of the weathering of rocks and the death and recycling of organisms, because of the filtration, oxygenation, and water capturing functions that plants carry out, because of consumers’ roles in suppressing the populations of plants and other animals and producers’ conversion of solar energy to chemical energy. All of that happens within the Earth’s ecosphere and the ecosystems that comprise it, and all of it is self-sustaining and self-maintaining. Or, at least, it is until we start interfering with it. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a lot of talk recently about whether economic markets have imploded due to over-regulation or under-regulation. Although most pick up that argument with their own particular political biases, it is a difficult question to answer not least because many governments actually act in both directions at the same time. But, let us look at a related but different aspect of civilization: innovation and progress.

In the same way that economics experiences cycles, booms, and busts, innovation and progress when considered as a market of ideas also experiences those things. This earlier article on regulation explains some of this, but we are going to take this idea a few steps further. Read the rest of this entry »

Increasingly, green advertising has become much more important among manufacturers and retail businesses. It seems many consumers would prefer given many options to select a product that is less stressful on the environment than another equally functional product. While the degree to which this is influencing each person today varies widely, it is clear that these companies are responding to a real pressure they feel in the marketplace. The current result has been an almost obligatory series of advertisements and public claims regarding a product’s green-ness. However, as some of these claims may be contradictory, how can one know how to make the best choice? We’ll examine one case in this article. Read the rest of this entry »

This article recently brought up an excellent point on how some rates can be deceiving, and even reduce the likelihood that we will make the right decision. The example involved comparing impressions of fuel efficiency in miles per gallon versus gallons per mile, or gallons per ten thousand miles. While identifying the better of two options in either case is easy regardless of the rate, other types of evaluations can be much more complex if we end up using the wrong units. Read the rest of this entry »

Recent news has highlighted the opening of the first commercial hydrogen fueling station in California. For people who lease hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (the most common user) or some kind of hydrogen combusion engine, they now have one public place in the state of California where they can refuel their vehicles. A few others already exist in New England and Washington, D.C. Is this the start of a new age in the technology of fuel consumption and the beginning of the end of fossil fuels? And, where does this hydrogen come from anyways? Let’s explore some of those questions in this article. Read the rest of this entry »

Drilling for Oil is not the only Potential Energy Producing Activity Offshore

While “green” or renewable energy technologies are often seen as the rival against traditional fossil fuel technologies in some kind of epic battle, they can actually sometimes enhance and support each other. Recent news from wind power companies suggests that they may be able to move their turbines offshore to deep water out of sight of land and away from wind-blocking obstructions by employing technology developed for deep water oil and gas exploration and production operations. Read the rest of this entry »

Energy efficiency is a wonderful investment both for businesses and consumers often paying far better returns than the stock and bond markets. If so, then why don’t we take advantage of it? Increases in efficiency can reduce energy consumption for the same or increasing amount of output. All the while, pollution is reduced and money is saved increasing the health and well being of our communities. Is all of this good news falling on deaf ears? Read the rest of this entry »

With energy costs increasing faster than inflation and much faster than income in the United States, many have a desire to conserve. But, without information, our conservation may be more expensive than it is worth and hardly as effective as it could have been. The kill-a-watt electricity usage monitor provides a useful way to be smart about conservation. Increase the efficiency of your home. Read the rest of this entry »

In this earlier article on the new CAFE standards, I found that depending on the assumptions made for the number of future miles driven, restricting the speed limit to 55 miles per hour would be a more cost effective and more energy efficient solution than changing the CAFE standard. That analysis only considered the total amount of fuel consumed between the two options. Now, let’s take that analysis a few steps further. Read the rest of this entry »

As landfills which hold municipal solid waste are closed the emissions from decay of the material in the landfill becomes a pollutant. That pollutant can either contribute to smog and the increase in greenhouse gases, or it can be used as an energy source. A free, environmentally friendly fuel, potentially harmful if released, is not being used everywhere? What are we thinking? Read the rest of this entry »

Sustainable technology is an idea that may produce a new level of real progress around the world. But often today, the term is more of a marketing badge that may or may not prove to be true when put to the test. I have written before about sustainable technology and some of the problems with realizing that idea. In this article, let’s consider a set of objectives that we can use to actually measure whether something is sustainable. Read the rest of this entry »

When Subsidies are Hard to See

When we think of our governments subsidizing a particular industry we usually envision a nice big check sent to them every year to the tune of millions of dollars from tax revenues. Sometimes, instead, it is that industry that is free from a particular tax that most others have to pay. But, what if instead there are payments in kind that elevate one industry or one form of technology over another. Would we recognize those things as government subsidies? Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of Earth Day on 4/22 (a little late, I know), let’s consider the relationship between “green” production and conservation.

Our question is does conservation or “green” production result a greater positive impact regarding our use of resources. I am going to take the case of paper, as it is relatively simple product to manufacture, is a major waste product, and can be easily recycled.

As of 2000, paper consumption in the United States was approximately 324 kg per person. Americans recycle approxmately 38% of that total, and of the remainder that is thrown away, it makes up nearly 40% of the municipal waste stream eventually being incenerated or deposited in a landfill. Recycling has been growing slowly, however, only growing from 20% in 1921 to 38% today. Consumption has grown faster increasing more than 1% compounded annually or over 23% since 1990. Read the rest of this entry »

A Root Cause Analysis on the “Failure Mode” of Changing (Increasing or Decreasing) Temperatures.

This is the second article of a five part series.

In the last article I outlined our functional model of the Earth. According to that model to explain why the current temperature of earth is the way it is, we have a primary energy input from the sun, and secondary energy inputs from other astronomical sources and internal energy from the Earth itself. The properties of the Earth that effect the temperature are the reflectivity, the percentage of energy reaching Earth reflected back out into space, and the emissivity, the ease at which the energy Earth contains can be released into space (cooling at night for example). The goal in this series is to address climate change in a real, technocratic, nonpolitical manner to elimate the arguing and posturing, and outline a process whereby people could identify what problem exists and the best most robust solution. Read the rest of this entry »

A Risk Assessment Approach to Climate Change Policy

This is the first article of a five part series.

It is difficult to find a more hotly debated public policy issue today than the one about potential regulatory actions related to global climate change. Much of this debate is emotional focused on various groups’ attitudes toward government action and personal responsibility, pessimism or optimism related to human interactions with the environment, and other philosophical differences. That being what it is, I think a different approach could show us the way out of that kind of divisive argument and produce positive action in an amount properly proportional to the nature of the threat. So, in a series of 5 articles, I am going to address this issue, not as a politician or a policy advocate, but as an engineer considering options and trying to reduce the risk associated with a particular problem. To maintain the non-partisan nature of this series, I am going to assume that increases or decreases in global temperatures are equally likely, and since, in theory, they have related solutions, it does not diminish the outcome of the analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Excuse me, are you going to use all that Sun in one place?

Given present-day concerns about energy independence, pollution control, and energy price stability, solar energy is often touted as one of the (at least partial) solutions to that problem. Solar energy involves making electricity or other useable energy out of light from the Sun. And while humans have been using solar energy on some level since before history, most applications including solar cells (photovoltaics) and other efficient conversion systems have only been in use since the late 1940s. As of 2005, the total share of domestically produced electricity from solar energy was very small at 0.065%, or a total of about 19 billion kilowatt-hours, but growing rapidly. Read the rest of this entry »

One small step forward…

While I was serving as a teacher in the small town of Kankalabé (population: ~5000), Guinea in West Africa, the European Union financed a project to install a running water system in that town. The project, of limited benefit, was soon sabotaged and has since been nothing but a monument to unrealized progress. The rationale of the planners and managers, I cannot verify, but I will describe observations from the level of the townspeople during my time there. Read the rest of this entry »

Onwards and Upwards

Do we know what we are doing? Maybe the right question is do we ever know what we are doing? What are the true consequences of our actions today and tomorrow and hundreds of years from now? Are we responsible for those consequences or should we never be concerned with them?

I believe that too often we accept not having the answers that we could have. We have chosen not to know whether our ways of “helping” each other really turn out to be help in the end. We have chosen to push the solutions to problems we have today off into the realm of tomorrow. While some of that may be rational (I am fairly certain that my computer will be faster in 5 years), not all of it is. Read the rest of this entry »