Alternative energy sources, importance

Rat blood normally contains about 0.07 mM acetoacetate, 0.18 mM hydroxybutyrate, and a variable amount of acetone. These amounts increase to 0.5 mM acetoacetate and 1.6 mM hydroxybutyrate after 48 h of starvation. On the other hand, the blood glucose concentration falls from 6 to 4 mM after 48 h starvation.61 Under these conditions acetoacetate and hydroxybutyrate are an important alternative energy source for muscle and other tissues.62 63 Acetoacetate can be thought of as a transport form of acetyl units, which can be reconverted to acetyl-CoA and oxidized in the citric acid cycle. 

C02 is the most abundant source of carbon in the world, and the coordination chemistry of C02 has relevance in the field of environmental chemistry and in the search for alternative energy sources. The coordination chemistry of this potentially very important ligand is currently under investigation. 

Unfortunately, the Western World has concluded that imports of oil from the OPEC group will increase from 27 million barrels per day at present to as much as 37 million barrels per day 1985. This conclusion has been reached despite efforts to conserve oil and develop alternate energy sources. It seems that the easiest way out is to simply import and burn oil and try to forget about the inevitable consequences. 

Due to the crucial role of aqueous chemistry in a variety of environmental, biological, and industrial processes, experimental studies of ice remain an important field of modern physical chemistry. Examples of applied areas, which require knowledge of the physics and chemistry of various solid forms of water, include atmospheric chemistry and climate change, soil chemistry, planetary and interstellar chemistry, cryopreservation, and research into alternative energy sources. Furthermore, ice and water are uniquely accessible to computational modelling, due to the availability of extensive information on the intermolecular interactions in water-containing systems. Therefore, ice is often considered to be a model system for studies of fundamental properties of condensed molecular phases. 

Oxygen photogeneration from water appears to be a less important process to study, because the H2-evolution system nominally provides a route to generate a useful fuel via alternative energy sources. Titania and WO3 are the two most commonly used semiconductor sensitisers for water oxidation. In some cases an oxygen catalyst seems not to be needed, especially, if WO3 is used as photosensitiser. 

Scenario b) seems to be very optimistic - it results in a constant CO2 mixing ratio of 465 ppm after 2050. It is more likely that carbon capture and sequestration/ storage (CCS) technology (Chapter 2.8.4) becomes important only after 2030 and will capture a maximum of 50 % of the fossil fuel-released CO2. It is also unlikely that the yearly consumption of fossil fuels will be more reduced before 2050 because of the increasing alternative energy source percentage of the total energy consumption. Hence, in 2050 a value of around 500 ppm CO2 seems more likely. 

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