Future Energy Sources

The future of chemurgy is intercoimected with the economic future of energy, environment, and food. Several scenarios exist for future sources of energy and materials. Some involve the use of nuclear or solar energy (qv) leaving coal and oil available for chemicals and transportation fuels. Some involve... 

Fig. 2-4. Average CO2 concentration North Atlantic Region O, Pacific Region A. (The dashed line is the nineteenth-century base value 290 ppm.) Source Combination of data from Callender, G. C., Tellus, 10, 243 (1958), and Council on Environmental Quality, "Global Energy Futures and the Carbon Ehoxide Problem." Superintendent of Documents, Lf.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1981. (See also Fig. 11-1.)...

H2 0(/) + Energy -> 2 H2 (g) + O2 (g) Sunlight may be the future source of energy for splitting water, but this remains a major technological challenge. 

Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius Radioactive metal named for Thor, the ancient Scandinavian god of war promising as a future source of nuclear energy makes magnesium alloys heat resistant. 

Our long-range energy future clearly must be safe nuclear energy, which should increasingly free still remaining fossil fuels as sources for convenient transportation fuels and as raw materials for synthesis of plastics, chemicals, and other substances. Eventually, however, in the not too distant future we will need to make synthetic hydrocarbons on a large scale. 

Lipman, T. E., What Will Power the Hydrogen Economy Present and Future Sources of Hydrogen Energy, Final Report, prepared for The Natural Resources Defense Council, Davis, Calif. Energy and Resources Group and Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, UCD-ITS-RR-04-10, July 12, 2004. 

Nocera is concerned about the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and he showed a public education video that he helped produce. He believes the carbon dioxide problem can be solved with water and light, which involves bond rearrangement. Therefore, said Nocera, the only types of energy that will work, from a renewable and sustainable perspective, are biomass, photochemical, and photovoltaic. He sees a problem with biomass in that it is also a food source, so biomass could be limited to a minor role in the energy future. 

Chemical oceanography investigates the chemical make-up of the oceans. Many studies in this area are geared to understanding how to use the oceans resources to produce food for a growing populaticn. In additiorr, the oceans may ccntain future sources of medicine, provide us with alternative energy, and help us to better protect our envircnment. 

Renewable Energy (RE) sources are currently insufficiently exploited in the European Union the energetic potential is considerable, but currently they provide a small contribution of less than 6% to the EU s overall energy consumption. RE sources are expected, however, to grow considerably in the future, especially to comply with the commitments at both European and international level on environmental protection. 

Barnett, B.M. and Teagan, W.R The role of fuel cells in our energy future. Journal of Power Sources, 1992, 37, 15. 

Moriarty, P. and D. Honnery (2007) Intermittent renewable energy the only future source of hydrogen . International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Vol. 32, No. 12, pp. 1616-24. 

What should be done if both fossil-fuel and nuclear fission reactors are interdicted As Table IV shows, we are now left without usable, low-cost, large-scale energy supply sources and only the promise of better things to come if we can succeed in the cost-effective commercialization of large-scale solar or fusion technologies. During the foreseeable future, this will be unacceptable to people everywhere and will not be followed by their elected officials because the economic consequences would be calamitous and stable political structures could not survive. 

Let me now come to the discussion of possible future sources of energy. Even if those presently known were assured to be entirely satisfactory, we should not neglect their exploration. 

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