Low-Cost Solar/Hydrogen System

January 2, 2018

Hypersolar, Inc. has announced a patented nanoparticle solar hydrogen technology is designed to systematically produce hydrogen at the most cost-efficient rate possible. The goal for the GEN 2 system is $2.90 per Kg. While a high performance prototype has not been produced, significant progress has been made, including a proprietary high-efficiency nanoparticle solar absorber design, oxygen catalyst, protective coating, low-cost manufacturing process, and an efficient panel design for safely separating hydrogen from oxygen. The process works on a roll-to-roll inexpensive wet chemistry process.

Currently most hydrogen is produced using natural gas reforming. Since natural gas is a (finite) fossil fuel, reforming is not possible on a permanent, large scale basis.

Electrolyteless Gas Phase Water Splitting

December 29, 2017

Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found that a newly developed compound, synthetic molybdenum-sulphide, acts as a semi-conductor and catalyses the splitting of water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. They discovered that mixing the compound with titanium oxide particles leads to a sunlight-absorbing paint that produces hydrogen fuel from solar energy and moist air. As titanium oxide is a white pigment commonly used in wall paint, the simple addition of the new compound could convert a brick wall into a hydrogen generator. Notably, any location with water vapor in the air, even far from shore, can produce hydrogen; alternatively, the system works in very dry but hot climates near oceans. The sea water evaporated into vapor would be absorbed to produce hydrogen.

Comparison of Hydrogen Production Methods

December 28, 2017

A systematic comparison of hydrogen production from fossil fuels, biomass resources and electrolysis has been jointly prepared by scientists from the North China Electric Power University (Beijing), Queen’s University (Belfast), and the College of Engineering Roorkee (India). The four pathways to hydrogen production considered in this research are:

• Steam reforming without carbon capture and storage (CCS)
• Steam reforming with CCS
• Biomass gasification
• Electrolysis

Biomass pyrolysis was excluded because it is currently being studied in a small-scale test plant. As a result, the available data of expected yields is limited and a set of chemical processes and infrastructure is required for pyrolysis on a large scale.

Floating Photovoltaic-driven Electrolysis Device – 2017

December 27, 2017

Researchers at Columbia University have developed the first demonstration of a practical, floating, membrane-free and pump-free photovoltaic-driven electrolysis device. The device consists of platforms of solar-powered electrolyzers floating on the sea to generate hydrogen fuel. It uses electrodes made of sheets of titanium mesh suspended in water. A platinum catalyst coats just one side of each sheet. When a mesh electrode is negatively charged, hydrogen bubbles develop on the side coated with the catalyst. The mesh electrodes are each placed at diagonal angles in the water. When the bubbles of gas grow large enough, their buoyancy makes them detach from the mesh and float upward unimpeded. On one configuration, hydrogen bubbles can float into one set o chambers and oxygen into a separate array that vents it out into the atmosphere. This simple design requires relatively few parts that should lower the materials and assembly costs. Future work could refine the design for more efficient operation in seawater.

Based of buoyancy-induced separation, the simple electrolyzer design produces hydrogen up to 99% pure. This simple design, without membrane or pumps, makes it particularly attractive for its application to seawater electrolysis.

This design is ideally suited for protected, natural bodies of sea water such as Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and Turkey’s Sea of Marmara and artificial that could be created by flooding natural below-sea-level depressions such Death Valley and neighboring dry lake beds, the Dead Sea, the Qattara Depression in Egypt, and the Laguna del Carbón in Argentina. As a bonus, flooding these vast areas would mitigate rising seas threatening low-lying coastal cities worldwide.

Speaking Of National Security Strategies

December 25, 2017

Background

President Trump did not cause America’s decline; it’s been many years in the making. Once the preeminent surplus nation with a strong manufacturing base, it has morphed into an alarming case of perennial trade deficits and a (growing) $20.1 trillion national debt, the worst in history.

Facts

The President is not wrong about everything: a sovereign nation has the right to pass and enforce any immigration legislation it wishes and to seal its borders if it so chooses. As for the economy, it definitely needs to be revitalized.

 

Distribution of Wealth 2017

However, that will happen only when the wealth of the middle class grows at a rate equal to or higher than the top 10% of the population; when the low job participation rate is substantially improved; when progressive taxation equal to or similar to the Eisenhower years (a much respected Republican) is restored; when the housing crisis for everyone but the wealthy disappears; when real estate prices become affordable for at least 90% of potential buyers; when our public universities are free or nearly so, as in 1949 , so the mass of our youth can be trained in STEM careers so they can lead or at least hold their own in research and development, as the President wishes, when the cost and quality of health care for the non-wealthy is at or near the median cost in other developed nations ; when we as a nation start heeding President Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex; and when nuclear weapons are universally abolished before –as President Kennedy put it- “they abolish us.”

Divergent
Unfortunately the President’s strategic vision, speeches and tweets –reportedly official policy- on how to tackle these and other critical problems are the very antithesis of what’s needed to reduce –let alone eliminate- them.

While adequate campaign fodder, his oft-repeated mantra of “America Great” has isolated and dissolved any remaining good will for the U.S. among non-vassal nations. Only when one substitutes “hegemonic” for it does the true meaning become crystal clear:

• A balance of power that favors the United States
• Our task is to ensure that American superiority endures
• The United States must preserve our lead in research and technology;
• We will embrace America’s energy dominance because unleashing abundant energy resources stimulates our economy.
• When American does not lead, malign actors fill the void to the disadvantage of the U.S.

Analysis
A balance of power that favors the United States requires a new costly arms race, this time against China and Russia combined. As a result, it requires the government’s continued ability to borrow and increase the national debt without restraints, predicated on the belief that the 2018 tax reforms will flood Wall Street once more with the lion’s share of the world’s surplus capital. That would finance our twin deficits, preserve the dollar’s privileged position as the premiere reserve currency of the world, and successfully compete with China’s growing economic, political and military challenge.

These expectations are unrealistic. China’s economy bears no resemblance to the defunct Soviet Union; the former is growing at a rate at least three times faster than ours and its customer base is four times larger. As a result, its tax revenue will at some point surpass ours, and from then on the gap will grow by orders of magnitude. As for Russia, while not in the same economic league as the U.S. and China, its vast natural resources, strategic geographic location and advanced defense and aerospace industries gives it sufficient leverage to engage China in a quasi symbiotic relationship. The sheer weight of China’s growth rate will trump any attempt to contain its growing mercantile and financial influence. Proof of that is that already every major ally of the U.S. has already joined, over Washington’s boisterous initial objections, the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Germany, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, are resource-poor countries whose economies depend on perennial trade surpluses. By default, they’ll gravitate toward the Chinese and (increasingly) Indian markets. The U.S. market, with fewer customers, will become less influential.

American costs are (still) higher than China’s. Accordingly, the U.S. government is compelled to pay more for comparable weapons systems, a disadvantage compounded by the fact that every dollar spent on weapons is a dollar withheld from much needed investment in other sectors of the economy. This of course will only magnify the growing disparity between Chinese and American infrastructure and contribute to our inability to create well paying jobs in the U.S., a necessity to substantially improve the job participation rate.

American Interests
The President has stated, but not defined, “American interests to be the true North Star.” As with all undefined policies, an ounce of specificity would go a long way: he could spell out what they are and explain how they affect the plight of ordinary voters, the overwhelming majority.

Trade Imbalances
“We will insist upon fair and reciprocal economic relationships to address trade imbalances.”
There’s no question that America cannot continue to have perennial trade deficits. The solution is simple. Let American workers –native born and immigrants but not robots controlled by artificial intelligence- make our clothes, manufacture all consumer goods, put a tariff on all foreign-made products. With such an abysmal job participation rate, it should not be hard to fill these positions if workers are paid what they used to earn in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation. Can’t have a trade war and win? Then come up with an alternative, because the status quo will perpetuate the deficits. If nothing is done there’s a danger that at some point China might demand payment for the goods they manufacture with an exchange medium other than fiat paper currency. It did precisely that just prior to the Opium Wars: it demanded silver.

Energy
The President has pulled the U.S. out of COP21 and adopted a policy of exploiting our coal, oil and gas reserves as much as possible. It should be noted that all these activities are largely automated. Giant machines strip mine the coal, and electric pumps supply the gas and oil. As a result, the number of actual jobs they create is relatively small. What this policy does do is protect the shareholders of these industries, a small minority since most shares in America are owned by a small percentage of wealthy individuals. It also unabashedly continues to release more carbon in the atmosphere in total disregard to a mountain of painstakingly researched warnings from renowned scientists that anthropomorphic climate change is actually worse than previously believed and that the concentration of carbon particles in the air is increasing.

Conclusions
The message conveyed by the President’s National Strategic Strategy is that the ruling elite believe the best way for the United States to hang on to its wealth and power is by overpowering China and Russia, the two countries specifically named by the President as adversaries. This way of thinking is not a consequence of self confidence; rather it is raw fear that if we lose our hegemony we’ll inevitably suffer the same fate of decay and irrelevance that afflicted all other empires including Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain. There is some truth in that but the transition to a multi-polar world can be gradual and imperceptible, not sudden and cataclysmic. We should cooperate with China and India to help them develop by supplying them with as much hydrogen as possible so they can use it to generate electricity and manufacture pure water at sites of their choosing. If we do that we’ll correct the trade imbalance, create an avatar income stream for American homeowners to compensate them for the coming massive layoffs due to robots and artificial intelligence, and clean up the environment. Yes, shareholders of fossil fuels, nuclear fission and utilities will lose some of their wealth. But since it would happen gradually, they would have an opportunity to invest at ground level in a new solar-hydrogen-gravity economy, the only way we’ll ever stop dumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Eisenhower’s Warning

Dwight D. Eisenhower

“…This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Income Inequality Report – 2017

December 16, 2017

On December 14, 2017 renowned economists Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty published a comprehensive and exhaustively researched World Inequality Report. Here’s a summary of what they found.

Income inequality has increased in nearly all world regions in recent decades, but at different speeds.

In 2016 the share of total national income by the top 10% income share was

  • 61% in the Middle East
  • 55% in sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and India
  • 47% in US-Canada
  • 46% in Russia
  • 41% in China
  • 37% in Europe

Of particular interest:

  • The bottom 50% income share decreased from more than 20% in 1980 to 13% in 2016.
  • Since 1980 the global top 1% earners has captured twice as much of the growth in global income as the 50% poorest individuals; nevertheless the latter enjoyed important growth rates.
  • The global middle class (which contains all of the poorest 90% income groups in the U.S. and the European Union has been squeezed.
  • Income growth has been sluggish or even zero for individuals with incomes between the global 50% and top 1% groups. This includes all North American and European lower and middle income groups.
  • Since 1980, very large transfers of public to private wealth occurred in nearly all countries, whether rich or emerging. While national wealth has substantially increased, public wealth is now negative or close to zero in rich countries: governments have become poor.

Their recommendations to tackle the growth of inequality:

  • Pass progressive income tax reforms.
  • Combat tax evasion and financial opacity.
  • Create a global financial register recording the ownership of equities, bonds, and other financial assets.
  • Achieve more equal access to education and well-paying jobs
  • Increase government investment, particularly difficult since governments in rich countries have become poor and heavily indebted over the past decades.

Ice-Breaking Apocalypse

November 26, 2017

 

Background

Once again a study, in this case ice-breaking, has the scientific community in emergency mode. It turns out that two of the largest glaciers in Antarctica may actually trigger the disintegration of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet in a mere 20 to 50 years. That’s barely enough time to mitigate the effect of the catastrophic sea level rise that will follow –assuming we start now. To put it into perspective, a 2 meter rise would partially or completely submerge many coastal mega cities throughout the world, including New York, Houston, New Orleans, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City.

 

A Solution

One solution –albeit partial- is to flood with sea water uninhabited or sparsely populated below-sea-level depressions throughout the world. Among the most promising sites are Death Valley and its neighboring dry lake beds in California and Nevada, the Dead Sea in Israel/Jordan, Laguna del Carbón in Argentina, and the Qattara Depression in Egypt. Not only would their combined volume serve as a giant holding tank to mitigate sea level rise, they all have abundant sunlight that could be used to mass-produce hydrogen, the one element that when combined with oxygen in the atmosphere produces pure water and energy. The water crisis will start hitting us in earnest in tandem with the aforementioned ice-breaking event because the world’s great aquifers on which billions depend on for drinking water and agriculture are inexorably drying up. In some critical areas like the American Southwest, parts of China and India, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, the rainfall cycle simply isn’t enough to satisfy current or (much less) future demand. Only hydrogen can simultaneously halt the production of carbon dioxide (by replacing nuclear fission and fossil fuels), mass-produce water with oxygen already in the air, boost food production worldwide to satisfy the growing demand, and create much needed jobs in new industries that cannot be outsourced and largely impervious (at least for the foreseeable future) to robotics and artificial intelligence. The Earth has all the physical ingredients to solve the problem. All we have to do is contribute the political willpower to overcome the powerful objections and resistance of those who stand to profit from the status quo, organize on a scale never before attempted, and get it done in record time -before it’s too late.

Climate Science Special Report – 2017

November 4, 2017

Here is a classic case of bipolar behavior. The Trump Administration withdrew from COP21 on the belief that it hurts the economic interests of the United States. Today however, over a dozen agencies of the very same government jointly released the congressionally mandated Climate Science Special Report. In it, hundreds of scientists conclude “based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” Here are some consequences of climate change:

  • Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.0˚C (1.8˚F) between 1901 and 2016, the warmest period in the history of modern civilization.
  • Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and atmospheric water vapor.
  • Global average sea levels are expected to continue to rise in the next 15 years and by approximately 1 meter (1-4 feet) by 2100. A rise of as much as 2.4 m (8 feet) cannot be ruled out.
  • Heavy rainfall in the Northeast of the United States and in some areas globally is increasing in intensity and frequency and is expected to continue to increase.
  • Heatwaves have become more frequent in the United States since the 1960s, while extreme cold temperatures and cold waves are less frequent.
  • The incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and Alaska has increased since the early 1980s and is projected to further increase in those regions as the climate changes, with profound changes to regional ecosystems.
  • Annual trends toward earlier spring melt and reduced snowpack are already affecting water resources in the western United States and these trends are expected to continue. Under higher scenarios, and assuming no change to current water resources management, chronic, long-duration hydrological drought is increasingly possible before the end of this century.
  • The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally. Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 5˚C (9˚F) or more by the end of this century. With significant emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature could be limited to 2˚C (3.6˚F) or less.
  • The global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has now passed 400 parts per million (ppm), a level that last occurred about 3 million years ago, when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than today. Continued growth in CO2 emissions over this century and beyond would lead to an atmospheric concentration not experienced in tens to hundreds of millions of years. There is a broad consensus that the further and the faster the Earth system is pushed towards warming, the greater the risk of unanticipated changes and impacts, some of which are potentially large and irreversible.
  • The observed increase in carbon emissions over the past 15–20 years has been consistent with higher emissions pathways. In 2014 and 2015, emission growth rates slowed as economic growth became less carbon-intensive. Even if this slowing trend continues, however, it is not yet at a rate that would limit global average temperature change to well below 2°C (3.6°F) above preindustrial levels.

The report does not estimate the cost of climate change to the United States, nor does it compare it with the cost of leaving fossil fuels in the ground, which is what it would take to stop the flow of CO2 into the atmosphere. However the losses from the recent (and future) furious hurricanes, forest fires, drought, and the inexorable depletion of aquifers in the Great Plains and California, the source of much of our food, are a clear and present danger to the nation’s very security. First we lost our manufacturing base; now we’re on track to lose our ability to grow our own food. Along with the growing threat of thermonuclear war, these issues should be the talk of the town, but they aren’t. Instead, people who aren’t even born yet will face the music –and curse us for our irresponsible greed.

WordPress theme: Kippis 1.15
Translate »