New American Energy

The US produces 3.892 trillion kwh. The majority of this comes from coal and nuclear power plants. www.exxun.com

This releases millions of tons of pollution into the atmosphere and leaves behind a few square miles of nuclear waste. Nuclear energy costs $3200/kw of capacity. We can make our energy more cheaply by using fuel cells, concentrating solar plants, wind sources, and conservation. And by getting hydrogen fuel sources from engineered bacterial photosynthesis.

Fuel Cells

When burned, hydrogen produces pure water and heat. By using fuel cells we can produce water and energy from hydrogen sources, including liquid hydrogen and metal hydrides. Fuel cell energy production expenses estimate around $1000/kw of capacity, and considering new advances in enzyme technology and cheap clean hydrogen availability, the cost of fuel cell capacity and hydrogen fuel should be reducing steadily. A fuel cell can be made using a mason jar, a capacitor, and samples of the enzymes with hydrogen introduced into the atmosphere.

Concentrating Solar Power [CSP]

Concentrating solar power is an array of mirrors focusing the sun's light on a central bulb which collects it as heat to produce molten sodium, which cycles through a series of turbines. By building numerous such plants in the California desert regions and charging them into supercapacitors, California can supply its day and night power supply with a few hundred square miles of mirrors. Other southern and equatorial latitudes can easily harvest all the solar energy they need without using expensive photovoltaics.

New discoveries in picoturbine solar technology can sharply increase the efficiency of photovoltaic cells. One photon can produce two or more excited energy particles. This system could increase photovoltaic efficiencies by folds. Extended research should be devoted to this possibility.

Solar power can be used to advance conservation worldwide. Solar cookers can replace cooking fires in the 3rd world. Such a shift in the undeveloped world's methods of food preparation would have positive systemic changes on the way we spend our time and resources, and the byproducts of the average human life.

Urban Efficiency

Urban roofspace is notoriously unused. It is a fine resource of valuable sunlit land. By installing wind power plants on these rooves, or using them for greenhouses, we can beautify our skylines and increase efficiency. A large windmill can produce ~3.5 kw in moderate wind, common on and often sustained on rooftops of buildings doubling as wind tunnels. This effort can provide the city and private areas with clean local power, reducing the need to import power from large dirty power plants. Private owners of these power sources can reduce their electric bills and contribute to energy efficiency.

If not wind tunnels, then rooftop greenhouses or conservatories should take their place. By using mirrors and waste heat from the building itself even northern cities can grow greenage well into the fall and early in spring while they insulate their rooftops and save on heating bills. Then when the produce is ready the harvest will yield fresh resources. At the same time, these plants will clean urban air, reducing smog and indoor pollution.

Conservation

Much can be done to improve our energy efficiency. About 40% of American lighting comes from incandescent bulbs. By changing these bulbs to energy efficient lightforms in 100 million American homes we can save billions of kwh. By changing all of America's millions of 70-watt traffic lights to 9-watt LED arrays we can save 88% of the power used on them, and replace them one tenth as often, also saving billions of kwh.

Power lines leak electricity, and the longer they are, the more they leak. This leakage is free electrons, also known as beta radiation. About 10% of our energy is wasted to beta radiation. By decentralizing power production using rooftop wind farms and greenhouses in windy cities and installing numerous small fuel cell plants to take the place of large and heavily polluting power plants, we can improve efficiency and reduce exposure to dangerous radiation. Where we must use the largest power lines, we can use high-temperature superconductors or send power as lasers through fiberoptic lines.

From here our power industry and grid will be well insulated and up to the global par for sustainability and ready to face the 21st century. Combined with fuel efficient vehicles, mass transit, and agricultural fuel reform and industrial regulation we should be prepared to maintain the environment and meet international emissions requirements for health and safety, and save money and labor doing it.

=Fuel Cells And CSP to Replace Dirty Power Sources
=Power Decentralization
=Urban Greenhouses and Wind Farms
=International Accord

Department of Energy