calcula<span dir="ltr">tions of sola</span>r<span dir="ltr"> ene</span>r<span dir="ltr">gy a</span>r<span dir="ltr">e an impo</span>r<span dir="ltr">tan</span><span dir="ltr">t </span>r<span dir="ltr">ead</span><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Timothy Wilken, MD</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:timothy.wilken@gmail.com">timothy.wilken@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 11:32 PM<br>
Subject: Danger and Opportunity<br>To: <br><br><br><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Dear Friends,</span><br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">
<br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">
<span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">I found the following article well written, and of possible great importance. I think it warrants close attention and wide circulation.</span><br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">
<br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Best,</span><br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">
<br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Timothy</span><br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">
<br style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">It is also posted on my website if you would like to link to it:</span> <a href="http://solutions.synearth.net/2011/10/working-together-1117/" target="_blank">http://solutions.synearth.net/2011/10/working-together-1117/</a><br>
<br><p><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">The following piece comes from a
SynEARTH reader. He does a great job of describing our human crisis, but
then offers us a practical and intelligent solution to that crisis �
squarely facing our great danger implied by the title of his piece,� but
then pointing out an equally great opportunity to solve our problems.</span></p>
<hr>
<h1><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">The Return to Feudalism</span></h1>
<p style="text-align: right;" align="center"><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);"><b>Donald B. Halcom</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Foreword</span></b></p>
<p>The recent history of the United States of America has indicated a
propensity for economic �bubbles�. The �.com� bubble of the 1990�s, the
�housing bubble� of the 2000�s and indeed the current National Debt
crisis of the USA are all manifestations of bubbles.</p>
<p>The belief in bubbles is inherently tied to a false belief in the
infinite. This is a false belief because there is nothing on the earth
that is infinite. Infinite growth of money, property values, debt, the
stock market or any other earthly resource is physically impossible. We
all live on a finite planet with finite resources. There are those who
will claim that the National Debt is not a bubble. This is profoundly
not true. The payment of the National Debt is based upon the false
assumption of continuous and unrelenting growth of the US economy. These
false assumptions based upon infinite growth will produce monumental
tragedies eventually.</p>
<p>This is being written with the intent of educating as many people as
possible about a future that may be absolutely devastating or, if we
execute well, a new dawn for mankind.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Short Synopsis of the Intent</span></b></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1)���� Fossil fuels are finite resources.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2)���� Sunshine is a finite resource.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">3)���� Fossil fuels stored the sun�s energy over millions of years.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">4)���� We are about to consume all this energy over about 300 years.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">5)���� Once this stored energy is consumed, the energy party is over.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">6)���� Fossil fuels are also the sources for many chemicals.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">7)���� When fossil fuels are gone, our chemical party is also over.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">8)���� The infrastructure of the world will change post fossil fuels.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">9)���� A new infrastructure must replace the old before the old dies.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">10)�� Failure to do so will produce devastation.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">History</span></b></p>
<p>The history of the world has always been about the exploitation of
resources in one form or another. Before the year 1800, these
exploitation�s were mainly about agricultural resources. Agriculture
requires arable land and a consistent supply of water. Wild trees and
grasses are also agricultural resources. Countless wars were fought over
these resources. Resource wars over minerals such as precious metals
and iron were also important. About the only exceptions to these
resource wars were religious wars.</p>
<p>Using the year 1800 as a reference, mankind�s resources began to
change. The exploitation of coal began and this initiated the Industrial
Revolution. The invention of the steam engine led to larger scales of
farming and locomotives plus much more. Mankind cannot exploit what he
does not know exists.</p>
<p>Somewhere around 1860 the exploitation of oil began.� Fossil fuel
exploitation, including natural gas, really began to grow. Internal
combustion engines were invented, without which the airplane would not
exist. People like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and James Clerk Maxwell
came along. These people, among others, led to the exploitation of
hydroelectric power as well as fossil fuel fired electrical plants.
About the year 1900 the exploitations of fossil fuels were in full
bloom.</p>
<p>Fossil fuels lay in the ground for at least a million years before
mankind discovered them. Before DNA created plant life on the earth
there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. There were no life forms that
used oxygen to live. There was no coal, oil or methane. The plant life
took light from the sun, carbon dioxide and nitrogen from the atmosphere
and water from rain to form hydrocarbons. The growth and death cycles
of these plants repeated over millions of years and their residues were
covered by dirt. Eventually the residues were under enough pressure to
form coal, oil and methane down in the bowels of the earth.</p>
<p>The unique properties of the DNA that formed these fossil fuels are:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1) They genetically reproduced themselves.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2) They stored energy from the sun over vast time periods.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">3) There is no infrastructure like this anywhere else in our solar system.</p>
<p>The key points here are that fossil fuels are irreplaceable and that
they are an ideal storage system for energy. By default, there were
finite amounts of them in the earth in 1800. Once they are gone, the
party will be over. This is a fact that is irrefutable.</p>
<p>The only fresh hydrocarbon energy that we on earth are going to get
is the yearly supply made by the green plants. This amount may be
problematic with respect to the amount of energy we consume in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Growth</span></b></p>
<p>Two main problems that the people of the earth will face in the next
fifty years are population growth and energy consumption. Table I gives
the population of the earth for different years of our history.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Table I</span></b></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Year������������������ Population (Billion)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1800������������������ 0.9</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1850������������������ 1.3</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1900������������������ 1.7</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1950������������������ 2.5</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2000����������������� 6.2</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2010������������������ 7.0</p>
<p>An estimate of the population of the earth for 2050 is about 9.0
billion people. It becomes evident from Table I that since the beginning
of the exploitation of fossil fuels, the population of the earth has
shown explosive growth. The reasons for this growth must surely have
something to do with the increase in the consumption of fossil fuels.
The use of high efficiency farming equipment, mass production,
fertilizers and other uses for fossil fuel consumption were instrumental
in this growth. The population of the earth before the year 1800 took
literally thousands of years to reach the level of 0.9 billion.</p>
<p>The yearly rate of consumption of fossil fuel energy, nuclear energy,
hydroelectric energy, solar energy, geothermal energy and wind energy
have been measured over the same time period as that shown in Table I.
These data can be used to estimate the total yearly energy consumption
for these same time periods.</p>
<p>Some of the people reading this have no real �feeling� for the
meaning of energy units. A metric unit of energy is the �joule�. It is
hard to grasp what this means for many people. Another way of expressing
energy is �power�. Power is the measurement of energy per unit time.
One joule per second is a watt. The watt may be more useful for most of
us in that practically all of us grew up using filament light bulbs that
were rated in watts. We all have some feel for a 25 watt light bulb or a
100 watt light bulb or a 1000 watt light bulb and can somewhat
visualize their power outputs in a way that we can intuitively �feel�.</p>
<p>It is time for a little game. Imagine a 100 watt filament light bulb.
Turn it on at midnight Dec 31. Let it run continuously every second of
every hour of every day until midnight of the next Dec 31. Shut it off.
You have just consumed 3,155,730,000 joules of energy. That is about
3.15 billion joules.</p>
<p>Now it is time for a serious game. Add up all of the energy consumed
on the earth in a year. Use all the energy from coal, oil, methane,
nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind and fuels made from biomass. Make sure
that all of the units for each are in joules. Divide the sum that you
get by the number of seconds in one year. The answer you get is the
yearly average power consumption for the planet in watts for the year�s
data that you just used. This answer is a very large number. It is in
the order of trillions of watts. For the year 2010 all of the people on
earth consumed about a yearly average of 15 terawatts of energy (a
terawatt is one trillion watts).</p>
<p>In order to personalize the world�s yearly average power consumption
number that you have just calculated, divide this number by the
population of the earth for that year. You have just calculated the
yearly average power consumption per person for the entire planet.</p>
<p>Table II shows the results of such calculations starting in the year
1800 to 2010. If you wish, you can equate each year�s value to a light
bulb of that power being held in one hand of every man, woman and child
on the planet burning continuously for one year.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Table II</span></b></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Year���� ���� Yearly Average Watts per Person</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1800������������� 350</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1850������������� 440</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1900������������� 860</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1950������������� 1230</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2000��������� �� 2300</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2010������������� 2460</p>
<p>These data show without equivocation that the consumption of energy
grows faster than the population of the earth. This should not surprise
anyone. Did the year 1800 have any trains, cars, trucks, airplanes,
televisions, cell phones, industrial agriculture, etc. and the
infrastructure to support all of these? The answer is obviously no. What
happens when we run completely out of fossil fuels? We are living in a
�Population Bubble� that is being fed by an �Energy Bubble�. If we do
nothing before the �Energy Bubble� pops, say goodbye to most of the
population. A reasonable estimate for the energy consumption in 2050 is
about 3,500 yearly average watts per person with a population of about 9
billon people. Both growth curves are not linear but exponential in
form.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">The Future</span></b></p>
<p>My sainted mother use to say �Son, life is about only one thing. It
is about choosing. The choices are what you will do and what you will
not do. Either way, you have to live with the consequences. Choose
wisely.�</p>
<p>The entire world is at a fork in the road. What it chooses now will
determine its entire future, be it good or bad. The choices are to do
nothing (preserving the status quo is also the equivalent of doing
nothing) or do something really radical. In this case, the radical
choice is definitely the preferred one.</p>
<p>The current signs all point to the fact that we are in the twilight
of the collapse of the fossil fuel powered world. Oil, coal and methane
prices will continuously rise as we proceed to their extinctions. As a
consequence of these price rises, the entire economy of the world will
continue to inflate and it will take more and more money to buy the
essentials of life. The scramble to convert to coal will only lead to
the eventual extinction of coal. The same thing goes for methane. We
must create an entirely new infrastructure not based upon finite fossil
fuels but upon �stuff� that nature supplies us that is not subject to
near term exhaustion.</p>
<p>Not only do fossil fuels supply energy to run the world, they are the
building blocks for the chemical processes that create most of the
materials that we use every day. These chemical processes will have to
be discarded and a whole new �chemistry� infrastructure built to supply
the needs of mankind.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Proposed Solutions</span></b></p>
<p>Americans have almost an absolute faith in science. They falsely
believe that science can solve anything. Finite resources are forced
upon scientist just like everyone else. It happens that sunshine is a
finite resource too.</p>
<p>There are basically only three energy sources on this planet. They
are solar, nuclear fission and geothermal. Wind power, hydroelectric and
electric solar panels are all manifestations of solar power. The sun
evaporates water which eventually falls as rain to power hydroelectric
dams. Temperature gradients in the atmosphere produce the winds.</p>
<p>Nuclear fission is limited by a finite and rather small amount of
fissionable material. Some people have a great hope for sustained
nuclear fusion but this is not realistic. Nuclear fusion requires a very
large gravitational field. If you look out at all the �burning� stars
in the universe you will quickly discover that they all require a
minimum amount of mass to sustain a fusion reaction. The earth does not
have the mass required to produce a gravitational field strong enough to
hold together a sustained fusion reactor.</p>
<p>The logistics of geothermal power are only possible at a small number
of places on the earth. We come back to wind power, solar panels and
hydroelectric. I have left out focused light that creates steam for a
boiler used to drive a generator. These devices must have direct
sunshine without clouds. One cannot easily focus diffuse light.</p>
<p>The sun is the master of our solar system. It appears omnipotent and
has been worshiped by many cultures. Even the sun is fettered by
finiteness.</p>
<p>In our modern times we are capable of flying above all of the clouds
covering our planet. At those altitudes we can measure that the sun
shines on our planet with a radiance of about 1000 watts per square
meter of area. This is called a �flux� of energy. No matter what we do
we can never obtain a figure higher than this number and in fact it will
always be lower than this due to physical factors that make our planet
what it is.</p>
<p>The earth is blessed with rain. Clouds cover parts of the earth
virtually every day. We have days and nights. We have seasons. We have
mountains, deserts, productive land, fresh water rivers, fresh water
lakes and salt water oceans. All of these things are very important for
they provide the system that supports life of all forms on this planet.</p>
<p>A typical time averaged solar panel capacity (over every second of
every day of a year) is about 150 watts per square meter. This value
reflects cloud cover, seasons and night/day averaging.</p>
<p>Wind turbines and hydroelectric are not nearly as �area� efficient as
a solar panel. Most of these energies come from the ocean�s surface.</p>
<p>Hydroelectric dams must use the water falling on many square miles of
land to mechanically convert the potential energy of elevated water to
electric energy as it falls through a water turbine. The very act of
raining wastes most of the solar energy of evaporation contained in the
water vapor. This condensation energy alone is a large heat loss. We
have all seen rain storms.</p>
<p>Enormous wind turbines must be built to capture wind energy.</p>
<p>Wind power is even less �area� efficient with respect to its solar source of energy than hydroelectric.</p>
<p>At this time, except for green plant based solar conversion��� to
hydrocarbons, manmade solar energy is entirely electric. Solar panels,
wind turbines and hydro produce electricity which cannot be stored. The
manmade capture of solar power does not have the infrastructure that
green plants have to store the energy in its chemical form. The chemical
form of energy is by far the most desirable form of energy. This form
of energy powers our own bodies. Batteries are also a form of chemical
energy.</p>
<p>The infrastructure required to convert electric energy into chemical
energy would be enormous. If the entire world ran on electricity alone,
there would be no aircraft or ocean shipping of cargo or passengers as
currently practiced. Large portions of our land based world could be run
directly off of electricity. Vehicles like farm tractors, trucks etc.
would have to be run off of some sort of chemical energy.</p>
<p>Let�s do some more calculations. The entire land area of the earth is
13 billion hectares. A hectare is 10,000 square meters. A hectare is
also about 2.471 acres. Taking a figure of 150 watts per square meter
for the yearly average value of a solar panel, this is 1.5 million watts
per hectare. These solar panels would have to be continuous with no
space between them. Physically that would not be possible. Assume about 1
million watts per hectare for spaced solar panels as a yearly average
power output. This computes to about 13,000 terawatts as the average
yearly power from solar panels covering the entire land area of the
earth.</p>
<p>The consumption of power for the entire world in 2010 was 15
terawatts. This looks like things are just fine. Not so, green plants
cannot be grown underneath solar panels. The result is no food and very
little oxygen in the atmosphere of the earth. Except for the oceans and
lakes there would be very little plant life on the planet to make
oxygen.</p>
<p>At first glance the above calculation looks absurd; it is not. �Now
13,000 terawatts is a number that shows the absolute limit of our future
exploitation unlike the unknown amount of fossil fuels present in the
earth around 1800. 15 terawatts versus 13,000 terawatts says we have
room to play. Science uses numbers called �orders of magnitude�. An
order of magnitude is a factor of ten.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">10X10X10 = 1,000 = 3 orders of magnitude</span></p>
<p>Our current consumption of energy is �about� 3 orders of magnitude
away from an absolute ecological disaster using solar panels covering
the entire land area of the earth. This has nothing to do with global
warming but with asphyxiation from lack of oxygen. How much solar panel
energy capture is too much? There is no way of knowing exactly. A
suggestion is that we stay away from total disaster by at least 2 orders
of magnitude. This means we should �never� produce more than about 130
terawatts from solar panel energy. This would consume about 130 million
hectares of land. This is about one percent of the world�s total land
area.</p>
<p>Solar panels should be set up in areas that are essentially devoid of
plant life. Obviously one percent of the world�s total land area is
still a very large chunk of real estate. A maximum of one acre per 100
acres of total world land area could be dedicated for solar panel
electric generation. This is a practical upper limit for solar panel
power. This could generate about eight times the world�s current
demands.</p>
<p>Putting solar panels in barren areas has its problems. Such areas are
very susceptible to wind and rain erosion. They are usually quite
isolated from where the electricity is needed.</p>
<p>Back in the early days of electrical exploitation, Thomas Alva Edison hired an employee named Nikola Tesla.</p>
<p>Nikola was a very smart man from Serbia. Nikola knew more about
electricity than Tom and developed some electric motors for Tom with the
promise that Tom would pay him about $60,000 if they were successful.
The motors were successful but Tom refused to pay him. Nikola quit
working for Tom. Nikola understood AC (alternating current) very well.
Mr. Edison only wanted to exploit DC (direct current) electricity.</p>
<p>Tom wanted to electrify New York City using his DC current
technology. The problem was that DC currents could not be transmitted
very far without very large power losses due to heating of the wires.
After quitting Tom, Nikola later figured out that AC (alternating
current) was the way to go for electrification in that it could be
transformed to high voltage AC and transferred over very large distances
with substantially smaller power losses. This made Tom very angry. Tom
initiated a massive propaganda campaign trying to stop the company that
Nikola worked for (Westinghouse) from implementing his AC technology.
Tom let business overcome science.</p>
<p>Nikola then went on to build the world�s first AC power plant at
Niagara Falls Ontario. Nikola Tesla won the power transmission war and
Thomas Edison came in dead last. The rich man is not always the smartest
man. Well, you can�t win all the time.</p>
<p>Back in the days of yore, there was always a favorite question that
college chemistry professors used to ask. Starting with coal, fire and
water how would you make �Compound X�? This was used to test the
ingenuity of the student. In the future the question will change.
Starting with biomass, electricity and water how would you make
�Compound X�? Our entire infrastructure is set up for the days of yore,
not the future.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">New Infrastructure</span></b></p>
<p>Getting solar panel power from barren areas to where it is needed is
no small feat. First we have to convert DC to AC (94% efficient), then
increase the voltage of the AC to very high voltages (98% efficient) and
then transfer large amounts of power over very long distances (93%
efficient). At the end use points, the high voltage AC will have to be
converted back down to useable voltages (98% efficient). The overall
efficiency is about 84%. We will start with a maximum of 130 terawatts
at the solar panels but when it reaches its use points we will only have
about 109 terawatts. Some of the same restrictions apply to
hydroelectric and wind power. This is about 7.3 times the worlds current
consumption.</p>
<p>If we are going to maintain current forms of air, sea and land
transportation, we will have to find forms of chemical energy storage to
run them. Portable chemical energy solves a lot of problems.</p>
<p>If we choose to do what we have always done, then we will let
�economics� decide how to proceed. That would be the greatest mistake
ever committed by mankind. As fossil fuel amounts decrease, the amount
of money to buy them grows faster than we can manage. The price of
literally everything necessary to live also grows faster than we can
manage. This is called hyper-inflation. The economies of the entire
world will collapse. The subsequent struggles for survival will lead to
nothing less than a return to feudalism with about one billion people
surviving. Existence from that point forward will be exactly like we
returned to pre-1800 societies. We will not have built the
infrastructure to do otherwise. We are already seeing signs of
proceeding down this path. We must do something about altering this trip
to feudalism.</p>
<p>One of the signs of marching down the path to feudalism is the
current mantra of �Drill Baby Drill�. This is mindless and only shortens
the time until we run completely out of fossil fuels. There are things
that can be done to lengthen the time to fossil fuel extinction. Some of
these are higher fuel efficiency requirements for automobiles, more use
of electrified railroads for public transportation and the list goes
on. Increasing the efficiencies of fossil fuel consumption does lengthen
the time to extinction.</p>
<p>The challenge is to change our entire way of life while losing a
minimum number of lives. Even then, we may not be able to save
everything.</p>
<p>One of our challenges is replacing fossil fuels with other portable
fuels. Coal was moved by trains and ships; petroleum moved by pipe
lines, ships, trains and trucks; methane moved by pipe line, ships,
trains and trucks. If we still want to have aviation, ships,
construction equipment and farm equipment to do the essential things, we
must have new portable fuels. Automobiles were left out for in the end
they may have to be abandoned.</p>
<p>Mass transportation may be the only kind that survives. On land,
electric power should be sufficient for heating, cooling, manufacturing,
mass transportation, electronics etc. Aviation and sea shipping speak
for themselves.</p>
<p>The trick is to produce a fuel that does not consume DNA produced
hydrocarbons. We will have trouble enough feeding people without
compounding the felony by burning up DNA produced material for fuel. A
guiding principle here is that nature always uses what is at hand to
perform its duties. Mankind should do the same.</p>
<p>The plant portion of the DNA system uses the earth�s atmosphere and
sunlight to work its magic. The atmosphere contains nitrogen, oxygen,
water (in the form of clouds which produce rain) and some carbon
dioxide. Magnesium ions along with other minerals found in the earth are
crucial for the formation of chlorophyll which is the magic wand in
DNA�s capture of solar energy. Except for some rare exceptions, all the
life on this planet is dependent upon this system. It will surprise some
to learn that nitrogen is by far the largest component of the earth�s
atmosphere. The second largest component is oxygen. Oxygen is in fact a
�waste� component from the DNA system�s manufacture of hydrocarbons.
Carbon dioxide is a relatively small component of air. Without the plant
life waste component oxygen, animal life would not exist.</p>
<p>The nitrogen in the atmosphere is just as important as the other
components (excluding oxygen) for the production of DNA that produces
life on this planet. The atmospheric nitrogen gets into the soil by what
is called the �nitrogen cycle� A picture best describes what happens.
Study Figure I to better understand the processes.</p>
<p><b><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Figure I</span></b></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">�<img src="http://synearth.net/imgs/TheNitrogenCycle.png" alt="http://synearth.net/imgs/TheNitrogenCycle.png"></p>
<p>The trick is to get the nitrogen into the soil so that the plants can
absorb it through their root systems. The primary mechanisms for these
are from lightning in the air, nitrogen-fixation bacteria and modern
fertilizers like ammonium nitrate. It all starts with nitrogen in the
air.</p>
<p>In 1909 a chemist named Fritz Haber invented a process that took nitrogen and hydrogen to form the compound ammonia.</p>
<p>The Haber process uses the following chemistry:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">N<sub>2</sub> + 3H<sub>2</sub>� �>� 2NH<sub>3</sub></p>
<p>Ammonia is the starting material used to form ammonium nitrate. This
process is one of the most important industrial chemical processes in
the world in that modern crop yields would not be possible without it.
The first industrial production of ammonia began in 1913.</p>
<p>The hydrogen used in the formation of ammonia does not usually occur
free in nature. It has to be manufactured. The current methods of making
hydrogen are to �hydrocrack� portions of petroleum in an oil refinery
or to use methane and water to form carbon dioxide and hydrogen. In the
future these sources will no longer be available as we will be totally
out of fossil fuels.</p>
<p>Another source of hydrogen is the electrolysis of ordinary water.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2H<sub>2</sub>O� <b>�></b>� 2H<sub>2</sub> + O<sub>2</sub></p>
<p>An electrolysis cell is used to make hydrogen and oxygen. Since we
will essentially be running on an almost totally electric world, this
should be easy to do. This process is about 85% energy efficient.
Electrolysis is not as simple as written in the above equation but is
developed to a high degree.</p>
<p>There are many that would like to use hydrogen as a replacement fuel
for all types of applications. This has its problems. The properties of
hydrogen make it very difficult for it to be used as a portable fuel.
You either have to move it around in very high pressure gas cylinders or
in cryogenic tanks. Liquid hydrogen has a boiling point of 20.3 degrees
Kelvin. This is a temperature approaching absolute zero. 20.3 deg K is
equal to -423.2 deg F or ��-252.4 deg C. Something better should be
found for a portable fuel.</p>
<p>An excellent candidate for a portable fuel is liquid ammonia. It has some interesting properties. Some of these are:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Temp (deg C)����� Vapor Pressure (Atmospheres)��� VP (Psig)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">4.7����������������������� �� 5����������������������������� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 59</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">25.7���������� � � �� �� �� 10�������������������� � � � � � � � � � � � � �� ���� � � 132</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">50.1����������� � � � � �� 20.5������������������� � � � � � � � � � � � � �� �� ��� 282</p>
<p>�</p>
<p>Liquid ammonia can be transported around in relatively low pressure
tanks. Ammonia can also be burned according to the following equation:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">4NH<sub>3</sub> + 3O<sub>2� </sub>-<b>-></b>� 2N<sub>2</sub> + 6H<sub>2</sub>O</p>
<p>The density of liquid ammonia is 681.9 Kg per cubic meter. This is
about the same density as gasoline. The energy content of about three
gallons of liquid ammonia is equivalent to about one gallon of gasoline.</p>
<p>The burning of ammonia can be complicated by the unwanted side
reactions of forming nitrogen oxides (NOX). The engines of the future
will have to be developed around the problems of preventing these
unwanted NOX side reactions. The problems with the creation of SMOG for
the large cities will have to be addressed again on an even larger scale
then the past. Fuel cells would also constitute new types of �engines�
that could exploit the portable fuel ammonia. A great deal of research
and development would have to be performed to make these concept engines
viable in the future.</p>
<p>It is easy to forget that two different internal combustion engines
were developed to run on fossil fuels. They use gasoline and diesel fuel
respectively. These engines cannot interchange fuels. The development
of an internal combustion engine that uses ammonia would probably have
to start from scratch. This engine may be of a radically new design. The
jet engine may have to be altered radically to allow it to run on
ammonia. Aircraft could revert back to the ammonia burning internal
combustion engine.</p>
<p>The development of a fuel cell that converts liquid ammonia and air
back to nitrogen and water in order to generate electricity would also
be time consuming but feasible.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);"><b>Conclusions</b></span></p>
<p>The consumption of fossil fuels took about 200 years to go through
the first half of the supply. The second half will disappear much faster
because the energy consumption per person keeps increasing. Market
forces keep driving this consumption continuously upward.</p>
<p>The fossil fuels not only supplied our energy, they supplied most of
the raw materials for the production of goods for our society. Imagine a
world without our current plastics, many of our drugs, current
construction materials (like asphalt and paint), clothing material and
the list goes on. Virtually the entire chemical production system will
have to be reinvented to cope with these changes. This new system is
likely to be based upon biochemistry.</p>
<p>The transformation of the infrastructure to satisfy future needs will
be even larger than the infrastructure created from 1800 to the
present. It took 200 years for our old system to evolve. We do not have
that much time for the future reconstruction. A realistic estimate is
about 50-100 years.</p>
<p>There is another lesson from history. This lesson is that the more
complicated that governments or societies become, the greater is the
strain upon the resources available to that ruling body. All of the
ancient empires fell because of this problem. The Egyptian, Sumerian,
Greek and Roman empires are examples. They all became larger or more
complicated than their resources could sustain. This problem is now
facing the entire world not just a single government.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);"><b>Cooperation</b></span></p>
<p>In order to transform the infrastructure of the world, the
governments of the world (at least the major governments) are going to
be forced into scientific cooperation as never before. There may be
healthy competition between the scientists of various countries but the
�best� work must be shared by all the countries. To do otherwise is to
invite more wars. The monopolization of resources and new technology
must be avoided at all cost. There are no �free market� entities that
can accomplish projects of these magnitudes. Research and development
must be conducted on a �wartime� basis like the Manhattan Project. Time
is the enemy.</p>
<p>Whatever the new infrastructure is going to be, it must stay in
balance with nature. The systems proposed here attempt to sustain
carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and water �neutrality�. This should help
prevent us from killing ourselves. Doing nothing to create a new
infrastructure will guarantee that most of humanity will die in a
struggle for survival.</p>
<p>The route to overcoming the loss of fossil fuels will eventually
involve the politics of many countries. It is sad to say that this may
be the greatest impediment to success. Programs enormously larger than
the space programs and the Manhattan Project will be involved. Research
and development will require worldwide cooperation. Financing these
endeavors is beyond the scope of private enterprise or a single
government. Mankind may not be capable of such cooperation. Nationalism
may destroy success.</p>
<p>The outline presented here for creating an exhausted fossil fuel
world infrastructure is certainly not the only one possible. More
ingenious solutions may exist. The route to these solutions must not be
decided upon by political or economic methods but by scientific ones.
Politicians are not likely to accept these restrictions of their power.
Business leaders are also not good choices for directors of such
projects. Military leaders would be problematic also.</p>
<p>The time allowed to complete a restructure of our old infrastructure
will be measured in decades and not centuries. An overarching program of
this magnitude has never been attempted. Such things are accomplished
in Science Fiction but not in the real world. The end result of doing
nothing is to return to the feudalism of the past. Living in a new world
based upon the old paradigm of �one man, one mule, one plow, one gun�
is not a happy consideration.</p>
<p>It is hoped that mankind will begin to take action now to replace our
entire fossil fuel based system. This not only decreases global
warming, it actually preserves some of our irreplaceable resources.
Population control will also have to be initiated. Population expansion
is limited by the resources from the sun.</p>
<hr>
<p><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Don Halcom has a Ph.D in Chemical
Engineering. He is 73 years old and retired. He wrote the above epistle
about fossil fuels exhaustion with some indication about what has to be
done to replace the infrastructure currently supported by fossil fuels.
He tried to divorce himself from the economic and political problems
involved with fossil fuels exhaustion as much as possible, but does
touch upon them toward the end. He is available to respond to any follow
up questions you may have.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">You can reach him here:</span> drdon (dot) halcom (at) verizon (dot) net</p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);">Also see:</span> <a href="http://www.nh3fuelassociation.org/" target="_blank">Ammonia as Fuel</a>,� <a href="http://nh3car.com/" target="_blank">Welcome to NH3 Car</a></p><br>
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