Power - Energy! do we have enough

Power!

 

My name is Cesar Lopez, President of Best Networks Inc, a Computer Consulting Company in Chicago, Illinois.

 

Why is it taking us so long to make stuff cleaner? – Green that is!

 

Recently in Chicago February 2nd 2011, we experienced perhaps the first of many Snow blizzards.  In some areas snow piled as high as 3 feet high.  The entire state was paralyzed with the awesome power of the "snow".   According to Chicago City’s Officials Estimates, the snow blizzard buried about 1,500 cars in our legendary Lakeshore Drive.   The same blizzard was responsible for paralyzing transportation  including: plains, trains and busses. 

On February 3rd, 2011; Many if not all Schools and Businesses were closed to accommodate city’s cleanup efforts.  Some areas suffered even more because of the lacked of electricity – It is estimated that over 190,000 ComEd Customers - businesses and household were in the dark during the climax of the snow storm.  Approximately 97% had restored power by mid-day Thursday representing an over 24-hour outage.  The other 3% is estimated to gain their power back-On by mid-night Thursday – close to a 48-hour outage.

 

With technology we have gained the ability to predict to the minute the starting-time and place, the climax and the ending-time and place of these types of Storms, Blizzards, Tornados, Hurricanes and the likes!

 

By now you know as much as I do about global warming.  And that is exactly my point!  In this segment I want to bring out some of the stuff you already know and how it relates to technology.

 

Solution to this Global Warming problem from my IT perspective, may include technologies like Lithium Batteries and Hydrogen Technology, but others are being developed as well.

 

Lithium … what is lithium?  The first commercially available lithium battery was introduced to the market in 1970s. Lithium is the lightest of all metals; it has the greatest electrochemical potential and provides the largest energy density for weight.  Today lithium-ion is the fastest growing and most promising battery.  In 1991 Sony Corporation commercialized the first lithium-ion battery.  There are several advantages to lithium-ion batteries; self-discharge is less than half compare to nickel-cadmium making lithium batteries the choice for mobile devices like phones. Another advantage to lithium batteries is its Density.  A single 3.6 Volts Lithium-ion battery packs more lasting power than the traditional nickel-based batteries, which requires three 1.2-volts cells connected in series - utilizing twice as much space – to replace a single 3.6-volts lithium battery. 

There are advantages and limitations to these lithium batteries.  In short these batteries are much more powerful and because of that we have to be more careful about caring for these batteries and devices that use these batteries.  Manufacturers recommend we store these batteries in temperatures of 15°C (59°F) in addition we should store these batteries partially charge at about 40%. 

Other limitations for mass production are: 

  • The price is much higher - 40% higher cost than nickel-cadmium.   
  • Some people argue shortage of the mineral to produce the lithium batteries is high as this element is found in low quantities on Earth and thus it may be unwise to over develop something based on a rare material – in fact just a few countries have lithium reserves. Thus lithium may not be the solution to our energy crisis – but for now it is perfect to power our small carry on devices.  Other people argue that in fact this mineral is widely available.

Good use of The Technology

Even though we have production limitations, currently there is an electrical motorcycle able to reach Zero to 60 MPH in less than a second using electrical Lithium Battery from a company named A123 Systems.

 

An Electric Motorcycle company, KillaCycle,  a company in the outskirts of Denver owned by Eva Hakansson and Bill Dube have design this amazing motorcycle.

 

Bill explains their invention is a “Gigantic Cordless Drill with wheels” Their company produce the fastest electrical motorcycle in the world!  

 

 

The Lithium Batteries that power their motorcycles are built by A123 Systems.  This company – A123 Systems - is currently creating the largest facility outside “the Motor City” Detroit exclusively for car batteries.   Hummm… Do they know something we don’t. 

 

Lithium batteries are more effective in storing and recharging energy! … As an IT consultant, the questions I like to ask incldue: Are companies like APC – American Power Conversion – starting to use this technology in their large scale UPS systems?  We could have a lot more cleaner power.   In fact, I asked APC the question and no, at this time they are still using acid based batteries and there are no plans to use the new lithium based batteries.

 

I’m sure we are not too far away from seeing this type of solution being implemented, if not by APC perhaps by another company.

 

Lets talk about other type of energy souces 

 

Hydrogen

General Motors already has about 100 Hydrogen vehicles in the road today!  These are zero emissions vehicles – using Fuel Cells - Like a battery Fuel Cell create electricity thru a chemical reaction. 

 

There is lots of Technology in these vehicles!  American Technology and that is what we need and should like!  Jay leno is currently driving one of these Fuel Cell cars. 

 

This car uses hydrogen.  Water is use produced Hydrogen by separating the Oxygen and Hydrogen molecules, making water an endless resource for fuel.  Hydrogen is a gas and needs to be stored at a high pressurized tank.   This is also one of the problems to mass production.

 

Bio Fuel

Fuel made from renewable sources.

 

Eco friendly

Eco Friendly referees to the efforts to reduce petroleum footprint by using more eco-friendly items.

Ford has produced an eco-friendly car in the 2011 Ford Fiesta made with soy-bean and other plants oils. 

 

Plastic is currently a petroleum based.  It takes a long time to decomposed however soy-bean oils will decomposed creating zero harm to the environment.  Paper or Plastic?

 

Up-Cycling

What do we do with all that plastic in the garbage fields?  Let’s cook some plastic!  And let’s create Carbon Nano tubes  then,  lets take this Carbon Nano Tubes and use them to create batteries.

 

This is not as simple however. If you cook plastic in the stove you will release poison chemicals into the air, like Benzene.   These chemicals can contribute to various types of cancers!

 

Argon Labs uses a Thermal Plastic Reactor to cook - 1,400 F. defegee- petroleum-based-plastics and turns this plastic into a black Powder like material called Nano Tubes.  This Nano Tubes are able to conduct 10 times more energy and store 5 times more energy.  This powder is 5,000 times smaller the size of a human hair.  We can't mass produce this either!

 

Bloom Energy

Our current Electrical grid wastes an incredible amount of energy sending electricity long distances to our households from the electric plant.

KR Sridhar, Co-Founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, has created what they call a “Battery with a twist”.  This is an electrolyte or acid free battery.  It is made with several 4 x 4 flat special cards pile together and inserted in a box officially called a Boom Box.   Like in the case of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell it uses two different chemicals (Natural Gas and Oxygen) that when flowing in opposite sides of the card it produces energy.  Each card produces 25 Watts of electricity.    Two stacks, the size of an air conditioner is able to power an entire home.

 

Other Boom-Boxes the size of a parking lot is already powering Technology Companies like FedEx, E-bay and Google!

 

Electricity produced by from a Boom Box cost 40% less with only 1/3 the pollution.  These boxes still have to be attached to a natural Gas-line source.

 

 

 

Artificial photosynthesis

 

This is the best technology being develop - I think!

The sun has more energy than we can use, for some the ultimate goal is to bottle this energy and finally end our dependency in fossil fuel.  The goal of Artificial photosynthesis is to create a material or a combination of materials that once put together it captures, converts and stores solar power just like plants currently do during photosynthesis.  The end-result is to have a chemical fuel like hydrogen to power our transportation vehicles like buses and cars.  We could even produce energy and like existing solar panels sell this energy back to power plants.

 

We are not at the point where existing solar panels are efficient enough or cost effective enough. 

 

Last year a Caltech Team got $122 million for an energy innovation hub.  Caltech, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and other CA institutions are working together to produce fuels from sunlight.

 

A Caltech Chemist, Nathan S. Lewis will be the director of the group.  This group task is to “establish an Energy Innovation Hub aimed at developing revolutionary methods to generate fuels directly from sunlight. “

 

According to the Department of Energy “ This work will ultimate lead to new clean energy solutions and new jobs for America’s families”

 

Caltech Team News release: http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13365  and http://www.energy.gov/hubs/

 

MIT is also part of the solution - Find more about MIT Professor Dan Nocera.  

 

 

 

According to MIT Professor Dan Nocera, we need an infinite production of energy to meet our future consumption demand!  What is the solution? Let him teach you…

 

 

Building Efficiency

 

Other governmental founded efforts are also in the works.  The department of Energy has also made available @129.7 Million over the next 5 years.  The objectives of this project include attaining US Energy security and reducing the carbon footprint of the United States.  The Administration has selected Energy efficient Building Systems Design as the topical focus of this pilot.  Buildings account for up to 40 percent of the US energy consumption and Carbon emissions and improvements in building efficiency will provide significant benefits – reducing energy use, lowering utility bills and decreasing carbon emissions.

 

We at Best Networks Design Systems that are friendly to the environment.  The new HP Servers  we design, sell and support are much better at saving our environment.

 

 

For comments or suggestions send us an email: info@BestNetworks.net

 

Cesar Lopez

Best Networks Inc

www.BestNetworks.NET

 

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