Yankee ingenuity for the 21st century. by Jim Baird
Pitch
Wealth comes from the sale of extracted resources or manufactured products. There is no greater opportunity than for manufactured energy.
Description
Summary
Wikipedia defines “Yankee ingenuity” as “a stereotype of inventiveness, technical solutions to practical problems, "know-how," self-reliance and individual enterprise associated with the Yankees who originated in New England and developed much of the industrial revolution in the United States after 1800.”
President Obama’s Climate Action Plan set a goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions by at least 3 billion metric tons cumulatively by 2030.
At least 50 percent of Americans reject this aspiration either because they are unconvinced humans have caused climate change, believe adopting carbon limits will have negative economic consequences or believe technology will provide solutions to any impacts that result from climate change, such as higher sea levels.
The unconvinced are at odds with 97 percent of climate scientists.
As to economic consequences, wealth is built either on the sale of extracted resources or manufactured products.
Renewable energies require manufactured products to produce power from resources that are constantly replenished by Nature.
Economies of scale and technological change drive down the cost of renewable infrastructure as production volumes increase whereas with extractive resources the situation is reversed.
The essence of global warming is the production and consumption of energy. The science of energy is thermodynamics. It is impossible to effectively address climate change within any framework other than the second law of thermodynamics.
About 93 percent of overall global warming goes into heating the oceans, mostly the upper 750 meters. Since heated water rises this creates thermal stratification, which is a condition necessary to creating work in a heat engine in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics.
Besides converting warming heat to work, an ocean heat engine would move about 20 times more heat into the depths on account of the low thermodynamic efficiency of the process.
It is estimated the oceans have a capacity to produce at least as much energy as the world currently derives from fossil fuels. Conversion of 14 terrawatts of heat combined with the movement of 280 more terrawatts to the deep accounts for virtually all of the heat the oceans are currently accumulating.
Those who believe technology can provide solutions to any impacts that result from climate change are probably right, to a point, and the implementation of such technologies present a huge economic opportunity.
President Obama however is also right in that carbon emissions have to come down. The trick is to get the greatest environmental benefit from technology that reduces these emissions or produces energy without emissions.
There is no more effective approach than to convert ocean heat to electricity and then to hydrogen, which is available on demand to power buildings, provide both energy and water, fuel industry and transportation systems.
Yankee ingenuity is required now more than ever to develop a new industrial revolution to fuel the planet.
By:
Jim Baird
