Never Enough Fuel Technology Porn Department

OK, fine, I admit, my idea of "porn" isn't quite as restrictive as most--I don't have to have naked bodies in it, for instance--but this Washington Monthly article by Sam Jaffe is still quite masturbation-worthy in my eyes.

Why? Because it points out that there are ways to energy independence that are practical, economical, environmentally friendly, and easily implemented in the next decade or two. To wit: using new technologies to convert cellulose to ethanol, we can drastically reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make it economical to do so. Right now, ethanol is made from corn, which simply cannot be grown in enough quantities to supply adequate fuel for vehicles--not without simultaneously cutting US food production down to nothing. Using cellulose instead means any plant matter could be used. Thus, we could grow plants that are very hearty and need no irrigation or fertilizers, on land that would be useless for food crops, and then mow them to harvest the cellulose for ethanol production. The process of making cellulosic ethanol would be significantly cheaper than gasoline, let alone corn ethanol.

That's for the short term. For the long term, hydrogen fuel cells still look much more promising in terms of energy efficiency and pollutants. This is where a newly developed and inexpensive catalyst comes into play--it can strip the abundant hydrogen atoms from ethanol, making a fuel that would be pure enough for solid-state fuel cells. Make those solid-state fuel cells from ceramics capable of handling the heat, and you now have the ability to convert ethanol to hydrogen to abundant electrical power. There will be pollutants since the ethanol-based hydrogen would not be pure enough, but such pollutants would only be carbon that is already in the biosphere in the form of plants, not additional carbon from fossil fuels.

The bottom line is that this is all doable for mere billions--billions already being spent poorly by Dubya to pursue much more exotic lines of research. If John Kerry is serious about switching to a hydrogen-based economy, he and his policy wonks should read this article and give its proposal a serious consideration. For all the great ideas I've seen so far on energy alternatives, this is the first for which I've truly felt excited and inspired.