Seeker196

Hydrocarbons are bad. Especially coal. They generate a lot of wastes, and they aren't renewable.

I like playing around with concepts, so here are some of my 'utopian' power schemes:

Geothermal Power: Cancelled due to 90 000 feet of rock.

'Mountain Battery': Idea to use certain types of mountain with peculiarly layered limestone features and porous watery layers of widely different pH to create a giant battery, with some trouble.

Status: Cancelled due to lack of understanding of how a battery works, running past some engineer friends it might not actually generate any significant output at all, another one said it might be able to power a lightbulb, poor idea.

Giant Lightning Rod:
Based on the Back to the Future scene where a battery is charged by a lightning bolt, and a description of the frequency of lightning striking the CN tower. Basically a big rod like a giant radio antennae or CN tower, that is the tallest and best path for lightning in some huge radius, so that it can be struck by lightning continuously. The CN tower is often continuously struck by lightning for days at a time, but there is no way to use this energy.
This actually evolved the farthest, my to 3rd year Electrical Engineering friends discussed it at length (drunk, in a strip club) for almost 4 hours. By the end they told me that it would require a variety of fantastic materials, room temp superconductors, etc. IT WOULD ACTUALLY WORK though, I think we decided.

GIANT ORBITAL MIRRORS:

The old sci-fi standby, a big lense in orbit as a 'statite' focusses sunlight onto a target on earth. In order to avoid the pollution and cost of photovoltaics, this sunlight warms the water in a pipe network to boiling over time.

Status: Building a statite mirror is very, very difficult. The mirror might ripple, be difficult to control, be slowly shredded by micrometeors, etc. Also, while getting the mylar like material into space isn't impossible, making a smooth enough large stable surface would be very difficult.

GIANT HIGH ALTITUDE ZEPPELINS:

Giant airships which build up a massive static charge because of their large size, materials, etc. Continuously circling the earth, their hydrogen fuel sealed in a non-leaking polymer, these giants use the static charge to.....hmmm, can't think of anything yet for this one....be a great view though

GIANT WAVE FARM:

Huge stryofoam blocks the size of ice bergs are towed to the middle of the Atlantic and anchored. Thousands of these blocks conglomerate. A simple mechanism harnesses the mass up and down motion, and the resulting power is transmitted via undersea cable. The styrofoam is sprayed with a nylon like polymer that prevents them from breaking down, perhaps there is a material with characteristics like stryofoam that is better, but I like stryofoam.

GIANT Hydroelectric projects:

Basically, move enough earth to create a rainshadow, with ready made riverbeds, resevoirs, dams, etc. The hydrology of the area would be well known and 'tweaked'.

Do this everywhere, until hydro is the worlds major power source.

Minor Problems:
Astronomical cost, the irritating presence of human inhabitants and cities in the areas to be resculpted, mass destruction of animal, plant, and bird species (boo hoo), lack of sufficient earth moving equipment world wide, etc. Still a good concept.

Anyone else got any ideas?

Gregg

Cold fusion.

Problem: Evil fossil fuel and nuclear fission interests are covering it up.

Gregg

Abacus

Matter/Anti-Matter Annihilation

Advantage: 100% conversion of mass into energy (E=mc^2). A little bit of mass can yield an enormous amount of energy.

Problems:[list=1][*]Very little naturally occuring anti-matter (at least in our part of the universe).[*]If you do find some, storage is real problem.[*]If you wish to make your own anti-matter, more energy has to be put into making it than you will ever get out.[/list=1]

AtomSmasher

Antimatter annihilation

problem: extreme costs involved in producing and trapping antimatter

AtomSmasher

beat me to it

AtomSmasher

There is also the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) which seems like a great idea on paper but I haven't seen any results from actual experiments yet. As I understand it, the OTEC idea is to use the temperature gradient between warm surface water and cold water from near the ocean floor. Theoretically this will produce more energy than it consumes, which is primarily the cost of pumping cold water up 1 or 2 thousand meters.

Mageth

Don't forget cow farts! Think of all the methane we let go to waste!

schu

Methane hydrates. There are huge reserves of all the continental plates in all the oceans of the world. Private oceangoing ships rigged to pump, clean and compress the methane would sell me direct a trailer container for about $5000.00. I will use the methane in my fuel cell to power my house and farm. My pickup and tractor will run on methane. I will not need to be plugged into the power grid nor buy fuel from the large oil companies.

This could be achieved within our lifetimes.

Tell me what is wrong with this scenario.

Schu

AtomSmasher

First, I'd like to know what company provides this service and how much methane a $5000 container would have.

Baloo

Using genes from photosynthetic organisms and electric eels, design a rudimentary bacteria strain that has a symbiotic relationship with a manmade environment whereby bacteria convert solar energy into an electric charge that can be transferred to the environment, and are rewarded for doing so by being allowed to live.

In this way, a selective pressure could be established for more and more solar efficient energy conversion. I'm thinking such an environment would be very difficult if not impossible to set up given the current level of technology.

However, in the realm of nanotechnology, a solution seems possible with perhaps as few as three simple types of nano-robots (possibly much smaller than the bacteria themselves):
1) An energy extractor: attach to a bacteria, extract and store very small charge. If charge is received, detach. If not, send out pulses of Signal A.
2) A killer robot: Follow signal A to source, mechanically destroy bacteria responsible, releasing energy extractor and organic material useful to other bacteria.
3) A transfer robot: Transfer charges from extractor robots into large energy storage devices.

Ah, how I love to speculate...