Right now we have the shittest forms of energy possible. And this requires you to take this in on a larger scale, probably the perspective of an idiot living on mars and gazing up at the earth.
1. Coal - co2, particulate pollution
2. Fossil Fuels - ferraris, but more co2 and heat.
3. Current Nuclear Technology - 2 weiners
4. Ashish Jain - Lots of masala dosa related H2S and methane emissions, endangers a forms of life in a 10 foot radius ... and the ozone.
Granted there are more sources involved but this makes up 85% (sue me if I am off by 10%) of energy created for human well being. I'll also give your intelligence the benefit of the doubt and as concisely as humanly possible by the will of the holy spirit up high in the sky close to what we know as the milky way which is also a chocolate by the way, say that the sole cause for all that pollution, global warming etc. is energy production and consumption. And I think we're on track to clean limitless energy.
Currently, the biggest harm this planet faces is from this wonderful invention(and I intend no sarcasm) the automobile. Fuck the references, I read it somewhere sometime. So fossil fuels is the focus. And we're running out of it quick (yay!). What are the solutions?
Electricity and Hydrogen are the best of what's out there and possible in the next 30 years. The problem with electricity almost all of it around the world is generated from coal(value addition from the other sources pale in comparison) which generously donates CO2 to the atmosphere.
Hydrogen as per current tests only outputs water as the waste product.
Hydrogen: The major issues right now are setting up of infrastructure anew for producing, distributing and consuming. A newly developing country like ours has a better chance for change than some of the fully developed ones. We're still in the process of setting up new supply lines and distribution centers. Cars using hydrogen already exist from almost every major manufacturer since the 90's. They're set. But production? For the lack of space in this already long winded and boring article, I cannot get into the specifics of how to generate hydrogen, but lets just leave it at being more economical and less polluting.
Electricity: The major problem with electricity is the inefficiencies. The biggest one - storage. We still use these ancient 'chemicals in a tin' boxes that we so fondly call batteries that decay over time and discharge over time. There are a couple of solutions popping up to fix this. A123 is this new outfit company, the 'google' if you will of batteries that has just invented a new kind of Li Ion battery using advanced nanoscale manufacturing that increases efficiency by 60%, drops weight and reduces recharging time by half and at the same time, can make them for cheaper. Imagine faster, more efficient electric cars that can now subsist longer using regenerative braking since the batteries charge faster. Or we just gotta wait till capacitors get cheap enough to use as batteries - they never leak, never lose power and are fool proof.
The Chinese have an ace up their sleeve right now. This is by far one of the most impressive and powerful inventions of this century. They plan to solve their two of their energy problems in one go. They have invented the pebble bed reactor:
How it works:
1. Hot Rocks: Thousands of billiard ball-sized fuel pebbles power the reactor. The balls are coated with impermeable silicon carbide and packed with 15,000 tiny uranium dioxide flecks, each of which is encased in its own silicon carbide shell.
2. Recycling Center: The fuel pebbles cycle through the reactor vessel from top to bottom, heating helium. Pebbles that are still potent return to the top; spent and damaged ones collect at the bottom.
3. Spin Zone: The hot gas flows into the water-cooled conversion unit and pushes the turbine, generating electricity. It then cycles back to the reactor vessel to be reheated.
Why this is so fucking cool:
1. The current stigma associated with nuclear based power is based on the old school reactors which were these huge nuclear rods dipped in not so tasty boiling liquid and enclosed in 4 layers of lead walls which were in place in case the place did.... you guessed it ..... explode. This is impossible to do with a pebble-bed reactor. They are explosion proof!
2. They are tiny and modular. Lets say you wanted to power a city with a traditional nuclear reactor. You'd have to read into the economy and growth levels of the city and plan out the potential energy requirement down the road and then come up with this reactor that must last the city for lets say 100 years. With the pebble bed reactor, just build one for now. When the city grows, build another one beside it, and so on. They're cheap and more importantly very modular.
3. This is the best part: The waste product - HYDROGEN! pure, clean and lots of it!
