Query: when does something once considered cheap, mundane, black and fairly toxic become all-important to society, if not the ultimate answer to our national survival?
BTW - this has nothing at all to do with last night's debate ... If there is one defining feature of this particular newsgroup- and the general "focus" of vortex postings and the varied interests of its readership, it is to identify the "best" prospects on advanced alternative energy (and hopefully to then take the appropriate action, even if it is only 'advocacy' or 'replication' of results) Within the definition of "best" there are several levels of assumptions which usually go unmentioned, including the "probability" that the effect, experiment, report or finding can be developed into a robust technology (at all), and as importantly, the "time-frame" which would be involved to do so, and the level of funding required, and also the ecological "footprint". Any meaningful ranking can therefore be nothing more than any one observer's opinion; and everyone has their own agenda and leanings- and consequently any attempt to arrange the candidate concepts in some kind of order will probably add little meaning to the conservative approaches of such mainstream organizations as MIT - which does have a yearly "top 10". That particular list is broader than "energy" and often is aimed at information technology. http://www.technologyreview.com/specialreports/specialreport.aspx?id=25 On the other extreme (juxtaposed to the "mainstream" and MIT) is the ranking of Sterling Allan, who has an ongoing "top 100" listing; more speculative and "sexier" perhaps; but of which 100, about 90 are so far removed from immediate reality that it could be easily reduced to 10 ;-) http://peswiki.com/energy/Congress:Top_100_Technologies_--_RD#Top_100 I printed out these lists and a few others, from other observers and bloggers, and spent about an hour this morning trying to imagine what single technology best meets all the criteria of: 1) mainstream "do-ability" (general agreement that the concept works as claimed, NOW, with no need for a further major breakthrough) 2) near-term horizon for putting real devices into energy production (guideline: 2-5 years, instead of 25 to 50 for hot nuclear fusion) 3) ultimate impact on the elimination of fossil fuel (forget it, if less than 25% of present consumption) I developed a complicated ranking system, and although the following single "best of the best" is very opinionated and personal (as are most postings here) and also fairly far removed from the concepts which "could" have the most beneficial impact if they were actually "doable" - such as LENR or magnetic overunity (MPI) ... the single result is, nevertheless, far and away the "best of the best" in this ranking scheme, and moreover- it is not within a personal agenda, such as *algoil* would be for me (which did come in second): FWIW here it is: (sorry if 'graphene' sounds a bid mundane, too artsy maybe, and definitely non-sexy, but it is the only possible solar technology which has a real prayer (i.e. true cost effectiveness and no raw material problems) and at the same time, grahene is important for energy conservation and for information processing and other related switching (fast transistors). When applied to solar, or to batteries, or to fast-switching for other uses, this kind of thing could easily have a 25% reduction impact on fossil fuels within 5 years whereas, IMHO such overly touted things as "nanosolar" thin-film solar (using indium) is an absolute bust, if not a scam. Carbon is already a billion ton industry and the cost of moving it into better uses is minuscule, compared to the potential benefit of the other uses (beside combustion) ... but hey- non-sexy and low-key is generally the way science operates, unless you are a biologist, no?) http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/20558/?nlid=1009 Terry, too bad the guy over at GT (Walter de Heere) who is a pioneer in graphene transistors, did not discover this technique himself... or maybe he has something else which is as effective, who knows. One could imagine graphene this thin, applied to glass, for instance for not much more than the cost of the glass. Every new building would be required to have it and thereby every new building would produce much of its own electricity. Jones
