One Gift For The Holidays

When I look at the problems we face today, none can be more vexing that picking the right gifts for the holidays. There is no one more dear to me that the person who has stood by me through thick and thin, in sickness and health, through the good times and the bad, than my mate. Hypothetically, let’s suppose that I am given the choice of spending on her all my allotment of available funds on only one gift or a hundred. It doesn’t matter how much that amount might be, but let’s say for argument that it’s $100.

Now, remember that the gift (or gifts) must represent a token of my love and appreciation for her. It must be something that will sustain her image of my worth for another year or a lifetime. It must be meaningful. It must also do no harm to our relationship, or cause undue stress on our family and our children.

Now, imagine choosing and buying 100 gifts for this purpose. It might take many trips to several “dollar stores” to find any suitable gifts, but 100 may be more like using a shotgun to shoot a needle in a haystack. Clearly one or more of the $1 gifts may be cute or slightly endearing. A few may only be fattening, which probably won’t help. However, most $1 gifts will fail to meet the most important criteria listed above, and will only serve to create an image in her mind of someone who is cheap and foolish.

So, let’s pick one gift and choose wisely so that it is most likely to bring a smile and become a symbol of our love. Perhaps a romantic night in a local bed and breakfast, a pair of beautiful earrings, a ring with a tasteful semi-precious stone setting, or a gorgeous colorful blouse. The point is, I have a better shot at solving the problem by thinking of what best meets the criteria.

Now, those of you who know me recognize the trap I set for the reader who has not really thought through the problem. Here’s the reason I use this metaphor.

Current American Energy Policy is a big mistake.

It is trying to solve a single problem with over a hundred cheap and ineffective solutions. Virtually every avenue of research and development is a dead end or a piecemeal solution of little or no value. It offers nothing but fattening trifles that don’t last long, wasteful and poorly thought-out ideas that go nowhere, unsustainable concepts or uneconomic implementations, politically untenable strategies, and wishful thinking using old depletable resources that are in short supply. Many are environmental disasters already, and merely add to the misery. Many approaches simply cannot and will not work. DOE's latest missive on new research offerings is a good example of scatterbrained thinking -- Topic Description.pdf

So, why don’t we think this problem through and offer at the most five good ideas that meet all of the criteria for the perfect gift, and see if at least one is worthy to make our family strong and provide for a solid future?

Let’s start with the criteria. This gift must be sustainable, no matter what happens in the world to come. It must be in perfect harmony with our society and our environment. It must expand to meet the needs of a growing population, no matter how large. It must be affordable, so that all humanity can afford to use it and provide for their futures with confidence. It must be available to everyone and everywhere. It must be based upon technology that is not beyond our current horizon and grasp. Politics must not be capable of interfering with its use. It must be recognizable as something that has value to all.

Now, dear reader, can you think of what gift will meet all these needs?

I have chosen a four-legged stool with a molded seat to make the perfect gift for our energy policy to offer for the holidays.

I choose as the four legs the following technologies, all of which are renewable: solar energy conversion, wind power, ocean energy conversion, and biomass. I choose as the seat of the stool the one fuel that is also sustainable, renewable, non-polluting, transportable, storable, and made from the very elements that it returns to naturally. This all-purpose, ultimate green fuel is ammonia.

This blog will discuss all five pieces of the one gift we can give to mankind to solve the energy crisis, stop global warming, restore our economies, and build global political cooperation leading to world peace and stability.

Solar, wind, ocean, biomass, and ammonia – our gift for the holidays. Let's try out our new stool.

Tags: ammonia, biomass, energy, ocean, policy, solar, sustainability, wind

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Comment by Scott Baker on November 13, 2009 at 7:59am: Marlene H. -
The country is NOT broke, the people are broke. There's a difference. If James Watt & his successors hadn't given away our best oilfields for practically nothing to oil companies that sit on them for years and profit while the price of scarce oil goes up, while doing nothing to produce more, because there is no incentive, we'd have billions more in the treasury. Ditto for coal lands. Ditto for NG fields, water aquifers - indeed, any natural resource you can think of, even radio waves. The country's wealth is literally beneath our feet, in the water, the air etc. Henry George recognized this 130 years ago in his best-selling economics book of all time, "Progress and Poverty" and it's even more true today in the era of scarce resources. Look up Georgism, or Geonomics (its more modern term), including any of my dozen articles on the subject in Op Ed News.

Comment by Marlene H. on November 12, 2009 at 5:13pm: No matter the number or quality of all these fuel plans with the wannabe dictator in the white house working to destroy the country.

The country is broke. Every dime of the money being thrown around is borrowed. Has no one even thought of taking a basic economics class? No one can spend spend spend borrowed money out the kazoo. One Big Assed Mistake America is desperately in need of correction.

Comment by Dr. Paul A. Curto on November 6, 2009 at 5:18am: Steve and Troy:
I've been on board since 1975 when I first learned of the OTEC connection to ammonia (via Gordon Dugger of JHU/APL). The photo of me in Miami with Gordon and several other visionaries on my home page (expand the comments section, in the middle of page 3) here at Pickens shows us on stage in front of nearly 800 international scientists and engineers in 1977, and is proof of our association.

Troy, look at John Holbrook's SSAS as a modification to your design. It will improve your throughput by up to 50%. The basic concept is flawless and a strong contender to get this country back on its feet, or back onto the four-legged stool.
Cheers!
--Paul

Comment by Tom Bailey on November 6, 2009 at 3:18am: Very thought provoking!
I'm on board! Now let's get the needed attention!
Best; Tom

Comment by Troy Benjegerdes on November 5, 2009 at 10:24pm: Here ya go.. http://grid.coop/20x2020-AFN.pdf
This is my plan for 20 Gigawatts of wind energy in state of Iowa by 2020. This would produce all the fertilizer ammonia fertilizer used in the state, and provide 90% of the electricity. The way we do this is with 15GW of water electrolysis followed by a variable-rate Haber-Bosch process to make the hydrogen storable as Ammonia.

Since everything's bigger in Texas, I'm guessing with could easily go for 40GW. It's also quite interesting that the windiest spots in Iowa and Texas both have ammonia plants.

This is all technology that exists now. It is pointless getting the DOE involved. We need serious investors.
T. Boone Pickens, and Warren Buffet, I have a plan for you.

Comment by Steve Gruhn on November 5, 2009 at 8:35pm: Those of us that have been working with this concept are always pleased when more people "wakeup to ammonia". Dr Paul is right on target and there is so much more to this story that needs to be told. Check out our website freedomfertilizer.com as it contains a wealth of information about NH3 and its potential as the other hydrogen.

Comment by Dr. Hans J. Kugler, PhD on November 5, 2009 at 7:48pm: Paul:
Naturally I agree. I will add something about NH3 on our web-site ElToroEXPOSED.com"
But how can we use NH3 production to pay off all these Congress-persons - - - - an apparent basic requirement in Washington (?).

PS: Whenever I get am E-mail from you - - alerting me to one of your blogs - - and I click on it, up comes a page "Sorry, this page could not be found." Then I find it another way.

Comment by Dr. Paul A. Curto on November 5, 2009 at 4:45pm: Dan,
Read the Web site at:
http://www.energy.iastate.edu/Renewable/ammonia/ammonia/ammoniaMtg09.htm
and dig through the history of ammonia and its recent applications and methods of manufacture. You'll see many new exciting discoveries (and rediscoveries). The Solid State Ammonia Synthesis (SSAS) methodology produces ammonia more cheaply than any method of making a hydrogen fuel without creating carbon dioxide. It can be done anywhere with any power source. The key breakthrough with SSAS is that electrolysis is not necessary to produce the hydrogen, and that all components are "solid state".

NH3 is the highest volumetric energy density non-carbon fuel in liquid form. It can be used in every method of transport, from cars to rockets, from planes to ships, trucks, buses, and motorcycles. It is the answer. The methods of producing power are the only variables. The cool thing about NH3 is that you can produce the power wherever it is cheapest to do so, and then make the ammonia there. If the wind farms are best in the Midwest and coastal areas, then make NH3 close by. Burn it to meet the needs of the vehicle or vessel or power grid. It fits with our economic models in our society.

Convincing people will happen once they see what it can do. It's our job to show them.

Ammonia can be burned in any combustion engine without major modifications, and produces zero emissions. In a pinch, you can use it to make over 1100 different chemicals or just use it as fertilizer. It even can be used in fuel cells with the same efficiency as hydrogen. It is safe, clean, renewable, already in mass production (the second most predominant chemical produced in the world) with a massive distribution network in place.

NH3 costs less than diesel fuel per unit of energy now, and can compete favorably with any fossil fuel once all incentives and subsidies are removed, and penalties imposed for pollution and environmental impacts. Coal is only cheap when it's dirty and subsidized. Once you clean it up and take away its subsidies, coal is one of the more expensive alternatives.

Comment by W. Dan Chance on November 5, 2009 at 4:23pm: Ok guys. How can amonia be produced easily and cheaply anywhere in the world? And how can we convince people to want to produce and use it?

Comment by WALTER REED on November 5, 2009 at 4:08pm: Hi Paul:
You give that bar stool to your wife and she'll export you at a significant velocity. Never the less, your point is well taken. Our country's highly paid 'think tanks' and 'experts' all need to recycle through a bio-char plant; perhaps doing better to replenish our depleted soils. 'Currently working a proposal for an ocean city platform which would be destined to include your ocean energy conversion, solar and wind. Image attached and may be accessed from the site directory on the www.hydrolance.net website.

'Hope that your doing well,
Walter