Renewables and Modern Physics

As I’ve written abundantly at 2GreenEnergy.com, I’m a believer in the Conservation of Energy. I hate to sound small-minded, but I spend very little of my short life here on earth contemplating the truth of claims regarding machines that produce more energy than they consume.

Having said that, I don’t write off energy-related ideas merely because they seem strange. In the first place, I have no doubt that those who look back on us here from the year 2100 will do so with a mixture of pity and contempt, based on our inability to look beyond the paradigms that have us locked so helplessly into place here in 2009.
I also happen to believe that we’ve come across a great number of important truths that have been suppressed by the mainstream community. As one of a few examples, I happen to believe in the validity of cold fusion. My interviews with some top minds in modern physics have convinced me that the idea that the energy released from nuclear reactions in which heavy water is electrolyzed in the presence of palladium suggest that fusion reactions occur over far longer periods of time and at far lower temperatures than were previously thought possible. It appears to me that it was simply an intellectual error to suppose that fusion could only occur at the temperatures created in nuclear explosions. Perhaps even more controversial, I find credible the accusations of those who claim that big energy has conspired to discredit the whole idea.

Yet, as I wrote in the Three Brass Tacks of Renewable Energy, this is a moot argument. If cold fusion could be brought forward to the point of practicality at all, it would require tens of millions of dollars of R&D money, and several decades. By that time, I believe, we will have worked out the issues surrounding much less exotic forms of clean energy. In particular, a solar thermal farm in the shape of a square a little over 100 miles on a side in the southwestern desert would supply more than enough power for the entire continent of North America. Yes, we have some issues to work out with respect to energy storage (see molten salt) and energy distribution (see high voltage DC), but I’m confident that these will be in place sometime before mid-century.

Reader comment quote:
Your estimate that it would take “tens of millions” to commercialize cold fusion is probably too low, and decades is too long. I have discussed this with many experts at the U.S. Navy, Toyota and elsewhere, and with Martin Fleischmann, the co-discoverer. They feel it will take approximately $300 million. This is based on the cost of similar solid-state surface effect and catalytic effect devices. How long it will take depends entirely on academic politics. For the last 20 years nearly all research funding has been blocked by rabid opposition to the research, mainly by rival scientists in plasma fusion and high energy physics. If this opposition can be pushed aside it seems likely that prototypes could be developed in 5 or 10 years.

Renewable Energy Wolrd