Tackling it head on

by Howie Firth - 10 December 2007 

We’re all starting to do our bit for the environment; but we have huge problems to tackle. Last year the world used 30 billion barrels of oil and 3 billion tons of coal. Somehow an alternative has to be found, and quickly.

Craig Venter is a man who believes in speed when he homes in on a target. In the race to sequence the human genome he came in from virtually nowhere, and he came in with what was, in his words, ‘a completely new and relatively untried technique’. They called him a maverick – but within two years there was the first draft of the genome, for all to see. 

And now he has turned his focus on the biggest scientific challenge of all – to produce the fuels and materials we need to keep our civilisation going, in a way that drastically reduces the use of carbon from fossil resources. And again his thinking is very clear and direct. 

What do we need? The synthesis of chemicals. And who is best at this? The bacteria who have survived and adapted to every challenge that Nature has thrown at them over the past billion years. You name it, they can find a way to make it.

And how do we get them to do it? With the new genetic techniques, it is possible to shape the bacteria to the task we want to set them.

We now extract coal from the ground and burn it for energy. But bacteria could convert it direct into methane gas, without the need to mine it. There will still be carbon dioxide produced, but only a tenth of the amount from conventional use.

And bacteria can take renewable material like cellulose from plants and turn it into the kind of raw materials that today come from oil. They can turn sugar into fuel for jet engines. Or human and animal waste, in a type of microbial fuel cell, into electricity and/or clean water.

You can see his approach: identify the problem and turn the full effort of his research teams onto it. And that leads to the question: are there more Craig Venters out there, about to make their first breakthrough? Or taking the first steps on a scientific career? And if so, how do we encourage them on the path?

We need something big, and the right person at the time could make all the difference – to changing the odds for our survival, and also to opening up huge new industries. It’s worth a great deal to us to find Scottish or UK Craig Venters – so how do we do it? 

Alternative energy storage

by Bill Graham - 16:17 on 12 December 2007

It is a little disappointing to see so many letters in the newspapers presenting a “can’t do” attitude when discussing renewable energy, particularly with respect to the intermittent nature of wind power.   A recent letter highlighted that energy storage was essential and that pumped storage is a possibility but the capacity required meant that this would be even more intrusive on the landscape than the wind turbines.   So the conclusion was reached that this particular solution is not viable.

Fortunately, researchers around the world, if not in Scotland, are tackling the problem. We have heard about the “hydrogen economy” but this has gone rather quiet as the volumetric and transport problems of hydrogen have become understood by politicians.   However, there is at least one other storage solution being investigated and that is methanol.  This alcohol is liquid at room temperature, is easily transported and is already used to fuel high performance engines.  It is also being used in fuel cells.

According to chemist and Nobel Prize winner Professor George Olah, it is possible to combine carbon dioxide with hydrogen using a catalytic converter to directly produce methanol.  Researchers in the USA, Japan and elsewhere are currently searching out the most effective catalysts with aim of giving birth to the “methanol economy”.

The hydrogen required can be produced by electrolysis, wherever we have a source of electricity.  Perhaps this might be from wind, solar cells or possibly waste or fossil fueled generators.  The CO2, as we now know, is everywhere in the atmosphere, as well as in power station flues and can be “scrubbed” using known chemistry.  Admittedly, atmospheric scrubbers will be large but will need far less area than that required for the matching amount hydrogen producing wind turbines.

Note that the process is essentially neutral in CO2 emissions.  The CO2 released to the atmosphere when the “fuel” burns is exactly equal to that extracted to make the methanol.  The methanol is only a transporter of the energy introduced by the electric power source.

In my imagination I can see the oil extracting industry of the North Sea being replaced by chemical plant platforms surrounded by wind farms and scrubbers collectively producing methanol.  This would be pumped to the mainland for storage and distribution using the current pipe network.  The potential also exists for producing methanol on a local, or even domestic scale.

At the moment this is a theoretical solution to a very difficult problem.   If Scotland is really to become the much vaunted “world leader” in alternative energy the people of Scotland must look more widely at the possibilities and adopt a “can do” attitude.

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