This Week's Clue: Defining Victory in The War Against Oil

Following is the essay you can designate as Volume 10, Number 23  of This Week's Clue, based on the e-mail newsletter I have produced since March, 1997. It would be the issue of June 4.

Enjoy.

---

The War Against Oil, unlike the Iraq Conflict or The War on Terror, really is a generation-long operation. (Picture from the GKSS Research Center in Germany.)

That's because of how I define "victory":

Carbon and hydrocarbons are completely replaced by hydrogen.

There are two reasons for this, and only one has to do with energy:

1. The only hope to start reversing global warming (which is what we have to do) is to eliminate carbon entirely from our energy diet.
2. The only way to solve the world's water woes is with hydrogen energy.

(Picture from the Watersecrets blog.)

Hydrogen is the fuel used in fuel cells (and rocket engines). The general formula is that hydrogen and oxygen are combined, under controlled conditions, releasing energy and a single waste product, water. Pure H2O. The more people in a particular place, the more energy that is used, the more water you create in that particular place. Capture it, filter it, use it.

Oil is not what the world is shortest of right now. Water is. We have a rising tide of salt water, from global warming, and a crying need for fresh water, all over the world. I see nothing wrong with producing hydrogen from salt water -- you just circulate your source regularly and clean the tanks once in a while. All you then need do is build systems for delivering this hydrogen to the market. Pipelines can work. Balloons can work. And if you convert the hydrogen into ammonia -- NH3 -- at the source, you can run it through the same pipes you're now running oil. Nitrogen, not oxygen, is the most common gas in our atmosphere. You say you have a problem cleaning those pipes, ducky? Ammonia is a great cleaner.

The point is that the hydrogen cycle has absolutely enormous benefits, which go beyond the immediate problem of creating new energy. All the materials in that cycle are in plentiful supply -- energy from the Sun, from the wind, from the Earth. Water from the seas. Nitrogen from the air.

Where do I see ethanol in all this? Mainly as a way-station. But the production of cellulosic ethanol can be of benefit. It creates an incentive for producing vast quantities of fast-growing biomass. And what process produces biomass, you ask? Plants take in carbon dioxide, and emit oxygen. That's right kids. Plants are constantly striving to reduce the percentage of carbon dioxide, the leading gas contributing to global warming, from our atmosphere. Deforestation, which reduces the amount of plant life on the planet, also reduces the amount of photosynthesis.

So let's grow the fastest-growing things we can grow, under controlled conditions, and use the resulting biomass to produce alcohol as a short-term solution to our energy problems. It couldn't hoit.

There is a danger here, of course. That is, the political equation. Right now we're seeing advocates of cellulosic ethanol trying to push politically favored crops  as the feedstock -- pine trees for instance. This is very, very stupid. We need pine trees for toilet paper -- we can't all use Toto toilets.

This is a choice which must be made scientifically, and the answer is going to be different in different places around the globe. You start with local plants, you grow them in greenhouses, you measure them in terms of their efficiency in producing biomass, and the speed with which they produce it, and their hardiness, and the fertilizer needed to keep them growing, and their drought tolerance. Then you go into production.

Frankly, I suspect the real problem is politicians will learn pot may be the answer.

So here's the strategy:

1. Set a price floor which guarantees alternatives a market.
2. Research the best scientific choices for cellulosic ethanol biomass.
3. Once production is adequate, and the energy market starts to stabilize, guarantee hydrogen a price advantage, crowding hydrocarbons out of the market.

Easily said. Not easily done. We are at least 30 years behind the curve on all of this. There are trillions of dollars that have to go into this, money which will be wasted unless we're all watchful, and insist that this be treated as a national emergency, in which crooks are committing treason.

I've said it before and I'll say it before, this is a war everyone can win. It's a war everyone, everywhere in the world, should become engaged in. I do expect that folks in places which currently produce lots of oil and natural gas will be upset as these solutions begin to crimp their markets. Tough.

But that's the first thing that is going to happen -- places like the Middle East, Soviet Central Asia, Indonesia, West Africa, and Venezuela are going to start hurting, as the value of their production declines. Is that really so terrible?  When Vladimir Putin no longer has the money to oppress his people, when Hugo Chavez no longer has the money to ignore democracy, when Saudi Arabia no longer has the money to ignore human rights -- this is a problem we want to have, a problem we will still need to manage but a problem we want to have.

Such a day is at least a decade off, from the time we really become focused on the task. We need to be united in this. The elements of victory are:

• Science and engineering.
• Entrepreneurship.
• Vigilance and public support.

Can we do it?

You bet we can. But I know, and you must know, that this is a journey of 1,000 miles, and that we're still some way in time from taking the first tentative steps.