Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Cheap Energy Watch

     The previous post highlighted the case of BlackLight Power of New Jersey and its promise to demonstrate a process of cheaply separating hydrogen from water through a proprietary catalyst to directly generate electricity -sometime in 2011. 
 In addition to BLP there are others claiming to be on the threshold major energy breakthroughs.  Over in Italy, a couple of researchers  at Bologna University claim they are ready to commercialize a cold fusion process generating low-cost energy. See Pesn Feb 8, 2011 paper on the possible connections between the fusion research being pursued by New Jersey's Mills and Italy's Rossi.

  MIT research on solar cells is likely to make first generation solar panels obsolete. Technology Review magazine features an article on what's next in solar energy. In a long assessment of current research, the editor of the magazine is not optimistic that solutions are imminent. However, MIT has spun-off Sun Catalytix Corporation to commercialize solar-powered hydrolysis research of Prof Daniel Nocera. This start-up has received ARPA-E research funding and a $9.5 million injection led by Tata Limited.

   In the face of rising oil consumption in China and India plus political turmoil in the Arab countries, the cost of oil will soon approach $200 a barrel. So, it doesn't matter if alarmists are right about the barrel being less than half empty, or our energy-wasting optimists are right about the barrel being more than half full of tar sands oil.  
  Within the lifetime of the oldest baby boomer, it is likely fossil-fueled electricity generation will be replaced by swift and disruptive transitions to Low Energy Nuclear Reactors and solar power. 

Events:

July 11, 2011 interview with Andrea Rossi
   Read introduction to Rossi's career here, and then read interview transcript.  
In this interview, Hank Mills (editor of Pure Energy Systems -News) obtains some credible-sounding information from the Italian engineer who has set up an operations base in Miami to produce reactor modules for one megawatt plants to be assembled in Greece for the European market  -commencing in October, 2011. 

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