Off Topic: Your predictions, Please.

[KRSESQ]

Hello all.

After bouncing the idea around for years, I've finally taken keyboard in hand an am working on that novel I've been promising everyone I know for ages.

I would like to hear your thoughts on what the world will look like fifty years from today. For instance, will gadgets rule our lives, or will our technology become truly invisible? Will we still be sealing four or five hundred people at a time into metal cylinders and rocketing them over our most populous cities, or will there be something better? What about robots and artificial intelligence? Space travel? Disease and genetic engineering?

I have a pretty good vision of how I want to proceed, but I'm curious to hear your predictions.

Thanks in advance.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

I see two alternatives:

1. a post technological society where our energy use has outstripped the ability to produce it, leaving most without.

2. an even more developed technological society where energy is no longer a problem due to higher efficiencies, but the incursion of information technology into civil and human rights is the major societal issue.

I believe #2 is the more likely. LED lighting will help (already in pre-production). This, combined with fuel cells for in-house electricity, heat and hot water production, will go a long ways to making energy independence a reality.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 17 February 2001).]

[coolfish]

if you wanna have an idea of what the world might be like in the near, far, and distant future, check out the book Visions by Michio Kaku. very interesting read....

[Michel Carleer]

Doc,
Where do you get the fuel for the fuel cells from?
Michka

[KRSESQ]

I can envision hydrogen being one of the dominent fuels of the future. It can power fuel cells or be used in place of natural gas, and there's an infinite supply in the Earth's oceans. All that is needed is a more efficient method of distillation.

Does anyone really believe that controlled fusion will ever be a practical energy source? After all, they've been working on it for 40 years and have yet to produce enough power to light a laser pointer.

Kevin

[This message has been edited by KRSESQ (edited 18 February 2001).]

[Dr Mordrid]

Fuel cells can run on many fuels, but natural gas is a major source of which we have over 800 years worth according to most experts.

Other possible fuels are hydrogen, methanol and most other hydrogen containing compounds. If it has hydrogen in it and can be gassified or liquified it can power a fuel cell. Any of these fuels can be used with vastly reduced emissions and higher efficiencies than todays power units.

Many of of these fuels can be obtained either by biomass conversion (corn & grains=methanol, garbage & organic waste=methane etc.) or by processing fossil fuels like petroleum or natual gas. Catalytic conversion of water for hydrogen is also a source that is being explored.

Pertroleum used in this manner is much less polluting and more efficient than when burned in a conventional internal combustion engine.

The typical byproducts are water (for Hydrogen) or water and CO2 for natural gas (methane: CH4), methalol (CH3OH) or other hydrocarbon fuels. These fuels also produce no particulate emissions and vastly reduced pollutants like NO2, SO2, NO etc. The CO2 can be bound in a storage cell for reprocessing.

Fuel cells ARE the future. Your laptops will likely be powered by them within a couple of years using units the size of a pen.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 18 February 2001).]

[Brian Ellis]

IMHO, the fuel cell is promising but not the panacea. The problem is that only pure fuels can be used. Natural gas is only about 90% CH4 (depending on the source) and the cost of removing that other 10% is very high. In particular, halocarbon impurities are anathema to them. The big advantage is that, because they operate at a low temperature, atmospheric N2 and O2 do not react to form NOx gases, precursors, along with VOCs, to tropospheric O3 production, itself a precursor to photochemical smog.

No one has discussed renewable energy. The question is how to harness the sources. This island is a good demo for solar energy: about 95% of the houses produce abundant hot water from solar radiation (at least inasmuch as water itself is scarce, but that's another story). My morning shower can be scalding hot, even in winter. I switch on emergency electric water heating for perhaps half-a-dozen mornings per year, just for those periods when diurnal cloud cover lasts more than about 48 hours. OK, it might not be efficient or cost-effective in Seattle, but it should be OK for at least half the contiguous States. The cost: the roof-mounting panels cost about CYP 150 or c. USD 230. I'm not yet convinced about the cost-effectiveness of generating electricity from the sun, even in climates such as this. It is technically feasible, today, for 10 m2 of panels to generate enough juice to supply all the household needs but this is big bucks. However, aeolians may do the job in places, like California, where there is space to place the farms, away from habitations (noise), and where there is wind. However, the big problem is the massacre of birdlife, if they are in the migration paths. Tides are a good possibility, if the technology were better developed. At least, they are not weather-dependent and are predictable! I'm less keen on renewable biomass because it requires a lot of energy for harvesting and transport for large-scale energy production. Also, it can be very polluting. Better using the land to produce food, as we shall require more and more land to feed a given population because the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers will diminish. For similar reasons, I predict we shall become less reliant on secondary protein (meat and fish) and more on primary protein (vegetable): the land required to produce 1 kg of beef could grow 40 kg of wholemeal bread. Not to mention the problems of meat-, poultry- and dairy product-transmitted disease. I don't believe we shall become pure vegetarians, but I predict that our consumption of animal products will drop by half over the next few decades. (I don't state this evangelistically: I like my fillet steak, steak and kidney pie, Brie and Camembert, omelette etc. as much as anyone. I just think this will happen, partially for economic reasons as the price of animal products will be become proportionally higher. I wouldn't be sorry, though, if it put hamburger houses and chains out of business )

My main prediction is that we shall be implanted with an ID chip, like we do for dogs today. This will do away with the need for all that paper ID like passports, driving licences, credit cards and so on, as well as access keys, passwords etc. This will allow Big Brother to keep a world-wide eye on you, with such benefits as instant access to medical records for those authorised to do so. The major problem would be to develop a system that would de-activate the chip in the event that it were removed from either a living or dead body for re-implantation in someone else (perhaps by body tissue mismatch).

I won't go farther, because my crystal-ball to computer interface has just broken down

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Brian (the terrible)

[KRSESQ]

If it became possible to bio-engineer an organism which could produce abundant supplies of healthy meat without taxing already scarce resources, such organisms having the overall self-awareness of a plant, being grown under controlled conditions in laboratories rather than feedlots, would anyone use such products?

Kevin

[Michel Carleer]

As far as I know (and I know for sure that that's not very far), producing the fuel for the fuel cells still requires more energy than the energy produced by the cells themselves. Of course this could change in a not too distant future, but I wonder if we will see it happen as long as the petroleum companies can still make their life out of fossile fuel. Don't disregard the huge effects on our economy that would result from such a drastic change (I mean, being totally self-supporting, energy independent) in energy "production". If I put the word production in quotes, it is because up to now, we have not produced any energy, we have just taken out of our very near environment in the form of coal, petroleum, gas or uranium. And transforming it mostly in greenhouse gases in the process. Which brings us to another major problem that still has to be addressed: the heating of the earth's atmosphere. With it's still unkown effects on local climatology. We already know that, in some parts of the world, farmers have more and more problems growing crops (central USA is an example), simply because rain or snow does not fall at the same place anymore. Global warming is a real threat to US farmers, but what a blessing on the other hand for the Siberians. If we are a bit pessimistic, the geographic displacement of the food production places will inevitably produce tensions that will end up in as much wars as the petroleum fields possession induces. We, "developed" countries, may very well end up being energy independent, but food and water dependent.
Michka

[hapz]

Funny, this forum has suddenly politically and environmentally charged undertones.

What I find really interesting, the differences of opinion between members located in the US and in Europe. Some of the same is "stratefying" is even evident within the US between east and west coast, and what is in between.

No wonder it is so hard to find consensus. Somehow reminds me of some Science Fiction novels I read many years ago. They promoted the view of how bad technology is with the "survivors" moving back to nature, abandoning essentially everything our modern societies stand for. All of these scenarios were located in England....

By the way, I also believe in the success of "stationary" fuel cells. But not all fuel cells are created equal, i.e. some are cold, some are hot, etc. What is true for some is wrong for others. They are VERY efficient only with certain fuels.

I like to believe that our world will look radically different in 50 years, at least if we continue to progress along the exponential curve. But that also means that we currently cannot even imagine the things to come.....

On the other hand, progress seems to be a snail when it comes to certain areas. Politics, and eveything associated with it, seems to be one of them.

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Harald

[Dr Mordrid]

Actually fuel cell technology is no ready for using "impure" fuels. Methanol, methane, butane, petrol products etc. etc.

The aforementioned laptop "battery" is such a device.

Dr. Mordrid

[Michel Carleer]

Yes Doc, that's what I understand: the only presently working fuel cells are the ones using hydrogen and oxygen. And it takes an awfull lot of energy to produce hydrogen from water. But research is towards finding catalysers to retrieve hydrogen from the simple organic molecules you mention, and at room temperature. However, we also have to take into account the energy necessary to produce such catalysers, not to mention that the chemical elements necessary to make the catalysers may well be only found in foreign countries. So, as Brian said, if we really want to be energy independent, it is about time we *seriously* start researching about how to effectively use the only free and everywhere available forms of energy: the sun radiation (or it's consequences like the wind) and gravity (in the form of the tides, the water flow from the mountains and so on). Or nuclear fusion. We will (our sons and daughters will, in fact) be forced to do so at one time or another, anyway. I don't think I will see this, as when it finally happens, my world will by then be *completely* different. or ?
Michka

[Dr Mordrid]

Actually Ballard Power Systems fuel cell's can use natural gas, methanol or hydrogen in mobile and stationary applications. They are teaming with both Ford and Daimler-Chrysler for auto units. Their units have built-in fuel converters.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 19 February 2001).]

[wizz]

Doc,

Fuel cells have a place in the future, but there are some pretty fancy stuff that is being worked on which could change the face of how we use technology. I would say the most important thing in the future isn't fuel, but water!!! wars will be fought over water.

Tony's doom and gloom prediction.

[Michel Carleer]

That's exactly what I said. And it won't be because of a shortage, but simply because the "owners" won't be the same anymore.
Look at what happened (and it is still on) when Saddam tried to get his hands on K8 petroleum.
Michka


[This message has been edited by Michel Carleer (edited 19 February 2001).]