What is the best way to store energy in the long run?
and by long run I mean after all the fossil fuels have been used up.
Batteries
It is safe to say that eventually the power we get will originate as electricity whether from geothermal, solar, or wind (I exclude bio-fuels because it is not a long term energy solution and should be abandoned at some point)
Electricity isn’t very portable though, very difficult to pick up and carry. Batteries are the traditional way to store direct current but with the current design of a battery, I don’t think we have enough battery making material to hold the energy we need. There have been some developments in Supercapcitor technology that would greatly help the battery problem but I think there is probably a better solution.
My suggestion would be hydrogen. Use electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen (hydrolysis) and when hydrogen is used as fuel the only by-product is water. (I’m sure many of us did this experiment in high school)
The first element, from which all other elements descend, hundreds of times more abundant than any other substance.
Let’s take advantage.
Filed under: Energy | Tagged: alternative energy, Batteries, Efficiency, Geothermal, Hydrogen, Hydrolysis |
GROG: green tech blog 
I agree with you. However, I saw a show on the 2008 car show, and german an american engineers were talking about how creating hyrdogen cars was difficult, because the mechanism is too big to fit in cars, and smaller models don’t offer enough power. But I think this the best long term solution. Imagine being able to power cars with ocean water?? I would think that is an unlimited source of enegy because 75% of the world is covered in it, and water is the byprodcut hydrogen power. every time it rains we get teh water back.
it would be very useful for home use, no longer depended of the electricity grid, and is one of the things i thought about when hearing bush deciding some military ships to be nuclear. I don’t really like war, but if they would work on hydrogen it would be less riskier, and extra fuel can be taken form the ocean they float on. Also water isn’t poluting. But it means they would also have to consume less energy.
I think it would be better if we all could use this, but I had a look and it still rahter expensive to buy the parts to build a small installation yourself.
Why would you exclude bio-fuels when algae production looks viable as does cellulosic bio-fuel? Hydrogen as storage device is feasible; it is the principle in fuel cells. We do have to remember that water vapor in high doses has been considered a greenhouse gas.
Algae and cellulosic bio-fuels are much better alternatives to corn based ethanol and should definitely be a part of lessening our dependence on fossil fuels.
In the long term, however, I think the resources needed to produce bio-fuels (water, sun, energy) will be strained by the demand for energy if people start to believe that bio-fuels are a viable long term replacement for oil.
I believe that eventually energy should be produced without diverting large amounts of natural resources.
check out “bio-fuels are bad”