Jock's Place - Energy Islands - Comments

Well, Michaelis's idea is

Jock — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:08:03 +0000

Well, Michaelis's idea is to use the warmth of the ocean, not the direct sunlight, or as well as direct sunlight. I would more imagine as you suggest Andrew that the dirt poor countries of western Saharan Africa in particular - but anywhere with a decent amount of sun - Australia since it has such a crap record on CO2 and energy production - using their sun and sea water to produce hydrogen, at the same time perhaps as "greening the desert" - at least the populated bits of it. Though I also read an idea yesterday I think that someone said you could could add energy (ie from the sun) to CO2 and water to produce not just hydrogen but proper hydrocarbons - methane mostly but most others could be synthesized from that. I like my hydrogen idea better though as then it doesn't also pollute when burned as a fuel like methane would.

Also another idea I noticed the other week was that those countries with swathes of tropical rain forest could be paid for not cutting it down. They are protecting a precious natural resource we all need - why not pay them to keep it at least as much as it pays them to cut it down if it's so important to planetary function.

Six months of darkness!

Jock — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:01:12 +0000

...might be one objection to spending a lot of money doing it at either pole! Though off the top of my head and way out there for sure, maybe there is a use for the poles in electricity generation - could we make use of the earth's own magnetic field to run a generator of some kind? :)

Energy islands

wit and wisdom — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:58:20 +0000

Great ideas, all. I wish we would do more as a country to innovate in this area. Global warming or not, the energy we consume cannot last forever so we must look for alternatives for all sorts of reasons, not least security.

What about solar arrays in the arctic to soak up all the sun which was previously hitting the ice and bouncing back into space? Its closer to Europe and it might just address the old melting icecaps issue as well. The sun rays would be weaker there but it could be beneficial.

We could even include decks for polar bears to use. We could then diversify into polar bear deckchairs and quoits...(sorry this started as a serious suggestion).

Why go to the expense of

Andrew Duffield — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:00:26 +0000

Why go to the expense of building islands I wonder? There's plenty of spare land in the Sahara isn't there? A perfect opportunity for LVT based income generation by North African states I would have thought. And no danger of rising tides due to global warming!

Energy Islands

Jock — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:17:29 +0000

The architect that put the windmill on Cameron's Notting Hill pad is proposing an idea to build artificial islands in the tropics to harness the natural energy that exists in those latitudes to produce electricity. For a while now I've been interested in something similar, but subtly different - the idea that if we could harness just a tiny proportion of the solar energy that reaches the earth we could solve all our energy needs.