Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The good reason why we need enviro-energy inventions

Last (a week ago) friday's Wall Street Journal had an op-ed article about the world's water crisis, which is argued is worse than the energy crisis. One line reads: "The U.S. Dept. of Energy calculates that every 10,000 liters of water produces as little as five liters of ethanol, or one to two liters of biodiesel. Biofuels are economic nonsense, ecologically useless and ethically indefensible." This is so true. Inventors - you need to put your thinking caps on - we need better solutions for both energy and food supply problems. A good place to start is to see what the Bush administration is proposing for solutions, and start anywhere else. The need for inventions for the environment: a proposed Congressional bill (won't pass this year - representative of future bills) dealing with the environment will require the U.S. to cuts its CO2 emissions to 1,560 million tons by 2050, which was what the U.S. emissions were in 1922. In 1922, however, the U.S. population was 110 million, while in 2050 the population will be about 440 million (numbers from a WSJ letter to the editor, 6/6/2008). Since that reduction requires a social sacrifice the U.S. will never make, we will need massive breakthroughs in environmental technology. I am available for prior art searches!