While reading the New Scientist I noticed an article called the Top 7 alternative energies listed.

A list of the top seven? Not ten (metric) or twelve (imperial), but seven? I’m already dubious.

The US could replace all its cars and trucks with electric cars powered by wind turbines taking up less than 3 square kilometres – in theory, at least. That’s the conclusion of a detailed study ranking 11 types of non-fossil fuels according to their total ecological footprint and their benefit to human health.

The study, carried out by Mark Jacobson of the atmosphere and energy programme at Stanford University, found wind power to be by far the most desirable source of energy. Biofuels from corn and plant waste came right at the bottom of the list, along with nuclear power and “clean” coal.

Does this study really account for the technology changes that are anticipated? Is it a futurist view, or an argument for what the US should be using today if the Bush administration eight years ago somehow had decided to improve national security instead of betting the future on oil companies and SUVs.

To compare the fuels, Jacobson calculated the impacts each would have if it alone powered the entire US fleet of cars and trucks.

It sounds so easy!

He considered not just the quantities of greenhouse gases that would be emitted, but also the impact the fuels would have on the ecosystem – taking up land and polluting water, for instance. Also considered were the fuel’s impact on pollution and therefore human health, the availability of necessary resources, and the energy form’s reliability.

I agree with all that, and I really like this part:

“The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most,” says Jacobson.

“Some options that have been proposed are just downright awful,” he says. “Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply, and land use than current fossil fuels.”

Yup, ethanol fuel is only driven by the corn lobby/industry. It’s the same as corn syrup. Even though it is clearly bad for health, bad for productivity, and therefore bad for national security, the cost savings that get converted into lobby dollars are somehow able to get America hooked on the stuff.

I don’t see any mention of algae-based biodiesel, or the new forms of biodiesel conversion that use no ethanol…but I guess this study is handicapped by the fact that there are few diesel passenger vehicles on the road today. So it has an assumption that I would challenge.

Ok, maybe I’m a little too excited about the next generation of storage, but CES 2009 has revealed a SanDisk Solid State Drive that promises a reasonable leap in laptop technology:

The SanDisk G3 SSDs are more than five times faster than the fastest 7,200 RPM HDDs and more than twice as fast as SSDs shipping in 2008, clocking in at 40,000 RPM and anticipated sequential performance of 200MB/s read and 140MB/s write.
The G3 SSDs provide a Longterm Data Endurance (LDE) of 160 terabytes written (TBW) for the 240GB version, sufficient for over 100 years of typical user usage.

Throw one of these in a dying laptop and watch the amazing benefits. Awesome for energy consumption as well as speed. On the other hand, these of course represent a new level of threat as dumping and running with massive amounts of data will be so much easier…

BBC News reports that Air New Zealand has followed Virgin Atlantic in biofuel tests:

A passenger plane has successfully completed a two-hour test flight partly powered by vegetable oil.

Interesting to note that the test used fuel derived from jatropha fruit, whereas Virgin used oil from babassu nuts and coconuts. Jatropha is considered a superior oil, with zero impact on food-grade products:

…jatropha can be grown in soil that is not suitable for most food crops.

“Even under harsh drought conditions with minimal amount of water or moisture, it will survive,”…

The island state has signed up to a Plan for Electric Cars:

The State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company on Tuesday endorsed an effort to build an alternative transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and an “intelligent” battery recharging network.

[…]

“We always knew Hawaii would be the perfect model,” [Shai Agassi] said in a telephone interview. “The typical driving plan is low and leisurely, and people are smiling.”

Cute. San Francisco and other Bay Area cities already have endorsed the same electric car network, perhaps with even more smiles.

I spoke with a representative from an electric company recently, as I was working on NERC Cyber Security, and he bemoaned the fact that electric cars are starting to burnout the electric grid. A Tesla roadster, for example, pulls at 240V and a few in a neighborhood could be a major problem for the infrastructure. This reminded me of a house I owned in 1996 where we tried to install a T1 and were told by the phone company that they would have to pull a new line from four states away to provide the bandwidth.