I HAD A DREAM

A lot of developments about the vultures hovering over Donald Trump's attempted coup:

• Like what is happening in the state of Georgia.  Senator Lindsey Graham said he would challenge the subpoena, but a state grand jury is not the same as a congressional committee.  Court challenge or not, the state can arrest anyone who does not comply. 
• House January 6 Committee getting Pat Cipollone to provide a second video testimony tomorrow, which they will no doubt crystallize and show at their next hearing, to occur on Tuesday, July 13.

The posting today is a follow-up to yesterday, when I linked an economic recession to the sudden price jump for petroleum.  Does high oil prices have other potential effects?  I HAD A DREAM Monday night.  

• However, nothing about civil rights or Martin Luther King.
• My dreams are mostly weird and distracting.

• 
  The only truly rewarding one--and this was more a day dream when trying to take a nap on a plane--giving me inspiration to overcome an onerous problem, occurred just about half a century ago.
• For my PhD dissertation, I was trying build a tunable laser for a micro-reactor to zap E. coli.
• In those days lasers were only of one specific wavelength.  In other words, I was trying to build a tunable laser even though one could not yet be purchased, a profoundly dumb goal for for anyone attempting suffer through the research to get a PhD.  Mind you, if I succeeded at all, the more difficult part was yet to come:  could I cause sterilization and/or catalyze growth of bacteria by changing the laser wavelength?
• I had difficulty positioning a diffraction grating to allow me to adjust the color of the beam.
• But that daydream provided an ingenious solution.  
• I forget what that exactly was, but after returning to my lab, I was subsequently able to lase my system and further went on to sterilize or catalyze bacterial growth depending on the wavelength I used.
• Laser light in the blue tended to increase growth, while those in the redder part of the spectrum resulted in some level of sterilization.
• Success, and I was able to get a PhD in biochemical engineering from LSU.

In any case, last night my amazing dream was the usual helter skelter mish mash, involving a whole lot of people, but generally focused on two topics, energy from the ocean and clean liquid fuels from land.  As I think back, it's also possible that even though I have been involved with renewable energy all my professional life, this was my very first dream on this subject.  Essentially from the dream:

• There was intense interest in individuals (and it's possible that they were merely symbolic representations of countries or companies) about getting involved with those two subject areas.
• Part of the dream occurred at sea, which gave vague hints about the Blue Revolution.
• The rest of the dream centered in and around a conference room where discussions were ongoing  about converting biomass to liquid fuel.
• All in all, there was excitement about a bright future, but no particular link to high oil prices or what was happening in the world.
• Fortunately, all this mental activity occurred just before I awoke, for the details were vivid in my mind. 

Yesterday my nostalgic Tuesday focused on oil shocks, and how on two occasions, in 1979 and 2008, serious recessions followed, with a hint that our current escalation could well trigger a third sometime over the next few months.  However, there was nothing in that dream about what I am to say.  What happened is that soon after waking up, it occurred to me that the world had changed, in a situation not unlike what occurred in 1979 when the price of petroleum shot up during the Second Energy Crisis:

• 
  This was when I was asked to work in the U.S. Senate, and anything having to do with renewable energy gained bipartisan support and funding could easily be justified for any progressive green energy program.
• I served as the staff lead in the Senate to pass the first wind energy act.
• I helped draft the original legislation for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and hydrogen.

When I returned to the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute of the University of Hawaii in 1982, our congressional delegation eagerly wrote-in appropriations for whatever we asked.  In interactions with the Department of Energy and the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI, which is now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL), we worked hand-in-hand to increase their budget for the renewables, establishing through SERI a conduit for funds to HNEI at the University of Hawaii.

Solar energy and wind power have progressed because earlier R&D was sufficient to reduce the price to generate clean electricity.  But these are intermittent sources because the sun is only there for part of the day and our winds come and go.  Batteries remain very expensive for storage.  In time ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) will regain attention, for it is baseload, that is, constant.

Especially now with the Biden White House, the high price of oil will provide a wide range of funding opportunities, and especially for biofuels development, a field that went moribund when oil was stuck at $50/barrel for a few years.  

• Those biomass to ethanol and methanol projects will take off, for these liquid fuels can better compete with gasoline when petroleum is two to three times more expensive.
• Ethanol from corn was always a bad idea.  You just don't convert food into energy.  There is a future of converting the fibrous part of ag products into ethanol or methanol.
• 
  If the biomass fiber is used, bioalcohol becomes societally meaningful, and competitive if gasoline prices rise.  I still think that methanol is the better pathway, for this is the only green liquid that can be directory fed into a fuel cell.
• The direct methanol fuel cell will gain the support it deserves.

• 
  Perhaps NASA and the DOD will return to exploring what can replace jet fuel.
• Thus, hydrogen will show a major renaissance.

Countries and companies will re-look at OTEC mega-efforts.  China and Lockheed Martin no doubt are already talking about what they promoted nearly a decade ago.  All this could lead to hastening the development of the Blue Revolution.

If oil prices remain up, and the higher the better, what I see is a natural solution for overcoming our currently fractious state of agreement about how to proceed on global warming, leading, hopefully, to a sustainable and progressive future.  Who imagined that the Ukraine War and subsequent jump in petroleum prices could lead to real spending in solutions to combat global warming?  Yes, I had a dream that provided hints on what can be accomplished.  This now hopeful prospect seems doable.

I close with the next Jake Shimabukuro.  He is Feng E from Taiwan.  

• Started playing at the age of 5.
• He was on Asia's Got Talent five years ago.
• Four years ago went viral playing Beat It on the streets of London.
• Has half a million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

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