Page 1 of 15
European Journal of Applied Sciences – Vol.10, No.5
Publication Date: October 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/aivp.105.13300. Valone, T. F. (2022). Breakthrough Energy Technologies Toward a Solution for Climatic Change. European Journal of Applied Sciences,
10(5). 544-558.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Breakthrough Energy Technologies Toward a Solution for
Climatic Change
Thomas F. Valone
Integrity Research Institute, Beltsville MD, USA
ABSTRACT
In this age of climate change, the corporate, academic, and government research
into new, green sources of power and energy still has not been well-funded nor
forthcoming in this century. This presentation will review some of the best
emerging energy technologies that promise green and carbon-free sustainable
generation as well as food and water energy innovations, including a bioenergetics
discovery. Progress is being made presently by academic and industry that will
create a future having greater ease in newly developed renewable energy
generation with much better, localized energy sources that do not use fossil fuel for
power and heat. Beyond the realm of fuel cells and wind power is the non- conventional world of emerging energy technologies. Some of the best examples are
new and exciting generators that release trapped potential energy from nature in
ways never dreamed of before. Others innovatively apply clean fuels in
conventional systems that are the focus of attention for NASA, DARPA, and the
USDOE. Some of the more exotic examples include a recent breakthrough with
graphene energy harvesting, which has thermal and nonthermal (quantum
vacuum) sources to it. This illustrated slideshow presentation summarizes the
research that has been accomplished so far in the development of highly efficient,
energy harvesting inventions, as well as other future energy breakthroughs. The
most exciting reason for the interest in this area of research is the promise that it
holds for boosting electric vehicle production by providing an onboard electric
battery charger. These energy generation developments, derived from relatively
new paradigm science discoveries, also have many other applications, including a
design for rural stand-alone electrical generators. Most of them have one thing in
common: they are relatively unknown to the general public.
INTRODUCTION
Motivation for researching new energy include: 1) global warming adding 1°C every 20 years
due to CO2 buildup in the air which traps heat (See www.TinyURL.com/CO2HEAT), 2)
resources for food and drink with 11 billion people expected by 2100, and 3) making a personal
note that in my lifetime, since 1950 around the time that I was born,
• Population has tripled (3x)
• Carbon Emissions have quadrupled (4x)
• Energy Demand or Consumption has quintupled (5x).
Therefore, there is little debate among scientists and the public that we need new energy
developments to save humanity with such runaway trends worldwide.
Page 2 of 15
545
Valone, T. F. (2022). Breakthrough Energy Technologies Toward a Solution for Climatic Change. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 10(5). 544-
558.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.105.13300
BACKGROUND FOR AN EMPHASIS ON URGENCY
Such an energy review aimed toward the future is a challenge to include remedies for power
and food and waste conversion. However, at least for professionals, the primary theme of this
chapter is clear and is actually the most compelling of any crisis today since it underlies basic
necessities of life, rather than a temporary threat. We, the inhabitants of planet earth, are
presently experiencing at least a 1.1° Celsius average increase from baseline of 1925
NASA/GISS which presents a moving playing field that created the 2nd hottest March ever on
record in 2020, the highest global temperatures in 2021 and the hottest summer on record for
Europe and China in 2022.
Figure 1. Global Warming - Manmade Temperature Anomaly
CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS DRIVE GLOBAL WARMING
In addition, the published compilation from Vostok, Antarctica of global temperature, sea level,
and CO2 (same as “CO2”) levels for the past 420,000 years shows a tight correlation of all three
climate variables, so that a change in one parameter affects the other two very rapidly (in
geological time). No one today, except for National Geographic Society in Washington DC
(https://www.natgeotv.com/ca/six_degrees/about) and Mark Lynas, are revealing the real,
desperate situation that this immediate future of a six degree rise by around 2100 presents to
the world. The first graph (Figure 1) from NOAA of global temperature, will most likely become
exponential with the increasing energy demand focused mainly on fossil fuel usage globally and
unilaterally encouraged by the US government. It is important for any environmental team to
start with the premise that the CO2 driver for this rate of temperature increase is already on an
exponential increase that is unprecedented in earth’s history (290 ppm has been the maximum
CO2 for the past 400,000 years and now we are pushing past 410 ppm only a few decades later,
with no end or “peak” in sight of the level nor the rate of change).
The next Figure 2 is the best compilation, provided by James Hansen in 2006, including the off- the-chart famous “hockey stick” data point of 377 ppm (a global CO2 level) in 2006, now up to
past 412 ppm in 2022. The CO2 data point in question is significantly far above the highest point
in Figure 2 and also equaling a huge 45% increase in worldwide carbon dioxide levels since
1850.
Page 3 of 15
546
European Journal of Applied Sciences (EJAS) Vol.10, Issue 5, October-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Figure 2. Paleoclimatology record of the past 400,000 years
Figure 3. Is Dr. Hansen’s Vostok Ice Core Analysis Graph Valid?
What we notice in Figure 2 is the close correlation between all three variables of atmospheric
CO2 levels, average earth temperature, and the global sea level over the staggering period of
400,000 years. This information was gathered and analyzed by Dr. James Hansen from the
Vostok Ice Core, a famous source of virgin ice from the Antarctic research station at Vostok. The
full-size version is also posted online with the link conveniently labeled as
www.tinyurl.com/400000years and is highly worthwhile to view in its unedited, original size.
Page 4 of 15
547
Valone, T. F. (2022). Breakthrough Energy Technologies Toward a Solution for Climatic Change. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 10(5). 544-
558.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.105.13300
In determining the validity of Jim Hansen’s impressive achievement in Figure 2, we note that is
shows the distinct four past Ice Ages and the surprising, maximum limit of 290 ppm of CO2 ever
reached by the earth. Furthermore, we note the clear indication of the 15°C pre-industrial
global temperature maximum. So, besides the thermal forcing that we humans are presenting
to the world in an unprecedented short amount of time, the linearity of the data correlation
between the three variables is surprising, in Hansen’s Table. This Table seen online in the
400,000-year full-size Hansen Graph actually provides the Y-axis (vertical axis) grid lines for
the three variables and leads one to immediately infer the simple relationship between
temperature and CO2 levels, as well as sea level (which takes centuries to materialize).
+/- 20 ppm = +/- 10C = +/- 20m sea level Eq. 1
Therefore, we find that due to this author’s further analysis in creating an annotated
enhancement to the Hansen Graph online at https://tinyurl.com/SixDegreeGraph, today the
present CO2 level of over 410 ppm minus the pre-industrial 290 ppm yields about 120 ppm of
excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Converting this amount into gigatons of CO2 we simply multiply
by 7.77 Gt/ppm to find the earth is indebted for about 932 Gt of CO2 that MUST be removed
by carbon capture on a gigaton level, probably over decades, in order to reverse the heat- trapping overreach of CO2, as revealed quantitatively by the Hansen Graph.
Furthermore, we can project with high confidence a powerful prediction that with each 150 Gt
of Direct Air Capture and storage of CO2 underground in a carbonate rock, we will actually
realize a 10C DECREASE worldwide in our indebted temperature burden.
Furthermore, by the time several degrees have been equalized and reduced by Carbon Capture
and Storage (CCS) a cooling trend will start to become a welcome worldwide trend, which
realistically and surprisingly will occur only a few decades from now, in the same amount of
time it took to increase the global temperature by the same number of degrees. One of the
companies dedicated to gigaton carbon capture is Project Vesta, which has as its website motto,
“Harnessing the power of the oceans to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere.” Visit
https://www.vesta.earth/ for more information about their exciting technique under
evaluation in the environment at this moment. Carbon-removing sand made of the ground-up
mineral olivine is added to the ocean. There, the sand dissolves, countering ocean acidification
and permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Another great company with
a different approach is CarbonEngineering.com in Canada. They use Direct Air Capture which
is a technology that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air with an engineered,
mechanical system. Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology does this by pulling in atmospheric
air, then through a series of chemical reactions, extracts the carbon dioxide (CO2) from it while
returning the rest of the air to the environment. This is what plants and trees do every day as
they photosynthesize, except Direct Air Capture technology does it much faster, with a smaller
land footprint, and delivers the carbon dioxide in a pure, compressed form that can then be
stored underground, whereas trees will eventually return the CO2 to the air when they die and
decay.